Chapter 9: The B-Team
It said a great deal about Republic City that Rohtan actually didn't draw many stares as he walked down the streets. Even the most "normal" garb the Sun Warriors had been able to provide him stuck out like a sore thumb in civilized society. Despite that, he did not garner a great deal of curiosity from passers-by. Republic City had many outlandish people. He was just another one among many.
Rohtan followed the directions on the map he had been provided, towards the center of the city. It was hard to miss the giant beam of green energy at the center of Republic City, but the streets were oftentimes so narrow and winding it was hard to find his way. It would have helped to approach from above, but that was not an option right now.
It would help if he knew where he was going or why he was going there. The courier who had given Rohtan the invitation in the first place had known nothing about its source. He had considered turning down the invitation, but he had always been curious about the world outside of Dragon Roost Island, and this summons provided the perfect opportunity to escape the Sun Warrior's island. It was an interesting experience, true, but Rohtan did find himself missing home. He toyed with a dragon-shaped talisman around his neck as he walked the strange streets.
He finally made his way to the vine-covered crater at the center of the Republic. The directions on his invitation said that the Spirit Portal would be important later, but it wasn't his destination right now. He was to go south down the road, towards the docks. Rohtan complied, heading down the roads of Republic City once again.
He reached the docks and saw his inevitable target; a rough-skinned man who seemed to want to be somewhere else. The stranger picked his teeth with a small knife.
"Uhh, hi," Rohtan said. "Do you know anything about the B-Team?"
"Oh, you're Rohtan," The lanky stranger said. "Yeah, I know all about it."
"That's great," Rohtan said happily. "Could you tell me?"
"No," The stranger said. He tucked his knife away for a moment. "My name's Moldun. Get on my boat."
Moldun stepped off the docks and on to a small boat. He gestured for Rohtan to follow, and he seemed very impatient.
"Look pal, I've done this four times today already," Moldun said. "I could be shooting lightning at some Grey-Faces right now. Either get on board or don't."
"Grey-Faces?"
"It's what some of the boys call those masked soldiers that the Energybender throws at us," Moldun said. "I like it. Makes 'em sound like weird looking jerks."
"Oh, so you fight the Energybender?"
"Yes! Now get on the slagging boat," Moldun said, pointing at his ships deck.
Satisfied that whatever his mysterious errand was, it was likely to be against the Energybender, Rohtan boarded the ship and set out. Moldun piloted the small vessel across the still waters of the bay and towards the massive statue of Avatar Aang. Rohtan was curious as to why so many things in this city were so large. All the buildings were huge, and they even had a giant person watching over them. Back home the biggest things around were mountains.
Moldun docked the ship in what little space was still left. The Avatar Museum underneath Aang's feet had been getting a lot more business recently. Sen's rise to power had given the world a new interest in the Avatar. The island was very crowded.
"That letter will be your ticket in," Moldun said. "Go to room 2B."
Rohtan tried to say a polite goodbye, but Moldun was completely uninterested. His role in this particular escapade had ended entirely.
The crowds gawking at various relics of the past Avatar's were not easy to get by, but Rohtan pushed his way through. Living with the Sun Warriors had not acquainted him with the social niceties of civilization, but it had bestowed him with very muscular arms that were good for pushing people around. He continued pushing until he found his way to room 2B, a meeting room in the side hallways of the main Museum.
It was a small, dusty room, meant for visiting school children to get a lecture at the end of the day. Right now it's only occupants were a handful of twenty-something strangers who seemed to be avoiding each other. There were three men sitting in opposite corners of the room, and one young girl sitting at the front, next to what appeared to be a radio. Rohtan didn't have much experience with radios.
"Hey, he's here, that makes five," One of the men said. He was the most curious of the lot, with an airbender's tattoo across his head. The mark looked fairly fresh, though he was older than the average newly-appointed master.
"Is he actually here, or did he just wander in?" One of the other men wondered. They both looked to be from the Water Tribe. One carried a spear, and the other carried a short sword at his waist.
Rohtan sheepishly held up the letter that had guided him here. The girl at the front of the room nodded.
"Then that's five," She said. "We're ready to go. Why don't you all introduce yourselves while I get this radio working."
She began to fiddle with the various knobs and buttons of the old radio as the four men in the room turned to one another. There was an awkward pause. The Water Tribal wielding a spear was the first to speak up.
"Well, I'm Alrok," he said. "Been a Shorewatcher for just a couple months now. Signed up right away after that whole debacle up North."
He had been one of the first volunteers to help restore the Shorewatchers damaged ranks and reputation. As many of their senior members had been lost to the Energybender's attack, or retired in the wake of it, the Shorewatchers had eagerly welcomed any recruit.
"Kunik," The other Water Tribal said. "A student of Master Yakkul's."
"Name's Sang Lug," The airbender said curtly. He pointed a thumb at his tattooed forehead. "Airbender."
They had all figured that out by now, but the condescending way Sang Lug said it let them know that he wasn't going to be pleasant about this whole experience.
"I'm Rohtan, I'm a Sun Warrior," Rohtan began. "I've been helping raise dragons."
Kunik and Alrok seemed impressed, but Sang Lug got skeptical all of a sudden. He rubbed his chin with one hand.
"Why are we all here? I thought we all represented peacekeeping organizations," He pointed to himself, Kunik, and Alrok. "Airbender, White Lotus, Shorewatcher."
"I can say I've never kept the peace even a day in my life," Rohtan said. "Back home my only job is hunting game to feed the dragons, and believe me, that takes a lot of time."
"That's completely irrelevant," Sang Lug said. "What I want to know is why we all got three mysterious invitations to the same place."
"I believe I can answer that," the radio said, suddenly crackling to life. Though it had been a long time since some of them had heard it in person, the voice on the radio was still familiar to them all.
"Sen?"
Everyone in the room had met the Avatar at one point. For some it had been recently, but for Rohtan it had been just slightly less than two years. He had almost completely forgotten about the stranger he'd sparred with when news of the new Avatar had begun to circulate.
"Hello," Sen said. "I know this is going to seem terribly rude of me, but I really don't have that much time to talk. Pankha will be taking over soon."
The girl next to the radio nodded. She was by far the youngest of them all, and she was clearly not built for combat. Though she lacked the body of a warrior, there was a fiery determination in her eyes to rival the greatest champions of the world. Pankha wanted something, and she was willing to go to great lengths to get it.
"I want you all to know that I chose you specifically for this mission," Sen continued. "I don't know some of you as well as I'd like to, but I know I can trust you all."
With that, the radio crackled loudly and fell silent. Alrok tilted his head.
"Is that all?"
"I'll be taking charge now," Pankha said. "I'll explain everything."
Pankha turned off the radio, ending any hope they might have had for further involvement from the Avatar, and stepped forward.
"There's a small cell of Energybender loyalists working in Republic City. Every time the Avatar or the Coalition tries to investigate them, they go to ground and cover their tracks," Pankha said. "That's where we come in. You guys aren't Coalition, and you aren't associated with the Avatar."
"Not- I lived with him for like six months," Kunik protested.
"I was supposed to be his airbending master," Sang Lug likewise objected.
"You know, not to sound, uhh…" Alrok wanted to say "ungrateful", but that might offend Sang Lug and Kunik. "But I did study with him for a long time. Wouldn't I be at least a little associated with him?"
There was a slight pause, and Pankha looked severely un-amused with their various protests. She turned a skeptical eye towards Rohtan, and he shrugged.
"Hey, I knew him for thirty minutes at most," Rohtan said. "I'm honestly surprised I'm even here."
He wasn't that surprised, actually. He knew one very good reason Sen might have invited him.
"You can protest as much as you want, but nobody looks at you guys and immediately thinks of Sen. Maybe that'll change after all this is over, but for now you're kind of obscure," Pankha said harshly. "Now, do you want to keep complaining, or do you want to save the world?"
Kunik and Alrok were quick to throw their hats in the ring. Sang Lug considered complaining for a long time, but eventually agreed to participate. Just as soon as he knew exactly what he was participating in.
"Where are we going and what are we doing?"
"To the human settlement on the other side of the Spirit Portal," Pankha said. "You're going to be taking over a tea shop."
That was hardly the critical mission that any of them had been expecting. Sang Lug nearly left the room then and there, but Pankha continued talking, elaborating why that particular teashop was so important.
The Avatar had come to the White Dragon tea shop once, long ago, and in the process had drawn the violent attention of Pankha's misguided brother Anole. With Anole in prison, Pankha had been unable to keep the White Dragon afloat, and had finally been forced to sell her parents business. The buyers, however, were some of Anole's former comrades in the ranks of the Energybender's men.
Using the store as a legitimate front for their highly illegitimate activity, the White Dragon had been repurposed from an innocuous tea shop into a den of crime. It was a hot bed of smuggling, spying, scheming, and substandard tea. Pankha would not let that stand.
"This seems pretty straightforward," Alrok said. "Why not just raid the tea shop and be done with it?"
"They've tried investigating it normally," Pankha said. "The person in charge is careful to always cover their footsteps when they know they're being watched. We need to observe them in secret."
"Okay, fair enough," Alrok said. "Where do we start?"
"Well, you need information before anything else," Pankha said. "For that, there's only one solution. You're going to have to do a stakeout."
Stakeouts were not nearly as dramatic as they were made out to be. For the most part they took turns sitting at the window, waiting and watching for any signs of suspicious activity.
The room that had been rented out for their stakeout was not particularly lavish in its amenities, having just enough chairs to seat them all and little else to its name. It didn't even have a televarrick or a radio, and lacking either of those, the four participants of the stakeout turned to each other for entertainment.
"Hey Sang Lug, you ever go on airbender missions?" Alrok asked.
"Very few," He said. "I was meant to train, not be a peacekeeper."
Resentment was obvious in Sang Lug's voice every time he spoke. Alrok was trying to get him to talk about something other than how he should have been the Avatar's airbending master, but somehow it always came back to that. Rohtan wasn't going to let it happen again.
"What about you, Alrok, you gone on any hunts yet?"
"Only one or two so far," Alrok said. "The Shorewatchers had to get me trained first, and get their act together."
"They were in a pretty big mess, it's no surprise it took them some time to recover."
"Yeah, and they're not really the same as they used to be," Alrok said. He sounded slightly disappointed. "There's more rules and regulations now."
"That might be for the best," Rohtan suggested.
"I don't know," Alrok said with a shrug. "I'm not smart enough to say what police should or shouldn't do. I just follow the boss."
"Speaking of boss, who's in charge here?" Kunik wondered aloud. He was still keeping watch out the window, but that question had been nagging at him.
"I thought Pankha was in charge," Rohtan said.
"Yeah, but she doesn't come with us out in the field," Kunik said. "When blows start flying it helps to have someone giving orders."
"Considering I'm the only one with any kind of actual experience in this field, it should be me," Sang Lug said.
"Hey, you just said you weren't trained for peacekeeping," Alrok objected. "I may not have a lot of experience, but I've been trained by the best."
"Far less training than I have," Kunik added.
"Well this is one ring that my hat is going to stay out of," Rohtan said. "I have no experience whatsoever."
"Okay, so you're the only one not voting for themselves," Alrok said. "Who do you think should be in charge, then? You can be the deciding vote."
Rohtan took one look around the room and decided that there was no right vote to make here.
"Let me think about it," He said evasively. "We've got plenty of time before it even matters."
"True enough," Kunik agreed. "Anyway, my shift's over, someone switch me."
Kunik finally moved away from the window and Alrok took position. There was a peculiar way he bent his neck and squinted as he observed the tea shop across the street. The Shorewatchers had a method that they taught every trainee, and it had stuck with Alrok very well. He kept up the classic Shorewatcher stance as he watched over his target. Kunik was glad to be able to pull his attention away from the window. He had a question he'd been meaning to ask.
"Hey, Sang Lug, I know Whistler probably isn't your favorite topic, but-"
"She is quite possibly my least favorite thing in the entire world," Sang Lug said bitterly. "And yes, that includes any and all horrible things you are currently thinking of."
"Right, okay, but I've just got to know," Kunik said. "You knew her before she started calling herself Whistler. What's her real name?"
Sang Lug stewed in his own anger for a moment. He had been well acquainted with the so-called "Whistler" long before she had taken up that ludicrous nickname.
"I would tell you," Sang Lug said reluctantly. "But I'm pretty sure she'd find out and hurt me."
"I can understand that," Kunik said. "She's a petty, petty person. She once booby-trapped my bedroom because I ate some snacks that she wanted."
Rohtan stifled a giggle, just barely managing to disguise it as a cough. Kunik and Sang Lug were still slightly suspicious, but they were thankfully distracted.
"Guys something's happening," Alrok shouted suddenly.
As one they all dived towards the windows. They peered around corners and through cracks in curtains at the proceedings. They had gone this far without arousing suspicion, and they needed to keep it that way. Someone might notice a group of young men peering out the windows at a tea shop.
Their vision was limited as they peered through small holes in the curtains, but they could still clearly see as someone walked past the windows of the tea shop. She was a tall, slender woman, with a very angular face. The angular style carried on down her body and into her outfit.
"Did you call us over to look at the sort of threateningly attractive lady?"
"Nobody with an outfit that pointy is ever not evil," Alrok said, glaring at the woman's pointed shoulder-pads.
"That's not really a lead, Alrok," Kunik said.
"Oh, yeah, I just felt it was worth noting," Alrok said. "She also gave a few orders to some of the employees. I figure she's the one in charge."
"That still doesn't make her a definite suspect," Sang Lug said.
"Person of interest, at least," Alrok said. "We have reason to investigate."
"We should be low key about it," Kunik said. "We don't want to come on too strong on such a flimsy lead."
"Right," Rohtan said. "About that, I've been thinking."
The other three men on the team nodded. Rohtan continued.
"I think maybe we should have a guy on the inside," Rohtan said. "We'd probably be better off watching it from up close."
"Could be risky," Sang Lug said. "We can't risk identifying ourselves."
"I'll keep it low-key. Just go in, order tea, take a quick look around and report back."
"You will?"
"It's either me or Kunik, and I think I'm the better one," Rohtan said. "You two are law enforcement, so they'd be more suspicious around you. Kunik can't take his sword into the restaurant, but if something goes wrong I'll have my firebending."
"It's a sound plan," Kunik said.
Sang Lug and Alrok grunted in acknowledgement. It was certainly better than standing around staring at things through the window.
"Alright, I'm going to sit by the window there," Rohtan said, pointing out his destination. "If anything goes wrong, I'll put my hand against the window like this."
Rohtan pressed his palm flat against the wall, demonstrating his signal.
"What if you find something out?" Sang Lug asked. "What's the signal for that?"
"I'll just walk back here and tell you," Rohtan said. "It doesn't need a signal."
"Right," Sang Lug said awkwardly.
After one more look at the tea shop to settle his resolve, Rohtan set out of their rented hideaway and onto the street below. As he left, Sang Lug looked around at his fellows still in the room.
"Wait, is he in charge now?"
Rohtan lingered for a minute as he crossed the street. A few weeks ago he had never so much as left Dragon Roost Island, and now he was standing under the eternal night sky of the Spirit World. The Avatar had a funny way of making people's lives take a turn for the strange. Rohtan toyed with his comfortingly familiar dragon necklace as he walked across the street.
A small bell above the tea shop door rang as Rohtan made his entrance. He sat down at his chosen table and waited patiently. It was not a busy time of day for the teashop, and he was quickly attended to.
"What can I do for you?" His waiter asked. It was readily apparent that this was not a typical teashop. Most restaurants were staffed by young women who needed the money. There were mostly grown men working here. Maybe Rohtan just thought it was obvious because he already knew it was a front for the Grey-Faces. It didn't matter much anyway.
"Just a cup of tea please," He said quickly. He needed to seem disinterested, just one more customer in and out the door, nothing suspicious whatsoever.
Suspicious eyes darted around the restaurant for a while, looking for anything suspicious, especially that pointed woman they had seen earlier. She did step into the front room for a moment, just to talk to one of her "employees". They were quite committed to maintaining the tea shop façade. If Rohtan wanted to see anything useful, he'd have to go to the back room.
His tea arrived, and Rohtan drank it while he looked out the window. He knew Kunik, Alrok, and Sang Lug were watching through the window, but he couldn't see them. That was a good thing. They wouldn't be seen by anyone else from the teashop either.
The White Dragon tea shop seemed to be perfectly ordinary, other than the fact their waiters were large, thuggish looking men. It would take more than that to give Rohtan the evidence he needed to take the tea shop down.
The ceramic teacup was emptied in little time, and Rohtan found himself wondering what to do next. He needed to get into the back, but he didn't know how to do so. He remembered something he'd heard about businesses on the mainland doing, but he wasn't quite sure what the word was. He flagged down a waiter.
"Sorry to bother you," he said. "But I don't really know a lot about this part of town-"
"I can tell," The waiter said gruffly. Rohtan was obviously foreign, down to his features and the color of his skin.
"Well, yeah, I don't know how some things work," Rohtan said, trying to play up the naïve foreigner routine. "Can I have an…interview?"
The large man paused briefly to think over the statement.
"You want a job interview?"
"Yes, that," Rohtan said. The Sun Warriors lived communally, and had designated responsibilities, so the concept of having to interview for a position was as foreign to Rohtan as Rohtan was to Republic City.
The large man seemed confused, and he blustered off without another word. He vanished into the back room for several minutes and then returned to Rohtan's table.
"The boss says yes," The waiter said. It was clear that this whole ordeal was uncommon for them. Likely they were only granting Rohtan an interview to not seem suspicious. Whatever their reasons, Rohtan had his way in. After a short, awkward exchange with the waiter, Rohtan stood up and found his way back to the manager's office.
The look of the office made it immediately apparent that she was hiding something. Rohtan was beginning to honestly wonder how they'd gone this long without being exposed, since everything seemed to be a giveaway about their true intentions. There were numerous blank spaces and hastily-shuffled documents on her desk, showing that she had reorganized her office just before Rohtan arrived.
The Manager herself seemed clearly stressed by recent events, and the fact that a stranger was in her office. Despite her misgivings, she politely invited him to sit.
They exchanged the usual pleasantries of a job interview first: age, prior experience, school history, the sort of useless minutiae that had no real impact on how an employee performed. As these questions went on it became more and more apparent that Rohtan was woefully unprepared. He had no references or prior work experience. Eventually his ineptitude at interviewing became so apparent that the Manager could not pretend to ignore it any more.
"Rohtan, I really have to know, what brings you here? Why not stay on your island?"
Rohtan had been hoping for an opportunity just like this. It was half the reason he'd asked for an interview.
"I was exiled, actually," Rohtan said, feigning sadness. Obvious sympathy shone through on the Manager's face.
"It all started after Rahm's attack, and the Avatar came out of hiding," Rohtan said. "He'd come to our island years before, incognito, and while he was there I worked with him. My elders didn't want any trouble with the Energybender, so they exiled me to avoid angering Sarin."
Interest was written on the Manager's face like words on the page of a book. The fact that Rohtan was associated with the Avatar intrigued her. He knew that making a connection between himself and Sen was the exact opposite of Sen's intention for this B-Team, but Rohtan figured it was worth a shot.
"You knew the Avatar?"
"Yeah, I worked with him, talked with him, trained with him," Rohtan said bitterly. "And he ruined my life."
Rohtan leaned on every bit of acting skill he had to seem angry about how Sen had "ruined his life". If the Manager was convinced that Rohtan might be on their side, he might have a way into their organization.
"I think we might have something for you," The Manager said. "Can you come by tomorrow evening?"
"Absolutely," Rohtan said confidently.
"You have a job at my tea shop?"
The B-Team had reconvened in the Avatar Museum meeting room to discuss Rohtan's recent job offer. The update on the situation had gotten Pankha a bit heated. The others kept their distance while Pankha went after Rohtan.
"Make sure they're using the right filters," Pankha said. "And that they only boil the water once! Oh, and check that they're-"
"Pankha," Rohtan interrupted. "I can't break my cover."
"Ensuring quality tea is the responsibility of any good employee," Pankha said. Her volume was just barely below screaming. "They're just boiling leaves in there, Rohtan! It's a travesty!"
"I would consider the multiple human rights violations and war crimes to be a greater travesty," Sang Lug said firmly. Pankha bit her lip. She was crazy about tea, but she wasn't that crazy. Sang Lug had a point.
"Okay, so Rohtan plays our man on the inside," Kunik said. "It's definitely going to take you some time to get in their good graces, though, so what the heck are we supposed to do in the meantime?"
"Stake out tertiary objectives," Alrok said. "No violent terrorist organization is an island. The Tea Shop might be the center of activity, but there's got to be a lot of other stuff going on connected to it."
"I can try talking to my coworkers, find out where they live, what they do," Rohtan said.
"And then the rest of us split up to investigate whatever leads Rohtan finds for us," Sang Lug said. "It just might work."
"It better work," Rohtan said. "I don't even like tea."
He could feel a sharp cutting through his neck as Pankha's angry glare hit him.
While the field members of her team went about following the leads their inside man had given them, Pankha went to see an inside man of her own.
The walls of the Republic City penitentiary were thick with guards, but perhaps thinner than they might have been a few days ago. The prison housed hundreds of prisoners from Sarin's ranks, and as such it was usually guarded by an extensive force of Coalition soldiers. A large chunk of those soldiers had been withdrawn recently, both to help serve the more offensive aspects of the war, and to lull the conspirators in Republic City into a false sense of security.
Pankha was let through the secure gates with relative ease. Many of the people here had seen her before. Her visits were not exactly regular, but they were frequent enough that guards recognized her.
Visiting hours were short, but that was fine with Pankha. She never liked talking to her brother very much anyway.
The convict she'd once called a brother was led into the room, just barely pushing against the hold of the guards. Time in prison toughened some men, but it was not so for Anole. He'd been fairly weak to begin with, and once surrounded by tougher convicts, he'd quickly been resigned to the bottom of the totem pole. He got very little food or exercise, and he had wasted away over the years. The only thing that had grown was his resentment towards life in general.
"Pankha," He said disdainfully. He had regarded her as a beacon of hope for her first few visits, but it had gradually sunk in that Pankha had nothing but contempt for him. His stupidity had thrown away their livelihood, their parents legacy, and Pankha's dream. She only came to visit him because it was useful.
"Anole," She said, matching his disdain. "You feel like telling me anything today?"
"Not much," Anole said. "The Avatar already gave up finding us. Why would I tease him any more?"
Anole had no way of knowing that the Avatar was investigating by proxy. He was under the impression that the Coalition had abandoned any investigations into the teashop.
"The Avatar and I have something in common, Anole," Pankha said. "Neither of us actually care about you. No amount of your stupid teasing is going to change that."
"Then why are you even here?"
"Because I want my teashop back," Pankha said bitterly. "So tell me something I can use."
"I've told you everything I can," Anole said. "If the Avatar's not smart enough to work with that, it's his own fault."
"This is a waste of time," Pankha said. She started to get up, and Anole twitched visibly, exactly as she had expected. He wanted to taunt them further, to frustrate them more and more. It was the only victory someone like him could hope to win. He and many other Grey-Faces were trapped in prison, unable to fight against the Avatar. Anole's mockery was the only real chance they had to strike even the smallest blow against their enemy.
"Just try not to cause my friend too much trouble," Anole said. "He won't appreciate you bothering him too much."
Pankha's eyes narrowed as she took one final look at her former brother. The person in charge of the tea shop now was a woman, but Anole had referred to them as male. Pankha put a hand on her chin contemplatively. That had to mean something. Maybe there was somebody calling shots behind the scenes.
Or maybe Anole was an idiot.
The crowds of people in Republic City made a marvelous cover for even the least stealthy person, and Alrok was not entirely untrained in the arts of stealth. Only mostly untrained.
"Excuse me," he said, as he ran into the thirteenth person today. The crowds made good cover, but a crowd was a crowd. It was cramped, hard to see, and most of all difficult to maneuver. That made following someone a tedious task. If the person Alrok was tailing wasn't so tall, he would have lost him already.
The target Rohtan had provided had been meandering around the city for a while, attending to errands. Although Rohtan had described him as an exceptionally violent and temperamental employee, and therefore a very suspicious target, he had done nothing to overtly identify himself as a supporter of the Energybender. The most aggressive thing he had done so far was yell at a cashier for bagging his groceries wrong.
After a few hours of watching the brute go about his daily business, Alrok began to wonder at what point he was supposed to call it quits. There was clearly nothing of any particular interest happening here. If this brute ever did visit any suspicious persons or Grey-Face hotspots, he wasn't doing so today.
Alrok never got around to making up his mind because his mind was made for him. The brute he was tailing eventually wandered into an apartment building and into his own apartment. Stalking was one thing, but breaking and entering was another matter entirely. Alrok's investigation was shut down for the day.
It was a long, bitter journey to the Avatar Museum. Alrok was deeply worried that Sang Lug and Kunik had found something useful, and he'd been the only one to hit a dead end. He bit his lip and opened the door to the dusty room.
"Please tell me you found something," Pankha moaned the moment Alrok entered. He began to suspect he wasn't the only one with no answers.
"No," Alrok said sheepishly. "I did not."
Kunik and Sang Lug groaned in unison. Kunik rubbed his eyebrows in frustration as Sang Lug started, once again, to complain.
"How many people do we have to follow before one of us leads them somewhere useful?"
They were now on their third day of investigation, and they hadn't found a single lead. For the first two days it had been understandable; the Grey-Faces had to live mostly normal lives. By the third day, though, and the ninth person tailed, they should have seen even the slightest hint of a lead. Yet they had nothing.
The dust in the long-empty room shifted slightly as Pankha nervously adjusted her sitting position. The only thing she had learned from Anole was that the situation might be even more complex than they initially realized. The boys were having a hard enough time as it was, they didn't need her dragging their mood down even further.
"I wonder if it's too late to go on the pilgrimage trip," Sang Lug wondered aloud.
"What?"
"A lot of airbenders are going to start a trip to the Four Temples tomorrow," Sang Lug said. "I cancelled my plans to join them for this, but it seems like there isn't much point."
"It's too early to give up yet," Kunik sighed. "To feel like trash? Sure, right on time for that. But too soon to give up."
Sang Lug sighed loudly and nodded. They felt useless now, but the most useless thing to do was give up. Rohtan hadn't even gotten back from his shift yet.
"Why are the airbenders leaving town anyway? Shouldn't they be protecting the president?"
President Dahaka was set to give a speech in two days, his first major public appearance since Rahm's attack. There was a strong suspicion that the Enerybender would try to attack the President while he was vulnerable; it was part of the reason why the tea shop needed to be investigated so thoroughly.
"He has plenty of security. Most of the Republic City PD is going to be with him."
Kunik shrugged. After his brush with General Rahm, Dahaka's security had been bolstered by a significant margin. Even the best-equipped conspirators would be hard pressed to get near the President.
Their musings on the future were brought to an abrupt halt by the door slamming open, swinging rapidly on its hinges and kicking massive amounts of dust into the air. Rohtan stepped swiftly forward, coughing on the sudden upsurge of dust, but still with a smile on his face.
"I think I have something," Rohtan said excitedly.
"Finally," The other four said in unison.
"There's a meeting tomorrow night, something private," Rohtan said. "The Manager really wanted me to come to the meeting, but she said it was a secret and I couldn't tell anyone about it."
"Secret after-hours meeting with dozens of suspicious persons," Sang Lug says. "Sounds like a recipe for success."
"I'd call it terrorism, actually," Kunik said.
"Success for us, idiot," Sang Lug snapped back. Kunik smiled slyly as soon as Sang Lug turned his back. "Where's this meeting of yours?"
"A warehouse in the Spirit World," Rohtan said. "Not far from the teashop."
"Warehouses," Alrok muttered under his breath. Warehouses were always sinister.
Rohtan made sure nobody saw him as he ducked out of the alleyway and towards the "empty" warehouse. The wire he was wearing hung heavy around his neck. The dragon-shaped talisman he always wore was a good cover for the microphone hanging by his neck. If this meeting went the way he thought it was going to go, they'd need to record the Manager's statements as evidence. It was also a good way for his allies to know when the fighting was going to start, as there was no doubt in Rohtan's mind that there was going to be fighting.
There warehouse door groaned loudly as Rohtan tried to push it aside. The building was dark and choked with mold, with only one light shining in the entire darkened interior. Rohtan worked his way past stacks of long-abandoned crates as he headed towards the light.
As he moved, he heard the sounds of shifting movement from around the building. The tea shop employees seemed to have beaten him here. Rohtan hesitated slightly as he wondered if this might be a trap, but he pressed onwards soon enough. Even if it was a trap, he had backup.
He rounded a corner and saw his "co-workers" waiting for him. The Manager had set up a small lecture area with several rows of chairs arranged before a large map of Republic City. Several key locations such as the Capital, The Spirit Portal, and Air Temple Island, were already highlighted in the map. Rohtan's fingers twitched nervously.
"Rohtan," the Manager said welcomingly. "So glad you could join us. Have a seat."
Rohtan did as she said, wordlessly sitting down near the back edge of the gathered tea shop employees.
"I'm glad you're here, and you'll be glad you're here too," She continued. "I know you've hit a rough patch in your life, and you deserve an opportunity to get a little revenge on the world."
That was one of the more sinister sentences Rohtan had heard in his life. That was good, for now. This was one of the rare occasions when he was actually going to go looking for sinister. Rohtan fidgeted in his seat as the Manager continued.
"I have an ambitious plan to change the landscape of Republic City forever," the Manager continued. "Acquiring the White Dragon was only the first step. For the past few years I've been carefully exploiting the business to generate a large amount of capital. Money that we're going to use to…"
Sang Lug's hands tightened around his staff, Kunik and Alrok did likewise with spear and sword. Rohtan readied himself to strike.
"Expand our franchise into twelve new locations!"
It took only a fraction of a second before a wall of crates exploded outwards in a rush of air. A furious Sang Lug stepped through the shattered splinters he had just created and shouted loud enough to shake the foundations of the warehouse.
"What!?"
The tea shop employees stood in stunned silence as Sang Lug's warpath brought him closer.
"We've been stalking you for days to find out you've been committing petty fraud?"
"What are you talking about?" The Manager demanded. "You've been stalking me?"
"Yes!" Sang Lug shouted. "We have been following you for three days, because you are supposed to be evil!"
"Evil?"
"Yes!" Sang Lug shouted again. "You were working with the Energybender!"
"What? No-," The woman protested quickly. She was clearly set off by accusations of conspiring with Sarin. "I would never- The fraud, yes, I'll admit to that, but never in a thousand years would I work with the Energybender!"
Rohtan stood up. Most of his fellow employees had put some distance between themselves and Sang Lug by now.
"Then why did you hire me when I said I hated the Avatar?"
"I didn't hire you because you hated the Avatar," The Manager protested. "I hired you because you'd lost your home, you were desperate! I thought you'd go along with my schemes because you needed the job!"
Rohtan pursed his lips. That actually did explain it. Kunik and Alrok had entered the room, significantly less dramatically than Sang Lug, and seemed to be reaching the same conclusions. What little suspicious behavior they had seen was easily explained by the Manager's attempt at business fraud.
Last into the room was Pankha, who was not looking entirely surprised by this revelation. The Manager stared Pankha down. They had had a long, antagonistic relationship after Pankha had lost the teashop.
"You! Did you try to set me up so you could get your stupid teashop back?"
"I didn't," Pankha said sheepishly. "My brother said you were one of his cohorts."
"Cohorts! I never met him! I'm just a woman trying to make an honest living."
"Dishonest, actually," Rohtan said, moving his collar to show the wire he was wearing. "We did just record you admitting to fraud."
The Manager took a long look at the microphone on Rohtan's neck, stared quietly for a moment, and then swore loudly.
"Everything's been handled," Pankha said quietly. "The authorities are taking care of the tea shop staff as we speak."
It was hardly a celebration in the dusty room. The motley crew stewed in silence. Technically they had accomplished something, but it didn't feel like it. The museum of the Avatar was nearly empty today, as everyone was going to see President Dahaka's speech, and that made the mood even quieter and gloomier.
"The White Dragon is going to go up for auction, and just like he promised, the Avatar is going to help me buy it back," Pankha said.
"I'm surprised he's keeping his end of the bargain," Sang Lug grunted. "It's not like we kept ours."
"We still caught a criminal," Rohtan said. "And we proved that there isn't any Energybender presence in that part of the Spirit World. That's important."
"That's not important," Kunik said.
The young swordsman crossed his arms and moped. His sword belt hung loose around his waist, and the blade rattled slightly as he sulked.
"I should have just stayed in the North," Kunik said. "I should have known I wasn't cut out to save anything. I was always an afterthought for the Avatar."
"Same with me, pal," Alrok moped. "I was just the stupid kid who never worked hard enough. Now Taina, she impressed Sen, and now she's off in the Fire Nation attending the best school ever. And here I am, digging through scraps to find petty fraud."
"You two have nothing to complain about," Sang Lug grunted angrily. "You two met him by a stroke of luck. I was raised and trained to be his master, and some selfish moron stole my destiny out from under me at the last minute. I should have been his master, but I'm stuck here with you people!"
Under different circumstances Kunik might have taken offense to the way Sang Lug was talking about him, but at the moment he didn't feel very proud. He simply sat in silence and bore the insult. He felt as if he deserved it.
"This is my fault," Pankha sighed. "I never should have listened to my brother."
Alrok's head snapped up.
"Your brother?"
"Yes, my brother Alrok," Pankha said. "He tricked me into thinking the Energybender was doing something with my tea shop."
She crossed her arms and sulked. Alrok broke out of his personal funk and tapped his chin curiously.
"Why?"
"To be a jerk," Pankha grunted.
Complex thought as not Alrok's strong suit, as he had proven quite conclusively during his tutoring sessions, but every now and then a little bit of grease got the wheels in his head turning. There was a noticeable sound of sparking.
"There's no way he isn't up to something," Alrok said.
"Oh don't you try to pull any of this," Sang Lug said. "Your 'suspicions' got us on the tail of that manager lady in the first place."
"Yeah, and he was right," Rohtan said defensively. "She was up to something. Alrok might have a point."
Sang Lug relented and let Alrok finish his thought.
"Why would your brother just come out of nowhere and start telling you these things? He had to have had some kind of reason."
Pankha ceased sulking and narrowed her eyes.
"He did seem very insistent that I keep investigating the tea shop," Pankha said.
The quiet mood of the dusty room ceased to be mourning and became contemplative. Sang Lug, despite his initial objections, quickly came to the same conclusions as Alrok.
"We weren't getting tricked," he said aloud. "We were getting baited."
"Your president is supposed to give a speech today, isn't he?" Rohtan asked. "It could be connected to that."
"It could," Sang Lug said hesitantly. "But his security is ten times stronger than usual. They'd be hard pressed to reach him."
"Yes, but the airbenders are out of the city," Kunik said.
As the others debated potential avenues of attack, Alrok reached into his pocket and withdrew his map of Republic City. He tapped his fingers on the map at the locations of Dahaka's speech and the Spirit Portal, and then traced a long line to the one location that was miles removed from the city proper. The prison.
Pankha had provided a large truck that served to barrel them all to the outskirts of the city, miles away from the skyscrapers, and into the rocky mountains that sheltered the United Republic's largest prison. Getting there was the easy part.
"So in short, we think that the Grey-Face troops are using the distraction caused by Dahaka's speech and the Airbender pilgrimage to stage an escape attempt from the prison, and they staged the entire tea shop investigation to distract the Coalition too, so there'd be no one to stop the prison break."
"It would take an hour or two for all the cops to get here," One guard said to another. His fellow guard nodded.
"I know you don't have a lot of reason to believe us-"
"Are you kidding?" The second guardsman said. "You guys work with the Avatar. That's reason enough."
It as an innocuous statement, but it was enough to send a brief rush of pride through the hearts of the young men standing before the prison gate.
"It also helps that you have a well-rounded theory with a lot of supporting evidence," the first guard said.
"We should send a message right away," The first guard decided. "We can get backup here before anything happens."
On cue, a burst of fire and force burst out of the largest all of the prison, shattering the concrete and filling the air with noise and rubble. Sang Lug blinked dust out of his eyes, briefly opened his mouth to say something, but then decided that this outcome was so obvious it wasn't even worth commenting on.
The explosive burst was the cue for complete chaos to break loose. The guards retreated to the interior of the prison to try and manage the situation from within, while their young guests started to make a dash for the new hole in the prison walls. Pankha headed for the truck still parked on the roadside. The only one to pause for the briefest second was Rohtan, who grabbed at his necklace quickly before Kunik stopped him.
"No time for good luck charms," He shouted, grabbing Rohtan by the arm and pulling him along. "Move!"
Rohtan briefly sputtered a protest but he was drowned out by the ever-expanding sounds of conflict. This escape had been planned days in advance, and most of the Grey-Face prisoners were prepared to make a quick escape. Most of them made a quick dash for the hills. The prisoners knew they only had an hour or two before the police fell on them en masse.
While it wasn't quite a massive number, some of the authorities were already on the scene. A Shorewatcher and an Airbender struck the fleeing prisoners from the side, planting themselves firmly in front of the hole in the prison walls.
"There's a lot of them," Sang Lug shouted. He found it difficult to even find the time to talk, swarmed as they were by escaping inmates.
"Just keep hitting them!" Alrok shouted back. No matter where he stuck his spear, he found a villain on the other end. It was a Shorewatchers dream come true. While the horde was much too large for them to have any hope of rounding them up completely, they had to stop as many as they could.
The arrival of Kunik made their job somewhat easier. The hole in the wall was not particularly large, and the three of them were more than enough to bottleneck it. Had the horde of prisoners turned their full attention on the three, they might have been quickly overwhelmed, but most of the captured soldiers were still focused solely on escaping.
While all this was occurring, Rohtan was still trying to regain his footing in the crowd and get a grip on his necklace. After being pushed, shoved, and jostled from side to side for a few minutes, he finally managed to get a hold of the small carved dragon that hung from his neck.
Immediately, a hand in the crowd reached out and yanked on his necklace cord, pulling it apart and dropping the talisman to the ground, where it was kicked aside by stampeding feet. Rohtan panicked and dove after it.
As three warriors bravely fought to hold the tide of bodies back, some of the inmates who had already escaped were looking for a quick way to get out of the area. As Anole had been instrumental in coordinating the distraction that was allowing them to escape, he had been one of the first out the gate, and now he was the de facto leader of the escaping prisoners.
"Looks like your sister brought us a truck," One of his fellow soldiers said.
"Least she could do, after she nearly spoiled the plan," Anole grumbled. They had watched her approach and warn the guards, nearly ruining their chances of escape. Anole did hesitate slightly as he approached the truck. Pankha was still his sister.
"Open up, Pankha," he said, pounding on the door of the truck. There was no response. He had seen her run and hide in the truck earlier, so he knew she was still here.
"All I want is the truck," Anole continued. There was still no response other than a slight shifting inside the truck. It wobbled heavily to the side as all weight shifted towards the rear. Anole sighed heavily and walked around the back.
"Open the truck or I'll-"
The back of the truck opened with a heavy slam. A large mechanical fist reached out, grabbed Anole by the chest, and tossed him to the side of the road.
The truck lurched once more as the suit of mechanized armor stepped out of the back and slammed heavily into the ground. There was a muffled sound as Pankha tried to shout something at her brother, but as mech-suits had no external speakers, nobody heard it.
With her muted taunt out of the way, Pankha began the awkward process of piloting her mech-suit against the enemy. The Coalition had loaned her the suit for emergency purposes, but had provided very little in the way of actual training in how to use it. Training did not much matter when you had fists of titanium, so Pankha managed to fight effectively regardless. Between clumsy yet effective blows against the Grey-Face soldiers, Pankha ripped one of the tires off the truck, immobilizing it. Anyone who fled had to flee on foot.
As the mech suit made it all the more difficult for the inmates to make their escape, they gradually switched priorities from fleeing as quickly as possible to fighting the young men blocking their way. Alrok, the least trained, was the first to crack under the sudden pressure. He took a heavy blow to the chest from a flying boulder and was knocked to the ground. In the brief second he was on the ground, Alrok saw Rohtan still scrambling across the battlefield, looking for his necklace.
A swift pull from Kunik got Alrok back on his feet, and he was quickly propped against the side of Pankha's mech suit for support. Sang Lug was trying his best to keep the rest of the escaping Grey-Faces away, but they were quickly getting surrounded. Alrok took a deep breath and held his spear at the ready, even though it took all his strength just to raise it. He surveyed the crowd of convicts that was gradually closing them in.
In the middle of the crowd, a head popped up with a triumphant shout.
"Found it," Rohtan shouted triumphantly, holding his talisman aloft.
"Good, you got your necklace back," Sang Lug shouted. "Can you help us now?"
"It's not a necklace," Rohtan shouted back.
With that said, Rohtan put the dragon-shaped symbol to his lips and blew. The oddly shaped whistle created a low, resonant hum, a kind of ethereal noise that shook the hearts of everyone who heard it. A few of the more sensitive members of the crowd clutched their ears as the strangely harmonic tone rang out over the hills. The strange sound brought a brief pause to the chaos around them as the escaping soldiers paused to take in the source of the tone.
"You were looking for a whistle?" Sang Lug said. For obvious reasons, he was not entirely fond of whistles or whistlers.
Rohtan held up a single hand, gesturing for a continued pause. After a moment, he looked up at the sky. Not long after that, the sun disappeared.
The air bore down on the crowd like a collapsing ceiling as thunderous wing beats struck the sky. The sun gradually returned as the massive wingspan of a dragon descended from on high, bathing the ground in a steady stream of fire as it descended and encircled the crowd of fleeing convicts. As the sapphire blue beast made a ferocious dive for the ground, everyone but Rohtan jumped aside. The wings of the great blue dragon kicked up a cloud of dust as it landed in the midst of the battlefield.
When the dust settled and the cowering crowd dared to look up, the wingspan of the blue dragon still dominated the landscape. This time, though, the dragon was joined by Rohtan, standing perched between its shoulder blades, surveying the convicts below him. Rohtan ran a hand along the dragons neck, and it let out a small puff of fire and smoke.
"Get back inside the prison," Rohtan commanded, pointing towards the hole in the wall. The dragon punctuated his command with a loud roar, and everyone in the immediate area made a beeline for the inside of the prison. Kunik even took a few steps before remembering that the dragon was on his side.
"You had a dragon the entire time?"
"Well, yeah," Rohtan said. His dragon flexed its wings slightly. "Her names Zuma. Don't touch her."
Alrok took a step back and shoved his hand back in his pocket. Zuma turned her serpentine eyes towards the young Shorewatcher, and he tried to pretend to be innocent.
"You didn't think that was worth mentioning before?" Sang Lug asked.
"We were on a stealth mission until about thirty minutes ago," Rohtan said. As the last of the escapees returned to the interior of the prison, Rohtan jumped down from Zuma's back. "Zuma doesn't exactly keep a low profile."
With her master off her back, the blue dragon took a moment to survey her surroundings. The mountains around Republic City reminded her of home. She thought one of the peaks nearby might make a good nesting ground, but Rohtan was quick to call her attention away from those thoughts.
"Those don't belong to us,"Rohtan said, indicating the mountains. "You have a perfectly good nest at home."
Zuma let out a loud growl, and all of Rohtan's teammates jumped backwards. Pankha, who was still in a rather ponderous mech suit, simply fell on her back. Kunik helped her open the front hatch and get out of the heavy metal suit as Rohtan and Zuma started to "argue", with Zuma roaring phrases that Rohtan seemed to understand.
"I need a week's worth of sleep," Kunik sighed. The guards were getting the prison situation under control, so Kunik sat down, turning Pankha's fallen mech suit into an impromptu bench. He was quickly joined by Pankha herself, as well as Alrok and Sang Lug.
"You alright, Alrok?" Sang Lug asked.
"Been better," Alrok grunted. "Man, I am not cut out for this kind of stuff."
Although mere hours ago he had been complaining that he had not been called to greatness, it now seemed like greatness might be a little too much for him.
"I'm going to go back to chasing pickpockets up North," He concluded. "All this conspiracy and warfare and dragon stuff isn't for me."
"To be fair, I don't think dragons are usually involved," Kunik said. Rohtan got particular offended by something Zuma roared, and he whacked her on the nose, prompting an offended roar.
"But you might have a point," Kunik said. "This was a pretty good thing we did. If this is the high point of my life…I think I'm okay with that. Saving the day once is enough for me."
"It's a lot more than most people get," Pankha said.
The train of thought was interrupted as Rohtan finally got Zuma back under control. He mounted his dragon and walked her towards the mech suit where his teammates rested.
"She's right," Rohtan said. "You shouldn't be so caught up in the fact that you're not as important as the Avatar, or even his teammates. You've had an amazing opportunity, one most people don't get. You shouldn't take that for granted."
"I respect your intentions, but a lecture on rare opportunities seems kind of hypocritical coming from a guy on a dragon," Kunik said. Rohtan looked down at Zuma and shrugged.
"Fair enough," Rohtan said. "Anyway, if I don't get Zuma back home soon she's probably going to eat someone. I hope we meet again."
"You can come to the White Dragon any time," Pankha said. Rohtan nodded and kicked his heels into Zuma's shoulders. She pushed herself off the ground with a massive thrust of her wings, and took the skies, carrying Rohtan with her.
"That an open invitation?" Kunik asked.
"I think you've all earned a cup of tea," Pankha said with a sigh.
"Well, I never turn down an invitation from a pretty lady," Kunik said. Pankha's face turned just slightly red. "I'll come back soon."
Kunik stepped up and made an overly formal bow in Pankha's direction before departing.
"Is it okay if I leave without kind of vaguely flirting with you?" Alrok asked. Pankha nodded, and Alrok said a completely platonic goodbye. Pankha now found herself alone with Sang Lug, and awkwardly excused herself. Now alone, Sang Lug sat on the empty metal shell and waited. Somebody had to take the credit for this adventure, and Sang Lug intended to make sure the Avatar heard all about how he'd helped save Republic City.