Disclaimer: I do not own The Legend of Korra and I do not claim so.
Chapter 2: 'First steps' (part 2)
A single car appeared and closed to the shop on her right, where phonographs were sold. An old man was sitting at a table in front of it and cleaning his merchandise, when he saw it. Korra needed no bending to notice man stiffening with fear.
Satomobile stopped and three men got out of it. They had a nasty aura around them, the type of which was able to piss Korra of in the matter of seconds. Before they even started talking with a scared man she was already walking in their direction, ordering Naga to stay at place with a single, commanding gesture.
"Mister Chung, please tell me that you have my money, or else I can't guarantee I can still protect your fine establishment," said the man with a bluish coat and hat, not very discretely pointing at his comrades, as one of them firebent in threating gesture. There were three of them in total and Korra knew that they could be a challenge, if she were to fight them. And she were to fight them.
"I'm sorry," the old man replied with a trembling voice. "Business has been slow. P… please, take one of my phonographs instead."
He reached his hands with one of devices, when fire bender suddenly kicked it out of his hold. Phonograph hit the ground and crashed into pieces.
"My friend here is not a music lover," a man with the coat smiled wickedly and his eyes became colder. "Give me my money or else… "
"Or else what, hoodlum?" Korra asked stepping into the scene.
Three men turned and looked at her surprised, and when they saw, that the one who interrupted them was only one girl, they suddenly started to laugh. Man in the middle even facepalmed a little bit, before looking her into eyes with terrifying gaze.
"Since you're obviously fresh off the boat, let me explain a couple things. You are in Triple Threat Triad's territory and we are about to put you in a hospital."
He expected threat to deter the girl, but Korra didn't really pay attention to what he was saying. Instead she took a deep breath and quickly looked around herself, remembering every detail of her surroundings.
"What do you think you are doing?" man asked coldly, surprised with girl ignoring him. The Avatar didn't even hear his question, because…
Korra was standing in an irregular ring, where she would fight with a Shailesh for a training. She has done that multiple times already, and despite throwing literally everything she had at him, be it a wave of fire, watery spikes, or boulders, she has never been able to hit him. Not even once. And now the exercise was to get even harder.
Line of the ring was normally marked only by border the ground, which Katara has removed snow from, but today something was different. Icy wall was surrounding fighters, thin as a paper sheet, and shaped in slightly irregular circle.
"What is this?" Korra asked dumbfounded. She raised her head to look at the Katara that was, in some impossible way, keeping her balance, while standing on the wall.
"An upgraded fighting simulation," Shailesh was always ready to answer any of her questions. "Starting today, we change the formula."
"How so?" Korra asked suspiciously. Changes in curriculum has never made any exercise easier.
"Oh, it is a fairly simple modification," Katara smiled in a way that Korra hated. This kind woman was a ruthless master too. "Rules are pretty much the same. You hit Shailesh once, you win. There is one more handicap, though. If ice wall melts or is crashed, by any of you, you lose."
"WHAT!?" Korra shouted. "That is unfair!"
"Oh really?" Shailesh's smile was even wider than normal.
Three thugs have lost theirs patience.
"Show her, that one does not fuck with Triple Threat without consequences," a man with the bluish coat waved his hand and bent water from the tank hidden under his clothes, forming it into a bullet, that he shot in Korra's direction.
An icy wall in girl's head rose from the ground, separating her and thugs from the rest of the world, fitting into the length of the street, covering the crowd and particularly thin in the direction of children, that where standing to her right.
She looked at the watery bullet, that moved in her direction pathetically slow in comparison to Katara's ones.
"Rule number one of multi-bending encounters." Honna's voice sounded in her head.
Korra bent the missile around her left hand and redirected it at firebender's belly. Man didn't have time to dodge and blocked it with his hands and a little bit of fire, but strike's impact almost folded him in half anyway.
"You should always be attacking with the element, that given enemy cannot bend."
Waterbender was so surprised with the swift counterattack, that he just stood there speechless. Earthbender, however, did not. He stamped heavily and a chunk of earth and concrete raised from the ground. With a hit of his fist he sent it flying at Korra.
"Always use momentum to your advantage!" Shailesh sounded amused as always, when he danced between Korra's furious streams of fire, water and earth mixed together, somehow finding time to hit her back.
The girl managed to catch the missile and redirected it around her with pirouette. She threw it back at the low altitude, hitting waterbender's legs and tripping him.
"Did she just earthbend and waterbend?!" somebody from the crowd shouted.
"Like hell I did!" Korra smiled at them widely, feeling adrenaline rushing through her blood, as their gazes filled with understanding and amazement.
"Being smug does not befit the…"
"Oh, fuck off!"
But the moment she turned her head was enough for the last thug standing to make the most logical move that was left for him. He slid his feet, entering Tree stance and threw massive block of earth in the air right above the crowd.
Korra would start to panic, if she had time for that. Her icy wall was about to be shattered. She jumped into the air, propelling herself with two streams of fire and crushed with the missile, embracing it. She gathered all chi she could muster and forced chunk to slowly float down with her attached to it.
"Move! Make some room for her to land," somebody shouted, earning Korra's eternal gratitude. People spread and she landed between counters, gently placing boulder on the ground.
Crowd started cheering and Korra straightened, embracing their admiration with pleasure. She got even more pompous when two men on her left have started to take pictures of her. She was about to pose for them, but suddenly they all heard a Satomobile starting violently - the thugs were using this distraction to escape.
"Not on my watch!" Korra shouted, once again calling elements for help. This time she took off into air using two pillars of earth that suddenly emerged from the ground. When she was high enough for her flames to not reach people under her, the girl created two streams of fire that pushed her in direction of fleeing enemies. When she got above the street, the Avatar released her firebending and fell down. Using momentum of the decline she hit the road heavily, instantly entering Mountain stance. The walls of earth rose from the street, blocking the car from the front and sides. Satomobile stopped abruptly and when it did Korra moved the walls closer, blocking thugs inside.
Suddenly she heard a howling alarm and an enormous shadow covered the street. Korra raised her head and she saw a massive aircraft, which the sound was coming from. A bunch of ropes fell down from the holes in the vehicle and a party of uniformed people slid down on them.
"Metalbending police." Korra thought excited, but then something occurred to her. "Wait, am I in trouble?"
Orders, shouted out with a commanding voice, filled the air, and newly arrived split themselves into two groups. The more numerous one approached the trapped Satomobile quickly. They destroyed the walls, that Korra created and chained thugs, that were inside. The other few men quickly approached her, with their posture stiff and looks hard. The one that was giving orders and looked like a commander, closed to her and said coldly:
"You will come with us, young lady."
Korra was unpleasantly surprised with his words, since from her point of view, she has just saved the people gathered around here. The girl was already opening her mouth to protest, when Honna's voice sounded in her head:
"You will gain the right to oppose the authorities, when you will earn the authority of your own!"
The Avatar sighed quietly and reluctantly reached out her hands accepting the fact of her arrest, when voice of shop owner sounded in the air:
"Hey, what are you doing to her?" he shouted elbowing metalbenders, fighting his way to the girl and stood in front of her with arms spread, earning sharp looks from policemen. "She has only tried to help!"
"Yeah! What the hell? She's the Avatar!" one of the children threatened them with fist.
"Yeee!"
"Stay away from her!"
Metalbenders got startled a little bit, when crowd started to protest enthusiastically. The commander looked around, confused, when Korra decided to come to his aid. She pushed shopkeeper gently aside and she waved her hand at the crowd and they have more or less quietened. The Avatar bowed to policeman, much to his surprise.
"I will go with you, commander," Korra smiled at him. "Just take my polar bear dog too. Naga!"
"Polar bear…" metalbender silenced when he saw a massive body of Naga, that up to this time was just standing where Korra left her, perfectly calm about her master's safety and now was slowly coming to them, licking her muzzle.
Korra was sitting in one of the two chairs in the cold, metal room. Aside from them, it had only one table in the middle, between her and policeman. While she was not handcuffed the interrogation room made her feel uneasy anyway. She was describing the events of this afternoon to the man, that, kind of, arrested her, trying to be as detailed as she could. And judging by his facial expression, the girl felt as if she had chance to get out of this situation fairly unscathed and that made her very relieved.
Outside of the room two guards suddenly felt a vibrations of metal under their feet. Vibrations that indicated the appearance of the very, very angry chief. Doors to the rest of the complex has opened suddenly, so quickly that they almost bent and Lin Beifong entered the room. She radiated such a terrifying aura that two men were almost too scarred to salute. Without a single word the imposing woman walked up to the entrance of the interrogation room and knocked rapidly.
"What do you…?" irritated voice came from the room, but Lin interrupted it.
"Commander Pang! To me, immediately!" nobody in the right mind would disobey this order, not when her voice sounded like the hit of her metal whip.
"Yes, ma'am," weakish voice replied her and a second later the man emerged from the door. He saluted quickly and stood upright right in front of her.
"Can you, please, explain me, why is the Avatar herself in one of our interrogation rooms?" Beifong was almost hissing. The man looked pitiful, when tried his best to be as little as possible. "Have you thought how will the White Lotus react to that? Or how will the headers look like tomorrow, if press gets a wind of this? Oh I can just see them…," she waved her hand in the air as if she was moving something. " 'Police arrests the Avatar for helping citizens. Outrageous!' "
"I… I will release her immediately, chief," man tried to retain leftovers of his honor and quickly take action that would ease Beifong's fury.
"No," she replied quickly. " Just bring her to my office in about ten minutes. I need to make a call."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Korra, who could easily overhear this conversation, smiled internally.
" Avatar helping citizens, " she thought. "I like the sound of that…"
On the South Pole three masters were sitting in the dining room, now stripped from decorations. They were pouring themselves Honna's favorite tea, legendary both for its supreme taste and ridiculously long preparation time.
Shailesh took his cup in hands and warmed his palms with it. The air in the room was getting colder and colder, since the fire in furnaces was already blown out and he was deeply grateful for Honna's yellow flames that were surrounding the table.
The atmosphere among these three was pretty gloomy, as it was likely the last such a tea party for a very long time. Katara wanted to visit the North Pole, Honna had her holidays on Fire Nation's archipelagoes planned already, and Shailesh was going to visit his homeland at southern part of Earth Kingdom. Literally three ends of the world.
Earthbender took a sip and his grim thoughts left him for a second as incredible, herbal taste filled his mouth. He noted similar reactions on his friends faces, but as none of them said anything, he decided to brighten the mood with a joke.
"How long do you think it will take her to blurt out her Avatarness to the entire city?" he asked cheerfully, looking at his two older friends.
"Pfff...," Katara smiled widely over her cup "I would bet one week, no more."
"Week?" Honna laughed. "I wouldn't be surprised if she just yelled it out to everybody in harbor, the second she arrives."
All three giggled, imagining this scene, what was notably not that hard. And then Shailesh quietened, realizing something.
"Ladies," he started slowly "Have any of you sent the letter to Tenzin about Korra leaving?"
They looked at each other, their faces expressing surprise as the answer didn't come. Earthbender's normal smirk appeared on his face and he took another sip before saying:
"Ooopsss…"
Republic City welcomes you and our new Avatar. Hopefully, it was an enjoyable first meeting.
Leave a review, if you feel like it, and have a good rest of the day.