June; World's Greatest Bounty Hunter

[June]

Full Name: June

Nicknames: Most nicknames given to June have ended up with a casualty or two.

Gender: Female

Age: 24

Birthplace: Ba Sing Se

Loyalty: Earth Kingdom, to the extent that she was born there.

Status: June is one of the world’s best bounty hunters, reputedly able to find anybody who can be found – whether they want to be or not.

Height: 5’ 7”

Weight: 138lbs

Hair Color: Black

Eye Color: Grey

Distinguishing Features:

June has a bullseye-like tattoo on her upper left arm – three circles painted in red ink. There is a matching one on the opposite hip, but only she knows of its existence. She has another tattoo on her upper right arm; from a distance, it looks like a spiral, but it is a coiled dragon in reality. She has a few scars here and there, and her hands are slightly callused from the strength needed to rein in a Shirshu.

Appearance:

June wears her black hair in an almost Fire Nation-esque sort of style, with the neat topknot. Her hair is long, and she has a thick side fringe covering her right eye. The hairpiece is a black band with a white skull design at the front.
Her eyes are a dark grey in colour, and she emphasizes them with thick eyeliner and some silver shadow on her lids.

June’s skin is pale, which helps to enhance her features even further. She is of an athletic physique, with defined musculature, even if it is lean and curvy rather than bulging. When her body is tensed – such as when riding Nyla or cracking her whip – it is easy to see her strength.

Her clothing consists mainly of a black vest top beneath a sleeveless black coat with a high collar and two large brass buckles. It has two slits up the sides, cut up to her hips, but it falls around her knees at the back and the front. She wears black leggings and black knee-length boots, with matching fingerless gloves that extend to her elbows. Her whip is hooked onto a thin belt around her waist for easy access.

Beneath her vest, she wears an extremely thin layer of chain mail to protect against projectiles and direct stabs. It is flexible, and allows quick movement, but it could potentially break under repeated strain. To protect her skin from the metal, she wears a padded shirt beneath.
June wears no symbols of her Earth Kingdom roots, purely because she feels no allegiance to anybody.

Personality:

June is, first and foremost, a confident and wilful woman. She is the sort of person who knows what she wants and how to get it, and she is very direct. Few people misunderstand her; she lays all her cards out on the table, and lets people judge her how they want – most of the time, she doesn’t care what other people think of her anyway. June is something of a lone wolf; she doesn’t need anybody, and relies on her own skills wholeheartedly. She is somewhat cunning, in that she can see ways out of situations that others might miss – be it talking to someone or an escape route.

This is not to say that she is unsociable. She is a well-known face in some taverns, slipping in for a drink or three between missions. Due to her clients, she can mingle with commoners and nobles alike, though she places amongst neither of them. Her typical mannerisms, as well as growing up with a single male parent contribute to her ease around men. She is competitive, willing to take up any challenge that presents itself, be it arm-wrestling, card games or a brawl.

June’s attitude towards her employers can vary wildly at times; depending on the situation she is in. She can be aloof, enigmatic and slightly angry, or she can be more open to them; this tends to be when she has dealt with them before in favourable circumstances. She has a dry sense of humour, often making remarks that some might consider inappropriate. She does not tend to judge anybody, and her morality is very grey; there are few things she would consider decidedly bad or good – most lay somewhere in the middle.

A proficient fighter, June handles most situations with a calm, cool head, always thinking logically to determine how best to achieve her goal. She is determined and ambitious, and does not hesitate to make decisions that others may falter on. While she is not a leader, she could direct a team if pushed into that role – June is one who would rather delegate such tasks to other people, so she has her independency.

Family:
Ramir – Father, deceased
Tiva – Mother, deceased

History:

Twenty-four years ago, June was born in the Earth Kingdom’s capital. Her parents were nomads of a sort; her father was a bounty hunter and her mother was a woman he had met on his journeys. Having first laid eyes on each other when he was in Omashu, they fell in love quickly, and it soon resulted in June’s birth. The baby was healthy, but there had been complications with the labour, and Tiva died just hours later.

While Ramir was heartbroken, he took his daughter under his wing and left Ba Sing Se as soon as she was old enough to travel. Life was hard, at first; he was a single parent with no experience, and there were concerns around every corner as he was met with another thing he didn’t know how to respond to. He learned, and he bonded with his child. Soon enough, she was his life. He contemplated settling down for a time, but he had no knowledge of commoner work, and he was terrified that they would not survive without the money he brought in with his hunting.

So Ramir stayed a bounty hunter, relegated to dragging June around after him. He stepped back a little, taking jobs that were not so high profile and risky. As she grew older, he taught her the basics of tracking and fighting so that she could fend for herself when she was older, though he prayed that she would not follow in his footsteps; he loved his work, but it was not something he wanted her to do; it was too dangerous, too dirty.

When June hit seven, Ramir did a job for a rare animal dealer, tracking down and capturing a young man who had stolen several animals from him. As payment, he was given a rare shirshu beast, the runt of a litter. He was happy to receive the creature (though he would have been happier with coin), but Ramir had no use for the shirshu in his work, and so he gave it to June.
It was love at first sight. June named the shirshu Nyla, and taught it to respond to her commands.

The two of them grew up with each other. In a few years, Nyla was large enough to ride, and after many tears and gashed knees, June learned to keep her balance atop the animal. Her father continued to teach her combat skills, and she turned into a formidable hand-to-hand fighter. In addition, he taught her how to use a whip – which was both useful in battle and to keep Nyla in check.

June became a rowdy teenager, making her father worry about stopping in towns. In the evenings, she would go out to chase the local boys, getting into fights in bars and drinking alcohol. It was a stage that most children went through, but she drove Ramir insane with her antics, and so he resolved to take her with him on jobs instead of leaving her in taverns for the time he was away. Watching her father’s talents in practise, June secretly decided that she wanted to be just like him.

When June was sixteen, Ramir was killed on one of his hunts. It was a fate he knew was waiting for him, and yet he had been reckless. It was an amateur’s mistake; he had ignored one of the guards at a prison, and the man he was after had screamed an alarm. It was a close fight, but Ramir was unarmed and the guard had been equipped with a jian. June found his body cut wide-open, guts spilled across the floor.

The horrific image in mind, she was forced to leave him behind – she could not drag him away with all the prison guards around. She mounted Nyla and charged away into the dark.
When they finally stopped, June decided that she would continue her father’s work, in memory of him. She would not think further on it; that was the past. It was history.

She went on to the Fire Nation, and accepted her first bounty in a tavern on the outskirts of the Capital. Using the tracking skills Ramir had drilled into her, she hunted down and grabbed a runaway noble’s son. It was an easy job, but June found that this was something she enjoyed, and in the next few years, she took on many bounties, staying out of the eye of politics – though many politicians asked for her services – and developed a reputation for herself.

At the age of twenty-three, she received an injury to the back of her head that stopped her from hunting for several months. She had been lucky to escape death, and it wasn’t until a year later that she was sufficiently recovered to start up again. In that time, greenhorn bounty hunters had risen up and covered her reputation, so, much to her frustration; she was forced to start anew.

It was on one of these jobs that June ran into the young Fire Prince Zuko. Chasing a target down, she and Nyla scrambled aboard his ship, causing considerable damage. June didn’t care – she had the man she had been looking for, and Nyla’s paralysing tongue knocked him senseless. With just a few words to Zuko and his uncle, Iroh, she left with her prey in hand.

This was not the last time she saw them.
Zuko came to her with a proposition; he wanted her to find the Avatar, and he had a necklace for Nyla to scent. In return, he would pay her the equivalent of her weight in gold. With a little renegotiation – they would instead pay her Iroh’s weight in gold, she agreed to help. They successfully found the Avatar and his little gang at a nearby monastery, along with their Sky Bison pet.

A rather fierce battle ensued, with Nyla facing off against Appa and almost overcoming him despite his superior strength. Katara – a waterbender and the Avatar’s comrade – bended some bottles of fragrance, scattering the scented liquid across the floor. The shirshu, who relied on her sense of smell to see, was confused by all the different scents, and went into a rage. June was hurled from the saddle, and hit with the paralysing tongue.

Temporarily knocked unconscious, she found herself lying across Iroh, who had also ‘been paralysed’. With the Avatar nowhere in sight, she bid Zuko and Iroh farewell, and dashed away atop a calmed Nyla.
For almost a year, June stayed well out of the political and military panic that swirled around the world. She heard of the Fire Nation’s attack on the Northern Water Tribe, of the fall of Ba Sing Se at the hands of the Fire Nation, and of the failed offensive against the Capital on the day of the eclipse.

Then she was found by Zuko yet again – wanting to find the Avatar again. While she initially declined the job, she eventually set out to find him. He was nowhere. He did not exist, she told Zuko’s new gang, and they instead asked her to take them to Iroh, who was liberating Ba Sing Se. She did so, leading them to the all-but-ruined city. She did not stop to exchange pleasantries with the old man – her talents were needed elsewhere.

Fire Lord Ozai fell shortly after, at the hands of the child Avatar, and the world rejoiced. June continued to accept work for the next few months – until she realised that, with the newfound peace, bounty-hunting jobs were steadily declining. She found herself fighting with the newer hunters for the most meagre hunts.

Now, June goes from nation to nation, trying to find whatever scarce work she can. There is rumour of unrest in the nations, and she is perhaps one of the only people who hopes it comes to fruition. At least it will mean more work, which means more money.

Skills:

• Advanced Unarmed Combatant ~ June has a measure of skill in hand-to-hand combat, to the point that she could defeat many people with just her fists, even when outnumbered.
  
  
• Master Whip User ~ Having been trained with the whip since a young age, June could easily be considered a master of the weapon. She uses it both to control Nyla and to attack her foes – sometimes to cause gashes or cuts, and sometimes to curl around their limbs and constrict or trip them.
  
  
• Master Shirshu Rider ~ One of the only people in the world to own one of the great beasts, June has become a fantastic shirshu rider in the seventeen years she has been with Nyla. The animal’s gait and movements are often rocky, and they are extremely strong, making this a talent.
  
  
• Master Tracker ~ It is not for nothing that June is known as one of the best trackers in the world. With the aid of her shirshu, Nyla, June is capable of finding anybody who can be found, dead or alive, in hiding or in the open. Without the animal, she is hindered a little, as she is not as fast and she does not have the aid of Nyla’s paralytic tongue, but she is still very capable.

Weaponry:

• Whip ~ A long, black whip. The handle is seven inches long, and is decorated with a metal skull (matching her hairpiece) at one end. The other end consists of the majority of the whip; a long strip of leather, starting rather wide, with the tip being very thin. There are some tiny metal barbs at this end, invisible to the naked eye, which can catch on clothing and rip.

Strengths:

• Strength ~ June’s strength is more than average for a woman her age and size. She has demonstrated that she can lift and throw a man who is larger and presumably heavier than she is, proving her physical condition to be above the norm.
  
  
• Agile ~ Flexible enough to evade and roll with attacks thrown at her, June’s speed aids her in her fighting and tracking. Her agility is borne of years of training, and it balances her out when she is fighting those who have an advantage over her.
  
  
• Cool Headed ~ In most tough situations, June can be relied on to come up with a quick, reliable plan where others might fail to do so under the pressure. She does not break under duress, and has the ability to keep calm when everybody else is panicking.
  
  
• Sociable ~ Bars and taverns are like home to June, and so are the people in them. While in such a setting, she is far warmer to her fellow patrons, buying drinks and enjoying herself. While she is somewhat more standoffish outside, she is still approachable.
  

Weaknesses:

• Too Independent ~ June is so used to working on her own that she often rejects help when it is offered, even when she may need it. It takes a lot for her to swallow her pride and acknowledge that she may need someone else’s aid.
  
  
• Lack of Empathy ~ June struggles to see things from other people’s viewpoints. While she is not stupid, she finds it difficult to relate to people or to offer sympathy where it may be needed. Other people’s feelings are easy to ignore; she would rather get the job done and leave.
  
  
• Self Interest ~ June looks out for one person and one person only; herself. If she is offered a job with no personal gain, then she is highly unlikely to take it unless she owes the client a favour or if she is close to them.
  
  
• Obsessive ~ Once given a job, June will complete it unless it is literally impossible to complete. She chases her targets with single-minded stubbornness, refusing to let up until she has captured them or achieved whatever it is she was supposed to achieve.

Role Play Sample:

This was a bounty worth taking.
Noticing the scroll attached to the board, June only had eyes for the price on this one’s head. The image had been painted over by graffiti artists, but she paid it no mind. The man was reportedly a member of the Order of the White Lotus – and she kind of felt bad about that, seeing as they had helped save the world and all – but she felt loyalty to no man. And any loyalty she might have had would have been bribed away by the gold offered for this one being brought in alive.

Conveniently, whoever had pinned this particular notice to the board must have been a personal acquaintance of the man in question; a ragged strip of red and gold cloth was also attached. With any luck, it would have the bounty’s scent – and this would be the easiest job in the world.

Rolling the paper up tightly in her hand, the huntress returned to the saddle of her shirshu, who had been busy snapping and snarling at passing commoners. As the beast craned her neck backwards, lured by the new smell, June offered the scrap of silk to the sensitive nose. In an instant, Nyla tensed beneath her. She breathed heavily for a few moments, flicking her head back and forth while her rider prayed for it to work.

She cracked her whip when Nyla bowed her head low, and the shirshu sprang into action, bounding forwards in a motion that would have sent June flying, had she not been securely in the saddle and clinging to the rein. This was the reason she was a bounty hunter, she thought, grinning as the wind whipped through her hair like a hurricane. The thrill of the chase was more exciting than the actual capture or kill – the lead up to the great crescendo. Perhaps it was even more enjoyable than being paid at the end of it.

They ran for the rest of the day, and stopped only for a short time in the night. By morning, they had reached the outskirts of Ba Sing Se. With a little gentle persuasion – and a few coins – June was able to convince the sentries outside that this shirshu was a new specimen for the zoo in the agricultural zone. She snickered to herself afterwards. Even if this was a time of peace, it was no excuse for lacklustre guards.

The Upper Ring was a little harder to pass through – June’s hunting license had become smudged and torn in the years she had had it, but she managed to bluff her way through the check point by telling a little white lie to the guards. She was a personal acquaintance of the Fire Lord, if ‘personal acquaintance’ included those people who had met him twice, once while he was sort-of-evil and hunting the saviour of the world.

Her stomach boiled in anticipation. She could almost taste the flavour of triumph.

She made Nyla slow down when inside, though people still gawped at the towering beast. She finally halted outside a tiny little teashop.
June stared at it dubiously.
This was the choice in residence for a man who had near to a thousand gold coins on his head? Subtle, she supposed, if he was an enemy of the state. Discreet. Somewhere to hide and not be noticed as the world passed him by.

Leaving Nyla outside to pace backwards and forwards in an irritated manner, June retrieved her whip from her belt and lashed it forwards before kicking the door. It slammed open wide, making the small building shake on its foundations.
The three patrons looked up at her quizzically, unsure whether they should be scared or not. She glared at each of them in turn. None of them looked like Order of the White Lotus, but then, this teashop hardly looked like the base of operations for the organisation.

“Nobody move,” she said quietly. Her grey eyes panned across the room.
“Tell me; which one of you is White Lotus?” she asked. The quizzical looks only increased.
Someone rather familiar wandered out of the back room, where she assumed there was a kitchen. Her eyebrow rose and she just stopped her mouth from dropping.

You have got to be kidding me.
For a moment, Zuko’s uncle just stared at her, as she stared back. It all made a wicked kind of sense. This was why he had been in Ba Sing Se at the end of the war.
”You’re the person I’m here for?“ she muttered, half to herself.
”Of all the people in all the world who could be White Lotus…“

Your Name: Valkyrie

Other Characters:

[Masamune]

Her father is awesome.