Legend of Korra: The Academy

The head protester remained silent for a few moments, and then completely ignored Phoenix by once again yelling on his megaphone, pointing at Tai. "Look at this! Even the young ones believe that they should be treated like kings!"

All of the crowd immediately turned to face at Tai, all of them with furrowed eyebrows and gritted teeth. "If the young ones don't respect other people, especially non-benders like me, what about the older ones, the ones truly ruling Republic City! Fight the bending oppression!" Once the head protester said the word "fight", one member of the crowd threw a stone at Tai, yelling "go away, you oppressor!" and in a few seconds, most of the crowd was doing the same, yelling and throwing stones.

Kaizer took a step back, pulling Phoenix out of the crowd. "Listen, it's best we don't deal with these... maniacs. Spreading those crazy ideas... let's just take another route, okay?"

Phoenix nodded.

"Probably a good idea, I get hit by enough rocks when I actually get to fight back. Not looking forward to getting hit by them without the whole beating them up part. Lead the way."

"Hmph." Tai took on a rooted stance and thrust towards the stones heading for him, freezing them in their tracks. Quickly he spun and arced them over the people's heads, landing them in a pile that grew as more of them were thrown at him.

"You call me oppressive yet you throw rocks at a kid when he speaks up to you? That is plain not a nice thing to do fellas."

Aiko assumed a similar stance. When she saw that Zhao was waiting, she charged, aiming to grab Zhao with one arm while holding the other one back.

Zhao sidestepped Aiko's charge — she saw it coming from a mile away — and chopped down with her right arm toward Aiko's neck.

Aiko used her other hand to block the attack while she twisted around, trying to get behind Zhao.

"Wait. Hold on." Kaizer said, raising his hand. "I want to watch this."

"Why should we treat you benders fairly?" the protester responded. "For a long time, we have been suffering under the bending oppression! People like him believe that just because they can bend, they have to be treated like kings! We won't stop our protest! Our voices will not be silenced!" And once again, the audience began to boo and shoo away Tai, some of them also ready to throw even more rocks.

edited 2nd Aug '12 7:34:02 PM by Stratofarius

"Well if a king doesn't get attacked like this then sure, sign me up." Tai muttered under his breath, still darting around to redirect any rocks thrown his way.

When he spoke again he was loud enough for the protestor to hear. "Look, I'm sorry that I 'oppressed' you somewhere between my cheap, exhausting temp jobs. Why don't you bring that up with the council instead of failing to treat a fellow human with any common decency?"

However, the audience continued to boo Tai, no matter what the boy said. Just as the audience was starting to get a little too agitated, a few police officers showed up to take care of the situation, ordering everyone to calm down. Unfortunately, one of them was the police officer that was running after Tai. Once he spotted the boy, he ran towards him, ordering him to stop.

It seemed like this was one of the cable-less police officers, which allowed Tai to have a chance to escape. Kaizer simply sighed, taking an alternate route. "These people, why do they complain about this whole bender and non-bender problem? It doesn't exist! I'm good friends with a lot of non-benders." he then lazily pointed over at Phoenix, like he was indicating that Phoenix himself was a non-bender.

Phoenix shook his head as the two of them walked.

"Their are a lot of bitter people out there. People just want someone to blame."

He shrugged.

"Um, I'm a firebender. You?"

Zhao spun with Aiko. Truth to be told, the chop was nothing more than a distraction. Zhao's real purpose was to position her right leg behind Aiko's; now she grabbed the other girl and tried to swipe her off her feet.

Aiko let herself fall back, then rolled across the mat and rose to her feet. When she was standing, she assumed her stance again and waited for Zhao to attack.

Zhao nodded.
"Good to see you taking this seriously," she said, returning to her starting stance. "Some Benders, regrettably, disregard close combat. My father says that many a Firebender lost their lives for this silliness."
She rushed at Aiko — taking small steps and taking care that her centre of gravity was still low — and launched two obvious (and, presumably, easily blocked or altogether dodged) punches toward her.

"Well, I'm not exactly good at close range firebending." she explained as Zhao approached. "I need something to defend myself with if someone gets close."

When Zhao began the attack, Aiko sidestepped and then aimed a blow at Zhao's side.

The last day of freedom. Though that did sound a tad dramatic, Naima really could not find a better way to phrase it. Tomorrow would mark the start of classes at the Bending Academy, a school catered to those who truly wished to become masters of their particular bending art form. The more the young water bender thought about it, the less enthused she became. When she had ran away from home it was to finally spread her wings and attain independence. But now she was being pushed into attending a specialized institution of learning by Arika, her late mother's friend. And since the older woman had been kind enough to take her in and provide necessary amenities, Naima really wasn't in a position to disagree.

Her little trek out into the city had been an attempt on her part to clear her head and get rid of the apprehension about tomorrow that had been plaguing her over the past few days. What she hadn't expected was to walk smackdab into the middle of a Equalist-fueled protest. Ugh. She wrinkled her nose, watching the exchange between the loudmouth with the megaphone and the boy who was obviously an offended bender. Really, engaging these people was asking for trouble! They had such warped ideas that she was unsure if anyone would be able to reason with them.

With all eyes focused on the boy — and now the arriving police officer — Naima turned her gaze to a small puddle of nearby water. Could she? Yes, she could. A quick flick of her wrist propelled the patch of dirty brown liquid up from its resting place, heading straight for the lead protestor who was likely still preoccupied with spewing further anti-bending sentiments. Innocently she placed both hands behind her back, trying hard to keep a complete poker face. 'Take that.'

"Waterbender." Kaizer answered, pointing at his skin. "Northern Water Tribe. Although you probably figured that out by the skin color. Usually, I have to prove to people that I'm a waterbender by..." he flicked his wrist and, without any problems, bended a small amount of water from a puddle into a small ball in front of him. "... doing stupid tricks like this. Hopefully, the Academy will give me something better."

Unfortunately, it was at that time that Naima's little attack on the Equalist protester happened. Once he yelped and dropped his megaphone, the audience stopped booing Tai and immediately looked for a culprit. All of their eyes searched for someone who looked like a waterbender... and all of their eyes stopped when they noticed Phoenix and Kaizer, who bent the water back into a puddle.

The boy stared at the huge number of adults, some of them holding stones in their hands, all of them glaring at both Phoenix and Kaizer. Then, he slowly leaned over to Phoenix, whispered the words "don't run" to him and started taking slow steps back.

The obvious punches were nothing more than a distraction. When Aiko dodged, Zhao used the opportunity to step behind her and launch a powerful left kick toward her back.

"Halt." A stern voice said to the Equalist supporters. If the crowd didn't hear him and threw the rocks anyway, they would be halted before they touched either Kaizer or Phoenix. Approaching the situation from the opposite side, Bakal Kalooban walked towards the protest, having heard and "seen" everything that occurred, including the identity of the true culprit who splashed the protester.

"Peaceful protest is acceptable. Verbal abuse is tolerable. However, any further act of physical violence from this little group will get all of you in the slammer." the blind former officer said with little emotion, his blindfolded head tilted towards Phoenix and Kaizer. "I may not be a man of the force anymore, but I have the authority to make a civilian arrest. If you would be so kind to not throw those, I'll be happy to take these children off of your hands and teach them some proper discipline."

Turning away from the crowd, Bakal walked to the Academy, signaling for the boys to follow him with a tilt of his head. Walking near Naima, the metalbender turned his head towards her and signaled for her to follow him as well.

Kids are always getting themselves into these situations. It's already hard enough keeping them away from the Triads... he thought.

edited 5th Aug '12 5:25:52 AM by Insano

With the arrival of the police officers, including one unfortunately familiar face, Tai took the opportunity to lift up as much earth from his pile as he could without gaining any attention and then sneak out of the crowd. He hurried over to another alleyway and slipped down it, hoping the multiple turns within it would be enough to stop anyone pursuing him as he continued on his way to the academy's back entrance.

Bakal's head tilted up when he registered another pair of feet running away. Seeing that the boy had also collected a massive pile of earth, which could be inferred from the broken earth around his starting location, Bakal frowned as he realized what his fellow mentor and his students were up to.

I'll confront that boy and his master later. the blind officer thought, still walking with the others in tow. This year is not the time for pranks.

Rubus could not help but notice that the streets were nearly vacant. Well, to be more accurate, that nobody his age was around. Where was everyone? Rubus sighed sourly. Just like him to miss a memo.

Direct hit. Naima snickered despite her best efforts not to. And the best part of it all? They didn't suspect her! No, all the scrutiny fell on someone else — another waterbender from the looks of it. Alright, so maybe she felt a little guilty. Especially since he certainly resembled one of her fellow water tribesmen. But she only felt just a little guilty. Just a little — honestly.

Before things escalated further though in came a voice of authority. Naima looked over at the blindfolded man, eyebrows raised. Just like that he seemed to defuse tensions, gesturing for the boys to follow them. Oh, and her too apparently. Huh. She stayed still for a moment, then shrugged, falling into step behind him. It wasn't like he'd seen her bend that water at that idiot protestor anyway, right?

"As stupid as that protester is," Bakal said to the girl once he and the students got out of earshot of the Equalist supporters, turning his head to her while maintaing his walking pace. "You shouldn't have hit him, at least not without them attacking you first. You could've gotten those boys into a lot of trouble."

"They see us as oppressors, those Equalists. We can't strike back at every provoaction and give them more reason to hate us." This time he spoke to everyone behind him. "The Triads are bad enough, but these guys are shaping up to be something much worse. They're not going to protest forever. One of these days, they're going to take action. And we'll be one of the first targets after the Triads when that happens." The blindfolded former police officer became silent and continued to lead the children to the Academy.

"What're your names?" he finally asked. "Are you all going to the Academy tomorrow?"

Kaizer silently followed the blindfolded man, giving the audience a glare as they resumed their normal activities, the Equalist protester still massaging the area where he was hit. He turned to Phoenix, and shrugged, before turning back to the blindfolded man. "I'm sorry, but who exactly are you, and why should we be sharing our personal information with you?"

The police officer that had been chasing Tai had already given up on following him, and his way to the Academy was free of any "roadblocks".

"Because it is the day before the school year at the Academy of Bending Arts begins," Bakal replied to the waterbender. "And I'm the mentor for the metalbenders. My name is Bakal Kalooban, the only blind earthbender since Toph Bei Fong, and the only officer to keep his uniform after he quit. My good friend and teacher, Lin Bei Fong, allowed me to keep this uniform, and in return I train metalbenders so that they may wear this uniform as well."

"And you should be giving me your personal information because I have a very good feeling you're all going the Academy, and I might as well know students from the other classes. Are you all from around here?"