The Kaped Krusaders

It was the dead of night in Ba Sing Se. Those who lived in the light had all shut their homes and doors against the darkness, while the city's nocturnal predators had emerged from their caves to prowl and feed. The air was cold, and the streets were silent. If certain horrible sounds sometimes broke the tranquility, they were ignored. Everyone in this city knew that the only way to survive and stay sane was to flee from evil wherever it manifested, be it the rankest alleys of the Lower Ring or the gilded palaces of the Upper Ring. No man in all the city would stand against this corruption.

No man, but for one.

Usually.

Clad in his dark and terrifying costume, cape billowing behind him in the wind, Wolfbatman stood on one of the rooftops of the Lower Ring and spoke into the night. "I'm gonna sue!"

The recipient of his declaration didn't react. She didn't need a mask to keep from showing any emotion. "You can't. I'm not a Wolfbat. Just a generic bat."

Wolfbatman pounded a gloved fist into his waiting palm. "That's totally the same and you know it! Your costume is even just like mine, all black with a cape and ears, except nowhere near as cool. Couldn't you have put a little effort into the ears, at least? Mine are shaped like the real things, but yours are just little points. I wouldn't even know you're bat if it weren't for the insignia on your chest. Oh, and that? Another thing you stole from me."

"Hey, lay off." The girl pointed a finger of dreaded warning at the legendary Wolfbatman. "I didn't even know about you when I put this together. You hardly invented the idea of a costumed crimefighter, and I picked a bat because I like them. They're dark and mysterious and people are terrified of them."

"So, what, if you liked Fruit Tarts, too, you would have dressed up as one of them?" Wolfbatman never laughed, but his gravely voiced might have carried a hint of amusement.

The girl's eyes narrowed. "The idea is to blend in with the dark and intimidate my enemies, genius. I'm not a 'furry' like you, dressing up as one of my fetishes."

"That costume is a little too skin-tight for me to believe that, little girl." If Wolfbatman's eyes took a moment to trace the curves defined by stretched black leather, the dark of the night hid this. "Besides, you're not going to be blending in with anything, wearing a bright yellow belt."

"I can cover it with my cape."

"What, did you steal it from your mother's closet?"

The girl's face finally moved. Her mouth twisted into a frown. "Say that again, and I will stab you." Her fingers began inching towards said yellow belt, which had more knives, arrows, and blades crammed into it than the Dai Li's evidence locker after a busy night.

"Just stay out of my way," Wolfbatman growled in a tone reminiscent of his namesake. "You'll learn that this isn't a game for bored little girls, soon enough."

The girl, the self-proclaimed BatMai, held up a gloved hand and made an insulting gesture. "At least I'm not wearing Water Tribe hockey pads." With that parting shot, she dashed into the night, her short cape expanding in the air like the wings that all Bat-hybrids shared as she leaped from rooftop to rooftop.

If Wolfbatman's eyes lingered on BatMai's leather-clad form as she ran, there was no one to witness. Then he faded into the darkness, to hunt less intriguing prey...

...for now.

A week later, BatMai was still mad at being called a "little girl" by the weirdo in the Wolfbat costume. With the dangerous enthusiasm that only anger can provide, Mai had thrown herself into her new crimefighting career. Beating up the typical scum that terrorized the Lower Ring had been fun, but got old quickly. It just wasn't a challenge. So she moved up to the Middle Ring. Where the freaks committed crimes.

That had proven to be a bit too ambitious. It turned out that crazy people who dressed in garish costumes really were crazy. The jewel thief with the super-tight bodysuit and war-fans shaped like cat's claws wasn't so bad; she wasn't much of a fighter compared to BatMai, even if she was better at sneaking and infiltrating. Some of the other criminals, though, were scary. The Waterbender with the ice-obsession had managed to get away, being completely unsporting about things by freezing Mai's dartlaunchers at the beginning of the fight. The Earthbender who was completely covered in clay had utterly curbstomped Mai in their fight, somehow sensing BatMai even in pitch darkness. The crazy old guy in the green suit hadn't even tried to fight at all, which was disappointing, and Mai hadn't understood any of this riddles, which turned out to be a major problem when the solution to said riddles would have revealed the location of all the stolen gold.

Never mind the huge silent guy in the black and white mask who could blow things up with his mind.

After that one, BatMai was seriously considering retirement.

Tonight's stupidity might just seal the deal.

"Okay," BatMai groaned. "Let me see if I can get this straight. Your son wasn't really kidnapped, it was all just a ploy to test my abilities, so that you could determine if I was worthy of being your successor and marrying your son."

The tall, stately form of O'Z'Ai nodded from within the shadows of his secret temple. "My empire-"

"Wait," Mai interrupted. "I'm not done. So, you want me to take over for you in destroying Ba Sing Se so that Firebenders can rebuild it into a place of their own. Because Earth people are bad, or something. And your son can't do this, because- from what you've been implying- he's an idiot. And this is supposed to appeal to me... how?"

O'Z'Ai's voice was ever haughty, which was a pretty good trick, for someone who couldn't even pronounce his own name consistently. (But who was Mai to talk about that?) "Isn't that why you dress up in that ridiculous costume? To battle the corruption that has brought this city low? Upper Ring? Bah! All levels of this society has been corrupted. Only Firebenders have the strength to raise this city from the ashes, and ashes are-"

BatMai interrupted him again. "I hate to break into a good rant, but we need to get something clear. I'm just doing this because I'm bored, living in this city. And because Mother and Father will have pygmy-pumas when they find out. And because it's kind of fun to wear tight leather. (I mean, I'm not built to make boys stare, usually, but in this getup? They can't keep their eyes off me.) But that's it, really. I couldn't care less about your corruption and your Firebenders."

O'Z'Ai needed time before he could summon a reply. "...perhaps it would be better if we parted, then, but remember-"

"Wait," BatMai interrupted for the last time. "Is your son more or less cute than Wolfbatman?"

O'Z'Ai turned and walked out without saying another word.

Mai bet that Wolfbatman didn't have to put up with stuff like this.

Wolfbatman hated it when CrAzula came to town. First of all, she wasn't just interested in committing crimes and stealing stuff and killing people. She always had an agenda, and it was always much more complicated than a plan made by a crazy person had any right to be. CrAzula only caused trouble when she had some kind of a point to make, like that everyone was just one missing parent away from going crazy, or that every citizen of Ba Sing Se was in their heart of hearts as corrupt as the worst of the city's criminals, or even that fish were pretty tasty. (Wolfbatman agreed with that last one, but you just didn't get the best variety this far from the Water tribes.)

This time, CrAzula was intent on making some kind of point about the Walls of Ba Sing Se based on some obscure pun in one of old scholarly languages that Wolfbatman didn't get at all. Regardless, events had kept him running across the whole city, trying to prevent crimes at various points on the Inner Walls that divided the three rings, culminating in this final confrontation atop the Outer Wall.

Too bad things weren't going very well.

Wolfbatman threw his boomerang-grapple, but TymbLee dodged it easily with a cartwheel. CrAzula came up from behind him, cackling like hyena-elk as she made another vigorous attempt to find out if his costume was fire-proof. It was, but it also had a tendency to melt and scald him when crazy Firebenders in unprofessional make-up jobs applied blue flames directly to the material. He was so caught up in not receiving a flaming fist to his uncovered chin (why didn't he wear a full face-mask again?) that he didn't notice TymbLee until she came out of a rolling jump on top of his head and then bashed him with her chi-blocking punches on rest of the way down to the brick floor. "I got him for ya, Lady 'zula!"

"MWA HA HA!" CrAzula stepped over to her partner and put a friendly arm around her shoulders. "I knew I could count on you, my little pink dumpling. Here, a gift to show my appreciation." She produced a flower from her sleeve as if by magic, and held it up to TymbLee's face.

"Ooh, it's so pretty, boss!" She leaned forward to sniff at it, but- very predictably, in Wolfbatman's opinion; CrAzula didn't know anything about original humor- it shot a stream of water right into the acrobat's face. "Aw, Lady 'zula!"

CrAzula cackled again, and shoved TymbLee away. "Wolfbatman, it seems you've fallen and you can't get up. But it's such a shame that you fell such a short distance. We have a whole honest-to-Koh wonder-of-the-world wall right here! Why don't we make your fall something a little more spectacular, hm? Summer's almost over, after all! BWA HA HA HA HA!"

Woflbatman rolled his eyes as CrAzula started dragging him to the edge of the Outer Wall. He wasn't going to enjoy falling to his death from a great height, but at least he wouldn't have to listen to any more of this third-rate clown's bad puns. Puns were an art form, something that had to be clever to be funny, going in directions that people would never normally expect, making connections between-

"Are you people having a big climactic showdown without me?"

Wolfbatman groaned. He knew that voice. It was the gloomy rip-off girl.

BatMai was posing apathetically on the far edge of the wall. She was still wearing that ridiculous yellow belt. "Here I was, busting penny-ante smugglers down by the ground, and one of the guards told me that more fighting was going on up here. I expected to clean up some extra smugglers, not stumble into the end of some kind of overwrought action drama."

"I'll take care of this one, Lady 'zula!" TymbLee screeched as she launched into a cartwheel.

BatMai looked at the clownish acrobat tumbling towards he, and raised an eyebrow that bore a certain resemblance to the skeleton of a bat's wing. "Really? Compared to the clay-covered Earthbender, I'm supposed to be scared of a clown?" A few thrown blades pinned Tymblee's frilly wrist- and ankle-poofs to the brick floor.

Blue fireballs were already flying towards BatMai's spot on the wall, but she wasn't staying still. As she ran, her hands flew back and forth from her bright yellow belt, each motion putting another razor disk in the air. CrAzula tried to dodge, but BatMai was boxing her in with the projectiles, and the crazy Firebending clown was soon tottering in place and she tried to bat the discs out of the air. She stumbled towards the edge of the wall, tripped against the short rise that was supposed to prevent falls, and flipped right over the edge.

"MWA HA HA HA HA!" was her cry as she fell to her death.

Fortunately, Wolfbatman was recovered and back on his feet again, with a boomerang-grapple ready. A very practiced maneuver had him catch CrAzula in midair with a single throw of her boomerang, and soon he was hauling her back up. "She is always doing this," he said to BatMai as she came up behind him.

"You don't say."

"Yup. She's got this thing for final confrontations on top of tall places. One time, in Omashu, she threw herself off the head of a giant statue just because our fight was boring her."

"I know the feeling. Why don't you let her just fall?"

"That's not the way it goes," Wolfbatman chuckled. "We turn the freaks over to the Dai Li, they lock 'em up under Lake Laogai, and within a week, we're at it again. It's what keeps life interesting."

BatMai raised that eyebrow again. "So, you're just doing this because you're bored, too."

"Well, not really." Wolfbatman pulled CrAzula back up over the ledge, and being familiar with this trick, knocked the clown out with a single punch before she could spit fire at him. "I have this whole complicated psychological backstory concerning the loss of my home and the death of my mother and some crazy stuff involving my sister. Once, I tried giving the whole gig up, and within a week I was seeing Wolfbats in my morning jook."

"Hm. So this is the great Wolfbatman. The professional who doesn't want amateurs getting in his way." The other eyebrow joined its partner high on her forehead.

Wolfbatman felt himself blush beneath his mask. "Yeah, thanks for the assist. You're much more than I figured you for. So, just to make sure there aren't any talks about copyright violations, want to be partners? I'll show you my cave. And that's not a euphemism."

BatMai took a moment to think it over, before shrugging like she didn't care. "Whatever. I guess a little help wouldn't be bad."

"Great!" Wolfbatman goosed her in celebration. Her squeal was totally worth it.

LEGENDS OF WOLFBATMAN AND BATMAI!

END