"Hey, Rookie! Get ya' sorry ass up here, pronto!"
Mako was sitting far away from the rest of gang members, trying to stay out of sight and out of the way. With a sigh, he finished wrapping up his hand with tape and stood, keeping his chin high as he walked up to Shady Shin. It was hard to seem confident when everyone around was snickering at his black eye. The urge to scowl at them rose in his chest, but last time he gave someone the wrong kind of look, it had ended with a fist to the jaw. People around here weren't afraid to draw blood if you weren't up to their standards. Not exactly the kind of place where two teenage brothers would grow up under ideal circumstances, but circumstances were far from ideal, and if he wanted to keep Bolin from starving, this is where they'd stay. A bruise here and there was worth the daily pummeling that his life had become.
Shin grabbed Mako by the collar and pulled him roughly across the remaining inches between them. With a sigh, Mako looked at the man with weary eyes. "I was perfectly capable of taking those last couple steps—"
"You really screwed up your last fight, Rookie."
That much was true. There wasn't a part of his body that wasn't still aching or bleeding from the brutal match yesterday. But the stakes were big, the odds against him, and if he'd won, there was the chance that he and Bolin would be able to leave this place for good. Taking that chance almost seemed worth the aching bones and bandaged hands. Fighting Earthbenders was always the worst; you woke up feeling like you got hit by a Satomobile.
"But don't worry," Shin hissed. Mako had been trying to tune him out, but the way he spoke was enough to make him pay attention. His words carried more malice than usual and sent an unpleasant feeling up his spine. That feeling you get when you know someone is about to give you bad news. Only it seemed like Shin was absolutely giddy at the idea of tearing Mako down a few notches. "I've got another fight lined up for you."
Mako jerked himself out of the older man's grasp and scowled. "You're the very model of kindness," he sneered, checking the tape on his hands as he walked towards the door that led out of the warehouse that the gang called home. Fights never took place in the warehouse; that was one of the few rules that they had between them. Slowly, numbly, he found his way to the alley where people would gather day and day again to bet on fighters from rival gangs. The people got entertainment, the fighters got money, and the gangs got a way to settle scores. They called it a 'win for everyone.' Mako just called it brutality. But in the end, it was good money.
Shoving himself roughly through the crowd that had gathered, Mako rolled his shoulders, mentally preparing himself for the doubtlessly horrendous punishment that waited for him in the circle of spectators.
But not even an eternity of preparation could have made him ready for what he saw.
There he was, green eyes alight with fear as he strained against the two thugs holding him in place by his arms. Confusion and the look of a caged bird flashed across Bolin's face, until he locked eyes with his newly arrived brother. He smiled, clearly relieved, and stopped struggling against the brutes. Mako was here. Mako would save him.
Now in control of the anger that had been boiling in his stomach since he first saw his brother in the middle of the ring of people, Mako spun on his heel to face Shin, who was now smugly smiling behind him. "We have a deal, Shin!" he roared, feeling his blood heat with the anger that tore at his veins. "I do the fighting, I bring in the money, and he stays out of it!"
"Correction – we had a deal. We let 'im mooch off ya' winnings cuz ya' brought in so much. But that last fight cost us big time. It was an embarrassment. This," he lifted a crooked finger and pointed to Bolin, whose eyes once again twinkled with fear at Shin's words, "Is ya' punishment. Now get ya' ass in there and give it ya' all." And with that, he shoved Mako back into the ring as the guards released Bolin.
"Bro, I—" Bolin's words were cut off as chants came from all sides, telling Mako to tear him apart. Make him cry. Make him bleed. Break him! Smash his head in! Even gritting his teeth and shutting his eyes couldn't block out the bloodlust screeches of the audience. They wanted what they came to see, but he couldn't do it. Slowly, the screams of encouragement turned to shouts of dissatisfaction when it became clear that Mako wouldn't be attacking his brother any time soon. Bolin was nervously looking around; his shoulders curled in towards his chest in the most defensive stance Mako had ever seen him take. He was terrified, written all over his face and stance, and it completely tore at Mako's heart. All those years of protecting him only to fail now.
The crowd was relentless, screaming at him.
Hit him.
Blast him.
Burn him to a crisp.
Break him.
No.
No.
"NO!" Mako roared, igniting his fists.
Shin was smiling cruelly to the side, though calling it a 'smile' didn't seem accurate. Smiles weren't supposed to make your stomach coil like this. "Thought ya might not play nice," he hissed, the words kindling to the flame of Mako's rage. With a quick jerk of his head, the muscular thugs moved back towards Bolin, one pinning him down while the other conjured a flame in his hand, moving it towards Bolin's pale face.
"Stop!" Mako screamed, his voice laced with desperation and terror.
"Then fight!" It was Shin again, his voice no longer hauntingly cheerful, but simmering with wrath.
He couldn't. He had to. There was no way he could hurt Bolin. There was no way he could let them hurt Bolin. The flame moved closer.
Get on with it!
Sweat was starting to fall down Bolin's quivering lip. He didn't even try to fight the man pinning him down. It was useless. He knew that.
Make him scream!
Green eyes flitted to meet his. They wavered slightly, but the pleading in them couldn't be ignored. He was trying to be strong.
Break him.
Rage spilled forth, overflowing, and with a voice like clashing steel, he threw a blast across the ring. The thugs stepped back in time, and Bolin had the sense to duck. The blast dissipated into harmless smoke above Bolin's back. But if he stopped now, they would just be right back in there, doing Agni knows what to his brother. With a swoop of his leg, another streak of fire lit the air as it soared towards the quivering young earthbender. Bolin dug a heel into the ground, warping the stone floor into a blast shield that sprung up in front of him, redirecting the flames to either side.
The blasts kept coming, driven forward by a rage that Mako hadn't experienced since the day his parents died. His vision was red and his judgment gone. Finally, the blast shield came down and Bolin blindly punched the air, sending a crude chunk of rock to meet the barrage of sinister ardor ceaselessly falling upon him. The stone split under the heat of the flames, and a stray shrapnel shard sliced across Mako's cheek.
The barrage continued, Mako fueled by a flowing fury that in burned his stomach and seared through his veins; Bolin by a fear that constricted his breathing, draining the strength from his arms with each successive blow. He looked paralyzed, helpless as prey before his brother's hawk-like eyes, golden spears that pierced right through him. The air was all smoke and dust and tension as Mako endured beating after brutal beating, the rocks cracking his ribs and buckling his shaking knees.
A jagged stone that had escaped his notice hit with full force, finally pulling him to his knees and forcing a cease-fire. Another stone hovered in Bolin's grasp, and he was breathing heavily, his eyes still wide open and glistening with the sting of tears that refused to fall. The air now silent and the motions of his fists quelled to mere twitches and spasms, the weight of the fight crashed down on him with a force far stronger than any of Bolin's incessant attacks.
He had enough time to see Bolin drop the rock in his grasp and stumble away from it as if it were a beast about to attack before the inky black that had been forming at the corners of his eyes finally seeped across his vision, numbing the pain and silencing the cheers of the raving audience.
When sense once again graced him with its presence, Mako was slung haphazardly across his cot in the Warehouse, a distraught Bolin and beaming Shin at his bedside. He groaned, feeling his insides twist in recognition of the pain shooting through every fiber of his skin.
Bolin looked elated for the briefest of moments when he saw that Mako was awake, but the emotion was a simple flicker, and the defeated look was on his face again before the pained sound from Mako's bleeding lips had even ended.
"Who would guessed that ya' brother here was such a fighter?" Shin snickered, his fingers tracing the edges of a fat stack of yuans. No doubt those were the spoils of today's match. It must have seemed like the best match in ages to the insatiable crowd, unaware of the rift it was tearing between the two brothers who had nothing else in the world. They thrived on destruction, why should they differentiate cuts and bruises on the outside from the ones that lay deeper? If anything, the stack of money seemed bigger than usual, so the show of emotional torment might have even entertained them far more than a typical slugfest could.
"The deal is off, rookie," Shin said, his face deadpan and his tone blunt. "If ya' think I'm plannin' on lettin' a fighter like this kid slip away, ya' dead wrong." Shin placed a rough hand on Bolin's shoulder, causing the boy to squirm uncomfortably under the man's malicious grasp. If it weren't for the pain seizing his muscles, Mako would have punched Shin on the spot, but the torment kept him pinned to the cot as Shin stood and smugly walked away, leaving him with anger and the deafening silence that came with Bolin's company. Mako braced himself for whatever was coming next. An onslaught of well-deserved insults. A cold silence that would sting far more than any words. But what really happened was worse than any twisted scenario that Mako could have imagined.
Bolin smiled.
"You fight pretty well, bro. But let's face it, you didn't stand a chance. I've always been way buffer than you," he joked quietly, trying to give him the same smug smile he always did.
The pain of forgiveness turned out to be far harder to bear than the cracked bones and searing wounds, so he chose to succumb to the warm numbness of unconsciousness once again.