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Paul had been caught in the reverie of his own music, oblivious to everything but the strumming of the chords...until a 5.7mm slug made a sharp counterpoint to his tune. Stunned and confused, he can only watch as the peaceful atmosphere of the bar disintegrates into a brawl. But he is only stunned for a short time...and then he acts. His face dark with anger, he leaps out of his chair onto the top of a table, ripping out his ruby pick as he does, and strikes a chord that echoes its way through the tavern, pure rage and fury contained within its electronic sound...



...which is immediately followed by him bellowing at the top of his lungs.

Paul: "What the HELL is goin' on here?!"

The kind and cheerful Paul the other patrons of the bar came to know is not evident at all in this wrathful figure before them.

Paul: "Puttin' holes in ev'rything that moves ne'er solves anything! Drop yer TALK, for Deity's sake!"

He had a good line of sight on Gamma when he grabbed on the chair and hurled it in his general direction. And he was prepared to step to the side of the incoming object, or at least make a move to block it with his arms, judging by the way his arms came up to shield his face and upper torso.

And then came the guitar chord. His head shot upwards, the 'fight or flight' reflex causing him to drop his guard the moment when he needed it the most. He turned his head to stare at Paul, completely forgetting about the chair. Most of the bar had gone silent at that point, probably. Y'know, aside from Paul's screaming.

That was, until the aforementioned wooden object exploded in a shower of splintered wood against his chest with enough force to cause him to stumble backwards into the wall. (Running score: Chairs: 2 Athan:0)

"What th--"

He looked over just in time to see Gamma duck underneath a table.

"You son of a b***h!"

Kalis had to be close to this unruly patron if he was expecting to sling him around; you couldn't generally swing someone around without contributing body weight to it. So, when the spin and the knife swing came, which he'd been worried about in the first place, he just continued to lean into his turning opponent. The knife missed the stab, but assuming it was held with the blade inward toward him, double edged, or at least had a partial back edge, it'd leave a long bloody line around his side and over the nearer part of his back.

The bottle, due to the slide, wouldn't break, and the jarring feel to signal the drop wouldn't come.

This left the man still attempting to twist and dance every which way, trying to turn to face Kalis. Despite a hand gripping his collar.

Gammu didn't get to face Kalis, as, while he tried to turn, Kalis jammed a knee forward between the man's legs -a painful blow to a painful spot, unless the Gamms wore cups off the job- and down again in front of his leg. Why? Because Kalis was flinging his body weight forward into the man, tackle bringing the force in mostly up high instead of down low, and putting a leg around your opponent's and then pulling it out from under them made it hard to stay up while this went on.

Tackling Gammu toward the slash meant the armored man would have no real opportunity to get out of the way, and the glancing slash would probably contact higher up than intended, and a touch deeper. Motion forward and into and all.

This was likely to end in a slam into the ground, and regardless of whether that slam was Gammu's hands stopping his fall or his face, the jerk of them not falling forever into oblivion was cue for Kalis to bring down the non-grappling arm, raised in anticipation as they went down, to try smashing the bottle on his head again.

Followed no doubt by random, wild grappling, during which Kalis kept his grip and tight press against his opponent's body to try and avoid him slipping away, hand with broken or unbroken bottle trying at smashing or stabbing, as the case might be, the knife weilding arm if it tried coming in close enough to stab at him again or something.

Not a desirable position for him much more than the assumed drunkard, but he hadn't exactly had time to sit for a tactical meeting before the bar brawl.

((Note: The fear effect lasted for about one second. Think of it like dousing everyone's heads in cold water. The shock might be enough to get people to pause...but hey, I'll just go with what I'm given.))

Paul already had Gamma beat to infuriated, and he wasn't about to let a trifling thing like bullets disturb him. As soon as the gun cleared leather, Paul's pick hit the strings again. This time, instead of a chord, notes fly out with speed reminiscent of a machinegun...



The force of the sudden explosion of sound slows the bullets just enough that Paul can leap off the table and out of the path of the lead rain of death, which impacts into the hardwood the tables are composed of and leaves the surface slightly more...indented than usual.

Paul: Goddammit! Why'd I not think of that response!

Furious with himself, Paul knocks a surviving table over and dives behind it to plan out some form of strategy.

Paul: Okay...apparently everyone's too pissed to reason, so I'm gonna have to find a way to end it afore someone gets killed...

Athan was already beginning to stalk forward when Gamma picked up the table. Granted, Athan didn't think that the table was going to be thrown at him, but that didn't really change things a whole lot.

Thinking quickly, Athan stopped his forward movement, squared his shoulders, and faced the incoming table as it came at him, surface first. The way his hands were positioned it looked like he was going to catch it. As the table drew near, Athan took a single step backwards, the table slamming into his extended hands. His fingers closed around the edges of the object.

His arms crashed down towards his body from the momentum, and Athan took a single step back with his left foot, pivoted on that same foot the moment it planted, and used what momentum remained, plus his body's own natural mechanics, to spin his body completely around.

Now, Athan wasn't much for accuracy, but when he released the table, it flew on a relatively straight path, aimed in the general vicinity of Gamma. Initially, it would have probably hit him in the upper torso if he refused to move, but something happened.

One of the few standing tables left in the Firebrand clipped the table-turned-discus, causing it to fall to the ground and skid, hop, and bounce forward. The pattern itself was erratic, so it was hard to tell if it was going to hit Gamma, or take out half the patronage still at the bar.

When Gammu turned he ducked his head low. In any fight the chance of a blow landing where you want it to is already pretty low. When the target is moving it tends to be even worse. The knee instead of landing between Gammu's legs from behind would crash into his thigh; but he kept turning and rotated beneath Kalis' arm that held his collar.

This would put the left hand that grabbed his collar over his right shoulder. Stepping forward with his left foot leading Gammu threw his weight into Kalis, pre-empting his attack with his own.

Wrapping his own right arm behind Kalis' head Gammu grabbed onto the fabric at his shoulder. The knife still held in hand and having produced a glancing would would be jabbed with a flick of the wrist towards Kalis' left flank.

With both of them that close together tripping would not be in Kalis' favour.

Jack watched as a fireball passed down below him, keeping his eyes locked onto the guy with the Automag out. All the while, he was taking out a barretta with one hand. His knees hugged the rafter tight. The hi-tech glasses surpressed the flash of the fireball, and recorded different debri that would be flying.

He steadied himself with both hands on the gun, which wasn't really necessary for an ex-marine to be accurate. However, Jack wanted to be extremely accurate. His legs hugged the rafter right.

Standard 9mm round. Jack Hand fired as the man would try and stand up, aiming for the back of the knee that was still exposed. For the other one he was pulling up.

"Drop the weapon!"

Jack shouted above everything, keeping cool and not wanting to kill anyone.