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[img]https://i.postimg.cc/L5r26P82/Star-Fox-Final.png[/img]

[color=5edaf6]Level:[/color] 5 (6 -> 9 (-3) -> 6/50)
[color=5edaf6]Location:[/color] Sandswept Sky - Lakeside; outbound
[color=5edaf6]Word Count:[/color] 2186 (+3 EXP)
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As it turned out, Fox and company had a good deal more support than he anticipated, for every outspoken defector risked throwing their lot in with Yellow Team rather than taking the Administrator’s obvious bait of cyclical immortality. The Heavy, despite being the last in line behind them, was the first to fall in, with gusto. Thankfully, they weren’t trying too hard for stealth, for among other things, the boisterous giant’s enthusiastic beckoning to their foes made that an impossibility. With a satisfied smirk at the fortuitous turnout, Fox nodded Heavy over, setting him up to bat. Heavy and his comrades let fly in trade with the opposition while the two he knew fanned out on Fox’s order. The Russian then looked to him for a plan he didn’t exactly have, but he had enough of an idea to provide him with a simple directive.

[color=5edaf6]“Just keep it up! Make for the camel and cover their exit.”[/color] Not long after the skirmish commenced, the dust storm he requested began rolling in, with Naboris in tow. [color=5edaf6]“I’ll be right behind you,”[/color] he said almost inaudibly--mostly to himself--before splitting off to make his move. With Heavy’s suppressive fire, Braum’s mobile cover, the combined abilities of everyone else, and of course, Midna backing them with a Divine Beast, he trusted his team to have things figured out in his momentary absence.

[hr]

“Not dead yet,” declared the freshly resurrected Soldier with a sigh as he hurriedly exited the BLU spawn point. He sprinted out into the dark tan, low-category ‘fog of war’ of buffeting sands rendered suddenly into being by means that eluded him, forcing him to rely mostly on his memory for field layout and ally/enemy placement. Not that this proved much of an issue for him, for that was the benefit of reviving mid-battle; it gave you the chance to learn, adjust your approach, and try again. By now he had done enough of it to know plenty of ways to flank the either enemy teams, which he aimed to do starting with Yellow, being the critical priority amongst them. As he would soon find out, however, one of theirs had a similar idea.

As he rounded the second or third corner on his path, the Soldier was blindsided by the Fox from earlier, booting down his rifle before he could raise it in response and staggering him with four more whirling kicks to his chest, sides and head to follow. He lifted his gun to shield himself from the running straight kick that came next, redirecting it past him, then drove the butt of the rifle into Fox’s cheek. Soldier held firm, driving Fox back as he attempted to face the bore to his head while Fox struggled in kind to prevent the same. The deadlock ended after a few seconds when Fox gained a hand in leverage to throw the gun out of their hands and away from both of them, whereupon he drew his sidearm, pressed its lens to Soldier’s abdomen, and drilled into him with rapid fire.

“AAargh!” he cried sharply as focused red light burned through him, frustratedly swatting aside the sidearm on reflex. He retaliated with a solid headbutt, which may or may not have hurt worse with a snout than a humanoid nose, anchoring the vulpine to him by his wrist to make sure he connected. He used the momentary opening it left him to sling Fox around by the arm with one hand while driving his head into the wall with the other. Fox responded with a reverse knee stomp to drop Soldier down a height onto another point, loosening his hold enough to take a propelling step off the wall and come down onto the back of his head with an overhead tornado kick.

The grappling knee strikes from Fox to follow, aimed for Soldier’s head, met only defending palms, having recovered in time to raise his guard against the aggressive vulpine. He caught him by his leg on the third strike and lifted up as he rose from his forced kneel with intent to put Fox on his back only for him to counter by throwing himself into backflip to break the grapple and end up back on his feet, catching Soldier by the chin with the toe of his boot for his trouble. As he moved back in on the stumbling Soldier, Fox caught a glancing backfist to his jaw, but ducked with the hit, spun low, and kept moving, throwing a flying knee into his chest that pinned him back against the wall. When he extended to hit him with a side kick to the abdomen and face each, Soldier once again guarded and caught the second, but this time went forward instead of up with a right cross to take Fox down.

The differences in their styles and approach to hand-to-hand combat became evident after only a few moments of trading blows. The Soldier’s way was that of an older man--well-worn warrior--long-lived in a profession that often got younger men killed. Simpler, efficient, and brutal when necessary. No tricks; just results. Fox, conversely, fought like a younger man with bold, energetic tenacity, but with a sense of focus, awareness, and composure afforded by experience. This much they both seemed to have in common to differing degrees, and they were both starting to realize that--that neither of them were dealing with just some common merc/vigilante upstart.

Both combatants went to the ground, Fox catching the Soldier on his free foot, sprang him and himself upward, and sent him away with a parting kick to the sternum. Soldier rolled with the hit, literally, as he recovered his weapon and had it immediately trained on Fox the second he rose to a crouch and began opening fire. Realizing this, Fox doubled back to retrieve his blaster, suffering piercing shots through the back of his calf, thigh, ribcage and clavicle that caused him to stumble into a dive for his weapon. While inverted, he squeezed off a single impact shot that grazed the Soldier’s temple, missing him by the thick of his brow and knocking his mask loose, as he scrambled for the nearest cover.

Morrison fell back as well, deploying a Biotic Field at his feet to self-restore with the moment granted to him to do so, re-donning his mask in that time. He would not, however, allow his foe the same luxury of respite or recovery; to nurse his wounds or otherwise. With his Tactical Visor engaged, he let fly a triad of Helix Rockets at the cover he knew Fox took, obliterating it almost entirely and forcing him out into the open.

Fox instinctively threw up his Reflector to return every round of aim-assisted heavy pulse fire that came his way, prodding Soldier into a momentary ceasefire to prevent further self-harm. Fox then took advantage of the gap in his opponent’s offense to rapidly close the distance between them, split-second blitzing past the strafing gunman in a phantasmal blur to deliver a sailing roundhouse kick to his chest that sent him flying back against the door of the nearby building. He chased him with another dash, not intent on allowing him room to breathe, as he connected a straight flying kick to his torso that buckled the door inward behind him before the explosive burst that followed blew it open completely.

Both combatants fell prone into the room as the door violently came loose from its hinges, a light shower of rubble breaking off from where they used to be. Fox was first to rise of the two, after drawing his sidearm from prone and training it on the opening to ensure that the coast was clear, in case any more hostiles managed to find and decide to follow them in. He hovered his free hand over his chest to pull a Heart, tossed it onto the semi-conscious Soldier, and waited for it to take full effect while he clutched his bullet-wounded shoulder. Groaning, the Soldier soon came to, all of his color and part of his vitality returned to him, but short on clue or memory to make sense of his surroundings or situation.

“What happened? Where the hell am I?” he asked, mostly to himself, as he sat up and began surveying the area, trying his best to piece together some kind of valid assessment.

[color=5edaf6]“I don’t know,”[/color] said the only other person in the room as he moved to pick up Soldier’s gun for him, [color=5edaf6]“but we can’t stay.”[/color] Fox handed him his weapon back by the safe end, trusting (or moreso hoping) that he wouldn’t try to turn it on him this time. [color=5edaf6]“Our ride’s about to leave without us. If we hurry we can still catch them.”[/color]

“And you are...?” the Soldier scoffed, rising to his feet with a hand on one of his sides.

[color=5edaf6]“Here to help,”[/color] Fox replied in short.

“Hmph. You’ve got a funny way of doing it,” he remarked on his cumulative observations about what had transpired, concluding that he had just gotten out of a fight with [i]someone[/i] and having no one else to look at. “Forgive me for not taking you on your word.”

[color=5edaf6]“I don’t have time to explain,”[/color] he affirmed calmly. [color=5edaf6]“All I can say is you’re better off getting out of here with us than staying to fight whoever’s left.”[/color] Without delving into specifics, that much went largely without saying. [color=5edaf6]“We’ve done all we can here for now.”[/color]

“Well, I hope you have something more for me to go on if you plan on putting a gun back in my hand.” Fox took his meaning in that he may otherwise regret doing so. Lacking for a better answer, he simply shook his head and gave him his best point of rationale he could pull on the spot.

[color=5edaf6]“Just that I’ve been where you are, and we’re both still alive.”[/color] It made sense enough as basic reasoning went. Either of them could have just as easily been dead by now. Though, it wasn't difficult to tell that the Soldier wasn’t entirely convinced. He did notice however that a line of blood was dripping out of Fox’s sleeve and down his forearm. As if conceding the matter, he reclaimed his weapon from Fox and drew a small yellow cylinder from his vest.

“Here,” he said, planting it at both of their feet to activate the radial healing field that seemed to almost miraculously sew up their injuries. “Heal up, then get out of here,” he commanded softly (as much as his gruff bearing allowed for anyway) as he approached the building’s exit.

Fox nodded, and began, [color=5edaf6]“We make for the Southern border. Evac’s just outside of the compound. You can’t miss it-”[/color]

“I’m not coming.” Fox went silent with the abrupt declaration, needing not ask ‘why’, for a vague explanation would be handed out freely. “I appreciate the ‘help’, and the offer,” the latter he sounded a touch more sincere about, “but I’ve got my own way of doing things… and I’ve got to do them alone.” These two sentiments in particular resonated with Fox, as he has said and done [url=https://objects-us-east-1.dream.io/usebombswisely/videos/goitalone.png]both o[/url][url=https://youtu.be/HIwLz-qzgBY?t=144]f them[/url] before. Even without knowing, he somehow understood. He thus made no effort to stop him or change his mind as he took his parting steps out, and as soon as the Biotic Field generator burned out, Fox would be right behind in doing the same.

[hr]

In a full sprint, Fox made it back to Naboris in the midst of its heated getaway. He leapt onto the ramp leading in as the Beast began to rise, managing to board just as it was about to climb out of his reach. This made him the last passenger to come aboard on their continued journey as they made their way onward. Once they were clear on their escape, he made his way to Naboris’ helm, stone-facedly marching past the others as he conducted his own head count in passing, neglecting in his wake to answer Tora in so doing. Midna accounted, without being asked, for the missing Primrose, and had already set course for the pyramid where she departed to.

Despite the clear influx of new recruits on-board that marked a clear net gain for the party, Fox couldn’t help feeling like he came away partly empty-handed on his end. He went out of his way to free the Spirit of one who struck him as being among the more important figures among the REDs and BLUs, enacting his plan to set the example he told Midna he would, and now he wouldn’t know if he made the wise choice or if it would in any way pay off. Perhaps the best he could hope for in that case was to have planted a seed of rebellion against the presumably omnipotent; that the chain of Spiritual emancipation and resurrection would not end there. Regardless, it would do him no good to dwell on it with no way of knowing for sure. He would just have to believe.