Chapter Text
“Tell us what you know!”
The electrified glove poised across his chest should have been enough to make anyone talk but he remained stoically silent. All he could think about was the searing pain consuming his right arm, though injury or none, there was no way they would ever have gotten any information out of him. The metal bands tightened around his limbs where they bound him to the table and he couldn’t help but let out a cry of pain.
“TELL. US. WHAT. YOU. KNOW!”
He managed to splutter out a defiant ‘no’, making firm eye contact with his captor and trying to ignore the taste of blood in his mouth. He knew the situation with his arm was a lot, lot worse than he could see but he couldn’t afford to worry about himself at that moment. He just couldn’t.
The last thing he remembered was the hand, purple energy flickering around the palm as it plunged towards him. Then his vision blacked out.
---
‘“-and that is why we must do everything in our power to stop the Equalist uprising.” “Thank you so much, Councillor Allura, for taking the time to join us on the show. Now for some more headline news: the Green Bandit strikes again! By the time the police arrived on the scene the triple threats were already tied up and gagged with barely any evidence of a fight. They say it was this metal bending kid dressed entirely in green, like no one they’d ever faced before. Well, at least this time the Green Bandit is helping fight crime rather than stealing state of the art technology. But the question remains: What is their agenda and where will they strike next? Now, over to Coran for the probending updates…”’
Pidge rested her feet up on the table as she listened to the scores, snacking on a packet of fire flakes. Okay, so maybe she had only turned on the radio to listen to what Republic City had to say about the Green Bandit. So what? She hadn’t intended to become a mysterious public figure but after the radio incident had gone wrong… well, she figured she might as well enjoy it.
It had started out with just basic supplies. Some bread here and there, where the baker had made more than intended. Extra yuons from a wealthy home owner that couldn’t keep track of his pig-dog, let alone his wallet. Hell, she had even stolen from the Cabbage Corp merchant on the street corner (yes, she really had been that desperate). But it wasn’t until she spotted that radio system through the window of an 8 th story apartment that she knew her luck had changed.
Now most people probably wouldn’t have spotted such an item from ground level, but Pidge had an eye for technology and, well, a feel for it, too. Her metalbending allowed her to hone in on the wires, mapping out a whole virtual network of the metallic creations around her. This was not unheard of amongst metal and earthbenders – the original metal benders had had this ability, and a few people since then but they were few and far between. Pidge only knew of two others, her father and brother… who were currently missing. Which is why she needed that radio.
Scaling the building was no problem for her and her bayard and in a few ticks she found herself in the room surrounded by beautiful, wonderful technology. Well, it wasn’t quite as wonderful as the things they had back in Zaofu, but with a few custom improvements it would do just fine. She loaded up her bag and made her way back to the window, intending to go as swiftly and unnoticed as she had come. That was until she spotted it.
A small squeal escaped her lips when she read the packaging. The first ‘Journey to the Depths of the Spirit World’?! And ‘Avatar Flux 2’?! She could barely contain her excitement as she crossed the room to admire both games and spent several seconds just holding them in awe. The sound of approaching footsteps and voices stirred her from her trance. Flying quiznacks! She hurriedly shoved one of the games in her bag and tucked the other under her arm, making haste for the exit. She made it to the window just as the door handle was turning and two men appeared, illuminated by the flame one of them was brandishing. The two parties stood in standoff for a solid tick and a half, then she slipped through the window and sailed down to the street below. Even though there was no way those two could have caught up with her, she didn’t stop running until she was back to her underground hideout, panting and out of breath.
She cursed her own carelessness, but there was no going back; she had been seen. Sure, the mission was successful and she’d come away unscathed with bonus items intact. But she couldn’t afford to blow her cover. Not once. Not ever. There was too much at risk.
She settled on a plan of action whilst making the necessary adjustments to the radio she had just acquired, humming softly to herself. Right now, it seemed the city had the advantage. They would start looking for her. But she could throw them off the trail. She would embrace the earth thief persona at night, act unpredictably. If she threw in enough saving the day and random acts of kindness, they would eventually mask the things she did for her own mission and make her an anonymous public hero in the process. Nobody wants to arrest or expose a public hero. And by day… well. Nobody would suspect a young Fire Nation boy to be the face of the Green Bandit.
“…and don’t forget to bend your way down to the arena tonight at seven for more faaaaantastic action from the Boar-q-pines, Buzzard Wasps, Eagle Lions and many more fabulous teams. Coran, probending announcer and flight master extraordinaire, signing off!”
Pidge glanced at her watch. Twenty five to seven. She hurriedly got changed out of the pyjamas she’d been lazing around in all day in exchange for her fire nation gear and earthbend-ed out of her hideaway, emerging in a cluster of bushes in the park. Breathing in the fresh air, she looked up at the golden building looming in front of her and headed with determination towards the probending arena.
She managed to find a spot right at the front of one of the balconies. In the two months she’d spent in Republic City, she’d taken it upon herself to watch every single probending match and knew exactly how to get a good seat when she wanted one. To begin with, she wasn’t even particularly keen on the sport, however she was keen on improving her bending. Then, after a couple of weeks, she found herself hooked on it the same way she got hooked on video games. She knew the names of all the teams and their members and managers and details about their personal lives… well there were some teams she knew more about than others. The Eagle Lions were one such team, and today they were going to be on just before the intermission. Pidge sat through the first couple of games, eagerly awaiting the announcement from Coran which eventually blasted through the speakers of the arena.
“First, let’s welcome the Eagle Lions!” The familiar figures she knew so well glided in on their platform, helmets in hand and smiling and waving to cheers of ‘Paladins! Paladins!’ Well, two out of three were smiling and waving. The third member of the team had his arms folded tightly across his chest and wore a death glare ready to kill. Oh no, this can’t be good.
“Despite being one of the newest probending teams on the scene, they’ve done remarkably well this season and I’m sure we’re all excited to see how they play tonight. We’ve got our waterbender, Lance McClain!” Lance kissed his hands and raised his arms to the crowd, lapping up all the attention as he normally did, though today there were a few shifty glances in the direction of the firebender.
“Then –that’s right! - it’s earthbender Hunk Garret!” He showed off his biceps to the crowd who seemed to love it. There were several calls of ‘We love you Hunk!’ and Pidge cheered from her seat. She had always had a soft spot for Hunk; he seemed like such a genuine and lovable guy, though if she had to guess she would say he looked a little more nervous than usual.
“And finally our firebender, Keith Kogane!” Keith made no attempt to appeal the crowd’s better nature, his arms still tightly folded. He always presented himself as the distant, edgy kind of guy which fans seemed to lap up as if he was doing it for them. Pidge suspected this was far from the truth. From what she had gathered from watching him, his body seemed to reflect very clearly what was going on in his mind and there seemed to be little he could do to change this. Tonight was a shining example of this, and the death stare he had been wearing earlier was now one hundred percent directed at Lance. Hunk, who was in the middle of the two of them looked like he wanted to shrink away into the shadows. This is really not going to end well, Pidge mused.
After Coran announced the Ember Island Eel Hounds, both teams put on their helmets and took their positions in the centre.
“Three! Two! One! Go!”
The water bender from the Eel Hounds launched a jet of water straight at Keith, who aggressively hurled a fireball in response.
“Hey, that one was mine!” Lance dodged a flying disk as he intercepted the path between Keith and the waterbender. “Get your own enemies!”
“Got one right here, thanks.” He shoved Lance out of the way, using a bit of fire in the process. Lance ended up on the floor, sliding into the next zone. The whistle blew.
“FOUL! Kogane, move back a zone.”
“This is all your fault.”
“ MY fault?! You literally just attacked me and-” The whistle blew again.
Hunk was doing a good job holding out by himself, but with two squabbling team mates and shouts of ‘What the hell is wrong with you?!’ behind him, that didn’t last long. Two more penalties later, Hunk and Keith found themselves in zone 3 together with a flailing Lance in the water below.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?! This has got to be the most in-team violence Republic City has ever witnessed in probending history!”
“Hey Keith? Any chance you might be able to chill out just a little bit?”
“Any chance you could just let me fi-” All three elements shot at him simultaneously causing him to loose footing and fall.
Guess it’s all down to me then. Hunk speculated. If I go too, it’s a knockout and we’re out of the game. They had thirty ticks left before the round was up. If he could just hold out that long…
He summoned up all the power he had. Disks flew in all directions, warding off fire, water and earth. He even managed to push the firebender back a zone.
“Aaaand, TIME’S UP!” Hunk let out a sigh of relief. They may have lost the round, but they were still in the game. “What a spectacular comeback from Hunk, everybody! Let’s hope Lance and Keith can sort out their differences in the next round, otherwise it’ll be an easy win for the Eel Hounds!” Cheering erupted from the stalls. Pidge sat there fuming. What the hell were they playing at?
Lance and Keith arrived back on their platform refusing to acknowledge the other even existed.
“What the hell were you guys thinking?! We could have lost the game back then!” Silence. “Lance, I already said this to Keith but you need to chill out too.”
“ I need to chill out?! I’m not the one with the problem.”
“ YOU’RE not the one with th-?!”
“Right now, we’re all the ones with the problem if we can’t work together as a team. This was supposed to be an easy win for us. Now, if we lose the match, our only chance of qualifying for the tournament is if we beat the Wolf Bats. Is that what you want?”
“No.”
“Not really.”
“Come on, guys, we can do this.”
Round two began, and for a while things started to look a little more hopeful. Hunk and Lance took on water together, managing to knock her off while Keith took on the firebender and fending off the odd disk that shot in his direction.
Distracted by their mini victory, Hunk was too late to notice a chain of disks hurtling in his direction. They slammed hard into his stomach, knocking him all the way back to zone three.
“Keith, how could you let that happen?!”
“How was that anything to do with me?”
“You were fending off Earth! I thought you had us covered!”
“I was blasting the disks that were coming my way! I’m not some legendary defender for the whole team you know. If you hadn’t been basking in the glory of knocking off Water then maybe you could have defended him.”
“Uugh!”
“The Eel Hounds may now advance to the next zone!”
Hunk had managed to crawl up to the barrier and was promptly sick over the edge. The crowd recoiled.
“Sorry, everyone.” He apologised, even though no one could hear him. A fireball came his direction a few seconds later and he found himself in the water.
“Time’s up, and we have a tie! Let’s see who gets to pick the element for the tie-breaker!” Coran flipped a coin. “Aaaaand… it’s the Eagle Lions! I wonder how they’ll go about making their decision. A punch-up between Keith and Lance, perhaps?” The crowd laughed. Keith and Lance looked livid. Pidge hung her head in her hands. This was not how it was supposed to go.
“I’ll do it.” Hunk declared, stepping off his platform and back to join his team. He was in a bad way.
“You look like you’re about to pass out.” Keith said flatly.
“What? No, I’m fine…” He stumbled towards them both and ended up on the floor.
“Look. I’ll just do it, okay? We choose fi-”
“Hey, who gave you the right?!” Lance protested. “You couldn’t even protect Hunk in the game. How are you going to protect yourself?” Ooooooh, the crowd reacted.
“For the last time, I was protecting myself, which is why I wasn’t protecting Hunk. Get it? It’s more than can be said for you. I’ll take this one. You spend the time healing Hunk as much as you can. We want to be able to give it our all in round three. The Eagle Lions choose fire.” The two rivals were right up close now, the tension between them growing as they glared into each other’s faces. Lance eventually broke the direct gaze and went over to Hunk, though his eyes didn’t leave Keith for one second. The opposing firebender, looking smug, stepped onto the centre platform with Keith as it raised up into the air.
“You may begin!”
To say the battle was intense was an understatement. Keith lashed out as soon as he could and kept pounding fireballs into his opponent with what seemed to be pure rage. Lance, who still had his eyes fixed on the firebender was no longer sure whether it was out of rivalry or concern or pure horror. Pidge wondered if he’d ever stop. His opponent was putting up a good fight but it was clear he was no match for Keith. No one was. He even through an extra fireball down after the Eel Hound’s firebender had been knocked off the podium, and there was no cheering; just stunned silence. Coran cleared his throat.
“Well… it looks like that round goes to the Eagle Lions!” The crowd were hesitant, but they slowly began clapping. Keith made his way back to his teammates.
“That was… scary.” Lance managed to say, putting his hand on Keith’s shoulder.
“It was nothing,” Keith rebuked as he batted the arm from his person, his brow furrowed in deep thought. There was clearly something up, but Lance decided it wasn’t time to pursue the subject. Not that Keith would explain it to him at another point, anyway. He was vaguely aware in the back of his head that he and Keith were supposed to hate each other right now, but the shock of the fire showdown had changed the atmosphere so much that anything with the word ‘supposed’ seemed to have gone out of the window. He helped Hunk to his feet.
Hunk had recovered enough to be able to get back on his feet again and seemed semi up for the final round. It was more to do with the time out as Lance’s healing skills had never been that great, but he appreciated the help none the less. Now that Keith had scored them a round, they were actually in with a chance of winning. So long as they got their act together, of course.
“Let’s do this.” Keith seemed to have some newfound determination after the tiebreaker and the others nodded in response. Coran announced the start of the final round, and they began.
Lance and Keith worked together to take out Earth. Keith burnt up the disks whilst Lance attacked from the side. It wasn’t long before he’d been knocked back two zones. Meanwhile, Hunk fended off Fire and Water by himself.
“A little help over here would be good.” Keith shot the firebender, who was still a little shaken from their one-on-one, in the gut and he staggered over the line behind him. Hunk and Lance took on the waterbender again and although she put up a good fight, she ended up falling back too and joining her Fire comrade in the zone behind.
“The Eagle Lions may now advance a zone!”
“Look at us, advancing a zone!” Lance proclaimed, enjoying himself a little too much. “Who would have thought?”
They managed to knock Earth off with no trouble. Keith then went for Water and Hunk for Fire, Lance in the middle, defending them when necessary. They advanced another zone. Lance and Hunk high-fived each other. The crowd was really getting into it now. Their sudden surge of teamwork seemed to have won them over and Pidge watched intensely from the edge of her seat.
Hunk and Keith sent the firebender flying over the edge. That just left the waterbender, who was holding up pretty well having regained a bit of strength. Ten ticks left. They had pretty much won by this point, but Keith caught Lance’s eye from across the arena which said one thing: knockout? He nodded in response. Keith short a ball of fire to the other side of the waterbender, turning her towards Lance, who took the opportunity to hit her square in the chest with a jet of water. She fell into the water below and the crowd began cheering like crazy.
“IT’S A KNOCKOUT!” Coran bellowed into the arena. “Let’s give it up for the Eagle Lions!” Lance was lapping up the attention from the crowd, and Hunk’s face was beaming with pride. Even Keith managed a faint smile, although he remained somewhat subdued and distant. Once they were back in their changing room, Hunk leapt in the air.
“Wooo! We did it!”
“Look at us, being all awesome and everything! Did you see that last hit I made? They don’t call me Sharp Shooter for nothing.”
“Yeah, you guys did great.” Keith had sat down across the room from them,
“What do you mean? You completely roasted that fire guy, remember?” Hunk countered. “I mean, it was terrifying, but it won us the round.”
“It may have won us the round, but that’s because my strengths lie in close combat. I’m not cut out for teamwork and I think you guys know that. Well now I do too, and I want the Eagle Lions to have the best possible chance in the tournament. What I’m trying to say is, I’m leaving.”
---
Not for the first time, Pidge wondered whether she should do it. She paced around in the corridor for a bit, thinking over all the things in her head. The urge to go through with it was definitely stronger today than it had been before. It didn’t even have to be a big deal, especially if she kept her Fire Nation act up and played it down. But then, if she played it down, he would have no reason whatsoever to agree to help her, brushing her aside as a fan who wanted his attention. But if she told him the truth… Aaagh, why did things have to be so complicated? Maybe if she could find another way to grab his attention…
In the end, she resolved to go down there to give herself the option, even though there was still a part of her that thought the whole thing was stupid and unnecessarily dangerous. So far she had been doing just fine on her own with her earth and metal bending. Why add anything else to the mix when she could just continue as before?
She laughed at how much she was thinking like an earthbender. Valuing the safety of self-sufficiency over anything else. She had come to Republic City to find her family, but it wasn’t quite as simple as that. There was also the knowledge and safety that there were certain people here that could help her, should she wish to make contact with them. However in doing so, she would have to come clean about certain elements of herself which, quite frankly, she didn’t want to do. Just because she was capable of something, didn’t mean she had to use those skills. In theory, she could just keep going as she was and let the world continue as it had for the last fifteen years. Various images ran through her head. Thoughts of the increasing equalist uprisings. Allura, the last of her kind, struggling to keep the Air Nomad ideologies alive in a world that rejected them. The ever strengthening alliance between the Northern Water Tribe and the Earth Kingdom and how all media seemed to ignore the dangerous potential the two had together. In a way, she would rather be powerless to stop these things than to have the ability and not succeed…
She pushed those thoughts to one side. If the timing was right, she would ask him, even if he was an impulsive, wayward firebender (was there any other kind?). The way he had treated his opponent… was that something she agreed with? She wasn’t sure, but his fighting style was unlike any other she had seen and, if nothing else, that was enough to draw her in. But there were other things; the secretive nature and the sense that he was on his own personal mission that she could only begin to guess. Qualities that she recognised in herself. She may not be able to trust him, but the fact that they shared some common ground meant that it wasn’t completely out of the question.
Voices pulled from her thoughts and she realised she had arrived at her destination. Hiding herself behind the ajar door, she peered through the crack between the hinges, listening in to what they were saying.
“-but we were working together so well in the final round!”
“We may have been, but it took two rounds before we were even close to that. We might not have that luxury again. You said it yourself. If you hadn’t held everything together, it would have been a knockout and we would have lost there and then.”
“So great! We can work on being a better team and maybe hate each other a little less – or at least not let it get in the way in a game-”
“Lance, Hunk. You’re not understanding. I have other stuff I need to do besides probending. Things out there in the real world that actually matter.” Hunk’s face dropped. “I need to be out there, trying to find Sh- someone , and sending one second blasts of fire at people within a set of rules isn’t helping. The equalists don’t play by rules. Hell, even the police don’t play by rules. I’m sorry, but if you want to take part in the tournament, you’re going to have to find somebody else. I’m out.”
Wait. Keith is really leaving the team?
“Come on, man, we were in this together…” Lance pleaded, but Keith had already turned his back on them. “FINE!” He yelled after him as he walked towards the door.
“Good luck finding your boooyfriend!” Hunk added, which resulted in an angry Keith turning back towards them.
“He is not my boyfriend,” he spat, full of distaste and pushed the door open so violently that Pidge had to leap out of the way, before slamming it behind him. The two of them locked eyes, both equally surprised by the sudden human encounter. However, the surprise meant that for a split second Keith’s guard was down and in that moment his eyes told the story of pain, loss and determination before the defences came up again.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, hanging about listening to conversations but for what it’s worth I wouldn’t risk it again.” Pidge still would have felt panic even if she hadn’t been eavesdropping, but the fact that this was Keith Kogane, the very person she had been seeking out and the fact that everything had completely not gone to plan caused her to freeze like a frog rabbit in the headlights.
“I, uh, I was just looking for the bathroom and I heard arguing and just wanted to make sure everyone was ok. I’m sorry. I’ll leave now.” She bowed to him respectfully, Fire Nation style, before turning to leave and caught Keith looking embarrassed out of the corner of her eye.
Part of her wanted to yell at herself for being dumb and not taking the opportunity while another part congratulated her for keeping a low profile and not diving into a situation without being properly in control. However, most of her didn’t care so much about the Keith incident anymore, as she now had a better, more subtle and certainly more course of action to follow. She opened up her hand to reveal a red hot flame floating above her palm, and she grinned.