NEW YORK — Sean "Puffy" Combs fired a weapon during an altercation in a crowded nightclub, a woman shot in the face during the incident testified Monday at the rap mogul's bribery and gun possession trial.

"I saw his arm coming up with a black gun," Natania Reuben told jurors. The 30-year-old hotel clerk from New Jersey choked back sobs as she recalled seeing two muzzle flashes and then feeling a terrible pain in her cheek.

"It felt like a flaming hot sledgehammer hitting me in the face," she said, her voice shaking. "Blood just began pouring out of my face and I looked up to the sky and said, 'Oh, God, don't take me, I'm not ready to go.'"

As she dissolved into tears, a derisive groan rose from the back of the court where Combs' family, publicists and other supporters were seated. At the defense table, the music executive shook his head and stared intently at a page in the miniature New Testament he has carried with him since the first day of jury selection.

Despite the best efforts of his lawyers and public relations staff — who made separate attempts to destroy Reuben's credibility — it was a damaging day for Combs. Reuben was the second witness to tell jurors that the Bad Boy Entertainment CEO had a gun during a 1999 fracas at a Times Square disco, Club New York, but unlike the previous witness, whose account crumbled under cross-examination, Reuben stuck to her story.

"Why are you trying to change my testimony, sir?" she barked at a lawyer for Combs' co-defendant and protege, Jamal "Shyne" Barrow, when the attorney questioned whether she was certain she had seen Combs and Barrow fire weapons.

As far back as pretrial hearings, the defense was calling Reuben a fraud and promising to shred her reputation during cross-examination. But Combs' lawyer Benjamin Brafman had little to show for his two-hour grilling of Reuben. He seized on the $150 million civil suit she has pending against Combs and suggested her testimony was motivated by money, but Reuben was unapologetic and never wavered in her account.

The divorced mother of two boys said she and several girlfriends went to the club in the early hours of Dec. 27, 1999, for the weekly "Hot Chocolate" party. After about an hour, she noticed Combs and his entourage — which included girlfriend Jennifer Lopez and co-defendants Barrow and Anthony "Wolf" Jones — barreling through the club toward the exit. She said they moved with "machismo" pushing other patrons out of the way and causing the entire crowd to sway with their shoves.

"We were basically trying to hold our ground," she said.

Near the bar, she testified, Combs' group encountered another group, and nasty words were exchanged. She saw money — apparently thrown at Combs in a sign of disrespect — falling to the ground. When she looked up again, she said, both Barrow and Combs' pulled weapons. She said she heard "bam bam" and saw muzzle flashes four feet apart.

"They both fired," she said.

An instant later, she told jurors, she felt the bullet's impact. As the club descended into chaos, she was knocked to the ground and trampled, she said.

"I thought I was going to bleed to death," she testified. The jury of seven men and five women paid close attention as she described stumbling through the club, looking for help. People were reviled by her injury, she said, and covered their faces in horror.

A bullet had passed through her cheek and nose and lodged in the back of her head at the base of her spine. She told jurors that despite several surgeries, seven bullet fragments remain in her skull and she suffers headaches and seizures because of the injuries.

The tall black woman who goes by the name Eboné spoke in a strong, confident voice and seemed to anticipate Brafman's lines of questioning before he could carry them out. When he asked if anyone was standing in front of her in the packed club during the fight, she shot back, "If somebody was in front of me, I wouldn't have been shot. They would've been shot."

The defense had hoped to introduce evidence about Reuben's appearance on "The People's Court." Brafman claimed the show — taped before the shooting and aired after — demonstrated her "devious mind." Reuben, who owned a salon in Brooklyn, sued her landlord for failing to provide adequate heat and television Judge Jerry Sheindlin awarded her $115, the cost of a space heater. Before the show, Reuben had a friend pose as a potential customer who left because of the lack of heat in the salon. Another friend taped the scene and Reuben brought it with her to the taping of the show. Brafman argued over prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos' objections that the jury should hear that she fabricated videotape evidence to help her case.

State Supreme Court Judge Charles Solomon said he wanted to mull a decision over lunch, but Combs' publicists didn't wait. They handed reporters exiting the courtroom a tape of the show and a tip sheet outlining her alleged bad behavior on the show.

After lunch, Solomon ruled the jury wouldn't see the tape or hear about the allegations. Television news viewers in the city, however, were another matter. Clips of Reuben's appearance on "The People's Court" rolled on the evening news.

Despite its difficulties Monday, the defense is expected to continue its assaults on Reuben's testimony. Brafman ticked off a list of Reuben's friends and acquaintances and asked if she had ever told them she did not remember the shooting. "Absolutely not," she said.

Brafman later hinted that he would call these people and they would tell another story. Reuben seemed nonplussed.

"Have a nice day," she said to Brafman as she left the stand.