His collar itched, and not just from the usual fire ferret fur. A bead of sweat ran down his brow, did these clothes even breathe? Baggy sleeves were probably also a bad decision – he'd found once or twice that lava and clothing tended to mix poorly. But he wasn't going to wear anything else, after all, Opal had picked out this outfit for his first day at the Beifong Academy.
Bolin stopped, the imposing building looming overhead. He stood at the base of a statue, looking upwards at the stony visage of the original metalbender. Toph Beifong gazed out over the city her police protected, eternally vigilant against the crooks she could never wipe from the street. He could not imagine that the cranky old earthbender he met when rescuing Opal's family would appreciate such an austere representation, but on the other hand, she certainly wouldn't mind the hero worship.
The pressure of that legacy felt heavier than the statue itself. The stress as unyielding as the metal that refused to bend to Bolin's will. He walked on, up the stairs, and through the door into a luxurious entrance hall.
Unfortunately, there was no door labeled 'New Instructors Here,' nor were there any workers coming to lay out the welcome mat. Instead, the greeters seemed much more concerned with the flashy suits and silky gowns of wealthy parents dropping off their children. If nobody was going to find Bolin, Bolin would have to find somebody. He strode up to a greeter and proudly announced that he was Bolin, lavabender extraordinaire.
The greeter did not know who or what a 'Bolin, lavabender extraordinaire' was or what he should go about doing with one. When Bolin explained in more pedestrian terms that he was a new instructor here to teach lavabending, he found himself shuffled off to the side to wait for a senior instructor.
Eventually, a young man came and clapped Bolin on the back. "You're the new guy, huh? We're all so excited to have you here! Let me show you around," he said, hustling Bolin down a side hallway. "You should know, we're all very passionate about what we do here at the Beifong Academy."
"You mean teaching rookie police metalbending?"
"Well, partially," his smile dimmed a few notches, "what we really care about is delivering a consistently exceptional bending experience to our core customers and to make an impact in Republic City."
"Wait, if it's consistent, how can it be exceptional? And what do you mean by a bending experience?"
His guide carried on, not displaying any signs of hearing Bolin, "We really want to accelerate our students' ambitions and help them achieve their bending journey."
"You keep speaking, but I'm still not sure what it is you're saying."
He saw the shadow of irritation cross the guide's face, only to be replaced by the same bland blandness. "I thought I was being pretty clear. But if you're having trouble grasping our mission statement, we have a mover prepared to walk you through our key values."
Bolin's face lit up. "A mover! You know, I used to be in the movers. I was Nuktuk, Hero of the South! Well Varrick was trying to use me to start a war between Republic City and the Northern Water Tribe, and he nearly kidnapped the president, and got my bro Mako thrown in jail for investigating him, and later helped develop the weapon that blew up half of Republic City, but I was a mover star!"
The words had as little effect on the guide as his bending ever had on solid metal. Bolin felt tempted to tap the guide on the arm, just to reassure himself that this guide wasn't made of metal. The guide stopped at an ornate door and pushed it open. Inside, Bolin saw a few seats and a mover projector. "We're not onboarding anyone else today, so you get to enjoy the mover on your own. Just take a seat and I'll launch the journey." Bolin sat, and the guide pressed a button on the projector. As he left, he said, "Once the mover is over, take a right out the door and come to the staff office, last door on your left. We'll get you set up for your exciting first day."
Several long, dreary minutes later, the deluge of 'core competencies,' 'differentiated leadership,' and 'transformational strategies' was starting to give Bolin a headache. He was pretty sure vessels were things you took when you wanted to travel a great distance, not middle-aged managers, and talk about 'changing the world' was a hard sell to one of the Avatar's best friends, who'd fought against the likes of Amon, Zaheer, and Kuvira.
And they hadn't even given him popcorn to go with the mover.
Once the parade of self-congratulation had ended, Bolin strolled out of the room and down the hallway. As he walked, he noticed the building becoming steadily more spartan. Unlike the lush waiting room he'd first entered, the hallway was covered in a plain carpet, and the doors had changed from careful sculped works of metallic art to clean, functional slabs of iron.
At last, he found the door to the staff office, pushed it open, and walked inside. To his dismay, he found the young guide waiting for him at a nearby desk, waving him over with gusto. "Are you feeling inspired?" he asked in that increasingly irritating tone.
"Well, I feel something. It's kind of like when I have too many bowls of the special at Narook's Noodles. Do you ever get that feeling?"
The guide had clearly resolved to ignore every word out of Bolin's mouth, "Great! Now just stand still, and we'll take your photo for your security pass." Bolin barely had a moment to register the request before the flash nearly blinded him. "Fantastic, now we'll find one of the senior instructors to show you the ropes, and don't worry, we'll have the security pass done by EOD."
"Ee-oh-dee?"
"End of day, I mean really, what backward pile of rocks did we dig you out of?"
"Ah, okay, okay."
"Hey Lu Zhao, can you show the new guy to the training rooms and give him the downstream on working here?"
An elderly man, wearing a simple and traditional earthbender's tunic, emblazoned with a Republic City Police Department emblem walked over and nodded at Bolin, gesturing towards the door. Once they were out in the hall, the man spoke, "Sorry about that. Jin is about as useful as a three-legged hog monkey."
"Yeah, I didn't understand what he was talking about, like at all. What does he actually do here?"
"He's a manager. He manages."
"I'm not sure I understand."
The man sighed. "A few years ago, the police department ran short on money. Councilman Tarrlok had the bright idea to let some corporate types from Ba Sing Se buy into the Beifong Academy to raise some dough. Now this was after Toph had retired from the force and left Republic City. This never would've flown while she was in charge," the man's eyes shone at some distant memory, "Chief Lin was pretty mad about it too, but somehow, they pushed it through. Jin's their newest lackey from head office, down here to make sure we're all toeing the line. Thankfully, the Beifong fortune still owned a piece of the academy, so they can't kick us out entirely." He paused, giving Bolin a conspiratorial look.
"Do you still train the police metalbenders here?"
"That's what my friends and I do. Those suits don't like it because the police don't have to pay for training, Toph's orders you know."
"So, will I be teaching the police lavabending?"
"I don't know kid. When I heard rumours that we hired you, I tried everything I could do get you put in my group. But it's just too lucrative to offer lavabending lessons to rich brats, and you're the only lavabender around." He stopped in front of a door that had a hastily scribbled 'Bolin – Lavabending' sign on the front. "Here's your room, go in and make yourself comfortable," then as Bolin walked through the door, he continued, "your first lesson is coming in a few minutes."
"A few minutes?" Bolin's voice betrayed a great deal of his internal panic.
"Didn't anybody tell you? You're teaching starting today."
"But I don't know anything about teaching!"
"It's just little kids, just do some tricks or something."
He shut the door, leaving Bolin alone in the room. Someone had dug out old Nuktuk posters and pasted them all over the wall. The room was built like an arena, the metal floor in the central circle unceremoniously torn up to expose the rock beneath. Rock had been carted in from outside and heaped near the middle.
Before he even had a chance to get settled, there was a knock at the door, followed by an unfamiliar woman leading three children into the room. Two girls, one dressed up like a miniature mannikin straight from a Fire Nation catalog, the other wearing the ocean blues of a Water Tribe child, and one boy, with a look that reminded Bolin of another mischievous scamp Team Avatar had adopted. "Akemi, Kayuh, Zhang, this is your lavabending instructor, Bolin, say 'hi' kids."
"Hi, Mister Bolin!" the three kids responded in unison.
"Well aren't you just the cutest things," Bolin said, reaching to ruffle the hair of Kayuh, the Water Tribe girl, "but aren't you guys, you know, not all earthbenders?"
"Of course we're earthbenders!" the Fire Nation girl said, and as if to prove it, she stomped the ground, forming a ball of rock from the nearby pile, and punching forward, slamming into Bolin's chest.
Although he had taken much harder hits in his day, this caught him off guard and managed to knock him over. He heard the woman admonish the girl, then the three children gathered around his head, staring down at him. "I'm sorry Mister Bolin," Akemi said in the tone of a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
"No problem," Bolin said with difficulty as he lumbered to his feet. "That packed quite a punch there little one."
The woman called over to Bolin as she hurried out the door, "I'm sorry to drop this on you, but none of the other teachers can handle these three. Good luck!"
And then there were four.
The kids eyed up Bolin. Bolin eyed up the kids. Then he broke into a smile, "So who's excited to learn lavabending?" He got nothing but cricket birds in response, his enthusiasm bouncing off the kids' closed-off demeanors.
The boy, Zhang, eventually responded, looking down at his feet, "Mister, we know we're here for daycare, but none of the teachers like us, you don't have to pretend."
Bolin's heart went out to the kids, or at least the part that wasn't still smarting from the blow to the chest. He bent a stool out of the ground and sat down, trying to catch the eye of one of the children. "What's the matter you guys? Why don't the other teachers like you?"
"With most of the other kids, they just play little kids' games, or practice breathing, or let them toss around little bits of rock–" Kayuh started, "and we like to hit things!" Akemi finished triumphantly. "The other kids don't like Kemi and me 'cause we're not from the Earth Kingdom," added Kayuh.
Now these were the type of kids Toph would've loved to have at her academy. And if there's one thing Bolin knew how to do, it was hit things with rocks. He leaned forward and drew them in with a whisper, "Did I ever tell you about the time I almost won the pro-bending championships? Let me tell you, it was pretty dangerous." The kids' expressions just oozed 'oohs' and 'ahhs.' Despite their diffidence, they couldn't help but lean in. Bolin gestured for them to come sit and three sat down cross-legged in a circle around him. "Well, it all started when my brother and I moved into the attic of the bending arena…"
A few hours later, he'd wandered through tales of the Fire Ferrets, meeting Korra, and the Equalists' attack on Republic City, and the kids were completely entranced. "…and that's how I became the first flying earthbender."
The woman from earlier entered the room and seemed flabbergasted at the sight. However, the kids did not seem happy to see her. "Bolin, how did you–?" She cut herself off before finishing the sentence, "Nevermind, kids, come along, your parents are waiting for you."
The children reluctantly got to their feet and shuffled over to her, following her back towards the door. Before they left, Akemi called over her shoulder, "Mister Bolin, will you be here tomorrow?"
All the trepidation that had been building up before meeting the children was forgotten in an instant. "Of course I will! And next time, we're going to hit some things!" Akemi beamed at the answer and he caught a glimmer of excitement from Kayuh and Zhang. Soon, he was alone again in the room, feeling rather proud of himself for surviving his first day of work, only promising to teach three children how to beat people up.
He returned to the staff office to find a flustered Jin glaring at him. "What was this I heard about hitting things? That's not part of our talent experience!" he said, flinging his hands into the air.
"You said we were supposed to inspire the students, and the video said something about being disruptive!"
"Disrupting core market expectations, not disrupting the peace!" He seemed to gather himself, "Look Bolin, here at the Beifong Academy, we strive to provide an atmosphere aligned with our customers' demand, that is, our customers paying to have their children educated here." If his tone became any oilier, Bolin could have used it to slick his hair back. "Do we understand each other?"
The gears were already turning in Bolin's brain. "Yeah, I think we do," Bolin answered.
"Great, then here's your security pass," he handed Bolin a small card with his atrocious picture on it, "just show this to reception and they'll let you in next time."
Bolin silently took the pass and left. Back at Asami's mansion, he found an airbender waiting to surprise him with dinner and Bolin couldn't be happier to see her. "So how was the Beifong Academy?" she asked.
"It was pretty weird. Not the usual Avatar-weird stuff either. But I met some pretty cool kids, so I think it'll turn out okay."
"Tell me all about it," she said as he attacked his plate of kale dumplings.