Kuro swiveled in his chair, one hand gripping the handle of a pistol inside his jacket ready to be drawn at a moment's notice in perfect synchrony with the rest of the patrons in the bar actually drawing their weapons as the three thugs at the table stood up. He then took a mental tally of the other patrons and the weapons they had leveled at them - more than a dozen in total. The thugs were already dead, and Kuro's bullets wouldn't contribute much to the proverbial pyroclastic hail that was about to sweep through the space they occupied. He turned his attention to the new man - Walkins - instead.

He seemed completely at ease, his voice lax, and he possessed an air of effortless confidence. He hadn't even reacted to the sight of virtually every single Guild member in the pub standing and drawing their weapons on him.

Kuro immediately drew two conclusions from that observation. The first possibility was that Walkins was like him, and had simply adopted a facade intended to unnerve and intimidate his opponents. The last thing anybody would want to see on the face of their enemy was boredom, akin to what Kuro displayed, or the self-assured, lazy smirk on the man's face. Both indicated the same thing: That your opponent was not actually investing much effort into killing you. Which, if they were running you ragged and thwarting your every attack and evasion, could cause panic or at least urgency in most foes. It was a trick that almost all of the senior members of the Riders utilized - a few were so good at it that they could make you feel like a rat being crushed in a serpent's gullet (Kuro didn't really have the eyes for that look).

The second possibility was that Walkins genuinely felt that he wasn't in any danger. He did not appear to be wearing heavy armor, but it was possible his clothes were enchanted, or that he possessed a rare spirit combination that made him invulnerable to conventional forms of attack.

Either way, the man was bad news. Kuro didn't allow his own, creeping sense of urgency to show. He never let his mask slip. He just gazed lazily at the man, eyelids half-lowered, mouth set into a thin line, the draw of his face lax. He discreetly repeated the tally of the other patrons of the bar, and cursed inwardly that he was the only member of the Riders present. One of the first lessons he had learned as Freerider Kuro was to [i]never[/i] permit a standoff. You never pointed a weapon at somebody unless you attacked them immediately, and you never froze if somebody drew a weapon on you. The notion of a standoff was absurd, a tactic for idiots.

And yet here in the bar, he was amongst the few present who were not currently caught up in one. Still, as long as the standoff existed, he could exploit it. Perhaps the man could be negotiated with - intimidated, bullied, bargained. 

That option went out the window when, unseen, the boy somehow managed to snatch Eli's heavy steam rifle out from under the man's own hands as he leaped over the counter and shot Walkins in the chest. The bullet compacted from the force of its own impact and then clattered harmlessly to the floor.

[i]'He is, at the very least, resilient to bullets.'[/i] Kuro thought idly, his estimation of the man's defenses rising. There was no doubt that he was the true threat in the room. Kuro briefly considering rolling a steam canister at him, but decided it would do more harm than good used against a singular, outnumbered foe. There were too many allies nearby to risk a blackpowder grenade. He couldn't be shot. Which left arrows and knives - blunt trauma likely wouldn't work, if the man could shrug off bullets.

Even as Alan rose, gold-plated pistol pointed straight at the man (why did none of these [i]heels[/i] ever [i]use[/i] their weapons when drawing them?) Kuro levered his arms up onto the bar-counter behind him, lifted himself up onto it, and then slid over the edge to fall in a crouch behind cover. An aptly timed maneuver, as a scant second later all hell broke loose. The man summoned an ice spirit, the air surrounding him flashed with blinding light as no less than three spirits descended on him, and the massive golem executed what must have been the fourth most unnecessarily telegraphed attack Kuro had ever seen.

[quote=Flashback of the Third Most Unnecessarily Telegraphed Attack Kuro has Seen]The Kusagi rocketman bent to one knee, reached behind his back, and carefully unstrapped a blackpowder fire-rocket from the bundle of them stashed in the wicker basket he wore. He took a moment to stake its launch-rod into the ground at an angle using a small wooden mallet before reaching into a pouch at his belt and producing a piece of flint.

Kuro shot the rocket. His men continued to find pieces of the Kusagi Rocketman littered around the camp for more than a week.[/quote]

"Golem! Ignore them, they're already dead! Attack the ice spirit, keep it off-balance!" Kuro shouted at the Harvester. "Eli, put that man into a lock - even if he can't be hurt, he can still be suffocated!"

As he shouted over the bar at the combatants, Kuro hurriedly crab-walked behind the counter-top over to the rear exit and intercepted Helen, hastily grabbing her by the arm and pulling her, and the children, down behind the bar. "He may have men waiting outside the rear exits, doctor." He hissed. "Inquisitors operate in teams." He drew a blackpowder grenade and set it on the floor in front of her. "If anybody untowards comes in through that back door, use this." He indicated. "Keep your eyes open."

He then began to crabwalk back down along the rear of the bar towards the other end, peeking over it and waiting for the air to clear of projectiles and magic so he could join the fray.