A/N: You're looking at a fic that I actually wrote several months ago, but only recently returned to and overhualed completely. The premise is the only thing that's the same, actually. This is also the only multichapter fic I've ever finished, so...GO ME! Enjoy!
Katara sat idly, sipping her tea in small, measured amounts, designed so that the cup would last exactly as long as she wanted it to. It was a surveillance technique well honed over the years. Katara's deep marine eyes swept the clientele of the small outdoor café she was currently seated in, looking for potential threats. When none appeared, she settled back slightly and waited for her brother to arrive.
Sokka turned up a few minutes later, weaving through the tables the sit across from his sister. Katara didn't say anything by way of greeting, merely raised an inquisitive eyebrow. Sokka leaned forward conspiratorially.
"Tonight," he said in a low voice. "It has to be tonight. My informant says our target is planning on attending the event in person, and that it could be a very long time before he arranges another meeting."
Katara gave him a look. "It could also be in two days. You know as well as I do how exposed that sort of operation would be." At this, Sokka smiled in that sly way Katara had come to both loathe and love.
"Not necessarily. Apparently, our target makes a big show of arriving in style, a big carriage and everything. But he's only in the carriage for the last leg of the trip. He actually makes the trip separately, using an underground of connected passages throughout the Lower Ring. He comes up just a few blocks shy of the arena, gets in the carriage, and rides the rest of the way. We just have to intercept him. And I know exactly the place."
"Where?"
"Where the passages cross the sewers."
Katara's eyes lit up. "Excellent. Sounds like another brilliant plan. But wait…who is this informant of yours that knows so much?"
Sokka rolled his eyes. "Surprisingly, he's a humble street vendor, a green grocer. Apparently his produce is of only the highest quality, and the runners our target sends to get it have loose tongues."
"Interesting."
"Yeah, not exactly your typical cloak-and-dagger kind of guy."
They sat in silence for perhaps five minutes, Katara finishing her tea, Sokka gazing apparently at random around the café, then they got up and parted ways without a word, Katara leaving a few copper pieces on the table for the drink.
--
That night found the two hiding in the darkness of the sewers of Ba Sing Se. Both of them were underwater, wrapped in cocoons of air, thanks to Katara's waterbending. About a hundred feet in front of them, a narrow wooden bridge crossed the sewer pipe, and it was there that they anticipated the appearance of their target in a matter of minutes. The bridge featured torches ensconced in the walls of the passage on either side, but they were extremely dim and the light ended a good seventy feet from the sibling's position.
Sokka unrolled the map of the Lower Ring Underground he had procured from his informer ("On loan," the man had been quick to add) and consulted it for the nth time that night. Katara growled.
"Why do you keep looking at that thing? If I didn't know better, I'd swear you had nerves."
"I do," Sokka snapped, "and you know very well why."
Katara grunted in annoyance. "And YOU know why we couldn't bring your guandao, Sokka. Not only would it stick up through the water, but should we be forced to fight, you wouldn't be able to wield it in the passage; I doubt that tunnel is more than five feet wide."
Sokka slumped a little. "I just feel…naked…without it."
"You've got your wakizashi, and your boomerang; I'd say you're perfectly well equipped to deal with this mission. Besides, I doubt there's a guard among them that can match you in even hand to hand combat."
Sokka frowned at her. "Flattery does you no good."
"I know. But I'm your sister, and it's my job to annoy you," Katara replied, smiling impishly.
Just then, their conversation was interrupted by the sight of a party of people beginning to cross the bridge. Among them were several burly guards, armed to the teeth, along with a couple of unarmed men the siblings figured were earthbenders. Not that their bending would do them much good on a wooden bridge.
In the center of the group, partially hidden, was a tall elegant man dressed in fine green robes trimmed in gold and black. Much nicer dress than all but a handful of Earth Kingdom residents could claim these days. In fact, the siblings knew of only one other family with that kind of wealth, and that was their employers. The man's name was Fao Lung, and he ran a huge smuggling ring among the poorer residents in Ba Sing Se.
As their target and his entourage neared the center of the bridge, Katara took a ready stance. She might a slight noise of annoyance and breathed, "This is no fun. It'd be more fun to just collapse the bridge…" Sokka cut her off.
"We already went over this. There have to be some men left to tell that he's dead, or the network will take longer to collapse."
Katara growled. "Fine. But I'm taking some guards, too." And before Sokka could argue, Katara had raised her arms in the classic octopus form, causing tendrils of water to rise from the surface. A quick motion and the tentacles shot out and snagged three guards from the bridge, casually dragging them under and leaving them to be swept downstream.
The remaining entourage went wild, yelling in confusion and jostling to get their boss away from the water. But Katara was way ahead of them, flicking her wrist and sending a single razor icicle flying from the water, through the throat of the boss. He collapsed, convulsing, and by now his guards were really panicking. Apparently forgoing protocol, they picked up their charge bodily and hustled him away. Sokka and Katara grinned at each other.
"Mission accomplished."
An hour later, Sokka and Katara emerged from an alley near the entrance to the arena Fao Lung had been bound for, now dressed in the street clothes they'd been wearing that afternoon. Sokka pulled the map from his pocket and handed it cheerfully to the green grocer that had set up shop near the entrance; the map nodded in respect and went back to arranging his cabbages.
Sokka and Katara walked through the doorway and down a long flight of stairs, emerging in a huge open arena carved from the bedrock. The outside was ringed with stone bleachers, and in the center was a raised platform where two earthbenders were currently facing off. Cheers and jeers for both combatants rang loudly in the great room. The two siblings paid the bouncer, and took seats near the back, away from most of the spectators.
The victor of the current match was decided a few minutes later; and the man began parading around the ring, gesticulating and shouting taunts. He stayed as the announcer came out to announce the next match.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you tonight's winner, LAAAAAANDSLIIIIIIIDE!" The crowd, and Landslide, cheered appreciatively. "But your champion still has one more challenge to face! To proclaim himself Grand Champion of the Impenetrable Ring, he must first defeat our current Grand Champion! Ladies and gentlemen, please greet our undefeated Champion in your best fashion…the…Blind…BANDIIIIIIT!"
From the back of the arena, it was a little hard to make out the small figure that launched onto the ring from beneath the bleachers. The crowd positively screamed, and Landslide looked somewhat apprehensive.
"That's her?" Katara spoke without looking at her brother.
"Yes."
"Well, the Bei Fongs should be satisfied."
Sokka snuck a sideways glance at the entrance, just as a man recognizable as one of Fao Lung's surviving guards rushed into the arena, and began racing headlong down the stairs, apparently with intent to announce the bad news.
Sokka stood. "C'mon. Time for us to go."
Katara stood and wordlessly followed him out.
