Note: Star Fox, Fox McCloud, Peppy Hare, Falco Lombardi, Slippy Toad, Bill Grey, Katt Monroe, Vixy McCloud, James McCloud, and the Great Fox are all property of Nintendo. Rita LaShette is my property, so if you want to use her please ask me first (I'll probably say yes, but I'd like to know what you're going to do to her). Another thing: Fara Phoenix fans are probably not going to like this story. She's not in it, but you're probably not going to like it. Before you decide to hunt me down I'd just like to say that this was a dream I had, and I just had to write it. Enjoy! Rita in Love The wind lashed at the solitary figure. It drove the rain at her with an intense force. The lone vixen's dress flapped wildly around her ankles, but she was oblivious to the storm that raged around her. She was lost in her thoughts. In the last few years her world had been turned upside down, but she had adjusted to it. She had believed that she was impervious to emotion, except for the extreme hate she held for the destroyer of all she held dear… Andross. To say she was emotionless was untrue, she was extremely loyal to her friends, but she rarely showed affection for anything anymore. That is, until about a month ago… *** To fully understand her seemingly emotionless state, one has to look back at her life. Rita Vixy LaShette was left on the front step of the home of James and Vixy McCloud when she was only a few hours old. She had no name, and no one could find out who her parents were. The McCloud's had a son named Fox, who was only four days older than Rita. James became attached to the nameless little vixen, and it took very little convincing to get his wife to agree to raise her as their own (of course if you had asked Vixy she would have said that she convinced James…). Beginning at a very early age Rita and Fox were always close to one another. They were virtually inseparable. This was a trait that they carried into adulthood. In fact they had probably never been completely separated for more than a week at a time during their entire lives. James taught both kits to fly at a very young age. They could fly solo by the time they were seven, but they always had an adult with them. Rita always knew that James and Vixy were not her real parents, but they insisted that she call them Mom and Dad anyway. Vixy died in a car bombing when the kits were eight. The bomb was meant for James, but Vixy was the one who got into the car. Rita had been a very bubbly child up to that point. Part of her unsuppressed happiness died when Vixy died though. She became quieter, but was still prone to "happy outbreaks", as James called it, a lot of the time. To say she was an excitable child would have been an understatement. She and Fox entered the Cornerian Flight Academy at the age of 14. They were tied for first in the class most of the time, with Bill Grey and Falco Lombardi right behind them. Shortly after she turned sixteen, James and his Star Fox team (Peppy Hare and Pigma Dengar) left on a mission to check out some unusual activity on Venom. This is when Rita's world fell apart. A few days after the team left Rita was attacked and almost raped by Wolf O'Donnel, a sadistic classmate, who would later lead the Star Wolf team against the Star Fox team. She managed to escape her attacked after a few well-placed kicks and karate chops, but the incident left her severely shaken up. Wolf disappeared before he was caught. The day after the 'Wolf incident' Peppy returned to report that Pigma had betrayed the team, and that James had been captured and killed by Andross. Fox and Rita had reactions that were as different as night and day. Fox screamed, cried, and blamed everyone until he had clamed down enough to swear to get revenge on his father's murderer. Rita said nothing. For an entire month she didn't make a sound. During that time she acted as if she were on autopilot. When she did talk again she had changed into a quiet, eerily calm, woman, who was bent on revenge. In their final months at the Academy, Rita was possessed with an unnatural determination. In an amazing show of skill, she bested Fox's scores by 30 points, and graduated first in the class. Though, truth be told, she couldn't have cared less. Upon graduation, Fox took control and re-built the Star Fox team, after Peppy declined leadership. The new team consisted of Fox, Peppy, Falco, and Slippy Toad. Rita declined an official spot on the team as the fifth wingman (er… woman). Instead she agreed to help out when the team needed it. She spent most of her free time living on the Great Fox with the team, and mostly wore a burgundy colored Star Fox uniform. In the mean time, she discovered that she had a talent for spying, and she passed the information she stole from Andross on to General Pepper and Fox. It was even rumored that she helped Katt Monroe steel the ship that became the Catspaw after the pair got caught in a bungled spying attempt. Mostly she contented herself with blowing hapless Venomians out of existence. *** Rita sighed and leaned on the railing. The rain ran down her face and mixed with her tears. She peered over the edge of the balcony. The space below looked like an abyss in the darkness. She sighed and rested her chin on her arms. If this is love, then it bites, she thought to herself. She slapped herself on the forehead. "What am I thinking?" she said out loud to herself. "I haven't felt this good in a long time." I haven't felt this crappy in a long time either, she finished mentally. "Talk about a double edged sword." She muttered, brushing a strand of red hair out of her ice blue eyes. "He'd never understand if I told him how I feel." She snorted in disgust. "Hell! I practically did tell him! I just didn't say it out loud. How could I have been so stupid?" she angrily pushed herself away from the railing. *** She had first noticed the change about a month earlier. Everything had been going along normally. She and Fox were in the docking bay doing some minor repairs to the Shadow Fox, her arwing. Slippy was busy overhauling Falco's arwing after he'd gotten a little too cocky and almost totaled it in a dogfight. Fox had grabbed her around the waist so he could lift her up to check out the G- diffuser that had been acting up. He had touched her like that many, many times and she hadn't reacted in anyway. This time, however; it caused her to get a feeling in the pit of her stomach that she later dismissed as over-active teenage hormones. A few days later, while they were watching a movie in the rec room, she caught herself trying to inch closer to him on the sofa. Her abrupt departure from the rec room startled the rest of the team. Again she chalked it up to hormones. Over the next few weeks she caught herself shadowing him around the Great Fox. This stopped after Falco made a comment about her arwing having a name that fit the pilot. Rita had blushed bright red and hid in a corner the rest of the day with a book. She also caught herself experimenting with makeup (which she never wore), putting her hair up in different styles (she usually just combed it and left it), and just acting more feminine on the whole. This also stopped abruptly when Falco commented that if she wasn't careful, she'd start looking more like a girl than Slippy. Rita took refuge with another book, and Slippy put Falco's Playbird magazines in the incinerator. During this entire time Rita had found that it was getting harder and harder to actually talk to Fox. At first she just answered his questions with half-sentences. It went downhill from there. By the third week her vocabulary when she was near him consisted of: er, oh, uh, um, ah, and ooh. Peppy, who was a telepath, knew exactly what had overcome Rita, even before she figured it out. He decided that it was best for her to work it out for herself without his intervention (for once). Fox, however; was completely confused and feeling a bit hurt that his best friend was avoiding him. Katt came aboard the Great Fox for a few days, and finally managed to corner Rita. "You've been acting a bit strange, Ri. You okay?" Rita let out a loud sigh. "Dunno. I've been getting the strangest impulses around Fox lately. Probably just hormones." Katt snickered. "Strange impulses? Around Fox?" Rita nodded. "Just around Fox?" Rita nodded again, and Katt giggled. "That's not just hormones, Rita dear." She threw her arm around Rita's shoulders and whispered in her ear. "You're in love." Rita protested. "I've known him since the day I was born! If I was going to fall in love with him I think I would have known it sooner!" "You never know when you'll fall in love." Katt countered. "Besides, you've been through a lot in the last few years. You could have been in love all this time and just not known it." They bickered back and forth for the rest of the day. The argument ended when Fox walked in and asked if they wanted to watch a movie. Rita said, "Er… ah… um…" "Sure." Purred Katt as she pushed her flustered friend out of the room. Katt arranged it so that she was next to Falco, who was trying to cram himself as far into the corner of the sofa as he could to distance himself from her. She also made sure that Rita was next to Fox. Rita was trying to make herself as small as possible, and trying to avoid physical contact with Fox (which is really hard to do with four people on a sofa). Rita snuck out of the room as soon as the movie was over. She decided to take a very cold shower (damn hormones again). When she got back to her room she found Fox waiting for her. He was sitting at her desk, playing Myst on her computer. "What's going on, Ri?" He shut off the computer and turned to face her. "Er…" "Ri, we've always been able to talk to each other about everything." He moved closer to her. "Er…" "Are you in some sort of trouble?" "Er…" She shook her head. "No?" He stood at arms length from her now. "Then what's wrong? You're starting to worry me." He put a hand on her shoulder. "Er…" He was beginning to get mad. "You said that already. That's about all you've said to me lately!" He was now face to face with her, and so close that she could feel it when he took a breath. The next thing she knew she had her arms wrapped around his neck, and she was kissing him quite passionately. Fox stood as still as a statue, and his eyes were as wide as saucers. She took a step backwards and sucked in a ragged breath. Fox stood in a daze. Her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, God!" she breathed before running from the room. By the time Fox came to his senses and ran after her, she had already taken off from the Great Fox. She headed for Corneria City, checked the Shadow Fox into a hanger, then found a room in a hotel downtown. She now stood on the balcony of her hotel room as the late summer storm raged around her. "Damn fool idiot!" She screamed into the storm. She continued to mentally berate herself. Rita was so caught up in her thoughts, and the storm was so loud, that she didn't hear the sliding glass door behind her open. She snapped out of her reverie when a pair of arms circled her waist, and pulled her into the safety of the room, out of the storm. She whirled around quickly on the owner of the arms, and landed a well-placed karate chop to Fox's chest. He staggered back a few steps and rubbed his chest. "Ow…" Rita was speechless. She finally managed to choke out a question. "How'd you… get… in here?" Fox shrugged. "The receptionist knows who you are, and she knows who I am. So she gave me a key and told me what room you were in." They stared at each other for a few moments. "Do you know how many hotels there are in this city?" He gave a small laugh, "I think I've been in half of them in the last three hours." Rita moved her mouth as if to say something. Finally she managed a question. "Why?" Before she could react Fox had his arms around her waist and was kissing her. It was Rita's turn to stand in wide-eyed shock. She gradually relaxed and returned his affection. When they finally parted Rita asked. "What happens now?" "We'll just have to wait and see." Was Fox's reply before he bent to kiss her again. END