Hello, Sokka's Fan-Lawyer here . . . again. When this was last updated back in, like February. Honestly though, I've had this chapter started for quite some time, but between life (I had the hardest/most time consuming English class the college had to offer—literally my work for it maxes out a three ring binder) and inspiration struggles, it just didn't get off the ground. You have several people to thank for kicking me off my butt and to force myself to finally confront this chapter: EvilFuzzy9 and mysterygirl159—check out their quality stuff when you can (and EvilFuzzy9 actually updates consistently.)

However, here it finally is: the general conclusion to this story arc; there will be an aftermath chapter, but then it's on to the next story! I would like to thank you all for being patient and I hope that you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot and even then, it's a loan.

Sokka blinked—he could have sworn Ti had been standing right in front of him. Suddenly, he heard the slight thud of someone behind him. "Ti!" Kahn roared as he dove towards Sokka's direction, flames already in motion. Son of a bitch, Sokka cursed and hurled himself to the ground as the fireballs just barely missed him. He winced at the brightness and watched as Ti dodged the attack. With a "click" in mid-motion, he opened a few water bottles he must have had on his belt and with quick hand gesture, had four water tendrils swirling around him. Damn, that guy's fast.

Kahn didn't let his failed attack stop him; he turned on his heel and sent a few more fireballs his brother's way. Instead of using his water whips to take the brunt of the damage though, Ti settled to dodging again. Why the…oh. With Ti out of the way, Sokka saw one of the water tower's legs right where the waterbender had been. "Kahn! Watch it!" Sokka yelled as he pivoted towards Ti. "Hina, put out the fire!" Unfortunately for him, Ti was gone again—this time after Ao, who had begun to summon lighting, if the sparks trailing behind his fingers were any indication. Before Sokka could blink, two of Ti's water tendrils shot forward and enveloped Ao's hands and arms. The firebender howled in pain as the electricity from his lightning shot through the water and collapsed to the ground. Sokka could smell the familiar scent of burnt flesh, even from across the roof.

Kahn roared and dove towards Ti, who had retreated towards the roof's exit, while Hina ran to the fallen bender. Sokka was in the middle of the roof where he paused in his pursuit of Ti. He glanced over his shoulder at Hina as she knelt beside Ao and then his gaze shifted forward, where Kahn was dodging the two remaining water whips with surprising agility (more than likely, it was the adrenaline, but still, it seemed to be working). The Water Tribe warrior groaned quietly to himself and turned on his heel and ran back towards Hina.

"Is he okay?" Sokka demanded as he slid to a stop right next to Ao's crumpled and groaning form.

"What the hell you think?" Hina asked as she continued to peel the singed clothing off.

"Okay, obvious. Right. But can you heal him?"

"If I had more water, I could, but if I don't do something soon, Ao's arm muscles are done for." She glanced up. "I need you to make a hole in the water tower."

Sokka blinked. "Yeah, but if I do that, Ti . . ."

Hina cut him off with a steely glare. "Look, I understand, but if I have to choose between saving this man's life, even if it arms some . . . bad guy or letting someone's life be destroyed, I'm going to help them every time and to hell with the consequences. Now, if you don't want me knocking you off this building, I suggest you help me."

Eerily reminded of Katara, Sokka shook his head in frustration. Still, so long as Kahn or himself managed to keep Ti distracted, Hina would surely be able to keep control over the water tower's contents—at least, that's what the Water Tribe warrior told himself as he took his sword and slashed a hole at the water tower's base. Hina already had her arms out and ready as she guided the water's flow towards Ao's arms. Sokka nodded to himself and turned his focus back to the dueling brothers.

For the moment, it seemed as if Kahn and Ti were evenly matched. Kahn had just managed to dodge a whip from one of Ti's remaining tendrils, and Ti, in turn, had dodged the fist-sized fireball Kahn sent towards his face. Ti scowled as he shoved his arms into the tendrils and, with a quick twist of his torso, shot them towards his brother. Kahn's body tensed as he threw himself to the floor to dodge the rapidly extending tendril—yet the second his body touched down, he hurled himself to a crouch and hurried between the two tendrils towards Ti. Before his brother could react, Kahn rapidly shot two fireballs straight at Ti's shoulders tendril. Ti saw this and hurriedly crossed his arms and the tendrils with them, and the fireballs swiftly rammed right into the cool tendrils.

A loud hissing noise rang through the air as steam began to appear around the brothers. Kahn and Ti did not seem to notice; instead, they panted slightly as they looked at each other.

"Ti . . . we don't have to fight." Kahn quietly murmured. "Hina's healing Ao now and she took care of Sou earlier—if you stop, no one else has to get hurt."

Ti shook his head. "I can't stop. I told you: I need to stop the bender threat before it gets too out of hand."

"And how is haunting an apartment building supposed to help with that exactly?" Sokka asked as he walked over to Kahn's side. "Please, I'd love to know."

The waterbender smiled grimly. "Wouldn't you like to know."

Sokka paused as he raised his sword to his shoulders and aimed it at Ti. "Isn—isn't that what I just said?" He raised an eyebrow. "Literally, I just said I'd love—not just like—to know because honestly? It still doesn't make you seem any less wolfbat shit crazy. Give us something better than that for your image's sake, at least; c'mon man, I thought you were the smart brother." Kahn nodded in agreement.

Ti sighed, "You have to start somewhere, right? Clean up your home before you clean up the world."

Sokka's eyes narrowed. There was definitely more to this than that—with any luck, Toph'd be able to get it out of Bu. Perhaps with some more convincing, Ti'd come around, but until then . . . . Sokka didn't respond. Instead, he threw himself towards the older man and stabbed his sword tip towards Ti's leg—if he could just immobilize him for a minute . . . .

Ti didn't even blink; instead, he rapidly lifted his hands and with a quick gesture, condensed the hot, blinding steam around them and smothered Sokka's face with the cold. Son of bitch! Sokka screamed as the heat seared his face and blinded him for a second. Before he could even try to blink, Ti had thrown himself to the side and sent a punch right at the Water Tribe Warrior's face. His fist met an all-too vulnerable nose and a loud crack resounded.

While Sokka fell to the ground and clutched his nose, Kahn appeared immediately behind his falling form and, before Ti could react, returned the favor by punching his brother in the eye. Ti grunted as he stumbled backwards. "W-we have to keep him busy; Hina, water tower, right?" Sokka rasped while he tentatively let go of his nose. Kahn shot him a confused look. Sokka just rolled his eyes. "Get him!" Kahn nodded and ran after his brother. Unfortunately for him, Ti had already recovered and begun to make his move.

Ti, with a quick sidestep, ducked around Kahn's lunge, and was making a dash towards the water tower. Shit! Sokka swung his sword, but his sight was still blurry from the steam attack and Ti easily dodged in midstride. Frankly, Toph would've killed him if he told her that Ti had gotten away because a little thing like blindness—Sokka could even picture her scowling face at the news and shuddered. He quickly turned and raced after the blurry shape he pegged as Ti. "No. You. Don't!" He dove forward and shoved his blade through Ti's right shoulder.

Ti screamed and fell forward, and Sokka fell after him. Quickly, the Water Tribe warrior reached around and hugged Ti's legs with a death grip. The waterbender began to thrash around, but Sokka held on, despite being kicked in the chin at least twice in the process. While Sokka kept bouncing up and down thanks to Ti's struggling, he noticed Kahn had run over and thrown himself across his brother's back. With a grunt, he reached out and grabbed Ti's arms and forced them against his back, successfully pinning him.

"No more Ti. You can't bend—you can't move. We got you." Kahn mumbled. "Please, just stop."

"Jus-just because I can't move my hands," Ti managed to glance over his shoulder and give his brother a chilling glare. "doesn't mean I can't bend." Sokka's blood went cold at the tone of his voice. What . . . ? Suddenly, Ti jerked his backward and suddenly, the stream that had been coming out of the water tower shuddered and began to readjust its aim from the ground to Kahn. You have got to be kidding~! Sokka managed to think before the water slammed itself into Kahn's chest and knocked him back. Kahn grunted as he fell towards Sokka who quickly pushed himself off of Ti's legs to Ti's left side—as much as he wanted to break Kahn's fall, he also didn't want to risk being frozen together.

True enough, the second Ti's hands were freed, he had been trying to get to his feet. That done, a rapid hand gesture later and the pillar of water drenched Kahn—and another gesture later, Kahn found himself frozen to the roof's floor.

"Kahn!" Hina cried from her spot by Ao. "Ti, what the fuck is wrong with you?"

Ti just ignored her. "Kahn, please, just stay down. Just let me go."

Sokka glanced down at the frozen Kahn; he had only just barely missed getting frozen himself. Fortunately, Ti seemed a bit too caught up in pleading with his younger brother to pay attention to a "helpless little nonbender. " He was also a bit too caught up in the moment to notice that while he had been manipulating the water tower's stream, he had gotten wet himself . . . . Fortunately, Sokka didn't even have to say anything—Hina was already on her feet and, with a sweep of her arms, the water on Ti began to freeze. He grunted as he snapped out of his emotional state; he began to rip his long sleeved tunic off before the ice could expand too much.

Unfortunately for him, Sokka was already on the move. While Ti's focus had momentarily shifted to his ripping off the sopping remnants of his tunic, Sokka had lunged forward and successfully stabbed through the waterbender's left wrist—had he had a colder heart, Sokka knew he could've completely removed the hand and greatly reduce Ti's bending prowess, but even despite the situation, he couldn't bring himself to cross that line. As it was, all this stabbing through actual flesh was discombobulating; the resistance, the slight tugging of muscle tissue as the blade stabbed through—it just felt wrong, but Sokka couldn't let himself get too soft. Not with this much on the line.

Ti screamed and began to stumble, but Sokka didn't wait for him to regain his balance. After the Water Tribe warrior swiftly yanked his sword out (he didn't want to sever the wrist and if Ti kept stumbling, it would've happened), he reached out with his free hand and gripped Ti's injured wrist. He planted his feet firmly on the ground and, with a quick breath to collect himself, twisted the wrist until he heard a snapping noise.

The whole process had only taken two seconds.

Ti's scream cut out as the pain overwhelmed him; his nerves were likely shutting down for his sanity's sake. No matter how good a fighter, not many could take a broken limb and shake it off immediately. The waterbender's brief mental reboot gave Sokka amble time to push Ti away from himself and leap an extra foot away from Ti's stumbling form. "Hina, freeze him!"

"Don't have to tell me, idiot! What do you think I'm doing?" Hina growled as she bent down and quickly stood up, summoning the water splattered all around the water tower and herself into the air. Venomously, she shifted her weight and hurled it all at Ti, who was amply soaked. She quickly took a deep breath and finished the job by expelling it towards her former friend.

The result was immediate. Ti seemed to collect his wits enough to realize what was happening, but a second later, it was too late for him to do anything about it—he was frozen from head to toe, and, for added measure, his feet were frozen to the roof. Sokka was subconsciously reminded of Katara's various waterbending misadventures when she was younger—almost all of them ended with himself, the innocent, lovable bystander, in much the same rigid, freezing position Ti found himself. "Time out, jerk." Hina glared and Sokka shivered at the drop in temperature.

"Is he really immobile in there?" Sokka ventured. "No chance of him slightly wiggling his fingers or something and breaking out?"

Hina shook her head. "No; he was too thoroughly covered with water—odds are, the ice is literally covering every square inch of space. At this rate, he'd be stuck there for two years or something and not realize a day's gone by."

"Oh." Like Aang's ice berg sphere thing we found him in. Well, with any luck, the authorities would be there soon enough to free Ti . . . and hopefully this case'll escalate his and Toph's reputations enough to get a private interrogation with him. That can wait . . ., Sokka wearily thought as he sneezed. He really need to get adjusted to the cold again . . . . "Maybe you should check on Kahn? He could probably just melt his way out, but it'll take him like another half hour . . . "

"Oh, right." Hina flushed a little despite the situation and hurried over Ao's side to Kahn's. Slowly, she began to unfreeze portions of the ice—from experience, Sokka knew that you didn't get unfrozen all at once, for fear of shock and other such medical reasons Gran Gran had explained and he had dutifully tuned out. His gaze wandered over to Ao's crumbled form. Sokka felt guilty—after all, he had roped the firebender into this mess and now he wound up paying the heaviest toll. Hopefully Hina had managed to save something . . ., Sokka thought; otherwise, to some degree, he and Toph were just as responsible for his injury and inability to work as Ti was.

"Ao's going to be okay, by the way." Hina must've noticed where he was looking and the guilty look on his face. "I managed to restore most of his muscle function—he may not be able to pull elaborate pipa solos, but otherwise, he should be fine."

Sokka visibly slumped with relief. "Thank the spirits." At least that was okay . . . .

"What about the earthbender?" Hina asked as she shifted her focus from Kahn's unfrozen hand to his wrist.

"What?"

"You know, Ti's partner."

Sokka's mental gears kickstarted and he gapped. "Shit!" Without missing a beat, he sprinted right in-between Hina and frozen Kahn and the ice pillar that was Ti, towards the exit.

Please, PLEASE, let Toph be okay, he thought as he slammed the door open. I'm coming Toph!

. . .

Well, this could be a bit easier, Toph thought as she dodged yet another one of Bu's rocks—except this time, instead of just letting fly past her, she reached out a hand and, with a grunt of effort, relaxed her arm so that she caught it versus it just breaking her arm. With a quick shift of her weight, she hurled the rock back at Bu. Bu saw this somehow (Toph could've sworn that she had heard Fuin turn off the lights just after the tenant meeting, but she couldn't be sure) and threw himself to the ground. Perfect.

Toph kicked the ground and dug her foot into the stone floor and a rock tent sprouted out of the floor and trapped the other earthbender. Sweet—oh, she thought as she felt the tent shake and Bu kicked one of the tent's walls through the air. She quickly crossed her wrists in front of her as she could both sense and hear as the wall flew towards her. She grunted as she forced it to break into pieces as it hit her, but it was still no problem—not for someone of her ability and endurance. The only problem was that she couldn't use any of her bigger moves, for fear of bringing the building down on them or taking the fight out to the street where civilians could be injured. So she was stuck here for the time being, on the defensive.

Fuck that, she growled as she sensed Bu hurling his bulky self towards her. She stomped on the ground and raised a dust screen—fortunately, Fuin was not exactly the type to waste hard-earned ripped off gold on a cleaning service, so she had plenty to work with. Quickly, she forced open a hole underneath herself and covered it, all the while Bu swore quietly under his breath. It was a shame, really; normally earthbenders were more of the grunting, yelling smack talk sort—thus far, she had barely gotten two words out of the man. Still, at least he didn't have her senses, otherwise trapping herself underground could just as easily backfire.

It paid off though; she just had to bide her time until he stepped on top of her hiding place just . . . like . . . that! She bent low and then shot to her full height and the ground underneath her responded accordingly. She was hurled from her whole and, blindly, punched upwards, right into his armpit. He yelled briefly and tried to punch her with his unwounded arm; but she had already pushed herself off his torso with her legs and, for two or three uncomfortable seconds, she was in the air. The second her feet touched the ground, she threw two rocks in Bu's direction; hopefully, the dust screen was still up and he wouldn't see them coming.

Unfortunately, while Bu still couldn't see the oncoming missiles, he could hear them as they whistled through the air. As he tried to catch his breath from Toph's punch to his torso, he threw himself to the side and, from the sound of his, began to draw something from on his person—probably a blade of some kind, if the metallic resonance she felt was any indication. Not wanting to tip her hand by metalbending the damn thing in half yet (she could all but hear Sokka's smirking tone saying "cover, cover" on loop), she reluctantly opted to instead duck behind Fuin's desk. A second later, the metal object sailed right past where her head had been.

Suddenly, Bu made a quick gesture and the object's trajectory changed. "What the hell—!" Toph spat as she threw herself to the floor and the metal object stabbed into the wooden desk. She panted for a second—this son of a bitch can metalbend, she thought quickly, but she shook her head—she had to keep moving; if she stayed in one place for too long—she rolled to her left as the ground where she had just been began to crumble. Her hand twitched; if only she could use her usual moves, this guy'd be toast. Still, Toph hadn't become as good as she was by bitching—but what would Sokka do in a situation like this? Probably get the guy talking.

"A metalbender, huh? Impressive. I've heard of people like you." There, nothing gets someone talking quite like a compliment, or so her mother had told her, all those years ago. "I'll be honest, I didn't even think it was possible."

Bu snorted; Toph was willing to bet her dust screen had dissipated and his vision had returned. From what she could sense, the man was slowly inching his way towards the desk; if he thought he was going to take her by surprise, he had another thing coming.

"Once you widen your of thinking about the elements, you'll find materials in the most unlikely of places. Take waterbending for example—what is blood, but water that's inside people? Likewise, what is metal but refined earth?"

"Oh, so now you're talking to me; and here I thought you were too stupid to talk." Toph reflexively retorted. Fortunately, Bu didn't seem offended by the remark.

"It's not that I'm stupid—I'm just picky about my conversations; I'm not some villain you hear about in the old tales. I don't monologue about my plans. Though I am impressed you dodged my knife—most people don't notice that it's coming back at them before it's too late."

"What can I say? I know a guy with a boomerang."

"Really? Fascinating—now, perhaps you could tell me something—how did you catch onto me?"

"It wasn't that difficult." She called back. "From the descriptions of the Dragon's coming and going, we figured that there had to a two man team involved. Though the real kicker was when your partner was stupid enough to waterbend when he was attacking our party—was that planned, by the way? I doubt it; you seemed just as surprised as anyone else there. Clever, if you did that on purpose somehow. But frankly, you were the only earthbender around really and you happened to be the guy who helped with the building's plumbing and other shit—you were kinda obvious, if you think about it."

Right after she finished, Bu kicked the ground and the stone floor under the desk flew up and slammed the desk into the ceiling. The second Toph was robbed of her cover, a barrage of rocks flew her way. By now, Toph could sense that the floor beneath them was growing thinner—they were using too much of it for their ammunition—she couldn't risk using any more of it to cover herself with a full shield. Instead, she tried rolling again—in mid-roll, however, she stealthily shot her own rock; it was small and pointed, like a cone, and before Bu could move, it stabbed him right in the thigh.

The earthbender muffled a scream and all the barraging rocks fell to the ground as he was overcome with pain. I can't risk him breaking out of another crevice—I'm just going to have to handcuff him or something, she thought as she took a note from the Dai Lee's book and quickly crafted two stone fists which, a second later, she hurled towards the distracted Bu. He glanced up as the hands flew, gripped his shoulders on their way past, and slammed him against the wall behind him. Quickly, Toph sent four more in rapid succession that slammed into and bruised other parts of his arms—however, the two that were aimed at his legs missed when he swung his lower half forward towards Toph with what must've been abs of steel.

A second later, he slammed his foot to the ground and kicked two stones right at Toph, who dodged. Again, she reached out with her senses and seized control of the stones before they slammed into the wall and, with a twist of her head, sent them flying right back towards Bu's torso. With a sickening thud, both stones enveloped him, further trapping him against the wall.

"Shit!" Bu cursed and Toph smirked; this would not last much longer.

She sent some more rocks to trap his legs; unfortunately, his head was still free and he made use of it. With every lift of his head, the floor would rise under Toph's feet, but her earthbending made them easy to avoid. "How the hell are you doing that?" Bu finally spat as she closed the distance between them.

"Unlike you, I don't get hung up on what I see." She smiled as she stabbed her hands into the stone wall on either side of Bu's head, gripped it, and with a grunt of effort, pulled out some of the stone. A second later, she had the stones combined into a single sheet, which she stretched over Bu's jaw and mouth and sealed back to the wall. "There, that should keep your head from moving."

Bu struggled against the restraints. "Don't worry; I'm almost through with you." She tensed her hands and "glanced" at the stone fists that kept Bu's arms against the wall; and then she began to squeeze.

Like clockwork, the stone hands began to tighten.

The trapped earthbender's screams were muffled by the stone restraint, but Toph could still vividly hear his pain. Her squeeze tightened and a series of pops resounded from Bu's arms as they broke in four different places; the cracking sounds of his hands breaking were not far behind.

Bu shrieked but Toph just shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I can't have you bending; enough people have gotten hurt in this mess, and you'd only make things worse."

The other earthbender didn't respond, most likely due to going into shock. Toph frowned; she may have won the fight, but she still felt distinctly uncomfortable with the lengths she had to go to. Bu's screams still rang in her ears, to say nothing of the pops and cracks.

"Toph?" Sokka's familiar heartbeat resounded from behind her. She said nothing as he walked to her side. "I see you got him—is he still, you know . . ."

"Alive?" She didn't have to see to know that Sokka was nodding awkwardly. "Yeah; he just passed out after I shattered most of the bones in his arms."

"Why?" Sokka's voice was quiet, but it was also not accusing or condemning; if anything, it sounded weary.

"I couldn't take the risk that he'd somehow force his way out of the restraints—I may be the best, but he was good; good enough that people would only get hurt if I had to seriously fight him. I didn't have a choice."

Sokka sighed. "I get it. We had to freeze Ti to the roof to get his limbs to stop moving. Hina's up there now, keeping him on ice."

Toph shot her friend a look. "Ti? I thought Kahn was our guy."

Sokka snorted. "Long story, but suffice to say that more than one plot twist showed up, but it worked out."

It was silent for a second. "Was anyone hurt?" Toph finally ventured.

The Water Tribe warrior nodded. "Ao had his arms electrocuted, but Hina says she was able to get to him before the damage got too severe. He'll lose some movement, but not enough to stop daily activities. He'll still be able to take care of himself just fine. But otherwise, outside of being wet and freezing, most of us got out okay." His voice lowered a bit. "You?"

She shook her head. "Nah; who do you think you're talking to, Snoozles?"

"Nice—but there's no way in hell I'm cleaning this place up." He paused and she could hear his stiff bones crack slightly as he likely glanced up. "Is that seriously Bu's desk stuck in the ceiling?"

"Yeah?" Toph could tell that he was giving her one of his trademark suspicious glances.

"Was that your doing?" Smiling a little, she shook her head. The Water Tribe warrior sighed. "Oh good; either way, I was going to tell Fuin that Bu did it, but this way I'm not lying."

Toph chuckled and a companionable silence fell between them. Finally, Toph reluctantly admitted, "It was a pain in the ass to limit myself though. There aren't enough materials or space for me to fight on my full scale and I really don't want to have to keep breaking the arms of every bender we'll fight."

Sokka nodded again. "Yeah, I can imagine. I'll think of something." There it was; Mr. Dependable on the job. With any luck, he'd come up with something sooner rather than later—perhaps the police could give them some pointers about city fighting. As proud as Toph was, she had matured enough to take advice from others—that didn't mean she didn't mock them in the process though; maturity only goes so far, after all.

"What made you so sure he'd go for the records anyway?" Toph asked.

"Simple." Sokka shrugged. "I was banking on them being involved with the bender thing Aang's having us look into; if they were trying to go after certain people, they wouldn't want to draw attention to the fact that the missing tenants are all benders, so therefore, he'd try to destroy the records, so the connection among the missing would hopefully be overlooked by the police. Who's ever behind this isn't ready yet to go public." He went on to describe Ti's outburst and motive for assisting Bu. "Essentially, he just wanted to help his brother, which is why he attacked our party thing. From what I can figure, he caught wind of our suspicions of Hina and he didn't want his friend and Kahn's love interest to take the rap for his own actions. So he must've either gotten Bu here for the event or Bu had been here already and Ti managed to talk him into changing targets."

"Use bending to destroy the threat of benders." Toph frowned. "That seems a bit crazy."

"Maybe . . . ." Sokka trailed off. Toph waited for him to finish the thought, but he remained silent; she didn't push the issue.

Together, the two friends stood there in the littered office for another ten minutes until, finally, Toph winced. "There's something big coming; some kind of four legged animal thing." A second later, Sokka could hear its claws scrapping over the pavement.

"Stop, Nyla." A smooth, distantly familiar voice commanded and the scrapping came to halt just outside the building.

"What're we supposed to do now? The rest of the squad's like ten minutes behind us." Complained a gruff, deep voice. A man for sure.

"Not my fault those slowpokes can't keep up with us." There was a click of shoes falling on pavement as she hopped off her mount's back.

"No way." Sokka gapped as he poked his head around Bu's restrained form and peeked out the open doorframe. "It can't be . . . ."

"What? You know these guys?" Toph hissed.

"You don't remember?" Sokka hissed back. The earthbender raised her eyebrow and put on her best "obviously, dumbass" face. Sokka must've taken the hint, because he began to respond, until he was cut off by the sound of knocking.

"This is the police; we were called about intruders in this building by someone named Hina—is she present? If so, may we talk to her?" Called the gruff voice. Sokka looked at Toph, who shrugged. "C'mon guys, I can see you in there; this dump needs to get some kind of door." Silence. A sigh. "You have until I get to the count of three; after that, we're coming in whether you like it or not."

"Er, that won't be necessary! We caught the guys." Sokka called out in his Wang Fire voice.

"Regardless sir, we were called and so we have to fill out a report—them's the rules, so if we could talk to you for a few minutes . . . you?" The gruff voiced guy must've looked through the door and saw them. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey Chit Sang, nice to see you too." Sokka sighed. Chit Sang? Oh yeah . . . the creepy old guy Sokka and Zuko broke out of the Boiling Rock. "I see June's with you." Toph suppressed a grin; she thought that smooth voice had sounded familiar.

"Oh great." June groaned as she too walked in. "Just what we need. Why is it you guys keep being pains in my ass? Can't you kiddies take a hint?" She glared at them. "What are you doing here anyway? Besides catching our targets." She turned her gaze towards the unconscious Bu. "Good job, but a tad brutal; inefficient." Was that respect Toph heard in the former bounty hunter's tone? "Seriously, why are you here? As Avatar groupies, shouldn't you be somewhere less shitty? Adoring idiots hanging on your every word?"

"We don't want anyone to know we're here—speaking of, what are you two doing here? Last we heard, you were a bounty hunter and you," Sokka turned the question right back at the two officers as he shifted towards Chit Sang. "had disappeared."

"We're with the police, if you must know." June snorted. "They pay surprisingly well, for a civil servant gig; but with Nyla's nose, it was cheaper for them to just hire me instead of keep bringing me in as a consultant—and I happen to like job security, almost as much as I like gold; where better to find scumbags than a new city? So I got partnered up with this geezer here."

"I'm not that old!" Chit Sang snapped. "You're only three years younger than me, you know; not my fault prison ages a guy." He glanced back at them; Sokka was still waiting for an answer. "Anyway, there's not much to tell. After you guys broke me out, I got to thinking about how I got stuck there in the first place—you know, after being framed and all the that bullshit. After a while of hiding from the Fire Nation, I promised myself something: if I lived through the end of the war, I would use my second chance to stop anyone else from being wrongly locked up like some stray dog. Soon as I heard that this police was hiring, I made my way here and finally got stuck with this snotty bitch."

"You're walking back to the station." June deadpanned. "Keep it up and Nyla may just paralyze you again." Chit Sang scowled and grumbled under his breath. "So why the hell are you here?"

"We can't tell you." Sokka said carefully. "But I will say that it's Avatar business."

June and Chit Sang glanced at each other. "Not good enough. You have until the rest of the squad gets here to give us some reason why we shouldn't just tell them who you are and let them force it out of you the old fashioned way at the station."

Sokka glanced down at Toph who shrugged. She trusted his judgment and he was supposed to be the group's talker anyway; she doubted anything she could say would help much. Sokka scowled as he realized Toph wasn't going to help and turned back to June.

"Okay, look, we can tell you. Later. It's a long story, but we could probably use your help. But until then, we need you to keep quiet about us; we'll . . . owe you one."

There was a silence as June and Chit Sang considered this. Toph could feel Sokka's heartbeat increase every second the other two said nothing; she could begin to sense the rest of the squad turning onto their road. They probably had two minutes at the most. "Well?" Sokka finally demanded.

"Make it two favors and you've got a deal." Chit Sang said. "One for both of us."

Sokka hissed in frustration, but nodded. "Fine! Fine; whatever—so long as Toph and I can interview these guys on our own. We promise."

"Perfect." June purred, and then she looked out onto the street. "Down here, you dumbasses; you're five minutes late; Chief Oda's gonna have your asses if you don't hurry up and do your damn jobs!"

"Yes ma'am!" Came the chorus of officers and the sound of footfalls reverberated throughout the street as the officers increased their pace.

Sokka and Toph shared a look and sighed. "I guess this is out of our hands now, huh?"

"Yeah." Toph nodded. "But hey: we won, right? First case solved."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Sokka was probably giving her a tired smile. "Though I wish that at least one of our adventures didn't end with the cops dragging us away." That said, he sat on the ground and waited for the professionals to take things from there.

…

Look forward to the aftermath and let me know what you think of the additions of Chit Sang and June! Personally, I think they're going to wind up being more the Juliet/Lassiter duo to Sokka/Toph's Shawn and Gus, however more illegal they may be inclined. Still, if you have any tips as to how to write them better, please do not hesitate to tell me. Or you can tell me to go screw myself—that works; input is valuable, after all! I cannot promise that the next chapter will be up before the end of the week, but by the end of August, it will be up for sure. Let me know if there's anything you guys might want to see in future arcs! Thanks again so much for your patience.