Return fire is to be expected; the first onslaught Nick counters by throwing himself gracelessly out of range. He's not and never has been terribly adept in the physical skills department but he is what he's always been, which is fair fucking fast and fair fucking agile, and being rendered useless via a bright streak of blistering plasma to the abdomen will completely demolish his credibility in that regard.

He draws inward an anticipatory recoil, expecting pain, but none comes.

Rather, Seth cries out, and Nicholas might not be predisposed to participate vigilantism but his deductive skills are certainly finely tuned enough for him to draw his own fucking conclusions.

He unleashes a secondary salvo, catching the other man's upper arm with the close and drag of fingers wrapping around thick cloth and yanking him away from the disruption with a violent torque of his upper body.

"Are you completely deficient in tactical thinking?" he hisses.