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The Arwing shot through a vast green canopy. It hit various branches, splintered more, and with terrified shrieks and howls the local fauna of colorful creatures dispersed in a stampede. Peppy braced himself for a rough landing as he saw the lush green soil precipitously approaching.
When he touched the ground he shut his eyes. The tremor of the impact traversed through his entire body, but the sturdy silhouette of the Arwing absorbed most of the damage. He stood in that curled-up position until the tremors ceased, the world stopped spinning, the tall green trees loomed over him and he found behind himself a trail of smudged green and nasty brown. At least his impact had caused most of the native creatures to flee so for now, he was safe.
He tried to recall what had happened. He was distracted, hadn’t noticed a bogey locking onto him and that had ultimately caused his crash and demise. He scolded himself in his head for it. It was a beginner’s mistake. And they’d just re-established Star Fox again, it was their first mission! The poor kid turned leader was most likely worried sick.
After righting himself, and Peppy was suddenly glad there were airbags and they’d landed on soft soil and not into some desolate land with no end before the horizon, though the lush flora would make it hard to locate them, the cockpit slowly started to rise. Error messages and buzzes filled the tiny living space, but they didn’t look too severe. The Arwing would definitely not be blowing up, so that was good.
A colorful curse he’d never heard before was squawked right behind him. He exited the living space of his broken Arwing only to find another. In a similar state of disarray, with a completely broken wing, various charred decorations on the hull. Peppy had a first row view of a G-diffuser that looked severely broken, black smoke raising from it.
He rolled his eyes as the curses continued. Their newest member and the one who’d already proved could get under Peppy’s skin without even trying. He still didn’t know what threat he’d used on Fox to let him have a spot. Star Fox worked just as well with three pilots. What was the kid thinking when hiring a gangster who was most likely in it for the money, anyway?
At some point the shouting raised in volume and got more clear. The cockpit raised minutely, the system must be jammed, but it didn’t stop the avian from kicking it open with a snarl and then storming out looking furious.
Peppy rummaged through his messed-up internal cockpit to see if the radio had been spared.
“Are you done?” He asked, changing channels and trying to contact the Great Fox. The other must not have realized he wasn’t alone. After all he was the first one to be picked out of the sky, and Peppy simply followed after a barrage of laser fire.
Well. No problem to him. He was right about to contact the others and get picked up from here, whether the delinquent wanted to come or not.
“Ah, great. Did our ‘teammate’ pick the both of us or are you here on business?”
Peppy tried to work on the radio, but no matter what frequency he selected nothing came out but static. It didn’t help that the other’s voice was irking him.
“What are you even saying?”
“That froggy shot me down!”
Peppy rose. “His name’s Slippy! And I very much doubt he did that.”
“Oh, definitely.” Falco replied, acidic. Peppy gave him a stern glare that didn’t deter him in the slightest. “Except I was shot down from behind and I had no bogeys, I was keeping a keen eye on radar!”
“Then it was most likely a stray shot.” Peppy rolled his eyes.
“Pft! A very precise one.”
The hare couldn’t help but huff. Slippy was indeed their worst shot. Not that he misfired that frequently, but he was far from their best. He was more appreciated for his qualities as a mechanic than for his sharpshooting skills, so he didn’t think a misfire taking out another Arwing, while unfortunate, was out of the question.
Of course, if the avian had been more careful during their mission and had stayed in formation instead of veering off to whatever side, his hull wouldn’t have been so weak to fall to a single stray beam.
He had been keeping that particular Arwing in his sights for the entire mission… so that, at the first weird movement, he would have been able to shoot it down.
Just like he should have done with Pigma.
He shook his head. It was not the moment to think about it, there were more pressing matters. If anything his risky maneuvers had proved he was trying to get just himself killed for now.
Whether Peppy liked it or not, that failed hotshot was part of the team for now. Considering the seniority, he should be the one to take the situation in his hands and figure out a solution. Their Arwings must have left clear streaks in the sky of this forgotten planet, the Great Fox would definitely be able to find them in due time. They just had to survive up until that moment.
He had his blaster and whatever other weapons a delinquent like the blue bird brought on his person, and provided he did not decide to turn against Peppy, they’d both make it out unscathed. They just needed to—
His thought process was interrupted by the sound of something metallic falling to the side. He focused on the gangster’s Awring to find one of the lids popped off and smoking, and the blue avian waving a hand to disperse the blazing air in front of his very eyes, pointing his face away.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Peppy demanded.
“Trying to get this thing to fly again, obviously, how else are we going to make it out of here?” He rebutted, taking out of his flight suit a wrench that Peppy had definitely heard Slippy complain about being missing.
“The Arwings are complex machines.” Peppy replied, stern. “You’re just going to break them even more if you try to do it yourself!”
The avian twirled the wrench in his hand, looking to the sky.
“You got any better ideas, old man?!” He sniffed.
Peppy took a moment to convince himself to ignore the disrespectful nickname. He was not that old yet and this kid clearly had never learned manners. What else could be expected of a gangster? “The Great Fox can calculate where we fell. Fox and Slippy are trying to figure out where we landed as we speak and will be here tomorrow at most, I’m sure.”
“Yeah do believe that. In the meantime I’ll get this thing flying again and go see them myself.”
“They will be coming.” Peppy replied, a bit more forcefully.
“Maybe for you.” He countered ruefully.
Peppy hovered a moment on those words.
The hotshot started turning the wrench. He was really going to try and take a steaming engine apart and probably get himself hurt in the process. If anything happened to him, Fox would be heartbroken. There was just something the kid saw in him that Peppy couldn’t even begin to imagine.
…They hadn’t been the most welcoming, had they?
“They are your teammates too.” He said, feeling a sense of wrong nestling into his chest. Ah– guilt.
Falco murmured something else under his breath, this time not loud enough for Peppy to hear though his ears twitched to try to get a better angle. He wasn’t even sure Falco managed to finish his own thought, because he yelped in pain soon after and the wrench fell tinning to the ground.
“Told you you shouldn’t be working on that engine.” Peppy said, exasperated, but he moved anyway to see what the problem was. There weren’t many sources of water around them, but at least one of them should bring solace to a burn…
Except when he came closer to the Arwing, he noticed that the heat had already vanished. The problem must be something else.
Falco was clutching his arm around the wrist, his expression morphed into one of pain, saying other curses.
Peppy should really scold him for it, but at this moment there was something else holding his attention captive: Falco’s orange suit had a nasty cut on the same arm he was holding. It was too clean to not have got to the skin underneath. As he walked closer he heard glass crunch under his boots. His cockpit must have been damaged in the crash, and the slivers reached the pilot.
By the look of it, it was no small splinter. He jogged the last few steps.
“Let me see it.” He ordered. It just made Falco recoil back.
“Don’t touch me.” He snarled. Then he jumped back, and the movement made him just grapple his injured arm harder with another hiss. His hand twitched downward to get something, but whatever it was wasn’t there. And it soon had to go back to hold the arm when a drop of blood spilled out. Peppy could not see it clearly, but the flight suit was definitely stained a more violent shade right over the cut.
“Don’t be an idiot, I can help you!” He urged.
Falco’s feathers started to slowly puff up. His gaze just got harsher behind that mask. It made him appear slightly taller and wider, the complete opposite of the slim bird coiling underneath.
A defensive mechanism.
Peppy halted, squinting. It made no sense. Falco was committed to being the hot-shot, brash and fearless, threatening, a true gangster, so—
“You think I’m going to hurt you?”
The feathers definitely shot up after that question and Peppy reconsidered. What kind of terrifying delinquent was scared by a hare?
Falco clicked his tongue, but didn’t get any closer.
“Just the two of us in the middle of nowhere, not knowing when help is coming? When your ship is in much better shape and your so-called teammate shot me down? It’s a plan for all I know.”
“I’m not going to harm you!” Peppy insisted.
“You're the one with the blaster!”
Peppy looked down at his side and found his blaster safely tucked in its holster. His old one, he’d kept it by his side ever since he joined Star Fox, ever since it was created. Slippy had in program to build custom weapons like these for them, but they were still a work in progress.
Still, was Falco really unarmed?
The wound looked like it was getting worse. He decided to leave that question for later. “I’ll go put it in my ship.”
He turned around in haste and flung the weapon on the untouched Arwing seat, he didn’t want to lose it. Then his eyes flew to the nook where he kept his first aid kit.
It was empty. He hadn’t thought of bringing any first aid with him. How foolish! It was just their first mission, but he couldn’t explain to himself how he’d forgotten such a basic thing!
“Do you have any first aid in your Arwing?” He shouted over his cockpit. Falco recoiled momentarily, looking confused.
“I… have some bandages? I think.” He said as if he’d forgotten as much. He moved back to the cockpit, through the shards of glass, and fetched a small red pouch. It didn’t look like much, Peppy shuddered at thinking about his own stocked first aid kit forgotten somewhere in the Great Fox hangar, but it would have to do.
He couldn’t quite tear his gaze away from the growing dark stain on the kid’s sleeve.
He moved a single step and Falco’s eyes snapped to him. He raised his hands. “Just want to help. You can’t dress that wound on your own now can ya?”
Falco put the pouch on the front part of the Arwing as he clutched his wrist again and climbed out. The look he was giving conveyed he had every intention to try. Though its effect was minimized when he had to snap his eyes shut and whisper another curse.
Peppy took the moment of distraction in stride to get to the kit. Falco promptly took a step further away but nothing more than that.
Inside there wasn’t much. A roll of bandages, as he’d said, and some pieces of non-sterile gauze haphazardly thrown around. There wasn’t even any disinfectant, but it would help stop the bleeding at the very least. He waved a hand towards the avian, beckoning him forward.
“Come on. There’s not much harm I can do with gauze.”
Falco narrowed his eyes but slowly moved closer. Peppy waited for him to offer his arm instead of taking it though the urge was strong. The suit was cut indeed, and was starting to absorb the blood.
“We’ll have to roll up your sleeve, I have to see how it is underneath.”
At Falco’s nod he began working. His feathers were still fighting to stand on edge but he didn’t let himself be bothered. He hissed and cursed again as Peppy was pushing the fabric up.
“Language.” He scolded. For a blissful moment, Falco was so surprised he stopped his complaining all at once.
“I’ll talk how the hell I want.” He said afterwards. Peppy noted that there were no glass shards inside the wound.
“It’s rude and uncouth.”
“I ain’t cursing at you.”
With his feathers slowly started coming back down, Peppy was even having an easier time dressing up the wound. Now, to move the conversation towards a different topic…
“Where did you learn to fly like that?” He asked. But Falco caught on.
“What is this all of a sudden?”
Peppy shrugged. “I just want to know. You’re good. I’ve seen people graduate of the Corneria Academy with half as much skill.”
“I certainly didn’t learn at that stuck-up academy.” Falco scoffed, taking his gaze away. His feathers pushed up minutely now.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I learned a bit here and a bit there. Tried it, liked it, the rest is history.”
“So you can pilot various aircrafts?” So had he stolen various aircrafts? Peppy tried to not think about it too much.
“Anything that can go up in the sky, yeah. They’re all very similar at the end of the day.”
Finally having finished his work, the hare cut the gauze with his teeth and pushed everything back in the tiny pouch. Falco picked at the gauze constricting his feathers before rolling the sleeve down again.
As the stain went… they would probably have to get him another suit. The blood was already drying.
At least after that moment, Falco seemed to be less antagonizing of him. With no other snarky remarks, he picked the wrench from where it had fallen on the ground and started working on his Arwing again.
“Are you sure you have the right expertise to put it back into the sky?” Peppy sighed.
Falco tapped the wrench on a steely panel, connected with tubes and turbines around it. “I’ve seen this thing before. It… I don’t know, generates? An initial pulse. It’s what gets the thing flying and can keep it in the air for… half an hour or something, if the rest isn’t working. It’ll give us something.”
The kid shrugged as the panel slowly fell under his loosening. Peppy was surprised. He vaguely remembered Slippy blabbering about something similar though he didn’t understand half of it.
“Still… you won’t get far without G-diffusers. The entire Arwing depends on them.” And one of Falco’s was definitely busted. He turned to his own before the kid could say anything about it. He jabbed his finger towards it then. “Mine are fine. See if you can get my Arwing back into the air.”
Without waiting for a response, he started walking calmly towards it. Even if a bit surprised, hasty footsteps followed suit soon enough.
Peppy had been able to make a much better landing. A wing was to be straightened out, but by getting creative they got it to a shape that would support the Arwing’s weight planet-side. Falco popped open the same lids and got to working again. Though much slower and with a few pained grunts every now and then.
At some point he had to drop the wrench once more. Peppy leaned to look at him.
“Wound still aching, huh?”
“Hurts like hell.”
With the orange suit already tinted red it was impossible to understand if the gauze was helping or not. But there wasn’t much else he could do, exposing the wound to such a rich environment again might just make it worse. Peppy retrieved the wrench this time.
“Tell me what to do.” He said, pushing the avian aside and standing in front of the bolts and tubes. Falco gave him a bewildered look. “What?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I want to get back to the Great Fox just like you, hot-shot.” Peppy replied with a roll of the wrench.
“No. I mean— you and the frog tried to get me kicked out of the team. And don’t try to save your ass saying you didn’t because I overheard both those conversations! So we were going to be enemies and fine but now– why are you doing this now?” Falco picked something under the sleeve of his injured arm. The medication. Peppy found himself recalling those words.
“I know you two boys, Fox. But that one… I don’t like him.”
“You don’t even know him.”
“I’ve done a thorough background check. Theft, criminal conspiracy… he’s a gangster.”
“He was. He doesn’t do that anymore.”
“You don’t even know half of the things he’s capable of. And look at how he treats poor Slippy.” He gestured around with a hand and Fox did turn, to see Slippy frantically looking for his hat. Falco was lazily twirling it over his finger as he exited the room.
“He’s… a jerk,” Fox admitted, “but that doesn’t make him evil.”
“His flying license dates a few months back, and either he’s a newbie which I doubt, or there are more secrets. I can’t see anything more suspicious than this.”
“You’re thinking about it too much, Peppy.” Fox replied, turning on his heels. He looked vaguely hurt.
“Fox.” Peppy stopped him.
“What now?” He groaned, but he did stop when he saw the dark expression Peppy was wearing.
“Are you certain he’s not a spy from Venom?” He asked, serious.
And, despite how Fox had looked ready and determined to answer, no words escaped his mouth. The betrayal and James’ end were still too fresh wounds.
In hindsight, that had been a cheap shot.
He remembered the automatic targeting grid having a hard time following the Arwing whenever Peppy wasn’t shooting something else. No wonder Falco lost half his bogeys and only the most persistent ones managed to stay on his tail. He couldn’t ignore how an entire line of enemy was shot clean through without the use of a bomb, either. At the time he thought this individual was dangerous, he was good and might even be able to take down Fox, their ace pilot.
While Peppy was still wary… he had to admit Falco wouldn’t be taking anyone down with a bleeding wrist right now. Pigma had been a sly man with an agenda, always meaning to do things by himself, rarely depending on the team. But Falco… was just a handful months older than Fox. Technically an adult, still a kid in Peppy’s eyes.
He looked a lot less like a criminal with that in mind. Defensive and yet still curious.
“You’re right. A few hours ago I would have wished for nothing more than to never see your face again. But I’ve kept a good eye on you this mission. And I have to admit, you are a natural. You just need some polishing.”
“So? A team can’t solely rely on skill, you need morale. If there’s this much attrition, and I mean, the froggy shot me down—”
“It was most likely an accident. Do you think Slippy would take you down on purpose? He’ll have to repair that Arwing. Having it be mangled in a crash that should cost you your life would be counter-productive.”
“Whatever. It doesn’t change that it’s easier to get rid of the problematic member.”
His tone turned strangely somber. Like when he was talking about the Arwing earlier, Peppy got a nagging feeling that Falco was speaking from experience.
“You say it like you want to leave.”
Falco shrugged, crossing his arms. Avoiding his gaze. “It’s Fox’s call. I just hope he’ll do the sensible thing.”
What those aquamarine eyes might hide, Peppy wasn’t able to tell yet. He clanged the wrench on the same panel, attracting Falco’s gaze.
“In any case, tell me what to do. We don’t have all day.”
Falco walked him step by step, indicating bolts and other pieces to loosen or tighten, and then fixing the wires inside. Peppy got into his Arwing after the repairs, ready to try a take-off. Falco was scanning the horizon, he chose that moment to let the blaster slide off the seat and into the back of the Arwing. He’d get that later.
The G-diffuser system came online. The engine hummed. He would have to make a mostly vertical take-off. That was going to be fun, he loathed vertical take-offs with a passion.
“You sure you don’t want to try your hand at this?” He asked Falco. The avian had some of his feathers ruffled up, his arms still tightly crossed on his chest. He could see the need to fly away in his very eyes.
He could even come up with his Falco’s own thoughts. The fear of being left alone to rot on this uncharted planet was evident. But Peppy vowed to himself he’d get back.
“I can’t fly like this.” Falco argued with a layer of regret and frustration, picking at the gauze under his clothes again.
Weird, he kept doing that. Could it be the supplies they had were not suited for avians? Perhaps they were sticking to his feathers. Thought now he didn’t have the time to ask about it.
Peppy had verified that the radio in Falco’s Arwing was still functional, so they’d have that to keep in touch. They were still tuned on the team channel.
“I’m going, then.” Peppy replied, marking his coordinates into the ship navigation system. The Arwing sneezed for a moment, before obediently taking off. Peppy gave all the power he had to G-diffusers and it rose a bit too rapidly into the air. He had to evade some of the local fauna, cut a hole through a leaf and correct his route when the hull screeched against the bark of a tree. Sturdier leaves were so big they pushed him off course more than once. As much as it pained him to damage them, he had to find a way out of the tree’s canopy, and the only option he had was shooting.
Finally, he breached the green dome of the trees and found himself in the sky. Not a single cloud up ahead, just Solar placidly shining in the distance. He stabilized his Arwing, turned to all range-mode and set himself up for a lazy turn around his exit spot.
The Great Fox wasn’t anywhere on the horizon. He could make wider circles until he found something more interesting. For now, nothing but thick green foliage could be seen under him. No wonder Star Fox was taking so long to find them.
Right in that moment, a bright twinkle exploded in the corner of his eye. He righted his aircraft immediately, setting himself up to a perpendicular course.
Only for the radio to burst into static.
“Fox! It’s an Arwing!!”
“I see it, Slippy! Hey, Arwing, do you receive me?”
“Loud and clear.” Peppy replied, with a huff of relief. “Fox, Slippy, it’s good to see you.”
“Yey, we found him!!” Slippy celebrated.
“Are you alright?” Fox asked.
“A bit scraped up, but I’ll manage.” Slippy pumped his fist into the air, happy. Though Fox shared the sentiment, it was short lived.
“Have you seen Falco?”
“Yes, I can lead you there. His Arwing is in worse shape than mine, any chance we can get the Great Fox to pick it up?” Peppy smiled to himself as he saw Fox’s gaze lit up in hope. Slippy got scans up and running.
“With this thick foliage…? I don’t think such a big ship can reach the surface. But we can probably drag it up there ourselves. I have equipped our Arwings with small tractor beams… they will be able to carry an Arwing back to base!”
“Hear it, Falco? We’re getting there.” Peppy replied, but received no response.
“Is… he supposed to be replying?” Fox queried with no shortage of worry.
“I made sure we were tuned on the team channel.”
“The trees are creating interference… it must really be something down there.” Slippy explained.
“No matter now. ROB, get as close as you can to the surface and prepare for extraction.” Fox commanded.
“Affirmative.”
Once Peppy led them down, he was finally able to get a contact with Falco. The first thing he received was—
“You bastard! I knew you’d do that, I don’t know why I even bothered!!” Followed by a load of creative and colorful insults and curses. Though muffled, which meant Falco was not onboard his Arwing right now, the general meaning could still be understood.
“Falco…” Peppy tried to say, but he wasn’t able to get hold of the line before Falco monopolized it again.
“I let my guard down for one second! Oh, those bastards set me up, didn’t they?! Of course they did!!”
“Falco?” Fox was apparently much faster at him, and held the transmit button for a bit longer, just enough for Falco to realize there were other people listening in.
“F-Fox?!”
“Falco! Hold tight, we’re coming to get you.” Fox finally said, though even through the Arwing’s crappy feed Peppy could see the bead of sweat running behind his pushed-back ears. And Slippy looked slightly uncomfortable.
“…huh.” Simply came through the radio, then.
“Start by boarding the Arwing. We’ll be getting you up.” Peppy explained. Finally a splotch of white and azure came into view, and Falco not too far off. Blue and orange nicely contrasted all the green around him.
“Exactly.” Fox flew in ahead and, once he located Falco, switched to all-range mode and circled him. “Are you hurt?” He asked soon after. Maybe his keen eye had picked out the weird way Falco was holding his wrist even once he was seated inside.
“Nothing too serious.” He replied in semi-real time. The broken cockpit was manually closed around him, but he made no move to start his Arwing. Good, because by the look Slippy was wearing, he expected to see it blow up at any second.
They managed to get it up with some teamwork, and when they breached the green leafy dome again the Great Fox was obediently waiting for them. Peppy entered the bay first, followed by Slippy and Fox whose Arwings were holding Falco’s in-between, trapped by beams of green energy.
Peppy correctly docked and eventually the others did too. Falco’s Arwing had to be maneuvered by mechanical arms until it was put into place. Just then, those were also able to safely remove the cracked glass.
Slippy was taking a sorrowful look at the mangled aircraft while Fox ran to help Falco disembark. He arrived a moment later and the avian simply jumped down. A choice that didn’t turn out to be the wisest, as he hissed and clutched his wrist soon enough. Fox looked even more panicked.
“What happened??”
“I crashed.” Falco replied without so much as a look at his wrist.
“I- I’m sorry!! I swear it was an accident!” Slippy was mortified, and he’d always been a disastrous liar. Fox whipped to him, his ears twitching nervously.
“Slippy? What do you mean?”
“I was flying, I veered to the side, but I hit the stick a bit too hard, twirled to the right, and then there were bogeys, and so I wanted to take them down, I promise, nothing more than that! But Falco’s Arwing was also there and the targeting locked onto him first ‘cause it priorities closeness and he was the closest but the charged shot was already fired and by the time I realized he was already falling! I didn’t mean it!” Slippy looked to be on the very edge of tears while he rambled.
“Is… that so?” Fox asked in surprise. Falco was looking to the side.
“I swear it’s the truth! Please forgive meeeeee…!” Slippy continued, latching onto Falco’s flight suit. The avian could ignore him no longer, though he tried to push him away to no avail.
“Okay, okay, fine! Just stop whining!”
Peppy allowed himself a tiny smile. Things were already looking up.
In any case he was looking for something else… he grinned when he finally found it. He turned and tapped his fingers on a metallic surface, just enough to gather the attention of the pilots. He quickly locked eyes with Falco.
“Here, now. Let me take an actual look at cut.”
Slippy finally let go of the avian. Fox raised an eyebrow. Falco groaned, rolled his eyes, but Peppy never relented. In the end he huffed and walked to him with Fox on his tail.
“I’m fine, it’s bandaged already.”
“I couldn’t even clean that wound because you had no disinfectant, so we have to do that. We’ll be restocking your first aid kit, by the way.” He said sternly, pointing for Falco to get up on the flat surface as he pushed his own, neat and organized first aid briefcase right by him.
“It got me through, didn’t it?”
“You were lucky.” Falco begrudgingly rolled up his sleeve with just a minor hiss. As expected, the gauze and bandages under it were stained once more. Fox’s ears pushed against the side of his head again. He was no doubt berating himself about it, though there was nothing else he could have done.
He’d get to the point of realizing not everything was his fault eventually, Peppy was sure.
He trashed the used equipment and set out to clean the wound, use another gauze, check that this time the bandages were feather-friendly before wrapping the wound in them.
Fox and Falco were talking softly all the while.
“I’ve thought about what you told me.” Fox said, leaning on the surface and watching Slippy evaluate the damage on the Arwings.
Falco suddenly went cold and stiff. “And?”
Fox was fidgeting with his own flight suit. “I don’t want you to leave yet. Give us some time, a moment to figure things out. We’ll make it work.”
Falco huffed. “Still being a goody two shoes, seeing the good in everyone…” But he had a very soft smile Peppy hadn’t quite seen on him yet.
“You know me, you shouldn’t be surprised.”
“I know, I know…”
The two exchanged a look. They both looked more relaxed than before.
“Hey, Peppy!” Slippy exclaimed as he reappeared from behind Peppy’s Arwing. He had just finished putting everything back in his kit.
“Yes?”
“I didn’t think you'd be able to repair the self-starter!”
“The what now?” Peppy raised a brow. Slippy tilted his head.
“The… self-starter? The little engine that gets the bigger engine running and lets the Arwing take for the sky? It’s definitely repaired, but you didn’t do half a bad job.”
Peppy moved to get a better angle. The engineer was pointing at a metal box under a plaque Peppy had gotten himself comfortable with in the last hour, under someone’s guidance. He hummed.
“Well, I didn’t do that by myself.”
“Ah, really?” Slippy looked surprised.
He turned around, set on getting to his room because he was yearning a shower by now. And maybe he needed more time to reflect on the new kid he had under his metaphorical wing. He jabbed his thumb towards the avian, who sat up straighter.
“He did it. With your missing wrench.”
“WHAT??” Slippy shouted, but it was immediately overpowered by a nondescript squawk. Peppy simply smiled to himself. Slippy and Falco could bond over that. Maybe he would fit in nicely within Star Fox after all.