Three years ago, she thought. It had all happened three years ago, the nightmare ended. Jun still had dreams where the man had pleaded with her to run, where she was just a child huddled in the dark against the pirates' attacks, or younger still, riding with the man, both slipping away from a burning village. Try as she might, she couldn't place that face that haunted her dreams. A year ago she had backtracked, following the images in her mind as if she were reading a map, but there was no town, no village, nothing but burnt wood, a few skeletons of shacks that remained. Perhaps there had been a prosperous village or town here, but it was nothing but slums now.
That was in the past, there was no need to dwell on it. She wasn't a scared little girl any longer, nor was she a whipped, huddling teenager who spied on her master, fearful of getting caught. She had tried her hand at everything and anything that entered her mind, a gambler, a smuggler, a pirate in her own right, burning villages and towns that were unlucky enough for her to come across. She lead a crew of pirates that consisted of men who at one time used to follow her former master's. The tears of children, torn from their parents burned at her heart, and as quickly as she had entered the piracy career, she left it behind.
In her solitude she felt her energies strengthen, and she trained as never before, learning new martial arts that she found from stolen scrolls, or from spying on soldiers as they practiced. Jun had a knack for learning simply by watching. Not only could she learn to fight like anyone she saw, but she also learned that she could copy sounds and was able to imitate any animal sound she came across, or any language or dialect that she heard. She fed herself and her xierxu partner by hunting and occasionally stealing the money they needed to survive.
She lay in her little hunt, flat on her back as she stared up in the sky and sighed. She had the perfect life for a woman of her standing, free, open, no restraints, able to do what she wanted, but there was something that was always striking against her conscious tat she hadn't realized that she still had, until like someone plucking a guitar string, it occurred to her the sounds were not coming out the way that it should have. Stealing, spreading terror had originally appealed to her, but as she aged she realized that she was becoming more and more like Pier than she wanted. That left a bitter taste in her mouth.
"What's wrong with me?" she asked her partner, who simply groaned under his weight. "I should be the happiest girl in the world, but those children's eyes just keep haunting me, and worse. I keep having those dreams with more intensity than ever before."
The xierxu looked up at her and lowered his jaw to the ground, sniffing the strange, intoxicating smells o this night's air. He'd been bonded to her ever since she'd helped him, and found that he had discovered loyalty that had not been known in his species. Xierxus were normally solitary creatures at this time coming together with the opposite sex simply to mate, and further their race. But why he had continued to stay with the girl, even when she struck him with her whip, he couldn't understand. This loyalty just felt right to him, and so he stayed.
"I guess you'd like it if we were normal," Jun groaned, turning on her side. "You living your life in some forest, and me being some cute little house wife and mommy," her words were bitter and gritty. Jun growled, "Not for me, I'll never accept normalcy, becoming something so boring as never to be remembered or to make a difference." The xierxu put a paw on her shoulder and growled under his breath. "You don't like preying on innocent people either, do you?"
She shot up and crossed her bare arms. Her long, black hair, flowed to her back, and covered either the right or the left eye, depending on how she moved. "We're not normal you know. We can't exactly walk into normal places without people glaring at us, or being run out." He looked at her as if to ask whose fault was that, and she sighed.
Narrowing her eyes she looked away. "Okay, I admit we can't keep taking advantage of you children and people who had nothing to do with my suffering," she said sourly. "But we can only hunt for so long, with winter coming up that's not going to be an option for us. So then what?"
The xierxu flared his nostrils, and licked his fur. His partner walked up to him and looked at him in the face, and he could tell there were times that she wished he had eyes, that she could look into. Her lips twitched a little bit, and she stroked her bare arms.
"Okay, I'll keep an ear out for new ways to make money, to get us shelter, but I can't promise anything." She caressed him like a lover, and fell asleep in his warm, thick brown fur.
A few weeks later, after getting paid for a body guard job, she leapt onto her partner, and urged him further to the town, until she came across a small pub, and she tied him to a post near some water. The eighteen year old woman slipped into the tavern, stopping a moment to look at the thick brown logs that it was built out of, the dust on them, and the small insects that crawled up and down the side of the building. She held her sack of gold coins for a long time, and then walked into the dim, smoke filled room.
The building was square, but the inside seemed to look like a circular ring. There were four levels of rafts, where people leaned over, sat on, drank, smoked, laughed, plotted, and whatever their imaginations were filled by. Jun quickly passed through the dim light and the cold, bitter, dark and found a table to her liking. She sat down, quickly ordered the most expensive bottle of Gjin that they had, and waited for her order.
It didn't take her long to find out that they eyes of the tavern were upon her, and that made her edgy and nervous. If any of them figured out who she was, it would be easy to attack her, and claim the bounty that was on her head. Her muscles tightened as a few of them walked by and studied her, but relaxed as they passed. The waitress handed over a tall bottled of Gjin, Jun paid, and then began pouring herself a glass. With one solid movement she placed the strong, sour smelling orange liquid to her lips and poured it down, ignoring the lava hot fluid that burned her throat and brought tears to her eyes.
"That's a pretty strong drink for such a pretty young lass," a stranger cooed, running his fingers down her shoulders. He was dirty, with not a glimpse of fat on him. His hair was gray brown and his teeth were gray white. "And such an expensive bottle for a girl"
"Do you like those stubby digits you call fingers?" she asked, pouring herself another glass. Sound seemed to disappear from the tavern as the situation grew tighter.
"I'm sorry?" he asked.
"You're forgiven, now leave," she said, her tone empty.
"You don't like me?" he asked, raising an eyebrow, stroking her arms.
"And here I thought you were stupid," she said with a grin. He frowned and looked at his friend who taunted his partner.
"Look cutie, let's get something straight, in this tavern. I'm the boss, and I control everything that everybody does. I know everyone's business, and the money they bring in here is mind, so let's just skip the formalities and get right down to you handling me that bottle of Gjin you were nice enough to buy me, and my friend, and then hand us the bag of gold while your at it. If you play nice, I might decide to overlook this little out burst."
"I suggest you listen to him," the rail thin partner said. "He's a dangerous man."
"You don't say," she said, sipping her Gjin, pretending that neither man was near her.
"He has a bounty of twenty-five hundred gold coins on his head," the partner said, his face twitching. "I personally only have a bounty of one thousand, but I'm working it up."
"How very nice for you, I wish you both the best of luck, no good bye."
This irritated the taller man, and he gripped her wrist, trying to pull her to her feet, but found he couldn't budge her arm from the table. "What in the name of the spirit world?"
"You are getting on my nerves, friend," she said coolly. "If you are wise, you'd leave now." Around the tavern people gasped and slinked further into the shadows. "I won't give you two another warning."
"Look, this is Chung, do you know who that is?" the partner snapped. "He's the strongest member of the Gri Gang."
That got her attention. She looked up at the men and narrowed her eyes. "Gri, you say? That wouldn't be Pier Gri by any chance?"
The two of them looked at her, shocked that she hadn't put two and two together, and back at her. "You know the name, you should know the dread," the taller man said, grinning, his decaying brown teeth flashing at her. "He has a bounty of seventy five thousand."
Her pulse raced, but she decided to stay calm. "So what has he done to earn him a bounty of so much money?"
"You wouldn't be thinking of going after him little lady," the partner chuckled, "are you looking the for a death sentence"
"You didn't answer my question," Jun said, sipping the last of the Gjin.
"Murder, rape, plunder, burning down villages and towns, even confiscating many weapons from both the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom," the taller man said. He smiled and leaned over to look into the girl's eyes. "Now, about our payment?"
Jun stood up, shocking the two men and the patrons for a moment. "Seventy-eight thousand gold coins would go a long way in helping me and my xierxu survive the winter," she said with a crocked smile.
Chung blinked for a moment. "Seventy-eight thousand? Where did you come up with …," it dawned on him, and with lightning reflexes threw a punch at her jaw, which was countered by a kick to the groin, and a round house kick to the head, knocking him out.
The second man blinked and took a few steps back and shuddered. "You shouldn't have done that," he muttered. "Pier won't like it."
"Interesting," Jun said, slipping her whip from her hip and lengthened it. "You have an interesting choice here, fella. You can try and take me on, or you can go warn your boss about me, and inch your chances of staying a free man by a few millimeters.
"Xierxu," someone whispered in the tavern. "Jun, that woman is Jun! The pirate captain!"
"Ex-pirate captain," Jun grumbled. She turned to the man and smirked as she caught his on coming fist in the palm of her free hand. "Ex-slave of the ex-pirate Pier Gri." He swallowed as sweat trickled his forehead. Her fingers tightened on his fist, and he dropped to a knee. "Last chance," she smiled with a primal attitude and twisted his wrist a little, "of course nothing says I have to bring you in perfect state. I could drag you off to my place, and we could have a little, 'fun' for a while. Maybe a little game of scream and tell? You tell me about Pier's operations, or I find ways of making you scream?"
She watched him for a moment, and then let go, as it was obvious what his answer would be. "Tell him that I'm coming for him," she cooed, lifting Chung over her shoulder and flipping a few coins to the manager of the tavern for the damages and hush money. Then she turned to hand over the freak to the proper authorities, and then make her plans to finish the past.
For weeks she had spent hiding from those who wanted her head, and hunting those with info she wanted. Pier was still out there, still threatening children, killing mothers and fathers, burning homes, just as he had done when she was his slave. Her body tightened as she exercised, jogging in the ice cold winds of late Autumn, preparing for her confrontation. She also trained her partner, and made sure his reflexes were as sharp as a sword just brought out of the fire.
She decided to turn down every other job offer out there, and concentrated on making her money by hunting thugs, bullies, rebels, a few gangsters. With each successful capture, her reputation grew stronger, and the average people began to know that unless they were wanted by the Fire Nation, or if they had broken some type of law, they had nothing to fear from this woman.
As her reputation grew, so did her bounty, at the request of those who she hunted, and she had to practice her stealth techniques. She used mud, waste, what grass she could find, and certain paints to camouflaged both her and her xierxu. He had complained at the added weight of the mud and what not on his fur, but she knew that he'd forgive her.
Just as she trained, she also spent a lot of time following Pier's gang's movements, capturing those that were of little importance, and letting the bloated bellied bosses lead her ever closer to the big boss. It killed her to watch them spread terror, watching them bring tears down the cheeks of countless children, but she had to be patient, even though those nightmares of her own childhood had becoming more and more potent. It was taking a lot out of her, but she was determined to keep working, waiting for the right time to strike.
That time came six weeks after the encounter in the tavern. After beating information out of a stooge, she learned that Pier was planning the biggest gamble of his life, a strike against the most heavily armed battalion of Fire Benders transporting, over half a million in gold. She was tempted to strike them too, the thought of all that money brought her back to her old pirating ways, but then her reputation would be all for naught, and the Fire Lord would have every soldier on the planet after her head.
She could have let the idiot strike the caravan, but she knew he would either die, or get captured, and the thought of losing nearly two hundred thousand gold coins, which was his bounty now, slip through her fingers pushed her ahead with her mission. She waited until she found some of the larger guns of the gang, and then followed them back to the base, waiting for night to strike, and the men to fall asleep.
Jun wasn't a fool. She knew there would be guards up even at this hour. Even if she wasn't out there, other enemies were, and with the stakes this high, Pier wasn't about to let anything foul up his intensions now. Slowly she slipped through the base, scanning each tent for signs of life, and quickly made her way to the next tent, jumping from spot to spot like a shadow trying to flee the light.
Her xierxu was huddled in the dark, waiting for her whistle, so he could charge in and allow her to escape. She felt naked without him, but she knew that she couldn't have barged in there, and successfully captured Pier, an action like that would end up with both her and the animal dead. Jun made her way to the center tent, and slipped through it, a knife in her hand, ready to hold it to Pier's throat, but there was no one here.
"You were always so impetuous," his voice said from the side of her. She turned to meet his large fist, which was resting safely in a steel glove.
"Good night, sweet princess," he cackled as the lights went out.
The next few weeks brought pain and misery like she had never experienced. Pier's men shacked her hut, destroyed everything they couldn't use, and burned it down. Her xierxu had been neutralized by a paralyzing venom, which Pier had joked was highly ironic. Her fame, money, and freedom was gone, everything she had accomplished to make for herself, was gone in a matter of minutes.
The eighteen year old was subjected to every sort of torture that Pier could imagine, with the exception of anything sexual. From time to time the villain would visit her, and lord it over her, sometimes striking her body with her own whip, his former whip, just as he had done to her when she had fallen in his hands the first time, so many times. "Did you really think I was so arrogant that I would strike an armored caravan, despite the rewards it would give me?" he asked, smacking her across the face.
"I should have guessed, once a coward, always a coward," she wheezed as he punched her stomach. Her face was full of bruises, brown and blue, a few green and gray. Her hair was at first tattered, and then shaved to the bass of her skull, Pier's personal insult at striking one of the few things she found she was prideful of.
"I never realized how pretty you were with such short hair," he said with admiring his handiwork.
"How sweet of you Pier," the woman spoke, inwardly smiling that it was making him irritable that he wasn't breaking her. "A true ladies man to the core."
"You should have killed me when you have the chance, you know?" he snarled. "I spent years tracking your movements, waiting for you to slip up. If you had stayed a pirate, I wouldn't have been able to lay a hand on you."
"I wasn't about to become the thing I hated the most," she spat.
"No, you'd rather waste your life and talents, by huddling away from humanity, trying to block out your dreams, running from me years too late to make a difference."
She rose an eyebrow. "You aren't making sense, you must be drunk."
He ran a finger over a slender shoulder, and smiled at her as she turned away. "Daddy told you to run, and you did, just a little too late."
Her mind raced to her dreams, as the man urged her to run as the ship was being attacked, and she had kept herself in the shadows, as he dropped dead from a knife wound, and was kicked into the water. "Father," she whispered. It was her father she was having dreams about.
"It is very interesting what a mule tiger's weight in gold and silver, paid to a dream walker, can do to a person's mind, isn't it?" he smiled, inching closer to her. He kissed her lips, and then pulled to her ear. "I was the one who convinced the Fire Nation that your village was on the verge of revolt," he said. "I hoped to have you all flee and allow me a greater profit of slave labor, but I suppose one slave like yourself is worth the whole weight of a mule tiger."
She looked stunned and lurched at him, only the ropes tied to her wrists and ankles making her into a human "x" stopped her from attacking. "You son of a bitch," she hissed, under her breath.
"Actually she was," he chuckled. "But she was a tough old hag."
A large man with an iron red hot, shaped like a serpent approached the tent. "I don't intend to lose you again, Jun dear," Pier said with a chuckle. He turned to the man, "Both shoulders, should do it, if you feel interested, use a smaller one on her ankles, but best judgment be yours."
Pier walked out of the tent, smiling at the sound of Jun gasp, and mutter protestations, before a massive, high pitched shriek filled the valley where he and his men were camped, and the sound and smell of scorching skin could be heard floating out betweens cries of pain and sobs of agony. His eyes grew dark, and he crossed his arms.
"Liu," he snapped. A small, rat like person rushed up to him.
"The xierxu, kill it, skin it, and use the meat to feel our dear little angel's belly, it would be evil of us not to feed her, and just as terrible for us to break those two's connection and friendship. This way at they can be together forever," he cackled. "Well, until she the next time she need to use the bathroom that is."
Pier Gri walked away, feeling stronger with each cry of pain coming from Jun, knowing that his future was secure.
As a guard passed the large cave where the beast was being kept, he could hear a piercing scream come from inside, and not an animalistic one, but a human. The hulk of a man frowned and rushed inside, to see Liu knocked out, laying in a broken hump, and to the far back, the cage that held the beast was empty. He took a step back, and heard a guttural growl, followed by puffs of air as if something was breathing in. Something big, something massive, something really pissed off! He turned and collapsed as the xierxu's tongue struck him in the chest. It howled, and then dashed out of the cave, straight for the camp.
Chaos erupted as soon as the animal broke into the camp. Legions fell to its tongue, and its nose quickly picked up the scent of its partner. He dashed toward the tent, tore it up and looked down at a bruised but not broken Jun as she smiled up at him.
"Good boy," she said weakly. "Now, let's get out of here."
He tore the restraints from her, and she pulled herself onto his back, retrieving her whip, which Pier had left in plain sight, no doubt to taunt her. Off they went, passed the guards, passed the camp, with only cries of Pier and his men with torches in hand, coming after them.
The xierxu tore through the forest at top notch speed, dodging trees by just margins of an inch. Jun could feel a few splinters poke into her bare skin, and she grit her teeth, but she was determined to get to ignore them, everything counted on her getting passed this.
Pier and his goons soon took up the chase, and it was an exact replica of the chase three years earlier, except the xierxu and Jun were both older, more experienced, and Jun was wearing very little clothing this time around thanks to her former master. They raced for over an hour, and looked as if they might successfully get away, when the patch of ground they were on disappeared from their feet, and they fell.
The persuers stopped and looked down, glaring at the two beings stuck in the hole. "Never let your guard down, and never let your opponent get the upper ground, Jun, dear," Pier snickered. "You should have learned that lesson while spying on me all those years ago, instead of eyeing that whip all the time."
"But I did," Jun said with an odd, knowing smile. She whistled, and it was followed by another whistle closer by. New torches lit the landscape, nearly two hundred. Liu walked overhead, and looked down as a few Fire Nation soldiers followed him.
"There they are, captain," he said, "just like she promised us."
"Liu, what the hell are you doing?" Pier roared.
"You are the one who said to carefully screen those who wished to work for you," Jun said, twirling her whip. It snatched on a tree branch, and she shot up, followed by example by her partner. As soon as she landed, she kicked straight up, and caught her former master in his jaw, where a fist to his stomach, and blow to his knee took him down. Those that tried to protect Pier, were dealt with unmercifully by the xierxu, and the Fire Nation soldier's arrows.
Liu walked up, twirling the keys to the xierxu's cage in his fingers. "It took you a few days longer," he said to Jun, but it looks like you lived up to your promise."
The woman shrugged, ignoring the pain in her shoulders. "I thought I'd see what my old master was up to, if he had changed any."
"And," Liu asked.
"He's gained a few pounds, and lost some of his edge, but nothing else seems to have changed." She bent down and tied his wrists and handed him over to Liu, who was a sergeant in the Fire Nation Army, whom she had made a deal with just after the tavern incident, that she would lure the villain into a false sense of security by letting him capture her, and then bring his whole gang to justice.
Liu looked at his superior, who nodded, and he pulled out a large bag of gold. "Try not to spend it all at a tavern this time, Jun," he said with a grin.
"Whatever you say, dad," she crooned, and leapt up onto her partner with a laugh. "If there's any body else you'd like me to help capture, you know where to find me."
"Like the avatar, suppose?" Liu asked playfully.
She frowned and thought for a moment. The avatar had disappeared less then one hundred years ago, and no one knew if he had been reincarnated into the next cycle, or if he was a master of espionage. "Sure, you find a man or woman whose close to a hundred year old, and can use all four elements, and I'll catch them for you."
"Right after we take care of the fleet from the Southern Water tribe that just launched last week," the captain said with a smile of his own.
Jun chuckled and rode off into the night, her gold over her shoulder, her whip on her hip, her xierxu howling with hunger.
"That's some woman," the captain said as he watched.
Pier felt both hate and admiration for her as she disappeared. "It sure is."
Okay, the story is over! Did you all like it? The ending of course takes place two years before the series begins, but if you read my clues, you'd know that. I might create a new Jun story, I kind of want to investigate her relationships with both Sergeant Liu, and perhaps future confrontations with Pier. What do you think? Review me, PM me, IM me if you see me on line (just know I use my sister's internet connection so its not always me, email me, what ever! LOL, just don't stalk me. Okay, bye bye.