-Mako –

He thought he saw them again. The glowing red eyes. Walking just beyond his line of sight, around a corner and out of his life. He was seeing them everywhere now. The sinister red glow.

"Hey, man. You might wanna stop daydreaming and get back to work," said Mako's neighbor at the plant. Mako charged another lightning bolt.

Once the war in Republic City ended, the people returned to their jobs and the city gradually moved back into its normal state. A normal state of poor, jobless citizens and power hungry mobsters. The nice thing about the whole war was that at least Amon took away the bending of some of the more dangerous mob leaders.

Mako thought about some of these things while he worked tirelessly at the power plant shooting lightning into the generator receivers. Power is stored, people are happy. Mako wasn't very happy. Mako thought about these things because he was pissed it had to come to him being here to survive. What did he think would happen, though? Was he going to be rewarded for his actions in the war? He risked his life, well maybe just his bending, to try and stop a bloodbending madman from assuming power over these people.

No one really seemed to notice his efforts, or Korra's, or anyone's. Most of these things were quickly forgotten. Recently, Mako found that more people were just upset over the fact that these wars even started in the first place. Some people were upset that bending had been taken from a large amount of people. Others were upset that a war over bending caused so much destruction to nonbenders who weren't even being affected by the ordeal.

Mako wasn't treated with much respect upon his return. His boss told him if he messed up he would replace him. There were hundreds of benders qualified for this job. Making a little lightning wasn't hard, doing it over eight hours could really ware someone out but the pay was enough to compensate for the grueling work. Some employers were beginning to develop a distaste for those like Mako who never really learned a marketable skill and simply relied on their bending to get by. Nonbenders especially. Other benders had a different mindset. In the end, it all seemed to come down to whoever had power. Those in power, whether by bending or not, dictated morality in Republic City.

Mako missed his work with the police force when he first returned. It was a temporary consulting position he worked on with Lin Bei Fong. With the loss of so many metalbenders, the police department needed to be re-staffed, and Mako was able to spend some time with Lin, helping her to accomplish this. It was here that he met benders who found nothing to be more important than bending, and the power it brought allowed them dominance over others. Even toward Lin, who had lost her bending, they showed no respect, and dictated that a nonbender like her should not be in charge of a powerful force. Lin's efforts were shadowed by her loss of bending which was seen as a weakness, and she was kicked to the side, only being allowed to stay on because of her relationship to Toph. These were people who didn't learn from Amon's war. These were people who would abuse power. But these were also people who could metalbend, and so Lin had no choice.

Mako's time with Lin was brief, but in her exhausted and depressed state over the direction the police force was going, she told him how her life would never be complete because she missed her opportunity to be with the man she loved. She was confused and she screwed things up, and Mako's eyes were opened to his own faults. He felt he might have wasted so much time of his life mastering his bending instead of learning something more useful. He wanted to find a demand for his great firebending skills, but no one wanted him for anything other than the menial work that any firebender could do.

Mako was also burdened by a much larger problem: himself. He cringed when thinking about himself over the last year. Because of his actions he was left with nothing. Korra had rejected him. What was he thinking? Telling her he loved her? Did he really, did he just want her to feel better, was he trying to make himself feel better? He wanted someone, but in his state of constant confusion he made so many bad decisions. Damaged so many relationships.

Indecisive, some kind of exaggerated human condition where he never thought he had what he wanted so he tried to get something new. Thinking he was never satisfied, but now he is alone.

Asami. First there was Asami, the girl who never deserved the horrible things that happened to her. He helped bring those things, or at least he didn't help stop them. Whatever trust she had in anyone, Mako was sure he had helped in depleting it. Mako missed the opportunity to be with an extremely nice, talented, and beautiful girl like Asami. Instead, he just broke her even more by emotionally cheating on her. Asami, who lost her mother when she was a kid and whose father tried to kill her, also had to put up with Mako's "confusion", or at least that was his pathetic excuse for transferring his feelings for Asami over to Korra. Asami wasn't dumb, and she wasn't going to be used. Upon returning to Republic City, Asami had no reason to continue any kind of friendship with Mako, and she quickly cut herself off from him as she took her place as CEO of the disgraced Future Industries, struggling to bring it back to prominence.

Mako had also damaged his relationship with Korra and even his own brother, Bolin. His initial rude behavior toward Korra which later turned into some kind of affection, what was that? It was immature. Mako just thought he would like it with her better, but not once did he seem to think of other people. He even betrayed his brother, Bolin, by going after the girl he had feelings for. Bolin practically confessed his love for Korra to Mako. To put it all in a short time span, Mako saw was a jerk who tried to steal a girl that Bolin liked all while Mako was dating another girl that depended on him.

I guess Korra had a good brain to turn me down, he thought.

Mako had screwed up. He had nothing left, but he wondered if he could change things. If he could find a way to get back with his old group. He had a connection with Lin, but what would that do? He didn't want to work for the police department, but maybe he could get his brother a job there. Bolin had been up to his lame street tricks to make money. Usually failing, Bolin managed to find some friends with a place who threw frequent parties and didn't mind Bolin sleeping there.

Mako wanted to see his brother again. He thought getting that relationship repaired would be a good start. He would get his brother a job as something in the force where he could learn metalbending. He had always wanted to learn that, Mako thought. That would be good.

The bell rang and Mako went to the cafeteria to eat his lunch. Some folks from way upper management were going through the facility to see the place. One of them seemed to be pointing out a bunch of things that could be improved and criticized all the generator capacity levels and some other things. He looked like a crazy genius. The others following him just listened to this guy.

"Graft" Said a voice behind Mako. He turned to find a slender guy with long black hair in a ponytail. The man placed his lunch next to Mako's. These upper management guys must have taken up room in the cafeteria so now Mako couldn't sit completely isolated like usual.

"What was that?" Mako asked.

"The guy with the black hair over there yelling at all the business men. That is Graft. Some kind of business man / scientist thing. The police department and council are talking about him. Apparently he is doing some work in Republic City now. They think he'll bring us into a new era of technology."

Mako looked at Graft, the man looked so flustered as he gave out his recommendations. He never stopped talking.

"Yep, looks like government is assuming possession over these power plants soon, maybe that will guarantee us some kind of minimum wage or higher positions or something. Anything is better than this, but what else is there you know?" the man said. Mako looked back at him and asked for his name.

"The name is O-ren. Just got sacked from the force for drinking on the job. No one wants to hire that kind of person except a place like this, right?"

O-ren began to eat his lunch and so did Mako, who thought about the possibility of a spot that needed to be filled at the police department, and that Bolin may be the perfect fit.