Armada
. helium lost .
Author's Notes: I signed up for the 15-pairings challenge over at Livejournal. Anyone who's reading most of my recent fanfics knows that I've been signing up for about ten million fanfic writing communities lately. XD So yeah… another challenge for me to use to procrastinate on homework!
Anyway, this has been sitting on my hard drive for about two weeks... so I finally decided to finish it today. :P Also, the full title (which you can find below) wouldn't fit into the title bar, so I shortened it for that.
Prompt: #07. anger
Ship
#7
Junroh
"Dragon of the West, Bunny of the South"
"How 'bout a little drink, eh? On me."
Jun looked over at the man who had sidled himself up to her this time and made a mental checklist of his attributes. Old – check. Wrinkly – check. Stupid grin on face – check. Drunken – most likely. Lecherous – most probably.
"No thanks, babe," she said, then downed her glass of beer and waved at the bartender for another. "I don't do old guys."
He laughed, a deep, hearty laugh that resounded through the room. He put an arm around her shoulder (she tensed up) and smirked, raising an eyebrow.
"They call me the Dragon of the West for a reason, you know," he said, then chuckled as she hastily pushed his arm off.
"Look, I don't care if they call you the Dragon of the West or the Bunny of the South. Not interested, buddy—keep this up and I'll be forced to whip your sorry ass." With that, she stood and headed for the door.
However, she never made it. Halfway to the door, the door slammed open itself, seemingly of its own volition. Framed against the night air were two figures, one shorter and stockier, the other taller and thinner. They strode into the room, the stockier one leading; he inspected the bar, glancing around with a beady eye. He strode up to the bar, and the thinner one pulled out a scroll from his bag.
"We are looking for this girl," he said, then wrinkled his nose as the smell of alcohol drifted up to him. He unfurled the scroll and showed it to the bartender, who looked at the picture of the young girl and read the description by it. He rubbed his bristly chin and shook his head.
"No, I don't think I've seen her," he said, then rolled up the scroll and handed it back to the tall and thin man. The shorter man, obviously angry, slammed his palm down on the table and frowned.
"Lies! We've had explicit, truthful information saying that she has come through this area. Now, if you value your life—" He cracked his knuckles and his neck before taking a stance and bending up the earth beneath the counter, cracking it in two down the middle, "—you'll tell me the truth."
Jun frowned and strode back to the bar and crossed her arms as she stood beside the man. "Look—if he says that the girl hasn't passed through here, then the girl hasn't passed through here. You got some wrong info, buddy—and trust me, that happens." She grimaced, then added in a low mutter, "All too often, too, those bastards."
The shorter man narrowed his eyes. "You know something about this, lady?"
She raised her eyebrows. "Listen—I'm just stating something. Doesn't mean I'm connected with whoever you're looking for." She paused. "Though, come to think of it—how big's the bounty on her head? I'll strike you a deal if it's big enough."
"So you do know something," said the man, flexing.
Jun laughed. "No. I'm a bounty hunter—likely just like you. And you and I both know—we're in it for the money. Now, if you tell me a little bit about her… or, better yet, if you have a personal object of hers… I can track her down for you in no time at all."
The taller man frowned and leaned in closer to the shorter man. "Xin Fu, we could use her help," he murmured. "We've been on Toph's trail for weeks and haven't found anything… and if what she says is true… well…"
The shorter man growled. "And how do you know that she's telling the truth?" he hissed. "She could easily just take the information and run. Forget it—we can do this on our own."
The taller man straightened up and crossed his arms. "We'll be wandering around for months at this rate," he said flatly.
Jun raised an eyebrow. "Well, it's no wonder you two haven't gotten anywhere—arguing like that." She laughed and tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Whatever—forget about it; I think I'd go insane if I were to spend time in the company of idiots like you. No sense of how to track down a person, honestly. I'd be more subtle if I were you."
She turned on her heel and strode back to the bar, but a hand latched onto her wrist and dragged her back before lifting her up into the air so that her toes just barely touched the ground. She found herself face-to-face again with the shorter, stockier one, whose veins were popping out of his forehead in a mixture of anger and frustration.
"Did you just call us idiots?" he hissed, and she wrinkled her nose, using her free hand to wave at the air in front of her face, fanning off the smell of his breath.
"If I'm not mistaken, yes," she said. "My, my, what a temper you have."
With a growl of frustration, he let her drop to the ground, then took an earthbending stance; the ground rumbled and shook as a boulder popped out from the dirt floor; dust flew everywhere as Jun looked up, mouth half-open. She barely had time to reach for her whip before the boulder began to drop down on her. She closed her eyes and tried to do a barrel-roll to safety, but instead of hearing the sound of rock meeting rock behind her, she heard the sound of the rock splintering through the door and landing a distance away. She looked up and saw the figure of the old man, a clear path to the wrecked door frame before her, dust rising from his foot.
"I'll repair that," he said, turning back to look at the bartender with an apologetic look on his face. Then, he turned back to look at the two men, a fiercer look on his face. "Now, I would advise you to stop treating women in this way. Women should be treated with respect, not force."
"Listen, I don't need your help," Jun hissed, standing up and dusting herself off. "I can handle myself perfectly well, thank you very much."
He shook his head, then smiled. "Now, how about that demonstration of why I'm called the Dragon of the West, eh?"
She rolled her eyes. "I told you—I don't care."
He, however, wasn't listening. He turned back to the men, smiling. "Now, why don't we take this outside? We've damaged this poor bar enough already." His smile widened. "Unless, of course, you don't wish to fight?"
The stockier man cracked his knuckles. "You've got a challenge."
With that, he turned on his heels and strode outside to the wide-open plaza. The taller man followed him hesitantly as the old man continued behind them, a little bounce in his step. They stood across from each other, an expanse of colored tiles between them. The old man took a deep breath and closed his eyes, then readied his stance.
"Don't pass out, old man," said the stockier man, who quickly assumed an earthbending stance and pulled out jagged spikes of earth from the ground, then launched them at the old man. The old man released the breath, then snapped his eyes open and opened his mouth, unleashing a massive wave of fire that made even her, standing quite a distance away, wince and recoil from the heat. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to be up against him—even from this distance, watching him was like watching a vengeful god, breathing out fire to destroy treacherous, faithless humans.
The stockier earthbender had managed to create a wall of earth, which he now allowed to crumble, at the last moment. He was breathing heavily, and his hair and clothing were scorched. His skin looked a bit redder than before, but it didn't look burnt. He frowned, then clenched his fists and turned on his heel.
"Come on," he said, waving to the taller man. "We don't have time to waste here."
With that, the two of them strode off, the taller one looking shaken, the shorter one swaggering much less in his walk. The old man took in another deep breath and exhaled it, lowering his hands and smiling as the twinkle in his eye returned. He strode back into the bar, where Jun stood, raising an eyebrow.
"Quite an impressive display, Mr. Dragon of the West," she said, and smirked.
He grinned. "Now, dear, I could be your Bunny of the South, if you so wish…" he said, waggling his eyebrows. Now both of her eyebrows were raised.
"And you're willing to show me a demonstration?" she said, looking him up and down and self-consciously crossing her arms over her bosom.
"Would you like one?" he said, his grin widening.
Disgusted, Jun slapped him across the face.
Author's Notes: Lol, I was aiming for a different ending, but this is how Jun showed herself :P Junroh has always amused me. Anyway, leave me some feedback! I'd love to know what you think.
2/24/2006
