Something like Euthanasia

Chapter 5

Unnatural melding: Part one

It was steady, the ticking of a clock, the winding of a spring. Each step, each parallel, is another twist of the spring. The gears of a brain churning in perpetual overdrive may only grasp the irony of the echoes. Only higher intellects may groap through the either, reach for -and with some fumbling- pull the trigger after tension has reached full capacity.

Now that the trigger's been pulled, all that can be done is to watch. To observe, in dull stupor, the madness wrought by reflex and greed. We may only watch as the chaos born by the drive for self-preservation tears at the very fabric of the cosmos.

Scripture translated from a Krazoa Shrine

"I believe that I'm not the only one… irked by Pigma's betrayal." Leon hissed, his alien eyes turning to mere slits as he considered the three darts that were imbedded into the Pigma picture that had been turned into an impromptu dartboard. Three perfect jugular shots… Not bad, but Leon could do better. He flipped open his small notebook he'd kept strapped to his belt to list his day-to-day activities.

They were done, his slash like check scored through all the boxes for today and two for the tasks set in for tomorrow.

That decided him, and his decision must have been comprehensible to the lupine. Wolf kicked a nearby chair so it slid on its well-oiled wheels towards the lizard. Reaching out with a slender hand, the lizard turned it around, then slowly set himself into it.

""What, so I have to get the damn darts?" Wolf snarled. "Leon, you're closer."

Leaning back, relishing the softness and the fact he was off his feet for the first time for the day Leon had enough good humor to hiss at his friend as he squirmed around to get more comfortable. Already his tail was winding around the arm, his long toed feet spreading and twisting amongst the mess for steel and wheel that served as the chair's legs.

"You look like a bendie straw gone bad, or one of those soft twisted pretzels." Wolf noted dryly.

"Shut up and get the darts." Leon rasped.

"Fine." Wolf growled, shoving his way out of his chair so that the thing –a victim of similar abuse over the last year or so- nearly tipped in response. "You're the smart one, make a score system while I get the darts."

"I already have." The lizard clicked his teeth together, his black eyes turning to tiny slits as he hissed. "Five for the snout, ten for the mouth and throat… twenty for the eyes."

"Bastard." Wolf growled. "Just had to say that."

"Professional requirement." Leon drawled, cocking his head to the side as his long tongue flicked out as he tasted the air of the captain's quarters. An air that was thick with lupine musk of satisfaction, victory… and the acidic taste of frustration from failure. "Think of it… as a post check up, check up."

Whirling on his heel, Wolf made a universally profane gesture with a paw, and Leon only laughed his strange lizard laugh.

"Your as bad as Panther, sometimes." Leon hissed. His slit eyes glinted with some secret thought. "By the way, how fond are you of the cat?"

"Not very."

"That's good." Leon hissed, he lolled his head back, sucked his tongue in. He watched Wolf with one eye; the other entertained itself by rolling back and forth to take in the room. "Very good."

X

"God damn it!" Veering off to the side to avoid pancake-dom (Slips term, not his) Fox dodged yet another of the gray asteroids. Lazers placed on the rocks with enough power to shear through his wing, flying ships almost good enough to out class his Ar-wing, this was absolutely rediculous. If this was the state of the airspace above Sauria he didn't think he wanted to see the ground.

If things got any worse... He sighed as he ruefully admited to himself that if things got any worse he wasn't goign to live to see the ground. He yet again yelled down the freeting Peppy and Slippy that he was fine, he didn't need back up, everything was going just fine... But truth was, he'd barely avoided the spray of missles, and when his own lazers had proved ineffective agianst the enemy launchers, he'd -through a fit of masterfully frantic flying- managed to use his "tail" as a very potent weapon.

Now it was rocks, thank who or whatever was upstairs for that. Just rocks with exuded steady lazer beams that cut thought space and tried to cut through him.

"Fox, I've got something on GF's raidar!"

"Meaning?" Fox whimpered, knowing damn well what it meant but not wanting to say it.

"Well it was on raidar.. but it blasted by so fast... we could barely pick up a scan. I've got ROB on it, but it'll take a minute or two."

"Great..." Flicking an ear, Fox stared at the space in front of him, already the steady black was rippling, inverting, and colors were blooming out of the disturbances. It was impossible, but he could of sworn he heard a click of the enemy launchers shafts sliding open. Staring striaght into the face of yet another enemy ship, Fox growled. "Just what I need, more problems..."

"What's the situation?" Peppy asked.

"Ooh... just a tinny tiny bit tense." Fox drawled as he tightened his grip on the Ar-Wing's flight stick. "No problems on your end?"

"None whatsoever." Slippy replied, sound way too bright and chirpy for Fox's taste.

"Must be nice."

X

Thunk, thunk, thunka, thunk...

"Three in one eye, fourth up the nose, not too shabby." Wolf grunted, wondering once more at the sadistic bastard he'd called friend's tact. Baring his teeth, clicking his tongue against the bared teeth, Leon laughed. Only years after endless seeming years in the lizards' company taught Wolf what Leon's facial expressions and various sounds meant. Laughing was clicks, screams born of rage were expressed in metalic screeches, the subtler emotions were the blinking of an eye, the flick of a tongue between teeth, a silken hiss... It took time, and inclination to learn Leon. To crack the icy shell and see the briliant malstorm of enginuity, cruelity, hatred, and touch of madness that made up the bulk of Leon's psyche.

Time, and Leon's want. If Leon didn't want you learning what made him tick and you figured it out, he'd gut you if he kinda liked you and do worse if he didn't.

Pulling the pawful of darts off the table -the last four- he tossed them at the board. There was another series of "thunks" and a few loud cracks. Leon's darts fell to the gorund, shattered broken bits of wood and metal. Wolf's, still quivering, had taken thier place.

"Amazing, yet another magnificent show of dexterity, hand eye cordination, and destructive tendincies."

"No fun without something burning." Wolf admited with a grin.

"Or breaking, screaming, going clinically insane..." Leon chimmed in.

Wolf laughed, even though he knew Leon was being dead serious.

"Game over?" The leader of Star Wolf asked.

"Considering you've just broken half the pieces... I'd say, yes." Snapping one claw against another, Leon extended his hand. "Score card."

Protectivly holding the scrap of paper he'd pinned to a sliver of steel, Wolf shook his head.

"It reads I won, fair and square."

Both of Leon's eyes snapped on him then they nerrowed.

"Really?"

"Honest."

"You've never been honest." Leon countered.

"Nope, well maybe when I was a pup I had a few slips, but..." Wolf left it hanging.

"What's the excuse this time?" Leon hissed.

"Leadership modification and point award bonus." Wolf told his friend, his steel grey tail started to wag despite himself.

"I'm going to get those darts, and have another round, just to puncture your overinflated ego."

Knowing what that meant, Wolf surged to his feet even as Leon lazily uncoiled himself from the guest chair. It was a race, Wolf managed to hit the door first, bank to the right, and the four darts on histail hissed thorugh the air where he would have been. There was a scream, some ape had gotten in the cross fire and was pulling the throwing darts out of his arm. Seeing a tail thrashing, pissed, Leon comming at him, the ape dropped his paperwork to the ground and bolted.

If the monkey threw himself over the edge of the massive system of stairway and ledges that made up the heart of Sargasso he wouldn't be the first. Most sane people did that when Leon came after them. It did hell with the numbers of helpers on hand, making more paperwork for the aides to slough through, but the practice weeded out the weaklings, that's for sure.

It also gave the janitors something to do, besides sweep.

X

Snarling, Wolf shoved his way past the dazed looking Panther, surged past his ape underlings, and climbed into his Wolfen. The cockpit hissed open, slid shut, and Wolf was gone in a heart beat. A rasping hissing Leon swept out from some side door, bloody darts in hand. He charged into the space where the ship once sat and turned on the cringing mess of ape grunts.

"Where the hell is Wolf?"

"Boss went outside." One of the aides whimpered.

"Quaint way to to tranqualize someone." Panther noted, his lips curled back in fastidious distatse at the blood that stained Leon's fingers. "Wolf being coy about havimg yet another checkup today?"

"Shut up!" Leon hissed, he turned on his heal, hissing and rasping about childish, cheating, dogs.

Lifting a paw to rub at his throbing temples, wishing his vanity would allow him to do the same with his now churning stomach, Panther turned to the apes around him.

"One of you, go look for a body, the rest of you, get back to work. Wolf wants this place vacated in less than ten Cornerian solor cycles, we're going to make sure it happens."

X

It was stupid, if Leon was pissed Wolf knew that hte lizard would just slink around the hanger hunt him down later when he came back. Still... it was good to be flying, good to be away. The space around Sargasso was only filled with dun hued rock, no enemies, no responsibilites...

He liked the last part, even as he hated the powerlessness that state gave him. So it was love and hate relationship, a familier brew, more bitter than any booze, more soothing than any drugies high. He rolled his paw over the blue screen, streared his ship by touch alone, then blinked. Movement, something slithering just out of the corner of his eye... He snarled, recognizing the arachnid forum of an apariod, tiltedh is wolfen to meet the creature head on...

Then the world shifted, the sky went crazy and upand down screwed each other and twisted his brains inside and out.

He opened eyes he never realized he'd closed... and found his world changed.