Shen walked a few blocks to the train station, making sure to hurry as to not miss his ride to work. As he walked, he made a mental note to find an apartment closer to the station as well as a higher quality one. The train was crowded, as it always was, but especially so as more and more people were helping rebuild the city from Kuvira's attack. He was glad he already held a job, as all unemployed metal benders were being conscripted by the city to help with the rebuilding efforts. Manual labor did not suit Shen.

The train arrived a bit behind schedules, so Shen hurriedly rushed from the train station down to the police HQ. Opening the main door, Shen nodded to the attendant at the front desk, and hurried to the back, not eager to keep the chief waiting. Striding up to Bei Fong's office door, Shen knocked.

"It's open." The chief replied from behind the closed door. As Shen walked into the room, the chief looked up from the idle morning paperwork she was doing. "Ah, Shen, just the man I wanted to see. Take a seat. Don't worry, you aren't in any trouble."

"So, what did you want to see me for chief?" Shen asked tentatively, trying to hide the edge of excitement in his voice.

"You've been here a half a year, Shen" the chief began, "and I think we both know that the rookie beat cop position doesn't suit you." Getting up to pace behind her desk, the chief of police explained further. "You aren't made of the same stuff as the rest of the beat cops. Your supervisor has explained this ,ugh, and I can see it by looking in your eyes as well, you have drive. Your smart, know how to handle risky situations, and your a better metal bender than some of the guys on my elite squad, if your supervisor's reports can be trusted. I see your skills as fitting in well as a part of the detective department, but not the normal department. I want to put you in with the advanced, undercover department. It has a high risk factor, but the rewards are worth it. Know now, that this may be your only chance for a promotion for your entire career, and you can take it or leave it. I'm going to give you the day off to look over the offer." She ended by sliding Shen a small stack of papers, assumably the forms and specifications for his promotion. "Be at the address on the front sheet, 7:00 tonight. Sharp. Give me your answer then. Dismissed kid."

Shen nodded, and got up, making to leave. "Wait, one more thing." The chief said, a small smirk playing on her lips, just as Shen made to leave the office. "You almost forgot your coupon to Narook's." Returning the smirk, Shen grabbed the coupon, and left the office.

o0o

Rather than returning to his extremely sub-par apartment, Shen opted instead to go to a cafe frequented by the cops, not far from the station. Walking through the doors to Ginseng's Jive, Shen held up his first finger, telling the waitress on stand by that he needed a table for one. He was led to a small booth near the window. "One ginseng, extra honey, please" Shen ordered with a small smile. The waitress hurried away to get Shen's tea. Looking at the address on the front of the papers, Shen noticed it was in the downtown warehouse district, 163 Bosco Blvd. not to far from the police station, low traffic at night, medium during the day, near the waterfront. Shen realised he was thinking as he would before a contract, and instead quickly started leafing through the papers.

"Advanced detective unit nomination" the top of the first main page read. It then gave a summary of how this job compared to his current one. Shen noted a few words: "higher risk, benefits, compensation." A higher risk would mean his job would be more interesting, and he could certainly use a pay increase. He saw it as a win win situation. As the waitress returned with his tea, Shen nodded his thanks, handing the waitress a few yuans for payment, and proceeded to flip to the next page. Woah. Salary: 35.00 yuans an hour. That was quite a step up from the 15 he made now. If the excitement the job was sure to hold wasn't enough to convince him, the pay most certainly was. Skimming through the last page, Shen came to the personal registration form.

Name: Shen LeMieux

Age: 22

Ethnicity: Mixed

Father ethnicity: South Western Earth Kingdom

Mother ethnicity: Southern Water Tribe

Eye color Blue

Hair color: Dark brown

Height: 5'-9"

Weight: 153lbs

Bending ability, list all that apply, sub-skills included: Earth, Metal, minor experience with lava.

Further inquiry will proceed if needed, welcome to the team.

With the forms looked through and filled out, Shen sat back and sipped on the tea that remained in his cup. Maybe the spirits really did reward those who tried to go about life the right way, either way, things were looking up for. Finishing his tea, Shen left the shop, and decided to take the long way home, as he did have some time to kill before seven o'clock tonight. Arriving back at his meagre apartment, Shen thought of what he should do.

"With this raise, I should be able to move out, find a better place. May as well start packing some things, anyway" Shen mumbled as he inserted the key to his abode, closing the door behind him. Grabbing the boxes he had used when he moved into the apartment, Shen started loading non essential items: extra sets of clothes, an old boomerang, some silverware sets (he rarely used these anyway), books, and the like. As Shen cleared out his wardrobe, he came to the last drawer. Opening the drawer, he frowned at the contents slightly. Gazing back at him were the empty sockets of his mask, on top of the neatly folded cloak and trench coat. He packed the former two in a smaller box, and marked it "Fragile, don't open.". Laying the trench coat on the bed, he examined the metal on the tails that made up the tail feathers for his former gliding apparatus. "I don't need that anymore, and it won't be too hard to remove.." Shen mused to himself as he metal bent the metallic feathers out of the coat. "May as well put them to good use." Bending the metal into one piece, taking care to make sure the feather weren't distinguishable anymore, he began to spread it into three sheets. One sheet, the biggest, he spread out in the main body area of the coat, and heated the edges, soldering it to the coat, and proceeding to to the same to the arms with the remaining metal. As Shen held up his coat, he was pleased with the result. The metal was hidden, and unrestrictive, but gave sufficient protection. Draping the coat on the sole chair that graced the combination kitchen, dining room, living space, and bedroom of his apartment, Shen started laying out a pair of jeans and a long sleeve black shirt as well. He didn't know what he was expected to wear, but he assumed as a detective it wouldn't be a normal cop uniform. He would wear his trench over the uniform on the way, but pack the extra set in his satchel and take it with him. Always good to be prepared. With about six hours left to kill, Shen decided a small nap wouldn't hurt anything, and laid down, excitement still buzzing in his stomach.

o0o

Shen woke up at 5:30, and stepped into his faulty shower for the second time that day, a good first impression would help, and cleanliness wouldn't hurt. Dressing in a spare uniform, throwing on his trench coat, and grabbing his satchel, he made sure his wallet and badge case were in his pockets, and set out the door.

He stopped by Narook's on his way down the street, and used his coupon to get some takeout, slurping the noodles as he walked to the waterfront storage district where he was supposed to meet Chief Bei Fong.

"Slurp- let's see here" Shen talked to himself, slurping his noodle, and earning strange looks from workers heading the opposite direction on their way home from their daily shifts "161, 162, ah here we go, 163 Bosco Blvd." Shen stopped in front of the smaller sized, what appeared to be, warehouse. Taking out his pocket watch, he noted the time: 6:57. Better early than late. No sooner than he had rapped on the main door once, it was pulled open by a woman looking to be in her late twenties.

"Whadaya want kid?" She damanded if Shen, giving him a scouring look

Slurping up the noodle her was in the process of eating, Shen replied "umm... I'm ah.. Shen? New detective. Chief Bei Fong asked me to meet her here?"

"Hmm, I expected you to look a bit more, I dunno, professional. Whatever, come on if I suppose." The woman led Shen I to the building, past the main desk where another person, a young man with tight cropped black hair and glasses shuffled papers and typed on a type writer. "That's Rillou, me and him are head of intelligence and information processing. I'm Lily, by the way."

"Pleased to meet you then, Lily." Shen replied, trying to be polite. Lily gave a short snort in reply. She led Shen to what looked to be an office and nodded to the door, motioning for him to go inside.

"Chief should be here in a bit." Lily informed him,and shut the door. Looking further into the office, he noticed it was a much bigger room than he expected. It had two desks, one empty, and one scattered with papers and personal items. The empty one was directly in Front of the door with a blank concrete wall behind it, while the other desk was situated on the far side of the room in a corner, an artificial waterfall with the water tribe insignia engraved in the wall behind it decorated one part of the wall behind the desk, while the other wall of the corner bore old propaganda posters supporting the south, back from the civil war. On the far side of the room opposite the desks, there was a workbench and what appeared to be a few training dummies and a punching bag, along with a large sofa and a small refrigerator.

"Hey there kid" Lin greeted Shen with a smirk, as she opened the door and entered. "I take it you accepted the offer then?"

Shen nodded and pulled the stack of papers from his satchel and handed them to the chief how could I not? It's almost too good to be true." Shen agreed, grinning.

"I'm glad you find it suitable," Lin replied with a smirk, "I'll get these papers from processing asap, I find it'd be better to let your new partner explain things to you, and show you the ropes. Have a good night." before Shen could ask questions, Lin exited the room, rubbing shoulders with the girl coming in.

"Oh!" The girl said, slightly surprised at seeing Shen "They told me my new partner was coming in, but they said he was a metal bender, not another water bender."

"I am a metal bender..." Shen started.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I just assumed, you know,., the eyes?" The girl motioned up towards her bright cerulean eyes, then back at Shen's darker sapphire ones.

"Oh no, it's no problem, my moms water tribe." Shen explained, taking in the appearance of the girl before him. She looked to be about his age, give or take a year or so. A few inches shorter than him, she was undeniably water tribe with her black hair in traditional water tribe ponytail and side... thingies. Shen didn't really know the right word. What was striking about her though, was even though she was water tribe, her skin was extremely pale, making her eyes stand out even more. Her build was lean, but not unattractive in any way.

"You gonna stare at me some more, or shall we get started with the tour?" She jested at the new detective.

"oh, I'm so sorry" Shen apologised, blushing at the failure to rebuke his instinct to observe new people.

"Haha, I'm only joking. I'm Katsanna, by the way. You can call me Kat though, my full name is a mouthful, and Kat sounds better anyway." The girl , leading Shen out the door. "Okay, so that room there is our office, were the skill and info gathering division. Basically we're the sneaky spy people. I'm told your skills suit that?"

Shen nodded, trying to push thoughts of his past from his mind

"Good, can't wait to see them," Kat nodded with a smile, "back to the tour then" she led Shen over to another office entrance, across the main lounge area from their office. Shen could here what sounded like a sparring match going on. Lots of grunts. "This is Snifou and Zamron's office, they're the strength department. Basically when we nee to send someone in who spikes the need to be especially quiet or careful, they go in to bash some heads. Snifou's an earth bender, but he's a big softy, and Zamron's the best lightning rod you'll ever meet. Don't tell either of them I said that." Kat proceeded to point to the front area he came in from. "Up there is Rillou and Lily, they do intelligence and info processing. Basically, they put the Intel we get to good use. Our whole setup here is that we work as a team, all aspects of a larger force covered by our six, in elite form. When we find a lead, we go in and then the rest of the force or detectives back us up if we really need them. Most of the time we don't" she ended with a smirk. "Any questions?"

"No, not really. I suppose I'll figure most of it out when I actually do stuff" Shen replied

"That's the spirit. Our shifts take place at night most of the time, and end in the early morining, around four or five, depends what we're doing. With weekends off if we aren't doing a big raid, our job mostly consists of gathering Intel at bars and stuff. And when that's not happening, we're going undercover of infiltrating triads and the like. It's pretty fun, to be honest." Kat explained the finer details, walking Shen back to their office. "Tonight I gotta finish up some paperwork from the last case I did, and after that we'll head out. Feel free to train or crash in the couch or whatever. Oh, Bei Fong also mentioned that there's some scrap metal in our garage, that was the big back door in the lounge. You could use those to liven up your side of our space, or fiddle with it at the workbench. Just, occupy yourself until I'm done, I'll try to be quick, kay?"

"Yeah, I'll try not to break anything" Shen replied with a smirk, feeling better and better about this whole thing.

o0o

Authors note: so, how was it? Next chapter, Shen gets on the job, proper! Leave a review, and as always, have a great day guys, thanks for reading!