Chapter 305: Everybody Gangsta Till Grandpa Swings

"EVERYBODY STAY CALM," a patron screamed at a volume that ensured nobody stayed calm.

A man Nicholas assumed was an undercover cop, pressed a glowing blade against his throat. Guinevere gasped in his arms. Nicholas squeezed her once, the full-body kind that said ’I’ve got this.’

"Put her down and both hands in the air where I can see them," the cop demanded.

Nicholas looked at the undercover cop unimpressed. The threat assessment was one-sided and the wrong side was holding the glowing weapon.

To his credit, the undercover cop did not flinch. He was outmatched by every metric that existed and he was still standing there. Stupid, but committed.

Nicholas shifted Guinevere to one arm, caught the cop’s wrist with his free hand, and redirected the blade away from his throat like it was a toy. The weapon went from Nicholas’s throat to somewhere else so smoothly the man didn’t fully register the demotion until it was over. He looked at his empty hand, then at Nicholas, then at his hand again, cycling through the five stages of disarmament.

Three men formed a barricade between the undercover cop and Nicholas.

Behind them, the bartender grabbed the brightest glowing bottle and cradled it against his chest. Everything else could go. Not this one.

A guy threw his wallet across the table."There! That’s everything!"

"Don’t give them SHIT, Paul. We fight," his friend said, snatching up that wallet.

Paul did not look like he wanted to fight.

"Do not make me repeat myself," another undercover cop ordered right as a woman swung her bag into his face.

"I SAW HIM KISS HER HAND. THAT MAN IS A GENTLEMAN AND YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED."

The undercover cop staggered before going down, taken out by a civilian with a handbag. That would be going in exactly zero reports.

An old man emerged from the kitchen with a cast iron pan and zero context. He assessed the room in half a second and swung accordingly.

"YOU WILL NOT ROB MY ESTABLISHMENT."

Darrow Veyron, Commander of the Kingsguard, entered the tavern at that moment. The entire bar went from chaos to church in under a second.

Every fist unclenched. Every voice died. The pan lowered by two inches.

"We don’t want any trouble. Whatever happened to the flowers, it was an accident," Guinevere tried, still being held on one of Nicholas’s arms.

Nicholas’s free hand covered her mouth.

Commander Veyron’s badge came out at the same time.

"THANK THE GODS. He has a badge," Paul’s friend announced. "Officer, these thugs drew weapons on innocent people."

He pointed at one of the undercover cops now on the ground.

"They also tried to rob my bar," the old man added. He lowered his pan to resting position but was prepared to swing again if justice required it.

Commander Veyron blinked a few times visibly thrown off. Shook his head. Then his eyes landed on Guinevere.

"By order of the Kingsguard—"

He got five words in. Five. The purse woman was faster than his jurisdiction.

"Officer, that robber was holding a blade at a gentleman who was just trying to pass through. In my bar. On my watch. I handled it but I’d like to press charges."

Veyron glanced down to see what she meant by ’handled it.’ The unconscious undercover cop on the floor answered his question. Purse woman was filing a complaint with the commander of the officer she had knocked unconscious. The audacity was operating at a level that circled from stupid to impressive.

"They came in disguised as CUSTOMERS," the bartender added, still holding his bottle. "They drank MY ale. Used MY chairs. Then they pulled weapons on a young couple. That’s fraud AND assault!"

Veyron turned back to Guinevere, ignoring the crowd. "You are hereby placed under arrest—"

"IS HE REALLY ARRESTING HER? OFFICER! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?"

"BOOO!"

"ARREST THE ROBBERS!"

The bar had turned into a jury and the verdict was in before the trial started.

Twenty trained Kingsguard officers were being booed by civilians. This was not covered in training. There was no protocol for crowd disapproval. The manual assumed the crowd would cooperate. The manual was wrong.

"We aren’t robbers," one of the undercover cops finally broke.

The denial came too late. The bar had already convicted them. Public opinion had rendered its sentence and it was guilty on all counts.

"This is official Kingsguard business and I will not—" Commander Veyron bellowed.

"BOOOO!" the bar yelled louder.

"Silence. All of you. This woman is wanted for—"

"WANTED? The only thing that woman wants is to be LEFT ALONE." Purse woman had appointed herself defense attorney and was ready to go to war for it.

The bartender nodded so hard his neck cracked. "What she said, officer."

"That’s Commander to you," Commander Veyron said, voice clipped.

The title correction landed on a room that could not have cared less about rank if rank had been on fire.

"This is official Kingsguard business and I will not—"

"OFFICIAL BUSINESS? Does that mean these robbers are undercover?"

The question connected two dots that should never have been connected and the connection produced a conclusion so wrong it circled all the way back to reasonable.

Veyron looked at his men. "Tell me you showed your badges."

Nobody spoke. One man looked at his boots. Another suddenly needed to inspect the ceiling. To be fair, they were used to wearing glowing armor suits and the badge was usually just decorative.

Veyron pinched the bridge of his nose with the energy of a Commander who made that part clear.

"Show them your badges," he ordered.

Twenty hands patted twenty pockets. Badges came out. It was the most synchronized thing the unit had done all night.

"That would have been useful to know, Commander. You should also know your men drank four rounds of my best ale and tipped well."

"When I said undercover—" Veyron started before his voice trailed off. "Who authorized the drinking?"

Twenty men pointed at twenty different people. Three pointed at each other. One pointed at the bartender.

Veyron’s eye twitched. "The brief specifically said no drinking. I said no drinking. I wrote it down. I made you repeat it."

One cop raised his hand. "It was for the cover, Commander. Nobody sits in a bar without ordering."

The logic was sound. The execution had lapped sound, mugged it, and dumped the body around round two.

Veyron stared at him long enough to wilt flowers. Pun intended.