**REPUBLIC CITY – 9:00 AM – GREEN HEIGHTS APARTMENTS**

Lying on the ledge that separated the top floor and balcony of Green Heights from the sickening drop down to concrete and tarmac below, the airbender Jun was already awake, soaking in the fog – or was it smog? – of Republic City. A sickly fern from a potted plant tickled his nose as if irritated that someone had the audacity to move its' plastic container for such a silly reason as meditating. It didn't care whether or not its' itching tendrils were causing Jun's nose to twitch and ultimately distracting him from achieving spiritual clarity.

He huffed, eyes straining against closed eyelids when opening them would mean defeat and failure – proving to the world that, yet again, Jun was unsuitable to become anything but a layabout, too flighty to sit still and think about the world around him for anything longer than two seconds. Circling inside his head was the Old Man's wispy words of wisdom, the ones he could hear as clear as day even though his teacher had long since been buried: “*In and out. Breathe in – and hold it! Three... two... and one. Breathe out, letting all of your earthly foibles drain away with it.*”

Man, it really was cold this morning, wasn't it? The Air Nomads of centuries past must have felt something similar, living up on their mountain temples of dizzying heights and forceful winds–

*Focus!*

It was definitely hard to “focus” as his inner voice commanded him, especially when all he could think about was his pressing need to pull on a hoodie over his sleeveless shirt and move away from the icy brickwork to the nice, relatively warm insides of his 'penthouse' flat. Such low temperatures made his back ache, his knuckles freeze up and his knees lock into place to the point where it took a good few moments of steady breathing to prepare himself as he rocked back onto his feet, propelled by an upwards blast of air.

Meditation would have to wait, he decided as the tracker hanging underneath his shirt began to rattle against the buckle of his belt. Tugging it out, he frowned. Was there meant to be a meeting? He could hardly remember – the days blurred together in a haze of vigilantism on the streets of the capital and hours upon hours of personal training and sky-watching. Still, working with the rebels was still much preferred to life as a weather reporter or worse, a barista. 

Jun lazily slid open the curtain that split his living quarters from the outside world in place of a door, stepped over the boxes that blocked the draught out and shuffled his feet around on the piles of – for lack of a better word – _junk_ on the floor. He kicked a soft cotton jacket up and swiftly pulled in on, checking the pockets for what little money he had and his pre-prepared gadgets. All of his clothed had at least one “getaway device” stealthily concealed inside it, and in the case of this khaki monstrosity, it was smokebombs.

“Good enough,” he murmured, pressing a small, downwards pointing arrow on the wall and waiting waiting for the elevator to make its way up to his floor. If only he had a spare sheet to spare, he could've simply glided down to the ground below rather than standing around uselessly... but bed linens were too expensive to waste. Thankfully it wasn't broken for the top floor – those had been an interesting few days, when he had first moved in – and soon the doors opened for him to step inside.

Jun hated elevators. Claustrophobic, stifling, and in the case of this one, it would be going underground where even the faintest of breezes couldn't touch him. Most people would find that reassuring, in such cold weather, but not an airbender – or, at least, not him. If he'd felt uneasy trapped inside an open school building for six hours a day in his teens, the meeting place could only be worse. Pressing the button to descend into the basement, he shifted from side to side uneasily as the metal coffin creaked on its way down and just about fled the elevator as the doors reopened, and not a moment too soon.

Shaking out his limp in a few steps as the relative heat of the room enveloped him and straightening his posture, Jun studiously ignored the workers as they typed away. He probably looked like a vagrant, or at least *weird* with shorts and sandals on in such unforgiving weather.  With his feet barely touching the ground and making no sound at all, the airbender approached what appeared to be the meeting table with two women already there – one of them sitting at the head of the table. 

He took a seat on the free side of her, inclining his head slightly in each of his future teammate's direction as a cheerful grin reappeared on his face, not long after it had vanished in the elevator. Despite his 'long' career as a solo agent (doing absolutely nothing noteworthy), he was excited at the prospect of being a part of something much larger than himself. “Ladies,” Jun greeted, flexing his fingers to crack his knuckles for a few moments of sweet, sweet relief.