Kimiko's arms crossed over her shoulders as she listened to the announcer on the radio. "The greatest and strongest, huh?" she found herself murmuring. Last year's winners had been a group called Badgermoles, a team notorious for their arrogance and disregard for common courtesy. Apparently, they were the greatest and strongest. The thought made Kimiko want to vomit out the sweet bread she just ate. The Badgermoles wouldn't be competing this year. "Cowards." "What's gotten you all surly there?" Kai piped up from the kitchen area. He was the designated cook for the week, decided after a sparring match between the three of them. Kai always seemed to don the apron more often than the other two, but it didn't seem to bother him much. He liked cooking for the team, and it was obvious that the team loved his cooking - if Kimiko and Xeno's teaming up every sparring session was any indication. Xeno, who had been busy attempting to create a frozen sculpture in their part of the apartment, piped up, "Overachiever won't feel like she's the greatest and strongest unless she beats last year's champion." "Whatever." Kimiko jumped up and stretched her limbs. "I'm going to the gym. Just have Anana call me when lunch is ready." Xeno gave her a salute and returned to their sculpture as the door slammed shut behind Kimiko. "She's been getting antsy, hasn't she?" "She's just excited," Kai answered flippantly. "Anyway, I need your help. Taste this and tell me if it's too salty." Xeno's eyes rolled but they stood up and approached the boy nonetheless. Meanwhile, Kimiko had just changed into her training clothes and set up the gym. With a couple of test jabs, she was ready.

"Why are we even here?" Gen mumbled with some mild annoyance in his voice. "We'll be facing just little kids." The tall earthbender shook his head as he paced back and forth around the room the Legendary Lion-turtles were occupying. He flicked the reddish lock of hair away from his eyes and fiddled around with the silver hairpin. Shin let out a little chuckle as he took a sip of tea and stared out from a window to the street below. His smile hadn't lost any of it's charm or warmth over the years. "Oh come on Gen, we were just kids when we started. You remember how we were underestimated at first, hmm?" He glanced towards Gen and gestured with his teacup "We can't go underestimating anyone - so..." "We'll just fight like every match is against the toughest enemy we have had thus far. Kiddie gloves are off from the get go." Liang cut in from the sofa she was reclining on. The sofa was situated on a corner and it was the largest piece of furniture in the room. "We have a week to get our act together again so we'd better start training first thing tomorrow." She rubbed her left shoulder and shook her head a bit. "My neck is killing me again..." Shin finished his tea calmly, placed the cup on a table and made his way to the sofa. He rather impolitely shoved Liang to the floor and sat behind her. Liang let out a surprised little squeak and was about to say something rather impolite when the waterbender began gently massaging her neck. "How have you survived without us looking after you?" He asked with that annoyingly polite voice of his. Liang closed her eyes and let out a sigh - with her best attempt at seeming like she was really annoyed. "I've survived just fine, thank you very much... Oh, just a bit to the right, please." Gen glanced at his teammates and didn't even try to hide his smile. Eight years had been such a long time and they hadn't seen each other enough to his liking. Something just reminded so much of the old times... He wiped the side of his eye and grinned. "Once you are done with the captain how about you fix my back while you are at it?" Shin shrugged his shoulders and smirked "We'll see about that, this'll take a while." Liang giggled and glanced at the ceiling - she got a little nudge to the back of her head from Shin "Oi, no moving when I'm working li'll miss." The firebender pouted and lowered her arm to her lap. "F-fine..."

Siku had been asleep when the radio announcement went off, but Ryou and Ryko sure as hell aren't. They listen intently to the radio as they talk about the tournament. Siku is asleep on Ryou's bed after a long day, so Ryko hits her awake. "Wait up sleepy moron!" he says loudly. "Listen to this." Siku jolts awake and listens sleepily to the rest of the announcement before yawning once it ends. "That sounds great," she says with a tired yawn. She falls back on the bed but Ryko catches her before she can fall back asleep. She rolls her eyes and stretches, trying to wake herself up more so she can actually talk to her team. "Fine, what do you want to do?" "Well, I don't care what you two do," Ryko says with a grin. "I'm head down to the gym to practice. You guys can either come with, or stay here and make out." He aims this remark directly at his brother, who flushes a dark red and rubs the back of his neck. He had had a crush on Siku ever since she joined their team. Ryko rolls his eyes and punches his brother's shoulder. "Later!" He hurries out the door in his training gear, which he had already had on before the announcement. He had been planning on going and training today anyways. Ryou, now fully red, looks over at Siku, who just laughs at him and stands up to stretch. She bends over, touches her toes before bouncing back up. She smiles at him and says, "Don't worry. I knew Ryko was joking." Ryou nods and stands up himself. He walks back into the kitchen and begins to make himself some lunch. "You slept in late," Ryou calls from the kitchen. "Any reason why you were out so late?" Siku is silent, but she unconsciously covers up some fire burns from the previous night. "No reason. Just walking around." Ryou snorts with disbelief, but he doesn't push her to answer anything. Instead, he flips the sandwich he is making. Her business is her own and he wasn't going to pry. @bittersweetsymphonia Meanwhile, Ryko arrives at the gym in a flourish, expecting to see at least a few other people there, but there is no one else but a girl about his age practice. He sighs and tosses his coat to the side, heading toward the earth bender area. He begins to warm up and before long, he is shooting the discs with ease into the goals. He looks over at the girl and says, "I assume you're practicing for the tournament?"

Min turned off the radio and walked out onto the beach. She had been staying with her brothers at their beach house for the last week, as it afforded them more time to train. Seeing them now, though, she wandered if they were really serious about training.

Bon was out on his board, creating or enhancing the waves to make the surfing better. Wes was building statues, bending the sand on the beach into the proper state and then turning it to stone. "uh, guys, can we maybe practice now?" she said. "I need to get better before the match."

Wes made the statue flip over and put a flat bottom on it. "Good idea. Maybe we can run into another team and have a sparing session." he said before calling out "Hey, Bon, come here. Min wants to hit the gym."

Bon rode his board over to the shore then flipped it up with a bit of water so that he could grab it. "So you wanna build some muscles, little sis? Cool, I can help you train."

"No, I mean, I think we need to practice our bending, at least together."

"Right, Bon said. We have the final coming up and haven't every been in a real match together. Let me go get dressed and we'll go there. Who knows, maybe one of the other teams will be there."

After everyone got ready they went to the gym. There the guys taught Min a training exercise. "Ok, so what you do is stand in a circle." Wes said, "then each person attacks the other two. We'll of course be trying to attack the other two people too, so you have to block and attack at the same time. There's also strategy, as you don't want one of us to be strong enough to still beat you when the other gets knocked down. You got that?"

"Not really."

"You'll catch on," said Bon, "Begin." He pulled some water from some jugs nearby and sent it at her, knocking her down. He walked over, helped his drenched sister stand up, then walked back to his position. "Don't worry," he said, pulling the water off of her, "you'll get the hang of it." This time, however, both brothers launched attacks at her. She had no choice but to dodge.

Kimiko practiced a few jabs, sending fireballs towards a dummy a couple of feet away. Her chest heaved as she let her hands fall to her knees, taking a moment to catch her breath, and watch the sweat roll off her forehead and drop onto the floor. It was then that the door slammed open, revealing a dark haired boy that Kimiko has seen around before. Kimiko watched as the boy warmed up and showed off his earthbending skills, and with a flash of her eyes, she remembered where she saw him before. He was one of the participants in the tournament - a member of the Viper Bats if she wasn't mistaken.

"You assume correctly," she replied, before coming back to her stance. She jabbed at the target again, much fiercer this time, until she set the wooden dummy on fire. With a satisfied smirk - the thought that she would have to compensate for the destroyed dummy later filed at the back of her mind - she turned to the boy again. She held out her hand. "Kimiko Tetsume. Raven Eagles."

Xeno arrived in the gym just moments before another team popped inside. Xeno shot them a look, before coming up beside Kimiko. "You know them?" they asked.

Kimiko looked up and watched as the two guys taught the girl the basics, and she smiled to herself. "Elephant Kois," she finally said. "Where's Kai?"

"He's cleaning up his mess."

"Again?"

Xeno nodded with a neutral look. She then turned her eyes towards Ryko. "Earthbender?" they asked, but continued without waiting for an answer. "We should spar. It wouldn't be a fair fight with one of you and two of us, though, so how about just us?"

Kimiko shrugged before whistling loudly, enough to get the attention of everyone in the gym. "Fellas," she called out towards the Elephant Kois, "Want to lend one of your teammates to aid Mr. Earthbender over there in a sparring match?"

It wasn't long until Liang was again able to move her head properly thanks to Shin's skills as an amateur masseur. She got on her feet and casually picked up the waterbenders jacket. After some - noticeably exaggerated - difficulties she was wearing it properly and glanced at her two teammates. "Now, I'm going to do some scouting!" Her declaration was punctuated with a rather goofy little pose.

Shin shook his head slightly and glanced at Gen. "Well, if our dear captain wants to do some scouting there isn't anything we can say about that." The tall earthbender rolled his eyes "Yes we could." It was a very blunt and very correct statement and Shin didn't want to argue with his more ...stubborn... friend. He just nodded. "Yes, yes we could, but I for one won't. Now, if your damn back hasn't miraculously fixed itself I now have some time to fix it."

"I'll be back after a while! If you smell smoke it might not be me this time. Don't hurt each other when I'm gone!" Liang stated quickly before disappearing from the room - leaving her teammates just looking at each other with amusement. They both began laughing and Shin nearly fell from the sofa. "She really hasn't changed at all..." He managed from between bursts of laughter.

Gen managed to nearly collect himself before bursting in to laughter again "She really hasn't." The tall earthbender managed to seat himself in front of the waterbender and even gathered his composure. "You think we should...?" Shin shook his head and began working on Gen's back. "No we shouldn't. Let her blow off some steam on her own for now... Seriously, how have you gotten your back in to this condition??" The earthbender coughed and mumbled "...Training..."
_____________

"Where is it? Wheeeeere is it??" Liang more or less ran around while examining the place and finally she located what she was looking for - the gym, or was it a sparring area? Oh well the name of the particular place wasn't important, finding it was. She entered just as someone had issued a not-quite-a-challenge. What she could tell there were members of atleast two other teams present. She was quite certain none of them would be old enough to remember her or her team - not that it really mattered to Liang, apart from the fact that it would make them lose some of their as she called it 'fright factor' - since they had been pretty good back in the day. She made sure that the sleeve of her jacket was properly tucked to a pocket so it seemed like she was just holding her hand there - the firebender silently berated her for forgetting her prosthetic, if she'd just turn around now anyone wouldn't notice that she was there and she could make a better first impression.

Admittedly she had already stepped in to the gym so there was really no turning back. Liang felt so very lost for just a few seconds, why hadn't she asked the boys to come with her? What should she say? Shin would know what to say... After what felt like an eternity - in truth she had stood there for maybe 10 seconds - the firebender smiled sheepishly, waved her arm even more sheepishly and managed to say a barely audiable "Hi."

@bittersweetsymphonia

Ryko shakes her hand and says, "Ryko Kasaisekitan." She makes the comment about the sparring and he's about to respond when a smug, amused voice comes out from behind him.

"That won't be necessary, darlin'." Ryou walks over and throws his arm around Ryko's shoulders. "Already getting into trouble, eh, little brother?"

Ryko shrugs his brother arm off of him and snaps, "I'm not getting into trouble. They just want a sparring partner. I figured it would be fine." Ryou rolls his eyes at his brother and turns to the two benders standing in front of him.

"Ryou Kasaisekitan, this punk's twin older brother. If you want a sparring match, you got one. I am the fire bender for the Viper Bats and my brother is the earth bender, if you can't already tell." He glares over at his brother. "It's a fair fight now, so why don't we get set up?" Ryou walks away a little bit, firing a couple shots toward the target next to Kimiko's. His blasts are much hotter and a lot larger than hers, and they burn through the target almost immediately. He chuckles and turns back to Kimiko and Xeno. "Well, I'm warmed up. Let's go. I could use the practice."

---------------------------------------

Siku takes a deep breath before walking into the gym. She had come with Ryou, but he had disappeared from her side once they had entered the area. She sees the two brothers talking to some benders from another team. She cringes as she recognizes Kimiko Tetsume from the Raven Eagles and immediately goes to the other side of the gym to make sure to stay away from them. So, she walks over to the water bending area and begins to practice.

Kimiko shrugged before whistling loudly, enough to get the attention of everyone in the gym. "Fellas," she called out towards the Elephant Kois, "Want to lend one of your teammates to aid Mr. Earthbender over there in a sparring match?"

"For a pretty girl like you, I'll spar anyone." said Bon. "Who wants to spar?" He looked around to see if anyone responded.

Wes sighed, then introduced the team to the others that were there. "I'm Wes Xiu, Earthbender, that bone-head over there is Bon, my brother, and Waterbender, and this is Min Sun, our little sis, and a Firebender. Our Firebender quit on us the same night we won a spot in the championship, so we had to get Min to fill in. We came to get her some practice before the tournament, so if anyone should spar with one of you, it's her. In fact, if two of you want to take us on, I'll take you on with her on my side."

Kimiko watched as people after people came in the gym and a grin took over her face. She could feel herself getting fired up just by seeing all her opponents. Even the cockiness of some only proved to ignite the flame inside her further.

Xeno, seeing this, sighed. "So, I guess this is happening, huh?" After seeing an enthusiastic nod from Kimiko, Xeno craned her neck to look over the opponents. Team Elephant Kois was in complete attendance, as was the Viper Bats. And there was one member of the Legendary Lion-Turtles that popped in. They were definitely contenders, teams they knew would prove to be strong opponents in the field, and Xeno felt just how pumped up their team leader was. "How about we do it this way," they began, bending and bringing up four earth slabs, "Two teams of two, with one person from each team as a representative for this sparring match."

Kimiko stepped up next to her teammate and lowered her goggles to her eyes. "I'll be representing the Raven Eagles. Which one of you is going to be my partner?"

Xeno grinned and bended the slab towards Kimiko, carving the number one on it. They bended the same number on one of the remaining slabs and the number two on the rest.

"Oh, and Xeno, we're gonna need a referee," Kimiko added as an afterthought. She turned towards the other teams while pointing with her thumb towards her teammate. "You guys okay if Xeno over there took up that role? If they try to cheat, you have my permission to beat them up."

Xeno's only response was a small smirk towards Kimiko, as though saying they'd like to see them try, but said nothing as she waited for the rest of the teams to offer up someone.

Kimiko pumped her fist in the air. "Come on, people. This is a learning experience!"

Liang managed to pump herself up a bit at the prospect of having a little sparring match. She smiled quite excitedly and shrugged her shoulders "Heck, why not. I'm in." The firebender began tucking her jacket sleeve in to a better position and mumbled something about forgetting things, then she just opened her jacket and tossed it aside. Under the jacket she wore a simple white shirt that had only one sleeve to cover the stump of her arm. "So, who wants a handicap for their team?" Though Liang was quite self-conscious about her handicap she wasn't above jesting about it at this point.

When someone mentioned cheating the firebender tensed up a bit - quite noticeably actually, but atleast she managed to keep her cool - though her voice was ever so slightly strained. "No need to worry about cheating on my part, just warning you. If anyone tries something fishy they got me to contend with." Liang pointed herself with her thumb and tried to look intimidating.

Then she smirked excitedly and coughed "Oh, where are my manners!" Liang shook her head a bit before taking a goofy little pose. "I'm Liang Xian! The captain of the Legendary Lion-turtles!"

"Nice to meet you, Liang." said Wes. "I'll team up with you. And don't worry, we don't cheat. So, you're fire? I'm Earth. We should make a good team." He was purposely ignoring her missing arm.

Min stepped forward. "Actually, Wes, I think I need the practice. I'll go up against her, if you'll let me."

Wes nodded. "Sure, that'll work. We'll go get ready." They moved the equipment around in their practice area, getting it ready. When they were done, Min stood in her starter position. "We're ready." Said Wes.