Scene 4, Chap 4

Culture Shock

Sarah pov

Soon enough we arrived in Republic City, and man, did it look like early 20th century New York.

Although minus guns, which would make it weird.

And plus magic, making it weirder.

But the most important thing that I learned when we arrived at the city, was that Korra's incredible lack of street smarts, or just general knowledge about the world, or hell, life in general, was going to kill me.

I learned this when we unloaded off the ship and Korra tried to run off on Naga into the city.

Damn near had an aneurism when she did that.

Where the hell is she going?! I though as she started moving away from us in her excitement.

Thinking quickly I grabbed onto Naga's tail as she ran past, and dug into the ground by creating metal spikes under my metal boots that gave me more grip.

The result, to Mary, was pretty funny.

Naga was pulled back by her tail with a jolt and yelped in pain. Korra was thrown off Naga and flew into the ground, face planting hard. And I tore up the ground around me slightly as I dug into it, while having a look of total annoyance on my face.

Korra got up, spat out some dirt, wiped some of the blood off her scratched up face, and looked at me angrily, obviously very unhappy as to what happened. Then again that's to be expected when you're riding on your giant dog into a big city when you've never seen the outside of a frozen prison, completely excited at the prospect of seeing everything there is to see in the city, just on top of the world, when suddenly you're yanked off your dog and face plant directly into the ground.

"Sarah, what was that for?!" Korra cried indignantly.

"Where in the fuck were you going?!" I responded, annoyed at how impulsive she had been.

"I was going to explore the city!"

"By yourself?"

"…Yes" She reluctantly answered

"Even though you've never been outside your Fortress of Solitude, and have lived the most sheltered life I've ever seen." I countered

"I'm not that bad!"

"You didn't even know how the fuck to use money!" I countered again

"How the fuck were you planning on doing anything without any goddamn money?!" I continued

"…um…" She mumbled, completely defeated.

"Great plan" I mused sarcastically

Korra just sighed in resignation and said, "So what's the plan." She said walking over to us.

"Well, we're all hungry so let's go find something to eat, than explore the city for a while. I don't want to go straight to the air-benders, Tenzin rejected you right?" I said

Korra simply nodded sadly in acknowledgment.

"Then if we went to Tenzin right away, he'd probably just yell at us for breaking you out of prison and send you straight back."

"Yeah, you're right" Korra sadly admitted. I got the feeling that that was pretty much the extent of her plans. Come here, head straight for Tenzin, learn air magic.

"So what do we do then?" She continued, perking up slightly.

"Well, I believe it would be prudent for us to gather intelligence on this city, learn the terrain, and then potentially establish a foothold in the city so they can't just extradite you back to the White Lotus." Mary said, putting down a fairly good plan.

"Foothold?" I questioned. I kind of knew what she meant, but it was still on odd use of the word.

"Yes. What I mean is that we should get jobs, a house, something to establish a more permanent form of presence for us in this city. That way we can go from being visitors to inhabitants, and hopefully at that point we can use the local authorities to protect us." Mary elaborated.

By this point we had started walking together to look for a food shop.

"How would living here get the police to protect us from the White Lotus, aren't they all on the same side?" Korra asked

"Unlikely, I got the sense that the White Lotus are an independent group, at the very least the local police won't like some other foreign organization interfering in their territory. And if we live here then the Police will see us more as part of their group, as opposed to outsiders who aren't their problem."

"Plus if you weren't technically in prison at the compound then they can't legally keep you there if you're an adult, which since you're 18, you are. And if you live here then they have no legal ability to rip you from your home and take you back." Mary finished explaining.

"Unless they do, in which case we're gonna have to fight for your freedom." I asserted

"You'd really do that for me?" Korra asked the two of us, touched by what I said

"No" Mary said flatly

Korra looked crushed, I just slapped Mary in the back of the head

Smack!

"Ignore her." I said, comforting her,

"We're your friends," Then I thought about it, "Well I'm your friend, Mary doesn't really do friends, but she will help me help you, right Mary?" I said, turning to look at my sister while saying the last part a sweetly as possible.

"Depends" She responds flatly without looking at us.

Classic Mary. I think to myself as we continue walking.

We find a nice shop selling different types of kabobs and we decide to get some.

And by we I mean Korra just took some and we had to pay the store owner. Korra just looks at us sheepishly after we pay the storeowner and apologizes for it profusely, but we sternly, and possibly a little ominously, told her that we would teach her to how to use money properly or, as Mary said "You won't have any hands left to spend it with.", which got her a look of, what the actual fuck Mary?!, from me.

Then we decided to eat the kabobs in the park next to the lake there, when Korra decided to go fishing while Mary and I weren't paying attention, and were instead planning our next move. That's when we met the homeless guy, who confused Korra, which at this point wasn't very hard, because he was homeless. Apparently Korra thought everyone was living the good life in the city.

Fucking adorable right?

Yeah, when she said that it gave everyone a good laugh, even Mary thought it was funny that Korra knew oh so very little about the city.

Oh but she would learn, she would learn.

Anyway, after we fed the nice homeless guy with a bush, who I've decided to call homeless bush guy, we were chased off by police.

After that something really interesting happened. We ran into a guy with Equalist posters and shit. He was talking about how mages were oppressing normal people, which made me consider how true this was. Knowing how much power corrupts I could easily see this happening, the power of mages, if left unchecked, could easily be used to suppress the average person who lacked magic. Of course Korra didn't see it that way.

"Bending the greatest thing in the world!" Korra defiantly exclaimed.

I shook my head in response and said, "Korra just stop talking."

"What?! Why should I?! Are you hearing the things these guys are saying about benders?!"

"Yeah, and I wouldn't be all that surprised if it was true." I replied with knowledge of a cruel world where such things were relatively commonplace.

"Wha-I don't believe this, you're a bender too! How can you stand the things this guy is saying about us?!" Korra replied, feeling somewhat betrayed.

"Oh so you three are all benders are you?" The Equalist guy asked in an accusing tone.

"Yeah, and?" I replied blandly, not liking his tone one bit but also not rising to his challenge.

Korra didn't either but she took the bait he left out with a lot more…spirit, yeah let's call it spirit.

"Yeah I am!" she answered, which made me smack myself in the head from her rash reaction.

Mary, on the other hand thought this whole thing was stupid and decided to walk away from it.

"And I bet you would love to just blast me off this platform with your water bending wouldn't you?" He accused.

"I'm seriously thinking-OW!" Korra started to say as she was about to fall right into the trap he set up, fortunately she had me there, or the crowd would have eaten her alive. Since I could see where this was going from a mile away I…intervened by kicking her in the shin, hard.

As Korra hoped on her non-injured foot while holding her injured shin, I stepped in front of her and answered the speaker's accusation.

"No, I'm actually curious to hear more you have to say about this oppression." I responded, genuinely interested.

This was clearly not the response they were expecting, in fact it kind of took the wind out of their sails. Here they found someone, a mage, who they could use to point out all the problems of mages here, as well as taking out their frustration on them, and instead of proving to be every bit as violent and racist as they wanted me to be, I was actually asking them to tell me more.

"What?" The speaker eventually said, speechless, and it seemed to be what everyone else in the crowd was saying too.

"Yeah, me, my sister, and my friend, are all new in town, and where me and my sister are from we have a different kind of discrimination and inequality, one we're the subjects of. So when I hear you talking about mages, I mean benders, oppressing the average person I can't help but feel empathy towards that position, and I want to learn more about it, to try to see if I can do anything about it." I honestly reply

The speaker seemed to consider my words very thoughtfully, he looked me in the eyes and saw the sincerity in them, realizing that I really meant what I said he asked, "What's your name?"

"Sarah, and yours?" I asked

"Lee. You know what, you're the first bender I've ever met that actually seriously asked to learn more about the discrimination we faced, let alone wanting to help us out."

"Well as I said, I'm no stranger to racism, my friend on the other hand" I start pointing at Korra, who is currently looking at me with a look that says, Sarah! What the hell are you doing?!. "Has lived something of a sheltered life, and the only thing she really knows is magic, I mean bending, so to her you kind of insulted the only thing she ever knew, so you can imagine why she would act like she did." I continue.

Korra looks like she was about to say something in defense of herself, but fortunately she thought better of it before actually saying anything.

"Yeah, I guess I can see why she would get all defensive from the way I acted." He admitted

"But if you really want to know more about the Equalists and the discrimination and oppression going on in the city you should come to the Equalist rally in a few nights, here are a few flyers." He continued, giving me a handful of flyers.

"Thanks, I'll see if I can."

After that I asked if he knew any good places to find and apartment or something for three people and he pointed me in the direction of the Dragon Flats.

When we left Korra asked me, "Sarah, what was that about? Why did you side with those jerks?"

I raised an eyebrow and gave her a look while I said, "Did you even pay attention to what was said back there?"

"Well kind of, but you sided with those non-benders, why would you do that? They hated benders like us?!"

"Yeah, and notice how they responded to my reaction to their accusations and jabs." I countered pointedly

She thought about it for a minute before responding, "They calmed down and listened." She realized.

"Not only that, but they invited me to their fancy ass shindig!" I replied excitedly, pleased with myself.

"Congratulations, you made more friends." Mary said dryly, appearing behind us from out of nowhere, though being her twin sister and living with her for my entire life, I always kind of knew where she was and was rarely surprised by her sudden appearances.

Korra, on the other hand, wasn't prepared for Mary doing her thing, and yelped inn surprise.

"Yeah I did" I said, still happy with myself "And they invited me to their fancy ass shindig!"

"Yes, I heard."

I turned back to Korra as we walked towards the Dragon Flats, "SO…" I started, getting her attention.

"Yeah" she answered, turning back to me.

"What did we learn?" I asked

She thought carefully for a moment before saying, "Just because someone doesn't agree with you, doesn't like you, or has a poor opinion of you, doesn't mean you should lash out at them."

Oh my god she's learning! I thought proudly before turning to Mary and saying, "See, I told you that she's not an idiot, she's just poorly educated."

"I didn't say she was an idiot, I said she was a fool, she could very well be a clever fool, but she would still be a fool." Mary calmly responded, as if pointing out a simple fact.

Korra did not approve.

"What?" She growled indignantly while glaring at Mary, although her glare was somewhat mitigated by the fact that Mary wasn't even looking at Korra.

"Ignore her." I told Korra, to which she just grumbled in response.

We kept walking towards the Dragon flats when Mary spotted a clothing store that met her exacting standards.

"Stop", She ordered.

"What?" I asked, not seeing the store and thus not understanding why she was stopping.

"Sarah, all your clothes were burned up when Korra set you on fire right? And that's why you're still wearing her clothes." She stated

"I said I was sorry!" Korra cried, but Mary just ignored her.

"Yeah?" I confirmed, but the way I said it made it sound more like a question, one that asked Mary to explain.

"Well Sarah, right over there is a clothing store that I believe will have everything that we will need, so you will get your clothes, and I will get some…materials, as well as other various endeavors." Mary explained

"Oh…okay, I guess." I replied, somewhat taken back, I hadn't actually really thought about getting new clothes, but as I thought about it I saw that it made a lot of sense, I mean couldn't just wear Korra's clothes all the time.

"What about me?" Korra asked, not sure where she fit into this plan.

"You can wait out here." Mary answered simply

"What? Why can't I go with you guys?"

"Do you need to buy clothes?"

"Uh…no, you guys reminded me to bring as many clothes as I would need with me." Korra answered, slightly taken aback at first by Mary's question.

"Then you do not need to come in with us, and frankly I don't trust you to not make fools of us if we go into the store." Mary answered truthfully

"Wha, why don't you trust me?!" Korra asked indignantly, she really didn't like how Mary kept treating her like an irresponsible child.

However, in response to Korra's question Mary just gave her a look that said, Really? You don't have any idea why I wouldn't trust you to not make us look like fools in that clothing store? Are you sure you're going to go with that?

Mary's look made Korra rethink her question, and made her look back at her previous actions to see why Mary wouldn't trust her to make fools of them all. She remembered accidentally burning me alive, how naïve she was about the world outside the compound, how she tried to buy food without money, how she tried to fish in the pond in the park, and how she had almost incited a mob. Those memories made her realize why Mary might not trust her not to make fools of them in the store.

"Okay, you may have a point, I'll wait outside." She reluctantly admitted with a sigh, turning around and leaving us to enter the store without her.

As Mary and I walked into the fancy clothing store named The Golden Vine, I saw out of the corner of my eye Korra walking down the street, back towards the street with the record store we had seen earlier.

When I was finally able to drag Mary out of the store she had not only gotten three large bags of clothes, jewelry and other feminine goods, which I had to carry, but she had somehow managed to make money. Yeah. That's right. Not only did we get everything for free, but Mary had also gotten a large purse to hold the large bag of money she had gotten as well as a job at the store. I wasn't there when Mary made the money, but from I could gather she made it by selling them some beautiful jewelry that far out shined most everything that they had in the store. I'm guessing that when they learned that Mary had made that jewelry with her metal magic that they had immediately hired her, very eager to get someone with her talents.

So as we left the Golden Vine with our spoils of war we noticed that Korra wasn't here, neither was Naga, which was…distressing.

"Fuck. Where is she?" I asked, looking around.

"And this is why I didn't want to take her into the store, she's like a child really. Although I suppose that explains why you have a thing for her." Mary said, not helping

I simply glared at her in a silent response that said, Not! The! Time!

Suddenly we heard the sound of the ground being ripped, a wheels screeching, and a car crashing.

"Double Fuck!" I curse, somehow I just knew that Korra was somehow involved.

We ran down the street to the source of the sound and saw the carnage before us.

Korra was standing in front of the record store that we had passed in front of a while ago, around her was a destroyed street, ripped apart from the use of earth magic, some things on fire, likely from fire magic, and a bunch of water lying around, which was likely from water magic. It looked like Korra had used her earth magic to rip up the ground and make a car crash into a building, whose occupants were all unconscious. All in all it looked like the scene of a battleground, with destroyed, burnt, and wet shit everywhere. The owners of the shop did not look happy.

"Korra!" I cry out at her, after just staring at her in awe of her ability to fuck things up,

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!" I continue, waving my hands in the air in my incredulous anger.

"We leave you alone for Five Fucking Minutes…...HOW THE FUCK DID YOU START A WAR IN FIVE FUCKING MINUTES?"

Mary, meanwhile, is actually expressing genuine emotion at this scene, and not her usual fake ones, although it wasn't exactly as…expressive as me, and it was also a little hard to determine which emotion was dominant, confusion, anger, or shock.

"How did you do all this in five minutes?" Mary asks, mostly to herself as she says it just under her breath.

Korra, through all of this, had seemed to go through a kind of roller-coaster of emotions. When we got here she looked very proud at what she had done, but then she recoiled in shock and fear at my reaction to what she did, then she looked mad at me being mad her.

"Hey, I was defending these people!" She says, defending herself as she gestures towards the owners of the record store.

"These guys", she continues, now gesturing at the car filled with drooling comatose concussion victims, "Where trying to steal from the store owners and break their stuff, and I stopped them." She stubbornly defended

I now understood why she had done what she had done, and to be honest, in her position I would have done much the same thing, although I would like to think I would have been a little less destructive. Frustrated at how complicated this situation is I pull my hair back with my hands and take a breath to calm down, just getting mad wouldn't do anyone any good.

"Okay, I get why you did that, but you have to understand that…" I started, but wasn't able to finish because a metal cable from the sky had speared into the ground nearby, braking through the concrete with ease, at the same time we became shrouded in a large shadow of something big in the sky.

We all looked up to behold a large grey airship hovering above us, from it several harpoons had been fired into the surrounding area, anchoring the ship over us.

"Metal benders." Korra said in awe.

I raised an eyebrow in confusion, which Mary matched and we both looked at each other, taking the moment to engage in a silent conversation.

Metal benders?

She means metal mages

Yeah, I know that.

You want to know why they're here.

Yeah, I don't know why mages would come here after an incident like that like this.

Yes, I am also confused as to why any one group of mages would show up here like that, let alone any group of people, given what's going on. Unless of course they were the…

While we were exchanging looks several armored people had descended from the Zeppelin, one of them walked up to Korra, and she proudly looked to him.

"Hello Officer, I caught the bad guys for you." She said with a pleased smirk.

…Police

Shit.

Just Shit. I thought, finishing our silent conversation as my eyes went wide as I realized that these metal mage were the police, and I knew that the police would definitely not approve of Korra's behavior. As I had my realization I tuned out most of what Korra and the police officer were saying until the officer said, "You're under arrest too."

In that moment time slowed to a crawl as the officer shot his hand forward. I could sense that this armored man had coils of metal cables and their housing assemblies, and that he was trying to shoot a cable at Korra. Reacting quickly I use my metal magic to grab ahold of the cable before it reached Korra, moving it in an arc around Korra before grabbing it in my hand. Once it was in my hand I used my immense physical strength to pull the officer towards me. The Officer tried to resist this by digging his feet into the pavement, but this just resulted in me ripping the entire cable assembly off his back, staggering him, and giving me a very long flail-like weapon.

All the officers seemed stunned at what I had done, it was fairly obvious that I had done metal magic, which for some reason surprised them, and that gave me enough time to make my move.

"Korra get on Naga and let's get the fuck out of here!" I ordered her, who seemed shaken, surprised by how things had turned out, but she did as I told her.

As she moved to get on Naga I liquefied most of the metal cable that was currently wrapped around my arm. As I shifted it around and changed it shape using liquid form it slowly took a familiar shape around my arms and legs. When I was done the grey liquid had solidified into a set of metal gauntlets and greaves and boots. It was my usual combat setup, and having it back on made me feel great, I finally felt truly comfortable again, I could feel the adrenaline surge through my system, flooding my body, fueling me. I was thrilled to be filled with this intoxicating feeling again, but I knew that while I could stand and fight all these guys into the ground, what I needed to do was help secure our escape.

Korra came up to me on Naga, holding out her hand and saying, "Get on." with a concerned look on her face.

I took her hand and jumped on Naga, and I looked over to Mary to tell her to get on, I opened my mouth to talk, but she interrupted me.

"No. You two are both idiots, I'm going to surrender to the police and get this mess sorted out while you two play cops and robbers." Mary told me with a slightly annoyed frown, one that made her it look like she was more annoyed that we had made her do a bunch of unnecessary work, rather than one that felt defiant, angry, resentful, or at all spiteful.

I nodded and told Korra to just go without her, understanding that Mary would be totally fine, I had total confidence in her negotiating skills, after all, she had just walked into a store to buy clothes and walked out with half the store, a sack of money, and a new job. Then again, maybe that's what she really went in there for, knowing Mary that was the most likely answer, one really shouldn't take much at face value with her.

"Are you sure? I think Naga could take her too." Korra asked, not nearly as confident as I was in my sister.

"Yeah, after what she just did at the Golden Vine I have no doubt that Mary'll be fine. Now let's go!" I said, urging Korra to leave my sister behind.

As we started to leave on Naga the Officers got out of their stupor, and tried to tie down Naga with their cables. I countered with my own magic, directing all the cables straight into the ground with a wave of my hand downwards, and with a sideways swipe of my hand I was surprised to find I could exerted my influence over the metal armor of the officers, allowing me to throw them all back into the ground as we made our getaway.

Huh, I thought, that wouldn't usually work, normally their own magic would interfere with my ability to control their clothes, am I really that much stronger then them?

We eventually escaped onto the rooftops, Korra thought we were home free, but I could feel the immense presence of metal behind us, and before we knew it tendrils of metal were carving their way through the sky towards us. I was able to use my magic to deflect all of them into rooftops, although they would just retract the cable and fire it at us again, I needed a more permanent solution. As we approached the waterfront I decided that instead of just deflecting the cables I would actually fight back.

When the next cable came towards us I jumped off Naga, grabbed the cable in midair, pulling it with me. When I landed I pulled on the cable hard, pulling the officer it was attached to off his platform on the airship, and I used my magic to alter his trajectory to cause him to fall safely into the river, which also worked to strand him in the water.

After that I turned to Korra and used my magic to allow me to run and jump farther and faster, letting me catch up with Naga and keep up.

As they kept throwing cables at me I kept throwing the officers using them into the ocean, until finally they either ran out of officers or gave up trying to catch us with what they had, seeing as how it only seemed to result in getting them thrown into the water. Once the airship peeled off I looked to Korra and told her to get off the rooftops and into the alleyways, to get out of sight of the cops.

We hid in an abandoned building for a while as we waited for the cost to be clear before finally going back outside.

"So, what now?" Korra asked, completely unsure about what to do next. It had only been one day in this city and we had already been in a police chase, and we were probably wanted criminals now. Which wasn't exactly a totally new experience for me.

"Well, what we did is relatively slight, we didn't kill anybody, or steal anything, you just enacted some vigilante justice, and then we resisted arrest. They probably won't want to hunt us down too badly, so that's good." I said, my hand on my chin as I thought about our next move.

"What about Mary? She got arrested, do we break her out or something."

"Oh no no no, this is Mary we're talking about, she'll be fine." I said laughing, "You don't know her like I do, I have complete confidence in Mary's ability to talk her way out of any situation."

"Really?" Korra asked understandably skeptical.

"Yeah, when we came out of the Golden Vine, not only did we buy like half the damn store, but she also had a huge ass sack full of money, and a job working with their jeweler or something."

"Oh, I guess that's good." She said, not as impressed as I thought she would be, but then I realized that she probably didn't really have a good handle on how hard and impressive that was to do.

We eventually decided that we would continue over to the Dragon Flats and look for a house or something to stay at while we waited for Mary to show up, we expected that that's where she would expect us to be.

There was no sign saying "Welcome to the Dragon Flats" or anything, but it we could tell when we were in the middle of it. It was nighttime by the time we got there, it had taken a long time to walk there as the chase with the police had lead us in the opposite direction. We were wondering where to start looking for a place to stay when we heard a familiar voice.

"Finally, you've arrived." Mary said, coming out from out of nowhere…again. If I didn't know better I would have said she trained as a ninja or something.

She was trained by someone way better than a simple ninja.

"Mary! You got away from the police! You're okay!" Korra cried as she ran up and hugged Mary.

Mary didn't really…do hugs.

In response to getting hugged by Korra she stiffened and put on her panic face.

She looked to me, silently saying, Sarah, help me! How do I get this thing off me?! I don't know what to do!

I, of course, being the good sister I was, decide there but one course of action I could take.

I laughed my ass off.

Which, ironically, did get Korra off Mary, as she instead turned to me with a questioning look, she had no idea why I was laughing, and meanwhile Mary just glared at me in a way that let me know that I would likely suffer for it latter.

I waved her off and said, "Don't worry about it, it's not important."

"Okay." She accepted skeptically.

As I recomposed myself Korra asked Mary how in the world she got out away from the police.

"They released me." She stated simply.

"Why would they do that?" She questioned, suspicious of the real reason that she got away.

"Well, frankly a full explanation would involve an hour or two of recalling conversations that went on between me and several officers, their superiors, as well as thorough explanations of why I said what I said. I would also need to make use of several charts and diagrams." Mary explained in a bored factual tone, but I could see that there actually was something she was hiding in there, she wasn't necessarily lying, but there was something she was hiding.

"So instead I will tell you what it resulted in, for that is what is important."

"Wait, are you saying you got us presents from the police…the ones who arrested you?" I asked, unsure of how exactly she could have managed that.

"Yes actually." She answered. We both stared at her in disbelief.

"I got the two of you exonerated for your crimes, so you don't have to worry about the police chasing after you anymore. Fortunately since Korra only used earth magic to fight the gang members they don't know that she's the avatar. In addition they gave us a place to stay, a nice new house in the Marble Crown on the other side of the city." She elaborated.

"What's the Marble Crown?" Korra asked

"It's another neighborhood, like this is the Dragon Flats, although the Marble Crown is much closer to the Golden Vine, and, as the name implies, it is a primarily earth mage neighborhood. Well, mostly people from the earth kingdom, not terribly sure how many are mages or not."

"So great, it's on the other side of town, so know we have to all the back to the other side of town, great." I said sarcastically, I was tired so I wasn't in a very appreciative mood. "Did you get a car to go along with your police gift basket too?"

"Correct." She said simply

"…what?" I said dumbly, not believing that I had accidentally guessed correctly.

"Yes, they also gave me a car."

"Why the hell would they give you a car?!" I cried, very confused, I looked over to Korra for support only to find that her jaw had impacted the ground and she was stuck in a state of shock. Apparently she was able to understand how it was to get that much stuff from the police, especially when you get arrested by them.

"Well the police tend to take care of their own." She answered with smirk, one that I knew was genuine, she enjoyed making me squirm, her form of love and affection really.

"…You work for the police now."

"Correct."

At this point my mouth and brain were both trying to make words, but they couldn't agree on what to say so I just mouthed silently, searching for how to respond. Finally I said, "How, why? I don't- what the shit Mary?"

"I was able to have them hire me on as a consultant after I talked with their police chief, she was also the one who secured me the house in the Marble Crown, as well as requisitioning me the car. Apparently us being metal mages is very unusual and intriguing for them, and I was able to use that to prove my worth to them." Mary explained, her smirk dissolving into her normal face of cold, bored, intent.

"What do you mean a consultant?" Korra asked, finally able to speak.

"A consultant is someone who helps the police from time to time, usually when they ask for the consultant's help." I explained. " But they usually don't give out cars and houses to their consultants" I said coldly and skeptically, I knew that my sister was hiding something about this arrangement, I doubt she stole them, that wasn't her style, but the thought of the unknown scared me.

What could she be hiding, what could she be keeping from us?

"Oh, you must let me keep some secrets, my dear sister." Mary said cryptically with her evil smirk growing across her face once again.

That's when I knew that she was up to something, that smirk was genuine as fuck, which usually means bad things for someone, I didn't think we were in immediate danger or anything, but I did think that she was keeping something morally reprehensible from us. But I also knew that I wasn't going to get anything out of her, she was too good for that.

"Now, let us embark towards our new house." She said, gesturing to her car.

We all climbed in, a frown deeply set on my face from my suspicious outlook on the situation. Korra, on the other hand, seemed to be skeptical at first, but upon seeing the car she was very excited, having never actually seen a car up close before. However there was the problem of Naga, who would definitely not fit in the car. Korra eventually decide to ride Naga and have her follow us on our way to the house.

As we made our way there I asked Mary another question that had been nagging at me.

"What about your job at the Golden Vine?" I asked

"Please Sarah, we both know that I am more than capable of having two or more jobs at the same time. We both are."

"I suppose that's true, but I would think that there would be some overlap between the two."

"Not really" She said simply, and that was the end of it, the rest of the car ride was set in silence.

Less than an hour later we arrived in front of our new house, and it was surprisingly large on the inside, it wasn't a mansion or anything, but it was a three-bedroom, two-story house with a garage and a decent sized backyard for Naga to stay. The house was mostly square-shaped and angular, and frankly it was surprisingly western in its design, although I suppose that's why we had it. It was sandwiched between other buildings of similar buildings of similar design that made up the whole block.

"So this is home." I said simply, finally laying eyes on our new house.

"Correct, now Korra, there are a list of rules that I will give you about what to do and what not to do, especially regarding the use of magic and Naga." Mary told Korra

"Whaaat?" Korra whined, really not liking the idea of being restricted again.

"Korra, it's less of a rulebook of, 'what not to do or you'll get punished.'" I said in a mockingly authoritarian voice, "It's more like a list of shit to do to keep you from fucking up and starting a riot or something." I said, trying to convince it was okay, and not at all like the Fortress of Solitude.

"It's more like a guide than a list of restrictions." Mary said attempting to help.

Korra sighed in resignation before saying, "Okay, I guess that makes sense."

So here we were, me, my sister, and Korra, a princess, a rebel, and an avatar, all out of place, looking to find their place in the world, and all of us starting our new lives in this new house. If only we knew of the chaos we would create.

A/n: Tadaa. That's the end of ep 1. I hope this make up for the last chapter which was both short and lackluster. That being said, I felt it was necessary to lay down some foundations. This also means I'll be slowing down my upload rate. If you can't tell yet, there is plenty more to the story. This is going to be looonnggg. If my math's right then we're looking at maybe like 64 chapters, or 320,000 words. ish. And that's just this book. That being said I have enough back log to go up to and beyond the first arc.

Also, I've noted that in a lot of these stories, but not all of them, people rag on the Equalists.

When there's an OC they sometimes come in and during the Equalist scene they criticize the spokesperson.

And later on they'll criticize the Equalists for being racists.

I have a problem with that, a rather large one in fact.

You see to me, all these people keep forgetting one very important fact.

The Equalists had a fucking point.

I mean, sure, they were aggressive, racist, terrorists

They still had a point though.

The gangs were running rampant through the city doing whatever they wanted, killing who they wanted, and non-benders were being oppressed by the bending-based scociety.

Yeah, a lot of the richest people weren't benders, but even they were almost completely defenseless against benders who decided to attack them.

Compared to much of what benders could do, many non-benders couldn't even hope to compete.

Any non-bender needed extensive specialized training to even hope to compete against all but the weakest of benders.

Not to mention, there were many more job opportunities for benders since their bending gave them special talents that could be used, like how Mako used lightning bending to work at an electrical plant.

Most people don't even have the possibility of being able to do that.

So I feel like a lot of stories don't exactly point that out.

Some do, but don't really do anything about it.

Not event eh show.

I could be wrong, but I feel like what happened with the show was that they introduced Amon and the Equalists as the bad guys, said they had something of a point

Then they added Asami to give the non-bender point of view, though her being rich and having a bright future ahead of her kind of diluted the effect of that a bit

but then at the end they just had Korra beat Amon and reveal his true abilities, and once that happened everyone seemed to drop the issue.

It was almost like they were saying Amon made the whole thing up to get an army, but the problem wasn't actually that bad to begin with.

I thought that was a poor choice, but it also seemed to be how Korra solved many issues.

She's introduced to a complicated may-faceted problem that can't just be solved with violence.

She solves it with mostly violence, with a touch of diplomacy or spiritualism, and then everything's either solved, or they forget about it.

Usually both

Except for the whole earth kingdom thing, I kind of liked that because everything kind of devolved into a mess, which is how it should actually happen.

That being said, I don't like how Kuvira was turned into the bad guy for what she was doing

For me what she was doing made sense.

May have been a touch overzealous, but I liked it, for the most part.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say, and poorly at that, is that things with the Equalists will be different than in cannon thanks to Sarah, Mary, and the shit that happened from the Kyoshi Event

In the end, most problems want be solved with nothing but grit, will, friendship, and beating people up.

Stuff will be solved by that, though, at least kind of, so don't worry.

It's just, I'll try to make things more of the nonsensical chaotic mess that is inherent when dealing with the human race.

An example for a story I think does this well, in my humble and fallible opinion, is The Castaway by Raven Hallowryn, which I think is a deep long story that goes into a different direction than cannon, and some dark places, but does it well.

It also does the whole, "Mankind kind is is glorious fucking mess of chaos, sadness, love, and darkness" thing very well.

It's mush better than mine, at least, though be prepared for the places it goes to.