...

Xiaobao and his fellow newly minted neighborhood watchman crept through the dark towards the entrance to Miohuito's train-yard. Beside him, Li was swaying back and forth slightly with nervous energy as they paused for a moment outside the compound gate. It had been several minutes now since they'd seen the shadowy figures force their way inside. Through a tiny gap in the newly open gate Xiaobao saw several people moving inside the yard. The beam of the vandals' hooded lantern flicked around as it washed over vague shapes of steel and iron in front of long factory buildings.

Xiaobao turned to Li. "It's ok. Chouyu is going to get that help we sent him for soon enough. And what are these guys going to do in the meantime, smash some windows? Not really a big deal. I don't think there's more than five of them or so. Worst comes, they start a fire and then hightail it. We can start yelling for a bucket line in an instant and stop it before it spreads."

Li nodded nervously and stayed by Xiaobao's side. Now all Xiaobao needed to do was reassure himself.

He groaned as he caught sight of a new flickering orange light spilling out through the cracks in the gate. They were lighting fires. Those damn Lower Ring citizens really didn't care if the whole of Kuang Harbor burnt down. Then he heard the sound of running footsteps smacking faintly on the street behind him. Xiaobao turned to see Chouyu returning with five longshoremen from another of the ad-hoc watch posts. Chouyu was panting as he came up to Xioabao and Li but he too recognized that orange light from inside the train-yard soon enough.

He whispered loudly enough to make Xiaobao wince. "Oh damn it. Not more fires!"

Xiabao turned back. No one had exited the train-yard yet. Those fools must be sticking around to maximize the damage of their arson. Well, that meant he had no choice. Xiaobao straightened up and squared his shoulders. The other men saw him retrieve the empty bottle from where it was tucked in his belt and they at once both sighed in resignation and bristled in building machismo. They were all dock workers and were used to moving crates heavy enough to crush an unwary man in a second. Any warren-dwelling citizen from the rings would look twice at eight such men coming at them out of the dark. None of them had high hopes for the city guards being any help on a festival night and if they did the government might well consider flattening six blocks of houses in this neighborhood to be an acceptable loss to contain a fire. No, this was a job for local men.

Xiaobao smiled faintly that he didn't have to say a single word to psych these men into preparing for action. Everyone in the Harbor had heard of those Lower Ring fires that seemed to be springing up every day this last week. Whether all that was weather or crime or something else, no one wanted that kind of thing here even if they didn't believe the other rumors of the fire being magical. Well, Xiaobao thought that he didn't believe, but Ayika had been saying some strange things lately. In a dark night like this he remembered years long past, when he was a kid and listened to his friend's old grandmother cackling in her foreign language as she prepared Water Tribe rituals and charms, marching across the Bed as she claimed to do battle with some spirit or another. And now Ayika herself was starting to talk in the same manner; of spirit crimes and growing power.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. There were men here counting on him and there was a job to do. Trying to project confidence he didn't feel, Xiaobao strode forward and put one large calloused hand on the train-yard gate. It was unlocked now. Well, there was no going back now. He pushed it open with enough force that it banged against the compound wall and started swinging back closed again.

As Xiaobao stepped through the gateway he puffed out his chest and yelled into the night. "All right, you bastards! We don't know who you are and we don't really care, but now you're starting fires so you lot've got about one gull's flap to get out of here before we let you know just what kind of lads live down here! If I were you I would take advantage of this generous offer!"

The interior of Mister Miohuito's train compound was primarily composed of two large warehouses or factories and a number of small outbuildings scattered around an open yard filled with piles of long metal bars and shadowed hulks of unidentifiable machinery. One of those smaller overseer's huts, possibly housing some records, was already ablaze and by its light the dockworkers saw several men freeze in the open doorway to the main warehouse. These intruders were better dressed than the normal Lower Ring sort typically involved in random property destruction. That was more worrisome, these might be genuine politicals. Xiaobao made sure that the other longshoremen moved with him to not stand directly in front of the gate out. No matter how this played out they needed to provide the arsonists with a clear path of escape. There was nothing more dangerous than accidentally leaving a man no exit but through you.

One of the fire-starters swore loudly as he turned to call back into the cavernous building behind him.

"We've got company! Not government but there's a lot them!"

His companion stepped back out of the warehouse and said, "I don't like the looks of this. These louts look like business."

This just got a growl. "And yet you were the one who was against putting them on from the beginning."

"Have you tried yours recently? Something's gone wrong. It was... I felt dizzy and afterwards there were parts where I couldn't remember exactly what happened. I ended up somewhere in the Lower Ring I'd never seen. From what I've heard, the highest haven't used theirs in weeks; I don't think they know that something's changing in the magic."

"And did you think that this power we've been entrusted with would be easy? I'm not surprised that someone a weak as you is being found unworthy."

"But these days I can feel it watching me even from across the room, it-"

"Um, hey!" Xiaobao yelled to interrupt this conversation. The bickering men seemed to have forgotten that they were currently being menaced. "You all need to get out of here right now. We aren't buddies with the Islanders any more than the next guy but the city guards are already on their way so now's the time to make good choices." That could well have been a lie but these men didn't need to know that.

He took another breath and tried to make his voice sound mean. "And if you don't hurry out the greenies are going to find you with the favorite part of their job already done." Xiaobao smacked his bottle weapon on the palm of his other hand to emphasize his point. He hoped it didn't come to that. The stuff he'd just heard those men muttering made him uneasy. He was pretty sure he'd heard them say "magic".

Behind him several of the dockworkers had scrounged up improvised weapons in the form of what looked like a large pile of short metal belaying pins. They were either that or someone had required several hundred metal chisel spikes for something. In any case Xiaobao thought that the overall image he and his friends presented was more intimidating than these vandals were giving them credit for. He looked to his side and nodded to Li. He could see orange flickering light from inside that main warehouse. The one burning shed was safely contained by isolation in the yard but these men had already started other fires further inside the compound. This could get bad; who knew if Mihuito was storing oil or coal in there for his machines. The fire bells weren't ringing yet and Xiaobao had no idea if the guards would actually listen to Chouyu's message. He couldn't let these fires spread to the neighborhood.

Someone in Xiaobao's group took a step forward. The nearest vandal reached towards a satchel he had hanging at his side.

The mystery intruder growled to his comrade, "Well, I didn't join this thing to get my head caved in by some mud-sucking farm dwellers. We have our gods on our side! The power of true patriotism means none of us will risk arrest and these pitiful things will not even touch us. Nothing will interfere with our grand purpose!" He reached into that bag and drew forth a wooden mask.

Li laughed and it was only half nervousness. "Ha, these guys are cracked! Sure, get dressed up all you like! You're still going to find yourself face down in a canal!"

Xiaobao caught his hand on Li's shoulder. He'd seen those masks in action before. He'd seen men like that take down earthbenders. If those guys were here then this more serious than he'd thought. This wasn't looking good.

Still, he didn't need to fight them, just get them to leave. If they used some masks to do so quicker then more power to them. The two other vandals nervously drew forth their own masks, backlit from the growing fire within the warehouse. The longshoremen hesitated, inching closer together as they watched this demonstration. Then Xiaobao heard something land on top of the brick wall behind him. A small dark mass streaked through the night air and impacted one of the vandals, knocking the mask out of his hands with a gasp of pain. Xiaobao spun around and saw a single dark robed human figure perched on the lip of the train-yard wall behind the longshoremen. He recognized those scars across his cheeks; it was Ma'er. The rogue bender panted as he held his fist still extended from his earth projectile strike.

Xiaobao yelled out, "You! Seriously, are you following me?!"

Ma'er didn't respond. Instead he punched out again and a chunk of the wall exploded outwards to fly at the remaining arsonists. This time its primary target caught the projectile in his bare hand. A spray of dust blasted off the halted brick towards the man's face. However, those fragments now hit the Mask. Red wood snarled in a frozen grin above carved white fangs as bits of clay rattled off its surface. A dim yellow light gleamed in the eyeholes.

The other vandal stepped back and looked at the mask in his own hands. There was something that seemed like regret in his expression. Regret mixed with fear.

"Right. But only to complete our mission and get out of here without any casualties. We are the defenders of the people." The man was speaking only to himself as he raised the mask up to his face.

Xiaobao had seen these masks before but now something was different. Before, in the warehouse and on the Gaoli's the mask wearers had seemed stronger, faster, and more talented; as if each wooden artifact held hundreds of hours of training. However, tonight it was something more. As each man put on their mask a shudder washed over their entire bodies. Their heads hung forward like hunched beasts. Hands flexed open and closed in a constant patterns, the tendons standing out under the skin like taught ropes. Their masked heads whipped from side to side as if sensing some invisible presence in the air.

But those changes were not what made the neighborhood watch jump back. That was not what made Xiaobao regret all the decisions he'd made tonight, decisions that had placed these men, his friends, in danger. The magic of the Masks was now visible. A colored haze drifted around where the masks touched the vandal's skin. If shadows could have hue and be cast without light then it would be that which now lay across these men's figures. Then Xiaobao looked down at the real shadows that were cast long the ground by the growing fire in the warehouse. Those shadows no longer looked like those of men and they danced to the same strange rhythms of the fires which was now beginning to pulse with an unknown power.

"Colored shadows, like smoke." From his perch on the wall Ma'er's back sagged with weariness. "The Tribal girl said so. Well, now I can see it too. I will assume that's bad." He called down. "Boy! Get your friends out of here! You can't win this fight!"

Xiaobao opened his mouth just as the leading Mask threw Ma'er's brick back the way it had come. Xiaobao could hear its speed crack through the air. Then he heard a sickening crunch as it hit old Chouyu in the chest. In one instant he was there, in the next a crumpled shape was hitting the ground behind them. Then an inhuman roar rose up as more masked men burst forth from the burning warehouse. Xiaobao slowly turned back towards them. With a rumble, the ground before him erupted upwards in surging columns of dirt propelled by the earthbender on the wall. All Xiaobao had wanted was to protect his friends and their homes. As he fell backward he saw Ma'er launch himself above to join the fight. He had just wanted to protect people.

...