The LoK Si thing (till I can come up with a title at least)

"Are you ready?" roared my instructor and guide.

"Fuck yeah!" I screamed over the steady roar of the plane's engines.

"Then let's go!" he shouted as he into the void. I smiled and dove onwards and out towards the earth.

Jesus Christ, it's a real rush to fall down from a plane at four kilometers in the sky. I smiled as I spread my arms and let the wingsuit do it's job as I essentially flew with nothing but me and my suit preventing me from plummeting in my doom. Well, that and a parachute, but the point remains. One wrong maneuver, and I could be as good as dead.

Then out of nowhere, a flash of light so bright that not even my polarized goggles could prevent it from blinding me. I almost brought my hands to shield myself but I knocked some sense into my arms and instead spread my arms even further, hoping to slow my descent and buy me time to regain my senses.

"What the bleeding fuck was that?" I said aloud to no one in particular,as lights danced before my eyes, ruining any hope of figuring out what had just happened. Did the world finally go mad and someone dropped a nuke somewhere?

But there was a conspicuous lack of me being dead, and while the bright afterimages still hadn't quite faded, things were starting to become a lot clearer now. I could even make out what looked like… the sea?

Wait. We weren't above the sea when we were deploying. It would've been a good 30 minutes by plane from where we were to the sea, and there was no way I could've gone that far while gliding. Not without becoming chunky salsa at least.

I took the moment to blink like crazy, hoping it was just some weird ass side effect of seeing something that bright, but the salty smell of the sea soon hit, and I began to make out other things. Like the big ass city down below me.

Which in itself was another problem, as I could also make out what looked like…

Oh God no…

Blimps? Stony skyscrapers? And most of all, a giant statue of what looked like a monk holding a staff looking all righteous and aloof?

Fuck you Universe. Fuck you, for putting me in Republic City.

I took the liberty of taking a brief moment to scream out expletives at the universe and ask what the fuck was going on. After letting out a good bit of steam, I began to analyze my situation. Firstly was the most immediate concern of not dying by screwing up landing. Like it or not, I was going to be coming down soon, and I wasn't nearly enough of an expert to make a landing with only a wingsuit, so I had to think fast.

So the most important thing to do now was to find a place to now,based on my altimeter, I only had about a minute of wingsuit time left, leaving me with a few options for landing. I could make out what looked like the park I remembered seeing in the series, and well, it was big, it was open, and there weren't any particularly tall buildings around that would have given me problems. Then there was what looked like a central station not too far away from it. It was really wide, but even from up here I could make out what looked like a lot of people there. Not something I'd like when landing, which really, only left the park as the best option.

And hey, if worst came to worst, I could simply land in one of the ponds. Sure, it'd probably mean shorting out what gadgets I had on me, but hey, better that than dead or in a hospital, right?

Still, as the ground was now rapidly approaching, I cleared my head and concentrated solely on the task at hand. Landing. I controlled my breathing, tried not to panic and kept my eye on my chosen landing site, a nice grassy lawn not too far away what looked like a little plaza in the middle of the park.

I kept my eyes on the spot as I approached faster and faster. Well, tried being the key word, but I couldn't help but notice the crowd that was starting to move in towards my landing zone.

"Move out of the way!" I screamed as loud as I could. "I need room to land! Move out of the way!"

Thankfully, it looked like the people understood me as they moved to clear a space for me. Right on time too, I could even start to make out details on the people below. I could even see… a giant polar bear dog…

Well, at least one thing was working properly for me today.

I smiled as I slowly directed my chute to my landing zone and braced myself, ready in case of any accidents. I landed at a light jog, and slowly brought myself to halt as I quickly lost momentum and started packing up my chute before the wind picked up as the crowd cheered.

Probably because they had nothing better to do I guess? It's not often someone sees someone pull off a landing from the air.

"That was amazing!" I heard someone behind me praise as I finished up packing my chute."I've never seen anything like that! Are you an airbender or something?"

"Huh?" I asked dumbly as I turned around, to find myself staring at someone's neck.

… a woman's neck, to be precise.

I stood up, and found myself surpinsingly looking at a face with an unusually clear pair of blueish-green eyes on tanned skin much like many of my ancestors before me.

Here, right before me was, Avatar Korra.

Could be good. Could be bad.

Really didn't know how to take this situation.

After dodging the crowd that was starting to gather around me with the help of Korra and Naga, I took a moment to very silently contemplate my situation. Here I was, in Republic City with a fresh-off-the-boat Avatar. While my memory of the first season was a little hazy, I kinda remembered how things went from here on, albeit with a few gaps between seasons where I had no idea what happened.

But from what I could remember? Things were about to get complicated and dangerous, fast.

"So…" Korra said, breaking my line of thought. "Can you airbend?"

"Pfft, I wish!" I said, waving my hand at her.

"Then how'd you do it? I thought only airbenders could get that far up and survive the fall?"

"Same principles as flying really. The chute," I pointed to my backpack, "Slows me down enough that I can sort of very gently guide where I'm falling."

"So why were you falling in the first place?" she asked as we turned the corner, stopping in front of a particularly interesting shop that seemed to sell all sort of knickknacks like phonograms.

"Well it's fun," I said nonchalantly as I slid out of Naga's saddle. "It's a rush going faster than you know you ever could over the world, speeding down towards your target and defying death at the last minute with a pull of a cord."

"I guess I'd have to try it some time," she laughed as she jumped off beside me. "Come on, we're pretty lost. Maybe we can ask for directions here?"

If it weren't for the fact that most of the gadgets on sale here were more on the line of what I'd call old antiques, like phonograms, I would've thought I was in some out of the way store back home. The place was dark,cool, and store owner was doing his best to shine one rather nice-looking phonogram.

"Hello there," I said while trying to wear my most friendly smile. "Would you mind if you give us some directions?"

"No problem," he greeted, laughing invitingly. "You're newcomers here in the city, aren't you? Ah, I remember when I first arrived here... I got myself so lost so often, my wife joked that she should tattoo a map onto the back of my hand!"

"We're looking for a way to Air Temple Island." Korra replied, a kind smile on her face. "Do you know how to get there?"

"Sure! Just follow the road downhill towards the piers. There should be a ferry-"

"Hang on to that thought," Korra interrupted, shooting me a searching look. "Two questions: first, do you mind getting wet, and second, do you want to come with me? Whaddaya say-" She trailed off as she searched for a word before snapping her mouth shut. "Alright, three questions. What's your name, anyways?"

"Well, I'm Vic, general average guy back home, sure I wouldn't mind coming with. Better to be with company right? And well… getting wet is a big no no. I've got some things here that shouldn't get wet and I can't replace them here."

Korra grunted in annoyance before shooting a look at the storekeeper and rolling her fingers for him to continue.

The storekeeper looked like he was about reply when the roar of an incoming engine interrupted him. In a flash he went from that friendly little old man to someone who looked intensely terrified.

"What's wrong?" Korra asked in a concerned manner.

"N-nothing!" the storekeeper stuttered. " Y-you should get going! Just down the hill to the ferry like I said! N-now go ahead, move along!" He said as he shooed us out of the store.

As we stepped out, I noticed that the car that was probably making all the noise had stopped right in front of us. The doors opened, and both Korra and I were set on edge as the car's occupants marched out around us.

It didn't take a scientist that these guys were almost definitely gangsters, or triad members, as they were known back home. There was a big one with a rather vacant look on his face, probably the muscle. A small lanky one with the same mischievous-bordering-on-bloodthirsty smile I saw a bit around my old neighborhood, and another big guy in a trench coat and a fedora. If that guy wasn't the boss of the three, I'd eat my phone.

"Mr Cheng!" the man in the fancy black trenchcoat waved mockingly at the shop owner, who was shivering in his store's threshold. "How pleasant to see you again. I do trust you have this week's collection," he said flashing a predatory smile.

"Please," muttered the elderly shopkeeper, "business has been slow and… well I was hoping for an extension."

"Business has been slow?" Trenchcoat repeated, mock sympathy practically dripping from his voice. " I can't imagine it doing so poorly Mr Cheng! I mean, just look at your fine phonograms here," he said as he swept his arm over the store display. "I'm sure you have enough for the week's payment. Well, for your sake I hope you are, anyways. Jem here is feeling rather twitchy today, and you know how he is with fire." The lanky man nodded in agreement as he flicked his hand, producing a sizeable fireball over his palm.

A firebender. Well damn.

"And you two should scram," Trenchcoat warned. "You two didn't see nothing alright? Nothing. Now move along, before I make Turtle here stomp you." he said as the big man, Turtle, raised his foot and brought it crushing down on the road, shaking the stones beneath us menacingly.

I noticed Korra practically twitching, and I hastily slapped my hand on her shoulder, trying to get her to calm down. "Korra, hold on!" I hissed desperately. "Let me try and talk them down. There's more than one way to solve a problem and if that doesn't work... well, go ahead and do whatever you were going to do." She raised her eyebrow at me and looked like she was about to protest, but I cut her off. "Look, if I can just get them to back off, we can save both Mr Cheng and us some trouble instead of risking his or anyone else's stores, okay?"

She stared at me silently for a moment longer before muttering darkly under her breath and flashing me her index finger. I got the message: One minute before things got violent.

I swallowed heavily as I stood up and approached Mr Trenchcoat.

"Gentlemen!" I smiled, oozing all the charisma and bullshit that my years of education had ingrained in me as I ever so slowly inched closer to Trenchcoat. "Is there any other way we could solve this? I mean how much does Mr Cheng owe, anyway?"

Trenchcoat's face briefly became a scowl before putting on his own smile and staring me down. We were well within arm's reach of each other by this point. "You know kid, you've got to have some serious guts to be acting like that to a member of the Triple Threat Triad. So I'll give you one more warning before I order Jem to burn a lesson into you that you'll never forget."

I mentally gulped. "Come now, then as an..." I fought to keep my disgust from showing in my voice. "Esteemed member of the Triad, surely you must be a man of class and means! Organized crime does require good businessmen and not thug! to run things. It is, after all, just business."

Trenchcoat was silent for a moment before glancing at the firebender beside him. "Jem." He grunted, and I knew then that my attempts at diplomacy had failed. I probably rolled a nat 1 in the dice of life.

So I went to the only school of self-defense I had left. I listened to my gut, and kneed him in the balls before things got nasty for me.

I saw Korra jump into action as soon as Trenchcoat screamed in pain. Jem launched fire blasts at me and I could feel the heat of the flames close in, inches away when Korra blocked them with her own flame, running up to the mobster and knocking him to the floor with a heavy shoulder-check.

The big guy tried to counter with earthbending, but Korra countered that as well, forcing the bursts of stone to the side and retaliating with a fist-sized rock of her own.

Trenchcoat was still lying down in pain, the two were pretty groggy, and it looked like we hardly caused as much damage as there could have been. Just a bit of the road, and a couple of unfortunate clocks across the street.

"Let's get out of here!" Turtle grunted, scrambling to his feet and hauling Trenchcoat out into the street and into the car, Jem staggering behind him. I smiled a bit, a bit proud of myself that for however small a moment, I managed to stand up to them.

That pride met a swift end when I noticed Korra rushing out to chase after them.

"Korra wait!" I shouted in vain, but she either didn't hear me or didn't care as she continued after them.

For a moment I contemplated leaving her be, but hastily reconsidered as I remembered what came next. Someone's had to teach the woman the meaning of subtlety, lest she wind up in a cold hard cell with an even colder and harder Lin Beifong staring her down. As such, I rushed down the street after her, hoping against hope that I could stop her before she did anything too rash.

The tell tale screech of tires told me I that hope was in vain as I saw the car crash into an unnatural bump in the road, flipping on its side and skidding into another storefront. Korra a huge smile on her face, as if she'd done some great justice in the world. To be fair, she had done some good, but the impending consequences overshadowed my awe.

I mean for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction after all. Then I heard a disturbingly familiar thwacking sound behind me. Slowly, dreading what I knew I'd see, I glanced over my shoulder and caught sight of a metal cable buried in the road

I followed the line back up to see the fuzz coming down from their airship in all their shining, metal-clad glory and fury. One of the squad landed behind me, while the rest surrounded Korra and the criminals. I couldn't help but reflexively step back a bit, flinching under the metalbender's withering glare.

Meanwhile, from what I could see out of the corner of my eye, Korra had this incredibly triumphant look on her face, as if she'd just saved the day and cut out a little more evil from the world.

Before I realized what was happening, I got a glimpse of how she could be in the future. Here she was, happy, triumphant, living up life and on top of the world. And then I saw the last time I saw her on a screen: To see her so… defeated. Broken, not really living, simply... surviving, going through the motions. A shadow of the victorious Avatar of today.

I swallowed heavily as I clenched my fists and turned my attention back to the metalbending officer. I couldn't let myself get intimidated here, I couldn't falter. I knew what was coming, I knew the possibilities, and I wasn't about to let them happen. Not because they would break the woman who could possibly get me home, but because it was the right thing to do.

"Well officer," Korra preened. "I've done your job for you," she said as the three thugs staggered out of the car.

"Arrest them!" the officer ordered as the other cops tied up the trio of thugs. Now for the hard part, as the officer walked up to Korra too. "You're under arrest too!"

The look of total disbelief on Korra's face was honestly a little funny as she backpedaled a bit. "Wait what?! I just caught the bad guys. They were hustling an innocent shopkeeper!'

"It looks like you've done more damage than they did," the cop said, staring her down with the most menacing stare I've ever seen on a cop.. Man, I could only wish for this kind of officer back home.

"But I can explain-"

"You can explain downtown at the station." the cop scowled, interrupting her. Korra looked like she was about to dash, so I rushed up and did what I knew had to be done.

"Korra," I said as calmly as I could. "Let's just go to the station with him. I'm sure we can deal with this in a civilized manner back there."

"But-"

"We did nothing wrong, and I'm sure the officer here is merely doing his job. Let's not cause the man any trouble and explain the situation at it happened in peaceful and calm manner that does not get us a record."

Korra looked like she wanted to argue the point even more. "Look, if we resist, they're going to have to chase us, and something tells me they have a lot of experience catching runners. Do you really want to test your luck? You do know that Naga will end up in the pound all alone if we wind up arrested, right?"

That seemed to win her over as she sighed and let the issue go.

"Good choice kid," the officer said patting my back. "Now, so long as you two promise to not make trouble, I'll make sure your ride back to the station is as nice and comfy as possible." he said, smiling a surprisingly amicable smile as he lead us towards a corner, probably to wait for a police car.

All in all, so far I managed to land in the middle of a city, help stop a shake down, and get Korra to come in peaceably. This might not be too bad after all.

Though the slightly acidic glare she was shooting me was putting a minor damper on my cheer, that was for sure. It could be worse though. Things could've been a loooot worse.

About a half hour later, I found myself along with Korra stuck in an interrogation room with Bei Fong pinning me to a chair with the most intensely angry glare I've ever experienced.

'I was right. This is worse.'