-Oni—
The Docks on Light

Agni Kais

Got it

l-l

Kenji waited in the large shipping yard, talking over the radio. "Sabo said Light Street. It's the docks, you idiots. I pointed it out on the map. Hurry your asses over here."

Kenji waited in his dark blue suit next to his old-fashioned satomobile in the center of the giant maze created by the arrangement of cargo holding boxes. It was an enormous dock. A tall ship waited in the water that was in the process of being loaded, but it was late at night and no one would be there. Kenji leaned against the outside of a large warehouse which contained more of these cargo holds. The warehouse was dimly lit. A small path to drive on through it.

Within a few minutes several other members of the Agni Kais showed up. They drove through the warehouse to the other side where Kenji waited and parked their cars outside next to his. All of them armed with semi-automatic weapons. "If you can still bend, if anything goes wrong, use your bending first. We might need our guns later if things turn ugly. This place will be perfect. These walls of cargo will occlude our activities."

Kenji got on the phone with Sabo, reassuring him that so far everything was going according to plan. "So far," Sabo repeated back to him.

Bright headlights turned to face them from the other side of the warehouse. A van drove underneath the cranes and through the building before it got to Kenji's men. Two men in suits stepped out.

"Evening gentlemen," they greeted. "Ex-members of the Red Monsoons, at your service." Mercenaries. The driver said, "You have nothing to fear. We have no sides, no old ties exist. We work for whoever pays, and today that is you guys."

Kenji shook hands with the mercenaries. The driver smiled slyly, but Kenji concluded that that was just his normal demeanor. "Let me show you Agni Kais what we got here." The mercenary opened the back of his van. In it were a large black box and a man tied-up and gagged.

The box and the captive were taken out. Kenji and the mercenaries walked together into the warehouse toward the center. One other man carried a chair and handcuffs, while everyone else present kept an eye out for anything that would threaten the meeting. Once at the center, the Agni Kai placed the chair on the ground in the pathway. The captive was placed in it and handcuffed to the chair's arms. The mercenaries showed their guns as Kenji looked in the box and acknowledged to his fellow mobsters that this was indeed the stuff they had come here for.

The mercenary smiled. "Pure Clasma. Everything you will need. We are quality. Now that we work for money and not for family, we make sure we only deliver the best. And no scum like Graft has his filthy hands in our business. Keeping things underground seems to be the only way to get anything done."

"Hmph, yes, it seems that things will have to be done about that when the time comes. We do not concern ourselves with that now. We only look out for our family, which still exists" Kenji said, directing it at the mercenary.

The mercenary detected this passive insult, but let it go for fear that the payment would be compromised. "Yeah, well, you never know when his long hand is going to grab you by the foot," the mercenary replied. They both looked at the captive in the chair. A young man, sweating profusely, looking scared. The mercenary pointed guns at him while Kenji removed the object gagging him, as well as his blindfold. The captive was crying now. Scared.

Kenji lightly grabbed him by his chin to get his attention. "I will be quite frank with you. If you cooperate, we will cooperate. Do not give us any reason to kill you, because we have men who will not feel any regret doing so. You are trash to us, so if you want to keep living just tell us what we need to know."

"P-p-please," the man stuttered, too much fear in him to speak straight, "I don't know anything…"

"I don't think that is true. We can get something useful out of you. Over the last couple weeks several shipments of Clasma were intercepted by someone. Many of our men were injured. They were attacked by a saboteur. The Clasma was gone. What do you know about this?"

The man continued to cry and didn't answer. His breathing became more unstable.

The men loaded their guns. "Fine, no big deal, how about this: late last week, a similar event occurred. Several of our cars as well as our rival family's cars were completely totaled. Just flipped over while they were driving down a city street. They described a similar attacker. One person who was able to take down over fifteen Agni Kais and Triple Threats alone. No guns. This saboteur moved in a way no human could. He was untouched."

The captives tears kept coming, but he was no longer sobbing. His breathing slowed.

"Two nights later," Kenji continued on through the man's silence, "the parking garage at marketplace, the abandoned one¸ the same attacker found us there. Our men could not walk after he was done with them. Every time, the Clasma we were transporting was stolen. This saboteur always knew where to find us. But you, your filth of Pratt Street, began to give this destructive force a name: Oni."

"No, I-I…why me? Why would I know…?"

"Why do I ask you this?" Kenji was getting frustrated. "Two days ago a car chase occurred. Our men escaped the Triple Threats but were rammed by an oncoming vehicle. The one who stepped out of the vehicle was a fiend just like you. This saboteur is from Pratt Street, just like you. Oni, as you call him. He took our clasma and was off. But that was not all. This time, he killed our men. Left them dead. If you can't tell me about this fiend, you'd better give me a manual about how one uses Clasma, then. You have to owe something for the crimes your people have been committing to my family." The Agni Kais encircled the captive in the chair as he breathed louder and louder, trying to speak.

"Okay Okay," the fiend breathed, trying to keep his level of fear to a minimum so he could speak without stuttering. "I…I know of the one…the last event…they call him Steel. He was a fiend, but…one day he became so powerful. He could walk…he led himself out of Pratt Street and wanted to…kill everybody. He wanted to…find more…"

"More Clasma?" Kenji yelled. "You fiends know how to use it. You will tell me."

"I…I'm not sure. I don't think I know what it is. He just became so different. He needed more, though. He needed it. Other people I know found some, too. Some went crazy because of it, but people look to Steel as an idol. As the one who was saved by it. He is the one who hit your men's car. I'm sure of it." The fiend was hoping this was enough information to keep his life.

"You have taken this before I know you have! Your face retains effects overdosing, of a once useless life and I bet Clasma was part of that life at some point. Tell me what I need to know about it!"

"I don't know anything! I just know it's dangerous. It's dangerous and you should stay away from it."

Kenji laughed.

"Please," the fiend said, "I am trying to get things back together. Please just let me go. I have a job now. This life, it was my old life. I've moved on. I think I, I know who I am now. Whatever I knew about this stuff, my m-m-memory of it is gone. It's taken m-m-me so long to figure myself out. I-I am better."

"Because of the Clasma!" Kenji yelled.

"No! I don't remember anything about it! I'm sure I never used it."

Kenji slapped the man then turned to pace, letting his anger dissolve. He rubbed his head, trying to figure out what to do. Pratt Street was getting their filthy hands on his Clasma and overdosing. Whoever this Steel guy was, he was the one they needed to stop. Then the Clasma would be all theirs.

The man in the chair broke the silence. His voice took on a more serious tone, "Steel…he was the one responsible for the event two nights ago, but he is not the vigilante they call Oni. She is something else."

Kenji turned around. Interested again. "Who is Oni?"

"That," the man spoke, "is what we are trying to figure out, too." He said no more.

Kenji shook his head. "The man is worthless. He has not helped us."

"You want me to kill him?" the mercenary asked. Kenji looked down to think.

"There is nothing more he can do for us," Kenji concluded. He looked up. He was about to say something more but was stopped. The Agni Kais had formed a circle around the fiend. What Kenji saw on the opposite side of this circle was a young woman in dark blue clothes and a hood over her head, completely veiling her face.

She's no Agni Kai.

The mercenary took no notice. "Well, that is good enough for me. Say goodnight, pal" he cocked his gun and was ready to blow the man's head off when suddenly two throwing stars cut right through his rifle, continued on and implanted themselves in Kenji's legs.

The mercenary's gun fell to the ground, and Kenji fell with them. Kenji watched from the ground as the girl he had seen unsheathed two short blades and began cutting down the Agni Kais around the circle. One by one she swiftly dodged their firebending and gunfire and cut them in their arms and legs so they could no longer shoot or stand. She sensed the muscles tensing in the men's arms as they prepared to firebend, and she knew exactly the direction the flame would take. She sensed the fingers clenched around the handle of the gun, the bullet being loaded. She knew exactly where the bullet would go an instant before the gun was shot, and that was all she needed to avoid it. She made her way around the circle. During the slaughter, an Agni Kai snatched the box with the Clasma and ran for the van.

No one was left standing. Their legs could no longer support them. They lied unconscious. The fiend opened his eyes to see his captors sprawled on the ground. Before him stood the tall, dark-skinned woman. She looked to the Agni Kai who had cowardly escaped. He had run to the van and was driving it through the warehouse right toward her and the fiend. The girl jumped to the side of the car, just out of its way at the last instant, and uppercut it with her blades. The car flipped over the fiend and landed upside down. She then quickly stole the box containing the contraband and fled the scene, as did the surviving fiend.

Kenji lied in pain and heard the sounds of sirens as he slid into unconsciousness.

"Oni."