Exploring the Market [Open]

Right... so maybe she was the oddest sight these people had seen in a while but that was still no reason to stare, or so Avery thought. She didn't usually bother leaving the Air Temple, but her grandmother had insisted she run to the market for something that the Temple didn't have: she personally thought her grandmother was just trying to get her to stop being hold up in the temple meditating or training all of the time. So, she had teleported herself into one of the many little alleyways of the floating city, or rather... Pandaported; courtesy of the panda cub that was currently seated on her shoulders much like a child sat on their parents shoulders. The black and white ball of fur had a stick of bamboo in its right paw and was holding onto the top of her head with its left: nomming away on the bamboo happily enough.

She maneuvered her way around the crowds of people, mumbling beneath her breath as she did so how she hated it when people chose the middle of the street to stand and chat in: some people just didn't think. "Well, hello there pretty lady... you just jump started my heart when I saw you.", came the elderly male voice next to her. She turned just in time to take in the old mans appearance before the bamboo her panda had been nomming on suddenly blurred past her out of the corner of her vision, the tip smacking hard against the top of the old mans head, leaving behind the panda's slobber due to that being the same side he had been chewing on moments before.

"Lil Bai, you have to seriously stop hitting people over the head with that stick...", Avery said softly as she watched the old man walk away quickly, muttering and rubbing the top of his head: he would likely have a nasty lump there by the next morning. It wasn't that he hadn't deserved to be hit with what he had said to her, but the panda that was currently riding on her shoulders like some little kid hit a heck of a lot harder than a normal panda ever would; even though he was just a cub.

"Bamboo not stick...", responded the panda, clear as day in what sounded to be a very child-like voice. The panda cub waved the foot and a half long bamboo stick around in front of her, showing it to her, before he promptly shoved the very chewed tip back into his mouth and began to nom on it once more.

"Right, bamboo... but still.", she said, trying to keep her voice stern amidst all of the noise coming from behind her; the sound of the panda loudly eating. It was adorable, and it was hard to be stern when she knew that Lil' Bai only did what he did because he was protective; and that old man had been somewhat of a pervert.

Lil' Bai stopped chewing for a moment, his head tilting at the stern sounding voice she was attempting to pass off. After a moment he chucked the bamboo stick down on the ground before wrapping his black fur covered arms around her head, hugging her. Avery, feeling the literal bear hug couldn't help but to chuckle: she just couldn't be stern with him when he was being adorable. "You're just trying to get out of trouble...", she muttered softly, stopping nearby one of the fruit stands; searching for what her grandmother had sent her for; and leaning lightly on the fan staff she had brought with it, despite having teleported here. A breeze blew through the market, causing her long blond hair to blow sideways with it. Lil' Bai blinked at suddenly being covered with her hair, and attempted to brush it off before losing his grip and tumbling backwards: after turned suddenly, her speed coming in handy as she grabbed the panda before he could hit the ground. Lil' Bai clung for a moment to her yellow shirt which hung off of her shoulders, revealing the black straps of the tank she wore underneath; which matched the black shorts she had on. 

"Careful, Lil Bai... or you'll be the next one with a goose egg on his head.", she muttered, putting the bear back on her shoulders once more.

The distinctive sounds of a staff repeatedly impacting someone's head became loud, along with the grunts and ouches of the pain it brought. It was like a scene out of a comic book. A small child wearing a cape with a red stick that could expand it's length was engaged with 3 grown men. Even attacking together, the 3 men looked outclassed. The child wasn't very strong, but he substituted strength with speed. In a stylish fashion he would rapidly smash either end of the staff against a random bodypart, often making one of the men look as if they were dancing. The black haired child would often end one of these combos with a hard gust of wind, which would send the man flying.

He didn't look to be in any hurry, walking behind the men while they struggled to get away from this wild child. Red welts covered their faces and arms from being hit in the same places over and over with the staff. People standing around looked to be pleased, as these thugs were seeming like a big problem around the community. Many of them rooted him on. The child had recently made the decision to get to the bottom of the gang, find out who was running it and force them out of business.

Creating a gust of wind behind himself, he was upon one of the fleeing thugs in the blink of an eye. The staff was used to sweep him off of his feet, then with his body airborne slam into his back and bat him down toward the hard concrete below. He lie there on his chest moaning, the wind having been knocked out of his lungs. The child could be seen sitting on his back.

”Gonna tell me who your boss is yet? I can make it hurt some more, you know...”

The other 2 were running in the direction of the blond haired woman with the panda. One of the thugs aimed to snatch her purse on his way past her.

Avery had been about to turn back around and go to another stall when she caught sight of the two men running straight towards her; one whose hand was outstretched as if to grab her purse when they ran past. Reacting instinctively Avery's form shifted, feet spreading slightly to allow for better balance. While her feet shifted apart her heavy staff, still in her right hand, came souring horizontally through the air: right in time to cloths line the thug who had been about to attempt to rob her.

The thug flipped once and then landed on his back with a grunt; the wind knocked out of his chest from the force of the impact. She then turned her attention to the other thug before noticing out of the corner of her eye the kid who was sitting on another's back; that thug looking far worse than the two she had just encountered. "Oi, are you two assholes bullying that kid?", she asked, feeling Lil' Bai began to climb down from her shoulders, her back, and then go sliding down her left leg to the ground.

Lil' Bai stood on two legs, a stick of bamboo rising up next to him out of the ground itself - growing far more rapidly than normal bamboo ever could - which he plucked off of the ground. Avery kept her attention shifting between the two different scenes, wondering what in the world was going on. At least... until she heard a familiar thwack of a sound and looked down just in time to see Lil' Bai smacking the thug in the face with the bamboo stick he had just grown out of the ground in a matter of seconds for the second time. The thug flinched, arms raising to cover his face while he rolled over onto his side and attempted to then protect his head from any further attacks made by the panda cub.

"US bullying HIM? have you been paying attention lady? Owwhh!" replied the thug to Avery. A distance away, Hidoi was poking his staff against the thug's head.

”You really not gonna talk? Then maybe that other guy will spill the beans.”

One of them had been knocked down by the woman with the panda, leaving the last one to continue trying to run away. Hidoi got up and blasted off; the force of his rapid movement forward enough to send the thug he was just sitting on rolling backwards violently. The caped child moved forward at a near blinding speed, too fast for untrained eyes to see properly.

He blasted past the woman like a rocket, leaving behind a tremendous gust of wind. The child quickly caught up to the fleeing man to perform a U-turn and barrel into the man with the force of momentum he'd built. He was knocked backwards, with Hidoi blasting forward again to land on his back and slide along the ground on top of him as if he were a surf board. The slide came to a stop near his partner, the blond haired woman and the panda. Still standing on his chest Hidoi put the end of his red staff to the man's chin, poking it several times.

”I heard maybe you'd be the one to tell me who your boss is. All of you idiots around here, scaring people and robbing them, who do you work for? Well, speak up!”

'Well, this day just sure got interesting.', Avery thought to herself as she listened to the thug's response to her question about bullying the kid. She then glanced up in time to see, or barely see as the case was, that same kid go blasting past her, leaving behind a strong gust of wind. She watched him u-turn and attack the other thug; landing on him and riding him like a surf board until the pair came to a stop.

Avery reached down, scooping up the bamboo wielding panda after it promptly smacked the thug nearby her once more. She placed the panda back on her shoulders and wandered over to the thug and the kid; keeping her distance. She figured the kid was an airbender like herself - the staff an his speed giving it away easily enough - and was curious as to what this was all about.

She leaned on her staff once more, eyebrows raising. "Oh, are these the guys I've been hearing about, then? Interesting... been wondering who tried to rob my grandmother the other day when she was in the city..."

“Stumped by a little kid, how embarassing is this,” said the thug. “I don't know who's in charge, honest...”

”You don't know? What sense does that make?”

“The guys I work for, they work for even higher up guys in suits, and those guys work for other guys, and so fourth and so on...”

”That's stupid. You follow behind guys who just follow behind other guys? You're all a bunch of idiots.”

Hidoi stepped down off of the guy's chest as his staff shrank back down to 3'. He twirled it quickly and expertly before re-sheathing it within it's protective case at his right hip. Eventually Hidoi planned on running into whoever it was giving out the orders, even if that meant beating his way through an endless amount of lackeys. It would all make for good practice anyway. Hidoi looked up at this blond woman then, looking to see with red eyes if she were hurt or not. She looked fine for the most part.

”These idiots, they didn't try feeling on you or anything did they? They're bullies and robbers so far, and they're probably perverts too.”

Avery listened carefully to the conversation; frowning as she heard that there seemed to be a chain of command of thugs going on in the city. That didn't make her happy at all: and she had to agree with the kid - they really all had to be idiots if they were willing to blindly follow orders without even knowing who it was that was giving them. She had a feeling that whoever this kid was he was going to be determined to put a stop to this - especially if he was asking questions like this.

When he turned her attention back to her she shifted her orange colored gaze from the thug on the ground to the airbender and shook her head no, smirking. "Nah, the idiots just seemed keen on trying to steal my purse... stupid idea really, sure that staff to the throat hurt.", she said before glancing over to the thug she had cloths lined with her staff: he was getting slowly to his feet but was swallowing repeatedly, already a thick bruise beginning to cover the front of his neck - it would be black and blue soon enough, a long reminder of what had happened.

The panda on her shoulders waved its bamboo stick threateningly at the thug who instantly backed up, putting his hands up, and looking rather freaked out. She looked back over to the kid with a chuckle. "Glad to see someone's cleaning up the trash around here though. I'm Avery by the way.", she said, figuring she should introduce herself; this kid had definitely caught her interest now - he was stronger than any other bender she had seen around in a while, and the fact that he was using his abilities for good only peaked her interest more. "This is Lil' Bai by the way..", she said, pointing up to the panda on her shoulders.

”Avery, hunh. You gotta staff huh, you an Airbender too? You don't much look like one...”

She and the people standing around gave compliments, but Hidoi didn't react much. If no one else would stand up to these guys, he felt like it was his job. Because if not him, then who? Any one of these innocent victims could be one of his family members. Should any of them come to harm, there was no telling what the kid might do. He didn't bother chasing after the defeated thugs as they pulled themselves together and began leaving the scene. He'd probably be seeing them again on a later date...

So an Airbending lady and a pet panda. Was she new? Hidoi didn't remember seeing her around before. She wasn't one of those bossy women was she? Hidoi hated those. That's how his sister was, always ordering him around even though he knew by now it would be easy to spin her in the center of a tornado until she puked all over the place. But that would just make mom yell. He wondered where she got that panda from, and one day thought of taming a sidekick of his own, especially now that he was on a super hero beat-up-the-bad-guys kick...

”Oh, my name's Hidoi. Nice to meet'cha... well, maybe not like this but, yeah...”

Avery laughed softly and nodded to his comment about her being an Airbender. "Aye, I'm an Airbender... Let's just say I wasn't raised like most Airbenders are these days. Don't dress like one either... but that's more because I was raised by my eccentric grandmother than anything. If you visit the temple often you've likely seen her... she likes to throw plates at people to see how fast they can dodge and counter when training." Ah yes, her grandmother was always at the temple; a very familiar sight - the old woman with her cane and insane ability to spin plates on her finger.

She then nodded to his words, grinning. "Nice to you meet you too, despite the circumstances." She looked in the direction that the thugs had escaped in, wondering if they were going to end up coming back sooner or later. "So, where did you learn to fight like that? Haven't seen any other Airbenders in a long while who could pull something off that strong."

Hidoi himself wasn't brought up in the traditional style either, though he did get the tattoos when he was a little younger. A grandmother who threw plates didn't sound very fun. It could get quite annoying sitting back trying to relax and suddenly having a plate thrown at you. He'd only been to the temples several times, and he was so young back then he couldn't much remember the trips.

”You probably won't believe me but I taught myself. My mother and father, they keep calling me this prodigy thing. Like, i'm supposed to have the smarts of somebody more than doubled my age, but I think they just like hearing themselves talk. I still got a lot to learn...”

When would he next see these thugs? How long would it take to track down each of the bosses and force them to stop terrorizing the community? Hido didn't much care; he was prepared to beat up each andevery single one of them if it meant his family was safe to walk down the street without worry of thugs and robbers....

Avery listened to him speak while also listening to the sound of Lil' Bai chewing on his well used stick of bamboo - she was glad he had at least stopped whacking random passersby on the head like he had when she had first befriended him. She thought over the moves she had seen him use, and the way she had seen him fight. It wasn't hard to believe that he had taught himself; his ways of fighting were a lot different than an average airbender. Airbenders were normally taught to counter and block, not attack head on.

A grin spread across Avery's face. "Actually, it's not hard to believe you taught yourself. You fight a lot different than most airbenders; which is a good thing. And I know what it's like to have that title dangled above your head... that's what my parents called me, too, a long time ago." She shifted her stance, leaning more on her staff. The panda on her shoulders let out a huge yawn and then laid its chin on her head, closing his eyes. The panda, as he began to fall asleep, suddenly disappeared in a quick fade. She felt the weight of the panda disappear from her shoulders, and her hair fall into place behind her. "I told him he shouldn't do that with people around...", she muttered.

She wasn't seeming like one of those females always trying to order people around because they thought themselves a 'princess' or something, so far so good then. Was she a prodigy too then, when she was his age? Then she must have understood the frustration of people always staring and cheering and whatnot.

Hidoi could hear his mother calling for him several blocks over. It was starting to get dark out, and he knew he had to be in before dark due to his over-protective mother, who would get loud and yell when she didn't get her way. One of many things she worked on improving. His mother was likely where he got his own nasty temper from, with a mix of his father's calmness and lazyness as well.

”Well, I gotta go home Avery, my mom's calling me. She'll get loud if I don't get there on time. See you around, huh? Watch out for those thug guys, they looked like they wanted to grope you, whatever that means...”

Hidoi lifted himself into the air and began heading toward home...

\Exit\

Avery laughed softly and nodded. "Alright, I'll see you around I'm sure, and I'll make sure to keep an eye out for 'em.", she responded before watching the kid take off back to where ever his home was. She turned back to the stall and paid for what her grandmother had needed. When she was finished she surrounded herself with air and lifted herself up into the air: heading back to the temple...

[Exit]