"Oi, oi, this isn't looking good at all," Merthus muttered as he watched the onlookers flee in panic. "From what I can figure, that sniper is a Connecter, or I'd assume. Taking him on is probably not in the best of my interests, after all."

"But first things first..." Merthus called upon Libra. "Hey, could you do me a favor and make it such that the detonator doesn't work any more? I really wouldn't want that thing to go off." Libra replied, "Of course not. I don't do favors." Merthus clicked his tongue, "Tch. Here I was hoping you'd change your ways for once. Meh, whatever. How does a day of luck sound?" Libra fell silent for a few seconds, pondering the offer, then replied, "Deal. Mind, though, your day is probably going to suck bad once this trade is done."

Merthus scratched his head and said, "Ahh, whatever. It can't be worse than having my home blown to pieces. Alright, finalize the deal."

The brass weighing scale glowed for a couple of seconds, and then Libra spoke, "The trade is complete. Any further offers?" Merthus shook his head, "Probably none, for now-"

He saw the head policewoman (he assumed she was the leader of the police clustered around) get shot in the chest by the sniper and quickly changed his mind, "Libra, another trade, pronto!" He ran towards the fallen lady and lied hurriedly, "Hey, don't move, I'm a trained medic and I'm going to be healing you now." Well, it [i]was[/i] a blatant lie, but officials loved qualifications above all, right? "Okay, I'm still in the sniper's line of fire, but I'll have to do something about that wound first... Libra, if you would, extract the bullet and close the wound. The offer for taking the bullet out will be my physical strength and concentration equivalent to that if I had taken it out on my own, and the offer for closing the wound would be that I will suffer the same wound on... let's see... my arm."

The disadvantage of Merthus' ability showed itself clearly: he had to be extremely specific about the trades he wanted to make if he expected an acceptance on the first try. After brief consideration, Libra agreed and began to shine once again.