This… was not good.

One of the thugs cocked his head to one side. "Wait, what?"

The occupants of the store all looked at each other in askance, turning from one to the other in confusion. Was this actually happening? The oversized rifle swung back and forth, causing each person to fall under its sights (wait, did it even have sights?) to flinch back as it passed over them. Jaune kept himself low on his knees, trying to ignore the pounding headache in his head, that inevitable hammering hangover, as he watched the scene unfold, ready to throw himself to one side. He fought the panic rising from his stomach, forcing it back down.

Wait. Did she even know how to use that thing?

Focus fixed on the girl, Showtime blinked and almost doopped the cigar he was smoking, staring with naked fascination at the girl in red. "Hey! Could this be one of those 'Hunters' we've been hearing about? Well, are you or aren't you? A cop would be showing us her badge by now, so I'm sure there's none in this room."

Jaune remained quiet. The bossman took a step towards her, smile slowly growing as he pointed an accusing finger at her. "And hunters… well, we all know hunters work in pairs. Did your partner die on you, Red? That's a worried look you got there, so I'm guessing you're the other kind of vigilante we got running around here. Do you know what they're called? The wannabes."

Red didn't seem to appreciate the scrutiny, instead resettling her weapon and pointing it directly at the leader's face. The man in the bowler hat stopped dead in his tracks.

"I said hold it! It doesn't matter if I'm a hunter or not, a cop or not! You're robbing this store, and I'm stopping you" She declared. "Drop your weapons and give up already!"

Her target merely grinned ever the wider, chuckling darkly at the threat, but nevertheless began to back off. "You know, I get the feeling that that's my line. Right, guys?"

His smile turned vicious. "Let's take it from the top, everyone!"

A snap of his finger was all the signal his goons needed to get the hint and raise their own weapons. Jaune watched as Red suddenly - unfortunately, unsurprisingly - found herself on the business end of three pistols, her eyes shifting wildly from one to the other. Showtime paced around as if he was without a care in the world, swinging his cane to an unheard tune as he smiled at the girl.

"Okay, now that everything's set, here's how it's going to go: you hold your hands up, and drop your weapons. Because I don't need no oracle to tell me, Red, that if you take that shot, you're going home in a body bag."

She hesitated, unsure of herself, her muzzle wavering as she grit her teeth. Jaune's eyes flicked back and forth, trying to find a way out of this. The room was starting to move… he was sure he had upchucked most of the alcohol, but what about the stuff already in his system?

This wasn't good...

He knew that she was probably thinking the same thing as he was: If she just fired at him, the three would start shooting and that would be it for her, boxed into this tiny store with no real cover. Her mind was starting to cloud with doubts and fears; Jaune could understand that situation all too well when they first put him through academy training. But he had trained, and worked hard, and now here he was.

Just as useless as ever.

Jaune let out a slow moan as he cupped his head in one hand. His headache was getting worse; he felt as if his collarbone burned, and the throbbing in his head made the situation even more unbearable. The rookie swayed on his feet, trying to remain focused as the leader of the gang checked his watch. He must have known that they would be running out of time.

"Tell you what, Red:" Showtime took a short puff of his cigar and held it in his fingers. "I'm in a hurry. You can just walk away. I'm not going to ask you to drop your weapon, you can keep it. Hell, if you want some of the dust here come grab some as well, I'm sure the stuff you use is pretty expensive."

"I'm not some rotten cop that takes bribe money, you know!" She snapped, suddenly rigid again.

Another throb only helped to further punctuate the agony in Jaune's head. Ouch. Harsh words, lady.

"No, you're a wannabe hunter is what you are. You know how they work, and so do I, so we both know that you. Aren't. One."

He made another grand gesture, pointing at the door. "Last chance, girlie. You just walk away, and we can all move on. Forget this night ever happened. I'm not going to hurt these two," He said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the old man and the blonde. "not when I've already got what I wanted out of them. All you need to do is turn around, leave the store and nobody gets hurt. I'm not going to ask you to be a hostage, I'm not going to ask you to humiliate yourself for their safety. Just go out that door and be nowhere nearby when I walk out of it, and everyone gets to go to sleep happy and healthy. Sound good to you?"

Red paused. She couldn't seriously be considering it, was she? Jaune let out a groan as anger began to bubble up along with his own humiliation, hurt and the water sloshing around inside.

"Hey? Uh. Excuse me. Guys?"

Everyone turned to him, though Showtime quickly signalled his goons to turn their weapons back towards Red. Jaune gulped down his nervousness, letting that join the rest of the things in his stomach. The nearest thug with a gun was… there.

"What? I'm sorry, but you're being incredibly rude." Showtime snarled, frown deepening. "If you need to use the bathroom, you can wait. We got adults talking here, kiddo."

Jaune took a step forward, knees trembling.

"Look. Uh. I just got something say." He staggered forward, straightening ever so slightly as he grabbed onto a wire frame shelf for support. "Well, not say. Ask. Yeah… ask: Do any of you know what nickname I got on my first day of Academy?"

Before anyone could answer, he made that last step, within reach of the pistol-wielding goon..

"Vomit boy."

Jaune grabbed the thug and puked all over the guy's face.

It was disgusting. It was completely outside of his training. It was probably going to get him fired if it didn't get him killed first.

It worked.

The thug let out a disgusted sound and just like a black hole, he sucked in all the attention of his fellows.

Red saw her opening and took the shot.

White heat punched across the room, the dust discharge catching Showtime square in the chest. As the bullet struck, his aura kicked in and the forces clashed, the latter spreading the former out over the surface of his body, so rather than getting shot by a bullet going at supersonic speeds the man in the bowler hat was instead hit by something more akin to a small car doing thirty. The end result was that he was thrown bodily over the register and into the space usually occupied by the shopkeeper with a loud and uncomfortable sounding crash.

Red let the recoil of the shot kick the cannon back, aiming it behind her and outside the store, her hand frantically cycling the weapon as the remaining gunmen raised their pistols, and fired before they could get a clean shot; this time she was propelling herself forward, slamming into him and sending him flying across the room as her tiny frame checked him.

Jaune shouted at the old man to book it, and watched him do so. But by now the gunman he had thrown up over finally recovered.

"You little shit!" The retaliatory punch knocked him to the ground, and he instinctively lashed out with his legs, kicking the thug's out from underneath him.

A puke-soaked thug fell down on top of him, and mostly from disgust Jaune heaved him off to one side, the smell of it already leaving him retching again. He half-rolled, getting onto all fours, and crawled over to the thug as glass shattered and swords were drawn around them.

With a wordless battle cry the blonde scored second blood by tearing off his opponent's glasses and then slammed his own forehead into the man's nose, trying to ignore the wet smack as he got his own vomit all over his forehead and hair. What he couldn't ignore was the fist in his stomach, an attack which made him clap his hands over his mouth and puff out his cheeks.

The thug promptly began to scramble back, not wanting to be vomited on a second time.

Jaune went after him, jaw firmly locked in place as he forced his bile back down. He got halfway to actually standing before his legs were kicked out from underneath him, sending him plunging to the ground. Luckily the thug broke his fall.

With a yelp the thug elbow came around, smacking against the man's raised arm, and all the while the blonde was trying to raise his leg high enough to fend off the man's knee from getting a clear shot at his ribs as the two scrambled to get the upper hand. It must have been like a schoolyard brawl, where the two devolved into some big ball of violence; punching, kicking, grabbing and pulling. The thug let out a grunt and threw them to one side, getting atop him, knee pressed against his stomach.

"Come on, puke head, try it again!" He snarled, raising his fist.

The rookie let out a grunt as the thug punched through his aura and into his ribs, driving the air out of his lungs. Gasping for breath, Jaune reached out for something - anything - and found some purchase on one of the wireframe shelves. He pulled, covering his face as a half dozen bottles of Burn dust clattered from the shelf and down onto the thug, who yelped as each thick, heavy bottle - each almost five kilograms plus change - crashed down onto his back and head, shouting muffled curses over the clatter of… burn dust.

Wait… Burn dust.

Both spoke as one: "Oh shit."

They were rolling around in the middle of potentially high explosive dust. There was probably enough powdered Burn here to level the building and some of the block around them.

Even in the middle of that fight, both realized their mutual danger and quickly scrambled away from the volatile powders, even picking up a few jars and reshelving them. Jaune put away the last of the bottles and then regretted it immediately as a savage kick caught him in the side and knocked him over.

The thug leaped on top of him, using the advantage to rain blows on Jaune. He was beating down on him, but a combination of a tough (and quickly regenerating) aura and refusal to give him enough purchase nor room to land a knockout blow made sure that the blonde stayed in the fight, struggling to put up a defense as he weathered the blows.

Instead of a fight-ending one-two strike, Jaune's incessant wriggling and struggling turned it into just a flurry of awkward punches that would really show in the morning.

But he couldn't stay like that forever. He tucked his legs in, and pushed.

Jaune threw the thug to the left, smashing him into another shelf - this time one with small plastic sachets of much more stable, cyan blue dust. Frost, wasn't it? It was a much less exciting substance than powdered Burn, something both were thankful for, and Jaune grabbed the nearest handful of bags - labelled Instant Slushy! (just add aura) - and breathed out, using the feeling to channel his aura into the dust.

Just like the mages, but it was a simple enough operation that anyone could do it.

He then mashed his palm into the man's neck and triggered them.

The sachets immediately worked as advertised, exploding into a sphere of slushy ice the rough dimensions of a basketball from the impact, forming around the man's neck and side of his head, thankfully leaving his nose uncovered. He let out a sudden - albeit muted - yelp and pitched over, the ice falling off as his head hit the ground, freeing Jaune's suddenly very cold hand to bring it back and slug him in the nose. The man's nostrils bloomed with blood, pinkening the artificial snow, and he fell backwards.

The blonde scrambled to his feet as the man struggled to rip off the awkwardly formed ice cubes stuck to his cheek and nose, sputtering as he scraped it off. First the blonde puked on him, then the two had battered each other purple, and now he had ice everywhere. Jaune almost felt sorry for him.

He looked up to see the blonde spooling up for a kick.

"Oh f-"

Jaune's foot slammed into the side of his head, bouncing it off a refrigerator and knocking the thug out cold in a flash of dissipating aura.

The blonde let out a triumphant yell, breathing heavily as he stumbled to keep his balance. He was probably going to be purple tomorrow, and it hurt like hell, but as he rode the adrenaline high he could only feel triumph. A polite cough drew his attention towards the center of the store, though.

"Congratulations, kiddo." Deadpanned a voice. "Yay. Give the man a prize… hey, Red, maybe you should give him a kiss?"

"Huh?"

Jaune staggered back as he took in the room around him.

"No way..." During his brawl, most of the shelves had been knocked over or otherwise rendered into smaller pieces. What looked like a tube of much larger powdered Frost crystals had been knocked over and triggered, turning the entire far wall into something that would not have been out of place inside a frozen cave. And it had a goon transfixed to the ice, still struggling against the cold. Another had been shoved in the freezer halfway and a third - also out cold - thrown on top to trap his comrade. They and the one Jaune had knocked out accounted for four, plus Showtime over there… what was that noise?

Jaune looked up, and made a small 'ah'.

The remaining robber was above them.

Red must have had one hell of an uppercut, because the thug had been put through the ceiling, his legs dangling from above as bits of insulation drifted to the floor as he scrambled to get up and away, rather than fall back down. In all, quite the scene of devastation. It actually made him feel a little inadequate.

Annoyed coughing drew the blonde's eyes back towards the two others still standing: Red and Showtime and...

"Is that... a scythe?"

"It's also a customizable high impact sniper rifle." Red grinned, suddenly running on automatic. She caught herself, blushed.

Showtime rolled his single visible eye. "Really? That's the first thing you see?"

Jaune nodded mutely. The girl in red had at some stage swapped out her cannon for a giant reaper's scythe, which explained why several shelves had been neatly bisected. No. Wait. Her cannon had transformed into one. It looked like a sniper-scythe, only... built up. Customized. It was moving, mostly because it's owner was breathing heavily, Red visibly strained from having just took on five thugs. A fact which left Jaune felt a little embarrassed, actually.

Red had the massive weapon wrapped around Showtime's neck as he held his cane against the razor-sharp blade. He was holding her off, but just barely: the girl looked like she was a quick pull away from decapitating him, were he not holding a recovered pistol in his other hand, pressing it against her stomach and keeping her from trying. He was grinning, his own breathing coming in harsh gasps as he struggled to keep the weight of the sniper-scythe off his neck.

"Don't even think about it, Red. Aura'll keep the first pull off my neck, and I've got the barrel close enough that you can't save yourself with yours." He smiled ever the wider. "Not that it matters, anyway. Well, kids, I've gotta say; it's been quite the eventful evening. But… given how things are going, I might have to call it early."

He turned to the door, and grinned. The door bell jingled, and a woman in a red dress stepped in. Ember-hot glyphs swirling around her was a clue that she wasn't some random bystander.

Jaune followed his first instinct, and leaped behind a shelf as the ground underneath him screamed as it glowed white hot.

Predictably, it exploded.

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