1 Year Later

“Ow! You fucking little-!”

“Quiet.”

The red and brown tailed creature ran between Rola’s legs, looking back up at Bran shaking his wounded fist at it before running back down the hallway.

“Yeah, you better run.” Bran huffed, checking the hand he’d tried to pet the ferret with in case of blood. “Who even has pets in Downtown? No one here can afford bread, let alone fucking ferret food.”

Rola scratched his scraggly sunken cheek, still smiling as bits flew from his nails, “Hehe, m-maybe he’s on the menu! Right boss?”

“I said quiet. Do you want us to get found out?”

Returning to their posts, Bran and Rola looked to opposite ends of the corridor. Rola using his usual ability to never stand still for five seconds to shuffle and squeak all over the other two’s nerves, all while Bran had a lovely view of the single window at the end of the hall. Out of boredom, Bran flipped his earth coin and let it spin round and round with his powers before catching it again. Between the two was a single ginger head, currently covered with a flat cap and crouching in front of a door. The quiet yet iconic sounds of lockpicking the only noise between the three, until…

“Hey. Hey, Bran.” Rola tried to whisper, much to the chagrin of the other two in the corridor, “Brraaannnn!”

“What?!”

“Quiet!”

“...hey Bran, how’s it going with Lelehn?”

With a sigh, Bran placed his temple in his fingers, “How many times I gotta tell you, Lelehn’s not my girl. She’s a prostitute. Or, was, you know.” Anger rose in his face again as he once more looked out the far window, the rocky bald face that lit up the night sky staring back at him from afar. “Fucking bitch of a police chief keeps kicking my girls off the streets. Poor Madame Kavita’s living her golden years in a jail cell now. A guy in Republic City used to be able to make an honest living and spend it stretching every street walker from here to Air Temple Island! That’s what the Avatar dreamed of!” Bran heartily toasted the Aang statue before slumping his shoulders once more, “But now I’ve gotta throw my hat in with you scuzzballs just to make enough money for the fucking Boomerang Lounge.”

“Or you could get a real girlfriend, loser.” Mumbled the voice between them.

Bran just smirked down at the lockpicker, “You offering there, Lotta? Has being in the presence of my award winning charm finally won your heart?”

There wasn’t a response, just an icy **** glare from the ginger before she returned to her lockpicking task. “Keep. Quiet.”

“Waitwaitwait, Lelehn’s a prostitute?” said Rola in astonishment, “But she’s my sister! I thought you two were a couple!”

“Nope.”

The scratches really intensified as the man paced on the spot in worry, “But w-what am I gonna tell my mammy?!”

“Would you both please keep-!”

Gachunk. Eeeeeeeee.

Almost in disbelief, Lotta witnessed the door swing very slowly open in front of her, “We’re in!” She gasped, jumping to her feet before peering into the abode very very slowly. Turning back and dropping the lockpick into her immense cleavage, Lotta had a serious face on, “Alright, you guys know the plan. Look for anything valuable while the old geezer is out of town. And b-”

“Be quiet, we know.” Bran rolled his eyes while pushing Lotta forwards from the dark corridor to the darker apartment, with Rola following closely behind them.

Inside was far more cluttered, though no less rundown, than the corridor they’d been picking from. The wooden walls looked far more grimy, patches of dark mould in forgotten corners of the room. There were a few countertops near the kitchen area, a table and chair in the centre, and so so so so so much mess. It wasn’t the usual ‘beer bottle/apple core’ mess from the usual depressed clients of a downtown apartment. It looked more like a swap shop had vomited all over this man’s apartment, with little objects like scrolls, rings, clocks, books, and boxes all over the place.

“What the hell?” Lotta sneered, verily unimpressed by the whole thing before smacking Rola in the back of the head, “I thought you said this place would be full of treasure?!”

The gaunt man recoiled heavily from her blow, rubbing his head with a whine, “It’s supposed ta! It’s the first time the owner ever left this room, so everyone thought he had to be hoarding something valuable!”

“More like he was just hoarding.” Bran commented, picking up a broken coo-coo clock to inspect its lameness. “Well the night’s ruined anyway, may as well check if there’s a safe Lotta can’t crack as well.”

“Hey! I got the door, didn’t I?!”

Bran smirked back at her as he entered the apartment proper, “Ssshhhh, we have to keep quiet, boss.”

The three got to work, inspecting and searching for anything and everything that could have value. It really wasn’t a lot. From a distance it could be mistaken for some sort of hidden gem garden, but when looking close those gems were dusty and cracked. Worthless item after worthless item. A scroll that taught waterbenders how to make a water balloon. A ring with the gemstone removed. A book about Aang’s adventures from a cabbage merchant’s perspective. The further they looked the less they found.

Bran was just inspecting the bedroom before finally finding something at least somewhat presentable. In the guy’s bedside cabinet was a small package, and though the dream of cash or gold was on his mind the words ‘Reality Bender’ scribbled on the top was making him intrigued.

Opening it up there was a small pair of earrings. Fairly innocuous, and definitely not Bran’s style, he thought he could at least get some dough for them.

He walked back into the main room. Rola was trying to get his head out from some pottery he’d been looking inside, while Lotta had her head down low inspecting something that Bran couldn’t see. What he could see was the ginger’s fantastic ass, wiggling about in front of him just begging to be slapped. It was an often forgotten part of her anatomy since everyone always so focused on her massive tits, though you never ever wanted to bring them up to her. The snappy angry ginger had once killed a man just for bumping into her double ds, feeling like she never got taken seriously as a member of the Triads because of her body.

Bran coughed, “Oi, Lotta. I got-”

“Ha!” She suddenly laughed, jumping to her feet and giving a triumphant grin to the surprised Bran. With a rude shove into his face, Lotta showed off her discovery of a set of beads on a string. “Read ‘em and weep! Finders keepers and I finally found something worth a damn in this mess!”

“...anal beads?”

“What?! NO!” She barked with a blush, “It’s an airbender toy, they make it fly around with, ya know, bending n stuff.” She briefly demonstrated with her hands by making the bead string whip around, “You know how much money those losers on Air Temple Island pay for this crap? Now that Tenzin, he’s a hoarder.” Lotta announced as she bumped past Bran to go help Rola.

With a huff, Bran was mostly just annoyed since he was about to give the earrings to the somewhat cute ginger. “If it’s finders keepers, maybe I’ll just wear these myself…” He mumbled, clipping on the golden jewellery to his ears before walking over to the others.

“Rola! You stupid sonofabitch! I’m the boss and I told you to be quiet!”

Only for a whip to come in from the side and break the pot around Rola’s head.

Bran and Lotta’s heads snapped to the window, a crouching dark figure illuminated from behind but with a shadow very iconic all of them recognised it immediately.

“You should have listened to your boss,” Lin Beifong sneered, “You all make far too much noise.”

“CHEESE IT!”

Even the yell was too late, before anyone could do anything two wires had shot out of the police chief’s gauntlets and snapped around their targets. Falling to the ground before being raised up by the legendary metal bender and floated in front of her.

“Breaking and entering is a serious crime in this city. It was lucky I happened to be investigating something else around here… well, lucky for me at least.” She was cold and calculating, completely uncaring of the kicks and moans of the two in front of her.

While the third blinked in absolute confusion.

“...what’s happening?” Bran asked, patting his body down to try and find a wire he assumed would have been shot at him, “Uhh, can you not shoot three wires or some shit?”

“Of course I can.” Lin shot back, though no emotion really seemed to cross her face. No anger, or interest, or anything when speaking to Bran, she didn’t even look at him. Instead just moving the two others to the window from whence she came.

It probably wasn’t the smartest move to look a gift bear in the mouth, but Bran was too confused to be running on logic, “Hey! Why you letting me go?!”

“You haven’t committed a crime,” The woman once more replied, “It’s normal for you to be in this apartment.”

“What?!” He looked around, trying to find any evidence to support her claim, “Do I own it or something?”

Lin was still pretty nonplussed about Bran. Instead focusing on dragging the floating and crying body of Rola out of the window, “Not that I know of. Look, I just know I can’t arrest someone if they’re normally allowed to be there.”

She’d used that word again, ‘normal’. It was really weird, like someone had mindbended her to let Bran be here without actually being allowed to be here. “That don’t make sense! It should be normal to arrest me too, right?!”

Bran immediately regretted pointing out the obvious since his body was instantly wrapped in her long metal snake.

“You’re right. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law, whatever crime it is you committed.” The police chief nonchalantly arrested him, as if it was as natural as breathing for her. Bran’s body was floated upwards from the tight metal around his chest, which had trapped his left arm to restrict any earthbending he could try.

Soon he, and his two criminal companions, were being dragged behind the police chief as she strutted back to the station. The sun rising on her most recent capture, illuminating her success with the triumphant sounds of Rola/Lotta crying and yelling.

Only Bran had kept quiet, mostly just saying one word out of embarrassment and confusion.

“...buggar.”