"Feel the water flow around you, stay in control - there's no raw power in our art, Siku," The man explained, letting the wall of ice in front of him melt into a large puddle on the floor.

"I've been water bending for years, dad, don't give me that spiel again," She retorted, drawing from the pool behind her.  A tendril wrapped around her in a circle and began to spin as a second joined to revolve in the opposite direction, creating a gimble.  With a series of spins and flourishes, she began to move forward, the water reacting in kind, speeding up before both rings lashed out as whips at her father maliciously.  When both cracked, they met only air, the large water bender ducking astonishingly low to avoid the strike.  His arms thrust outward into the lengths of water, catching them as he twisted full-circle, turning the attack.

"Gyah!" Siku almost yelped as the counter attack stopped just shy of her neck.  Her father had aimed a lash at her, but sharpened the edge of the attack into ice and then held it firm before meeting her flesh, as usual.  Her foot stomped into the ground, "Dammit!  One of these days..."  She muttered angrily as the attack was returned to the pool of water surrounding them.

"You're improving, don't worry about it, Siku.  You just need to keep practicing.  Maybe it's that pro-bending; it's significantly weaker than traditional, you know that," He argued for what had to be the thousandth time.

"I know it's not the best for practicing my bending, but the restrictions placed on it for the arena make it a viable way to practice versatility.  You might learn a thing or two trying to fight me with those rules."

Her father waved a hand and rolled his eyes, "I let you do it yourself, don't pull me into it."

She laughed and stuck her tongue out teasingly before heading back to her room to change out of her dueling clothes and into her casual stuff.  Once her sleeves were nice and straight, her hair's braid fixed, and her gloves back on, she was ready to go out.  She got no farther than putting her hand on the doorknob before a uniformed man behind her called out.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Out, Hiresh.  Why don't you stay here and watch the house?  Sesi has homework, I wanna go out, I can keep look after myself."

"Oh, yeah, cause that worked out last time I didn't join you.  I almost got canned for that!  When those small-time cronies held you up."

"It did!  I destroyed 'em, they didn't stand a damn chance," The girl smirked and snapped her fingers smugly.  "They were weak.  Like they'd never dueled a modern water bender before."

"That's because it wasn't a duel!  You could've been in serious trouble!"

“But I wasn’t!  God…  Katsu’s just an idiot, his cronies aren’t anything to worry about and they won’t make that mistake again.”

“Yeah, and one day you’ll face an actual Triple Threat or Triad gang,” Hiresh said firmly, stepping forward angrily.  “You’re not allowed to leave without me anymore anyway.”

Siku groaned and rolled her eyes, “Fine. But not in a stupid uniform, go change, you can keep your precious cables, but I won’t walk around with you in that dumb armour,” She retorted.  He sighed and agreed to change, returning in a rather over-the-top outfit that made him look… well, like a douche.  But it was something, at least.  He smirked and gave her a thumbs up knowingly before they headed out.

There was a nice Fire Nation restaurant in one of the nearby neighborhoods where Siku was planning to meet one of the young Air Benders form the temple.  She usually babysat for the Tsukiko family, but tonight was a night off for both of them.  As she and Hiresh made their way to the restaurant, a figure went nearly sprinting past from around a corner.  The metal bender didn’t break tempo for a moment, kicking a foot out and slamming his elbow into the boy’s back, sending him sprawling to the floor.  Siku jumped at the sudden, quickly-ended altercation and looked down to see…  Katsu…  Ugh.

She glared down at him, “Katsu, you idiot.  The hell are you doing running around? You could have knocked one of us over! Then you’d be in real trouble!”

Hiresh’s lip curled back in contempt, “What are you running from, kid?  I swear if you’re up to no good, I’ll have you booked.”