Rathus McGaff, Imperial Gun Knight, watched in slow motion as Regis Priapus began to draw a gun from within his jacket. By the time the first glint of gunmetal caught the light, his hand was already moving like a blur, drawing his revolver and whipping it up.

Regis hadn't even cleared leather by the time Rathus fired his first shot, sending a bullet on its way to plant directly into the Dwarf's forehead. The Gun Knight sighted a second shot at his target's heart, firing again. His eyes flicked up just in time to see the first shot suddenly curve and flow around the Dwarf's head, like water on the prow of a boat. The second shot curved to follow the first, overcome by a strange force, possibly the fear of missing out.

No, Rathus realized, noting a glint beneath Regis's beard. Zetsurin's amulet. The Protection from Bullets enchantment did its work, deflecting the shots as Regis pulled his gun and fired at his business partner.

Zetsurin shifted, picturing the next few moments in the midst of her battle trance.

The angle of the gun would put the bullet through her right chest, right in the center of the lung. Simple to deal with.

Lean a bit to the left, bring up her right hand, twist her wrist to catch the bullet with her bangle. Tweak the angle just so, and she could even direct the shot into the ceiling above Regis. The falling plaster would blind him momentarily, which would give her enough time to leap forward into a flying kick to the right knee. Regis would begin to collapse, using the hand with the gun to catch himself, out of instinct. Duck right to avoid his wild second shot. Snap kick with left leg to break his lower ribs. Twist left leg up and catch his elbow in the crook of the knee. Drop weight, bearing him to the ground. Twist, stepping with right foot on groin, disabling him. Seize wrist in both hands. Break wrist. Put all weight on right foot, annihilating ego entirely, then spin and drop heel into side of the head, rendering him unconscious.

The ex-adventurer steeled herself, readying to put her plan into action. She jerked and felt a sudden tug on her arm as it refused to move as planned.

'Ah, of course,' she realized as the bullet took her in the chest, killing her plan instantly, 'The finger trap.'

Zetsurin stumbled backwards, grunting in pain as the force of the shot sent her staggering into the wall. Regis raised his gun, half turning to see Musashi dashing towards him. The legendary Gun Knight leapt over the table, arms outstretched. Unfortunately for him, the initiative count had just ticked from 'those with superhuman agility and reflexes' to 'retiring-age cops', as the Sheriff, acting as quickly as he was able, pulled his own service pistol and fired a quick-draw shot at the Harem Master, exactly as Musashi was diving into his line of fire.

The Gun Knight noticed him from the corner of his eye, letting out a slow-motion sigh as he twisted in midair. He drew his hand up and slapped the bullet out of the air; no time to draw his knife. The bullet dug into his palm before being deflected, leaving a bloody streak. Musashi regarded the wound before shaking his head (upside-down and mid-flip) at the Sheriff, with the same disappointed look as if he had eaten Musashi's lunch from the coldbox, even though it was clearly marked.

The Gun Knight finished his acrobatic maneuver with an improvised kick to Regis's shoulder, which might have dropped a lesser man. The Dwarf shrugged it off, running for the balcony. He didn't slow as he reached the banister, instead simply seizing hold of it and hand-standing over it, before continuing the flip to drop over the edge.

Zetsurin took two steps forward, then fell to a knee, wincing in pain. Rathus went to her side. She'd been lungshot. That sort of thing was quickly fatal, but with the right treatment... His hand went to his pouch, before he remembered that he'd given his Potion of Life to Musashi earlier. He searched for the younger Gun Knight, and found him standing with one leg atop the banister, shouldering his rocket lance.

Zetsurin drew herself shakily to her feet, staggering towards the legendary Gun Knight. "M-Musashi..." she wheezed, her voice bubbling as if her lungs were filled with water (actually, it was blood) "If you fire that damn rocket in my bordello, I will personally turn your outie into an innie."

Musashi's laser-focus wavered, breaking off from where he had been drawing a bead on the fleeing murder suspect in the dining hall below. He turned and looked Zetsurin up and down, before shrugging and putting the Rocket Lance back into his Holdster, the extra-dimensional space sucking the large weapon up like explosive spaghetti.

"Your threat's a bit incoherent," he replied. " But a little hot nonetheless. You realize he might get away, yes?"

Zetsurin opened her mouth to reply, but winced, collapsing to her knees. Rathus caught her by the shoulders, preventing her from performing a classic pratfall that would have slammed her head into the table. She coughed up blood, bubbling and spilling out over her kimono, simultaneously ruining it while dramatically increasing the collector's value among various fan groups. Rathus swore and pressed his hand over the wound, applying pressure and cutting off the suction.

"Musashi!" Rathus shouted, "I need that Life Potion back."

Musashi had moved back to the railing, and was staring intently at the chandelier, tantalizing him just within jumping range. He paused and looked over his shoulder, before quickly glancing away. "I... I can't. Don't you have a normal healing potion?"

"Damn it, Musashi!" Rathus called after him, "I can get you another one later! Hand it over. She's lung-shot!"

Musashi clenched his teeth, looking down at the fleeing Harem Master. He didn't look back to Rathus, keeping his gaze averted as he spoke.

"It's... I don't have it anymore," he admitted. "I can't let him get away." The legendary Gun Knight leaped off the balcony, reaching out to swing one-handedly from the chandelier, releasing at the apex of the swing to do a completely unnecessary but tacticool backwards somersault in the air before plunging out of sight.

*******

Regis quickly made his way through the ballroom, nodding to tables and making smalltalk as he wove around the tables. A sudden shadow passed over him, and he turned to look up as Musashi slammed to earth next to him. The Gun Knight landed with a mighty stomp, denting the floorboards with an impact that sent the table next to them jumping, and launching its contents into the air. Musashi wasted no time, swinging with a right hook at the Master of Ceremonies, who simply tucked his chin and leaned back, letting the blow pass him by.

Regis shot an arm out to his left, catching a salad plate from its descent, and carefully twisting and tilting it to catch the falling greens and vegetables, before dropping it into place on the table. He reached out with his other hand for an open-palm strike to Musashi's nose. The Gun Knight tilted his head to one side, narrowly avoiding the blow as he snatched a plate from midair and swept it left and right, intercepting a falling beer-battered whitefish, a small bed of greens, and some julienned, deep-fried potato wedges. He dropped the plate to the table with a flourish, then swept forward, stabbing at Regis with a knife similarly snatched from the air.

Regis ducked back, deflecting the knife with a dessert spoon, dropping it to the table before grabbing a salad fork and riposting. The Gun Knight parried with another spoon, before both weapons went to the table. Regis and Musashi stood, appraising each other, as the Gun Knight tilted his head, catching the single-rose centerpiece between his teeth. Regis punched out at him, and Musashi caught the fist, before both combatants clutched each other's hands, each shoving in an attempt to overpower the other.

"You're... pretty good..." Regis growled, struggling against the living weapon's overwhelming strength. "But... there's just one thing..."

He glanced over at the table, his eyes flashing triumphantly. "You put the soup spoon in the wrong spot!"

Musashi's eyes bulged, as he looked to the table in shock to see that the Dwarf was right. Regis leaped up, delivering a twisted bicycle kick to the side of Musashi's head and sending the Gun Knight spiraling into the orchestra pit. Musashi sprang to his feet, as the brass section advanced towards him, snarling and dripping foam from their jagged maws.

******

Rathus swore under his breath, searching through his pouches. He knew he shouldn't have bothered dressing up. Always keep your full kit on you at all times. Adventurers were crazy for a lot of reasons, but the fact that they slept and bathed in their full armor and adventuring kit, never taking their backpack off was only practical.

"G-Gun Knight," Zetsurin gasped, choking out another mouthful of blood as her eyes met his. "I... I need... I need..."

"You need to avoid talking until we patch you up," Rathus said, his voice firm and completely devoid of his usual drawl. The ex-adventurer looked up at him, her eyes sharpening suddenly as she gathered her resolve. She shook her head.

"I... need you to... unbind me. I have... an employee to... discipline."

"Musashi is taking care of that," he replied, reaching into another pouch and only coming up with a bag of trail mix. The Merrow woman gave him a withering glare, then focused, pulling at the bindings with all her strength. Rathus stared at her as she strained. The paper of the Finger Trap began to fray, and her veins bulged as she exerted herself, muscles tensing. Rathus sighed, giving up his search to reach over and slice the trap in half with his knife, cutting it along the gap between the two fingertips.

As soon as the trap was cut, Zetsurin stood, reaching into her left sleeve and pulling out a healing potion. She snapped the cork out with a flick of her thumb and opened her kimono, pouring it directly onto the chest wound. The flesh began to knit, and she stumbled to the table, grabbing a half-empty pitcher of water before disgorging a lungful of blood into it. She wiped at her mouth with a napkin, taking a few deep and shuddering breaths.

Ruth stared on in mute shock, as Rathus shrugged. Adventurers. "Not sure that a single potion would patch that up. You sure you're good?" he asked.

"''sfine," she croaked, swishing her mouth with a cup of bloodless water. She spat the water into the pitcher and wiped her mouth again. "I have two lungs."

"Right," Rathus replied. "Well..I'd better go help Musashi." And so saying, he moved to the balcony.

*****

Musashi ducked a violently-swung trumpet, delivering a counter-attack to the solar plexus. The trumpeter staggered back, and the gap in the lines was immediately filled by a growling drummer, carrying a large bass drum. Musashi turned and ran, leaping up onto the shoulder of a violinist, who stabbed out at him with her bow. He hopped across the heads of the orchestra as reaching fingers sought to tear him back down into the pit, clutching at his pants and shoes. He hurled himself out of the pit, tearing his jacket out of the grasp of a bassist and rolling onto the ballroom floor once again.

He found Regis across the room, near the stage, and bringing a gun to bear upon Musashi. As the Dwarf fired, Musashi snatched a cymbal from the pit below and swung it, deflecting the bullet into the ceiling with a characteristic musical crash. He spun to his feet, rotating to hurl the instrument like a discus. Regis halted in his tracks, jerking back as the cymbal embedded into the wall, inches from his face. Musashi darted towards his quarry, weaving around tables and excusing himself as he squeezed past the diners.

The Dwarf watched him with disinterest, before pulling a pocketwatch out of his jacket. He checked the time and grinned at Musashi, before disappearing up the stairs and behind the stage curtain. The Gun Knight gave chase, launching over another table and rushing to the stage. He burst backstage, to find an ambush awaiting him. Regis stood tall, opening a single eye to stare imperiously down at Musashi, as a small army flanked him, menacing with frills. The 12-woman crew of Bishoujeux Can-Can Revue were striking a team battle pose, which Musashi was forced to admit looked, to put it eloquently, rad as shit.

The Gun Knight was prepared for situations like this. He ducked into a low combat stance, arms wide and eyes smoldering.

"Ladies~" he crooned, flashing his most dangerous smile. In response, Regis snapped his fingers once, and soon the Can-Can Revue was bristling with both frills and automatic weaponry, as each of the dancers pulled out matching submachine-guns. Musashi recognized them immediately, despite the decorative ribbons and sequins, as one of the Empire's tactical semi-automatic pistols, the TAC-9.

The Gun Knight chuckled, cocking an eyebrow at the Dwarf. "Now now," he chastised, "Don't threaten me with a good time."

The dancers opened fire.

*****

"Do you ever feel like maybe you should look for a new job?" the stage director asked, unscrewing his flask, and pouring the contents of a smaller, even more potent flask into it.

The orchestra handler shoved out with his 10 foot pole, jabbing the pianist back to her grand piano. He adjusted his hat, looking curiously at the stage director. "What do you mean?"

The older man took a long draw off his flask, before letting out a satisfied sigh, tremulous and weak, as if it were a breath of fresh air taken by a drowning man.

"Well," he began. "Most concert halls use a domesticated orchestra, you know."

"Huh," the handler said, frowning at the thought. "How's that work?"

"Less whips, I think," the stage director guessed. "And they don't get riled up by every little thing. We're already 3 minutes behind schedule. How long until we're back on track, do you think?"

"Not sure," the handler replied, grunting as he used his pole to flick a cowbell back to its owner. "I think I heard the percussion warming up, so hopefully not long."

The stage director shook his head, looking over to the curtain, where some kind of bullshit was happening behind the scenes. "No," he replied wearily. "That was gunfire."

"What, again?"

The director ran his hands through his graying hair. "You know how many gunfights the average concert hall has?" he asked.

The handler paused to think, scratching his chin and casually shoving away a cellist who was reaching up for his leg.

"Well... I dunno, but if I had to guess... maybe like, one, two a month?"

The stage director chuckled wearily. "Close." He took another long drink from his flask. "Actually, the answer is 'none'."

He checked his clipboard again. They'd managed to stop Wardenclyffe's war-golem, but they had a whole four set-pieces that had been destroyed in the rampage, and needed to be replaced by next week. The Orc scientist had also somehow managed to sneak backstage and had turned their center-stage lift into some new kind of exercise machine. That had to be fixed, somehow, within the next two days for a concert. He unhooked his pencil and wrote in "fill bullet-holes(?)" to the bottom of the list.

"When I heard this place was run in the Dwarven fashion, I was excited, you know," he admitted. "I was expecting excellence, bar none."

He looked at the opulent decorations, and the smooth, machine-like operation of the wait staff. "I guess they didn't disappoint in that sense, but I wasn't expecting it to be so... intense."

The orchestra handler listened quietly to the stage director's complaints. Frankly, he didn't see what all the fuss was about. This was show business. Killer golems and gunfights were just part of the territory. He opened his mouth to say so, when a Gun Knight suddenly slammed into the ground from above, throwing him off balance.

"Sorry 'bout that!" Rathus shouted over his shoulder, as he rocketed towards the stage.

The handler stumbled towards the pit, catching himself at the last moment with his pole, as clawlike hands swiped up at him. Sweating nervously, he shoved the ground with his pole, righting himself and backing away from the pit. He collapsed onto his rear end, clutching the pole close to his chest and breathing deeply.

"Sheesh!" he sheeshed, "That was close!"

The stage director relaxed the white-knuckled grip he held on the clipboard. The last thing he needed now was for one of the handlers to fall victim to the orchestra. It took ages to train new ones. He let out the breath he'd been holding.

"Well, thank the gods for small favors," he sighed, moments before the chandelier Rathus had swung from crashed into the pit, completely annihilating the grand piano.

Zetsurin began to shout from her balcony, as the gunfire picked up backstage once more.

The stage director hung his head into his hands, and began to sob quietly.

******

Musashi stood high atop the rafters, having narrowly missed with the sandbag he'd hurled at Regis. He ducked behind a girder as the Can-Can Revue fired off another round of shots. The shots trailed off, as he heard the last few guns run out of ammo. He peeked out from behind the girder.

"Oh? Are we done already?" He looked about the stage, which was riddled with bullet-holes, the backdrop sheared in half from where he had done a badass wall-run as they tried to gun him down. Regis looked really upset. Musashi grinned a smile. Good. Idiots like him thought automatic fire was enough to take down a Gun Knight. Even if it was too hard to deflect full-auto for all but the most highly-trained warriors, and basically impossible to deflect more than 2 automatic weapons at the same time, most people didn't realize the human weak link.

After all, he didn't have to outrun the bullets, he just had to outrun their aim. He ducked out of cover, and was disappointed to find that only two of the twelve girls had been pretending to be out of ammo. He rolled across the rafter as they riddled the roof with shots, before they too finally ran dry. One hurled her gun at him, which he ducked without much issue, before leaping down to the stage in a heroic pose.

"My turn," he said, his voice rumbling in his chest as he proceeded towards the group.

"Tryin' to steal all the glory again, eh Musashi?" Rathus asked, entering the stage from behind the group, flanking them. Instantly, the dancers spread out, fanning around to keep Regis protected in the center.

Musashi chuckled to himself. "Just like old times, eh?"

Rathus rested his hand on his Holdster, drawing a condescending laugh from the murderer (Regis, I mean, let's not think about it too hard).

"Are you truly going to shoot these ladies, Ser Knight? Are you that much of a coward to rely on a gun?"

The Can-Can revue glanced at their expended TAC-9s. "No, that's different," Regis clarified, waving off their concerns.

"Well," the Gun Knight replied. "It is in the name. Besides, I've got nonlethal guns."

"Disappointing," Regis sighed. "Especially since I had heard you were trained in the ways of Puroreso. And here I thought you'd be a worthy opponent."

Rathus stared at him, sizing him up before nodding and rolling his shoulders. "Y'know what. Fuck it. I bet you've got some kinda trick up your sleeve, but I'll kick your ass anyways."

Musashi laughed. "Now who's stealing the glory? You want the target for yourself?"

Rathus shrugged. "Yeah, you'll just have to handle the twelve battle-dancers."

The younger Gun Knight's eyes glinted as he looked over to his compatriot. "Ah. I've underestimated your genius, Rathus. You have my apologies. Enjoy your sweaty Dwarf wrestling."

Regis extricated himself from the group of dancers, who began to fan out to surround Musashi. He laughed as he slowly unbuttoned his suit jacket.

"I should warn you, Ser Musashi, not to take them lightly. Each of them is the rough equivalent to an ELO 1500 Adventurer. You may be much stronger, of course, but they do have the numbers on you."

Musashi turned slowly, sizing up each of the dancers in turn. "Well, fortunately," he replied, "I've always hated math. And you forgot one thing:"

He flashed a smile as the lights began to dim, and the orchestra, finally settled in, began to play, sans piano.

The curtain opened, to the frenzied and desperate protests of the stage manager. Musashi looked out to the audience, soaking in the stunned gazes of the flabbergasted diners.

"I'm a goddamn legend."