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

[color=5edaf6]Level:[/color] 5 (47 -> 48 -> 50 -> 47/50)
[color=5edaf6]Location:[/color] Sandswept Sky - Al Mamoon
[color=5edaf6]Word Count:[/color] 1079 (+2 EXP)
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[color=5edaf6]“That’s them!”[/color] To the trumpet’s call, Fox answered, promptly drawing his sidearm and getting himself and everyone else into gear. [color=5edaf6]“Move!”[/color] he called, breaking into a sprint in Poppi’s guided direction, who then joined them back at ground level on the way. The commotion, perceptive over the typical activity of the bazaar (so keeping a lid on was out), led them the rest of the way to a warehouse with the garage wide open. The sustained bombardment of the entrance might have made intervention more difficult for them if not for Midna’s pets taking hits for them, for which Fox mentally thanked her as he vaulted over the creature through a plume of flame and smoke between bombings and into the warehouse proper.

Immediately, he honed in on one of the other two firearm wielders there besides himself, opening up on the cybernized rogue among them. If nothing else, Sombra now had a new target to focus on that compulsion would force her to deal with, dividing their collective attention further. The first stream of shots that hit prompted a quick escape on her end, achieved by triggering the Translocator beacon she had tossed up onto the catwalk previously.

From on high she had an advantageous angle on the intruders, even if it meant working slightly outside of her weapon’s effective range. She made use of it by returning fire on Band, Midna and Fox, the latter of whom threw up his shield in response to the first sting of bullet spray at his back. Naturally, she ceased fire at the realization that she was riddling herself with her own shots, and before Fox could tack on more damage with his own, she vanished in a starting run with a purple shimmer, buying her a moment to recuperate and reposition.

The break in engagement set Fox’s eye to darting around for other enemies to fight/allies to aid, taking potshots periodically to keep any less occupied foes from getting too comfortable. It was then he saw the exuberant ring blade wielder make a predatory move against Yoshitsune, unprovoked, while he was down, somersaulting after him with a running start and both feet together against the inner rim of her weapon to drive it down onto him like a guillotine. After squeezing off a heavier shot to disrupt her mid-flight, Fox almost beat his own shot there in a blue, ghostly rush to tilt her drop off-axis by delivering a snapping toe kick to the bottom broad of the blade itself, followed by two rising tornado kicks meant for its wielder. Only the first caught her by the chin, as she blocked the second during her recovering backflip and threaded herself through her hoop in a descending spiral kick in retaliation to knock Fox back to the floor.

He tumbled to his feet to find her on top of him with a seamless, unrelenting string of dance-like blade slashes, both horizontal and vertical, that he was to work to dodge by the skin of his snout or the hairs of his ears and tail, at one point glancing a blow against the minimal armor of his plated glove, but not without being grazed with one or two of them. Fox interrupted her routine with a distracting shot to force her on her guard and chased it with a flurry of whirling kicks to be blocked, all save for the repelling finisher to her abdomen. Swift, agile and aggressive as both fighters were, neither could find or force a wide enough opening on the other to gain ground in their exchange.

“Don’t mind me,” Sombra taunted upon re-emerging to lopside Fox and Tira’s duel with a projective keystroke from every digit of her off-hand and more submachine gun fire to chase it with. Fox found his Reflector to be locked up, and that his other abilities were somehow disabled as well, leaving him wide open to the hacker’s counteroffensive. Only after catching the first second of sustained fire for his trouble did he evasively leap aside and return fire, but hitting nothing as she found cover. Tira took advantage of the distraction to slip her weapon around his neck from behind in a choking grapple, pressing her feet to his back as she pulled away in a gymnastic maneuver and slamming him overhead. He had to scramble to recover to avoid the successive heavy slams of her ring that followed, fragments of the concrete erupting with every impact as she aggressively growled with exertion on the last strike.

With the tie broken against him, Fox was finding more trouble dealing with the fierce dancer than was typical for him, on top of dealing with the repercussions of not finishing the first fight he started. He had contended with a number of blade wielders in the past, but none of whom matched her variable, unorthodox style or sadistic fervor. The key to beating her, perhaps, lay in the observation that her style and personality visibly flipped with the changing of her stances, from jubilance to anger and back with little in between. A break came for him during Big Band’s thunderous clash with another to rock the foundations of their place of battle, lending Fox a moment to knock her away with an advancing outward crescent kick to capitalize on a break in her guard in her less defensive ‘Gloomy’ stance.

He swiftly responded to the sneaky press of a muzzle to his back by turning and swiftly deflecting Sombra’s gun arm, wrapping his own around it to lock her down in an act of basic joint manipulation to prevent her from escaping again. He then threw two knee strikes into her chest to weaken her, drew her back by her collar, pressed the lens of his blaster to her sternum, and pulled the trigger. Her eyes constricted with a gasp as she fell limply back out of his grip, but where there should have been an entry wound was instead a fading heart symbol. Fox reached out to catch her by her open hand before she could hit the ground, clasping her arm in his own. The question now was whether or not it was enough to cure her of her Gleam, for he could only work on assumption for every case. Moreover, if it worked, would she understand the gesture upon waking, and what was her next move either way? For safety, Fox mentally prepared for a negative response regardless.