So I've had this story in the works for sometime now and decided that it was time to share it. Hopefully you guys will find this enjoyable, honestly I'm kind of surprised that there haven't been very many stories on here with this kind of concept. But then again there is the possibility that I missed one somewhere.
Disclaimer: I do not own Legend of Korra in any way, shape, or form. If I did, I'd be a very wealthy man.
My name is Lee Feilong. Six years ago, thugs from the Triple Threat Triad killed my mother during a bank robbery gone bad. I never knew my father, so it was just me out on the streets then. I vowed revenge against those who took my mother from me. But a non bender like myself can't hope to take on members of a bending triad in a straight fight and win.
So I left Republic City, traveling to a small island in the outskirts of the Fire Nation. There, I found the last bastion of the Yuyan Archers, a group of the world's most elite non bending fighters. For years I trained under them, learning how to move quickly and quietly, how to stay undetected, and how to fight.
Now, after six long years, I'm coming home to teach the Triads a lesson. This city is not theirs, and I will remind them of that each and every day that they try to threaten and harm innocent people. My actions will no doubt turn the police against me, but that is a risk I am willing to take. I've been an outcast my whole life, and what I am about to do won't change that. If Lin Beifong or Lightning Bolt Zolt think I'll go down without a fight, they both have another thing coming.
My name is Lee Feilong, and this is my story:
The evening sun was shining through a light fog. It's light gleamed off of the skyscrapers of downtown Republic City, making them shine in the distance like great towers of diamond. In Yue Bay, a large fishing boat was sailing into the harbor. On the bow, a young man with brown hair and untrimmed beard stood with a steaming cup of tea clasped in his hands.
"A great view, don't you think?" the boat's Captain asked.
"There's no place like home," he replied before taking a sip of his drink. He made a face at the drink's taste before tossing what was left in his cup overboard. The Captain laughed at the gesture.
"The cook's tea isn't the Jasmine Dragon's, but it warms you up after twelve hours of being on deck in a winter storm," he said before casting a glance back toward the city.
"Has anything changed in the city?" the young man asked.
"How should I know, Mr. Feilong? We only stay in port long enough to sell our catch and resupply for the next trip," the Captain replied before he turned away. Feilong continued to admire the city's view until the boat pulled into a dock. Saying his thanks to the crew, he grabbed his belongings which consisted of a single rucksack and a drop bag before he hopped from the boat and set off into the city.
It didn't take him long to find a small shop called Chin's Repair. It was a low three story brick building with the shop taking up the ground floor. The place worked on clocks, radios, metalbender gear, but it was the sign in the window that advertised an apartment for rent that caught his attention. As he opened the door to the shop, a bell above the door gave a hollow ding.
"Welcome to Chin's Repair, how can I help you?" an aging man with a receding hair line and spectacles that stood behind the counter asked. Feilong lowered his bag to the floor and flexed his fingers to get some feeling back.
"I was walking past and I saw that you had an apartment for rent."
"That's right, you got money to pay for it? It's two hundred a month." Feilong dug into his pocket and pulled out a pink wad of yuans before he set it on the counter.
"Two hundred upfront, plus a little something extra for privacy and no questions asked," he said as he set a small metal ingot next to the money. Chin picked up the ingot and turned it over in his hands before he flexed his fingers. The look of surprise on the man's face was clear when the ingot didn't react.
"Platinum?" Feilong shook his head.
"Much rarer. Sozinite," he said. Chin's eyebrows went up in surprise again. Sozinite was an incredibly rare metal, sought after for it's pureness and it's strength. The only known source of the metal was the occasional chunk that broke off of Sozin's Comet, hence the name.
"Son, if this is what you say it is, you can have the whole place for six months rent and question free," Chin said. Feilong nodded as he picked up his bag and rucksack again.
"May I see the place?" he asked. Chin nodded as he collected the bills and the ingot.
"Sure. It's upstairs, stairs are in the back." The shopowner turned and headed into the back room behind the counter, motioning over his shoulder for Feilong to follow. Gears, wires, and various bits of equipment and grease coated junk lay scattered around workshop. Based upon this first look, Feilong guessed that Chin either had a lot of business, or wasn't a very organized man in the first place.
"You're fresh off of the boat aren't you Mr...?" Chin asked as he began to undo a set of locks on a simple wooden door at the back of the shop.
"Feilong, Lee Feilong. What makes you say that?"
"People who go looking for an apartment in the middle of Triad territory are either new in town or crazier then a shirshu in a perfume factory. So which is it?" Lee readjusted his bags as Chin finally got the door open. Inside was a small entrance way with a door leading into an ally on the right and a flight of wooden stairs to the left.
"I'm actually a native, but I've been out of town for a few years on a hunting trip," Lee said.
"That explains the beard, kids your age don't have much in the way of facial hair these days," Chin said as he led the way up the stairs, which made a sudden ninety degree turn to the left before they came to a halt at a faded door. The shopkeeper turned to his key chain again, unlocking and opening the apartment door before passing him the key.
Like the stairway, the apartment was faded, rundown, and covered with dust from time unused. On the left sat a small stove, a refrigerator, a few cabinets, and a small round table. In the far corner, beneath a pair of large windows was a narrow bed and a desk.
"It's not much," Chin said as Lee brushed past into the apartment.
"It's perfect," he replied as he sat his bags on the table. The sound of a chime echoed up the stairs, indicating that the shop had a visitor. Chin muttered something about having to tend to the shop and turned away, leaving the new tenant alone. Lee waited until the shopkeeper's footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs before he unzipped his drop bag.
Contained within was the disassembled arms and body of a black recurve bow, along with a quiver full of arrows. With expert ease, he assembled the bow. He gave it a few twists in his hand in order to test the balance before he turned to his rucksack. Unlike the rest of the bag, which was a faded gray and hand stitched, the main draw sting was black. Detaching the string from the rest of the pack, he bent the bow against his leg and attached the cable to the bow, completing his assembling of the weapon.
With a few experimental tugs on the string, he laid the bow on the table before he closed the door. It was usually frowned upon to be seen carrying a weapon within the city, even in Triad territory, hence his smuggling of the bow. Turning back to the apartment, he opened a few vents in the floor in an effort to get a small breeze going. Years of being locked closed had left the room with an unpleasant musty smell.
As he turned to begin looking for a broom closet, he noticed that he could hear voices from the shop below, and realized that the vents were little more then holes in the floor. He made a mental note of this before returning to his search, the business of his new land lord's shop mattered little to him.
"I've already made my payment this month! How do you expect my shop to stay in business if you damn triads keep draining me dry?!"
"Lightning Bolt Zolt doesn't care about your little shop, only about the money you owe him." Lee froze at the voices and listened closely. Chin's shop may not have mattered to him, but the dealings of the Triads did.
"Listen, all I've got is two hundred Yuan, it's yours, take it. If you got anything broken, bring it in and I can fix it as part of my payment."
"There's gonna be a lot of broken things to fix if you don't cough up what you owe us, old man." There was the sound of something crashing to the floor, followed closely by the sound of shattering glass.
"How am I suppose to keep paying you if you bust up my shop?!" Chin shouted, a hint of desperation in his voice.
"You know what, Ping? He's right. Let's see if the old man has a health insurance policy," a new voice spoke up.
"No," a third voice spoke, "that won't be necessary will it Mr. Chin? I'm sure we can reach a compromise."
"Yes, yes, we can. Listen I can get you the money, all I need is a few days for some of my clients to pay off their debts," Chin said, his voice sounding desperate. Lee had heard all he needed to hear. No one knew of his true reasoning behind his arrival in the city. He was here to teach the Triads a lesson, one that the police couldn't seem to do.
Reaching into his rucksack, Lee produced a dark gray hood. It was hand stitched together from what appeared to be tarp and scraps of cloth. Sliding the hood on over his head, he shot a quick glance into a small mirror in the bathroom. Like he had hoped, the hood covered the vast majority of his face, hiding his identity.
Grabbing up his bow and the quiver, Lee slipped out one of the windows and onto a fire escape. Below him, a red and gold satomobile sat in the alleyway, waiting on the trio of triad members that were in the shop. It's engine rumbled, which cast an echo off of the brick alleyway walls. A fourth Triad member, the group's wheel man, was sitting in the driver's seat as he waited on his friends.
Picking up a loose brick from the windowsill, Lee let it dangle over the side of the fire escape before simply letting go. The red rectangle plummeted downward and smashed through the satomobile's windshield.
"What the hell?" the driver shouted as he bolted out of the car. He was silenced as an arrow struck him in the shoulder, sending him sprawling into a set of trashcans. The driver never knew what hit him. Lee readied another arrow and perched himself on the fire escape's railing, waiting for the other triad members like a hawk waiting for a mouse to show itself.
He didn't have to wait long. Three men rounded the corner into the alleyway, laughing amongst themselves. The shadows of the alleyway did a perfect job concealing his position.
"What the...what happened to our wheels?!" The leader of the trio shouted when he took notice of the shattered windshield. Lee watched, and waited as the triad members walked deeper into the alley, their hands ready to bend should they be attacked. He picked his target, a pale skinned man wearing black and a red scarf. Taking a breath in through his nose, he drew back on the bow and took careful aim.
"Oh Spirits, Ming!" the triad leader shouted, having spotted the body of the driver. At that moment, Lee released his arrow. The man in his sights screamed in pain as the arrow struck him in the foot, pinning him to the spot.
"Ping!" the triad leader shouted, his hand flying toward the waterskin kept beneath his jacket. He didn't get far as a second arrow tore the skin from his side and pinned it to the wall behind him.
"Let's get out of here!" the third triad member shouted as he raced forward, grabbing the still wailing Ping and throwing him into the vehicle. Lee watched as the now panicking triads scrambled into the car, trying to get away from their attacker. With a graceful leap, he fell and landed on the car's hood in a crouch before taking aim at the triad members with his bow. He silenced the screaming men as he drew the arrow back. Confident he now had their attention, he grinned under the hood.
"You will deliver a message for me."
So there it is, the prologue. Please feel free to review and let me know what you liked, didn't like, and take a guess as to what will happen next.