"What the actual hell are you doing?"
Shaozu seethed as he hovered over Tahno, who was digging through his dingy kitchen with brisk purpose. Tahno barely spared him a glance, absorbed in his task. "Making sure this is worth my time."
Shaozu let a tongue of flame flare from his lips for an instant, if only to startle him, but there was no reaction. "I'm about ready to grab you by the scruff of your nasty coat to throw you out if you don't tell me right this second-"
Tahno arched an eyebrow at him. "Don't get rude now. I'm doing this for all of us."
Shaozu lunged and Ming grabbed him to yank him back into the safety zone. "He did it to me, too," he said, brushing off Shaozu's arms. "The bastard actually has a reason."
"Well for the love of sprits, would someone please tell me what that reason is?"
The low threatening tone in Shaozu's voice finally made Tahno turn. "I'm making sure you're clean."
Shaozu's face registered confusion and then indignation. He drew himself up and snapped, "I am a professional athlete. I don't know if you two bums walk around smoking and drinking but I certainly do not."
Tahno narrowed his eyes at the jab. "Forgive me if I feel the need to check."
Shaozu made another movement forward and Ming restrained him. "Look, he went through my stuff the same way. If I put up with it, so can you."
"Did he actually throw anything out?"
"Two packs of unopened cigs."
Shaozu was torn between disapproval at the waste and respect for the ruthlessness. He settled on irritation. "You were the one with the bottle last night."
Tahno smoothly replied, "I dumped every drop I owned out. You gentlemen are welcome to check once I finish here." With that, he swept into the dingy living room that consisted of a moth-eaten couch and a dim lamp that looked about ready to topple over. He ran his arms under the cushions and Shaozu snorted. "Now what would I be keeping under there?"
"Poisonous insects," Ming muttered.
Shaozu's eyes gleamed at the first knock at humor. "One could only hope."
They snickered and Tahno glanced over. "What are you two giggling about?"
"The vagrant shuffling through my apartment," Shaozu replied. Tahno sent a venomous look as he checked under the couch.
"By the time we're done, we'll all be the social elite."
Ming and Shaozu glanced at each other. "Done with what?"
Tahno finished inspecting the couch and stood up, brushing off his threadbare pants. "Don't you know?" his lips curled into a smirk while re straightened the ratty cuffs of his coat. "We're going to claw our way to the top."
"You sure you aren't a lost actor?"
"Yeah," Shaozu chipped in. "Why don't you go look for your troupe. Spirits forbid they have to cast a new queen."
Tahno's smirk folded back into a tight line of irritation while the two cackled. "Laugh all you want but I am serious when I say I intend to make it. Now, are you two going to be burdens, or are you going to help me get there?"
The laughter faded as they glanced at each other, taking in the disgruntled and grimy appearances. "Yeah," Ming said quietly. "We're in."
Shaozu said nothing at his inclusion because he would have agreed in the first place. They were already speaking for each other and they'd barely exchanged names twelve hours ago. They'd scrawled their addresses onto Tahno's pale arm with a pen borrowed from a noodle joint a few blocks down. Before they put ink on skin, Tahno had looked up in a sudden break from the hazy mindset he'd been in the entire night to say—Wait. We all bend different elements, right? There had been a hasty check and yes, thankfully, they bent different elements. Tahno had promised to stop by in the morning to round them up. Little did they realize that sober Tahno was even worse than drunken Tahno.
"One last question." Tahno pierced Shaozu and Ming with sharp eyes. "Are either of you hiding or selling any cactus flesh-"
Both protested at the exact same time creating a jumble of what the hell and the fuck do you think I am.
Tahno's eyes gleamed in anticipation. "Then let's get signed up."
"You chuckleheads serious?"
Tahno leaned his arm on the counter. "Serious as a heart attack."
The man picked up the packet of papers they'd filled out and the pathetically flat pile of yuans they'd managed to scrounge up for registration. "I know you boys from around. We've been trying to get you teams." He smoothed the sides of his snow white beard. "You think you can just start from jack squat?"
Tahno kept his face empty of any betraying emotions. "It can't be much worse than what we've got now."
Ming grunted in agreement from behind and Shaozu, who even with a team lived in one of the grungiest apartment complexes in the city, looked uncomfortable. The man scowled and rested his thick arms on the counter.
"You aren't going to get sponsors for a long time. No one will know who the—"he glanced down at the paper—"Wolfbats are until you do something worth their time and money. You got enough dough squirreled away to last you that long?"
Tahno smiled sourly. "I think we've made our decision."
He shrugged and leaned back to grab a stamp from under the counter. He pounded it with a condemning bang on the papers and shuffled them away.
"It's on your heads. Let's get you signed up for some matches."
They sat on the bench in the locker rooms, examining their new uniforms.
"Mine has a pit stains," Shaozu muttered.
Ming glanced over and showed Shaozu the upper collar of his. "He must have gotten a nose bleed or bitten his tongue because mine has all this—"
Tahno tore his distasteful gaze away from the uniforms. "Alright, they're disgusting. So what? It's only temporary." They sat in a kind of melancholy silence until Tahno pulled himself up from his seat, straightening his padding.
"Well sitting here and collecting dust won't do any good. Let's go see if the gym is open."
The gym was, in fact, open. Early Wednesday mornings were unpopular- precisely why Tahno had chosen to sign up when he did. They had been given the Monday, Thursday, and Sunday nights along with Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. Saturdays were match days.
They had their first match in three days and they were horribly unprepared. With all the money they had just blown on registration, they couldn't afford to lose. They stood still for a moment, staring at the empty room before them. There was an uncomfortable pause before Tahno snapped.
"Come on. We aren't getting paid to stand around looking good."
Neither Ming nor Shaozu mentioned that they weren't getting paid at all yet but went to go help set up the water trough and stacks of disks. When they finished, there was a triangle set up for each of them to stand at a point with their respective element. They eyed each other and crouched down in unspoken preparation.
"Alright," Tahno drawled in a carefully light voice. "This is just to get a feel for each other's bending."
A long pause and then—
Go.
It turned out that none of them were particularly reserved benders, except for maybe Ming.
A few rounds in and Tahno was having far too much success with his water whips and Ming's discs kept shattering on the cheap padding of their uniforms. Shaozu was careful with how much fire he was letting out in case of burns, but even Tahno was impressed with the jerky unpredictability of his movements.
They stopped for a break, trying to hide the way the way they breathed heavily. Tahno checked the cuff of his sleeve for any singing from when one of Shaozu's blasts had come a little too close for comfort.
"Not bad," he muttered almost to himself.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" Shaozu raised his eyebrows.
Tahno glared and Ming added, "I'm sorry I didn't quite hear what you just—"
"I said you both better get it together or we're getting our asses handed to us this Saturday." The pair of them rolled their eyes.
"We've got a problem."
"It's alright, Tahno. You're mildly tolerable—"
Tahno shot Shaozu a look and he fell silent.
"Who is going to be defense? We can't all be fighting like this. We need someone to cover. And we—" he looked at Shaozu pointedly "—need to figure out how to sanction space because we're both rather mobile."
"I'll be defense," Ming offered. "We just need to figure out exactly how mobile you two are going to be. I can't cover with you both running around in front of me. Not unless you want one of my discs in your back."
"Alright, let's practice at the net. We'll go through a few of our regular forms and we'll see how we need to modify."
It turned out Tahno was right and there was a lot of work to be done in terms of space division. Shaozu and Tahno would try and cross sides mid-way through a strike and ended up colliding. Ming kept trying to figure out how to send some kind of attack around the pair of them but they were weaving too suddenly into his line of fire. What should have been a cohesive assault ended up looking like a three way fight. A disc for both Shaozu and Tahno in between the shoulder blades was the final straw.
Shaozu jumped off the ground, rubbing the skin on his back. "You did that on purpose!"
"No, I did not. Maybe if you hadn't jumped right in front of me when you were supposed to be over there—"
"Gentlemen, that is quite enough."
The absurd title made them both stop and look at Tahno who was casually dusting himself off. He gestured over at the gym door and they turned to see a team leaned up against the wall, watching carefully.
"It looks like our time is up."
Ming and Shaozu followed Tahno as he strode from the room. They met the hard looks of the newcomers before they rounded the corner to head for the locker room.
"We do not have the luxury of snapping at each other's throats," Tahno hissed under his breath. "People are going to be watching us, so let's be very particular about what we let them see."
The locker rooms had filled with the beginning of the afternoon. The other benders looked over the Wolfbats critically, gazes lingering on the stains and threadbare patches on their uniforms. The Wolfbats stiffened but Tahno led them without pause to their assigned lockers.
Tahno sent Ming and Shaozu a look over his shoulder they interpreted as: careful now. We're in enemy territory.
Indeed they were.
