Despite herself, Siku had to laugh once more at Katsu's flustered attitude when Asha blasted him.  She shrugged, "I was going to bend it off of him, but I like the way you think, Asha."  The girl took a sniff of the air, "At least you smell better now, Katsu," She teased, giving him a thumbs-up.  This was taking forever, though...  How far did they really have to go down here?  What felt like ages later, Katsu was calling them up the ladder and Siku was the first one on it, fully aware of how nasty her clothes were growing by the second.  "Finally, geeze..."  She muttered, pulling herself onto the street and stretching out her back, "That was disgusting..."

Hiresh was the final one on his way up and he planted his feet before bending the manhole cover back into place.  He looked around and wiped his hands off of each other to get the grime from the ladder off of them.  They started on their way for Katsu's place, albeit moving more clandestinely than they had to in the sewers.  With Katsu in the lead, Hiresh kept eyes on their rear again, making sure they still weren't being followed.  No, chief, why in the world would he need a damned radio?  He was only guarding an ambassador's daughter.  Not only that, but Ambassador Tsukiko was the frontrunner for the North Pole's seat as councilman as soon as it opened.  There would be no reason for him to have some way to contact HQ in a pinch.  Of course, Siku would have had a fit had he brought one anyway.  God dammit, why did he need them? He was more than qualified for this.  He could get Katsu to Air Temple Island and then they'd have more than enough resources to figure what came next.

The quartet wove through the streets and into the Panther Lily district.  Siku looked around...  She tried not to walk through this part of the city often and now she was really regretting the clothing she'd picked for the evening now.  Finally, they made it to what looked like a completely abandoned apartment complex.  After Future Industries brought the automobile and power to Republic City, these things were thrown up everywhere.  Avatar Korra's opening of the Spirit Portal made some areas of the city more difficult to traverse and some places lost all accommodation as living quarters.  Property values in the Panther Lily District were very low and driving was difficult, to say the least, so a lot of the land was deemed unusable and many of the apartments abandoned.  This structure was one that nobody paid to live in, so it seemed some had chosen to steal itself in.

The streets weren't so full of people, but it was apparent that they were [i]there.[/i]  Just most of them were inside at this hour and anybody who was outside was slightly more... undesirable.  Siku made sure to keep the group close together.  She couldn't let Asha wander off.  "Katsu...  Y-you live in there...?"  She asked with a little bit of a dumbfounded tone.  She didn't mean for it to sound rude, but it likely did sound a bit more pretentious than intended.  Hiresh maintained a ready stance, but Katsu's aloofness made it hard to feel the necessity of staying alert as they approached the large structure.  Was this really Katsu's own little hovel?

There was a small group of people out front.  Each one was wearing some kind of worn or tattered clothing, but they didn't wear it like it was all they had, it was worn with a type of pride.  The worst part was that most of them didn't seem more than a couple of years older or younger than Siku herself.  If she thought that she attracted a lot of looks, Hiresh was being stared down like nobody's business.  He didn't need a uniform to look like an officer, especially with his cables still equipped.  No doubt there were more like these kids inside, too...  But how many, Siku wondered?

A voice called from the small group, "Oi! Katsu, what's with bringin' the fuzz in here?"

Hiresh pinched the bridge of his nose.  [i]Of course he lives with a bunch of delinquents...[/i]  This was going to be a real pain in the ass.  Siku snickered at his clear irritation, "Wow, he called you out awfully quick there, Hiresh," She teased.