Tavern Fight [open]

She followed up a lazily blocked incoming overhead strike with her forearm by kicking her aggressor in the chest and smashing the clay tankard she'd been drinking from into his temple dizzying him long enough for her to slam an elbow into the back of his neck, resulting in his paralysis for a few moments.

With her first opponent easily dispatched she grabbed a bottle behind the bar by its neck and threw it at one of the more peaceful patrons that had his back to her. The man swivelled around as the bottle slammed into his skull, as he did his shoulders hit his neighbour, sending him barrelling into another of the patrons. Those three paused for a second, dazed, before starting their own brawl. Now the entire tavern was devolving into chaos. Two fights were going on, the armed thugs, buddies of the mugger were in this to kill at least Tamura and maybe the two other kids as well, but at the same time there was the bar brawl which Tamura had just instigated which was raging on in the background. Fighters from both struggles were mixing, making the mugger's buddies' goal of catching and gutting Tamura quite a bit harder as they were caught in the bar brawl.

In the chaos the bounty huntress leaned over the counter, snatching a bottle of liquor from the bar before rolling away from an incoming blow from a chair leg. The wooden makeshift club splintered against the spot on the counter where she'd been just a short moment ago, as she continued rolling she swung a leg low, tripping the new attacker and making him fall face first, his forehead slamming violently against one of the tall bar stools.

Pushing herself off the counter she'd be rolling on she took a swig from the bottle as she stepped aside, avoiding a drunken punch from one of the patrons involved in the actual bar brawl. She was walking quite calmly, quite literally dancing between the blows she was avoiding so graceful were her movements. This was her element, the chaos of battle had always been where she found herself most at her ease. Her dancing eventually got her briefly back to back with the girl she'd saved from being stabbed.

"Quite a party is it not?" she called out, practically giggling as she slammed one feet into a brawler's face and then followed that up by smashing the other foot into his temple, landing smoothly on his stomach. The sweeping tide of battle separated the two women before Tamura had time to hear an answer though, and she found herself face to face with what initially looked like giant conjoined twins. A more careful observation elucidated that it was in fact the cook boy getting a piggyback ride from a rather large and burly man. The kid wasn't looking too sure of himself. Tamura inched to the left, avoiding a wild swing from what she assumed was a platypus-bear and man hybrid. Before the hand ham-sized hand could retreat she stepped on it, locking it into place, threw the bottle of liquor up in the air as she slammed a semi-open palm into the man's shoulder, pushing the bone right out of its socket, while kicking him in the side of the knee, bringing the giant of a man to his knees with a howl of pain as the bottle fell back into her waiting hand.

Around her the brawl and the real fight had merged to the extent where the men who had initially been planning to murder her were completely swallowed up in drunken patrons. She'd essentially managed to diffuse the situation, taking out one fire by creating a bigger one right next to it, turning a battle to the death into an amicable drunken bar brawl. The brawl was in full swing and the mugger's friends had much bigger fish to fry right now. Taking the opportunity she grabbed the cook boy by the collar and half-led half-dragged him to to the girl, grabbing her as well and then making a run for her table, where she plopped the two of them down, falling down in her own chair lazily, watching the brawl unfold before her as one more sophisticated might watch a play.

"Best seats in the house," she commented contently as she took a swig from the bottle. Here they were far enough that they didn't need to worry about being involved in the fight, but close enough to have a good look at the action. Tamura sounded like someone satisfyingly observing the product of a job well done.

"Quite a party is it not?" Yami couldn't help grinning at the question as she slammed the hilt of her knife into the temple of another attacker. She was about to yell You know it!, but the two were rudely separated by that cook boy riding another man like a crazed bull. Yami watched as the woman made some slick movements and she told herself that if she ever wanted help getting better, this was the person to ask.

Drunk men were piling on top of each other, hitting each other with whatever they could get their hands on. Yami broke a man's nose with the hilt of her knife, then slashed it across his foreead, causing a lot of bleeding. The man stumbled back, holding his face in his hands, when he ran into a chair and fell backwards, hitting his fat head on the ground, out cold.

Yami was startled as the woman came up behind her and grabbed her shirt collar, dragging her to a table. "Best seats in the house," the woman said, taking a long drink of wine. Yami sat contently, watching the fight and smiling to herself. She made eye contact with the first man who mugged her, saw the distress and blood on his face, and gave him a sly smile.

"I don't know, guys. Have you seen the view from on top of that guy's shoulders?" Chen said, pointing to the big guy he just got pulled off from. "Man, I've never been in a bar fight, is it always this fun?" Chen sat on the edge of his seat, occasionally punching the air as the other bar-goers fought. This was amazing, the feeling Chen felt. He wanted to jump back in, but he didn't want to disrespect the woman who pulled him out. She seemed to know a bit more about fighting than him. "Oh man, I wish I could fight like you did." He said to the bounty hunter. "where'd ya learn? All I can do is fish and cook, so I know you're not from Jang Hui." Chen's eyes only darted to the girl for a moment before returning to the fight.

Tamura was busy with her pipe, scratching a match against the underside of the table and pressing the naked flame on a stick into the chamber, the heat lit the tobacco leaves within, the smoke travelling up the shank through the airhole, into her mouth and lungs, before being expelled in a single long breath as she sat back in her seat, once again balancing her chair on its back legs with the backrest set against the wall.

All things considered, she was starting to like this cook boy. He was a good enough cook, something she could confirm having had to eat one of his culinary creations. He could handle himself in a fight. More or less. And he was complimenting her, a quality she could definitely appreciate in anyone.

"I am pretty fantastic," she chuckled in agreement, lazily releasing a puff of smoke upwards. No point in being humble when it was true, plus she had a strict rule regarding compliments, take them where you find them. "And I'd wager the view from that guy's shoulder, impressive as it may have been, was somewhat unreliable given how much he was thrashing about.

"As for where I learned to fight, well let's say I had a good master for the basics and chalk the rest up to experience and practise shall we? Fighting is all about repeating actions so many times they become instinctive reactions, not thought out actions. Practise long and eventually you won't have to think about what you're doing," she was addressing the cook boy, but she wasn't actually looking at him. He was a good kid for sure, but he wasn't nearly as interesting as the girl, and that was who Tamura had been observing out of the corner of her eyes as she had been speaking. Her clothes might be common enough, but the rest of her certainly wasn't, what had struck Tamura first though had been here eyes. There was something there that she recognised, something she imagined her own amber gaze had had once, long ago, when the pain of fleeing from her home had still been fresh.

She'd tracked the girl's gaze back at the mugger who had essentially started this whole mess, his face was a tapestry of blood and splintered teeth and bone, a grisly sight to say the least. Tamura was pretty surprised he was conscious, she had to hand it to him he was a tough bastard, but he wasn't completely devoid of sense. As he noticed the two women eyeing him he hastily slunk away and out of the establishment.

"I don't think you should judge him too harshly for targeting you above anyone else in here," Tamura pointed out, switching her one eyed gaze back from the man with the broken face to the girl. "What he did wasn't very nice, or acceptable really, but people see someone as out of place in here as you come through the doors and they're bound to react stupidly. You're obviously far from home, and you seem a little young to be the world travelling type, which prompts the question, what are you doing here?"

Yami sat comfortably watching the fight. She also watched the woman, seeing her examination of her from the corner of her eye. Yami admired this woman, seeing as she single-handedly took down at least ten men. Then the woman said, "I don't think you should judge him too harshly for targeting you above anyone else in here. What he did wasn't very nice, or acceptable really, but people see someone as out of place in here as you come through the doors and they're bound to react stupidly. You're obviously far from home, and you seem a little young to be the world travelling type, which prompts the question, what are you doing here?".

Yami explained, "I ran away from home as a child, learned to survive on my own, and ended up wandering the Vermillion Empire, looking for anything to do in my life. I sometimes get sent on missions, but today I was just wandering. Most of the time I just go wherever the wind takes me, looking for a way to get work, which a lot of times is coming to places like this and singing popular folk songs." Yami didn't want to go into her full story, and besides, the fight was just getting juicy as one guy started to firebend all over the place, and Yami had to duck to avoid being burned.

Yami turned to the boy, and said, "I never did catch your name. My name is Yami, by the way.

"I'm Chen Tai-ning if Hang Hui!" He shouted. He slammed a heavy fist into the table, making the candle flame near him brighter. It was like a spotlight almost making his face and features extremely defined and detailed. He firebent a few sparks from his other hand that was busy swinging in a circle, drawing more attention.
He looked once more to the girl asking the question. "Sorry, no sob story for me. Grew up in a good home and always had work that made me happy, haha.," his laugh trailed off. He was bragging to the wrong people.

Yami's anger started to boil up. She inadvertently made the candle flame grow huge, melting the wax in less than a second, then setting the table on fire. She then jumped over to Chen and tackled him, pinning him to the ground and holding a knife to his throat. She knew very well that her eyes had probably turned fully orange, and she didn't care.

The other people in the tavern had looked over, noticing the flaming table and the boy pinned to the ground. They could see the anger burning up into Yami's face, who was now prepared to kill Chen for what he had said. Her past was a touchy topic, and when people make fun of it, she just can't contain her anger.

It would always be a source of eternal wonderment to Tamura how rapidly a situation could deteriorate. The sheer speed at which people could go from having a friendly conversation to stabbing each other while frothing at the mouth in rage. All it took were a few words to light the sparks.

Before the candle even started to go berserk she knew something was wrong. Her body had become so used to battle she'd developed something akin to a sixth sense, she could feel the tension ready to snap, she could taste the blood lust on the air, there was a tenseness in her  as her entire body coiled itself in anticipation for the imminent action.

The candle burst, the entire wax structure melting in a mere second. The girl leapt at the cook boy, a knife in hand and the two collided and rolled to the floor as the table caught in flames.

Tamura had jumped into motion so soon after the girl the naked eye would have thought the two had gotten up together. Her hands and arms came alive as they began the repetitive bending motions. Tamura's feet moved as well and she effectuated a single turn on herself, closing her hands together in thin air at the beginning of the turn and opening them at its completion. A powerful gale burst forth form her open palms, the rush of air slamming the girl away from the cook into the opposing wall and extinguishing the table in a single blast.

Tamura stepped around the now smoking table stepping in front of the cook, putting herself between him and the girl with one hand on one of the hilts of her katanas, drawing the blade a fraction of an inch out of its sheath.

"Are you okay?" she asked Chen, her one eye not leaving the girl for a second. She didn't want to fight, there was no fun to be had in kicking around a kid. However she wasn't going to let this girl kill the boy over a simple comment, both for the boy's and the girl's sake. "I'm going to have to ask you to drop that knife," she called out, her grip on her sword tightening.

The few people that were still conscious and sober enough to stand and retain some cognitive abilities were looking from one woman to the next in uncertainty. Even the drunk ones could feel the tension in the air. This was the calm before the storm, the entire situation was balanced on a knife's edge and a single nudge either way would either make things return to semi-peacefulness or lead to a fight that would be anything but amicable.

Yami could tell by the feeling inside that by this point her eyes had gone completely orange, not just the irises, but the pupils as well. Yami grabbed a spoon and looked and knew that her suspicions were correct. She tried to calm herself down, knowing that if this got any more out of control, this bar fight would be over with dead bodies and a burnt down tavern left to tell the story. She didn't want to kill any of these people, but fighting was always fun. Yami never killed unless it was in self defense, or if her powers got out of control.

Yami could feel her temperature rising as the anger flared up inside her. She had dropped her knife, and now bright fire was burning in her hands. She saw this and immediately extinguished it. She walked over to Chen and said "Sorry, I didn't mean to get to the point where I would kill you. It's just that when I get angry, my fire bending gets...out of control. And my past is something that makes my anger flare up instantly. She reached out her hand to help him stand, quickly extinguishing another flame that had begun in her palm.

a figure appeared into the Bar, "well al least i didn't have to intervene...Yami." said the voice in the shadows. it was a familiar voice to Yami. the figure walked out of the shadows revealing a 16 year old teenager wearing all black. "I was afraid to see you kill somebody, you should learn to not...you know go on a rampage..." he said in a way trying not to anger her.