Altair hadn't appreciated being shoved aside like some child, but he felt vindicated when, moments later, Wil called out to Altair to save him. Well, wasn't that always the way? People might think they didn't need Altair, but eventually they would invariably need him to save them.
As it turned out, however, Altair was only marginally prepared for this sort of circumstance. Flans were weak against magic; everyone knew that. Unfortunately, their party lacked a mage. While Ari was an excellent healer, she and Altair both only had the weakest possible offensive spells, which wouldn't be of much use against a monster like this.
Fortunately, guns were still fairly good against Flan, as demonstrated by the fact that Wil was able to injure it with the rifle end of his weapon. Altair reached into his ammunition pouch for elemental shot, which he knew would be more effective against the flan than just regular onion shot. He had onion shot loaded into his gun now, and he had plenty of aqua shot and silent shot, but only one box of wyrmfire shot, and he wasn't sure when he'd be able to get more. He didn't want to use his best weapon now, on the first enemy they encountered, so he pulled out a speed loader full of silent shot, dumped out the onion shot and replaced it with silent shot. With the speed loader, the whole process took less than two seconds.
Then, with his back still against the wall, Altair raised his gun and rapid-fired six rounds of silent shot into the flan. That would keep it from casting, although it would still be able to hit them.
Once the chamber was empty, Altair pulled out a speed-loader full of aqua shot, loaded it into his gun, and fired six water-elemental shots into the flan, damaging it.
Of course, Wil had saved the man who'd been eaten by the flan. That was a bit of a shame, Altair thought. He did have the Marksmanship Competition in the morning and he would have liked to practice his aim.