"Shh. Down," says Vernon, with his hand on her shoulder.

"I'll be fine," he tells her, with a small smile, sounding like he genuinely believes it.

"We'll see about that," says the police officer, stepping out of the way to let him leave the place and then following him out.

Approximately a second after they're outside, every other person in the diner --

-- Except one, who is confused and alarmed --

-- absolutely pulls out their weapons and starts plotting a counterattack.

Not that this is all that obvious from the outside, of course.

They're professionals.

They know this town, they built this town, and some faraway idiots have just shown up and acted like they own the place and get to wave guns around and get whatever it is that they want in the blink of an eye. Maybe that garbage works around Julai, but here? No sir.

Those with long ranged suited weaponry go above and prepare a proper ambush that will put each and every one of those entitled city fuckers under the ground, and those with smaller, more easily concealed weaponry cover the available escape routes so that there will be none of that either.

Vernon, for his part, is sticking right by the very woefully unarmed woman who is not at all prepared for this kind of situation. He half drags her behind a bar and watches the entrance, pistol drawn.

And from above, there are many, many eyes on Zash and his new 'friends.'

After walking a bit Zash stops and says, "Please don't shoot!" very very loudly.

"...what? What are you talking about?"

Yeah, no, he's not being obeyed. This is only a little bit about him.

Bang bang bang bang, come well aimed shots from various abovewards directions.

Oh, damnit. He supposes that's fair, really.

Anyway, he moves.

You'd be excused for thinking what's happening is less "movement" and more "teleportation". It takes less time than anyone here has to properly process visual input, but here's what happens.

He starts dashing towards the policemen in front of him. While he does that, he literally breaks two football-sized chunks of rock from the ground with well-aimed kicks; those chunks break into pieces that just happen to successfully intercept many of the bullets coming their way. Then, he reaches the policemen before the first bullet has had enough time to reach them and pushes them out of the way.

And as for the remaining bullets that would have hit the officers behind him, those he shoots straight out of the air.

"DAMN IT, ZASH," yells someone who is now extremely annoyed with him. "This is our town!! Let us handle our business!"

There are more bullets, but these are less well aimed, and with Zash's interference, just as unlikely to hit their intended targets.

Talking isn't going to help. He's probably at minimum dislocated some bones of these officers, with the rapid movement, but it's less dire than it looks: his movement isn't just fast, it seems to be slightly precognitive, with him seemingly knowing where people are going to shoot before they decide to do it.

The officers are extremely confused and terrified, but Zash doesn't have time for that either. He's going to find shelter, is what he'll do, so that they're less sitting ducks.

Hopefully the Jeneorans will decide to conserve their bullets once it becomes obvious they will not succeed. Bullets are very expensive; you can buy two whole slices of pizza for the price of one.

Yeah, fine, they'll stop. But there will be some more yelling. From various sources in various directions.

"My kid lives here, those fuckers aren't allowed to just walk in like they own the place and threaten to shoot her!!"

  "If we can't kill 'em we're absolutely getting their stuff, fuck Julai!"

    "And let 'em wander home naked to teach 'em a lesson!!"

"Nah, shoot 'em, it's been a while since we've had heads to mount on pikes, Julai Military Police would scare the scavengers off for weeks!"

This continues to be fair enough, and Zash continues to not want anyone to die on account of him. He lifts a finger to his lips to make sure the officers will sit tight and be quiet and then he'll attempt to go back to where the Jeneorans are, via a circuitous route that will hopefully not allow them to find their quarry.

There are absolutely a couple of the short range folks who'd cut off escape routes that are trying to do so, so he'd better head them off, too.

The rest are generally agreed that even if Zash is going to demand these people make it out alive, they will not make it out with all of their stuff. Or their clothes. There's currently a hotly contested argument about who gets the captain's sunglasses. Some others are still pushing for DEATH.

"There's a $$6,000,000 bounty on my head," is what he says after this argument's been going for a while.

That shuts them all up.

"Hell, we could buy a whole new plant for that..." observes one.

  "And then what, huh? You think we'll find anyone else that will fix it again after we sell the last guy who did off?!"

"He did a shit job of it last time! Hasn't been five years and the damn thing's busted again!"

    "It don't matter if they were promised a one way express trip to Earth itself, you don't fuck with Jeneora!!!"

  "I STILL GET THAT FUCKER'S GLASSES."

He knows what he'd need to say. He knows these people, he knows what each of them care about, he knows how he'd convince them, what to argue. He thinks he probably wouldn't even need to threaten anyone. It's just that...

...he doesn't really deserve it. He doesn't deserve to try to convince them. So there's only one thing he can say.

"Just please don't kill them. They're here because of me, I know they were assholes who tried to mess with Jeneora but if it weren't for me they wouldn't be here. It's my fault. So just... don't kill them, please."

"Zash, you're too damn idealistic for your own good. Those slugs don't deserve your martyrdom," says Rosa.

"I mean, who cares about those idiots now, there's $$6,000,000 on the line --"

  "Yeah? And you think you can take him in, genius?"

"Look at him! He'd probably let us if we wove him a sad enough story!!"

  "But then his fancy wife would kick up a fuss and then we'd have citygoers sniffing around all over the place--!"