A cloud of gloom seemed to hover over Niko's head as he shuffled down sidewalks and across city streets. The lower the sun sank, the heavier his heart became; from sunrise to sunset he'd been wandering and waiting for something to happen, but as of yet it had been the absolute dullest day of his life, which is saying a lot because he grew up in a swamp and you can only imagine how dull that can be. Republic City was suppose to be excitement around every turn and smiling faces! Niko's grandfather had told him once that every hard worker has his share of stories, and people in the city have the best stories in the world. Maybe it would help if he had actually met someone who wasn't cursing, slaving in the sun, or drinking, but so far Niko had yet to hear a single one of Republic City's stories.

He let out a heavy sigh and continued his journey home feeling jaded and swindled. Niko was so caught up in his own head that he almost didn't notice the ground shaking. At first he though he was losing his balance (or his mind) but the sound of cracking rock and a body being expelled from the unseen alleyway to his right was evidence enough that it was probably the work of another bender somewhere further in the shadowed depths of the unknown.

The 16 year old was half-way on his knees and reaching out to the fallen man before he was able to think twice. Not the smartest move! he ascertained stepping away and pressing himself to the wall. Niko heard more struggles deeper in and tried to quiet his breath, one hand clutching his heart and the other clasped over his mouth. No one had even seen him yet and still the waterbender's eyes darted around for an escape, or an excuse... anything.

He allowed himself one tentative glance down the alley where, by the sound of it, at least three others scuffled. Panic was now blowing up in his head and everything in him told the kid to run. 3.... He took a shaky breath in. 2.... He swallowed hard. 1..... GO!!!!!

No more than two strides into the attempted bolt something stopped him. Red and gold lights flashed in the corners of Niko awareness. The first faded quickly in the humid air and brought one word to bloom in his mind: Fire. The second was sustained and glared up at him from the cracked and scummy ground. What at first looked like a shimmering puddle of gold turned out to be that wondrous liquid stuff: Water!

His element gave him confidence and moved Niko to act. Concentrating hard, he lowered his right hand and holding his arm straight down he flexed his long fingers and pulled the water flush along the ground at his side. Long tendrils of it trailed out behind him and slithered, as if alive, along the gravel. He stood before the deadly scene that he wasn't yet a part of with his lanky limbs set in a determined stance.

He focused in on the man closest to him who wielded a knife and silently smiled in relief: yes! a weapon I can actually take away. It worried him that he'd never fought other benders before, but he pushed the thought out of his mind as he prepared to strike. He trained his eyes on the glinting metal and took a step toward his target. He first threw his shoulder forward, the motion then went through his arm as it rose fast and decisively into the air. The water by extension lunged upward like a serpent and struck the blade free from its master's grip.

Though he was scared out of his mind and starting to panic again, Niko had to admit it: There was nothing he liked better than seeing the mugger's smug faces drop with the sound of the knife smacking the ground.

She was blocks away, atop a rooftop. Work had just ended for her and the one-armed earthbender had been going home via the shortest route. It also happened to be the route that was the least travelled, so she was generally safer travelling the roofs. Her snapped up and to her left at the sudden sound of splitting earth. That didn't sound right. Not in Republic City. Not at Dusk.

Her body reacted all of its own. She turned dual-toned eyes down as she leapt over an alley. Nothing. As her feet connected on the next roof she dropped into a roll over her right shoulder. She heard the roar of flame and the sound of metal, apparently, hitting the ground. She was getting closer, of that she was certain. Another alley stretched beneath her feet as she made another jump, this one forced her arch backward until at the pinnacle of her jump she thrust everything forward for some extra momentum. She landed on her toes and once more threw herself into a forward roll over one shoulder.

She heard some cursing coming from the street on her right. As a puff of wind gusted over the roof she slowed and approached the edge to look down. Thugs. Three of them. Two of them with cudgels of some sort. It was difficult to tell from this high up. The third appeared unarmed, but that likely meant that he was a bender.

"Great..." Ryari muttered to herself and approached the alley on the nearby side of the building. What she saw there made her want to scream. Of course doing so would rid her of her current element of surprise and she just couldn't do that. Green and brown orbs scanned the scene below.

"Three thugs here, one down, two more..." A blast of heat rising up off the alley cut her off a moment as the thug's firebender loosed another blast, this time at the young man at the end of the alley that had just disarmed his buddy. "...and judging by that I'd say the two left are benders." Her gaze had swept across a portion of stone the length of her arm in diameter that had apparently knocked the thug unconscious. The stream of water following the young man at the alley, and the way he carried himself, told her he was a waterbender. The other male, who wasn't a thug anyhow, she was unsure of; She hadn't seen him bend.

They would both be in very hot water in a matter of seconds though. Once the four other thugs rounded the corner at the other end of the alley. She didn't even know what kind of bending to expect out of them. Or if they could at all. Maybe they just had a bit more of a 'hands-on approach' for thuggery.

It was as if that thought had summoned them because they rounded the corner just then, two of them with clubs quickly moved to either side of the alley and started toward the prone victim. He was down but not out but he couldn't see them coming up behind him. The waterbender helping him would be able to. The other two thugs that had just joined the fray took their portion of the alley from the middle.

She was four stories up. It would take her a moment to reach the ground the conventional way. Her next actions could doom or save those two people. But if she jumped in now she'd be stuck in the middle of all of that too. One of the unarmed thugs dropped into a powerful centered stance, raised one leg and stomped down. A chunk of earth the size of Ryari's torso tore up from the alley just in front of his foot and with a straight, forceful, closed-fisted thrust he sent that junk directly at the waterbender at the other end of the alley.

"Time's up..." Twenty-eight years old and she was still getting involved in these scuffles. Ah well, she wasn't about to leave those two to get mugged. Or worse. She no longer thought about what she was going to do, she didn't even think about the fact that she had only one arm. Or that she was four stories up. She sprinted along the edge of the roof that ran along the alley, parallel to that enormous portion of earth. She drew in a deep breath and with a cry, that had it been more high-pitched could have been from an eagle hawk, dove.

She hoped the fact that a woman diving through the air, and the loud noise that accompanied it, would surprise the thugs into momentary inaction. She wasn't focused on them at this exact moment however. She needed to bring down that piece of earth before it got to it's target. She tucked her arm in closer to her and plummeted a little faster. If she didn't time this exactly right she would likely end up breaking her neck. That would appear as one foolish rescue attempt.

The distance between herself and the rock was about as long as her body. In that short distance she tucked her knees to her chest, pitched forward, and planted both heels dead center, forcing it into the ground. As it stuck gravel she leapt forward toward the waterbender. Her momentum carried her into a roll that she followed up onto her feet and she still had to run past the waterbender before she could slow down enough to pivot on her toes toward the new thugs.

"There's three more at the other end!" she cried out in warning to the other two. She hoped they weren't as stunned as the thugs were at her entrance.

Things had started to look rather grim for him, and rather quickly. He was surrounded by three immensely angry thugs, two of which were benders and one who carried a nasty looking blade. They were all looking at him with fury in their eyes, though Zheng doubted that the rage stemmed from the fact their comrade was harmed and more from the fact that he had been able to avoid their mugging attempt. There was definitely no way they were going to let him live now, if they ever intended to in the first place. If word got out that they had been shown up by a teenager, their reputations would be ruined.

It seemed as though the universe had decided to send him salvation, however.

Just as the knife-wielding thug had drawn back the weapon to strike at him, something grabbed his blade from behind and it was yanked from his grip. Startled at this sudden development, the earthbending thug did not have time to defend from the fireblast that Zheng punched into his chest. He was thrown backwards by the force of the attack and hit the alleyway hall, slumping down to his knees, stunned and burned. The firebending thug had already turned and attacked someone behind him, presumably the one that had disarmed the knife using thug.

The man was apparently unamused about having his weapon taken off him and lashed out at Zheng with his fist before the young man could turn to face him. The blow landed squarely on his jaw and knocked him onto the ground, stars bursting into existence before his eyes. He felt a foot lash into his stomach, but he was able to roll with the force of the blow and rob it of much of its strength. Still, it knocked the wind out of him and he tried to roll away and stand up.

He saw the blurry figure of the thug coming in for a third strike, but this time Zheng was ready. He brought his forearm up, catching the punch and moving in close, sharply thrusting his knee between the man's legs. He made an almost imperceptible squeak, then collapsed onto the ground in a fetal ball. Forcing himself to breath steadily, Zheng turned to help whoever it was who had tried to help him, only for a screeching blur of movement thunder towards the ground, catching a piece of rubble that had apparently been aimed for another young man, who the firebender did not recognise as one of the thugs. He was probably the one responsible for disarming the knife user.

Opening his mouth to say something in gratitude, the flying earthbender (a safe assumption, since she had just smashed a large piece of rock into the ground by jumping on it), yelled that there were more thugs coming. Looking back, Zheng raised his guard like his father taught him as he saw that the earthbender was correct. He jabbed forwards with his fists, throwing two small fireballs down the alleyway at the nearest criminal and sending a third in a curved trajectory to catch him while he was occupied with the first two.

While he faced off with these new and angry thugs, Zheng hoped that his companions, whoever they might be, were holding out alright.

Never in his life had he seen such a swift change of atmosphere. It started three against two, a tense, but well-controlled situation. This guy, not a year older than himself, was the victim of happenstance and it was Niko's duty as a human being to help level the odds a little in his favor. They'd beat up some bad guys, get away and live happily ever after knowing that justice and truth prevailed. That's how it had gone in his head anyway.

Everything changed when people started falling out of the sky and the alley was lit up with flames. Niko had done the right thing by stepping in, hadn't he? Chaos was surely taking over and the only thought going through the young man's mind as a slab of rock came hurtling toward him was How did it get so wrong? This is what I get for trying to be a good person. He couldn't remember if he closed his eyes or not, but when he looked up to see the brutal stone take his life, the madness had begun.

Screeching, a woman had somehow gained control of the rock and drove it into the ground. She rolled away from the impact closer to him and was a few steps behind him before she was able to stop. There they stood three strangers, presumably on the same side. The woman who fell from the sky shouted about more on the way and as if the situation couldn't get any worse the firebender from before shot two enormous blasts of flame right at Niko's face. Very unsteady and without time to think, he threw his arms up over his head and the water that waited at his feet shot up to put out, or hopefully deflect the speeding fire.

The roar got louder and louder and Niko felt the indescribable heat approaching fast. He had pulled the water too thin by jerking it up so quickly and when it made contact with the fire it hissed and turned to vapor like a dying snake shedding its mortal skin and was gone. The flames that remained reached out and licked his face with burning malice.

Niko had an anger inside him that he seldom let show, he was scared of it and the things it made him do, but he needed it now. Anger was his only hope, and violence was his weapon. He sprang forward and grabbed the dirty lapel of the attacker's jacket with his left hand. Niko dug his knuckles into the man's collar bone and stepping back, used his own weight to yank him forward onto his knees. His cheeks still stung with the numbness of burning and he took a breath through clenched teeth. His right fist fell hard into the side of the man's head and when the firebender raised his own fist in defiance Niko stepped around him. The thug held his fire for a clear shot, but when he bent forward to stand Niko pushed at his back and sent him crashing into a wall.

With just enough of a break in the action to get away Niko sprinted over to eathbender who had already saved him once. If he was going to be of any help to their little group he needed to find water and fast.