Power Means Freedom 2

Stolen bread pressed hot against his torn shirt, close to his ribs and held there with one hand.

“Stop!”

All sharp elbows and knobby knees, Kou’s sandals slapped a wet rhythm against the cobblestones. Alleys of the lower district blurred past, gray smears of soot-stained brick and overflowing gutters.

A sharp whistle cut the air as the thirteen-year-old ducked on instinct, metal cable whipping past his left ear and off into empty space. Metalbenders.

Two of them.

The police officers’ armored boots were heavy and quick and already on his tail. It seemed sometimes like all they did was chase alley rats for a living, the Triple Threat Triads seemingly untouchable and never bothered. 

All this practice and they probably weren’t even breathing hard; just running the angles and letting the cables do the reaching for them.

Kou ducked right, lungs burning as he tasted the thick salt of the harbor air — engine grease and rotting fish heavy on the wind. Shipping crates towered in front of him; uneven stacks across the piers making an artificial mountain maze of wood he’d been through too many times to get lost in.

A dockworker — shoulders broad and bare chest hairy and scarred — stood beside an open crate, a piece of crumpled paper gripped tight in one meaty hand while the other rubbed a heavy jaw dusted with gray stubble. 

Dark eyes met his own for all of a second.

Kou dove right into the crate, no words or permission given as he pulled the wooden cover in front of him. The darkness swallowed him up, old burlap and crushed tea leaves an uncomfortable cushion in the tight space.

“Dockworker!” Metal-plated boots hit the dock outside, voices heavy with authority sounding off right next to the crate. “You see a boy run through here?”

Silence stretched, the space between question and answer widening with each second Kou held his breath. Finally… 

“Saw some brat cut back over to the old cannery. A few seconds ago, running like the Trips were after him.”

“Damn it.” A sharp breath came loose, irritation compacted tight. “Come on.”

Heavy boots faded away, each step sounding off on the planks.

Kou stayed frozen in the black of the crate, the heat of the bread close to his chest as he pulled his knees tighter. The crate lid lifted and light poured in, a weathered face looking down at him with an expression he couldn’t read.

“Y’okay, kid?”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

You’re okay. You’re okay.

The wood swung back up, fast enough to blur as it caught him on the other side of his jaw.

He wasn’t.

Not as stars exploded across his vision, forcing white behind eyes squeezed shut. Kou hit the ground hard, the packed dirt of the prison yard getting under his fingernails as he caught himself. He braced himself, hands clawing the ground as he gasped for air that absolutely refused to enter his body. 

It didn’t help a single bit when a heavy boot swung in from the side and caught him in the kidney. “Nnnghhh!” The force rolled him over, Kou’s lean body tumbling onto his side with a small cloud of kicked-up dust.

“Get up.” Rough hands grabbed the collar of his prison grays, hauling him upright with no care and less patience. “And get moving.”

The yard tilted and spun, high walls whirling in a sickening circle that only started to slow once Kou clamped his jaw shut; breathing forced into the strict four-count Renshu had taught him years back.

In. Hold. His ribs screamed, the specific pain in them letting Kou know they were just on the safe side of cracked. It didn’t mean much for pain, but it could’ve been worse. Out. Hold.

Strong hands dragged him forward, legs scraping dead weight as they took him into the heavy iron doors of E-Block. Fluorescent lights buzzed their low insect hum overhead, yellow shadows long and sprawling below grated metal walkways.

The guards didn’t slow one bit, especially not as he found his feet, marching him straight toward the lower common area. Cells lined the hallway, thick bars of iron separating the general population from everything else.

“Kou!”

A face pressed up against the iron, clear enough even from the sides of his eyes. What remained of his old squadmates — Jinpa, leaning heavily against the bars, thick arms poking through; Miri, sitting on the bolted bench; Tao’s bulk pacing the back of the cell like a tiger badger — were locked in for the afternoon count.

“Kou!” Jinpa shouted again, the muscular equalist’s actually tight with alarm. “Hey, what happened? Hey, back off him, man!”

“Kou, look at me.” Miri stepped beside Jinpa. “You good? Talk to me.”

He tucked his chin hard to his chest, dark hair falling forward as a curtain over the swelling eye and split lip. He didn’t turn his head and he definitely didn’t meet their eyes. 

A leader provided.

A leader was useful.

A leader was strong.

A leader who settled shit and traded favors with the lifers to keep the Equalist remnants from getting shivved in the showers had to do lot of things. What he could not do was look weak while getting marched down a hallway like a beaten dog.

If the crew saw him look their way with a swollen eye and a bloody mouth, he just became another victim. Reputation… He let the black hair hang over his face and kept walking, boots dragging on the concrete.

By the time he got to his cell, the guards shoved him inside without another word. His boots tangled under his feet, Kou trying and failing to keep steady as the heavy iron door slammed shut behind him with a clang.

The lock tumbled, the deadbolt nearly as loud as the door itself.

Giving up completely on even trying to stand, the thin mattress caught his weight, the smell of sweat filling him as he hit it face-first. The pain was still there, spreading from his jaw and all the way down to his ribs; a constant throb that burned with every breath.

The edges of the cell blurred, fading fast into the dark.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

“Power.”

Renshu could rumble with the best of them, years of yelling over the sound of crashing waves and hundreds of other workers down by the docks doing their part. Even now, in the basement under the textiles factory, his voice carried perfectly.

“That’s what benders got.” Fist met palm as he eyed them all from wher he stood, pacing a slow heavy line in front of the ranks of wannabes; street kids, runaways, angry orphans and even the sad ones too. “That’s what you don’t.”

One hand slapped out to backhand the wooden dummy right behind him, the thing in the center of the room wrapped tight in thick canvas and rope. It shuddered for a second under the hit, only taking a second to keep its balance. “They walk the street and the street is theirs. Cops, Triads. Counci. They all run on the same three engines. Water. Earth.” The big man stopped, thick hands flexing tight into fists. “Fire.”

Renshu clicked his tongue, looking back up as the dark look on his face hardened to something less murderous. “But we take it from them. You learn this, you learn the arts, and you will never be powerless again in front of any bender. We take what makes them strong.”

Kou nodded from where he stood, nursing his wounds in the first row, just soaking up every word like he hadn’t heard it a half dozen times before. He didn’t care about the rest of it. Amon talked fancy, sure, and Kou listened to all the speeches on the radio when he could. 

But all that shit about equality didn’t mean a damn thing.

No one was ever equal.

Even plenty of benders were stronger than others.

Hell, no one was stronger than the Avatar.

No matter what all those pamphlets said about ‘systemic oppression’ and ‘societal balance’, Kou was old enough to know it was bullshit.

Just an excuse to break the law and do what they wanted.

But it was good bullshit.

Hell, it was useful bullshit.

And, more than that, it was powerful bullshit.

And Kou could work with tha-

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

“Get up!”

Something slapped him hard across his face, swollen cheekbone flaring with pain.

His head snapped to the side, back of his skull jerking against the thin mattress. Pale amber eyes tore themselves open, vision swimming in a blur of endless gray. “Wha…”

The dim light of the cell hit him as Kou felt a draft, cold over his skin; enough to make him shiver. Kou blinked quick, trying to take in the sight of a massive hole blown through the thick concrete wall of his cell, the night sky of Republic City hanging outside.

That was confusing enough, but what held his attention for even longer was the sight of a twisting green plant that couldn’t be described in any other word but massive. Wider than two or three of him put together, the glowing vine curled straight through the shattered stone and into the cramped space of his cell.

Power bled off it, heavy and heady enough that he could almost taste it. Am I dreaming?

Vines didn’t grow through concrete.

Vines weren’t this big.

Vines didn’t glow.

“Wh-wha…?”

“I said, get up!” Another backhand cracked Kou across the face, head snapping back into the floor; the flare of pain confirming that no, he was definitely still in the waking world.

Amber eyes blinked blearily as Kou tracked back up, focusing on the two figures standing over him. The exact same figures wearing the exact same uniforms from the yard. Anger twisted the lines of the first guard’s face, fighting a losing battle for first place against pure panic, with confusion coming up right behind it. The guard kept throwing wide frantic glances at the glowing green monstrosity taking up one whole side of the cell, clearly out of his element.

It was a good look on him. 

Naturally, Kou appreciated a terrified cop.

But why?

Screams and shouts overlapped and echoed from the hallway just outside his cell, the heavy thud of boots running back and forth in blind panic almost as loud as the sirens wailing through the entire block. What the hell is going on?

“If you don’t move!” 

The first guard raised a hand, stepping into the swing. The heavy rung on his finger caught the barely-there light as the man wound up to bring another fist down on Kou’s bruised jawline.

Something else took over, Kou’s body moving entirely on street-kid instinct and Equalist reflex.

He swung wild from the mattress, good arm thrown out with all the weight of his battered shoulder just to create space, just to make the beating stop, just to survive the next five seconds—

The air inside the tiny cell shattered.

Compressed wind exploded outward from the center of Kou’s open hand. Palm and wind both struck the guard in his chest with more force than Kou had ever seen. 

The man flew backward, launched clean off the ground.

His back slammed into the iron bars of the cell with a sickening crash. The next moment, he crumpled straight down, bouncing to the floor with a thick line of blood already trailing down to stain the gray stone.

The second guard froze, riot stick slipping in his sweaty grip as his eyes went wide. Those eyes watched the unmoving body of his partner for a breath before slowly tracking back to the kid standing atop the filthy mattress.

Kou…

Kou just stared at his own open hand.

The bruised knuckles still shook, visibly trembling as a small current of wind swirled around his fingers, just enough to lift the frayed edge of his prison sleeve.

The laughter started low.

He wasn’t sure where it was coming from at first.

And when he realized, he didn’t know how to stop it.

It bubbled up from the bottom of his chest, shaking his sore ribs as it climbed its way up his throat. Every second, it grew louder and harsher and more manic until it fully spilled out of his mouth to bounce off the concrete walls and fight with the sirens to be heard.

I’m an airbender.

He was.

The supreme cosmic joke of it hit him with more force than a speeding Satomobile. 

Him.

The Equalist.

The chi-blocker. The kid who spent two shitty years doing his best to become someone that could dismantle the benders piece by piece, practicing chi points on wooden dummies until his fingers bled. It was the funniest fucking thing he had ever known in all seventeen years of a miserable life scraping in the dirt.

So funny that the laughter tore out of his lungs completely uncontrolled, hot tears pricking the corners of swollen, purple eyes.

The scrape of a boot pulling back across the floor pulled him out of it as Kou snapped his head up, laughter dying to nothing all at once.

The second guard took another trembling step backward toward the open cell door, riot stick shaking in a white-knuckled grip as his eyes darted towards escape.

No.

Before the guard could pivot, before the lungs could pull in enough air to yell for help or backup or whatever, Kou launched himself forward, the mattress flying towards the wall. He crossed the rest of the cell in a single motion, ignoring the screaming in his ribs as his hand shot out.

A palm clamped tight over the guard’s open mouth, pinning the man’s head back against the cold concrete with a dull thud.

Kou leaned in close to pin the heavier man back with leverage and angle, finding it much easier than he expected. His fingers gripped the guard’s jaw tight with new strength, feeling the frantic pulse hammering in the man’s throat as pressure began to build.

Pale amber eyes locked onto the wide pupils of the guard.

“Breathe.”