The name is Shirogane; I'm a half-class earth bender who is poorer than the dirt I bend. I work three jobs, but the most fun is bounty hunting by far. I even take my sweet little sister, Sakura, with me on missions I don't think are dangerous.

Which is why we're in the bounty hunter's hang out, to grab a job from the board and make a little cash. I'm looking over the billboard when Sakura yawns and groans. "Shiro-oneechan!" She whines, using the Japanese honorifics I tell her not to. "It's so boring! Find a job already!" She stomps her foot at me.

I turn about to face her. I'm at least a foot taller than her, bigger by far, but the 3 years difference between the 14 year old and me is helpful to the size-difference. She dresses older than she is, a lot like a hooker actually. She wears a small dark blue half-shirt on her chest and black booty-shorts, but that's only because it gets really hot under her thick black water-tribe jacket with the pale blue fur, which she wears open.

I scowl down at her through the blond hair in my eyes. "Sakura, patience is a water-bender trait. Why didn't you inherit that too?" I ask her sarcastically, putting my hands on my hips.

She frowns and glowers at me, her dark blue eyes looking almost black. "I'm not a bender anyways, jackass, thanks for bringing it up though." She replies, and stuffs her hands into the pockets of the jacket. She turns away from me, smacking me in the face with her high-pony.

I growl and glare at the back of her head. "If you do that again, I will smack the blue highlights out of your hair." I threaten her. She responds by doing a full spin on one heel, smacking right on the cheek once again with the black and blue ponytail, then runs to the other side of the joint, hiding behind the huge bounty hunter with an eye patch and a scar.

I resist the urge to stomp after her, because earthquakes are not good, and turn back to the board. I run my finger across the board until it lands on a number that makes my eyes wide. 100,000 gold pieces! I gape at it, and then read into the job.

Name: Cenere Fulmini Fuoco (fire bender)

Wanted for: Dangerous use of bending, threatening innocents, theft, crime-sprees.

Danger level: High

Bounty Hunter needed: Clever, strong, good fighting skills, not afraid to get burned. Highly suggest team of 2 or more.

I snatch it quickly. Who cares if he's dangerous? He could be a serial killer and I'd still go after him for 100,000 gold pieces!

"Sakura!" I yell for her. She walks over quickly. "We got a mission. Just capture some fire bending punk."

She gapes at the paper, and then grabs it from me. "He is hot!" She squeals. I look at her with one eyebrow raised. "Did you not see this hunk of man-candy in the picture?" She shoves it in my face.

The guy is decent looking, I suppose. He has spiked up black hair, well chiseled features, tanned skin, molten gold eyes. But, he mostly looks like a punk to me. Maybe it's my disdain for men. "I don't really see it." I tell her, taking the paper back as I go to the front desk.

"Come on, Shiro-neechan! You need to get a life, I'm all for you not having a boyfriend, but ignoring the male population is no fun for me!" She whines again. "Maybe, this guy will fall in love with you as you capture him, but your stone-cold self will just throw him to Amon!" She gets worked up over her imaginary plot line.

I shake my head at her. "Keep me out of your mental romance novels, please." I roll my eyes at her as she continues to go on about my love story with this Cenere guy. I sigh repeatedly until the lady at the counter hands me my bounty hunting equipment.

We walk out of the joint with her walking in front of me, model-walking like she always does. Her body moves like a liquid, swishing her hips and moving her legs. It attracts attention from a few guys who whistle, and then, accidentally, trip over a rock or step in a deep hole… accidentally of course.

I have fun the whole trip home. When we get to the park, we wait for the people to look away. Once Sakura calls the clear, I open the entrance to our home in the ground with a stomp and a flick of my wrist. We hop in, and then I close up before anyone sees.

The light in our underground home is siphoned from a nice old lady who said we could share as long as we paid up monthly. The home is almost entirely made of earth, except Sakura's room, a few pieces of furniture, and the radio. I jump through the air and body-slam onto a couch made of earth. The earth is crushed back into the ground, but I raise it back up with a slam of the palm.

"You need a shower, you look tan." Sakura snorts, she herself having skin as pale as the moon, somehow avoiding all the dirt that is our home. I rub myself all over the couch, getting even my black wife-beater and green pants dirty. She groans loudly and stomps into her room.

I snicker into my earth-pillow and practice my earth bending half-heartedly. I press my fingers to the ground, and they slip into the hard stone like the rock is liquid. I get my whole arm into the ground before my concentration is broken by a loud- "No!" coming from Sakura's room. Out of the room comes a black snakebat and Sakura, running after it like a fool. My arm, now stuck in the rock, hurts immensely. I pull it out, along with a cylinder of stone, which I bust into pieces with my other fist.

"Sakura, what have I told you about angering a poisonous snakebat?" I growl at her.

She groans again, reaching her arm out to the snakebat. "Honey-chan, down!" She orders, the snakebat drops into her palm and then coils up her arm until it's beady blue eyes are looking into hers. "Why do you do that to me?"

The snakebat blinks at her; its three-forked blue tongue licks her and she giggles at it. It spreads its demon-like wings out and untwists itself from her arm to fly, when it flies it looks like it's slithering in the air with huge black wings flapping. Sakura chases it back to her room.

I sigh and sit up on my earth couch, then I pick up the little steel coin I got from my dad before he lost his bending and turned into a depressed shell. I have never managed to metal bend because I'm too stubborn to find the pieces of un-purified earth in the metal. I hold the coin in my hand and close my eyes. I rub it between my fingers, I try to concentrate on the earth inside it, but in the end I get frustrated and crush it in my grasp. I sigh, and then look at it again, it's been a little smushed from my obscene strength, but it's still a coin. I suppose it's still earth too. I throw it across the room and shout. "I'm a metal bender!" Sarcastically.

I groan loudly and bury my face back into my earth couch.

(Sakura's POV)

I lock my earth door with the metal chain I know Shiro-oneechan can't bend. I then take out a bottle of southern-water-tribe water that I got from mom before she died. My big secret: I'm actually a bender. By the time I was born Mom knew that the Equalists would come after benders. It was too late for Shiro, she was already bending rocks in public and everyone knew her as a bender.

I, on the other hand, was raised so that not even Shiro knew about my bending. She still doesn't. I hate to lie to her, but she'd just get mad if I told her now.

I bend the water out of the bottle slowly, it's a large bottle shaped strangely and made out of hide of some kind. I get the full amount of water and begin my form. I swirl my arms like they're part of the liquid, so the water forms a sphere. I stretch my arms apart and the water turns into a line. I pull the water with one hand, and guide with the other, I spin slowly on the pads of my feet.

When I feel the water gets the just of what I want it to do, I spin faster, until the water is a spinning ring around me that I'm standing in the middle of. I freeze the water with my breath and clench my fists for extra impact. I then push my arms away from me, cracking the ring of ice into shards. The shards aren't well made, and are pointing in different directions, so they wouldn't be a good attack. I sigh and the ice turns into droplets in the air.

I bend the droplets into the bottle and sit on my fluffy bed staring at the stone ceiling. I wish I was a strong bender like Shiro. I sigh again. She thinks she's a bad bender, but that's only because she doesn't try. I think back to when I was just 7 years old at the park with my sister.

(flashback)

Shiro was sitting on the stone bridge like an air nomad with her legs crossed and her fists touching. She didn't say why, and I didn't ask, but she looked like she was the king of the park from up on that bridge. I, on the other hand, was sitting by the river picking flowers absent-mindedly.

Then an older boy of about 11 walked up to me and shoved me over, so I almost fell in the pond. I shouted "Hey! Why did you do that?" My flowers floated down the river, and I couldn't retrieve them with water bending.

The boy smirked down at me; he had his arms crossed over his chest. "What are you gonna do about it?" He taunted, punctuating his sentence by uncrossing his arms and making a flame with one fist.

I had the bright idea of kicking him in the shine, which only made him angrier and his flame hotter. "You're gonna get it now, punk!" He started to bring his fist down to my face. I screamed as loud as possible and tried to roll into the river. He caught my arm with his non-bending hand and held me still. I thought I was going to burn.

That is, until a rock about the size of his head knocked his arm away from mine.

Then a pillar of earth sprung out of the ground under his feet. He was at least 20 feet high, on a pillar too thin to move on. I looked over at the bridge. My sister, still in her meditating position, dark green eyes glaring up at the boy. I saw her blink, and the pillar got thinner, she blinked again, the pillar got thinner, she continued doing this until the pillar was as thin as a bamboo-shout and the boy was clinging onto it for his life.

Then she got out of her meditating position, stood up reached her arm out, and gave me a thumbs up… she's such a dork. She then looked up at the boy on the earth-pillar, and she twisted her fist down, into a thumbs-down. The earth pillar shot back into the ground, taking the boy with it. Lucky for him, the earth was particularly soft where he landed.

Shiro then walked up to us, the earth shaking with each of her steps. The boy's feet were trapped in the earth, but he struggled to stand up and flames came out of his fists, flying at Shiro. Shiro would have none of that, she stomped on the ground, two plates of earth blocked the flames, and then flew at the boy's hands. She molded the earth onto his fists, no flames came out. She saw the boy take in a large breath and made a hole under herself as a large flame came shooting from his mouth. A rock flew to his mouth and molded around his head. Shiro returned the earth to the normal level and walked over to the boy.

She looked him straight in his eyes, bringing him down to her height (which was still really tall for a ten year old) with bending and she said. "What are you gonna do about it?" She mocked coldly. She gave him a wicked grin, and then walked over to me. She helped me up and bended the dirt off of me, and we walked off into the sunset… or, ya know, back to our house.

(End flashback)

Is it weird I think of my sister as a prince? Not that I'm in love with her or anything, but it's just that she's always the knight in shining armor saving my ass from every little thing. Bullies, bad boys, and the cops that one time, and she even saved me from the huge full-grown snakebat mother I took Honey from.

That's a story for another time. I hop up from my bed and go through the bag of bounty hunting gear Desk-Lady prepared for us. I find two electrified gloves, two electrified kali sticks, a dozen smoke grenades, and a dozen bolas. I hate the bolas, they're so hard to throw! Whenever I try I smack myself in the face with one of the weights or tangle my hand in the rope.

I'm decent with the kali sticks; I'm a good shot with the grenades too. With the Equalists running a muck all around Republic City, bending is a big no-no, even for Shiro. But she doesn't mind using small trick like tripping my admirers. She would never bend like she used to in public, no huge 20 feet poles with fire bending scum on the top. No digging thousand feet tunnels under the city (getting talked to by Chief Bei Fong quite a lot about that) and no sinkhole traps to capture criminals.

We have to do it the hard way, but trust me; Shiro can fight a bender without bending just fine. She might not even need a weapon. I've found that hanging back and throwing a few smoke bombs is really the way to go when bounty hunting with her.

I unlock my room, whistle for Honey, and carry the bag back into the living room. I notice a coin in the corner changing shapes and Shiro lying on her dirt couch with the radio playing on the news channel. It talks about how many benders have been "cleansed" of their "illnesses" and such. I see the metal turn into a sharp knife shape and it flies right past the radio, barely missing, and lodging itself into the wall.

I say nothing, grabbing it and pulling it out of the wall. "Shiro, time to go, it's getting late so the punk will be prowling around." I say, and the knife turns back into a coin, which I toss onto the table. She gets up and groans lazily. She then bends the dirt off her clothes, leaving an unhealthy layer of dirt on her skin and choppy blond hair. She stands up and looks at me with, almost black, dark green eyes empty of anything.

"Let's go bag this punk, I have to get to work before 5 tomorrow." She says blankly and puts her hand on the ceiling. "The cost is clear." She opens the entrance for me and I jump out with the bag, she follows and closes the entrance quickly.

"Okay, the extra information on the back says we can find him in the underground…" I read from the back to give her the information. She just nods and leads me in the right direction. I really hate when she gets like this, it's always with the bending. She hates Amon more than I do, in fact she hates society.

We get to the bad part of town and she insists I walk beside her. I have my jacket buttoned so it looks like a dress on me, which will attract less attention. But the boys here seem more interested in Shiro. Despite her baggy clothes and constant complaints about it, she's curvy and has huge breasts. She looks straightforward, not even bothering to trip them with bending.

I huff inside about it, though. Hopefully we can grab Hot-guy and get out of here quickly, the danger level is high, but hopefully he won't attacks with this many people around. It's highly doubtful though. I just stuff my hands further into the pockets of my jacket and keep walking with my head high.

(Shirogane's POV)

I hate this part of town, I hate Sakura being in this part of town, I hate this Cenere guy for making me come to this part of town, I hate myself for picking a job in this part of town. Geez, I'm feeling hateful today.

I find my target; he's easy to spot with a flame red wife-beater and an expensive looking brown leather jacket. He has a flashy gold-chain necklace and is wearing expensive looking sunglasses… at night. What a douche bag…

He has at least four girls surrounding him, a few girls sitting on his bright red car. There's a guy with him too, one that doesn't seem to be attracting as many girls. The guy with him is dark skinned like a water-bender and has messy dark brown hair that covers one eye.

I'm not going to sacrifice Sakura as jail-bait, which she is, and I'm not attractive enough to make him notice me, so I just walk up to the group and stand there. Unfortunately, Cenere notices and brushes aside a few other girls to get to me, he puts a hand on my hip, and a hand on Sakura's hip, guiding us to the center of the group.

"Now, what are you two lovely ladies interested in?" He says with I assume is supposed to be seduction in his cocky voice.

I brush his hand off Sakura and say rather loudly. "I'm the bounty hunter Shirogane, and I've come to collect the price on your head." The girls shriek and scatter like flies. And I'm left with the two boys and Sakura. Maybe kicking his ass will cheer me up. I smirk evilly.