Lives Forgotten

The Beifong Estate

It only took six minutes to fly over the city in a diamond formation with Meelo leading the way into the mountains. It was covered well by the trees with plenty of flora hiding it from below without obstructing the view from the estate of the city. The wall was a nice clay color with green shingles. There was a large gate facing what appeared to be the south facing driveway. The main house stood about a third the way in from the main gate, and the back two thirds of the property was occupied by an expansive garden with a combination of a walking path and a little creek in the shape of a flying boar. It's eyes were marked with koi ponds. There was no mistaking the crest of the Beifong Family.

As Meelo, Ikki, Jinora, and Opal circled back around to get a second look, they had to break formation as a metal net came flying towards them from one of the guard houses on the wall.

"They're trying to shoot us out of the sky!" Jinora yelled as a flurry of cables flew up through the air after them. They flew faster. After the cables missed, a wave of metal strips came towards them. They flew up out of range as the strips of metal plummeted back towards the earth below. They began flying back towards the city just as Meelo's glider got sliced, causing him to fall out of the sky screaming.

"Meelo!" Jinora screamed turning back only to be greeted by more metal strips, this time not from the battlements, but from a metalbender standing on the roof of the main house beside a girl dressed in air nomad colors. Opal dove in front of Jinora closing her glider to bat the metal strips away with an air swipe before diving to grab Meelo. As they came up again. The metalbender watched them. She pushed both arms forward slicing Jinora and Opal's gliders. They let go to free their hands to blast air downwards to slow their fall.

"Ikki! Go get help!" Jinora yelled towards the sky from the ground as metalbending guards surrounded them.

Ikki nodded and flew higher but the young woman flung a metal strip at Ikki, grabbing her ankle and yanking her down as she screamed and lost the glider, the last, in-tact glider. The girl beside the metalbender on the roof seemed to be able to just pull Ikki's glider out of the air before disappearing from the roof.

The four found themselves with their wrists and ankles cuffed together in metal and their torsos all tied to the pillars of a low-rising stone wall in the ornate garden as the young, metalbending woman emerged from the house with the girl carrying Ikki's glider.

"Who are you and why are you flying over our house?" the metalbender demanded. Her emerald green eyes narrowed with suspicion. Her hair was tied back in a bun with two braids emerging from it. There was a meteor bracelet on her left bicep. and corners on her forearm bindings similar to what Suyin wore in Zaofu. This girl had a shiny silver belt with the flying boar on the buckle, and had a spool of cable on each hip. She wore a green tunic over black shirt, and dark green pants with a slightly lighter green split skirt and dark brown leather shoes with retractable metal soles and metal bands holding the leather up just below her knees. "And don't even try lying, I can feel even the most subtle of changes in one's heartbeat when he lies," the metalbender added looking straight at Meelo.

"We're sorry for trespassing!" Meelo sighed looking down.

"We were just looking for Chief Lin Beifong," Opal explained.

"What made you think she would be here?" the metalbender asked.

"Well the garden has a flying boar in it and..."

"It is a week day between the hours of seven am and seven pm. She's at work. Everyone in the United Republic and the Earth Kingdom knows that," the metalbender snapped at Opal.