A/N: Yes! Finally finished this chapter. Whew! This chapter was actually quite longer but I had to cut it short so you might find the ending a bit lacking in detail. But no worries, the next chapter will contain all the nitty gritty details. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own A:TLA or LoK

Chapter Nine: The Champion's Daughter - Part 2

"That's it! Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the winners" – there was a huge intake of breath – "TEAM CLAAAAAAASH!"

The stadium erupted with screams of delight, screams of disappointment and just plain screaming in general to plug in the intervals. With everyone on their feet, Iriah stood up as well. Her height proved useful at times like this. She could easily see above the heads in front of her and she clapped her now free hands until they were sore, whooping and cheering as Team Clash, her father in the middle, bowed to the audience.

After the enthusiastic crowd had exhausted their windpipes, a mat was brought out for the winning team to stand on during the awards ceremony. Iriah watched in delight as her father took his place in the middle, grinning broadly up at the stands and, like always, pinpointing his only daughter in the sea of faces as though she were the only source of light inside a pitch-black cave.

Confetti rained down from the ceiling as three women wearing skimpy dresses (the male crowd did not fail to notice this) each carrying a golden champion belt over her head. Iriah had become so used to seeing her father's belt at home that she knew what it looked like without binoculars. Each belt was woven from finely spun black silk. In the middle there was a thin plate of gold crafted by one of best metalbender goldsmiths in the city. This gold plate was embossed with the shield of pro bending: the head of a roaring lion-turtle surrounded by the symbols of bending, all except for air. For each bender, the lion-turtle's open jaw held a different colored stone; ruby for fire, emerald for earth, and sapphire for water. Iriah watched as the belts were presented to Team Clash. Her father reclaimed his belt, smiled triumphantly and held it high over his head as the thunderous cheers of the spectators rained down on the arena.

Iriah walked alongside her father in cool night air, laughing as they discussed the match which had ended nearly an hour ago. In the darkness, any passersby would see them as just an ordinary father and daughter on a nighttime stroll. In his casual attire and hat, Iriah's father looked less like a pro bending champion and more like a regular everyday dad.

"I thought you were a goner when that ice spear hit you!" Iriah exclaimed, demonstrating a missile stabbing her shoulder with one hand and staggering around in exaggerated pain. "You nearly lost your balance, and then Boulder III would've nailed you."

Her father laughed the sound reverberating around the empty street. Iriah could no longer hear the chaotic noise of the stadium.

"I was not a goner, Iriah, far from it," her father chuckled, clapping a hand on her shoulder. Iriah didn't mention it but she liked the feeling of his hand on her shoulder. There weren't many people who could reach her shoulder anymore now that she was almost her father's height. Her father continued robustly, "I saw Washu's ice spear before he threw it."

"Oh, is that why you got hit?" Iriah teased him, nudging him in the shoulder. He winced but pretended to groan with indignity.

"Well, I couldn't make it look too easy, kiddo. Where's the showmanship in that? You've gotta give the crowd something to yell about, some pizzazz, you know?" Iriah's father shot a miniature fireworks display from his fingertip as he pointed it into the sky. They stood there in silence enjoying the pretty lights flickering in the dark alley they were now in.

"Well, well, well… what do we have here, eh?" A creepy voice slithered like a snake from the shadows. Iriah jumped slightly as her father turned around to see who had spoken. The alley was plunged into darkness as the fireworks overhead fizzled out.

Iriah's father, moving forward, called out into the pitch-black alley. "Who's there? Show yourself." With a flick of his wrist, a warm ball of flame appeared nestled in the palm of his outstretched hand. The light illuminated the closed shops on either side of them but there was no sign of life anywhere. Bewildered, Iriah watched as her father looked up and down the alley, his light shifted their shadows as it moved.

After an intense moment that felt like a day and a half to Iriah, her father turned to look at her with a quizzical expression on his face.

"Well," he said, clearly confused. "I guess we should get out of-"

Iriah shrieked as something heavy came down on her father's head from behind with a loud crack. It knocked him to the ground, extinguishing his light. In the renewed darkness, Iriah couldn't see anything as heavy thuds, like sacks of sand being thrown down from the shop roofs, rained down around her along with the hoarse grunts of men, and another grunt of pain from her father.

"DAD!" she shrieked, darting forward to release her own firepower. To her horror, her arms refused to move. She barely had time to recognize that someone had punched her shoulders from behind before a quick jab to her knee caused her legs to buckle beneath her. She sat like a two-year-old in the darkness, unable to move her arms or legs.

Without warning, the alleyway was bright again. For the split second that it took for Iriah's eyes to adjust to the light, she thought it was her father's. She quickly realized it was not her father's light and was mortified to see half a dozen men dressed head to toe in black and wearing black, two of them holding her kneeling father by the arm, the rest carrying lanterns.

"Let go of him!" she cried, shaken by the sight of her father's face. His nose was bloody and a sizeable bruise was rising on his cheek. His hat was lying crumpled and misshapen where it had fallen. Iriah had seen her father in worse condition after a particularly harrying pro bending match but she had never seen him surrounded by thugs and looking as limp as a rag doll.

It took Iriah a few moments to realize that there was someone standing right behind her. Incredibly, she found that she was unable to turn her head around. Swallowing shallow gulps of the cool night air, Iriah sat in the alleyway, surrounded by black-clothed assailants, her eyes fixed on her limp father's form. Though the rest of his body appeared to be paralyzed from the neck down, his dark eyes were wide and alive, mirroring some of the panic welling up inside of his daughter.

"Sorry we had to drag you into this, sweetheart. We didn't know scumbags like your old man here could breed…" The serpent-like voice Iriah had heard earlier from the shadows spoke in her ear and, though Iriah could no sooner turn around to face the man than transform into a horse radish, she imagined his face to be that of a two-headed rat viper. The man continued, "So sorry you had to see this."

There was a scraping noise and a hand stretched out from behind Iriah, a hand gripping a sharp blade. Iriah held her breath as the man angled the point of the dagger at her carotid artery, drawing it dangerously close. Trying not to cry or scream in front of her immobile father, Iriah kept her eyes open but could not look away from the ornate handle of what was perhaps the last thing she would ever witness.

"Sshtttmmmpphh!"

Everyone, including the hand holding the dagger, froze at the noise. To Iriah's relief, her father was moving, his arms twitching and flailing awkwardly like a trout flopping around on the ground, his lips twitching, his face contorting as he attempted to speak.

"SSHHTTTMMMFFFF!" He cried through uncooperative lips, his eyes furious and glaring.

After a moment's stunned silence, the man behind Iriah roared with laughter, a terrible crow of mirth which Iriah sincerely hoped was loud enough to draw attention. But the alley was quite empty apart from their assailants.

"Look at that, lads!" the man laughed, still holding the knife to his captive's neck. "He still has some fight left in him! Let's see what this pretentious freak has to say." Pointing with his free hand, he signaled to the masked man on the far left. The masked figure stepped over to her father and, with a carefully placed jab of forefinger and middle finger near the base of his victim's neck, her father's voice seemed to fly back into his mouth. He began to curse and shout, demanding that his daughter be released.

"Shut it, you!" Iriah's captor kicked her in the back. With a cry, she nearly fell forward on her face with no arms to break her fall. "Now, you behave like a good little boy or my hand might just slip." The blade of the dagger dug dangerously close Iriah's flesh.

"Please, I'll do anything! Just let her go!" Her father pleaded.

The man laughed again, a coarse bark that reverberated around the empty alley. His accomplices joined in before the man snapped at them to shut up.

"Yes, you will do anything, that I can assure you," the man drawled, pointing the dagger tip at Iriah's father. "Because I definitely wouldn't want to shed an innocent girl's blood, you know." There was a moment's pause before he asked in a sneaky mock-whisper, "You are an innocent girl, aren't you, sweetheart?"

Before Iriah could retort in a mixture of Firebender slang and choice curse words, her father cried out hoarsely, "She's a non-bender! Don't touch her!"

This bewildering statement silenced Iriah before she could verbally abuse her captor but their assailants, no longer laughing, seemed to be taking this false statement to heart.

"Well then…" the man behind Iriah said softly after a moment's pause, his snake-like voice thoughtful. "That changes things, doesn't it?"

A/N: That was my first ever two-part chapter^^ I'll be back with chapter 11 soon! :D