Chapter Text
Lydia yanks her helmet off, her red ponytail spilling out as she shakes her hair free.
“Alright team, that was a good practice today,” she says. “But I think that we can work a bit harder next time.”
Stiles, lying spread-eagled on the floor, panting for air, stares up at her incredulously. “You’re kidding me, right?”
Lydia gives him an impassive look. “The day we start settling is the day we start losing.”
“You’re insane,” Stiles pants, pulling himself to his feet.
“I dunno,” Allison chips in, cheerful as she had been when they first started, four hours ago. “I think I could use a little work on my water whip.” She mimes a whipping motion and some of the water from the nearby bucket splashes out half-heartedly and ends up over Stiles’ head. “Oops. Sorry, Stiles.”
Stiles tugs off his own helmet, water dripping onto his short hair. “I would be more upset, but that was actually very refreshing.”
Allison giggles, flicking her fingers and sending a few more large drops flying in his direction. He spreads his arms and lets them soak him. “Lydia?” Allison asks, holding up her hand in offering.
“I think not,” Lydia sniffs. “I will shower like a normal person.”
Stiles mimics ‘like a normal person’ behind her back, flipping his head like he has a mane of hair and throwing his shoulders back. Allison stifles a laugh behind her hand.
“I see you, Stiles,” Lydia says without turning around. She snaps her fingers and little balls of blue flame dance in front of his face. Stiles yelps and batts at them helplessly, but they evade his hands.
“Allison!” he calls. “Help me!”
Laughing almost too hard to be of any use, Allison flicks her arm out a little too hard and sends out a wave that drenches Stiles from head to toe, but at least puts out the sparks.
“Thanks,” Stiles says dryly, spitting a fountain of water out of his mouth.
“No problem!” Allison grins.
“Ahem.” Someone clears their throat from the doorway.
Stiles, occupied with shaking the water from his ears, doesn’t bother to look up. Lydia will handle it anyway.
“Yes?” she asks, as perfectly polite as ever.
“We have this space reserved now,” comes a deep baritone.
“Oh, sorry!” Allison chips in. “We were just on our way out anyway.”
Having successfully gotten most of the water out of both ears, Stiles shakes his head hard to get most of it out of his short hair, then looks up to see who’s crashing their practice.
When he sees who it is, he really wishes that he’d just looked up to begin with, rather than taking the time to shake his head around like an idiot.
Standing in the doorway is Derek Hale and the other two Alpha’s, Pro-Bending Champions two-years running.
“Yes, so I see.” That sarcastic voice must belong to Jackson Whittemore, master earthbender and all around douchebag. Stiles sizes him up. He certainly looks more the part more than Stiles does. He’s all big muscles to Stiles’ wiry sinew.
Stiles takes in the arrogant tilt of his jaw and over confident glint in his eye. He’s pretty sure he could take Jackson. Well, maybe more on open ground. The arena, well, Stiles wouldn’t want to take him one on one.
“Take your time, though,” their third member adds, eyes fixed unnervingly on Allison. This must be Scott McCall, their newest and greenest member. Allison ducks her head, using her hair to hide what Stiles knew would be a shy smile.
“Hey, Allie,” Stiles calls, overly casual because McCall’s unblinking stare is freaking him out, even if Allison didn’t seem bothered by it. “Do you mind?” he gestures to his soaking wet uniform.
“Oh, right. Sorry,” she says, pinching her fingers together and drawing them back, pulling the water from his clothes and sending it back into the water bucket in the corner.
“Thanks.”
“Same time tomorrow,” Lydia tells them, brushing past the two-year champions like they were nothing on her way out the door. Stiles would always admire her nerve.
“Shall we?” Stiles asks Allison, holding out his arm. It was more for solidarity then anything else, because Derek Hale is looking at them like if they didn’t get out of his training space in the next ten seconds, he was going to start fire-breathing them.
“We shall,” Allison replies playfully, linking their arms together and walking out with him. Stiles tries to pretend like he can’t feel McCall’s eyes on them all the way down the hall, but he isn’t sure how good a job he does.
They make it all the way to the street before Stiles let all of his breath out in one whoosh.
“Who was that?” Allison asks as they make their way down the street.
Stiles turns to her, eyes wide. “Who was that? Who was that?! Don’t you know anything about pro-bending?”
Allison shrugs prettily, flicking her hair behind her ears with one hand.
“I always forget how new you are, country girl.” Stiles grins, throwing an arm around her shoulder and using it to lead her down the street. “That was the Alphas. They won the last two years and they’re probably going to be our number one competition.”
“If we get that far,” she replies somberly. Stiles gives her a little shake.
“Come on. We both know that Lydia won’t let us get anything less than second place.”
Allison laughs. “I guess that is true.”
“Seriously, don’t you know anything about the pro-bending world?”
“Nothing that isn’t fifteen years old. Not much pro-bending in the North Pole.”
Stiles makes a face. “Yelch. Aren’t you glad you escaped?”
Allison shoves him playfully. “You haven’t even been there!”
“And I never will be. Is there even any dirt there?”
“Isn’t that best part?” she retorts.
Stiles tugs her hair playfully. “Alright, country girl? Are you going to come get some end-of-practice soup with me today? Seeing as how our fearless leader has vanished.”
“I can’t,” Allison says regretfully. “My aunt Kate is in town and I want to visit her more.”
“Oh, the famous Aunt Kate,” Stiles replies. “The sole voice of wisdom in your family. When do I get to meet her?”
“Maybe she’ll come by the next practice. She could give Lydia a few tips.”
Stiles makes a face. “Maybe not.”
Allison laughs. “You’re probably right. I guess you’ll see her when you see her.”
“I look forward to it,” Stiles replies, slowing as they reach the street where Allison would need to turn to get to the higher end district she lived in.
“See you tomorrow,” Allison says cheerfully. “Tell Danny hi for me!”
“Will do!” Stiles calls to her retreating back. When she turns away, he kicks out a foot playfully, sending a shoot of dirt out to catch her beneath her feet and send her zooming forward to the end of the next block.
“Stiles!” she shrieks, waving her arms around for balance and almost falling.
“Have a nice night!” he calls after her, slowing her down to a stop at the next intersection and waving cheerfully when she turned back to glare at him.
--
The noodle shop is almost completely deserted when Stiles pushes through the front door, but Danny is hunched over the counter as usual, and he looks up when Stiles pushes the door open.
“Hey, Danny,” Stiles says casually, dropping into one of the bar stools at the front.
“Hey, Stiles. The usual?”
Stiles fishes a couple coins from the bottom of his pocket and laid them down. “Yes, please.”
“Where are your girls?”
Stiles laughs. “You know that Lydia would kill us both if she heard that.”
Danny grins. “Yeah, probably.” He moves around behind the bar, ladling out noodles into the strong lined paper boxes they used for take-out orders. “But that doesn’t tell me where they are.”
“Allison had to go home to see family, and Lydia had to go be mysterious.”
“As usual,” Danny agees.
“Of course. Hey, you’ll never guess who I ran into at the Arena today.”
“Who?”
“The Alpha’s. They had the practice spot after us booked.”
Danny slows for a split second, quick enough that Stiles would have missed it if he weren’t paying attention. “Oh, yeah? Did they say anything to you.”
“Nothing nice. It was all ‘get out of our practice area,’ and ‘what’s taking so long?’ Would it kill them to be nice? We’re pro-benders too.”
Danny laughs. “You’re amateurs, Stiles. No one’s even heard of you yet.”
“Yet is the key word, my friend,” Stiles says cheerfully. “Our first match is next week. You’re coming, right?”
Danny gives him a warm smile. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
“It’ll be weird not sitting with you,” Stiles says.
“It’ll be weirder for me, sitting with your dad and watching you fight,” Danny replies, putting the three boxes into a paper bag and handing it over the counter.
Stiles makes a face. “Don’t remind me. You’ll cheer for me though, right?”
“Like your dad would let me do anything else.”
“Good point,” Stiles laughs, reaching out to take the bag. “I’ll see you around, Danny.”
“Night, Stiles.”
Stiles tosses a wave over his shoulder as he heads out. He whistles jauntily as he crosses the street, ignoring old Mrs. Hannigan as she tells him to pipe down.
He has to juggle a bit when he gets out his keys so that he doesn’t drop his helmet or the noodles, but he makes it through the door and up the stairs without incident.
He can hear Malcolm barking when he approaches his apartment door, probably annoying Mrs. Hannigan some more. Good.
When he gets through the door, Malcolm runs at him, battering into his legs and almost knocking Stiles over.
“Sit,” Stiles tries hopefully. Malcolm does no such thing, but then, he only listens to Stiles one time out of five. It feels like walking through a current with Malcolm running through and over his legs as Stiles walks to the small kitchen.
He drops the bag and his helmet on the counter and bends over to give Malcolm’s ears a scratch. Malcolm butts his head against Stiles’ leg again, his small horns smashing against the bones.
Stiles rolls his eyes and obediently scratches the base of the horns. Obligingly, Malcolm sits and cocks his head, permitting greater access.
“You are spoiled, mister,” Stiles tells Malcolm seriously. “I bet no other goat dog is this well treated, not in all of Republic City.” Malcolm bleats somberly. Stiles rolls his eyes and rises to his feet.
“Dad?” Stiles calls. “Food’s here.”
His dad sticks his out of the far bedroom. “Noodles?”
Stiles holds up the bag wordlessly and his dad grins, heading into the kitchen.
“How was practice?” he asks as he takes a seat at the table, spooning noodles into his bowl.
Stiles makes a face. “Hard. Lydia is brutal.”
“Keep working, son.” His dad points his spoon at Stiles. “If you keep working like this, you might be able to metal-bend like your mother.”
Stiles snorted into his noodles. “Yeah, right. Mom was an amazing earth-bender. I’m average at best.”
When he looks up, his father is giving him a warm look. “You’re more like her than you think.”
Stiles flushes and ducks his head, changing the topic to what his father had done at work.
--
“Stiles!” Lydia barks. “Kick higher!”
“It isn’t about height, Lydia!” Stiles snaps back. “It isn’t firebending.” He’s breathing hard, practicing the jab kick combos to send the hard packed disks into the net at the end of the hall.
“Faster!” Lydia shouts. Frustrated, Stiles whips around and kicks out to send a disk whinging toward Lydia’s head. Before she has time to block it, he crushes his fist in front of him, turning the disk into a fine dust that coats Lydia from head to toe.
“Fast enough?” Stiles asks sweetly.
Lydia makes a face. “Getting better.”
“Better, my ass,” Stiles mutters. “That was awesome.”
He goes back to practicing the different punches while Lydia calls Allison over for a one on one spar. He’s feeling pretty good about his moves so far so he tries one of the moves he’d seen his mom use years ago.
He braces himself firmly on the ground and leaps, kicking out with both feet and sending almost the entire stack of disks hurling into the ceiling above the net.
He tries to twist midair, but is too slow, landing on his back with a crash.
“Are you alright?” Allison asks, rushing to his side, water already glowing softly around her palm.
Stiles waves her off. “Fine. I’m fine,” he groans, putting a hand to his back as he tries to stand. Allison grabs his arm and helps to pull him up.
“What did I say about practicing new moves?” Lydia asks, arms crossed over her chest.
“Only if they work?” Stiles tries, giving her a winning smile.
Lydia snorts, but her face softens. “Seriously though, you’re alright?”
“Please. I’ve gotten hurt worse walking Malcolm.”
“That thing is a menace,” Lydia grumbles.
“Isn’t he great?” Stiles beams.
Lydia rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Back to training. Let’s try two on one. Stiles, you and me against Allison.”
Stiles raises a questioning eyebrow at Allison and she nods, raising her fists in a ready stance.
They go through all possible combinations, five minute matches of two-on-one.
Lydia gathers them at the end of practice to give her usual notes. “Allison, be a bit faster and work on your aim. Stiles, stop showing off and just use the disks. Both of you try to remember that less is more. Don’t exhaust yourself with flashy moves when all you need is one blow.”
“You need to work on your defense,” Stiles says when she pauses for breath. Lydia glares at him and Stiles shrugs. “Well, you do. You’re only ever on the attack.”
“A strong offence is a good defence,” Lydia sniffs.
“Unless the two of us get knocked out and you’re on your own,” Allison points out.
“I’ll take it under consideration,” Lydia concedes.
Stiles rolls his eyes at Allison, who grins back.
“The practice room is booked for the entire weekend. No surprise, since the first matches begin Monday.”
“Weekend off?” Stiles asks hopefully.
Lydia gives him a look that could cut through paper. “No. Don’t be ridiculous. Our first match is on Tuesday and we need the practice. No, we will meet in the woods tomorrow at 10 am.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Stiles throws his hands in the air. “It’s like a three hour walk to the woods!”
“Then leave early,” Lydia says unforgivingly.
“I can give you a ride, Stiles,” Allison offers. Of course, the Argents are wealthy enough to have a Sato-mobile. Sometimes Stiles forgets that sweet, modest Allison lives in one of the wealthiest parts of Republic City.
“That’d be great,” he says.
“Good?” Lydia asks. “Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
--
Allison knocks on Stiles’ door at 9 am exactly. Stiles is still struggling to put Malcolm on a leash for his morning walk, so his dad goes to answer.
“You must be Ms. Argent.” Stiles hears, followed by Allison’s polite reply.
“Ha!” Stiles says triumphantly when he finally gets his stubborn pet to take the leash. He has to practically drag the stupid thing to the door, since Malcolm refuses to pick his obstinate little butt off the ground, but Stiles manages.
“Hey, Allison!” Stiles says cheerfully. “Have you met Malcolm yet?”
Allison gives his goat-dog a suspicious look. “You aren’t bringing him with us, are you?”
“Not today, sadly. Bending doesn’t agree with him.” Stiles crouches down next to Malcolm and scratches his ears. “Does it, boy?”
Allison rolls her eyes. “Let’s go, Stiles. Lydia will kill us if we’re late.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Stiles grumbles, passing off the leash to his dad.
Allison’s sato-mobile is an old model, but it’s still more than anything Stiles and his dad could afford.
“You know how to drive this thing?” Stiles asks, eyeing the satop-mobile with trepidation.
“It’ll be fine,” Allison promises, which is so not a yes.
“Do they even have sato-mobiles in the North Pole?” Stiles demands as he climbs in and closes the door behind him.
The engine makes a noise like a saber-tooth moose lion when it starts up and Stiles grabs onto the handle next to the door reflexively.
Allison just laughs, tearing off down his street like the whole fire nation army is behind her. Which, yeah, OK, Stiles’ dad would probably chastise him for that because 80 years of peace and whatever, but it’s just a figure of speech. Stiles is all for cultural sensitivity, blah, blah, blah, but 100 years of expressions aren’t going to go away overnight.
Besides, he hasn’t met a fire-bender who doesn’t scare him. Just look at Lydia.
--
The terrifying firebender in question is waiting for them with her arms crossed over her chest.
“You’re late,” she says.
Stiles rolls his eyes as he jumps out of the sato-mobile. “Yeah, by like two minutes.”
“Don’t make excuses,” Lydia snaps. “Follow me, I found a place by some water for us to practice.”
Allison parks the sato-mobile carefully before she gets out. Lydia leads them through the forest like a woman on a mission. Stiles follows her at a more sedate pace, enjoying the feel of real ground beneath his feet. He’d left his shoes in the back of the sato-mobile and he can distantly feel the vibrations of animals moving.
He used to come out to the forest with his mother, when she was teaching him earthbending. He’s forgotten the soothing, open feeling of solid ground all around him, all of it available to him, singing to him.
Up ahead of him, Allison gasps. “Lydia, this is amazing!”
Stiles rounds the final bend in the trees separating him from the girls and has to admit that Allison has a point. Lydia had brought them to a wide, open clearing on the edge of a wide, clear lake.
It’s a perfect area to train in, wide enough that Lydia won’t burn the forest down, enough water for Allison and enough exposed dirt that Stiles won’t feel bad about killing all the local plant life. Bending can be destructive and dangerous if a bender isn’t careful.
“WATER BENDING BOMB!!” Allison yells, making Stiles jump about a foot. He has barely enough time to see her running past him before she hits the water. Stiles stares in horror as a wave of water almost ten feet tall marks her point of entry and comes rushing towards him.
Stiles stomps his feet , letting them sink into the dirt before he lets it harden enough to hold him in place without snapping his legs.
The water crests over him with a cool shock, soaking him from head to toe before it settles into a low receding tide around his ankles.
Allison breaks free of the water with a wild laugh. Stiles glance over to see Lydia, who is literally steaming, the water drying off of her in whips as she heats her entire body.
“Allison!” she yells. Stiles carefully extracts himself from the dirt.
Allison just ducks under-water to swim closer to the shore. She comes up again three feet from the shore, shaking herself dry and peeling away water like layers of clothes. By the time she’s on land again, she’s completely dry.
“This isn’t time to play around!” Lydia snaps.
“Oh, come on, it’s just a bit of fun,” Stiles protests. “Allison, you mind giving a guy a hand?”
Allison grins and starts pulling the water out of his clothes as Lydia rounds on him. “We have two days until our first match! We need to be focused on practicing our bending.”
“Technically, that was practicing,” Allison replies cheerfully.
Lydia makes a disgruntled face, unwilling to concede the point. “Let’s just get started.”
The thing is, earthbending in the arena is nothing like earth-bending in the real world, and Stiles is having a hard time limiting himself to the little disks he worked up to fight with.
It would just be so easy to grab the ground beneath Lydia and pull it away, or to raise walls in front of Allison, boxing her in. Worst of all, he has to shut out the extra sensory input from the ground beneath him because the solid, fake floor of the arena doesn’t reverberate movements to him like hard packed dirt does.
The third time he pulls a move that isn’t possible, much less legal, inside the arena, Lydia calls a halt to the proceedings.
“Stop showing off and practice like a pro-bender, Stiles!”
“I’m an earthbender, too,” Stiles protests.
“Well, right now you’re a pro-bender first and an earthbender second, so start acting like it.”
Stiles frowns slightly, his attention pulled away from her. He can feel vibrations deep in the earth, a steady rumble that has nothing to with animals.
“Lydia, shut up for a second.”
“Excuse me?” she demands angrily.
“No, hush. There’s something going on.” He closes his eyes and tries to slip further into the tricks his mom had taught him. He stomps his left foot hard, feeling the reverberations in the earth, spreading out further and further before they start interacting with the vibrations caused by other things. Other people.
“There’s some sort of gathering,” he says. “Over that way.” he points through the trees. Lydia frowns over her shoulder.
“Do you think they’re here to spy on us?”
Stiles rolls his eyes. “Yes, Lydia. They’ve snuck into the forest to steal our coveted bending secrets and the ways of the waterbending bomb.”
“Let’s go check it out!” Allison says enthusiastically.
“My thoughts exactly,” Stiles agrees.
Lydia frowns, looking disapproving. “What about practice?”
“It’s been two hours, Lydia. We’re done. We’re practiced out. We’re going to check this out.”
Lydia makes a disapproving noise, but she follows them without more complaint.
Stiles stops them at the top of a ridge that overlooks whatever the gathering is. It’s close enough that they can see and hear, but it’s unlikely that anyone below will see them.
“It looks like a rally,” Allison whispers.
“Yeah, but for what?” Stiles agrees.
“I think I can guess.” Lydia points at a large sign that’s been erected by what Stiles recognises as the front. It reads “DOWN WITH THE TYRANNICAL BENDING SYSTEM!” while another beside it reads “EQUALITY NOW!”
“Equalists,” Lydia scoffs, disgust in her voice. “There’s nothing wrong with the system we have now.”
Stiles stays quiet. That may be true for Lydia, the firebending prodigy of a long line of rich, powerful firebenders. Or even for Allison, whose family had been close to royalty in the Northern Water Tribe. But Stiles is the son of a poor nonbending law enforcer who did twice work the metalbending police officers did for a quarter of the pay.
“For too long,” the man in the front is saying “the nonbending people of Republic City, and of all four nations, have been repressed by their bending peers! They think they’re better then we are! Stronger! More entitled to the better jobs and better houses!”
“We are,” Lydia mutters, and Stiles elbows her hard in the ribs.
“Well, I say ‘No more!’” the man exclaims. “We are on the brink of a new era my friends, one where equality, and not bending, will rule supreme!”
“This is such bullshit,” Lydia says angrily. Stiles’ lips tighten but he’s not about to get into an argument with her here.
“Let’s just go,” he says instead, inching his way back along the ridge and pulling her behind him.
Allison follows, frowning slightly.
“I mean, who do they think they are?” Lydia says hotly, as soon as they’re out of earshot. “Being able to bend is just amazing! It’s the benders who take care of things, who look after them and the city!”
“Hey!” Stiles protests. “My dad looks after the city just fine, thank you.”
Lydia makes a noise that’s just short of rude, and Stiles scowls at her.
“Look, it’s just people trying to make trouble,” Allison cuts in, trying to soothe them. ‘It’ll all sort itself out, ok?”
Lydia tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Right. And we have a match to prepare for.” She starts going into detail about the rest of their schedule until the match, but Stiles just stares at the ground. Allison might think this is a problem that will blow over, but Stiles wasn’t so sure.