It was supposed to be his day off. He was supposed to take his bending test and then spend the rest of the day celebrating, but since he couldn't say no to an invitation to join a patrol of other metal benders Hangetsu found himself in zeppelin feeling out of place in what was going to be his celebration suit.
The white suit off set by the green tie and emerald cuff links to match his eyes was streaked with dirt and grime and fingerprints from dirty gloves of people who felt compelled to touch his jacket.

"Zip on down, rook," said one of the officers who deftly put on the harness holding two spools of wire. He was to jump off of the zeplin and use the wires to safely lower himself to the ground. In theory he could do it. He had passed his test. In practice Hangestu Tsukishima had a roughly fifty percent success rate when it came to such things.

On the way down Hangetsu tried to remember which one of the officers had pushed him for later revenge but he decided to focus on not further ruining his suit with his own blood and organs. He summoned whatever will he had to bend metal and stretched out a metal tendril to catch one of the wires stretching through the city and found something lacking. For once it wasn't himself, but the spool of wire he had been given had only been cut to about ten feet. Far too little for a safe transition to the ground.

Hangetsu's arm jerked as wire met wire and his descent was stopped. He swung into the warehouse and had to gently lower himself down much to the delight of a few of his seniors who effortlessly.
"We only do this the first time, rook...Hangetsu. You're one of us now. Talk to the witnesses." The cop looked at the butt of the joke's face. "Try not to scare the little girl."

As a boy Hangetsu had been taught that when one wanted to approach a strange animal it was best to keep a distance and project an aire of calm friendliness. He bent his knees and sat down on the ground a few feet away from Lykka before slowly dipping his head to look so that his eyes met those of the crying girl.
"Hi. I'm Hangetsu." He smelled exhaust and noticed single skid marks so it involved people on motorcycles. There were no errant fires or disturbed areas of earth but that was no real help. He considered himself a good detective but he wasn't as good as his teacher. He was as far from Han as worms were from the sun.

"I used to be afraid of frogs until I talked to someone about being afraid. Sometimes if you talk about it things get less scary."
The man in the dirty white suit slid a little closer to the girl and handed her the white handkerchief that hung from his jacket pocket.
"Will you tell me what you saw? I won't hurt you. You saw me fall from the zeppelin. I'm a total klutz."

Hangetsu smiled at the defensive attitude of the girl he questioned. He supposed that his ability to put women off affected all ages. Still, he remained sitting, in part because he still ached from his badly botched descent.
"A klutz is a person who falls out of an airship and crashes into a building," he said with not a small amount of self-pity.

The fact that the thieves knew just when and how to strike practically lit a neon sign that there was someone on the inside. The problem was that if he brought it up he would most likely spook the witnesses who might have some information. Most people were not willing to betray friends or coworkers even if they had been assaulted.

"Looks like an inside job."
Hangetsu brought a dirty hand up to slap himself in the forehead after one of his superior but obviously less tactful fellow cops spoke.

The rookie tried to keep the witnesses on his side and looked up at Lykka who now stood.
"So...a delivery girl, huh? You probably know the city pretty well. We're looking for a place close by that can hold the stolen trucks. Another warehouse or a garage or something. It would probably need a dock to load the trucks. So maybe an big abandoned store. Any ideas, Lykka?"

Aside from genuinely needing Lykka's help Hangetsu hated the idea of leaving a kid hanging around a crime scene.

"We got it. Take the kid home."

Hangetsu did his best not to glare at the officer and looked down at Lykka instead. It was obvious that his presence wasn't necessary to the others.
"Even when you're a grownup people still treat you like a kid," he said absently as he stood up and stretched his back. With a small amount of focus Hangetsu managed to bend most of the dirt from his white suit. Even with inconsistent bending he always managed to summon what was needed to keep his suits clean.

He swung his comically short wires to the nearest officer and focused on Lykka.
"I'll take you home...maybe we'll stop by a garage on the way there," he said with a sly smile. Normally, he would have done as he was told but after the wire joke and being so dismissed Hangetsu was feeling rebellious. It was as if the worst qualities of his family had bubbled to the surface. He was feeling rebellious, a little cocky, bitter and not concerned enough with the well-being of children.

Once he was sure no more attention was being paid to him Hangetsu looked down at the green-eyed, dark-skinned young girl.
"Can you show me where this garage shop is?

Hangetsu reached beneath his glasses and rubbed his eyes while exhaling a sigh.
"Okay...okay...thinking..." he sighed again and felt like an idiot for not only contemplating taking on a case before he was officially promoted but also for potentially endangering a child. He felt even less intelligent when he realized he'd be endangering her in a couple of different ways.
Still, it would be an antidote to the condescension and rookie jokes...
"Lykka...could you look a little sadder for me, please?"


The rookie in the white suit waved down one of the other officers.
"Um, sir? Mind if I take the kid home on the wires? Kids love that."
The superior officer gave the same indifferent grunt as always. It was one of the few times being ignored was helpful.

He offered Lykka his hand and looked up the wires strung across the city more experienced metal benders than himself used for transportation.
"Point the way, young miss." He tried to look confident in his ability to travel the lines absent fatality.

Once upon one of the poles holding the sets of wires Hangetsu took a deep breath and mumbled a mantra to get himself in the right frame of mind. He took a moment to reach down and touch the metal wire and try to remember the physical earth bending lesson he was taught by his sifu and the spiritual lessons he was taught by his grandfather. As much as he hated to admit it, the old man, while not an earth bender, had the spirit of one.
"Alright, alright, alright. Neutral jing rolling into positive. You can do this." He opened his eyes looked ahead. "Hop on my back."

There was a slight stumble and not much speed at first but Hangetsu managed to slide across the wire and eventually pick up enough speed to turn the cityscape into an indistinct blur. Still more speed was attained through pushing off the posts for momentum.
It was the fastest that the rookie mentalbender had gone and he tried not to let his apprehension show. While nowhere near as fast as a train Hangetsu could bypass traffic and via wire jumps take shortcuts the trains could not.

The soles of Hangetsu's dress shoes didn't last long against the wires but bending and conditioned feet carried him and Lykka until the wires ran out near the bridge leading downtown where the lights didn't reach. When the wires did run out Hangetsu placed his bleeding feet on the street with a wince that said he no longer cared about looking like a tough cop.
"That hurt soooo much. Tell me we're close."

After a few bloody footsteps the metal bender remembered that he had no metal with him to bend. Even the practical joke wires he had been given earlier would have been an improvement over nothing. Muffled swearing not even remotely appropriate in front of a child or even in a mile radius of one ensued.

Disused Storage Warehouse

Slumping down onto his bed of dirty canvases and discarded cloth, Zheng sighed and closed his eyes. Another job gone. Another job that he could not hold onto. With a wince, he pulled his somewhat stiff leg into a more comfortable position as he thought about what he had done wrong.

Because it was his fault.

True, he had been hurt doing what he was being payed for and his employer could have shown a little compassion and given him his job back after he had recovered. But also true was the fact that it was his own fault that he had worked triple shifts and had not given himself enough time to rest, resulting in the clumsiness which ended in him falling from the ship's ramp and hurting his leg.

One week of rest later and his job was gone, taken by some other kid like him. He did not even get the money for the triple shift he had pulled, which would have enabled him to get an actual place to sleep on an actual bed for a week or so at least. So instead he was here, hiding in an abandoned warehouse and hoping that no one would stumble upon him. He would have to try and find some more work tomorrow.

After a few more moments of contemplation Zheng sighed once more, opening his eyes and pushing himself to his feet. He would not get any sleep tonight, he felt far too restless. Might as well use his time constructively.

Moving aside some of the boxes that had been left behind by the warehouse's previous owner, Zheng dragged a mannequin out from an out of the way spot. There had been a bunch of them scattered about when he had first broken into the place, so he had gathered them up and hid them from any other scavengers that might have set their eyes on the warehouse.

Setting it up in the middle of the large space, he took several steps back until he was stood on the opposite side of the warehouse. Steadying his breathing, he rotated his arms and then jabbed them forwards, sending blasts of flame towards his target. The fireballs stayed true momentarily but grew more wild the closer they got and passed by the mannequin, fading out before they struck the wall. Zheng kept the steady barrage up, ignoring the needles of pain stabbing at his leg. The attacks gaining more accuracy as the minutes wore on until he started grazing the target with the flames. But the warehouse had no windows or vents and things started getting swiftly stuffy until the sweat was drenching his shabby tank top, dripping from the tip of his sharp nose and down his angular face.

Unable to hit the wooden dress horse, Zheng thrust his foot out in a powerful kick, sending a larger fireball out. Pain shot up his bad leg and he gave a quickly muted gasp of pain as he collapsed to the ground. Rubbing his damaged limb, he looked up to see that the mannequin had been knocked over by his last attack. Tutting angrily at himself, he forced himself up to set things back up again. He needed to be able to keep calm and collected while he used his firebending. He needed to. He would never allow himself to turn into him.

Limping back after standing the mannequin up, he ran his hands through his medium length hair before tying it back up in a top knot, the odd white streak in it becoming prominent. Finished, he continued practicing the accuracy of his strikes, gritting his teeth against the pain throbbing in his leg.

Hangetsu let out a sound that was part laugh but mostly moan.
"Okay...first lesson about traveling on wires: Wear good shoes." He bent over and took off the former dress shoes which were now thin leather strips that hung at his feet.

Lykka's contagious enthusiasm had been caught by Hangetsu for a brief moment and he had forgotten his pain. Even as an adult he enjoyed seeing the police travel across the wires. He assumed that once he got full control of his bending back, travelling would be much more fun for him.

His time in the police academy had left Hangetsu sensitive to the sound of doorknobs opening. He was constantly surrounded by other men and had to be vigilant for anyone who interrupted his time alone to deal with his...urges.

The bleeding police officer was intent upon somehow containing the man behind the door once it was fully opened but remembered he was without his wires or carried any other weapon. He had planned to take his metal bending test and then go home.

Though the man coming through the service door was only barely glimpsed, Hangetsu saw that he dwarfed both he and Lykka. After all, she still growing and he himself was not a tall man. The only advantage to being shorter was his low center of gravity making it easier to throw people. Normally, he would trade that ability for pants that fit at that moment he'd live with spending extra money on tailored hems.

The large man with a beard hit the hard cement ground with the sound of a steak being tenderized. Hangetsu covered the man's mouth with one hand and cinched the man's tie to a slightly strangling diameter.
"I'd like some information...but first...your shoes."

He asked the typical questions. How many of the thieves were down there? Were there any weapons? He saved the best question for last.
"Who is behind this?"

A man with bleeding feet and a young girl hardly seemed a threat to a large man of the criminal persuasion but Hangetsu did as he always did, he tried with little forethought.
He glared down at the man and tried to think of something sinister to threaten the man with. Inspiration hit him when he heard coins jingling in the man's pants pocket. Hangetsu kneeled and smiled. The coins jingles again, this time moved by Hangetsu's chi.
"Two things you should know. One: I can castrate you with your spare change. Two: The girl is the cruel one."

Hangetsu wondered if he could get away with two major bluffs so close together. His metal bending was, to put it kindly, inconsistent and he doubted that Lykka was secretly a sadistic maniac. He prayed that the threat of coin-based birth control and the fear of what horrible thoughts might be present in a young girl's mind were enough to get the man to talk.
It was a plan that hinged on their hostage being gullible and not biting down on Hangetsu's hand. Not for the first time Hangetsu wondered if he had what it took to be a cop.

Disused Storage Warehouse

Sora didn't know why she was walking this way today.

It was unusual for her to take a turn down by the warehouses themselves — not unheard of, but unusual. The runoff from various crates of unknown and unknowable products (some more viscuous than others) was hazardous to an old woman like her, though she'd yet to have a bad fall. The smell didn't bother her, having lost most of her olfactory sense years ago. The sights, though often rundown and sad, were not repugnant. And yet there was no good reason why she had felt the need to walk down here anymore. Her father would have told her, "It's the spirits. They're leading you where you're meant to go." Unfortunately for her deceased father, Sora lived now in an age where the spirits were abandoned and the gods of industry and progress were worshipped instead. She chuckled absent-mindedly; her father would have had snarky words for that too.

As she passed one of the warehouses, an uncomfortable shudder passed through her ribs and she groaned. Hunger again. Having to eat was an unnecessary pain, and the only reason she had forgotten to do so was because she hadn't originally planned on taking this rather roundabout route through the city today. Oh well. Fasting now would make her appreciate the meal later that much more.

Another shudder passed through her and she grimaced. I'll appreciate it much, MUCH more, she thought to herself, collecting herself and leaning heavily on her canes. But as she was about to take another step, the shudders continued to batter her body. It was another minute of patient waiting and feeling and listening before she registered that these new shakes were not the pangs of hunger, but the vibrations of unstable chi. Or, she looked around, more practically, it's that. The wall of the warehouse she stood by was being bombarded by fire. That much she knew. She could feel the last shimmers of heat between the panels.

There were no windows, no vents. Talk about a horrible situation for a nosy old biddy like her. Grumbling a bit, she made her way around to the door, leaned heavily on one of her canes for a moment, and then banged loudly (and repeatedly) on the door with her other cane. "Good morning!" she sang out cheerfully as she continued to bash on the framework. "Is anybody in here? Hallooooooo?"