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Fire Fox #1 - Down in the Dumps


A SMALL TOWN IN SOUTHERN OHIO, NORTH AMERICA
PLANET FURTH
MARCH 2002

A young male Red Fox sits on the bench outside of the principal's office within his high school.  Looking down at the green and white tiled floor, the fifteen-year-old shifts his toes and focuses on the music streaming through his simple headphones from his original, bulky iPod.  The blaring 90s music calms him as his player spurts out the opening fast-paced piano notes of Fastball's "The Way", the vocals coming in soon after...

"They made up their minds...and they started packing...
They left before the sun came up that day...
An exit to eternal summer slacking...
But where were they going without ever knowing the way?"

The headphones and their constant flow of turned-up music make the young fox neglect to notice his mother Ashley storm down the hall to him.
"Mark Ember Pyre!"
Her exclamation snaps him out of his trance and makes him instinctively lower his headphones from his ears, although the music is loud enough that he can still hear it.  He cringes a bit at the words, but he does not turn his head.
"I didn't even have to ask the principal what I was being called in for."  She continues.  "This isn't the first time, Mark, but I REALLY hope it's the last.  What do we have to do to make you get your act together???  Huh???"
Mark continues to stare down at the floor and avoid her sharp, intense gaze long enough for the secretary to poke her head out of the office and address them.
"Mark?  The principal's ready for you."
The young fox gets to his feet and turns off the music right as the song is about to reach its chorus.  Still avoiding his mother's evil stare, he follows her into the office.
Here, the green and white checkered tile is replaced with a dark green carpet.  Continuing to look down, Mark notices the occasional little patterns of dark blues and dark reds in it that are spread about the larger picture.  The secretary leads them to the principal's office, and the large formally-dressed brown bear within greets them.
"Ah, Mr. Pyre.  And Mrs. Pyre; I'm glad you could make it.  Please, sit down."
"Alright Principal Ackerson," Ashley sighs as she takes the closer chair, "what did he do this time?"
The principal pauses and watches Mark slink into the other chair, the fox now avoiding looking at both of them.
"Well, from my understanding, there was a bit of a conflict outside earlier today.  One of the other students addressed Mark here in a less-than-polite manner..."

Mark's mind goes back to the incident, picturing the grassy recreational area outside the high school that students were allowed to occupy during lunch.  Mark was eating his bagged lunch alone at one of the picnic tables, as he usually did, when he was suddenly surrounded by a few of the jocks.
"Well," one of them, a largely built male bear in jeans and a letterman jacket, says with a smirk as he folds his arms, "what do we have here?  What's the matter, FOX?  Everyone else too tired of your kind's trickery to even eat with you?"
Despite cringing at the emphasized mentioning of his breed, Mark simply takes another bite of his sandwich and answers after swallowing.
"Oh, hey Griz."  The "charming" jock's nickname around the school.  "Need some more help with your test scores again?"
Mark's youthful but raspy tone is innocent enough, but he cannot hold back his telltale smirk.
"Ha ha, very funny.  The last ones you gave me worked REALLY well.  Made me fail the class!"
"Well, your dad IS the principal," Mark replies as he collects his things and rises to leave, "so I'm sure he can work something out for you..."
The bear, roughly twice Mark's size, then knocks the bag of lunch out of the fox's paw and across the yard.  He then grabs the collar of Mark's plain white shirt and begins to lift him off the ground.
"Work something out?  Pull some strings?  That's probably the only way a FOX like you got into this school.  Am I right?  Your parents probably just tricked mine, huh?"
He pulls Mark in closer and bears his teeth, the young fox now looking into Griz's evil eyes as his hind paws kick helplessly at the air.  Griz then raises his other paw and shows his claws.
"Your kind is nothing but trash.  That's how it's always been, and that's how it's always gonna be.  Lousy...stinkin'...TRASH.  I think it's about time somebody took you out..."

"Mark?"
The principal's voice made the fox snap out of his trance and look up at him.
"Mark, would you like to share what you did in response?"
He recoils a little at first, but then he remembers that he is somewhat proud of what he's done.  Why was he really even worried in the first place?  His mother and the principal notice that no bruises or scratches are present on the young lithe fox, so even they are at least a little curious.  Mark then sits up, clears his throat, and begins.
"Well..."

Still suspended in the air by Griz, Mark then bears his own fangs and launches his clenched right fist straight into the hulking bear's left eye.  In response, Griz roars in pain and backpedals a few steps, releasing his grasp on the fox's shirt and dropping him to the ground.

"Well," Mark says with a smirk, "I punched him in the face."
"And?"
"And..."

Griz's lackeys do nothing but back up a bit themselves as their leader staggers back toward them, holding his eye.  Now dusting himself off and looking smug, Mark then comes a few steps forward and catapults his right foot into the bear's balls.  Griz's previously manly roar this time comes out as a whimpering yelp as he then curls up into a fetal position on the ground.

"...I kicked him in the nuts.  Cracked his 'athletic cup', as it were.  Not that he was wearing it at the time, heh.  Then his buddies just ran off."
"MARK!!!"  Ashley yelps in sheer astonishment.  "To the PRINCIPAL'S SON???  Are you freaking kidding me???"
"Now I'll admit," Principal Ackerson chimes in, "Griswold was out of line with those remarks, and I'm glad this incident has brought that to my attention.  Still, you're way out of line in this as well, Mark.  This isn't prison, or 'Fight Club', or...some other place where THAT kind of behavior would be acceptable.  This is a high school, and a very respectable one that I allowed you to attend.  Lately, almost on a daily basis now, you have made me regret that decision."
The young fox now just slouches in his chair, almost out of boredom or dissatisfaction with the response his great feat has wrought.
"I just can't believe you Mark," Ashley projects practically in her son's ear, "y-you just can't punch and kick your way out of every situation!"
"I'm afraid it's not looking good for your son, Mrs. Pyre."  The principal continues when Mark gives no response.  "This is the third incident this month.  With that...and his rock-bottom grades...not to mention the fact that he's stolen the answers for several tests...I just can't see a way that we can keep Mark enrolled here."
"Oh please, Mr. Ackerson!  There must be something you can do, that WE can do!"
"I'm sorry, Ashley.  I know Mark is a very bright lad, but...I'm afraid I have to expel him."

Later, Ashley and her son are in the family car on the way back home from the school.  The vixen drives, as it is her vehicle, and Mark is practically punished to the passenger seat directly next to her.  Buckled in and somewhat curled up against his window, Mark knows that he's now susceptible to at least a dozen minutes of scolding torture while trapped in this seat.  And soon, as his mother begins talking, he is proven right.
"Well way to go, Mark.  Are you happy now?  That's yet another school you've been expelled from."
Mark doesn't respond.  He looks out the window at the springtime countryside flying by as they drive, avoiding his mother's undoubtedly painful look of disappointment as she continues.
"Your father and I, we just...don't know what to do with you anymore, Mark.  We know how smart you really are; half the town does!  You're building a spaceship in our barn, for one thing!  You're always writing math equations and such all over the walls.  Why Mark?  Why can't that transfer into some good grades at school for once?  No...  Instead, they transfer into you beating up every kid that even looks at you funny."
"I'm sorry Mom," Mark finally perks up and looks at her, "I'm sorry that I don't curl up into a little ball every time someone badmouths our kind!  What am I supposed to do, huh?  Just let everyone walk all over me, over us, over every other FOX that's ever lived?  We're the only ones around here, Mom, and everyone's trying to stomp the rest of us out!"
"Mark, honey...there are other ways...better ways...to stand up for yourself.  You don't have to be a hero for us, or for any other foxes out there.  It doesn't matter what those other people think about us, really.  The only thing that really matters is what you think about yourself, that you're proud to be what you are."
"Yeah, well, it's hard to be proud of what I am when everyone else thinks I'm the scourge of the planet..."
Ashley sighs as Mark folds his arms and turns to look through the window again.
"Why did you and Dad settle here anyway, Mom?  What was it about this place that made you stay?"
"We just thought things would be simpler here.  We thought there would be things we wouldn't have to worry about...and more important things that we could focus on..."
Feeling as if he's finally getting through to her, Mark shifts in the tan leather seat once more and turns back to his mother.
"Have you ever felt like you...or we...just don't belong here?  Ever feel like there's somewhere else out there that we're supposed to be?"
Ashley sighs and looks to her son.
"Don't try to change the subject, Mark.  We're going to talk about today with your father when we get home."
Mark lets out an exasperated sigh and slumps back into his seat.  Why does he even try to get through to her anymore?

Their car arrives at a large brown farmhouse at the end of a private road.  Acres of wheat crops take up the distant surroundings, while a large metal windmill and a big brown barn occupy the closer open space.  Mark and Ashley get out of the car and head for the front door of the home.  Mark, however, can't decide what will have eventually been the worst: the meeting, the car ride, or what will happen when they walk through that door.
Inside, Mark's old dad, Kindle Pyre, is seated at the kitchen table with his face buried in an open newspaper.  His ears perk as the front door opens, and he lowers the paper a bit to look at his family members.
"Evenin' Ash, Mark.  How'd the meeting go?"
"Not well," Ashley replies as she sets her things down on the nearby counter, "it was the principal's son this time."
"Really now?  That's swinging for the fences.  What brought it on this time?"
"Well," Mark replies this time, "he was badmouthing us again..."
Kindle sighs and sets his newspaper down to get up from his chair.
"Son...we've been over this."
"Yeah, yeah, I know.  Mom and I just went over it again in the car..."
"Yeah, you two go over it in the car after every time.  And you still act up.  Mark, just stop it, okay?  Ya don't have to stand up for us, or anybody."
"Excuse me for having a god-damned backbone!  You two sure don't!  Why even stay here, in a place where everyone looks down at us like we're garbage???"
"That's it."
Kindle clenches his fist and steps right up to his shorter son, who retracts a little as his ears splay.
"Ya just don't understand, Mark.  Until you do..."
Kindle puts out his right paw before continuing.
"...give me your music."
Mark's eyes widen before he develops a look of major concern.  The seemingly-light punishment was closer to a death sentence to him.  He shakes his head, as if to beg for mercy or another sentence.  But his father remains adamant.
"Now, Mark!"
The young fox then hardens, bearing his fangs and reluctantly shoving his iPod and headphones into his father's paw.
"Fine."
"Now, to your room, Mark.  And no supper!"
The young fox looks back and forth between them, then he growls and storms up the stairs to his bedroom.  Kindle sighs and puts the iPod down on the kitchen table.

Upstairs, Mark opens the door to his room, which is made up of white crown molding and dark blue walls with a few posters adorning them.  One has the rock band Lit, which holds a couple of spots in his iPod's storage.  Another has Lunar Lupine, a popular superhero from days of old.  Over the years, Mark has accumulated quite a collection of the hero's comic books, which he now keeps in his room's closet as well as on the tall brown bookshelf in the main bedroom, the latter also holding his CD selection.  The third and final poster is of one of his favorite movies, "Titan A.E.", the story of Planet "Earth" in a likely-fictional alternate universe where a race called humans exists.  The movie's environment, humor, and soundtrack really speak to him, regardless of how inconceivable some of its elements may be.  And in-between the posters, various mathematical equations have been scribbled on the walls.  They're likely to aid in the construction of Mark's "spaceship".
The young fox slams his door, sighs deeply, and collapses upon his twin-sized bed, moaning and complaining to himself while his muzzle is embedded into the comforter.
"Stupid school with its stupid principal and my stupid parents in this stupid town..."
After a few moments, his ears perk at the muffled sounds of his mother and father downstairs.  He lifts his head and quietly descends to the floor, placing an ear to the carpet and noticing how their voices are moving.  It can't be made out what they're saying, but they're now at the back end of the house.  If Mark wanted to, he could slip back down the stairs undetected.  He rises up to his knees and rubs his neck, which feels bare and unnatural without his headphones upon it.  With a confident nod, Mark gets up and quietly opens his door again.

The young fox creeps down the stairs at the closest possible level to complete silence, taking full seconds to simply descend a single step.  As he approaches the bottom, he finds it not as necessary, since his parents are talking rather loudly.  Or rather arguing.
"What should we do, Kindle?  Sending him up to his room isn't gonna solve anything.  We've tried to get by in different towns, and different schools...  Nothing's worked.  Maybe we should just move again...or maybe send him to military school, or-"
Mark reaches the bottom and creeps across to the kitchen, peeking into the back room ahead to make sure no one's looking.  The coast seems clear, but he keeps one ear perked for sounds of movement, all the while he is mentally fixed on their conversation.
"It won't matter, Ash.  We've been what feels like everywhere.  It doesn't matter where we go.  The world hates our kind.  That's just the way it is, and if Mark hasn't learned that by now, I'm not sure he will."
Now within arm's reach of his beloved music player, Mark stops mid-reach and looks to the back room, dwelling on what his father just said.
"The-...the whole world...?"
"You're probably right," Ashley continues.  "I really wish you weren't...but you're probably right.  I just wish there was somewhere we could take him, somewhere we can be happy."
Mark's mind begins to drift after that.  He looks out the window, up to the near-nighttime sky.  His parents say the whole WORLD is the same way, but up above lies a surplus of other worlds.  Different worlds.  Going somewhere else on this planet would just end the same way.  On a different one, however, things would be better.  They have to be.  Tears well up in Mark's eyes as he makes his decision with a confident nod.  He looks down and fiercely swipes his iPod off the table, making enough noise to attract the attention of his parents.
"Mark?"  Ashley says as they get up in the back room.  "Mark, is that you?  What are you doing down here?"
It's now or never.  Mark breaks into a sprint as he heads for the nearby door, and his parents start to follow.
"Mark!"
Mark swings the back door open and stumbles out into the night, tears flying out from his eyes and leaving short trails behind him.  He makes a break for the barn and opens the big doors, revealing something large covered in a big olive drab cloth.  Sniffling up his tears, the fox grabs an end of the cloth and tears it off, uncovering a roughly diamond-shaped hulk of metal with a sealed cockpit in the center.
"There's a better place for me out there," Mark says between his tears as he briefly looks back to the house, "and I'm gonna find it."
His ears perk as he sees his parents racing out the door to look for him, and in response Mark scrambles up the ship and into the cockpit.  He buckles up and starts the vehicle up, the substandard prototype thankfully starting to purr like a kitten after a few initial clanks.  The lights to his dashboard and control module come on, and the engines start shooting fire.  It all seems to be working.  Kindle and Ashley arrive at the barn doorway and look up in shock as Mark's long-term labor of love ascends and preps for takeoff.
"Mark, no!  What are you doing???"
"Mark, please, stop!"
The young fox somehow hears them among all the sounds his ship emits, but his resolve remains unshaken.  He grasps the throttle, takes one last look down at them, then he slams the lever forward.  With that, the ship's rear engines roar and shoot out large bursts of energy, propelling the hulk of metal straight out of the barn.  Kindle and Ashley cry out as the ship rapidly flies out, then up, farther and farther until it is out of the atmosphere.  Mark wipes some tears from his eyes, brings up his iPod, and presses play, the song from before resuming and entering the chorus...

"Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold,
And it's always summer, they'll never get cold,
They'll never get hungry, they'll never get old and gray...
You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere,
They won't make it home but they really don't care,
They wanted the highway, they're happier there today...
Today..."

On and on Mark flies, not sure of where he's going but knowing he'll likely never return.  On and on the ship flies, until its pilot's former home planet is a small ball, then a dot, then nothing at all.

___________________________________


ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
THE YEAR 2015

On a drab and uninhabited planet, a small scrapper's ship with somewhat shoddy proportions enters the cloudy and dusty atmosphere.  The clear cockpit of the ship is pushed to the very front and protected by curvy, blade-shaped protrusions on both sides.  A thick, wide wing extends from both sides of the ship as well, and some smaller protrusions in the back complete its form.  No large section of the vessel is made of one piece of material; in fact, the ship as a whole seems thrown together using the pieces of other used parts and the paws of a skillful mechanic.  This fact is somewhat concealed by the thick stripe of orange paint that stretches the vessel's wingspan, but the rest of it remains a dark, dusty grey.  This successfully-constructed fixer-upper spitting bright-blue energy from its engines slowly descends and perfectly lands on this sandy, seemingly-uninhabited planet.
A brown-cloaked figure standing a little less than six feet tall steps out of the ship, afterwards heading into a nearby cave to escape the loud and hard dust storm outside.  As the wind dies down outside, he wanders a bit further through the cavern until he comes to a large opening.  Here, the ceiling of the cavern has given way upon the impact of a large ship, which has since been decaying in its crash site.  The body of the shipwreck remains mostly intact, minus the slightly bent framing and exterior, and its far wing remains propped up onto the cave ceiling while the nearby one bends down to form a walkway up to the top.  The figure looks upon the crash site and sighs with relief, the enlarged sunroof providing nice lighting for a scrap job as the sun comes back out.
"Whew," the figure says in a youthful but raspy voice, "I was beginning to think I wouldn't find ya.  Well...without further ado..."
The removal of the figure's cloak reveals a much older Mark E. Pyre, smirking and wearing dark brown pants and a similar jacket, both with black and yellow accents.  He then unveils his original iPod and places his headphones over his ears.
"...let's get to work."
Mark presses play on his iPod, and soon the rhythm of a Pop beat and an acoustic guitar begins.  He then starts dancing as he slowly steps toward the shipwreck, every step to the beat as he shimmies to the side at the breakdown every fourth measure.  Soon, the lyrics come into the song as well...

"When it's over,
That's the time I fall in love again...
When it's over,
That's the time you're in my heart again..."

With the verse over and his approach to the ship finished, Mark grabs a dead flower from the ground and picks off the petals.  The remainder looks like a crude black microphone.  Taking the imaginative trinket with him, he climbs onto the top of the wreck and gets out his tools, his head continuing to bob to the beat as he lip-syncs the next vocals.

"And when you go, go, go, go...
I know...
It never ends...
Never ends."

Using the tool he took out earlier, Mark thrusts a metallic staff-like spike into the center of the wreck's ceiling right at the moment the chorus pounds in with a loud downbeat.  The spike then releases an electromagnetic shock that pulsates through the ship and slightly unhinges all of its structure for easier deconstruction.  As it does, Mark places his flower stem microphone on top of the spike, as it now simulates a mic stand, and the fox continues his energized lip-syncing afterwards.

"All the things that I used to say,
All the words that got in the way,
All the things that I used to know
Have gone out the window...
All the things that she used to bring,
All the songs she used to sing,
All the favorite TV shows
Have gone out the window..."

Another line of vocals saying "I'm missing you..." overlays a bit on the last line of the chorus, and with it we cut to Mark now working underneath the shipwreck and dismantling it with some semi-normal tools.  As he does, an old picture of him with his parents slips out a bit from one of his jacket pockets.

"I never knew how much she'd loved me..."

Shortly after, Mark looks down and notices the picture slipping out.  Not giving it much thought, he slips it back in and closes the pocket, then resumes his work.

"I'm missing you...
I never knew how much you meant to me,
I need you..."

With the bottom's exterior removed, Mark shimmies back up to the top of the ship via the downed wing, all the while moving in time and rhythm.  He then approaches the wing that's propped upon the ceiling and takes out the metallic staff again, preparing to swing it like a baseball bat.

"And when you go, go, go, go...
I know...
It never ends...
Never ends."

With a strike from the staff, the wing breaks away from the ship's body and falls to the cave floor, breaking into a few large fragments in the process.

"All the things that I used to say,
All the words that got in the way,
All the things that I used to know
Have gone out the window...
All the things that she used to bring,
All the songs she used to sing,
All the favorite TV shows
Have gone out the window..."

The overlaying vocals say "I'm wishing you..." this time as Mark takes a moment to wipe his brow.

"You never said you were pretending..."

Then, he takes his time to walk over to the other side of the ship, stopping and looking down at the descending wing.

"I'm wishing you...
You'd feel the same and just come back to me,
I need you..."

He readies his staff again, this time swinging downward with one arm to knock the wing off its remaining hinges.

"And when you go, go, go, go...
I know...
It never ends...
Never ends."

As the wing falls and separates, Mark walks up to the front of the ship and jumps into the busted-open cockpit.

"When it's over,
Can I still come over?"

Mark then falls perfectly into the passenger seat, next to the limp skeleton that was the pilot.  Smirking, the fox puts his fingers into the skull and makes it lip-sync the backup vocals "And when you go!" before the singer comes back in.

"And when it's over,
Is it really over?"

He then tosses the skeleton aside and stands back up as the lyrics continue.

"When it's over,
That's the time I fall in love again..."

Climbing down from the cockpit and landing on the ground below, Mark stumbles a bit and accidentally makes his headphones come unplugged right at the song's breakdown.  He regains his balance and straightens his jacket, then he looks around to try and understand why the music stopped.  Mark looks down and takes out his iPod, then looks to the cord to his headphones, rolling his eyes and chuckling as he realizes what happened.  Afterwards, he just shrugs and plugs the headphone jack back in, and the song and his dancing resume with the downbeat of yet another chorus.

"All the things that I used to say,
All the things that got in the way,
All the things that I used to know
Have gone out the window...
All the things that she used to bring,
All the songs she used to sing,
All the favorite TV shows
Have gone out the window..."

The chorus repeats a few more times as Mark hauls the cut-up ship scraps back out of the cave and to his own ship, latching the parts to a magnetic panel that extends the bottom of the craft.
"You know what they say," he says aloud to himself, "One man's suicidal shipwreck is a fox's paycheck."
Once everything's tightly attached, and the song begins to fade in his ears, Mark climbs up into the cockpit, buckles up, and takes off.


HEY, MARK HERE.
YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT.  I KNOW YOU'RE READING ME, INVADING MY PRIVACY.  I SHOULD GET A RESTRAINING ORDER OR SOMETHING; GEEZ.
NAH, I DON'T SWEAT IT.  MY STORY'S PRETTY DAMN AWESOME, SO I GUESS I'LL LET YOU STICK AROUND TO HEAR IT.

SO ANYWAY, ON THE NEXT EPISODE...CHAPTER...ISSUE...THINGY...I TALK TO MY BOSS, GET WITH SOME HOT CHICKS, AND FIGHT A DRAGON.  YOU HEARD ME.  A FUCKING DRAGON.
YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS THAT, RIGHT?
GOOD!  SO I'LL SEE YOU NEXT TIME.

...BRING SNACKS.