Blake Belladonna appreciated a lot of things.
She appreciated books, and tea, and quiet, and music. She appreciated the small town she occupied, and the simple people who occupied it. Hell, she appreciated many things in life. She especially appreciated the fine business her cozy saloon brought in, and she appreciated the lack of ruffians her bar drew in.
Well, most of the time.
Blake leaned against the chest-high wooden buffet as she idly thumbed through her latest novel. At the peak of summer, afternoon business was little to none. A few people sat scattered about the saloon, but each of them minded their own business quietly, which Blake was very grateful for.
Wiping a hand across her forehead, Blake bent down to retrieve a glass to fill it with water, which she hoped could ease her rising temperature. As she rifled through the cabinet, the sound of boots scuffling across the old and creaking wood panel floor caught her attention. A chair groaned as it was pulled out and sat on as her Blake's newest patron settled.
"Be with you in a second." She said, now also searching for a scratch pad and chalk. She set her glass back down and rose back up to greet her customer, eyes still glued to her pad as she flipped to a new page.
"What can I help you with?" She asked while stealthily elbowing her book out of sight.
"Well, I was hoping we could talk." The man said, and Blake froze.
Swallowing thickly, she forced her gaze upwards and towards the man and glared. "Adam."
"Hello, darling," Adam drawled, "been a while."
She ignored him purposefully. "I thought I told you to never come after me again."
"Oh, Blake, you know it ain't that simple." He shook his head and scolded, as if she were a child. Blake shuddered and fought back a disgusted look.
"Seems pretty clear to me." She shot back, setting down the pad and chalk. "I thought Sienna had you taken care of."
His brow twitched minutely, but his smile stayed in place. "Well, as you can see, I'm still walking free."
Blake narrowed her eyes. "Free and half-blind, I presume."
His single blue eye burned with anger as his hand flitted up to brush over the blackened bandana covering the left side of his face. Blake took a step back. Adam stood.
"The Fang needs you, Blake."
She fought back an eye roll at his change of tactics. Of course that's why he even dared show his face to her again. "Thought you said I was a traitor."
"You made some… choices," Blake nearly gagged at his tone, "but we're willing to overlook them for you. I'm willing to let you back into my life."
"And if I don't come?" She growled, crossing her arms defensively.
Adam stepped around the bar and brought his face directly into hers, forcing her to recoil violently. "You just don't get it, darlin'." His hand clamped down on her wrist, grip tight and unforgiving.
As she struggled to free herself, he leaned in further, to the point where Blake could smell the alcohol on his breath. "You don't have a choice here, love. I tell you what to do, and you do it. No questions asked."
Blake paled and lashed out, hand raising up to slap him. He caught it an inch from his scarred eye. He forced her against the shelf behind her and held her in place as he tsked. "Blake, you know better than to hit me."
"Leave me alone." She demanded, writhing for some kind of escape.
Adam chuckled, low and dangerous, and leaned in until they were nose to nose. "Now why would I do that?"
"'Cause the lovely woman asked you to, asshole."
Both of them looked up to the newcomer – Blake surprised and relieved, Adam confused and angry. A long figure sat at the end of the bar, nursing a short, stout glass of whiskey. A flashy hat and a mane of golden hair obscured their face, along with a sideways purple poncho and orange neck bandana. They shifted on the stool they sat upon, but didn't look up at Adam or Blake.
"Stay out of this, Blondie." Adam growled, right hand relinquishing its grip on Blake's wrist in favor of coming to rest on the shotgun holstered at his hip. "You don't want to get hurt."
Their shoulders shook with what Blake realized with a start was laughter before shooting back the rest of their drink, downing the whiskey in seconds. The glass was set back down rather gently as the figure rose.
Blake's eyes widened.
First of all, they were a woman. A tall, tan, beautiful, blonde woman with broad shoulders and broader grin, to be exact.
Under the poncho, she wore a simple thin white shirt, tucked into black jeans by a thick brown belt, marred with multiple notches, finished off with calf-high, dark brown, leather boots. While the poncho covered her entire right arm, her left arm was out in the open, and Blake could see linen stitches stretch and bulge along the lines of her muscular build. As her eyes finally landed on her face, Blake promptly gaped.
Her eyes were a shining, beautiful lavender hue, twinkling brightly with something akin to mischief. Pristine white teeth flashed in a crooked grin, cheeks curling and the corners of her eyes crinkling. A prominent nose and lip piercing glinted in the light, along with the dozen or so earrings she had.
Despite her current predicament, all Blake could think of was how she was positively glowing in the mid-afternoon sun.
"'The hell are you?" Adam snarled and jostled Blake, rudely reminding her of her situation.
The woman tipped her hat and bowed with a flourish.
"Name's ain't important," she replied, "but I'm gonna have to ask you to leave. Kindly, of course."
"And I'm going to kindly ask you to mind your damn business. This doesn't concern the likes of you." He said, tightening his grip on his shotgun.
"Oh, but this actually does concern me," She said, standing back up to her full, impressive height, "because yer harassing a nice young woman, and I just can't stand for that. Didn't yer ma ever teach you how to be a gentleman?"
Adam simply responded with a tight-lipped snarl, eyes narrowed as he glared at the blonde, weighing his options carefully. She flashed another toothy grin, the very center of her eyes flaring to a soft crimson for a brief moment. Blake's eyes flitted between the two, trying to comprehend the growing tension when Adam finally broke the silence.
"Why don't we just take this outside?" He asked, face twisted into a sneer as he tried to scare the woman off with his thinly veiled threat.
The woman rested her hidden right arm against her hip. "Fine by me. Weather's lovely this time a' year."
Adam frowned at her attitude, but turned to the door nonetheless. As Blake made to slip from his grasp, the hand gripped painfully and tugged her back.
"All three of us can go," He said at her confused expression, "we'll throw quite the party."
Blake noticed how the blonde's unfailing grin fell sharply at his abusive touch and tone. Her burning stare spoke of her anger and want for retribution, but she followed after them.
Once they made it into the center of the empty street, Adam shoved Blake at a set of stairs opposite to her saloon and forced her to sit. The woman watched with a stormy look in her eyes.
Adam returned to the street, casually resting a hand on his gun. A smirk crossed his face as he looked smugly at the woman. The blonde, however, didn't flinch, and the cocky smirk fell as fast as it came.
She shifted the poncho slightly, revealing a single, short holster resting on her right hip. In it rested a thick gun, similar to a revolver. Any confidence Adam had that she wasn't carrying quickly dissipated as her left hand hovered over its stock.
"We really doin' this?" She asked, though the twitch of her hand suggested she knew the answer.
"If you had just let us be, we'd never have had to come here in the first place." Adam shot back, grip tightening on his shotgun's stock.
"And let you keep abusin' her? Now that just ain't my style." The blonde's eyes switched from Adam to Blake, who watched the showdown with keen, observing amber eyes.
Adam growled and took a threatening step forward, boot grounding up a small cloud of dust. The blonde woman's smile looked dangerous. Blake shifted her gaze between them, hand flashing down to her calf, wary of the brewing showdown.
A tense moment began to build, with neither Adam nor the woman taking the first move. Nervous sweat broke out across all three of their foreheads as they waited with baited breath. Adam's grip tightened. She glanced at him as she brushed her fingers over the stock. A tumbleweed blew through the open road between the two gunners.
Adam suddenly drew his black shotgun out, aiming directly at her. Fast as lightning, the blonde ripped her revolver free, pointing it back with the same serious expression. Still, no shots were fired, even as the tension grew so strong that Blake could practically taste it.
Gloved fingers squeezed a trigger as Adam grimaced, eyes darting around the challenger's form as he searched for a weak spot. The blonde kept her gaze as steady as her aim, neither wavering nor flinching in the heat of the barrel.
Blake's tongue darted out to lick her lips anxiously, eyes flicking from the woman to Adam and back as she-
Adam's gun exploded.
Blake started at the sudden bang of the shotgun unloading, ears ringing loud enough so that when another shot went off, she could barely register it. What she could register, however, was the sight of Adam's shotgun ripping itself out of his hands.
Amber eyes shot to the blonde, mentally preparing to be greeted with crimson gore splashed along the sides of the road. Instead, she was forced to avert her eyes from the sudden glare of something metallic shining in the sun.
The woman's right arm, Blake now noticed, was made entirely of steel. From the shoulder down was an intricate series of cogs and gears intertwined within sleek slabs of steel. Bright streaks of yellow were haphazardly painted onto the replacement arm, decorating the slightly dull color. A large, awkward pattern smoked from her raised forearm, and Blake realized suddenly that she had managed to block a spray of shotgun shells with just one arm.
The woman's arm wasn't the only thing that was smoking.
Her thick gun, now held tightly in her gloved left hand, had a puffy stream of smoke billowing from the muzzle. With the way Adam was clutching his hand, Blake was struck by the realization that she'd made a hell of a shot and disarmed him without seriously injuring him.
Surprisingly, the woman didn't follow up her shot. Instead, she just calmly lowered the weapon until it lingered by its holster. Her eyes, which looked scarlet in the afternoon sun, narrowed slightly as she regarded the seething man before her.
"We done here?" she grounded out, voice gravely and low.
Adam panted and clutched his arm close to his chest, hand dipping into his coat as his eyes darted rapidly from the woman, to her gun, to Blake, and to the street behind him.
Finally, with a defiant snarl, the man pulled out a long, jagged knife from his coat, easily about a foot long. The blonde's brows rose in surprise, but before she could react, Adam lunged forward, slashing his blade towards her with an angry shout.
She cried out in tandem with Blake as she barely managed to duck under the blow. In her alarm, however, she let the gun tumble from her hand and clatter onto the dusty ground beside her, favoring her life over her weapon.
Adam lashed out again, swiping his long knife at the woman twice. One strike glanced off her mechanical arm while the other found its mark and bit into the flesh of her left bicep. The woman swore as she rolled under another missed attempt, metal fingers rising up to clutch at the bleeding slash. Adam flicked his blade to the side as he approached, eyes cold and calculating.
"Last chance to turn tail 'fore I do you in like an old horse." He sneered, eyes narrowing and nostrils flaring.
Blake's hands clasped around the railing as she slowly crept off the stairs and towards the two. She needed to stop this before someone got mortally wounded.
"I already told ya," the woman grunted as she rose to her feet, "I ain't gonna let you hurt her anymore."
Adam shrugged, his ragged black coat bobbing with the motion. "So be it."
He charged towards her, knife raised above his head, when the woman suddenly spoke.
"Put me down like a horse, huh?" Her eyes burned as a smirk crawled across her lips. "I'll give you a horse."
The woman deftly dodged the swipe and spun on her heel, bringing her real hand up to her mouth before releasing a loud, sharp whistle. Both Adam and Blake hesitated, confusion coloring both their features.
The woman just grinned.
Adam shook off his initial confusion and raced towards the blonde again, brandishing his knife out in front of him when without warning, a bright blur slammed into him, sending him sprawling.
The heavy footfalls of hooves and a loud whiny announced the rather extravagant entrance of a large, muscled mustang. With tawny fur so bright it looked golden in the light, the horse snorted and pawed the ground, circling around to come behind the blonde woman.
Adam tumbled to a stop and immediately rolled back up to his feet. Even with his quick recovery, Blake could clearly see the blow had dazed him. Despite that, Adam bent down and retrieved both his knife and his shotgun, trying to decide which one to wield.
Blake narrowed her eyes. This ended now.
Adam pointed the shotgun at both the woman and her horse, aim swaying but still in lethal range. His eye was burning with fury and acrimony as he took a threatening step forward.
The ground in front of him burst.
Both Adam and the woman jumped, eyes darting around for the source. Blake stepped forward.
Held securely in her hand was a short and very stout pistol, the tip billowing out a thick plume of smoke. Her eyes hardened as she glared at Adam, who lowered the shotgun.
"Stand down, Adam. You know I only miss when I mean to." She stated icily. Adam grimaced but stayed in place, shifting his feet.
She pulled the hammer back and let the audible click settle her nerves. "I said leave."
A tense moment was drawn out as all three people held their ground. Blake squeezed the gun tightly, Adam glared, and the blonde woman slowly bent down and retrieved her own firearm.
Finally, Adam sighed, dropping his aim and loosening his tight stature. His cold blue eye locked onto her face as he studied her rapidly. After a brief hesitation, Adam cursed under his breath and stalked back, keeping his back turned away from the two women.
"You haven't seen the last of me, Blake." He threatened through gritted teeth.
Another hammer cocked. The woman, despite the bleeding wound, held her aim true. "Oh, I think she has, partner."
He paused, almost snapping back, but reconsidered it and kept walking instead. Finally, he reached a slender and lithe dark thoroughbred and mounted it swiftly, keeping his glare scathing as he rode by without another word.
It wasn't until he'd ridden away for at least a minute did Blake finally drop her guard, sliding the warm pistol back into its hiding spot strapped to her ankle. Her hands shook as she struggled to take in a breath, her mind whirring desperately to try and keep her in the moment; after all she'd nearly been taken again-
"Well, if I'd known ya carried a banger like that I'd've let you shoot him yourself." The woman said, breaking through the whirlwind of thoughts swirling in Blake's head.
"Oh," She breathed turning to face the approaching woman and her horse, "well, it's not like I didn't appreciate you barging in."
Another blinding smile, this one soft and genuine, flashed across her already radiant features. "Well, I find myself mighty good at wrangling those kinds of varmints."
"I'll allow it this time, but don't expect the same mercy from me if you start another bar fight." Blake chided without any real malice.
"I appreciate the favor, Miss…?" She replied, clearly asking for her name.
She held out her hand for the blonde. "Blake – I'm Blake Belladonna."
"Blake…" the woman said slowly, as if testing to see if the name rolled the right way. "Well, that's a lovely name, Miss Belladonna."
She clasped her flesh hand around Blake's and it was only until now that Blake realized how tall the woman was, and how much bigger her hand was compared to her's.
"Blake is fine." She responded, eyes flitting across the blonde's features to get a better view, now that there was no immediate danger. "And speaking of names, I'm afraid I didn't catch yours."
"Ah, I knew I was forgetting something!" The woman said as she smacked her forehead with the palm of her real hand. She flipped the large hat off her head, exposing a cowlick that stood straight up, and grinned warmly.
"Name's Yang! Yang Xiao Long, if ya want ta be fancy." Yang answered, fixing the wide hat back into place.
"Wait," Blake's brows furrowed, "Yang Xiao Long? As in 'The Dragon Bandit' Yang Xiao Long?"
Lilac eyes widened slightly as a nervous smile broke out across her lips. "Uh, maybe?"
"You're wanted in practically every town in this side of the west!" Blake hissed, surveying the two sides of the clear road. "How in the world did you make it here? And why aren't you trying to stay discrete? I literally nailed a wanted poster of you this morning!"
Yang averted her eyes as she scratched the back of her neck sheepishly. "Heh, probably coulda been a little less of a ruckus, yeah."
Blake rubbed her eyes with one hand as she exhaled heavily. Yang let her arm drop down to her side, wincing slightly, reminding both of the women of the sluggishly bleeding laceration.
"Sorry 'bout all a' this." Yang said softly. "I'll be off in the mornin' if ya need me ta be."
"No, no," Blake sighed, reaching out and stopping Yang by grabbing her metal hand, "I can't just let you wander around with a gash like that."
A spark of hope lit in Yang's bright eyes. Blake fought internally for about two seconds before turning away. "Follow me."
She heard both human and horse trot after her as she led them around to the back of the saloon, where Blake kept her own horse. Yang's mustang ambled away, pawing at the ground where small dried hay lay buried.
Blake sat Yang on a wooden stool as she set about searching for linen to wrap the wound. Yang sat obediently, kicking her legs and whistling an old, broken tune.
When she returned, she quickly wiped the slash clean with a damp rag before nimbly wrapping it tightly, making sure to keep pressure tight so Yang wouldn't keep bleeding. As she worked, Blake could feel her face burn as she felt the coiled muscle lying dormant beneath soft skin, marred only by freckles and the odd scar.
As she wrapped up, Yang spoke up.
"Y'know, I think we'd make a pretty good team, Blakey."
"Mm?"
"Like, ya know," Yang shrugged, "I'm all hand-ta-hand and yer all super secret and no one sees you sneakin' around – hell, I didn't! What you did earlier was super badass!"
Blake flushed at the praise, keeping her gaze focused on her job.
"Well, I didn't want you to get hurt." She admitted.
"And I appreciate that dearly." Yang replied, gently bumping her shoulder into Blake's.
Blake hummed a laugh. She turned to look at Yang and made eye contact.
"You know what, Yang?"
The blonde quirked an eyebrow in response.
"You're right – I think we would make a good team."