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[img]https://i.postimg.cc/DyH88WMW/Kid-s-Hat-Final.png[/img]

[color=8258fa]Level:[/color] 7 (16 -> 17/70)
[color=8258fa]Location:[/color] Edge of the Blue - Black Bay; Aboard the Atomos
[color=8258fa]Word Count:[/color] 705 (+1 EXP)

[color=8258fa]Hat:[/color] Skull Cap -> Default -> Back
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What was she doing, so far out on the sea in the middle of a warzone? She’d never been to war in her entire short life, or even participated in anything remotely resembling it until now. Even her allies--some of whom have--couldn’t keep themselves afloat fighting their way through the increasingly, hopelessly overwhelming odds; literally, as half of them were still aboard a now sinking ship in peril--one of the only two they had. She most certainly wasn’t cut out for this, but now she was entrusted with manning heavy artillery, with which she had zero experience, to do something about their predicament? Well… she entrusted [i]herself[/i] to it, really, not exactly brimming with confidence in her ability to man it effectively. But with nowhere to flee, and a great roc and a dark marine army behind it turning their sights and all their force on them, what else was she going to do?

The answer: Miss entirely, but somehow, that was okay. Just as she went to let fly on the Helmaroc, gradually tensing up with nervous anticipation the closer they came to it, a significantly heavier round blew by it with a thunderous report of artillery from elsewhere aboard the vessel. The Atomos swerved to meet it on its dodge path for Bowser, and the surprise and motion of it all caused Hat Kid’s shot to sail wide of anything at all, as well as throwing her to the floor from her seat. Recuperating from the passing second of dizziness, she adjusted her bandana, pulled herself back up, and readied herself for another try.

A try at what, she wasn’t quite certain, but she was pretty sure it involved the ballista. This required some quick situational reassessment on her part. First, she had to reload, which turned out to be simple enough as to require no learning; it was practically automated--a relatively advanced feature on an obviously primitive design. It was good enough for her, at any rate. Imagine then her disappointment to find that the newly deployed bombers sent for the virtually defenseless Shippy were now out of her effective range, as she found out upon firing once more in their direction. Disheartened as she was to find herself powerless to avert the living ship’s fate, or that of those aboard it, the next best she could do was resolve to keep the one she was on from suffering the same. An expression of serious determination overtook her, and she unchambered another round.

One shot after another, she began throwing steel bolts at any and every dark naval creature that came within her range and sight, which happened to include the odd submarine here and there that she could see thanks to Lens she acquired on the farmstead, pinned like a Badge to her person, and finally found a use for. Of course, her accuracy was less than ideal, making it something of a learning experience for her, but not so little that she produced no results from her trial and error. Early into her counteroffensive, she started to notice faint, peculiar sensory cues cluing her in to the interval between reloads in which she intuited, somehow, that she could bypass part of the process and shortcut her way to faster reload times.

She took full advantage of this new insight provided to her (though her inherited headgear, as it turned out), falling soon into a gradually tightening rhythm. At one point she even discovered, mostly by accident, that ‘Perfect’ timing would result in the empowerment of the next shot, as indicated by the instant demise of the first Abyssal unlucky enough to prove it to her. It was after seeing this that became giddy and got greedy and careless for a moment enough to show her what it got her, causing the turret to jam momentarily as she mistimed a reload. Grumbling in response to her mistake, she slowed to correct her penalty and took the hint going forward not to push it. As she fell back into the motion, she took the first break in her assault to switch to her standard Hat to check their objective destination by distance and exact direction before switching back to resume return fire.

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

[color=5edaf6]Level:[/color] 5 (18 -> 19/50)
[color=5edaf6]Location:[/color] Sandswept Sky - Sweet Canyon - Parnasse
[color=5edaf6]Word Count:[/color] 631 (+1 EXP)
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The party eventually caught up with Midna and Necronomicon, both of whom they found upon arriving at the edge of the forest outside the village. When the Persona returned his call, Fox hadn’t expected that she would have taken on a passenger, nor that he would hear their voice on the other end of the line. He must have failed to notice, in their heated retreat across the desert, but apparently, the Scout took off in tow with Necronomicon when she broke away from the group. All that mattered now was that they were both safe and accounted for, the continuation of the former hinging on Necronomicon heeding Joker’s caution to maintain her altitude.

With or without the Persona’s plea for the bystanding villagers’ safety, it didn’t take much to get the lot of them moving to action once the two giant mechanoids began demolishing homes in search of Midna and their freshly absconded captive. That was all it took, really. The samurai took the initiative, and found out the hard way, as a man out of time expectedly might, that he wouldn’t simply cleave through a solid steel automaton. Others were quick to join in, like their new tagalong, Midna herself coming out of hiding, Tora and Poppi frontlining along with the power couple of Heavy and Braum; or Heavy and Medic; or Medic and whoever he decided to chain himself to, and of course, the Phantom Thieves, just to name the larger share of them. They had power and personnel to spare still; enough to split between the two machines. Fox, however, made time for both of them..

Him and Joker had the same idea, it seemed; ”great minds” and all. He was no engineer, but he and anyone else with an intuitive or learned sense for the physical could surmise at a glance that they weren’t built with utmost stability in mind (unless they could walk on all fours and still function combatively--or in some other way surprise them). Even faster than he could think about it, Fox made for the first-targetted Goliath, dashing within leg’s reach to its closest knee with a torquing reverse kick to its ball joint, empowered by the explosive Burst generated by his maneuver triggering in tandem with contact. He bothered not with trying for both legs, for it would suffice to buckle a single one, should he manage to hit it with enough force to do so. Anticipating retaliation either way, he aimed a handful of Impact Shots for its shoulder joint, squeezing off as many as he had to and could as he backed off out of its way and that of his allies (namely the blindly battle-furious Heavy).

On the other end, Primrose and the Thieves went to work on trying to down the other Goliath. As their success appeared imminent, the machine fought back to remain on its feet, firing off its back thruster to spit out a volley of dark energy at its assailants, discouraging further direct action by them against it. Seeing this, Fox took off, jetting over the short stretch of now caramalized battleground between them in an arc, cutting for himself a gap between shots of orb hail with a rapid spray of blaster fire, then tucking and untucking mid-flight to fit between it. This would place him directly in the line of fire, point-blank in front of the thruster, whereupon he drew forth his Reflector and held it shy of lidding the weapon with it, aiming to return its own fire at the source as the machine inflicted unwitting self-harm. This, he would sustain for as long as either of them could stand it until it relented one way or the other, provided it lacked the firepower to make Fox’s shield give out first.