Nothing could ever be easy, huh. Nobody could ever behave for a few hours. Rich, coming from Melvin, maybe, but the knee-jerk reaction of goddammit what now was dropped pretty quickly.
What! Part! Of ‘been hurt badly before’ and ‘broker no mercy’ wasn’t clear to these people! Abel had made his choice and oh no that’s several choices being made he remembers what Viper’s mask looked like and that wasn’t it. What part of that meant take your mask off and waltz in front of them and oh, everyone else start swinging when that happens! Even he understood the gravity of the situation! And that was why his reaction pivoted very quickly from exasperation to terror!
“Are you out of your minds??!?!”
Ah. In his impulsive shock and terror, he’s gone and shouted something that’ll no doubt get at least some of their attention. He slaps a hand over his mouth a moment too late, with what would have been perfect comedic timing if it weren’t for literally everything else about the situation unfolding. Lowering it, he clearly hesitates for a moment as he weighs his options.
This was, once again, not his problem. He didn’t need to make this his problem. He could just make an excuse and shrink back, and they’d go back to killing everyone who started brawling or being stupid, and he could slink out of here as a coward, but a living one. He should. He should. Basic self-preservation demands he should.
He should.
He doesn’t.
For a moment, he revs up to just start insulting everything in the vicinity, because he’s good at that. Instead, he elects to try an even worse plan, because anything that is hinging on Melvin attempting diplomacy is a sign that it truly has all gone to shit.
“I- I mean, come on, you-were all having such. A nice time. Real nice time before this, these–”
He’s suddenly grateful for the mask that, at least partially, might still be concealing how wide his eyes are with panic as they flit from Abel and the rowdy gang to the rest of the room.
“– hhhhostiles showed up.”
All those 5 am gaming sessions were paying off. Took him a moment to come up with a slightly fancier word than ‘motherfuckers’ but he got there thanks to All Those Video Games that used the term. Hopefully they’d take the extended ‘hh’ as revulsion instead of panic. Out of habit, he starts looking for R.N.A’s big boxy head before remembering no they got super decommissioned which left him with Taran and Haruka for backup and everyone else for ‘speedrunning their own deaths by molten glass.’ It’s hard to tell through the mask, but he’s shooting those two a desperate pleading look.
“Come on. These guys are a bunch of violent aaaaaand horrible passengers,” almost said assholes in there again oh god, “but don’t let them stay here. They’re just gonna keep swinging and hurting people unless we toss ’em out, and I’m getting real tired of them already.”
This is the most nervous he has been this entire time, and that is including the trial. Although that last bit sounded maybe a little too sincere through the nerves. Every time he thinks maybe these people aren’t so bad they trip over each other to prove him wrong, but unfortunately despite this he’d still really rather not let any of them die if he could help it. Sad! Local man has undergone character developments.
“Look, I’ve got a real good arm. Just let me and my–” not friends not friends not friends oh god what’s a businessy word he can use for Haruka and Taran “– associates deal with the, uh… pest problem before anyone else gets broken, and you can all get back to having a good time?”
Good enough. Hopefully. Maybe it would also sound hitman-y enough. Would the height lend him any credibility? Shit. It hadn’t stopped them from going after Abel. Please let the only other rational party members pick up what he was putting down here and back him up. Persuade the white-hot angry glassfolk that they should definitely trust these weirdlsquishy masked folks they’d never seen before to dispose of the intruders? Yeah. They were doomed. They were so doomed. He’s pretty sure he stopped talking fancy at some point which was definitely not going to help. He’s considering the very real possibility that he’s going to have to book it the hell out of here if he would like to not also get burned half to death.
