Community Thugs

Umi approached a store owner. She had just seen a rather large man leave the store, stowing a large amount of cash in his pocket. With her suspicions and curiosity peaked, she decided to investigate. She had just gotten Armor, and was already extremely affectionate. It was amazing how fast a bond could develop sometimes. She had had the money and a merchant was selling various animals. It stole her heart as soon as she saw it, and was more than willing to part with the vast majority of the money she had made. But it was perfectly fine. She loved it. How could you not. ”Down Amor” she said with an affectionate tone. Not an order, a request. She slid off the large saddle and landed gracefully. If not for her gymnastics training she would not even be able to get on without some form of help. She walked into the store, which turned out to be a book store. Her hair blowing in the breeze, dark blue and braided into a single whip like braid. ”Sit? Is something wrong? I think I’ve seen that man leaving other stores as well, or at least other men dressed similarly.” The shopkeeper looked stricken for a second then sighed, deep and mournful. ”Their just a local gang of thugs…been forcing many store owners to pay them or else they will come wreck the place. They pretend we are paying for protection, but any idiot knows who will be doing the wrecking if we don’t pay.” Umi considered. She had been getting better with her bending. And she needed something to help her and Amor learn to function as a group. They seemed to be local thugs. ”Sir, I am a water bender, and outside is Amor, my shirshu. If you have something with their scent just to be sure, we could track them and take care of it.” The shopkeeper sighed and shook his head. Then he stopped and looked over. ”Take that book over there. That thug ripped half of it’s pages out, it’s worthless now, but at least he was too stupid to pick a valuable book. He was the only one to handle that book for the last 6 months, it’s been here ages.” Umi nodded to herself, and grabbed the book gingerly, holding it by the spine only, barely touching it. She took it outside to Amor. ”What say you Amor? Can you find this guy?”

Amor gave a grunt and a slight shake of his head. As if to say “Really? As if you have to ask such a stupid question” Umi smiled and nodded, and slid the book into the saddlebag just incase. She made a jump and grabbed the saddle with her hand. With all her gymnastics training she got onto the saddle. It would become easy for her she knew, once she got used to mounting such a huge beast. Amor make a throaty bark like rumbling sound, that Umi just knew had to be laughter. She picked up the reins and pulled slightly, and Amor was off. It was amazing how fast a shirshu could be. It made sense considering their size and the length of their stride. Still, being a new rider, it took her aback. She nearly fell but caught herself. Amor seemed to chuckle again, had it taken off that fast just to startle her? She couldn’t fault him. She would have to in his shoes…er…claws. She hadn’t intended to chase the thug so fast, but rather walk slowly. The reason why was obvious. With Amor moving at a brisk jogging pace (for Amor that is) people seemed to run away or panic. She couldn’t fault them, the shirshu was enormous. And somewhat alien. It had no eyes, but a big nose with little tentacles.  It took less than a minute, and the ride was over, or at least the running part of it. She had entered a small park. Other than some men in the middle talking, it was abandoned. She recognized one man. So this was where they met, and other just left this small park  alone. Umi, being only 5 feet 4 inches, was hardly threatening. But she hoped riding ontop of this big shirshu would more than help. ”I recommend you stop extorting people. I haven’t fed Amor in a while, and he is hungry. But don’t let the teeth and claws fool you, he is nice and cuddly. Umi pitched her voice with as much righteous fury and authority as she could. But it seemed her speech only evoked laughter.

Possibly because Amor helpfully chose that moment to growl loudly. But the effect was ruined when Umi, not yet adjusted to Amor’s “voice” was visibly startled. Unfortunately, they seemed to decide she was just some ignorant moron who thought she could just intimidate them. And when one of them threw a rock at her, she fell off the saddle. While she landed on her feet, it broke what little intimidation was left in her. So they grinned and began pulling out knives. The nearest one advanced towards her. Umi used a finger to open her waterskin and bent out the water, eying them. But her being a bender in light of her fall, didn’t pack much of a punch when it came to her failure at intimidating them. With a shout the 4 of them came running at her. Somewhat fearfull, Umi ran over, away from Amor. Perhaps this was something that was both stupid and smart at the same time.  She bent the water onto her hands, keeping most in the water-skin. From there she froze it, giving her sharp ice claws on her hands. Unfortunately she had no experience with hand to hand fighting. So she had to settle with evasion, constantly moving out of the way, here at least, her gymnastics training was a literal lifesaver.

After getting some distance, she shot the ice-claws off her hands, shooting 10 claws towards one man, hitting him with, miraculously 7 of the ten, right in the abdomen. He stopped and hunched over, grabbing his stomach, but unwittingly showing them in a tiny bit more. Using this distraction, she pulled out more water, and formed a nice, roughly 6 foot, water whip, and, with a suitable whipping motion,  managed to grab his leg. She then bent the rest of the whip around his other leg, and pulled his legs together, then froze the whip, freezing his legs together from the mid thigh to mid calf. Now that she had one out of combat, she wondered how she had not been stabbed by the others while she was attacking one of them? Well, Amor proved to be more than worth the coin it cost to get him. One man brave enough to attack him, managed to get close enough to stab him at arms length, before Amor simple licked him up the face like an affectionate dog. Within a pair of seconds he was laying on the ground, his eyes moving wildly around. ”What’s happened. Get up idiot get up!”

When his comrade failed to do more than move his eyes wildly around, another of his “friends” spoke up. ”I think he fell and broke his neck! God, how else can ya explain how he can’t get up?” Unfortunately, their talking distracted one of them, who was licked as well, across the chest. With the ods even now, 2 on 2, Umi advanced, bending another whip, whipping out, striking one of them. Umi then follow it by throwing a ball of water at him, which he managed to cleverly dodge. Another whip from Umi, and he was backing up, and failed to notice she had frozen the water on the ground, creating some very slick terrain. He fell and stumbled into the other thug, and together they fell over. Amor made his chuckling sound again. With two quip whips of his tongue they were out of combat. Amor walked over to sniff the one bound by umi, The man, the same man who Amor had ben tracking, had been trying to break the ice binding his legs with a rock. But as soon as Amor nuzzled him, he looked up and screamed. The sound seemed to annoy Amor, who seemed to lick him just to shut him up. Umi patted him gently on the side of his head, where the eyes would be if he had them. ”Thank you Amor, I really mean that.” He nuzzled her, nearly licked her, then seemed to remember his tongue was poisoned, and thought better of it. Instead he simple laid down, and allowed umi to mount. This time, he didn’t chuckle at her unorthodox mounting. Together, they went to find the city watch.

Word Count: 1474

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