Chapter 3: A New Enemy?

Fox gritted his teeth, trying to remain still as he lay on the bed in the ER. The doctor was examining the wound.

“Do you have any idea what caused this?”

“All I heard was a noise, like a ... a ... I don’t know.”

“We’ll need to take an X-ray. Nurse, increase the pain meds. We’ll fix you up in no time, Fox.”

“Urg... I know I’ve heard that noise before - somewhere.”

“Fox!” Fox looked over as the doors burst open to see Peppy Hare enter. The doc looked up as the hare went to his friend’s side.

“Only family can - “ he began.

“Blast it! I’m as much family as he’s got!” The hare gave Fox’s hand a comforting squeeze. “What happened?” The others told me what they know - they’re in the waiting room - but they couldn’t say what injured you.”

“I’m not sure either...” Where had he heard that noise before? “I heard - something - ow!” The doc was probing the wound again gently with his fingers, with a small frown on his face. “Yeow! That hurts!” The doc looked up to his assistant.

“There’s a hard mass here... Nurse, notify X-ray immediately. Tell them we’ve got a foreign object here, so be ready ASAP.” Within moments, Fox was whisked off to x-ray. And the results, revealed to Fox, Peppy, and the whole crew later in a private recovery room, were shocking.

“The mass is solid, and metallic,” the doc said as he slid the x-ray into place on the light-up screen so they could see. “By it’s shape and the wound, it’s quite possibly a bullet.” Fox nearly sat up straight.

“That’s the noise I heard! It was like a gun firing through a silencer, like on the old movies.”

“I’ve notified the police, and it’ll take only a second to get it out. Then we’ll know for sure.”

“I’ll contact the Laser Tag Arena. They’ll want to know what happened, and to keep an eye out for anything suspicious.” Slippy headed out as Krystal held Fox’s hand. The doc did a little probing with slender forceps, and soon extracted a distorted bullet near Fox’s upper arm bone. He dropped it into a metal dish with a ping. Then the nurse stitched the wound closed. As the last suture was finished, two officers entered, closely followed by Slippy.

“They said that someone found a gun near a back exit,” the toad reported. “The manager is heading here with it.”

“Then, before they arrive, maybe you could tell us what happened,” asked the officer. Fox nor the rest could shed much light on anything, and the officers left with very little to go on, save the gun itself, a very old antique. It was actually the first one many of them had seen outside of museums, since guns with bullets were out-of-date weaponry.

Fox was given a tetanus shot, as a precaution, instructions for caring for the wound, a prescription for pain medication (which he ignored) and was released.

“Fox, buddy,” Falco said as they drove back to the apartment, “I totally take back what I said earlier. It seems that was more then just a wrong number.” Fox nodded.

“But who?”

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Damn!” He couldn’t believe he’d missed! At less than ten feet, he’d missed! Damn flashing lights, startling him and throwing off his aim. But no matter. Let Fox know that he was being hunted. It made no difference. His fate was the same, either way.

Fox McCloud would die.