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Pro-Bending Arena, Just Before Fire Ferrets V. Tigerdillos
The noise ran through the cavernous space, reaching to every corner, bouncing off every surface, filling up the room with a long and drawn out squeak. The squeak of a pair of double doors that needed desperate oiling. The squeak that only came when one hand pushed them open, when only one person was on the other side of those doors, and when they needed to cool off after a particularly harrowing day.
Mako had those kind of days a lot. Too much to be healthy for him. The flash of that weasel-snake's lone gold tooth, throwing sickly yellow gleam at him as the mouth it hung in grinned wickedly. He felt like stuffing a fireball down it to shut him up, to get the message into the snitches' head that he wasn't that kind of person anymore.
He had hated it, hated every moment of the constant mugging, the constant hurting, the constant suffering, the constant feeling of being trapped by circumstance. The constant feeling that his little brother would realise the truth about how his idol brought food in every day, managed to get warm blankets, and still found the time to care for him, and to be there when he needed him.
An irritated grunt rose out of the young man as he stalked through the double doors, his dirty yellow eyes narrowed in generally annoyance. Everything was an annoyance, this pro-bending gig, the unwanted adoration and attention. Bolin loved all of that, always a bigger kid than Mako could ever be.
Stalking towards the center of the massive room, he slowly veered to the left, towards a noticeably dustier and less used portion of the training gym. A sigh escaped him as he stopped near a bench, he relished in the snug feeling of warmth the simple red scarf gave him, and found himself missing that protective feeling as he draped it carefully over the bench, leaving it to walk down the benches length towards a pair of rusted lockers shoved up against the wall. He grimaced at the crude rendering of the rodent, but the ghost of a amused smile touched his lips when he saw the googly way in which the eyes were drawn. Some ammo to tease his brother with when he got back from his little date.
His little brother had finally been forced out on a date with one of his legions worth of fans. Mako had his, and boy were they dedicated, but his brother's, innocence and infamous pout had won over a good portion of Republic City's teenage girls. Even the tabloids confirmed it each time one of their inevitable wins was on the front page: He was a heartthrob.
It did bug him a little though, hearing those talk shows on the radio talk about the 'mysterious and aloof older brother', and how he was apparently too good to be warm to anybody. He could be warm! He just didn't show it like Bolin did!
The flash of inane jealousy bugged him, and those thoughts of tabloids and heartthrobs went away as he bent down to grab the cabinet's handle. He went to wrench it down, but it didn't budge, as usual, and the inevitable sigh came out of him as he wrapped his other hand around it. This time, with a lot of protest and squealing, and torture to the young man's ears, it opened with a merry little squeak that was surely taunting him.
A dark space yawned within the rusty cabinet, and it took only a short moment for his keen eyes to adjust, and pick out the profile of netting and earthware discs within. He reached a hand in, wrapping it around one of the discs and tugging it towards him. The net followed, and he brought up his other hand to compensate for the extra weight of the other discs, and to stop them from snagging on the snarled lip of the doorframe.
He growled in annoyance at how that constantly happened, and tugged on the rigging a bit more forcefully than necessary. One of the heavy discs slammed into his chest, luckily only slightly bruising his stomach thanks to the padding of the drab brown uniform.
Another grumble as he slung the tangle of disc and thread over his shoulder. He moved towards a hook on the support beam nearby, slipping one of the brass corner rings onto it. He ran a careful finger down the border thread until he found the next ring. Bending down he hooked that one onto a hook mounted near just above the floor, and secured it before straightening and moving towards the tangled other half.
Hooking his finger through the first corner ring he saw he used it to straighten out the entire rig, stretching it towards the opposite support beam, standing just in front of a staircase leading to the myriad locker rooms above.
A giggle rose down towards him, and Make kept his back turned and a scowl on as he heard the uncannily cat-like padding of those soft shoes that flowery jerk seemed to always wear. The giggling ceased for a short moment as the old iron steps stopped their rattling with an almost relieved groan.
"Well, well, how are things, street rat?" that incredibly off-putting, soft-toned pur said.
Mako closed his eyes and took a deep but not too noticeable breath, recalling Toza's warning about uppercutting fellow pro-benders into a stack of weights. And then recalled that he was complaining about the mess rather than the act itself.
"tsk, tsk, always the quiet one aren't you?" the voice said. "Where's baby brother?"
Anger flared, and he fought to keep a spark from lighting over his clenched fist as he hooked the last corner ring up, keeping up a calm exterior when all he wanted was to burn the smug prick's makeup to ash.
Whatever Tahno wanted, it didn't seem to involve waiting for an answer. Not that he would give him one. Mako glanced behind him, in time to see Tahno do that weird flick with his hands and saunter off through the center of the gym, those two girls clinging to his shoulders like bats to a wall.
Keep it calm. As the doors noisily swung shut, he let out a little frustrated grunt as he straightened and walked across the training mat towards the center of the room. He stopped once the tips of his feet touched the smooth edge of the mat.
He eyed the slowly swaying earth discs hanging ten meters away, just begging for him to throw a few punches at them. It was tough fighting that urge, tough keeping up the constant effort in suppressing that part of him, the part that wanted to just… let fly with the heat.
Hated that part. Hated when the urge came up. Brought up too many things with it. The urge made him growl as he punched forwards, feeling that familiar rush of warmth flowing from his core to his shoulder, then down his arm before blooming into a pleasant warmth that made his palm tingle. A spark flicked above his palm, being joined by others before coalescing into a brilliant flickering ball of flame.
Mako found himself staring at it's core, seeing it reflect the color of his eyes. He felt a tremor, and he grunted as his control over it slipped. A tongue of flame licked his palm for a brief second, warming the leather padding for an unbearable instant before he flicked his wrist.
The projectile arced towards one of the center discs, instantly shattering it as soon as it touched. He repeated the process, alternating between his right and left hands, corresponding with another discs being blasted out of existence.
A strong urge struck him, and he pulled his hands back and bent low towards the floor, before springing twisting around, lashing out his leg as he directed the warmth to flow down it's length. The warmth bloomed in the tip of his big toe, and a stream of constant fire flowed back up towards him. Before it could reach him, it rocketed forwards, slicing the rigging in half and setting the frayed ends on fire. The bottom half clattered to the training mat noisily, and nothing else was heard as the young man stilled for a moment.
He stared down at his leg, and then at his hands, and quickly came to hate what he was seeing. That feeling of disgust always came after he used his cruelly ironic gifts, and it always forced him to a standstill.
For a few seconds he stood stock still, hands clenching and unclenching like clockwork. He found himself staring at the blood red scarf draped over the empty bench nearby, and loosed a quiet grunt of grief.
He enjoyed it. He enjoyed that which blasted his life and family apart.
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