Christmas Special Request: Bar Fight

Can occur at pretty much any point between arriving in Torim Harbor and Phaeroh's attack on Dahngrest. Most likely occurred in Dahngrest, maybe right after the infamous Prank in Arcturus Inn.

I don't know what the legal drinking age would be in Terca Lumireis, but for the fic's sake I'm lowering it. Besides, I don't think it would really be 21 there...

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FTaBV Omake: Two Trouble Magnets

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So I was in a situation I hadn't been expecting to deal with for another year or so.

Yuri took me out drinking.

He brought me because I was the only other person in the group legally old enough to drink. Apparently the legal age here was eighteen, and when I thought about it I wasn't too surprised. Not like there were any concerns about drunk driving here, and if people as young as Karol could risk their lives hunting monsters, why not let them drink a bit earlier?

Technically he could have brought Estelle, but we didn't even have to discuss why it would be a bad idea to bring the naïve princess to a bar.

So it was just Yuri and me sitting at the bar, Repede gnawing at something while he lay at the swordsman's feet. I wondered just what I was going to do. Peer pressure made me consider buying something to just nurse all night so I'd be left alone. I'm one of those rare people who wasn't interested in partying the moment she could drink legally. No running off to Canada for an early celebration, no getting it from an older friend, and no sneaking a taste of my parents' wine or Mike's Hard Lemonade.

I snorted. My parents raised such responsible children, my oldest brother didn't have any alcohol til Christmas Eve when he was twenty two. And that was just a sip of something my aunt had whipped up.

Well, I was a college student who'd ignored my peers before, no reason to let the new environment shake my resolve. Besides, if I got drunk who knew what would happen? With no prior experience I had no clue what kind of drunk I would turn out to be. Worst case scenario, a chatty one who couldn't keep secrets.

"What'll it be?" the bartender asked me. He'd already gotten Yuri's order while I'd been debating with myself.

"Something non-alcoholic," I said simply. That was met with raised eyebrows from both of them, but the bartender didn't comment. Moments later I was sipping at something fruity.

"That really all you're gonna have?" Yuri asked me.

I nodded aaand-yeah, I had an excuse. "I grew up with my uncle in the forest, remember? I haven't had many opportunities to drink before, and I'd hate to wake up early and travel with a hangover."

"Huh, so you can be sensible sometimes." As if to disprove his point I stuck my tongue out at him childishly before taking another sip.

Some time later I had finished my drink and gotten started on a second. The bartender had given me something different but still oddly fruity, I trusted it was still safe. I hadn't been paying attention to how much Yuri had been drinking, I'd been decidedly ignoring him since one of the waitresses started flirting shamelessly with him.

"Chick-magnet hair..." I muttered.

"You say something?" he glanced at me, missing the way the waitress was pouting at the lack of attention.

"Not a thing..." He shrugged and went back to completely not understanding the girl's hints about getting a room.

"I already have one." Oh, Yuri, you and your obliviousness...

"We can go there, if you like." Coy batting of eyelashes.

"But I'm already sharing it with someone." Blank look that doesn't get it. He flirts with Judith in the game, doesn't he? Maybe he was just pretending he didn't know what the girl wanted... Yeah, cuz with Judith they both know it's just for fun...

"You sharing it with her?"

"Leave me out of this, I'm just a drinking buddy tonight."

The girl eventually had to give up as the customers at the tables needed her attention. Though whenever she walked by or thought Yuri was looking she'd add an extra sway to her hips or a coquettish wink. The peace didn't last long, however. A middle aged man lurched over to slump next to Yuri and started to hit on him very loudly and obnoxiously.

"You've had too much to drink if you can't tell I'm a guy!"

"Yer notta guy! Tha' feller next to ya's the guy!" A finger jabbed forward to point at me, drawing listless patterns in the air as the man hiccuped.

"Excuse me?" I could not, repeat, could not comprehend. If Yuri looked like a woman to the drunk, I could see that, but how did I look like a man? "Just what about me makes you think that?"

"Ya don't got femernin charms!" He made a gesture that might have been the exaggerated outline of a voluptuous woman.

"What charms?" I pointed to Yuri, "Can't you tell he has even less of those 'charms' than me?" Yuri looked like he couldn't decide if he should be amused by this exchange or offended. He was being called a woman after all, that had to hurt his pride.

"What're ya talkin' about, lad? Ya don't got charms!" He lurched again with a hand held out and, oh hell, and tried to feel at my chest. In my shock and get away reflex, I jolted back in my seat and threw up one arm to knock his hands away. But I also fell off my stool onto the floor in the process. Yuri had grabbed the man anyway to keep him from feeling me up, but was openly laughing at me.

"Oh, quit it," I grumbled at him while the drunkard was carried back to the table he'd apparently been sitting at with his own companions. "This only happened because you're too popular!" Drat, I'd also knocked over my drink.

"Aw, don't be so hard on him, miss." A man with a neatly trimmed goatee drawled. "Here, a free round for both of you, to apologize for my friend's rudeness just now." He placed two drinks before Yuri and me. Still feeling embarrassed for the scene, I gulped it quickly without thinking to ask what it was. Then I spent a moment coughing.

"Woah, you okay?"

"Yeah, fine, jus' drank to fast an' it went down the wrong pipe..." Next sip I was more careful. This tastes weird, but I've finished other drinks I didn't like before...

"Your friend is a lively one, isn't she?" Goatee commented to Yuri.

"That's one way of putting it." This doesn't taste so bad once you get used to it...

The man stroked his goatee and looked at Yuri appraisingly. "Haven't I seen you somewhere...?"

"I don't remember meeting you or your friend before," Yuri dismissed him casually. He tasted the drink the man had given us and then frowned at his glass. "You didn't give her the same thing, did you?"

The man with the goatee...Screw it, he's Goat man now. Goat for short. Goat blinked at the change in topic. "Er, yes. Is that a problem?"

"I hope not." Why is Yuri looking at me like that? It's like he thinks I'm a bomb about to blow... Though there was an odd buzzing feeling in the back of my head. Just my luck, noisy places sometimes give me headaches real fast...

"But as I was saying," Goat pressed his original topic again. "I'm certain I've seen you before. Perhaps you are well known in another area? With my occupation, I travel often you see, so I may have heard of you elsewhere."

"Sure Yuri's famous," my glass clinked loudly on the counter. "Lotsa people know 'im. An' he's got lotsa fans that follow 'im everywhere!" I paused for a moment until a brief lightheaded spell passed. "Freakin' annoyin' too, followin' us 'round. Yellin' 'Lowell!' everywhere."

"So your name is Yuri Lowell..." Goat smiled thinly. Dude, goats are herbivores, don't smile like a carnivore! Wait, or are goats omnivores... "Ah, now I know where I've seen you before, there are wanted posters for you all over the major cities."

"So what if there are?" Yuri sounded casual and unconcerned, but I stared blankly at the hand that was gripping his sword. Woah, even when he's unwinding in a bar he holds onto that thing? Wait, I don't think he was earlier...

"I never said what line of work I was in, did I?" Goat looked very pleased with himself. "I work as a bounty hunter, and it appears I have luck on my side today. How else could I have stumbled across such a high bounty without even looking for it?"

While we'd been focusing on the talking Goat, some of his friends had come up behind us and grabbed me from behind. I was pulled off the bar stool and for a moment could only stand in someone's arms blinking stupidly. Then I made a face, "Eww, your breath stinks, I can smell it already..." I tried to pull away, but the bulky man was holding onto my arms tightly.

Yuri was scowling openly and Repede was up and growling dangerously. The rest of the bar was going quiet as everyone stopped to watch. Goat was giving the swordsman a smug look. "If you don't wish for your lady friend to be harmed, I suggest you come with us quietly, Mr. Lowell."

"Damn." The black haired man looked like he really wanted to hit something, but just clenched his fists at his sides.

"Nah, Yuri, I got this," I assured him. Now then, turn arms like so, foot moves out to the side and the other'll sneak behind him... I followed my sliding foot and slipped through an opening I'd created under the man's arm. Conveniently, I was already in position to retaliate (just behind him and to the side), and before he even figured out how I'd gotten out of his grip I had him spread out across the floor.

I wobbled a bit though, and scowled at my sloppy finish. "Ah...almost fell down with 'im, that's no good..." The others stared at me in shock for a moment, so I took it upon myself to do something in their place. "You," I gave one of them a slight shove. Or I thought it was slight. I must have put more oomph into it than I thought because he staggered back and I almost fell onto my face. "You," I tried again, "aren't very nice people."

Well, they didn't like that very much. A bunch of them surged towards me all at once, and the rest all tried to overwhelm Yuri. He didn't draw his sword, instead smacking people with it while it was still sheathed. Mostly he just punched and threw people.

I had discovered I was having more trouble staying balanced on my feet than normal, which made my aikido a lot sloppier and not always as effective as I would have liked. So instead I spent more time slipping between people so that their wild swings hit each other instead. Lucky miscalculation on their part, they posed more available targets than little old me did so they were the ones who got hit.

Someone grabbed my coat by the collar, so I just slid out of it and kept one hand on a sleeve. Before he could drop the empty coat I gave the sleeve a practiced flick so that it arced through the air. The other end flew up and smacked him in the face. It took them awhile before someone managed to grab hold of it again and wrench it from my grip, during that time I danced around and flicked it at people like I'd learned to do with twisted towels (something my brothers taught me). Though accomplished little more than to annoy them.

One man wrapped his arms around me in a bear hug from behind and lifted me up off my feet. "Oooh, nice, not much I can do like this!" I complimented him. My legs swung up, oh, whoops, didn't mean to kick that guy in the face, and I felt him naturally adjust his balance. Quickly, I brought my legs back down, and yay, just like in practice! my feet were on the ground again. Step to the side again, other foot goes behind him, hip to his hip and suh-wing! I pivoted from my hip and he practically flew over backwards. Love that one.

Having figured out that attacks from behind really weren't going to work, two tried to rush me from different angles at the same time. I skipped back away from them and started to lead them in a chase through the tables. "Can't catch me, I'mma gingerbread man!" I slipped on a puddle of beer on the ground. "Whoops! LIQUID, my mortal foe!"

They'd caught up to me, but before they actually caught me another man came sliding across a table and crashed into them. All three crashed into another table, knocking drinks and bystanders everywhere, and that was the trigger that brought in more brawlers who'd just been waiting for a good excuse. Those who hadn't, well, they just snagged a bottle of something and slipped over to the relative safety of the walls to watch the show.

With the renewed outbreak of chaos I considered it prudent to crawl under a nearby undisturbed table to recover my bearings. Okay, so, I've gotta weird fuzzy feeling in my head, more fanboys want Yuri, and now we're all working together to piss off whoever owns this place. This is what my friends would qualify as a wild party, right? Oh look, here's my coat again... I looked around for Yuri and grinned when I saw him in the thick of one of the main concentrated areas of fighting. Wow, it's like watching "First Strike" again!

The swordsman punched someone right in the face as I watched, and for the first time I noted Repede leaping around lower down. The dog warrior was fighting too, but instead of using his dagger he had what looked like a leg broken off a chair clamped in his teeth. Looked like it hurt whenever he whacked someone with that...

Someone grabbed my leg and pulled me back out from under my haven. "Woah!" Without thinking I flailed out with my other leg, heard someone curse colorfully when it connected, but didn't look back as I scrambled forward again on my hands and knees.

Right into someone else's legs. I looked up and saw it was the drunkard that had tried to touch my chest earlier, though he looked steadier on his feet than he had then. Angry about that all over again, I grabbed him by the right ankle and yanked hard.

With a cry he crashed down to the floor, taking out a few other guys like dominoes. Leaving me a clear view of Yuri's surprised expression as he blinked at me, fist still raised. I shifted from my knees onto my toes and continued the motion of standing up to launch myself onto someone's back. He staggered at the full force of my weight and I managed to topple him over backwards. This left the way to the door clear.

Rather than question a clear sign from a higher power, Yuri, Repede, and I all ran for the door. Last out the door, I spun nearly three-sixty degrees and cried out, "Elvis has left the building! As consolation, please help yourselves to the free cake!" Yuri grabbed my by the arm and dragged me off.

Not much later, he stood by as I hunched over a convenient bucket I found, heaving up those fruity drinks and some of my dinner.

"Okay, so next time we're gonna make sure no one gives you liquor."

"Shut up," I groaned. "Never speak of this night again, or I'll cut off your hair while you sleep!"

x x x

So? I'm not used to writing scenes like this. Drunken speech patterns are new to me and I avoid parties where people are likely to be drinking a lot.

And this reeeeally got a lot longer than I thought it would.