Republic City

Bae seemed uncomfortable with the praise and he just grunted his reply. He wouldn't stop Bast from eating, and he might have even sort of smiled, before it was quickly wiped away. His own dishes were tossed into the sink, "No reason. Come on, let's go."

He'll let Bast out of the apartment, and he's locking up behind him. He's keeping a quick pace to the docks, hopefully Bast can keep up!

Bast had no problem keeping up with Bael. He was happy to follow a few steps behind the man as he was still looking around him at all the new things. Falu rode on his shoulder chattering madly at people who go too close. But the tribesman was probably a sight to see with his strange clothing and clear obliviousness to the world around him. He walked with Bael in silence, too busy to chat.

A noise sounded from the hallway of the gym area as Leta and Rakka began practice. It sounded something like stomping but it was causing the floor of the building to shake. Out of the hallway came a man; he wasn't a tall man but as he walked, he was leaving spikes of earth where his feet had been. Each time he bent a spike out of the ground it shook. He also seemed to be muttering to himself.

"... don't need a team. Totally fine on my own..." He continued to stomp into the room, leaving his tantrum trail of earth spikes. He let his hair loose and the thick brown locks fells to his chin as he also removed his outer coat. When he was fully in the gym, he began to stomp and bend earth disc into the nets.

Rakka stopped bending when he felt the shakes, and looked over when he saw the man enter the gym. Leta glanced over, curious at the newcomer. They both stood watching him while he muttered, and started to earth bend. And then Rakka looked like he had been blessed by his ancestors, by his gods, by his past good deeds, and maybe even his good luck charms. 'An earth bender,' he mouthed and he cleared his throat loudly, making his way over to the earth bender.

"Oh, wow. Those impressive Earth Bending skills, what team do you belong to? I'm so jealous, because I could definitely use someone like you on my team," he played, smoothing out his hair to match his talk.

Tanaf stopped throwing discs long enough to huff and look over at Rakka. He was unimpressed with what he saw, but the guy was talking about his bending. He leaned back on his heels and crossed his arms over his chest to show off his muscles.

"I am pretty good, aren't I?" But he soured at the team comment. "I have no team; I'm too good for a team."

"Too good?" Rakka said, looking to the discs that had landed in the net. He gave a nod of his head. "Yeah, I could see that. Too bad you can't bend water and fire as well. Then you'd be a one man show. But, I don't think they allow that. Are you looking to compete, even?" Rakka looked back to the earth bender.

"I mean, if you are... I suppose you could put up with both of us, just so you can go out there and show your stuff." He was laying it on thick. He really didn't think about the repercussions of complimenting Tanaf so much, but at this point, he probably wouldn't even care.

Tanaf had started causing tiny earth quakes while Rakka was going on about him not being able to do the other forms of bending. He was getting annoyed; didn't this guy know he had tried other bending? If that Korra girl wasn't born, he would have been the next Avatar; order be damned! But then the guy started to compliment him more and his anger was soothed.

He raised a brow. "I could deal with you guys. Let me see what you can do first."

Rakka cheered silently on the inside, and gave a nod of his head. He took a step back, making sure he wasn't near either of them, and threw out his fist, fire erupting from the motion toward an invisible opponent. Another punch, and then he raised his leg, bringing it down, a side arc of flames flying outward. He did a similar assortment of moves, moving just slightly across the ground from his original starting point.

A few flames from the mouth for show, and he would end with a forward flip, landing on the ground with flames spreading outward from him.

"Don't wanna get too into it... just in case there is competition around, you know? Don't wanna intimidate anyone."

Tanaf nodded. Rakka was alright; not as good as him, but alright. He then looked at Leta who was no doubt distracted with something else. He frowned and raised a brow. "What about her?"

Leta, who was indeed distracted by a beetle that was trying to cross the stream was water, paid no mind to what was happening behind her. Rakka bit his lip, trying to think fast. "Oh, yeah, she bends pretty well. Unfortunately, she's feeling a bit sick right now. Why is she out here you ask? Well, I told her to stay home and get some rest, but she just insisted on coming here to help me train at least. Giving me some critique and everything. But look at her now! The fever has got her head all fuzzy, and she can't even concentrate on the matter at hand. Poor girl."

Leta gave a small cough, but that was because she had inhaled some dust floating in the air, and returned to following the beetle as it trailed along.

He shook his head sympathetically, before he turned back to Tanaf. "When she is feeling better, we can show you what she is made of."

He stared at Rakka skeptically, his eyes going from Leta to Rakka. All the while he leaned in toward Rakka, his expression getting more intense as if he was waiting for Rakka to just admit that he was lying. After a long minute he relaxed and recrossed his arms.

With a sharp nod his expression cleared. "Seems legit. I'm Tanaf, the new star of your team." He held out his hand.

"Rakka," he replied, taking the man's hand and giving it a firm shake. 'Probably going to push you out of the limelight, so hope you don't mind,' he thought to himself with a grin. "And that is Leta. You could say hi, but she probably won't reply. But in any case, welcome to the 'Sparrowkeets'!"

Oh man, that team name did sound bad, now that he was saying it more. But, every other good name was taken! He turned, rubbing his nose, and looking the training grounds over. Finally... Finally! they had an earth bender. Now he just had to get Leta bending so they didn't lose said Earth bender.

Bael is practically at the ports, before he sees that they're all boxed off and that the police were still around. "...are you kidding me right now?" He sounded irritated and he glared at the barricades as if that were going to make them move. "Well, guess we aren't going to be getting you a job today...and you're probably not going to be able to get out to air temple island for awhile either."

He's not sure what to do now, and he'll look over at Bast, "Was there anything else you wanted to do here besides meet the Avatar?" Well, they just had an entire day free up, and Bael was bored!

Bast was crest fallen. He really wanted to see the Avatar, but that would take money. He needed the job to get money because he didn't want to leach off Bael forever. He frowned and peered over the barricades to the police officers. They were kind of scary to him, covered in metal...

"Well..." He was at a loss, really. "You could show me around the city maybe?"

"Sparrowkeets?" Was this guy serious? He seemed serious. "Alright then, whatever. I'm good enough to look past the silly name." He shrugged it off and went back to bending after giving Leta queer look. She was sort of skeeving him out.

Okay, so here it was. He was actually beginning to practice to be in the Pro Bending tournament. This was going to be amazing! At least he told himself that. He would stand at the pre set line for the fire bender, and would position himself to fire bend. Honestly, he felt this might be a bit more difficult than he had previously thought. He was going to have to be conscious of his teammates, and his enemies, knowing all of their movements.

So he would wait for Tanaf, before he began to bend.

The earthbender was right back to his antics of throwing the disks into the netting. When he had sufficiently broken in the netting, he began to bend all the discs back into place and started again. His gaze kept sliding to Rakka to see what the man was doing.

There was a flame retardant training dummy just beside the earth bending net. He was bending the fire around the dummy, like a whip almost, and throwing a few flames directly at the dummy. He used his legs mostly, showing off his athleticism, and using his arms on occasion, to change up his moves a bit.

Eventually, he would stop, wiping off his forehead with his arm, and looking to Tanaf. Yes, this was really working! He was going to have a team together, and he was going to be a Pro Bending Champion! He turned to see what Leta had occupied herself with, but he was surprised to not see her anywhere in sight. "Erm, Leta?" he called out, looking around the Arena but not seeing her anywhere.

The girl had in fact, wandered out of the training Arena, and was walking the streets, a little curious to see what else lay about the town. She was making her way down the sidewalk, seeming to be in the busier part of town.

Bae would look Bast over, "Uh...I guess so?" He didn't really know what there was to show of the city, "Oh...there's the park, usually something is going on there."

He'd tug on Bast's arm to get the boy to follow him, "Come on, this way...try not to get lost." He'd head off to the park, but on the way, he'd spot a familiar girl. "Hey...is that Leta?" Bast had spent slightly more time with her than Bael had, he would know.

He stopped the rock golem he was playing with and let the earth fall back into the floor when Rakka started talking. He turned to see the firebender staring around the arena, calling for the girl Leta. While that girl actually creeped him out, he needed her for this team thing to work.

"Where did she go?" He paced up to Rakka, wiping sweat from his brow.