Sara could barely restrain a laugh as she watched the yellow reptile signal his request to the five Lylatians. When the message was over, the salamander whirled around to face her friends and gladly spoke out the translation.
"Meekachu say that there is important... er... staff in the next room over there," she said with a light chuckle while pointing off towards a far corner of the cavern. In that corner, a staircase-like pile of loose stones and rocks were stacked just below a barely noticeable crack in the wall. While still snickering, Sara continued her little speech.
"Also in same room are many of the winged monsters that are sleeping... Meekachu need someone to go inside room and get staff for him."
Falco was having a hard time finding the humor in this odd request. "What's so funny about that?" he asked her.
Sara giggled in spite of herself. She finally answered, "Meekachu say he need someone small."
Slippy gulped in terror and staggered back a step or two as everyone in the wide cavern immediately turned around and stared at him. "Oh n-no, d-don't look at m-me..." the frog stuttered. He backed into the shadows even further with his palms held forward defensively.
Falco, who was greatly relishing this particular moment, flashed an evil grin at the slimy amphibian. He cleared his throat before casually suggesting, "How 'bout Slippy?"
Slippy mustered up his best angry stare and stopped backing away. "How about you, Falco?" he sharply retorted.
The falcon laughed. "Because, wart-face, you're the runt! Don't you get it? Why don't you break your useless streak and actually do something beneficial to us, okay?"
Slippy hopped forward, a sudden fury filling him. "I am not the runt! And I'm not useless!! You just always think so! It's always you that seems to hate me and mock me for one reason or another. Nothing about me is right to you! I can't fly, I can't fight, I can't talk straight, I can't climb well, I'm too slow... it's always something! Why can't you just tell me what your problem is for once, and leave me alone!?!"
Falco took one step towards the bold frog, and towered over the shorter animal with an intimidating sneer. Fox, meanwhile, could only hold his head while mouthing the words, "Not again..." as Peppy, Sara, and the Yoshies looked on like children on a school playground waiting for a fight to start.
The falcon leaned closer to the frog's unflinching face, and growled out with an aggressive voice, "Perhaps my only problem is that your momma hesitated before throwing your slimy hide in the garbage as soon as you were born!"
Peppy was watching from a safe distance, but as soon as Falco had spoken those words, the hare gulped. "Uh-oh. Wrong choice of words..."
Falco could barely open his beak to laugh in Slippy's face before his eyes met the raw green knuckles flying towards them. The blue falcon reeled back from the unexpected blow to the face, but he was soon standing upright and growling viciously at the one who dared to hit him.
"Why you little goggle-eyed, snot-nosed green turd! I'll make whipped cream out of your sorry tail!" Falco threatened. The falcon charged with his fists raised in front of him and his eyes wide with anger, but before he could get a foot-length near the equally-furious frog, something wrapped around his leg and sent the Lylatian sprawling onto the floor face-first. Falco attempted to stand, but as soon as his wing flew into the air, yet another rope-like restraint clung to it and held him back. "Grr... what is this!?!" the enraged falcon squawked.
Slippy, too angered to even notice what had caused Falco to drop to the floor, stepped forward triumphantly and yelled out towards his fallen opponent, "Don't you ever talk about my momma that way again!!"
Falco gave up his assault on the green frog and instead struggled to free himself from his unusual bonds. Peppy, Fox, and Sara gawked at the scene in total shock. They had never seen Slippy act like that before, but even more amazing was what was keeping Falco on the ground. It was the two Yoshies... they were restraining the falcon's feet and arms with their... tongues???
"Oh my gosh," Sara gasped. After a few silent moments between the three bystanders, the salamander eventually burst out into laughter.
"Hehehe! Oh my gosh! Haha!"
Fox broke into a soft chuckle at the same time, and Peppy snickered. Sara couldn't stop her laughing.
"You... you... underestimate our Yoshi friends, Falco! Hehehe..."
Slippy had finally cooled off after avenging his mother, and he was extremely curious towards this strange new ability that the Yoshies didn't happen to mention sooner. In the meantime, the two reptiles still wouldn't release Falco, and the avian was growing frustrated. "Get them offa me!"
Toad cautiously approached his grounded teammate and examined the thick, slimy tongues that were holding him in place. "Wow... what are they doing??"
Sara caught herself amidst a deep breath and quickly answered Slippy. "Yoshies often use their long tongues to grab fruit high in trees, attack and swallow enemies... or in this case, hold down falcons... hehe..."
"It's amazing!" Slippy croaked.
"It's disgusting!" Falco remarked. With a snarl, he turned onto his back and thrust his foot into the face of the nearest reptile: the pink one. The Yoshi recoiled her long red tongue back into her mouth and flew several feet away, landing on her back with a squeal. The yellow one also released Falco, and stepped away from the Lylatian with a fierce growl. The Yoshi hissed and sneered while standing in his own threatening pose before speaking out in his native language.
"Yoshi yo yi yi yo shi Yo Yo-shi. Yi yo yi yo. Yishi yoshi yo yishi yoshi yo. Yish yo yo!" the yellow one barked out fiercely. Falco rolled over and stood on his own two feet in a smooth motion. He then turned to Sara and pointed a feathered thumb in the direction of the disgruntled Yoshi.
"What the heck did he just say to me??"
Sara shrugged, but she attempted to hand-signal the question to the yellow reptile anyway. The Yoshi responded with several angry grunts and growls as he moved his hands into a translatable message. The salamander's eyes widened.
"Well?" Falco pressed.
"Er... Falco, Meekachu say that if you ever touch his daughter in harmful way again, he will rip out your eyes and turn them into dragon-fodder, pluck out your feathers one-by-one and throw them from the highest cliffs of the island, and personally deliver your carcass into the deepest, darkest pits of hell itself."
Slippy, Peppy, and Fox cringed at the force of that threat. Falco remained undaunted. In fact, the falcon smirked at the yellow-skinned being that stood before him with bared teeth and a growl of warning.
"Sara, tell that yellow-bellied gutless freak over there that he can go straight to he-"
The salamander stopped the falcon with a hand to his shoulder. "It's okay, Falco. He's just being protective. Leave him alone."
"I'll say," Slippy remarked.
Falco pulled away from Sara and eyed her closely. For a moment, the falcon looked as if he were actually considering the salamander's suggestion. Falco finally growled, turned his back to everyone, and marched off to another end of the cavern. Sara sighed and shook her head disappointedly. She briefly looked to the frog on her left, then back to the falcon that was standing off by himself.
"Fine. Act like a scumbag. You deserved it."
Falco turned his head to one side and caught the troubled look on the salamander's face from the corner of his eye. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You know what that means. You deserved a good whack to the face. I can't believe how you've been acting recently, Falco. It's like I don't know you anymore. You weren't like this before I got stuck here. I feel sorry for your friends here if this is what you've been like ever since I left. I even thought you might have been happy to see me at first, but I guess not. You haven't said a word to me this whole time to start a conversation that didn't have 'shut-up' right after it. What happened to you?" It was a question that voiced confusion, and oddly, concern.
Falco slowly came around to face Sara and the others. He gave the salamander a questioning stare. "What do you think happened? The guys left me. They thought it was MY fault. Quite frankly, I haven't seen them since. Then Katt ran off. I had to build up my whole life again for a year before I met Fox and joined the academy. I'm not ashamed to say that you ruined my life before I joined Star Fox."
Sara scoffed at that remark. "Ruined your life?? Look at me: rouge teenager with happy future ahead of her turned dinosaur slave with no family! I've been eating fruit and bad berries for the past four years on this hell of a paradise! My only friends here can't even understand my speech! And the way I see it, I have no other friends now."
"Oh, so now you're going to ditch me? Thanks SO much for understanding, Sara. You're right; some people never change."
The salamander growled quietly upon hearing her own remark thrown back at her. She tried to keep her cool, but it didn't quite hold for long. For a moment, Sara dumped any sympathy she might have previously held for the blue avian.
"I guess so. Maybe you never were my friend, after all. Maybe the guys were right in not trusting you. It would make perfect sense, too. The way you're avoiding me... I bet you wanted me out of the way! I think you're lying. You were glad to see me out of the way, and when you found me here, you were disappointed! Isn't that so??"
"Sara, that is so full of bull sh-"
"No, it's not! I bet that's why you're not talking to me! I bet that's why you left me on Titania to die!!"
Falco stepped backwards, eyes widened, as if someone had actually given him a physical blow to the face... again. Entirely taken aback by that statement, the falcon could only look into the salamander's stern face with a dumb stare. No one spoke. Eventually, once he was tired of taking all this, Falco walked right up to the black-skinned amphibian, displayed to her a solemn look of accepted defeat, then silently marched past her towards the other end of the room and the hole in the floor from which he came in.
Fox had no idea where Falco thought he was going. He stepped into the falcon's path, but he couldn't find what words would be right to say in order to stop him. Falco simply ignored Fox altogether and brushed past his shoulder roughly on the way out of the room. The falcon dropped down through the space opened up in the floor and disappeared from everyone's sight.
Fox was left dumbfounded. In the same, silent room, Sara stood with her back turned to everyone and her arms crossed in front of her. She showed no sign of moving. Peppy and Slippy looked around the cavern with blank faces and equally confused emotions. The Yoshies, although not as well informed as to what just happened, seemed to sense that something was terribly amiss.
The fox nervously cleared his throat and spoke up first. "Somebody better go after him."
No one answered. Fox decided to ask someone else. "Sara, ask those Yoshies if one of them wants to go get him."
Sara reluctantly complied to this order, even though she didn't have to. The yellow one, upon hearing the request, stamped one foot and spat onto the floor right beside him. "Yish yo Yoshi. Yi yishi," he sneered as he hand-signaled his response. Sara looked back to Fox.
"Meekachu won't."
The pink creature, having already recovered from the kick to her face, stepped up right behind the yellow Yoshi and grumbled something into his ear. The yellow reptile instantly recoiled from the pink one and studied her serious expression for a long time. After much deliberation, he sighed deeply and carried out his daughter's wish. The Yoshi gave a quick message to the salamander, and then watched with a puzzled, yet concerned curl to his lips as the pink one walked away to where Falco had left.
Sara turned around and shook her head disapprovingly, then spoke to the fox.
"Miya will go."
Fox watched the pink reptile make a short jump into the air, and then disappear like a quick blur through the hole in the floor. He kept his eyes on the spot where the Yoshi was last seen for several moments before turning around and looking for Sara. The salamander stood motionless, her head tilted to the floor, her eyes staring into a spot in front of her thoughtlessly. She didn't even flinch or bother to move as Fox came up behind her. "Sara. Could we speak for a moment?" he requested.
The salamander nodded, and she wordlessly followed the fox to an isolated corner of the cavern. Without even looking up, Sara listened to Fox as he tried to get her to speak up.
"Sara, is there something you want to tell me?"
She only looked away shamefully, and as a reaction, Fox stepped in front of her and forced her eyes to meet his. Sketched into Sara's face was that same helpless, ashamed look that Fox had only seen in Falco's eyes just a few days ago, right before the salamander had first shown up. He again pressed the question; the same one he had been trying to ask Sara for the whole trip.
"Anything I should know at all?"
Sara didn't respond. She didn't even move.
"...About Falco?"
The salamander sniffled back a tear and finally answered him. "Well..."
Only a few shreds of pale light, or the occasional shadow of royal blue provided any clue for the pink Yoshi that she was still heading in the right direction... or so she thought. The tunnel she had followed the blue bird into stretched for what seemed to be miles, until finally the pink Yoshi caught sight of an empty dome-like room in the far distance. Miya hurried to the spot, but once there, she had trouble spotting what she had run all the way over there for.
The Yoshi was about ready to turn back and retrace her steps when a familiar voice froze her in her tracks.
"So, they sent you after me. That figures."
Miya whirled around on the spot, and nearly stumbled over backwards once she noticed that there was someone hiding in the shadows. Of course, it was the blue bird she was searching for. He was slumped into a dark corner with his eyes set to the floor and his face expressionless. Not that the Yoshi was very experienced at identifying emotions of alien beings, but she could definitely sense an atmosphere of... sadness... following this one.
Miya had to admit it; she didn't exactly like this foreigner much. Neglecting the fact that he was the one that had kicked her in the face a few minutes earlier, this one was often loud and constantly critical of his companions. It was as if he were in a permanent bad mood. Miya knew the type. He would throw punches first and ask questions later, use violence before brain power, and was quick to judge others. Without even speaking a word to him, Miya could know all this. She was excellent at such skills of evaluating different personalities, and after all, these aliens weren't so different from the Yoshies... as far as Miya was concerned.
For a few moments, no one spoke, and an uncomfortable silence fell over the shadowy room. Miya slowly began to back away, for fear of her own safety, or perhaps because she could tell that this bird didn't want visitors and preferred to be alone for a while.
"Heheh..." the foreigner suddenly broke the still air with a chuckle. "Well, that's fine with me. Get over here. I'm not gonna bite."
Miya blinked. Now this was confusing. Granted, she couldn't understand a word he was saying, but from her viewpoint the Yoshi could see that the bird was motioning for her to come closer. Unsure of what else to do, Miya did so, while still keeping a comfortable distance from the tall foreigner. From where he sat, the blue bird carefully scrutinized the pink Yoshi's appearance. Miya shifted around uncomfortably. 'What does he want from me?' she wondered worriedly.
Finally, he spoke again, this time clearing his throat before he did so. "Ahem... Sorry about your nose back there. Your father was ticked. I guess he would be..."
Miya tilted her head to one side with a blank, quite confused look to her face. She still couldn't understand a word, and the Yoshi could tell that the bird knew this, but he kept talking anyway.
"Heh. I guess I should really be talking to Sara. She's the one who's ticked. Geez..."
The foreigner reclined against a rock wall behind him, and stared at the black ceiling of the cave for a long time. He drummed his feathered digits onto the smooth surface of the floor next to him as his thoughts raced with ideas of what to say next. Miya sat herself onto the floor a few feet away, still watching this peculiar sight with widened eyes.
"It wasn't like she said... On Titania and all. Of course it was an accident. I was there. I had the transporter... But... we couldn't have come back for her. It was just... I just didn't know..."
Miya guarded the foreigner's movements carefully as the blue bird continued to speak. His strange twitching and quick eye movements were somehow familiar to her. Then the Yoshi realized what was wrong. He was nervous.
'Why is this bird acting like this? Something is obviously wrong...'
"...No. I could have come back for her. But I didn't. I didn't, and I left Sara behind. Do you know why?"
The pink dinosaur could determine from the strange look that fell over the bird's face that she was just asked a question. She couldn't answer, and even if she could, the foreigner answered for her before Miya could even say a word.
"Because I'm a coward. I'm a scumbag and a coward, just like Sara said. Damnit, I should have listened to Sara. I mean, for once, she was the right one here. I've been responsible for this great mess the whole time, and I didn't do a damned thing about it. Fox was right, too. I could have said something back on the Great Fox. I could have prevented this. But no, I was too stubborn and ashamed of myself to say anything about it, because I knew the whole time that I was the one that caused Sara's..." he trailed off.
"...I nearly got everyone I ever cared about killed... And now look! I get a second chance at everything, and I find Sara here, and things could have been like old times... but I ruined it. Ya want to know something? If I could have gone back in the past..."
He paused. Miya wasn't sure what to make of that. The bird then stopped drumming his wing on the cold rock floor, and sat up suddenly.
"...No. I can't change the past. I can only deal with the present. But... what am I going to say to her?"
After realizing that he would get no reply, the feathered alien fell against the stone wall and fixed his eyes on the ceiling once again, pondering an answer to his new question. Miya, finding this situation to be strangely amusing, crept over to the bird while he wasn't watching, and carefully tapped his shoulder. The bird sat up with a start, quickly searched the cavern, then glared at the Yoshi quizzically once he found nothing wrong. For a while, both sat in silence, until the pink dinosaur smiled brightly and cheerfully squeaked the first word that came to her mind.
"Yoshi."
Another long pause. What was the bird going to do now? He stared at the Yoshi in front of him for several moments, both startled and confused at the same time.
Much to Miya's surprise, the foreigner suddenly did a very unexpected thing; he began to laugh.
"Haha! You... You're something else, you know that?"
Miya grinned. She wasn't sure exactly of what she did, but whatever it was, it had worked.
Peppy and Slippy quietly observed a conversation carry itself out in the opposite corner of the dimly-lit cavern. Both awaited the return of their friends while silently scrolling through their own private thoughts. Slippy finally said something in a soft whisper.
"So what's going to happen now?"
Peppy shrugged; a motion he could do easily without taking his eyes from the salamander and fox standing alone a short distance away. "I'm sure everything's okay."
Slippy seemed confused. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean that everything's going to be okay... eventually."
A moment later, Peppy Hare's long sensitive ears picked up a rustling nearby. He glanced to his right with a start, and soon found someone crawling out of the hole in the floor that served as the wide cavern's entrance. The hare called out in mild shock, "Falco!"
Falco Lombardi himself had returned from his brief absence, and right behind the falcon a quick pink blur shot from the opening in the rock floor and hit the ground soon after with an echoing thud. Slippy and Peppy ran over to greet the pair, and at the same time Sara and Fox were just realizing that Falco had arrived.
"Er... well?" the hare asked.
The falcon raised a curious eyebrow. "Well what?"
The black salamander stepped over to where Falco and the pink Yoshi were standing, and Fox was quickly followed her. The fox interrupted the hare's reply. "Um... Falco..."
Sara also cut into the conversation. "Falco, look, I'm sorry..."
The falcon had the final word, however. He held up his wings in surrender. "No, that's okay. Listen, I should be the one apologizing. I've been a total jerk, and that's no way to act around you, Sara. You're right; it was my fault back at Titania, and I admit to that. If things could have been different, and I was the one stuck here, I'm sure you would have acted differently. I'm sorry."
Fox and the rest of the crew were taken aback. That wasn't exactly what they were expecting to hear from their falcon friend. Sara accepted the apology with a wide grin.
"Okay, but let me say I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have let my emotions take over like that. We should be friends. Trust me, if we ever get out of this, things will be just like old times. I promise."
Falco acknowledged this promise with a slow nod, and then looked away from his fellow Lylatians. His eyes stopped at the staircase-like pile of stones in a separate corner of the room. The falcon grimly added, "That is... if we ever get out of this."
Fox stepped away from the group and, in a hint of intuition, craned his neck around to find the yellow Yoshi. The reptile in question stood not-so-far away, with his head tilted to one side, looking quite baffled. The fox frowned with the realization that he had entirely forgotten what had started the argument between Falco and Sara in the first place.
"Sara, what was that Yoshi's plan for getting out of here?"
The salamander turned away from the blue bird and examined the serious expression on Fox's muzzle for a short time. She jogged her memory a bit before remembering herself what Meekachu was talking about earlier. "Oh, he needed someone to fetch something from the room next door."
Fox shrugged. "Sounds easy enough. Need someone small, right?"
Sara nodded, and Slippy gulped. He knew what this meant.
"Slippy, you sure you don't want to help us out here? It wouldn't be so much..." the fox asked in his most pleading voice, despite clearly seeing the frightened spark in the frog's eyes. Slippy treaded back several steps as, yet again, everyone in the cavern turned and stared at him.
"Well, uh, erm, I'm n-not so sure that w-would... uh..."