The Boulder's Arena was almost perfectly quiet in the second preceding the start of the fight. Except for a few drunkards in the upper seating who hadn't stopped whooping and hollering for the last three bouts, the audience members leaned forward and held their breathes in anticipation for the whistle. Some clenched the fabric of their pants or skirts, hoping that their bets would turn a profit. Others flicked their eyes between the two fighters, eager for the onslaught of bending and blood. Little Boulder stood on the judge's platform, whistle puckered in between his lips. He waited for the tension in the small stadium to swell to the border between suspense and boredom
The Dragon curled her toes into the chalk at her starting line. Here we go, she thought. She carefully watched as the Rumbler puffed his chest out and took an offensive stance, ready to earth bend. The bets were against the Dragon: a small fire bender who—in her four bouts in the past week and a half, the first in her fighting career—had only won the last two. She didn't have the underdog appeal, either, because she refused to act as a boastful character to pump up the crowd; she hadn't spoken a single word in the ring. At least her fire festival mask, with its swirling blues, reds, and blacks, small horns, and a vicious smile punctured with fangs, gave her an air of mystery and kept her identity hidden. She saw the harassment some of the female fighters received and the pressure for their ever-shrinking outfits to be cut lower and tighter. She was here to fight and earn some extra coin, not to become a circus sideshow for the intoxicated men in the stands.
Little Boulder blew the whistle and the Dragon dug her toes deeper into the dust, feeling the ground under her feet. As a fire bender, her ability to sense the ground shifting as her opponents bended it was limited. The Rumble waited for her to strike, hoping to counter with a flying wall of rock and thrust her into the stands.
Yeah, I'm not stupid enough to come charging at you. She could hear the fans get a little restless, demanding some of the action they paid to see. The Rumbler saw that she wasn't going to make the first move. He relaxed and threw out one hand toward her, beckoning.
"Come on, little smoke puffer!" he taunted. "Or did you just enter the ring so you could admire my muscles better!" He flexed his large biceps and the crowd hooted, rooting for one of their most beloved fan favorites.
Idiot. The Dragon slid one foot off of the line, stepping toward the center of ring, keeping both feet on the ground to better feel the vibrations in the dust. The Rumbler smiled as she took two more slow steps, his hands urging him to "knock that crazy fire bender through the ceiling."
The Dragon had watched three of the Rumbler's other fights over the past few weeks. He relied brute strength and his ability to take out his opponents with sheer bending force from afar.
You'll maybe let me get to the center of the ring, the Dragon thought. The only reason you've let me get this close to you is to build up some tension in the stands. She almost laughed as he stood by, allowing her to take another step. You underestimate me, rock brain.
The hardest part about being a fire bender in a ring made of earth was that there was no way for her to counter-bend her opponents' attacks. She couldn't risk taking a direct hit because there was no way for her to soften the impact of the huge, muscle-driven attacks the other fighters threw her way. That was why she lost her first two fights; she hadn't adjusted quickly to the defensive, swift style of dodge-and-counter that non-earth benders needed to take in The Boulder's Arena.
The Dragon's toes brushed the chalk at the center circle of the ring, and the Rumbler clenched his hands into a fist as he took control of the ground. She stopped advancing and waited for her cue. Even the best earth benders couldn't muffle the tremors and slight shifts their bending send through the ground, and few of them even tried to.
The rock right underneath the Dragon shook imperceptibly, only noticed by her feet, and she leapt forward a fraction of a second before the Rumbler threw his hands down, creating a sizable pit underneath the small fire bender. One of her feet caught the wall of the pit six inches before the lip. So close. She leaned forward and received the ground with the back of her arm, rolling on her elbows, her shoulders, her back, and then up to her feet.
The Dragon balanced herself and punched out with one fist, sending a wide spray of fire at the Rumbler. She didn't intent for it to do any damage. You better hope you can take a little heat. The Rumbler, not realizing that the fire was weak and would sputter to smoke before it even reached him, flung up a defensive wall in front of him.
You are making this too easy for me, the Dragon thought. He obviously hadn't seen her last two bouts. She worked her legs double time to reach the wall before it was too late. She jumped and managed to grab the top of the rock, feeling her core clench and tighten as she swung herself up just as the large wall started to quiver again.
The Rumbler kicked out the wall with all his strength, hoping to blindly hit his opponent. He grinned when he didn't see the Dragon as the wall shot out. By the time he saw the flying blur above him, he couldn't move fast enough to block the attack.
The Dragon had misjudged the angle of her vault over the wall, and she hadn't flung herself over with enough force to reach his temple with the back of her heel. She didn't like the added risk of having to take down her opponent with multiple blows, but at least she knew that where she was confident with close combat fighting, the earth bender was slow in inexperienced in the art of short, quick blows.
She bended a little bit of fire around her foot and jabbed her heel into his throat. It was a dirty move, but she was at a disadvantage given that the whole ring was designed for earth bender fighting.
The Rumbler stumbled back, hand reaching up to his throat where the skin was already turning light pink. The Dragon crouched low and kicked out at the Rumbler's unbalanced lower legs. The large man fell down hard onto the ground. The Dragon thrust one foot against the side of his head, but it wasn't with enough force, and the Rumbler rolled away.
She blasted a round of fire at him, and he curled up to try to protect himself, still grasping at his throat. Wow, add a little fire and you become quite the wimp. There were four ways to win a bout. One: knock you opponent out of the ring. Not happening. Two: prove your superiority to the point where your opponent surrenders. To say that this never happened would be accurate. Three: knock your opponent unconscious. She usually went for this victory, but the Rumbler was tough, and while he was still on the ground, she'd prefer to go for the fourth. Four: keep your opponent on the ground and on the defensive for more than ten seconds. It was hard, and not the most glorified way to win a bout, but she didn't join the business for the fanfare and local celebrity status.
The Rumbler screamed in fright and tried to get up and away from the Dragon, but she threw down a stream of fire that send him back down into the dust. It felt wrong to fight this way, but the Dragon knew that it would take quite the blow to knock the Rumbler unconscious, and she didn't want to risk giving him any kind of head trauma when she was already half way to a victory.
"Five! Six! Seven!" Little Boulder counted, unconsciously adding a little extra time for the fan favorite. There were more boos than cheers coming from the audience, and most people were trying to encourage the Rumbler to stand up and fight. The fighter rolled onto his elbows, but the Dragon kicked forward a sweeping arc of fire and send him cowering, cradling his head in his arms.
"Eight! Nine!" The stadium leaned forward in their seats, many of them standing and shouting for their hero. The Dragon was sure that the radio announcer were exclaiming from the booth that it was do or die time for the fan favorite, assuring their faith in the ever-dominating Rumbler. The Dragon sent one last puff of mostly harmless flame at the earth bender to extinguish any thought he had about leaping up.
"Ten!" Little Boulder loudly announced the Dragon's victory, trying to pep it up a bit and get the crowd cheering for her. Very few people were happy with the results. The only celebrators were gamblers who had hoped to win big by betting against the odds.
A team of two muscled arena attendants rushed into the ring to carry the defeated earth bender to one of the healing rooms in the underground network of fighters' rooms below the stadium. The Rumbler would have no lasting injuries, but he hung his head in shame as he was dragged out of the audience's sight.
Little Boulder jumped down into the ring, and the Dragon let him grab her hand as was the custom. He lifted it high in victory, but most people saw the fire bender's win as a loss for the people of Omashu as a whole. Someone shouted at her to go back to the Fire Nation. And to think that my father adored this place.
The Dragon silently declined the opportunity to rile up support from the crowd with a victory speech. She walked down the tunnel that took her to the fighters' rooms. There were two changing and shower rooms—one for the men, another for the women—a large lounge area, a warm-up gym, and a series of small healing rooms, from one of which she could hear the grunts and cries of the Rumbler as healers worked the burns out of his skin.
She bypassed the locker rooms, which she never used, and sat down on one of the couches in the lounge, waiting for one of the stadium owner's messangers to fetch her so she could get paid. She wouldn't get an impressive amount of coin because she was still ranked in the lowest level of ring fighters and didn't even have enough of a reputation to get her fights listed on the ring programs or posters.
The only reason she got to fight someone with as much prestige as the Rumbler was because he had wanted to fight in a bottom ranked fight so he wouldn't have to spend any time recuperating before his huge fight against the Earth Quaker in a week. The Dragon had been given the choice whether or not to fight him because they were in different ranks. She agreed knowing that his tactics were designed to be used against other earth benders, and he would unfamiliar with fighting against a fire bender.
She was confident that the results from tonight would solder her name into the list of middle rank fighters. She was sure it looked like a one-sided victory, but had gotten lucky that her strategy played out without any major hitches. And that, apparently, the Rumbler is afraid of fire.
She didn't talk to anyone else in the lounge. There were two other benders there, the two victors from the fights previous to hers: the earthbender she had faced in her first bout, who had pummeled her into the ground and was likely to rise into the middle rank soon, and a water bender she hadn't faced, but she had seen once and figured that he would drop out of the business soon enough. Judging form the bandages and swelling covering his body, he had just barely won his bout.
A messenger came to retrieve the water bender, and five minutes later, he returned to get the earthbender. The winner of the bout after the Dragon's entered the lounge after visiting a healing room to have a few minor scrapes patched up. The Dragon fidgeted with one of her sleeves. She was glad that this time around she wouldn't have to mend her costume. Though it was easy enough to patch it since it was all black, she had never picked up needlework, and it always took embarrassingly long to do anything with a needle and thread.
Her outfit valued form over function, and though she hadn't planned it, the unflattering cuts did a decent job of hiding her feminine frame. Her shirt was lose enough to hide her curves, but it's size meant that she had to roll the cuffs up to keep the fabric out of the way when she bended. The pants were a little to big as well, and a silver belt held them up. She had cut off the pants and tied them with twine just above her ankles. She was the only non-earth bender who didn't wear some kind of footwear, valuing the extra bit of awareness her bare skin gave her over the protection of leather wraps or power of steel-tipped boots.
Her mask was the only part of her costume she had splurged on. She had found it in a pawnshop in the slums of the city near where she lived. In any place with Fire Nation heritage, it would have been very expensive, but here in Omashu everything Fire Nation related was considered second rate.
Each of the eyes of the mask were surrounded by a stroke of black, blue surrounding that, and red covering the rest of the cheeks and forehead. The chin was blue, and fangs that jutted out of a large grin and the small horns were white. It was fireproof, so she could fire bend out of her mouth without any worries. It was her most prized possession, even if the rest of Omashu saw it as a relic of and old, abusive dictatorship that had terrorized their city two generations ago.
The messenger finally gestured for the Dragon to follow him to Ganshu's office. The stadium owner's office overlooked the ring, a large one-way glass window on one wall allowing him to watch the progression of the bouts while still isolated form the rough of the crowd.
Ganshu was an old earth bender and former ring fighter, but a dirty blow had put him out of commission for a few months to heal, during which time he had assisted the previous stadium owner and founder, the Boulder, because he was short on cash. He found his affinity for the behind the scenes battles that needed to be fought to keep the ring running—bribing officials to keep the illegal fighting ring from any kind of forced shut down, settling altercation and tension between the fighters, recruiting the next round of new blood, and handling the rest of the economic fares that the ring rumbling and his pocket well-lined.
Ganshu sat at his desk, leaning back into his flying bison leather chair and watching the current fight. It was a particularly nasty one: two rivals of equal strength trying to inflict as much damage as possible onto their opponent. They weren't fighting to win, they were fighting to take their opponent out of the game. Tau watched as one earth bender fired a large block at the other, hiding a small rock behind it that he bended into his opponent face when he dodged the initial attack.
The ring was sprayed with blood by the time the fight was over and both men, one just barely a winner, were rushed underground to the healers.
Little Boulder declared a quick break from the righting so the blood could be washed form the ring. The crowd cheered. The next fight was between an earth bender and a water bender, and though there was a moat of water around the ring and water benders were allowed to carry a satchel of water on them, the washing meant that the top layer of the ring would be muddy, and a mud fight was always a surefire way to get the crowd yelling and cheering.
"That was a bloody one," Ganshu mused. "I'll have to talk to those two about having a little civility in the ring." He didn't expect the Dragon to respond. He had never heart the up and coming fighter speak, even when the masked fire bender had attended the ring's monthly tryouts.
"Sit down," he gestured to the couch opposite his desk. The Dragon sat, hoping that the conversation would be quick. "You've proven yourself to be quiet the tactician after your first two fights. I must say, what you lack in size you certainly make up for in effective strategy. I'd say it's about time we settle you into the mid rank, see how you do against some of the better fighters."
The Dragon smiled under her mask, but the outline for one of the advertisement posters for the next month on his desk made her uneasy. The yearly tournament was quickly approaching, and though any fighter could voluntarily back out of it at anytime, it was a good way to make money if you could get a decent win-streak. Unfortunately, as a middle ranked fighter, though, her entry-level fights would now be much harder and exhausting.
"You know," Ganshu leaned forward, "I respect the whole silent assassin thing you have going on, and I really don't care what kind of a character you assume as long as you rile up the crowd in some way, but for your own sake, I suggest you try to woo the people at least a little. They certainly feel something for you, but that something is more irritation and despise than admiration and love.
"It's like those radio dramas they have on now," he continued. "You have the hero and his team, and then you have the villains. Both are necessary, but one is obviously used to get the audience angry so they like the good guys better. If it's a really good show, soon the listeners will be tuning in not because they want the heroes to succeed so much, but because they can't wait to hear all about the villain inevitably being torn to strips of pitiful flesh." There was no response from the fire bender.
"That's the route you're taking. You ranked 'Most Hated' in the last weekly poll—which is quiet something to attract so much attention in so few bouts—but everyone's rooting for you to lose in the long run. You'll never get any kind of sponsorship that way, that that's the real path to money in this industry. Try to loosen up a little bit. Give them a wave or a flare of fire at your introduction. I know it's not really your kind of thing, but you have the potential to join the upper rank."
The Dragon knew that the audience used her to vent out their regionalist anger, and she knew that she wasn't helping, but she didn't care about all that. The sponsorship she might have cared for if she didn't know that being a fire bender automatically made that a far-fetched fantasy.
The Dragon waited in silence as Ganshu watched her. The next fight was about to start. The stadium owner sighed and pulled out two envelopes from the desk. One was filled a little more than the other. Both the winner and loser of a bout were paid, but winning definitely had substantial benefits. He handed the larger one to the Dragon and the other the messenger to be brought to the Rumbler.
The Dragon bowed in thanks and exited the room. She left the arena from the fighters' exit, which would be surrounded by screaming fans right after the main events. She shrugged through the large metal door and onto the sidewalk. There were two fans already waiting there. They probably couldn't afford the tickets to the ring and were waiting so they could claim a good vantage point for when the title fighters exited the building with all their glory. She was surprised when one of them—a little blonde girl—yelped in excitement and ran toward her.
"Kiyi!" the other person, a similarly blonde young man, called. If they're not siblings, I'm not of Fire Nation heritage. Kiyi jumped at the Dragon and wrapped her arms around the fighter's waist.
"Sorry, the brother blurted out.
"It's okay," Tau grunted under the surprisingly firm pressure around her waist. She thankfully had managed to warp her voice lower than normal, making it impossible to tell the gender to which it belonged. Kiyi let out a squak, exhilarated that the Dragon had talked to her. Her brother pulled her off of the fighter.
"Sorry about that. My sister and I watch every one of your bouts, and it's kinda been her obsession to meet you." He scratched his head in embarrassment.
"It's not a problem. I didn't think I had any fans."
"You have the best fans!" the little girl screamed. She couldn't have been much older than six.
"I guess I do," the Dragon smiled under her mask. She saw the bracelet around the young man's wrist. It was undoubtedly done in Fire Nation style, but the gold didn't shine like it should, and there were several visible scratches. The siblings were like her, the remnants of a time when the people of the Fire Nation had invaded the great city. The girl gasped as if she had forgotten something and dropped her small bag, opening it in a hurry and pulling something out.
"I made this because you're so awesome! Will you sign it? Please?" The girl thrust a mask in front of the young fighter. It was made of cardboard, but it was colored with high quality paints. It's design and color almost completely matched that of the Dragon's own mask. "Fong won't like me wear it in the ring because he says it will upset the other people, but I wear it all the time at home!"
"This is beautiful." The Dragon admired the mask. She had never signed anything before as her fighting alias. She wrote big and with thick stokes, surprisingly satisfied with the result. Kiyi continued to ramble.
"My brother, his name is Fong, painted the mask. But I just it out and attached the teeth and horns. He's a portraitist for the wealthy people, but he's trying to sell stuff he likes to do of spirits and city scenes. I keep on telling him to paint you, but he says he needs more experience before he could do your fighting moves any justice." Fong blushed, and the Dragon couldn't help but laugh a bit. She handed Kiyi her mask, and the little girl hugged it close to her chest.
"Part of our house acts as his shop for the paintings he likes to do. It's just off of Bumi Plaza, and there's a little sign saying Fong's Paintings. Come by some time and he'll give you a discount," the blonde girl encouraged.
"Well, everything's going so cheap now, the discount wouldn't be necessary," Fong muttered. His sister ignored him and continued. She was a whirlwind of words.
"He's teaching me how to pain, but I wanna grow up to be a fighter like you! I don't want to learn about shading and perspective, I want to learn how to demolish my enemies!" She kicked forward into the alley, and a small puff of fire flew out from her foot. "Loot at that, Fong! That's the most fire I've ever made!"
"Here's what," the Dragon got down on one knee so she could be level with the girl, who leaned forward, eyes wide. "You listen to your brother and keep learning about painting, and if I do well in next month's tournament, I'll stop by and pick something up." It was getting late. The upper rank fights would begin soon.
"Yay!" Kiyi cheered. Her brother grabbed her hand to stop her from tacking the fighter again.
"Come on, Kiyi. It's getting late, and I have a session in the morning. And I'm sure the Dragon has things to do in the morning as well." He smiled at the fire bender and bowed slightly. "Thank you for spending some time talking to us."
"It was my pleasure." The Dragon bowed back. Kiyi complained about having to leave, but her brother promised her they would get lychee fruit if she behaved. Kiyi skipped down the alleyway, holding her brother's hand. The little girl looked over her shoulder before turning and heading toward one of the main roads, giving one last wave and smile to the Dragon before disappearing into the ambience of the city.
The Dragon sighed. It was late, and she started work at sunrise in the morning. Seeing that no one else was around, she took off her mask and slipped it inside her shirt. She turned and headed the opposite way down the alley, feeling the rough of the pavement under her bare feet.