Hey, guys! I've been working on this fanfic for a while. It was an idea that came to me in a dream one night, and I started writing some of it down one day during class and, for unknown reasons, the story just kind of came out by itself. It's written a little differently. I usually write in first person, but I tried out my hand at third-person with this story. I've got quite a bit of it already written out, but I was hesitant to upload it on here. But my wonderful girlfriend has been pushing for this for a few months now, so I decided this would be part of her Christmas gift.
Most of the story's plot will be revealed with the upcoming chapters. I hope you all like it, and if I don't update this or any of my other stories before the holidays come around, Seasons Greetings, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays, to whatever you perceive/believe in. I hope you all enjoy it and I wish you all happiness and love.
Read, review and favorite, guys! Be brave, always. ~BraveGirl
"You must never give in to despair. Allow yourself to slip down that road, and you surrender to your lowest instincts. In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength." -Iroh (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
The Avatar and the White Dragon: Book One, Guidance
Chapter One
Strong is not a word Rai would use to describe herself. If anything, dark is a word that the young firebender would use to describe anything that pertained to her life. Not when said firebender watches a group of children run along the confines of the orphanage, their laughter and yelling reaching across the yard while the always quiet and cold-natured Rai repeatedly formed and extinguished a small flicker of flame on her fingertips. The workers they all had attempted to persuade the girl to join in on her fellow orphan's fun, but the girl always declined, opting to stand far off and observe within the safety of her mind. Even at twelve, the firebender understood that she was different from the other children here. They were exactly just that. Children, who all enjoyed running around and playing games, while Rai was content with the always present fire that ran through her veins, content with tinkering with whatever she could sneak from the offices in the main hall or creating her own with the scraps of metal and wiring she often stole from the maintenance workers. Yes, Rai was different. She knew that, the other children knew that, the workers knew that. And she wanted nothing else.
"Hey! Fireball!"
Had Rai not been paying apt attention to the group of children she shared a home with, she wouldn't have known if was her they were indeed talking to. Which is why the flames that had been dancing across her fingers suddenly vanished, her head cocking to the side as the only other firebending, and relatively new transfer from the other side of the city, orphan strode up to the younger girl, two others flocking either side of him. "Fireball? Really? That's all your minuscule brain could come up with? I think all the hot air you have inside of you has steamed your brain past hope of recovery."
By the time the three, Lee and his "gang" (as they had started calling themselves), could comprehend that Rai had responded to his taunt, the other children in the yard had taken notice of the four, their games and laughter long forgotten as they all stopped to watch the confrontation, some with interest while the others watched with fearful expressions.
"Did you just insult me, Fireball?"
"Well, I wasn't complimenting you."
Lee took the last few final steps, towering over the young girl by an easy foot or two, his sneer attempting to look intimidating. "You think you're so mysterious, always staying away from everyone else. Doing weird tricks with your bending and acting like you're better than anyone else here. News flash, you're an orphan like the rest of us. You weren't good enough for your parents to keep you, so why would you be any better than us?"
A collective gasp from heard from a few of the other children, all of them having been here longer than the thirteen-year-old, and knowing that Rai couldn't be pushed far enough to get a rise out of, unless someone reminded her exactly what she was. An orphan.
Before any other sound of surprise could be uttered, Rai's eyes darkened, their usual hardness increasing tenfold as she glared up at the older boy, and the air surrounding the four began to crackle with heat. "Back. Off."
"Or what? You're going to make me? I could totally take you with one hand tied-."
The end of the boy's sentence rushed out as he realized he was no longer looking at the girl, but instead the mid-afternoon sky, the fabric on his shoulder singed and smoking as he blinked rapidly, trying to remember what exactly had just happened. He'd heard rumors of the young girl being advanced with firebending, but he didn't think she was good enough to knock him backwards before he could realize what was happening.
Scurrying to his feet, the boy quickly patted at the smoking fabric of his shirt as she growled in the direction of the other firebender, the hand that she had knocked him backwards with producing a flame that seemed to cover it whole resting by her side. "Enough! Walk away with whatever pride you have left."
Seeing that the boy was, indeed, not going to back down, Rai readied herself, and as the boy lunged forward, throwing a pathetic wave of fire in her direction, she easily used the momentum and the brick wall behind her to propel herself up and over the boy, landing gracefully on her feet. Behind her, the older firebender eyes widened as he collided with the wall, sliding down the bricks until his knees hit the soft ground beneath him.
With one glance over her shoulder, Rai raised an eyebrow, turning her attention to the two boys who made up Lee's "gang," the scowl on her face leaving no room for argument. "Anyone else want to join him?"
When no one spoke up, the girl leveled herself out of the defensive stance, watching and waiting until the two other boys backed away from her, the fear evident in their eyes. Knowing that she had, once again, proved why she should be left alone, Rai turned on her heel, making her way towards the chain-link fence on the south side of the orphanage, disappearing from the view of the spectators inside the rows of tall bushes meant to cover the small portion of the fence that had been broken, a hole that Rai had used many times to sneak out of the orphanage and roam freely around the city.
Letting her feet carry her, away from the orphanage and the sounds that resumed inside, the young girl let out a breath, feeling the weight of the larger boy's words settling into her mind and weighing her down like an anchor. Surely after twelve years, she shouldn't be allowing the mere mention of her abandonment cause her to react so violently. Twelve years was not enough time to move on, though. Instead, she'd had twelve years to fuel the anger and sadness inside of her to the point that any and all hope of happiness had been silenced indefinitely.
Usually, Rai found herself standing in the midst of the park dedicated to the most recent Avatar, eyes roaming over the people in attendance and staring up at the statue of the Avatar their president had erected before the fight against the rogue Earth kingdom natives all those years ago. The statue was one of the few things still standing after the fight, proud and a beacon of hope for all those who felt lost in the mortal world. All except Rai, who spent a thousand or more minutes wondering how much energy it would take to blow the statue into pieces and watch it crumble before her. All the statue stood for: what the Avatar stood for, had not included the young orphan. She had been told her parents had abandoned her long before the Avatar first came to Republic City, while she had been "training" and was left to fend for herself in the streets until one of Beifong's police puppets had captured her and given her over to the local orphanage.
She remembers being excited when she first heard of the Avatar being in the city, stupidly thinking that she was going to help the orphans, like herself. Instead, she watched as the Avatar only brought evil and disaster to the city. She had long ago stopped hoping the Avatar could save her, and began to realize that she was truly alone in this world. Over the years, Rai had grown fond of the feeling. It gave her something to fill her mind with, when it would otherwise want to fill with nonsense of self-pity and hope.
Now, though, instead of heading in the direction of the park and the statue she so loathed, Rai found herself watching as the great Republic City University came into view. Inside, held some of the greatest minds that had ever graced their world. It was a place the young firebender had imagined herself attending someday, back when hope was still something she believed in. Now, all she could was climb one of the trees that bordered the small pond outside the University's front entrance, relaxing herself against the trunk and observing the people that entered and left through the doors of the great hall, the sun setting in the distance.
Sooner than Rai would have liked, the sun finally set, the reds and oranges that once danced over the buildings around her and the water below her now all cast in darkness. The University's entrance now scarcely held any kind of traffic, the last person leaving over an hour ago, and yet, Rai couldn't bring herself to climb down just yet. There was something about the old building, now only visible in the moon's light, that seemed to draw the girl to it. Almost as if she knew she should be here. For what, the young firebender couldn't pinpoint, but she would not pass up the opportunity to have some kind of meaning in her life. At least, not yet. While she may not ever have the chance to attend, she could at least bask in it's glory now.
"Impressive, isn't it?"
Rai had not been expecting the voice, nor had seen been expecting anyone to notice her hidden in behind the leaves of the tree she had taken refuge in. Yet, leaning against the trunk of the tree was a man, half his face hidden from Rai's sight with the way the moonlight left it in shadow. What little she could see of his face, she realized he couldn't be older than twenty, possibly a few years older than that, and she didn't recognize him from her many quiet trips into the town. Or from the people she knew attended or worked at the University. And had the man not glanced over and up at her, she would have thought he had simply misspoke or had been talking himself. But no, the question had been directed at her.
"Don't worry, I'm not here to hurt you. Or take you back to the orphanage."
The young firebender's eyebrows shot upward in silent question at the man's knowledge of who she was. Had he been a passing patron on the street that stopped to watch her take down the large orphan boy back in the orphanage lot? Did he see her climb under the broken portion of the fence and follow her here to the University? If so, had he really been watching her for as long as she had been here?
"You and I are much alike, Rai. I've been watching you for most of your life. I've seen your impressive skills with your firebending as you've gotten older, without training, might I add. I've also noticed you're quite handy with a screwdriver and some wires. It shouldn't have surprised me, really."
Kwan watched with slight amusement as the young firebender almost fell forward, and off the branch she was sitting on, knowing that he had been keeping an eye on her. Perhaps persuading the girl was going to be easier than he thought. The questioning look in the girl's jade-green eyes was enough confirmation for him. "I understand all of this may come to a surprise to you, but have you never really been sat down and informed on your parents' apposed death? No? Well...would you like to? How about you come down from that tree, and I'll take you back with me to meet some friends of mine and we can talk more there?"
"Why should I? I don't even know you, and you just admitted to have been watching me. All those things are just screaming for me not to trust you."
Shaking his head, Kwan pushed himself off the tree, turning his back to the University to look up at the young girl in the tree. "Because you are my ace, Rai. When I first took notice of you, I thought that I could use a bender like yourself to help aid my plans. I thought that now, since you're older, we could strike a deal."
"What kind of deal?"
"An easy one. You help me with my…work, and I will do everything in my power to help you find your parents."
A few moments of silence passed as the duo stared at each other, neither one of them wanting to break eye-contact, one out of fear of losing a vital piece of his mission, and the other waiting for whatever dream she was in to end. Eventually, Rai pushed herself off the tree branch, dropping down to her feet in front of the man. "What exactly are you playing at?"
"I'm not quite sure I understand the question."
"You're going to help me find information about my parents? Information that you say was withheld from me and apparently from public record? Obviously, I'm not expecting that to come free. What are you playing at? And what part do I play in all of this?"
Kwan smiled, bending down on his knee to be face-to-face with the firebender. "I'm the leader of a group of people with similar stories like yours. You've always been a sort of wild card for me, Rai. I've been waiting until I thought you were ready to hear the truth about who you are and what your role in this is. Now is that time. I can train you. Not just in bending, but to become someone meant to help revenge exactly what we are. The lost and the forgotten. Come with me, and you'll know everything. I'll teach you everything. Come with me, and you'll never have to see the inside of an orphanage again."
"I don't know…how can I be so sure to trust you?"
Kwan stood up off his knee, dusting the bit of dirt off. "What other choice do you have? It's either trust me, or go back there. But it will ultimately be your choice, Rai. I can't force you to be a part of this. You have to come on your own accord and be willing to be a part of this. Something tells me that you won't refuse it, though."
Rai watched the man for a few seconds, searching his face for any sign of dishonesty. But she found none, and really, what did she have to lose? Another potential face-off with the other orphans? A mundane job working in a factory whenever she was old enough to be forced out of the system? "Alright. I will go with you, but once we get there, if I find any kind of shady practice going on, I'll be gone before you can blink. Understood?"
"Yes, ma'am. Now, do we have a deal?"
Rai's eyes danced between the man's hand and his face, her thoughts swirling freely at the forefront of her brain. Something, she wasn't sure what, but something was telling her she would regret taking the man's offer. But there was a much larger part of her, her inner child, the child that she still was, simply wanted as many answers as she could get. It was that larger part that eventually swayed the young firebender's mind as she gripped the man's hand in reproach. "We have a deal."
Four Years Later
Two things. There are two things that, so far, annoy Rai more than she cares to admit. One is the way many of these so called "prodigies" that sauntered through and out of the University's entrance, acting as though they deserved everything the world could offer them. Secondly, it was the sound of that horrid piece of metal as one of the other R.F. members filed away at her nails with it beneath her. Both of these things were, currently, the reason for the scowl on Rai's face as she sat perched on a branch in what she now dubbed as her tree.
After what seemed like an eternity to Rai, the sound of nail filing stopped, and the girl who had been doing the filing, Asha, stabbed the object into the trunk of the tree with an exasperated sigh. "Who exactly are we looking for, again? Was anyone here given a name? Or possibly a description?"
"Kwan said just to watch and we'd know who we were looking for."
Thankfully Kayo managed to answer the girl's questions. Again. They'd been sitting here under this tree, or in Rai's case in it, waiting and watching every person who entered or left the University. Kwan had been scarce with the details of their scouting mission, and why he bothered to send four for a such a simple task confused the girl. And what, or should Kayo say who they were looking for she also failed to understand the importance of.
Hayate, who had been sitting up against the trunk of the tree and fiddling with carving designs into a stick with this favorite knife, spoke up, never looking up from his handiwork. "There are hundreds of people who come and go from this place, how can Kwan expect us to simply pick out a person?"
While the three R.F. members began to argue about the importance of details within a mission, Rai simply ignored them as best as she could, her eyes scanning the length of the building until they settled on the far East Wing, where loud noises of the tinkering of tools and handsaws and the distinct smell of soldering irons were always present. And then something clicked inside of Rai's mind, and much like the night she met Kwan, she gracefully jumped out of the tree, landing on her feet without so much as noise before she took off towards the University, leaving the rest of her teammates confused by the girl's sudden movements.
"Rai, where are you going?"
The firebender barely glanced over her shoulder, her jade green eyes halfway hidden behind a veil of black hair streaked with white. "I'm getting a closer look."
Asha, Hayate and Kayo all glanced at each other before the latter took off after the girl, telling the other two to stay there so as not to draw too much attention to whatever Rai was planning on doing. Not that anything she would do would surprise Kayo. They'd been scouting together since their first training exercise and she'd seen the young firebender do many things the others wouldn't dare. But that's what made her so amusing to work with. It was always a surprise with her. The firebender kept her on her toes.
"Rai, do you know who Kwan sent us here to observe?"
The black-haired girl nodded, walking past the University's entrance and around towards the east side, disappearing around the corner of the building and further confusing her companion when she stopped below a metal trellis climbing up towards the glass dome. Said glass dome that held most of the offices shared by the science and engineering department. "What are you doing?"
Rai let out a sigh, turning to look at Kayo with a raised eyebrow. "Stay here and keep watch. I don't think anyone will come this way, but should they, run. I'll signal when it's clear for you to follow."
"Follow? What are you-?"
The question quickly died on Kayo's lips as she watched the firebender hoist herself up onto the trellis, easily pulling herself upwards until she could gain better footing to continue her ascent. Kayo briefly wondered where Rai had managed to become such an adept climber, but thinking back to all those times she would find the girl sitting in a tree or the edge of a building, she shut down those thoughts. She must be part lemur or something. The thought of her friend with a striped tail and huge ears forced a smile to Kayo's face as she watched the younger girl finally reach the top, peering through the glass dome before glancing back down at her.
With a one, short wave, Rai pushed on the edge of a pane of glass, climbing through with so little effort that Kayo frowned. "Wait? We're going inside? Why the hell couldn't we just use the front doors then?"
Eventually, Rai's head popped back out of the open window, her hand motioning for Kayo to start climbing, and the firebender watched as her team mate made the same trek she did. Although much slower. When she was finally within reach, Rai stuck her hand out, bracing herself with the other as Kayo grabbed her hand and she pulled the other girl up and through the window.
"What are we doing? Aren't these the offices of the professors?"
Rai nodded, glancing around them and taking in her bearings. Thankfully the dome was settled underneath a circular ledge that provided room for the storage of boxes and piles of paperwork, which is where Kayo and her had ducked behind upon entering through the window. Peeking around the edge of the box she was hidden behind, Rai's eyes scanned the hallway for any sign of movement and when she deemed that everything was quiet enough for their next move, she made quick work of eyeing the two security cameras at either end of the hall where they were. Reaching behind her head, she pulled up the hood of her jacket, glancing over her shoulder and waiting until Kayo had done the same before standing up and peering over the edge of the ledge. They weren't that high, thankfully, and after taking a deep breath she jumped off, landing on the tiled floor while keeping her head down, mindful of the angle of the cameras. One wrong move and they'd have her face on tape. Kwan would kill her.
Turning halfway, and while still keeping her face hidden, she motioned for her companion to come, holding out her hands when Kayo stalled on the edge of the ledge. The girl was never one for heights, and Rai suddenly thought back to the time she'd been confronted by the older girl following a mission that left most of them with some injury or another.
She'd been sitting down on the edge of building they'd been occupying, one foot dangling over the edge while her elbow rested atop the other, her fingers toying with the edges of the bandage around her left hand when she heard the sound of the rooftop door opening behind her. She figured it would only be sooner, rather than later that Kayo would come looking for her. She hadn't known the girl long, considering she'd been the last to join their "family" over a year ago, but ever since being introduced to the girl, she'd always treated her differently. She'd told Rai she cared about her. Whenever Rai wouldn't speak what little she did, Kayo had always asked her if she was okay. Granted, Rai always felt like she wasn't okay, but she'd never tell the older girl that. She'd just worry that much more over her.
"Is your hand okay?"
Shrugging a shoulder, the younger girl kept her eyes trained towards the lit up buildings of the city, but stopped fidgeting with her injured hand. "It'll heal."
Out of the corner of her eye, Rai watched Kayo stand a few feet off from her, her eyes warily looking over the edge of the roof before the older girl frowned. "Kwan is looking into how they could have known we were coming. He thinks there's one of us on the inside paying out information."
Rai simply shrugged again, letting her eyes close as a cool breeze lifted her hair around her. It was peaceful and quiet, and although her hand had been hurting like a bitch for the better part of an hour, she felt calm. At least until she felt the presence of the girl next to her, settling into place and automatically reaching out to steady herself by grabbing onto the firebender's knee, the grip on it tightening as the older girl eventually settled down. "You're afraid of heights, aren't you?"
Without opening her eyes, Rai knew the other girl was now staring at her, but Kayo had failed to move from her position on the edge next to her, nor had she removed her hand from Rai's knee. "I just don't like being up so high. It's odd, how much you like to be in places like this. Always on the edge of something. The roof, a tree, whatever you can find."
"I've found that people don't bother you as much up here. A fear of heights usually keeps them away."
"Yeah, well, too bad. I'm here to bother you, and you're just gonna have to deal with it."
Smiling slightly, the firebender let her propped up leg drop down to hang by the other, the action forcing a squeak of fear from the older girl, which had Rai opening her eyes and reaching out to place her uninjured hand on the girl's shoulder. "It's okay. I won't let you fall."
Kayo's hand covered her own, and had Rai's mind not been so preoccupied with the feeling of failure that always come from turning up with nothing about her past after completing a mission, she would have noted the warmth that spread along her arm upon the contact of their skin. "Promise?"
The firebender nodded, pulling her hand away from the older girl, but didn't return her gaze to the city lit up, instead focusing her eyes on the girl next to her, who had taken up upon herself to watch the lights and attempt to remain calm at being so high up. "I promise."
Pulling herself out of her memories, Rai glanced up at her companion, holding both hands out. The ledge wasn't that high up, and she lacked a few inches from being able to grab it with her bare hands, but she understood the girl's fear of any kind of height and so she smiled softly when Kayo's slightly-panicked eyes met hers. "I won't let you fall. I promise."
Hearing those same words spoken to her renewed the courage in the older girl, and as she held her breath, Kayo willed herself to sit on the edge of the ledge, reaching forward to grab Rai's hands before jumping off, landing a few inches in front of the shorter girl. "Thanks."
The young firebender only nodded, letting go of the girl's hands before taking a step back and walking towards one end of the hallway, her eyes darting up towards the names on each office door before she stopped in front of one. Kayo followed behind her, keeping her ears and eyes trained to look for any kind of noise or movement, ready to bolt should they need to. "Rai, what are we doing inside the offices?"
"Scouting."
Kayo let out a huff at the one word response she got from the girl. There had been few times since meeting the girl three years ago that she spoke more than a few sentences, and why she sometimes appreciated having a quiet partner for missions and scouting and even in their shared room back at home, Kayo hated that the girl was practically leaving her out of the loop as to why they had just committed a B&E. Instead of push the girl further, Kayo simply kept her eyes and ears trained to either end of the hallway as Rai made quick work of the lock on whoever's office door they had stopped at. Upon hearing the locking mechanism click, Rai silently slid into the office, reaching out to grab Kayo's hand and pull her inside just as the door on the right end of the hallway opened. Kayo let out a light sigh at almost being caught. Had Rai not managed to open the door and pull her and herself in, she would have been forced to come up with some convoluted lie as to what they were doing inside the office quarters of the University. And Kayo did not want to do that. Kwan was bound to reprimand them for breaking into a professor's office anyway, and getting caught would only add to their punishment. Kayo and Rai had been caught once before, for something much less greater than this, but Kwan had seen it as getting caught all the same. And they'd endured his punishment. Silently on Rai's part, but Kayo did not have the luxury to force herself to be quiet during one of his punishments.
The older girl rolled her shoulders, still, after a year, she could still feel the sting of the whip against her bare back. She shuddered at the thought and forced herself to focus on what they were doing, and as Kayo glanced around the room, she noticed the firebender sitting at the desk centered in front of the window. "Who's office is this, Rai?"
"Asami Sato's."
Kayo's eyes widened as she watched the younger girl pilfer through the piles of paperwork and folders on top of and inside the desk, her next words coming out somewhat breathless. "You seriously broke us into the office of the CEO of Future Industries and the Avatar's wife? Are you crazy?!"
Rai glanced up from her work, raising an eyebrow at the older girl. "Kwan mentioned something about a prototype Future Industries has been working on. Something that had to do with the Spirit World portal that the Avatar opened a few years ago. I figured that's why he sent us here."
"Well can you just find the file and let's go?"
"Are you kidding me? I'm sitting at the desk of one of the greatest minds in Republic City. Maybe even the world. I'm going to relish this feeling for a minute or two."
Kayo groaned, watching as Rai pilfered through more stacks of folders, placing a few in a separate file in her lap. After a few minutes of her staring the younger girl down, Rai let out a sigh, looking up from her work. "Stop it, go stand watch."
Rai waited until the girl had positioned herself by the office door before going back to her search. She'd come across folders that the CEO had been using as lesson plans for the engineering class she'd been teaching here at the University, account statements for Future Industries and even old newspaper clippings of the Avatar's doings from around the world. Just when Rai thought that the CEO didn't have any files about the goings on at her company, Rai pulled out the bottom drawer of the desk, pulling out the stack of files and landing on a whole series of work the CEO had been doing.
There were thousands of ideas here, and Rai caught herself wishing that she'd had the chance to fulfill her wishes of becoming a student here, just to see what kind of genius was going on behind the hallowed walls of this place. Finally, Rai stumbled across the file she'd been looking for and after quickly adding that to the pile she'd collected on her lap, she moved to place the other files back into their original positions when one lone file caught her attention. It seemed to been stuffed under the rest of the other files, almost as if it'd been an after thought to whoever had put it there.
Reaching out for it, and replacing the other files back into the drawer, Rai made quick work of flipping the old and tattered file open. Inside were newspaper clippings much like the ones from earlier that held the Avatar's accomplishments, only these were clippings from long ago. Dated back to before Rai had even existed. They consisted of the CEO's family, when Future Industries had first been taken over following Hiroshi Sato's arrest for conspiring with the Equalists. There was even one of when the CEO's mother had been brutally murdered by a local gang, but what caught Rai's attention the most was a torn and opened envelope from the Republic City's department of Health, scribbled on the front a single date that had the young firebender frowning in confusion as she pulled out the contents of the envelope, her confusion only growing upon scanning over the certificate in her hand. Why did the CEO of Future Industries, wife to the Avatar, have a death certificate with her birth date on it?
"Did you find whatever you were looking for?"
Nodding, the younger girl placed the certificate back inside the file before sliding it and the other files she'd collected into her bag, moving around the edge of the desk and towards her team mate. Without uttering a word, the firebender walked towards her companion, clicking the lock to the office door shut before moving towards the window. Kayo followed the younger girl, letting out a groan at realizing they were going to have to climb again, and stared at her friend when she noticed the girl pausing in her movements halfway out the window.
"What? Why are you stopping?"
"Do you trust me?"
Rai watched as the other girl frowned, nodding her head. "Of course."
"Close your eyes. Don't open them until I tell you to."
Kayo's breath caught in her throat upon feeling the girl's arms around her waist, and before she ask the girl what exactly was fixing to happen, she squeezed her eyes shut and wrapped her own arms around the shorter girl's shoulders. After all, she found it better to just do and not ask so many questions when it came to Rai.
What Kayo hadn't been expecting was the sudden rush of air around her, almost as if she was halfway through making a jump like earlier, off the edge of the ledge outside the offices. It wasn't until she noticed her feet were no longer touching anything that she realized what Rai had done. She had jumped out of the office window. A few moments later, her feet hit on what she assumed was the ground, and the older girl let out a shuddering breath.
"You can open them now."
Tightening her arms slightly, she chanced peeking one eye open, catching sight of the grassy lawn they were standing in. Thankfully the CEO's office was facing the other side of the building, where no one could have seen them jump.
"Did you seriously just jump out of that window with me?"
Rai shrug as best as she could with the taller girl's arms still around her shoulders, wondering if was appropriate to have your friends arms around you for this long, or to have your own arms around said friend. "Yes."
The taller girl let out a breathy laugh, finally pulling away from the firebender and running her hands through her hair before landing a light punch on the younger girl's shoulder. Rai, for her part, barely even flinched at the contact, having been used to the older girl who was now glaring at her.
"You! Are! A! Sociopath!"
Each word was accented with another punch to Rai's shoulder, until the firebender finally caught the girl's wrists and held them by her side. "I would never let anything happen to you. And nothing did, so if you're done hitting me now, can we please so grab Asha and Hayate and go home?"
With a huff, the taller girl yanked her hands out of Rai's grip, turning on her heel and stomping off down the sidewalk. After a few seconds, Rai followed, catching up to the older girl before she'd made it around the side of the building. Upon seeing their two missing members, Rai let out a sigh, bypassing them completely and instead found herself making her way in the direction towards their home.
The walk was silent, any and all questions asked Asha and Hayate had been answered by Kayo. Rai was a few steps ahead of the others, and she was quite aware that the conversation had lulled over the past few minutes, so the girl took the opportunity to think about the information she'd gotten for Kwan. Among those file reports laid that death certificate. Why she took it, Rai couldn't fathom. She hadn't had the chance to read over it completely before Kayo had asked if she was done, and whether the girl led on to it or not, she hadn't wanted to get caught breaking into the CEO's office just as much as Kayo. But the date that had been written on the envelope, and was also dated on the document had questions reeling in Rai's mind. It was her birthday, one of the few things Kwan had been able to find out a few months after she met him. That and her parents actually had been just another casualty to Republic City. It could just be a coincidence, it was just a date after all to other people, but the young firebender found it odd to find the death certificate in the CEO's desk, where it was obviously not meant to be found.
Pushing all those thoughts aside, Rai stopped in front of the familiar alleyway, the sound of a brawl and the chanting of other members were barely able to be heard from the opening. If one hadn't been so used to hearing them, it would have easily been overlooked by anyone, seeing as though the sound was coming from a bar.
Asha and Hayate both continued on around her, mumbling their partings before they opened the side door to the pub. Rai watched them leave, vaguely aware of Kayo standing behind her.
"Are you okay?"
Nodding, the younger girl turned halfway, eyeing her companion and leaving Kayo to wonder what was really going through the girl's head. "I apologize for scaring you earlier. I figured you wouldn't like having to scale the trellis again and it seemed like the only other way out of the office. It was never my intention to frighten you."
Kayo nodded, now understanding why the girl had stopped outside their home, and why she'd been quiet on the walk back. "It's okay. I know that's not what you were trying to do. I just…really hate heights."
"I know."
Opting to leave whatever awkwardness was bound to come along with the end of the conversation, Kayo wrapped an arm around Rai's frame, pulling her into her side as they both continued down the alley and in through the pub's side door. "Are you going to give Kwan those files before you call it a night?"
Rai nodded, letting the taller girl pull her past the counter that was already littered with drunk business men and through to the back. "I won't be long."
Once the duo had made it around the boxes of alcohol and whatever snacks Jax had ordered for that week, they stopped once they reached the torn and lone poster, Rai's hand automatically coming up to knock on the hard surface twice. The wall then separated, moving back in on itself before sliding down into the foundation, revealing the neutral faces of the unlucky souls of the two Earth benders who'd been stuck with security detail. Once the two girls had walked across the threshold, neither registered the sound of the wall being placed back to its original position and instead focused on the sounds that were coming from the bottom of the staircase below them.
Shouts and cheers were being thrown up around them, and when the duo reached the bottom of the stairs they both understood why. Two of the newbies that Cam had recruited were piled on top of each other in the common room, a group of twelve or more members either cheering them on or shouting at the pair on the ground. Judging by the amount of blood on the concrete floor and all over the two, Rai could only guess they'd been at it for a few minutes now.
Out of the corner of her eye, Rai noticed Cam watching the two with an unamused look on his face. Leave it to him to not be bothered by his own recruits trying to kill themselves.
Ah, you two are finally back. We were beginning to wonder if you'd done as Kwan asked. Please don't tell me you came back empty handed."
Rai pulled her attention away from the fight as Kayo's arm dropped from around her, the firebender automatically frowning when the owner of the voice immediately wrapped his arms around Kayo, placing a not-so-soft kiss on the girl's lips that had the receiver letting out a noise of protest. When Nakio eventually pulled away from what Rai thought was him trying to devour his girlfriend's face, Rai raised an eyebrow in question before walking towards the group surrounding the two fighting boys. The crowd parted easily for her, and without much restraint. Given her nature and reputation, all the sounds of shouting and cheering halted. With little effort, the firebender grabbed each of them by their collars and hoisted them up, pushing each in opposite directions.
"Both of you, head to the sparring room and run twenty laps side-by-side. Now."
The two recruits let out sounds of annoyance before following the firebender's orders, the last few onlookers who had been watching the fight scrambled to continue whatever it was they had been doing before the two boys had started throwing punches.
With one last, unreadable look towards her friend, who was watching her with questioning eyes as Nakio whispered something in her ear, Rai slid through the doorway that led towards the dorm rooms and Kwan's office, adding one last thing to her list of things she absolutely hated. Nakio. More specifically, the way he treated Kayo as if she was some kind of prize to claim instead of a human being.
Clearing herself of her thoughts, Rai bypassed her shared room with Kayo, wishing more than anything to just fall onto the bed and let her unconscious take over, but Rai knew she needed to get these files to Kwan. Slowing her pace, the firebender eventually stopped, backtracking to her dorm room and pulling out the folder that contained the death certificate. She made quick work of unlocking the door and stepping in, thanking the spirits that Kayo was still being occupied by her giant oaf of a boyfriend and easily slid the folder underneath her dresser, out of sight and protected until she could return.
Feeling a little lighter now that she was no longer carrying around the odd file, Rai eventually found herself standing outside of Kwan's office. From the other side, the firebender could hear the man in a deep, one-sided conversation. Now doubt talking to one of his "connections."
One, swift knock later, Rai was entering his office, pulling the files of the prototype and whatever else she had found out while closing the door behind her in a single movement. Kwan, who had been sitting behind his desk, raised an eyebrow when the firebender held out the stack of files from the other side of the metal table. Kwan took them hesitantly, flipping through the stack quickly before he finally eyed the firebender stood before him. "I assume you got a little hands-on today?"
"Not too much."
"And were you seen?"
"To my knowledge, no. Strictly in and out."
The boss nodded, leaning back in his chair as his fingers scratched at the stubble on his chin. "Good. Now, I'm going to talk to some investors next week and I trust that you'll keep an eye out on my office for me. Also, try and keep the new recruits in line. Light their asses on fire if you have to, just reenact it when I get back. I'd want to see it."
Nodding, the firebender waited until she was dismissed before venturing back out into the hallway. She knew she should be heading down towards the mess hall, where Kayo and the rest of her team were probably waiting on her, but the curiosity that had been building inside of the sixteen-year-old was proving too much to bare. So, pushing away from Kwan's office door, the firebender let herself carry her weight along the hall, doubling back until she was standing inside her shared dorm room, staring at the dresser that hid the file safely underneath it. Gathering up her courage, Rai retrieved the file, making herself comfortable on the bed before flipping the folder open and picking up the first few contents. The first few things had been what she'd seen back in the CEO's office, newspaper clippings of the death of the CEO's mother, her father's arrest and even a few of the United Forces over the years. None of this added up to anything unusual, if not just an odd pile of old newspaper clippings until Rai reached the far back end of the pile. There she found an article about an accident that the CEO had apparently been a part of, something that had left the, what would have been the sixteen-year-old version of the CEO, in semi-critical condition following an alleged hit and run, the faded words recounting that the perp remained unknown and that Mr. Sato refused to comment on the matter, stating only that he wanted to see his daughter through her recovery and bring the people responsible for her accident into the light.
After that, all the file folder held was the death certificate, which didn't give away that much information either. The date was the only thing on there, no name or any other kind of information that could pinpoint who it belonged to. Just a simple date, that just so happened to be her birth date, which the firebender still thought was odd. None of it was clicking into place. Not the newspaper clippings, or the certificate.
Eventually, after what thought was the better part of a few hours spent rereading the certificate and newspaper clippings, and looking for any type of connection, the firebender let out a sigh. Whatever answer to the riddle she had found with this folder was obviously personal, and she had no business looking into it. If anything, it had nothing to do with her and she was most likely better off to just toss the file into the garbage and forget she ever even took it from the CEO's desk. So Rai didn't understand what she was doing when she simply slid the file back under her dresser and climbed in bed, attempting to push away all the thoughts of whatever kind of skeleton she had, coincidentally, stumbled across in the CEO's closet.