tushanshu | video;

[ There is a blast of static before the video feed clicks on. The only elaborate thing he owned that stood out against all the drab issued-on-arrival furniture that dotted his bare as bones suite was a cherry wood desk. Laid out on its surface was a gutted and dissected glove that looks to be made of metal and snaking cords of copper. Even behind that white wood mask he looked displeased with whatever project lay the electric glove in pieces. ]

While experimenting with finding alternate power sources for these devices in the wake of yet another series of tragedies and misfortunes, I decided to turn my attention elsewhere. Not to arsenal but to my fellow foreigners.

The divide between those who possess preternatural and even god-like abilities and those who do not is wide, and I find this distressing. While we are all unequal in the eyes of the Emperor I believe she does wish us to be capable of standing on our own two feet whenever the next cataclysmic event occurs, or whenever the supposed apocalypse fires start.

Taking time away from my free clinic in the Earth sector I will start offering to teach those with little to no formal training in the basics of martial arts: specifically, chi-blocking and hand to hand, closed quarters combat. Without demonstration I can best describe chi-blocking to the uninformed as a school of martial arts that places emphasis on temporarily rendering muscle function useless and even dampening chi or energy based powers. If nothing else, those who feel defenceless can take some initiative.

Kyle Rayner has agreed to supply rooms at EA-3B for training a small number of students at a time so I won't be far from my clinic. In the meantime I hope to attract a small student body and cooperate with anyone here who has experience in close-quarters combat and/or martial arts. It would be best to introduce something so demanding and exact as chi-blocking slowly. A sort of teacher-student arrangement.

I will be taking names of interested foreigners and answering any questions through my personal console, or in person at my clinic.

Standard encryption: private to M. Pontmercy

It's entirely up to you, but I must insist you take up these lessons.

[ ooc information here ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Yeah, this look? Not too impressed. (Plus, it's a bell. Toph doesn't exactly have faith in bells being effective stopping agents.)]

You know, that'd be really great and all if you hadn't already felt just fine about using your bloodbending to take away people's bending. The whole "lessening the gap" thing done by someone who feels like he can play Avatar? Kinda makes that whole mission sound hollow to me.

What've you got against bending and other abilities when you're a bender, anyway?

[ Neither did he but magic here has a funny way of biting one in the ass. ]

To say I was 'playing Avatar' implied the one currently holding that torch had done her job in the first place, but that is an argument for another time. What you say sounds as hollow is only what I had done before and nothing less. Those without powers should feel safe, or at the very least capable, when we were specifically brought here for the purpose of repelling some greater threat.

I will keep this laconic as we've got seventy years of prejudice and corruption separating our personal perceptions. It is not simply bending I 'have a problem with' it's non-benders being treated as second-class citizens under a government and military commanded by almost exclusive benders and all the self-imagined privilege that comes with. And an Avatar kept locked away in the South Pole completely ignorant to what was going on around her and the veritable powder keg she was sitting on and a city council that looked on and did nothing to remedy the rampant classicism and bender-organised crime.

Aang was for the people and for peace; I mourned his passing greatly. Avatar Korra is not.

But understand this: I am pragmatic, and the number of benders here has been cut down to all of four. The problems we face here are markedly larger and as we are literally now straddling the worlds life and death I would suggest you think things through before trying to stop me simply teaching those who haven't had the opportunity to learn to defend themselves. Not from benders, no that agenda is behind me, but from whatever is to come. Whatever is to endanger us all.

I will only say this once: You are not my enemy so long as you do not threaten or so much as come near any student of mine.

Saying you're "playing Avatar" means you were taking people's bending away. Period. Doesn't matter who's in the role.

[Toph's eyes narrow slightly.]

Let's get one thing straight: I don't care if you teach people to defend themselves. I'm as good with that as the next person. And you stick with that, I might even be good with you. But you do something against me or some other bender -- and yeah, that includes Korra -- that involves you playing Avatar, then we've got a problem.

Korra included because blaming someone because they're not Aang and got kept away from stuff by other people is stupid.

Otherwise, like I said, we're good.

[A small smirk.]

And if you're really all Mr. Pragmatic, if I asked to learn, would you teach me too?

[She's fully expecting a no, especially given the rest of the conversation, but offering the freedom to surprise her.]

No, but she could start taking responsibility for her own inaction and ignorance; I don't need to hold her up to her predecessors to feel slighted along with the rest of Republic City for that. [ Who's bitter? This guy. ]

However [ A grin breaks out under the one permanently cut into the wood of his mask. ] why don't we both test the limits of personal tolerance?

If you can hold to it that you won't use your bending save for what you need to do to see then yes. I will train you.

[ It was a gambit for sure but who said he had to live up to Toph's expectations? ]

[Not even going to touch the first part, Amon. Toph's been shut in by people who loved her too, and if you don't know what's going on in the world, it's hard to question what's happening in it.]

[To the next part, though, her head tilts slightly, somewhere between a grin and a smirk forming on her lips.]

Deal. You don't do anything funny, and I don't either.

By the way, though, just so you know -- the truth-telling thing isn't something I can turn off either.

My word for yours. [ He would say he trusted Toph about as far as he could throw her, but for all her prowess as an earthbender she was very diminutive. So the saying rang a little hollow. ]

Yes, I've heard as much. [ Coincidentally, he also happens to be a four hundred foot tall purple platypus bear with pink horns and silver wings. ]

[She'll either determine he's a good liar or that he's not lying. She's more prepared for the former, in full honesty. The statement is more to see how he reacts to it.]

[Also, no touching the stature, man.]

[Toph's posture eases, stretching her arms.]

'Kay, then. So when are you starting this thing?

Sometime starting the seventeenth; I have personal matters to attend to in addition to organising up those who wish to assist me in this endeavour.