A quick glance back at Vedius was spared as he talked, because any more than that would lead to a fatal distraction for Lucius.

A second glance was spared, because now the Emperor's Child had a gun pointed at everyone. Well, fantastic, was he going to threaten Lucius too?

...and that got him thinking. How many people [i]were[/i] helping the Dark Apothecary right now? The man himself and his assistant, of course, but was there anybody else who might actually be allies of his? The Ork was surely no ally of Lucius', at least... and the one tech-priest wasn't a known factor either, as it happened. He'd wondered if Vedius might be a friend rather than a foe, but there was no way to know for sure... his only ally, then, was Xepherial. And he was pinned beneath the Apothecary in question...

It gradually dawned on Lucius that save his fellow Dark Angel, everybody in the room might, in fact, be an explicit enemy of his. And if that was true, then if he didn't allow Xepherial to be altered... they would probably both die instead.

'Shit,' he muttered under his breath. And he was so sure his idea would work. Not that that mattered: selfish as he was, he actually liked living more than he liked losing allies. The end goal of an ally was to keep you from dying, after all... and whilst anything else might add to their value, such as discussions of the past and even possible friendships, it would ultimately wind up being sentimental at best compared to the overarching goal of not sacrificing oneself for a stupid reason. Speaking of which, he concluded that any attempts to get his standoff opponent to disarm himself would be ridiculous at best. He was inherently untrustworthy, after all. Therefore, an alternate plan of action would prove to be just as stupid... but perhaps slightly less stupid than he'd already been. And besides, there was somebody else pointing a gun at everybody now.

Slowly, Lucius placed his stolen weapon down on the ground, kicking it out and away from himself a short distance, and at the same time sheathed his own combat blade. ([i]That'll need repolishing later,[/i] he reminded himself. What a foolish thought at a time like this.) Then, he lowered his half-dead hostage to the ground, stood up with his arms raised slightly in a position of apparent surrender, and calmly walked away from Bravis. He did head toward the weapon racks, since he would want weapons other than his swords in order to survive whatever boarding action they were about to make, but in this regard, he'd have to hope his movements weren't mistaken for a threat. If they were, he'd be dead in just a few second's time. If not, then maybe he'd even be excluded from cursory modification into whatever psychopath Azazel desired of his victims, as described.

[@agentmanatee][@Wraithblade6]