[fieldbox=Shun Min, #ff6600, solid]
Shun nodded as Shen halted their group, mentioning them to stop whoever was chasing them. Even Shun knew that the cav was far from safe to traverse, especially in this failed tourism area. Vandalism and criminal activities didn't help much to preserve the place nor its integrity, and it was probably better to take out whoever was chasing them in an ambush rather than having to worry about them possibly bringing the cave down on them.
Grabbing his personal firebender he manouvered himself into a position slightly behind Jinhai. Once again he felt as tiny as ever behind the tall man of steel muscles, and for a moment was brightly reminded of their first few meetings...
[fieldbox=In the Beginning, orange, solid]
20 years ago
Shun groaned. How'd he get in this situation anyways... Sending a look at the drugdealer who got him sent into the ring, he already began figuring out a way to escape. Well, actually, if he could just win this fight, he was free. That was the deal. Well, not really the deal, he never really agreed to anything, but his opinion didn't really matter in this case. If only he hadn't been caught! Now he was stuck fighting one of the big boys here in the Blue Box to repay his debts to the drug dealer. But both of them knew that the small, scrawny thug wasn't that much of a fighter. Sure, he could beat the crap out of someone, but he had never trained or anything. Unlike the monstrous, hulking, mean fighting machines that walked around in here.
As he got pushed into the box, he knew there was little chance of escaping. He was in plain view of the loud horde of men, screaming for his blood, or his opponent's, and getting out would be pretty obvious. To escape here without being stopped would mean that he'd have to magically teleport out of the box past the entire horde here somehow. He'd have to fight this guy, or he would have to improvize. And that usually didn't end all too well.
Several guys already stepped foward to take on the whimpy kid, but were silenced when another kid pushed his way through and stepped out before anyone else. He gave Shun a cocky look, already considerably taller than the nineteen year old; but clearly younger. Nobody in the crowd stopped him from walking forward, though snickers spread through the crowd. They knew who he was: the only son of the owner of the Blue Box, Jinhai. He was only a fifteen year old kid, but around the fighting ring he was pretty known. Not for his fights, mind you, his father always kept him away from the fighting. Yet Jinhai was pretty much always there. He wanted to be in and today his father was not stopping him.
He walked another couple of steps forward so that he could tower over the other guy.
"I will be your opponent." He tried to sound confident. He
was confident. He was going to beat this guy up and then his father could not keep him out of this fighting ring ever again.
Well. He didn't know who or what was watching over him, but he thanked whatever it was. This arrogant brat would be easy as pie to take down. Shun grinned cruelly as he winked at the drugdealer behind him, who let out a frustrated sigh.
"A deal's a deal, right?" Shun said on a sweet tone as he turned to face his opponent again. Cracking his knuckles and rolling his shoulders, he stepped forwards.
"Alright, brat. Show me how pampered you are."
Jinhai grinned. This was what he had been waiting for all these years. For too long had he been standing in the kitchen cleaning plates and glasses. For too long had he been hiding behind the bar to check out the fighting. No more. He took a step back and looked around to see if his father was watching. He found the familiar figure standing at the bar, not looking at him. Well he would make him look. He turned his gaze back to his opponent.
And launched an attack. With a swift move he stepped forwards and tried to slam the boy before him full in his face like he had seen so many other fighters do.
Shun stepped backwards, surprised by the boy's enthusiasm. He really wanted his teeth kicked in! Mostly parrying the wild fist slung at his face, Shun grabbed the now outstretched arm of his opponent and used it, together with the speed of his opponent, to throw the boy over his shoulder as he turned around. The taller brat slammed into the wooden ring as Shun got up again, and lunged himself at the boy, kicking him straight in the ribs with all of his merciless, which was not that much in fact, strength.
Jinhai had always known that people got pretty roughed up in the fighting ring, but being on the outside always made it so that the pain didn't seem overly real. Now, however; as he slammed into the wood that wasn't blue anymore the pain seemed very real. Too real. It knocked the air straight out of his lungs and made his head spin. For a moment he was quite unsure where he was. He was reminded luckily by the furious kick that landed staight in his ribs and sent the air he had tried to regard away again. Jinhai opened and closed his mouth like a fish on dry land, desperate for the tiniest sliver of air.
Fuck.
That was not a good start. But he could come back from this. He could. He dug his fingers in the ground. His limbs felt heavy. He spit on the ground and raised his fist, sending a heap of dirt towards Shun's face in the hope that that might drive the guy away for a second so that he could get back up.
When the boy threw dirt at his face, Shun ignored his instinct to back off, and instead blindly charged forwards, rapidly blinking to get rid of the dirt. People usualy only threw dirt to buy time or to open an opponent's defences for an attack. The last thing they'd expect was a wild attack of its own. As such Shun stormed forwards, delivering two fast punches directed at Jinhai's face while trying to plant his knee in the taller guy's stomach or crotch.
That didn't go as planned; were Jinhai's only dazed thoughts as Shun's fists collided with his cheekbones. His head smashed sideways back against the wooden ring. His nose was bleeding, but before he could properly register that the knee of Shun found its way in his stomach. Despite his better instinct Jinhai's body buckled over. A combination of saliva and blood trickled down his lips and on his clothes. He groaned. This was not how it was supposed to go. He vaguely registered that the crowd was laughing. They weren't supposed to laugh! At least not
at him. Their laughter should be because of the beating he was supposed to give this other kid. His hands clenched into fists and the muscles in his legs tensed as he willed his body to shoot forwards attempting to drive his shoulder into Shun's stomach this time. He was getting a hit in, if it was the last thing he would do.
Shun felt his feet lose connection with the ground as the kid, the stubborn bastard, launched himself into his stomach. Flinching as the larger kid landed on his chest after reconnecting with the ground, flat on his back, Shun rolled over and pinned the fuckface's arms to the floor with his knees, and started delivering punches to the unprotected face of Jinhai. The fucking brat would learn when to stop, and he would learn it now.
The more punches Jinhai received the less painful they became. The first two hurt like hell, but after a while a numbness settled down over him. Shun was still punching and it still hurt, undoubtedly his face looked the part, but his thoughts didn't even bother to register it anymore. He could only stare with half closed eyes to the ceiling as his face bobbed from right to left. Several groans that he had wanted to keep in escaped his lips as his feet made some half assed moves to attempt something that even Jinhai himself couldn't properly remember.
Everything hurt. That was the general thought that inhabited his head. But there were no specifics. Just pain. And the realisation that he had pretty much lost his first battle. The battle he had looked forward to for so long. And who had he lost it too? To some random scrawny guy who didn't even look like he could be a fighter, let alone be in this ring. Jinhai wondered what would have happened if he had went up against one of the big guys. Would he have any bones left? Even now he could feel his ribs protesting against the hits he was receiving.
The crowd was roaring with laughter; but suddenly it stopped:
"The fight is over." A voice said from behind Shun's back where the owner of the bar himself had appeared.
Shun didn't come here too often; it was a fight club, and he was no fighter, but he did know several things of this place. It was led by a guy who knew how to fight, and this guy on the floor, under all the blood and bruises,
did look quite a bit like the owner of the place. He also knew that a strong authoritaty voice usually was backed up by something, and before he even knew it Shun was standing next to the heap of groaning boy, hiding his bleeding knuckles as if he was innocence itself.
As Shun let him go the heap of bloody flesh that was Jinhai rolled on his side and cringed. He felt pathetic, but really couldn't stop himself from not looking pathetic at the moment. He knew who the figure was that had appeared in the fighting ring and it only made him feel worse. He had to be saved by his dad. Seriously? His first fight and he was this daddy's boy who couldn't survive without the help of his father.
"The shrimp wins," his father announced without any emotion in his voice. Jinhai closed his eyes. His nose was still bleeding. He wondered how his face looked. Suddenly his father was next to him.
"Come on, you will want to walk out of here with or without my help. You want to walk out." The older man hoisted Jinhai up and forcefully dragged him to his feet. Trying to muster up enough dignity as he could Jinhai attempted to make some convincing looking steps to leave the arena that convinced no one. As he passed Shun he locked eyes with him. This was not over. He didn't know who this guy was and he didn't care, but next time things wouldn't be so easy.
The brat had grown faster, Shun thought as he rubbed his cheek. It had been a year and a half since he last fought this brat, but he had grown. He had later learned that he was called Jinhai, but he had realized the moment he had stepped into the ring that he wasn't the same Jinhai as last fight. He looked just as confident and reckless as before, but he now had an air about him which told Shun that he now had the bite to back up the bark with. He had been correct in that feeling, as even the glancing blow to his chin has made him feel dizzier than he already felt due to the 'Red Viper'.
He had always wondered why it was called the 'Red Viper', but by now, he knew for sure. Everything sounded weird and suspicious, and if you took enough of it it'd kill you just as fast as a real viper would. The only advantage of it was that the weird world you entered after taking it was so much more comfortable as the one you'd leave. Sadly, after a while you had to take more of it to achieve the same effect, and you'd always remain longing for that one moment of glorious ectasy of the first time. All the while still influenced by the drug of course. Charging forwards, hellbent on keeping the initiative, Shun tried to launch a left hook followed by an uppercut.
Without much effort Jinhai blocked the first punch by grabbing Shun's wrist and slammed the second to the side so that it missed his chin though it was only just. Was Shun even trying this time? It really wasn't that long ago since the two of them had first set eyes on each other, but this time the roles felt strangely reversed. Shun was the only that looked pathetic. Not just his fighting. He looked awful in general. Still scrawny as hell even though he had a good few years on Jinhai. But where Jinhai had grown, both taller and wider, Shun seemed to have become even less of a person. There lay a haunted look in his eyes, one that Jinhai had seen with more people in the city. He didn't like it. He wanted to beat Shun yes, but not when he was jacked up on whatever he was on. The hand that was holding Shun's wrist pulled the man closer while Jinhai lifted his leg to knee the man full in his crotch.
He saw it coming, and he had to avoid it. Being hit in the balls was something that, as a guy, you usually wanted to avoid. He turned sideways so he would miss the knee directed for his crotch, and outstretched his left and free arm, using it as a sort of scythe to mow down Jinhai's neck and throw him on the ground.
Jinhai's right arm shot out to parry the move and without wasting any time his other knee came up to meet Shun's crotch once again. As the man doubled over in pain, a pain that Jinhai really could almost feel as well and which he really did not want to share; Jinhai loosened his grip and pulled his arms back. Shun's cowering figure was right before him and swiftly Jinhai let both of his fists come down on his exposed neck.
The floor tasted bad. It always did before, yet still it was always something Shun noticed when his face was pressed into it. Rolling over instinctively to avoid more of a beating, Shun swung around his leg blindly, hoping to at least obstruct his foe as he flailed over the floor. The jerking and uncomfortable pain, yes, there is such a difference, between his legs was ignored through large jolts of adrenaline as he got up in a most elegant manner. Where had Jinhai learn- Well here of course, but... Shun just stopped trying to think of it, because he felt his brain was not really capable of such after that blow on his neck. Thanks to the adrenaline and the drugs however, he didn't really feel any specific pain. He just felt worse than usual, which was pretty bad already. He threw a punch at Jinhai, more for form than actually hitting the guy. He was seeing two Jinhai's anyways.
Jinhai took two steps back to avoid the flailing man and looked with both interest as disgust how Shun was thrashing about in the sand. When he finally did get up again - which was a slight surprising and praiseworthy feat in itself to be honest - he swung so randomly and missed Jinhai so completely that the man wondered if he had accidentaly and possibly permanently damaged Shun's brain with that last blow. He realized then that he didn't really care. As Shun tried to "hit" him Jinhai not so lightly kicked Shun in his side to send him towards the wooden ring.
There was a sudden sharp pain in the general numbness that was his mind, which quickly disappeared again. The next thing he knew his face suddenly collided with mercilessly hard wood, and another sharp pain shortly flared up. He vaguely realized that red, hot blood trickled down his face as he lay there, curled up against the side of the arena. That last blow had reduced his consciousness to his mind. Most of his senses were cutting off as he drifted away, untill all he could do was hear the crowd cheer for Jinhai's victory as he sunk in the blackness of his mind.
Beating Shun felt better than Jinhai really wanted to admit. For some reason he had really been waiting for this and he could feel the rush of excitement when he saw Shun slide down onto the ground and not move anymore. Despite himself he grinned and looked around. The crowd was cheering for him this time. Not for Shun. They had placed their bets on him. Not on Shun. He had won. Not Shun. And this time he was the one to leave the arena walking proudly. Not Shun. And that felt damn good.
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He was however, violently torn out of his daydreaming as a loud shriek and a crushing noise made him aware of the boar-q-pines in the alleyway.
"That doesn't look good." He managed to say as their assailants appeared out of the hallway in front of them as the boar-q-pines charged them from behind. Luckily Shen's little cave could be used to hide Shen and Ming from the fight, but that didn't count for the rest of them. Recognizing which target Jinhai would have most trouble taking down, Shun lit a sigarette and opened the pan on his personal firebender, and took aim at the two charging creatures. They seemed to be mostly blind. Perhaps a flash and some sharp pain would do something about their plans of flattening him? Lowering his smoke into the pan, heavy recoil rocked his weapon upwards as a, for most people at least, lethal dose of hot lead was projected into one of the boar-q-pines, accompagnied by a blinding and loud
BANG!
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