Reforged

Miyu kept a careful eye on Six, unwilling to quite believe the hurried story he had spun in his defense. How could she? The lynx had seen the same as Krystal, the sickness that had overcome him with such terrifying ferocity. No matter the empty platitudes he washed over them, the feline remained staunchly unconvinced.

Noble Six was not well. The human was quite firmly the opposite of well, in point of fact. He was entirely unwell. And Miyu feared that his impressive ability to efficiently guise his discomfort allowed him to hide the true depth of his illness.

For this reason the feline had half a mind to renege on her want to find her father with the understanding that she wasn't willing to let Six suffer on her behalf for something, as painful as it was to consider, that very well might be pointless. But she had seen that dangerous look in his eye, the one she had come to recognize as his staunch desire to press onward no matter the personal cost, no matter what anyone else thought he should do. It was something she had seen in him too often.

And so instead of confronting him, she made the very same choice she always did when faced with his obstinacy, and left it well alone, no matter how much she hated to, no matter how much it hurt her inside. She was not the right person to tell him when it was alright to stop. She was not sure there even was. Not Krystal, with all her accrued influence and the pleasant accent of her sagacious advice, could tell the spartan what to do when he thought he knew what was best. His remarkable and lauded characteristic of adamancy was not without its dogged willfulness as well.

As with most people, Noble Six's best trait was also his worst.

Thankfully they were spared from any further trials upon their journey and they were able to arrive at the location where the small band of survivors had directed them to, without interruption. Thus they found themselves in the bombed out husk of a district bank. She supposed it had been the smartest move to make for the citizens during the attack. The building had thick stone walls inlaid with reinforced steel, and a security system that had included a few automated defenses and a small shield array, though it had been made clear, even from a distance, that such defenses had been expended in the initial attack. All things considered it was probably the safest place in the entire city, even in its currently dilapidated condition.

As with most government owned district management buildings, it was a fairly massive building, able to house a large number of the local citizens in times of crisis, and contained several hundred survivors, all on the cusp of starvation, each wearing the haggard and gaunt face of someone that had been through their own personal hell. It tore at her heart to see her home like this. Her memories weren't the fondest, but she still loved the place, even as broken and destitute as it and its people were now.

They did what they could of course, no matter how small and seemingly useless the gesture was. She'd handed out what little rations she had taken with her and had given away her canteen. And it did not even need to be said that Krystal was no less generous in her efforts. But it was the spartan, however, that had surprised her. As tired and irritable as he was, and acting directly opposite of his usual routine of minimal interaction with anyone unaffiliated with the team, Noble Six had distributed his own supplies. Though, it was to her immense curiosity, and perhaps slight amusement, that his effort seemed to be focused around the children.

She had watched, with a fondness born of love, as he crouched to their level, a giant of a male in stature, garbed in strained BDU's, worn bandages, and bedecked in weaponry too large for normal paws, handing out packages of military rations with a tentative smile and the occasional kind, if compulsory word. But that did not seem to bother the cubs, pups, kits, and kittens that followed him around with wide eyes and eager tongues that wagged as freely as their tails as they pestered him with increasingly wild and inane questions. He was new, he was large, and he was unusual. And that trifecta was all the children needed to descend upon him en mass.

It was clear to her, as well as to any other adult that watched him interact with the horde of youths that pursed him, that the situation he found himself was entirely beyond his ability to manage, and his discomfort was obvious. Yet she knew, as surely as they did, that he did this not for himself. Despite how he felt personally about having a gaggle of children harass him nonsensically, it was distraction enough for the children to forget however briefly about the world around them.

As ever, even his gregariousness was not with personal detriment, and she could see how difficult it was for him to endure the trial he had set before himself. Six certainly had not offered his assistance to the children because he liked that they pestered him so relentlessly... at least not at first.

There was something in the way he smiled down at those ragged balls of fur, that had not been there before, a newborn mindfulness of a possibility he had never considered, but in that moment was allowing himself to remotely contemplate.

"It's been a long time since I've seen the kids smiling like that."

Miyu turned away from the sight of the intimidatingly large and muscled spartan, and his aura of doting defeatism as he was waylaid upon all sides by curious youngsters, an affectionate grin lingering upon her muzzle as she looked to the coyote that stood beside her. He'd been an exceedingly fit figure before the attack, but malnutrition and general survival had worn his health down. And yet he still cut an impressive image, steely blue eyes and grim hardness that he had no doubt found to survive in this desolate scape.

Buster was someone she had not seen in a long time, nor expected to find. He'd been her friend back in school, though like most people she had met in that time, he'd faded away in the days following the venomian attack. Nevertheless, she was still glad to see him. Today any face was a good face.

"I can imagine why." Miyu spoke softly, a pang of sadness deepening her already somber mood.

"It's been hard." The coyote agreed with a stiff nod. "Most were lost in the initial attack and the days that followed. Those damn monsters were pretty efficient at clearing the streets. I'll give those sick fucks that much. Those that survived were only lucky depending on where they were when it happened." He snorted. "Never thought being a plumber would save my damn life. Most others, myself included, were underground in the transit system or in basements and back rooms. Lucky for us the bugs weren't too through in their sweep of buildings."

Miyu had no response to that. What could she say?

Sorry you almost died?

Yeah sure, that'd be just what he wants to hear. The feline rolled her eyes briefly when he looked back to the children. Her gaze soon followed, and a low chuckle escaped her as she watched Six, his expression that of a scientist studying an unusual parasitic organism as he looked at the overeager canine pup latched onto his arm, the kid giggling as he stared at his legs hanging nearly four feet from the ground. Perhaps seeing a new means of entertainment, the frenetic energy from the pack of adolescents increased exponentially, and it was clear that if nothing was done soon he would be overwhelmed in a tide of fur and small paws.

The male looked away from the furry horde, his eyes searching and pleading as they met with the blue vixen that had been standing several meters away, given all the appearance of a daycare attendant if not for the caring, unrepentant smile on her muzzle as she watched the human waylaid by his mob of young admirers.

Miyu's laugh deepened when she read the spartan's lips.

Help me.

It was such an unfamiliar, wholesome sight, so unusual when joined with the relentlessly serious and dour human and the desperate quality of the passing weeks, that she could not help but feel a giddy sense of happiness and genuine enjoyment that she had not felt since the crash. It was impossible not to smile, and she noticed that she was not the only one, most of the people inside the bank, however tired and fearful, shared similar looks of amusement at the towering soldier brought low by the hands of children.

Miyu's smile grew strained, her pleasant mood darkened by the thought that came next.

This was perhaps the first time in Six's life that he had brought more than fear and distrust to a civilian. She had to remind herself that he was from a different world, a different kind of place than the Lylat System. Miyu remembered what he told her, the wariness and hate, the relentless life of soldiery with no opportunity to experience a life beyond his profession.

The lynx could tell that Krystal shared the same thought, the vixen's smile dwindling as she finally stepped forwards to help him, dispersing the pack of adolescents with a few gentle words and a promise that they could bother him later.

The spartan's relief was a palpable force, his shoulders slackening and the dense musculature in his arms loosening as he placed a hand fleetingly upon the side of Krystal's muzzle. A quick and low toned exchange of words passed between them, and Miyu felt a tinge of amusement at the rosy hue that appeared on the vixen's chops as he turned away and approached the entrance of the bank, no doubt to post himself amidst the ragtag militia of CDF soldiers and police officers stationed outside.

They really were rather cute together.

The exterior of the bank, much like the surrounding cityscape for kilometers in any direction, was a ravaged wasteland that sparked a familiar recognition. The Aparoids had laid waste to the town in its entirety, leaving little but shattered buildings and blast crater strewn streets in the wake of their inexhaustible advance. It was almost impressive, in an appalling way, that they had not left a single structure intact. Even the Covenant was not usually so methodical, unless inspired by the searing beams of their energy projectors as they carved gaping wounds into a planet's surface. Here and now, there was hardly anything left of this city to make one think of it as one.

And so it was that Noble Six did not feel the trappings of guilt or remorse as he leaned against the wall of the ruined building and vomited his guts onto the floor. Having expelled the contents of his stomach hours previous, all that really heaved forth was a rather odorous compound of stomach acid and what little water he had been able to down from his canteen. The experience as a whole was greatly unpleasant and he rated it as fairly high up on the scale of his greatest irritants.

He would have chuckled at his current circumstance had he the strength.

Admittedly, this was not exactly his brightest moment.

He clung to the wall for support, riding out his bilious nausea with gritted teeth, the sour perception of bitterness leaving a disgusting taste on his lips that he hated with the utmost intensity. It was a sign of weakness, his weakness. Mercifully, after having been able to recognize the early symptoms, he had preemptively noticed the onset of this seemingly recurrent condition, allowing him time enough to escape the horde of children and find a suitable place, somewhere sufficiently quiet and unoccupied where he would not cause unnecessary concern.

Six wiped his lips, a terse smile teasing its way past his grim countenance as he allowed his thoughts to drift away from such dour musing to an unlikely topic he might not have usually considered so enjoyable.

The children, there had been something about them… something he had not quite felt before.

As a spartan, like most of his brethren, he was not exactly comfortable around younger generations. There was a conspicuous… disconnect between them, and dare he admit, jealousy, if only on the part of a few. For them it seemed not that long ago that they had been just like those squat adolescents that wandered about with their families with naught a care in the world. It reminded them of a past they had lost and a future they had been denied by choice.

So it was that Six found himself surprised.

For the first time in his life he had… enjoyed the company of children. It was a unique experience, one he would not forget for as long as he lived, if only for the fact he had not been prepared for his reaction as he was once again confronted with the yawning dissimilarity between Lylat and the galaxy he knew before coming here. Cornerian offspring were different from what he was used to, smaller, if that was possible, and softer, like a household pet just coming to terms with its sapience. That was perhaps a comparison in ill taste, but he could no better describe how it made him feel.

They were so lively and pure and hopeful, that he could not hope but smile as they challenged insurmountable adversity with innocence born of their youth. It had been faced with this that he endured his lapse in judgment, offering his own supplies away, possessed by some inexplicable, instinctive desire to care for creatures so small and fragile, a desire that was even more powerful than a decade and a half of careful and sophisticated psychological conditioning. A mentality that has been gradually eroding through the many months he has spent amongst these people.

Such a change was not entirely welcomed.

Even know as he remembered, he was afraid, afraid to learn that there was something else in this world that could affect him so powerfully, another vulnerability that could be exploited. As usual, nothing he had learned in his life had ever prepared him for the idiosyncrasy of his time in the Lylat System. Every day he grew more and more susceptible to the idea of a life here. Krystal and the others, they insisted that he had a place, and it was only as of recently that he actually believed them.

He had once thought there was no prospect for a spartan outside war. At the beginning he had found the experience with Starfox to be a novel, but ultimately impermanent situation. He had fully expected it all to come crashing down at any moment. They were aliens. He had been trained from childhood not only to silence rebellions, but to kill the very manner of beings that had taken him in and showed him such altruistic kindness.

He was both a symbol for the best, and worst, of humanity, although he was by his very existence, more the latter than the former. He was what humanity could be, the pinnacle of current evolution, and yet flawed… so terribly flawed.

He was a murderer on a genocidal scale, a child killer. But he was also a savior, a guardian of all humanity. It was no wonder that he was constantly so conflicted about what to think of himself. He had been ordered to commit evils and atrocities. Had his full and uncensored dossier been exposed to the public before his subsequent displacement, he would have been tried and summarily executed. It was true that in the grand overarching plan, he had saved more lives than he had ended, but was that really enough to redeem all that he had done? Was there a quantifiable scale for calculating how much depravity could be excused as acceptable in the grand design?

The ethics of his previous work had not bothered him before, at least not to the point where he frequently considered his own morality. The blame for that he could lay upon the shoulders of his team. Through his life amongst them they had unwittingly urged him to reevaluate his beliefs, taught him to look past what he had once considered ordinary, and realize that there was so much more out there than the rigid role he had been confined into.

Since coming here he had learned affection, he had learned to care and he had learned to love, not just as a man did a woman, but as a friend, a confidant… a brother. Fox, he had hardly given thought to the male vulpine he felt an unspoken kinship with, a man that was to him now, as he had never been before, a brother to him in all but blood. It was a unique revelation, and something that he had not expected. Six had never considered that he could so utterly and completely rely on anyone other than himself in that capacity. And it was the first time in his life that he so utterly trusted his commander. Fox was dependable, but more than that he was a good man with an honest heart. He cared deeply and was not afraid of his emotions. There was no ulterior motive, no hidden agenda, nothing but the unselfish desire to do good through a violent occupation.

Six was reminded of their conversations, and of all the times Fox had placed his best interests at the fore of his attention. Back where he came from, there was perhaps only one person of whom he could say the same, and that person was dead. His loyalty to Fox had been, at the beginning, more of an instinctive response and the work of military acclimation. But Six could safely admit that as his stay in Lylat started to become sedentary, he followed Fox as a result of their friendship as much as he did out of respect.

To do otherwise was impossible.

It was through his commitment to Fox that he had experienced such unbelievable wonders, things he had never thought he would ever get the chance to have for himself, things he never thought he would want for himself. Fox had given him a life, a family, and an opportunity afforded to few, if any of his peers.

He was a spartan, but that was not the entirety of his being. He had since grown beyond the designation he had lived with for most his life.

And Noble Six was disappointed, burdened by the haunting grimness of fatal acceptance, that he would not be alive long enough to truly enjoy what he had been given. He was frustrated with himself that he had wasted so much of his time hiding behind his past, squandered what few opportunities he had to enjoy his life as it had been offered to him. He had not trusted what lay before his eyes, did not believe that what had been lost to him could be returned with such ease though it was transposed through less than human means. He had waited too long to accept the offers of friendship and familial affection from those who wished to be his family. And so it was, for one last time, that his conditioning thwarted his hopes for a better life.

The time he had left would not be enough for him to reconcile with his mistakes.

He could feel it coming, its skeletal grip tightening ponderously around his soul with the crumbling clack of desiccated bones. It was in the way his insides churned with the dimorphic conflagration of fire and ice, the way his perception waivered and strained, his mind wandering in and out of focus without cause or reason. It was hidden in each ragged breath, vicious in its assured victory as his strength waned, seemingly by the hour.

The Aparoid poison, the weeping black secretion of that creature's blade, it was killing him as surely and inevitably as a solar cycle. Doctors could not help him; they had not even noticed its existence within him, slowly tearing his insides apart. He himself had not noticed, had willfully ignored the signs for as long as he could maintain the wretched lie. But it was that moment, when he nearly butchered innocent civilians, desperate people that had come to them for help, people that by the definition of his very existence he had been created to protect, that Six had forced himself to accept the truth.

His death had not been prevented, only abstained.

The Aparoid had killed him the moment it sunk its blade into his chest.

He had just not realized it yet.

Six could not tell anyone, not Krystal, nor Miyu, or anyone from Starfox. They would not understand the inescapability of his demise, the inevitability of the realization that he could not stay with them. They would worry and fret and try anything and everything to help him, that was just the kind of people they were, and he could admit, too little too late, that he loved them for that. But he did not wish to waste what precious time he had left, did not want his last days to be filled with melancholy and despair. He did not want to ever again be the reason Krystal cried, or Miyu's confidence waned, not at least that is, until the end. He wanted their time together to be composed of memories they would not be saddened to bear, that would ease their lives when he would no longer be there to do it for them. It was that knowledge that gave him the strength he needed to maintain his newest fabrication. The deception, though painful, was a necessity.

And for once the desire to keep his secretes was not born of selfishness.

He would be more than he already was, he would try harder to make them all happy, to be the best friend, the best brother, and the best lover that he could be, spartan heritage be damned. He may have had little choice in life, and he may have lived poorly, but by the gods he would at least decide how it ended. And if he could at least choose the method and make of his departure, he would like for it to be something he could be proud of.

Noble Six had never been and never would be afraid of death. He was not afraid to die, not when he was simply glad to have had the opportunity to live for himself, however briefly it now would be. He had been offered a prospect that even now soothed the bitter fury of his disappointment, the chance of singular deliberation. He would die free, serving a cause not upon orders, but his own determination, and that in itself would have to be enough.

The spartan pulled away from the wall, his strength returning however briefly it would stay with him, and he sighed, brushing the bile from his lips as he dusted off his uniform and checked to see that his weapons and ammunition remained on his person. Resolve filled his weary bones, and he smiled, a soft, but unwavering thing as he readied himself to return inside, to the soothing succor of loving companionship, the warm tenderness of emerald eyes… and the scandalous flirtation of an irascible feline.

He was not dead yet.

And he still had promises left to keep.

"What's the plan?"

Krystal looked to Six, her lips curled into a grin and her expression inquisitive as she studied the spartan sitting at the table with them. For some reason she could not place he seemed… different, driven. And she realized that it was because it reminded her of his old self, but not quite like she remembered.

His eyes were kinder… brighter, than they had ever been before. He carried himself once more with purpose, his poise proud and gallant, his voice soft yet confident. He was in every way the very image of nobility, and cut a rather handsome figure at the moment, she would go so far as to shamelessly admit. And Krystal wished that they would have had time to enjoy each other's company without the looming threat that currently overshadowed such thoughts. She knew not what prompted this sudden change, but she was thankful nonetheless.

The vixen had been, and still was, worried about him. Even with his change it was impossible to forgot or overlook what had happened earlier. How could she when he had appeared so close to death's door? Yet, despite the occurrence he looked better now, and showed no signs of what had transpired beforehand. She wanted to believe with all her heart that his short-lived episode was nothing but a fleeting malignity, a lingering malaise from his wounds that would fade in time. To consider otherwise was just plain unspeakable.

That human meant more to her than almost anything else in her life. No matter how repetitious that might sound in her head she would never stop thinking it. Noble Six was the light at the end of the tunnel, the reason she could think of the future, even now, and find herself wearing a contented smile. She could face the horror and tragedy of the aparoid threat, knowing that at the conclusion of such a long and danger fraught road would be a place where she would not only have companionship, but everything she had ever wanted.

After Cerinia had burned to ash at the behest of a genocidal monster, she had feared above all else that she would live the rest of her life alone, would never find the connection that had been severed so painfully and abruptly. Then Fox had saved her, brought her onto his crew and more than that, eventually led her to the feline who would forever be her best friend, and the man she would call her mate.

Noble Six was an unusual creature. He was compulsively protective and worryingly self-sacrificing. He was also exhaustively loyal and ceaselessly attentive to her needs, and seemed to have no further desires than the perpetuity of her welfare and that of the team. It was strange, but also what she had come to expect as intrinsic characteristic of his personality. Six was a spartan, and from what she had learned that title was synonymous with self-sacrifice and eternal diligence.

More than that he was a human, alien both in ideology and physical appearance, and yet she could not ask for better, for there was nothing that could even begin to compete with what she had now. There were few, if any, in all of creation that could be considered as fortunate as her.

She really was lucky to have found him.

"From what I gathered," Miyu began to explain, gesturing to the faded paper map lain out before the three of them, unawares that the vixen's thoughts were not aimed at the present task. "Most people living at the edge of the city stayed where they were at the onset of the invasion. My dad was one of them. Our best chance of finding him will probably be at his home. So if we take this street here…" The lynx indicated the road in question with a furred finger, tracing it all the way outside the city proper and across an intersection until she stopped at a specific location, which she tapped on assertively. "It'll take us all the way."

"And the aparoids?" Six inquired, and both females watched worriedly as he reflexively touched his chest. "Will they be an issue? When did the people here last see them?"

The feline shrugged, masking her concern with indifference. "From what my old friend told me, the aparoids haven't been seen anywhere in the city for the past few days. My best guess is they pulled out of the area to consolidate their forces. After all they're probably busy getting the business from Fox and Bill."

Miyu chuckled. "After the ass kicking you gave them I don't think they'll be a problem for us. I doubt there are any left around these parts."

"And if there are?" Krystal wondered in an attempt to reign in her wandering attention as well as vocalize a serious point of concern. She was not quite as convinced as her friend that it would all be so easy. From what she had been told they were remarkably tenacious. She was not afraid to fight them. In fact she was somewhat eager for reparations owed. They had hurt people she cared about, and she very much wished to pay them back for that. But right now the task was getting Miyu's father back, and if they could do this without issue, the vixen would not complain.

"If there are we will deal with the issue when it arises." Six assured her with an encouraging smile. The human moved an arm across the table and grabbed her paw, and she shared in his reassurance as he gave it a calming squeeze.

Yes…

She returned his sentiment with a demure nod and a soft smile, a giddy sense of elation rising within her chest that she could not contain, even if she had wanted to.

There really was something different about him.

The spartan released her paw and climbed to his feet, and in that moment his towering height and muscled bulk was an image of calming solidarity, a symbolic promise that no matter what it was that awaited them, he would be there to stand against it.

"I will say again one last time that I made a promise to one of those here at this table." His eyes turned to Miyu, and his expression was nothing if not righteous in its resolve. The smile he wore had yet to relent, an unusual sight for having been set for so long on a face so unused to its presence.

"We will find your father. And we shall do it together."

Krystal stood from her chair, her smaller stature eclipsed by the giant beside her. And where others may have been cowed to linger in his shadow, she was emboldened to stand inside it, a comforting reminder that she could rely on the strength of the male that was its owner. "As a team." She declared, emulating the spartan's assured grin.

Amber eyes studied the two that had risen to their feet, two who had declared their support physically and emotionally. Here a promise had been made, or more accurately reaffirmed with staunch conviction, tempered by the bonds of companionship that were even deeper than the lynx had expected.

And that was quite considerable.

Miyu stood as well, an amused chuckle escaping her at the dramatic pomp on display. She looked to Krystal and Six, one a close friend of many years, and the other a male that despite his faults would never fail to stand beside her, no matter the odds, and decided that a little ceremony wasn't too bad.

"As friends." She added huskily, for a moment not noticing that the roughness to her voice was a little deeper than usual, and tinged just slightly by awkward emotion.

Six stepped forward, placing an arm on both her shoulder and Krystal's as he shook his head, a twinkle of affection flickering for the briefest of moments across his scarred and grim visage, what she took as a promise to the end of dark days, an end to loneliness and despair. It was, in her eyes, a promise that her days of flying solo were well and truly over.

"As a family." He corrected her, with the softest and warmest of laughs. And she knew, as she gazed upon a male who had never before been, as long as she knew him, so visibly compassionate, that no matter what she found at the end of this, they would at least be together.

It was, in that moment, Miyu was embarrassed to admit that she cried.

How could she not?

"Will they be alright?" Krystal asked, her muzzle turned over a shoulder as she looked back to the camp of survivors in the distance. The stone edifice of the bank was crumbling, but the interior was well fortified and had endured the worst of the aparoid invasion.

Six nodded. "The CDF have been notified of their location and condition. An appropriate relief force has been dispatched and is already on its way. Do not worry, Krystal. They will live through this."

"Yeah," Miyu shared in the spartan's confident assurance. "The people of Ildaro are a tough bunch. They'll make it. With Buster in charge they'll be more than alright. It's us you should be worrying about. We're the ones heading off into the unknown."

"I am not overly concerned." The vixen admitted, smiling as she looked to the spartan striding confidently beside her.

"I suppose you're right there." Miyu agreed as she shared the female fox's attention.

The spartan, unware of the scrutiny laid against him, was studiously overlooking his rifle while consulting with the tactical computer on his forearm. Neither female knew what it was he remained so focused upon, but could only deem that it would be an effective use of his time. Noble Six was nothing if not efficient.

It would have then surprised them to no end to learn that he was in actuality revising the pictures he had surreptitiously captured of the young throng of miscreants that had assailed him inside the refugee camp. It was a chaotic assortment of images, some of the children little more than indistinct blurs as advanced, military-grade photographic technology failed to fully capture their rapid and unpredictable movements, and that in itself induced an elusive grin from him as he recalled their departure with rising contentment.

Thinking of them turned his grin into a wane smile. They were not as abhorrent as he had at first considered, and their innocence could prompt a smile from him without the slightest effort. In that way he supposed they reminded him of Krystal. Unlike Miyu, whose salacious hijinks and general affability earned her more of an amused smirk, and perhaps a lighthearted reprimand depending on the situation, the smile Krystal and those children drew from him was softer and hinted at something… domestic.

It made him feel grounded in a world where he could not stand on his own.

And considering the tenuous and uncertain standing of his future; that was exactly what he needed. In fact, there were a lot of things he needed right now.

A clean bill of health was one of those.

But he knew he would not be so lucky. Reality was harsh, and his life, despite its current twist of fate and the superfluous introduction of pseudo fictional elements, was no fantasy world.

"Hey big guy, what's with the face?"

Looking up from his wrist and the cluttered holo array it displayed, Noble Six matched Miyu's raised brow with one of his own. "What face?" He demanded bemusedly.

"You know," she prompted with a chuckle as her muzzle scrunched together, admittedly in a fairly accurate summarization of the expression he made when he pondered on a particularly weighty premise. "This face." She finished, her voice somewhat nasally as she replied through a snout that struggled to emulate human muscular anatomy.

It seemed that while they both miraculously spoke the same language, to replicate both it and facial construction did not translate over well.

"It is nothing." He brushed off her concern, although his lips did curl into a smile as she insisted on maintaining her mock, dour mimicry. The sight was endearing, if somewhat unsettling. "I was just thinking on the child we brought aboard the ship." He offered as a distraction to prevent her from probing too far. Miyu, like almost everyone in Starfox, seemed particularly adept at deciphering his worries.

And while the topic starter was born of deception, it was true that he did wonder about Silver. He had been trained to live in dangerous environments from a younger age, and while true Silver's upbringing was not fostered from a normal situation, surviving on the streets and surviving in a militant atmosphere were very different.

His deflection worked well, a little too well, and he noticed Miyu shoot Krystal an uncertain look that spoke volumes, indicating that there was more to this line of inquiry then he had first anticipated.

And the spartan wondered if his line of thought from earlier held any credence.

"Silver is doing well." Krystal answered in the feline's stead as she increased her pace to match his, the vixen looking up to him with a smile that was one part excited, one part curious, and eight parts nervous.

It was that look in the end, that told Six all he needed to know.

Sometimes, Krystal's expressions and mannerisms were utterly alien to the spartan, and with good reason. There was much he had yet to really understand about her, and he repressed the bitterness that rose in the realization that he would never get the chance to. He should not dwell on the future when the present was far more important. At that moment he could feel the weight of the headsman's axe quite acutely as it balanced precariously over his neck. And he thought better of kowtowing to such fatalistic premonitions. The spartan instead focused back on the immediate world, to the issues he could actually entertain, and the fact that at the moment she was as open to him as a well-worn training manual.

"You have taken him in then." He stated neutrally, and in this moment his tone was entirely reflective of his mood. Expected as this may have been, that did not mean he was ready to handle the incurring results.

Her nervous nod of agreement was enough to befuddle him. And he glanced away in thought as the female fox tried to search his eyes for any clue on how he was taking this development.

Six was honestly… uncertain what he was supposed to think. Krystal was free to live her life the way she pleased, if she so desired to take in and raise a child it was not his prerogative to interfere with her impulses. Nor did he have any desire to limit her in any way at having a full and happy existence; it was the least he could offer her in exchange for what he had been given. And yet… their lives were closely intertwined in way reminiscent of coiling serpents. There was a depth to their attachment that bore a conditional clause for sharing significant developments.

Her decision to rear a child fit that criterion.

He wanted to spend whatever time he had left in hers and Miyu's company, and those of the rest of Starfox. There was so much interloping with his plans already, with the intrusion of the aparoids and the mobilization into full scale war, that he was afraid that he did not have the capability to handle the introduction of a child.

More than that he was afraid that this signified an adjustment in his life he was not equipped to handle.

No matter the treacherous, infinitesimal whispers emanating from the farthest corners of his mind, Six could not be the father Silver needed. The phantom consideration of parenthood that existed in his mind had only been allowed to air its grievance on the understanding that he would have time to figure out the finer details.

Time, as it turned out, was a commodity he did not have in abundance.

If there ever could have been a moment more unsuitable for this conversation, he could not see it. Even that was not the worst. And he noticed that his extended silence was negatively impacting Krystal's emotional state. The sight of her wavering smile was a harsh reminder that he did not have the luxury to take comfort in exhaustive internal debate.

The spartan sighed resignedly. Failure had never been an option before, nor would it be even though he had just been signed an undefined expiration date. Krystal would need him, and not even this would turn him away from her.

He supposed he would just have to learn on the job.

"That is good news." He relented with a smile he hoped was not too fatigued, or that she could not see the lie so tenuously buried underneath. "There is no one else I would think that would make for a better mother. Not that there are many exceptional candidates." He looked to Miyu with a wry laugh, hoping to disperse any lingering tension with a throwaway line.

Suffering the feline's good natured slap upon his upper arm with warm acceptance, he watched in relief as Krystal's indecisive grin grew firm, and she stepped close in to his side, a sign that his effort had been successful and a visible indication that relieved a great deal of weight from his shoulders.

His ability to deceive was becoming more effective with every unspoken truth.

And he was not sure how to feel about that.

"I… that's a relief to hear you say… more so than you may realize." The vixen confessed as she brushed her shoulder against his arm, resting her head against him for a brief moment of content before pulling away.

Six ignored the cold and wet feeling coiling around his heart, uncertain if the sensation was a result of his dishonesty or the sickness that lay dormant inside him.

But that did not matter.

The lie was not for him, he reminded himself as he looked to his companions as they traveled through the desolation.

It was for them, the only people left in the universe that really mattered to him.

AN: Been too long since I got around to finishing this chapter up, and it still ended up being a lot shorter than I would have liked. I am still not quite satisfied with this even after too many hours spent editing and rewriting, but it is what it is I suppose. Hopefully You guys'll enjoy it more than me. Difficulties aside, I did say I would stick with this story till the end, so that's exactly what I'll do. Although I'll probably focus on a couple other stories for a little while. Expect more content for At Duty's End and my new story Grimm and Damned.

Also a little word of warning. Some time soon I'll be sifting through my stories for a little digital "trimming". I'm going to be axing some of the works I haven't touched since like 2015, removing them from FanFiction for various reasons, either because they are grammatically atrocious or its been so long that I've lost sight of their original concepts. I might revisit them at a later date, or I might not. At the moment that's not really in the cards for me.

To end this on a lighter note, I am, as always, ever grateful for the interest my readers seem to take in my dabbling, and I'll do my level best to stick around for another couple years. I have learned from experience how disappointing it is when writers you follow seem to trickle off and disappear, and I'd rather not become like that.

I'll be better, I promise!

Drake

P.S. Sorry for any grammar errors, the little devils are inescapable.