The one-eyed Avatars

Episode 1 - New workplace

  Kiku unpacked the last few boxes. Who would've thought that he'd ever live in the big city? He should contact his old friend Ludwig and his brothers. He wondered how they were doing, last time he had seen them had been when Adamou and Ludwig had visited Zaofu a few years ago.
  It was already dark outside and it was late, he was probably the last person in the building. That's what he thought, until he heard a loud, enthusiastic knock on his door.

  The man in his early twenties looked up, saying "Come in", but the door already flew open, revealing Honda's soon-to-be-boss Mr. Alfred F. Jones.
   "Yo Kiku! Dude! I'm so glad you're finally here, I bet it has been a hard travel from- where again?"
  The much smaller man bowed and answered, way more formal. "Good evening Mr. Jones. I arrived this noon from Enkh Taivan, my things arrived earlier this week from the same place. I'm looking forward to working with you" he said and bowed again, which seemed strange to the other man.
   "Yea, me too, but stop being so formal, I'm not an old man. You must be exhausted, aren't you?" he asked, getting a nod from Kiku. "Alright, then lemme show you a super good restaurant. Don't worry, we won't be alone, another teacher will be there too!"
  Kiku felt dragged into it, but he had nothing against the idea. "Alright then, I'll just get dressed" he said, taking his coat and fedora and putting them on.

   They found the other teacher, a docent for animal and human medicine on different levels, at his odd, out-of-this-world looking office, it had many animal skeletons and drawings and little statues of humans or parts of those and such things in it, but it didn't look scary, it had many cute cat-related things as well, the oddest being a real, living cat sleeping next to the man. In the workplace. Alfred woke him up, telling him they wanted to go now. He said nothing and just put his jacket and put his sling on, in which the dark kitty gladly hopped into.

  At the restaurant, the cat hopped out again, and they all walked in, the other lecturer slowly waking up. It was a restaurant like many in Republic City: Muli-cultural, heavily influenced by modern art nouveau architecture from the fire federation, which had an exotic and exciting feeling about it, but it also looked like a traditional restaurant from the Earth continent, mixed with a few influences from the traditional air nomads, overall very internstional, very much like Republic City.
  The three men sat down in a rather luxurious sseparate room, it even had a small TV, it even confused and embarrassed Kiku why they were so casually walking into such a nice but expensive room.
   "Kiku, are you interested in pro-bending?" Alfred asked, taking off his jacket and getting comfortable, just as the other teacher as well. The dark-haired teacher shook his head when someone walked into the separate room.
   "Alfred! Heracles!" -that seemed to be the name of the man with the cat- "And you are?" Kiku turned around to look at the man. He was a chef, had a mask over his eyes and dark hair.
   "Honda Kiku" Kiku replied and bowed.
  The chef grabbed his hand he had only stuck out lightly in realisation that it was done like this in the city and shook it. "Sadıq Adnan. Now, the match is about to start, I'll get the food and the hookah." he said and disappeared as suddenly as he had shown up.

  Alfred turned the TV on, the right channel was already on. Kiku couldn't help but still be confused, but everyone seemed focused on the TV.
   "Excuse me, I thought we were here to eat?"
   "Yea we are, but the restaurant's closed by now and today's a pro-bending match!" Alfred answered as Sadıq returned, balancing dangerously many plates and trays, getting help from Heracles and a man behind him who carried the hookah and it's supplies. He wore long, white clothing, only revealing his forearms and his face with piercing green eyes. A sandbender perhaps? He just nodded to Kiku who nodded back.

   "Who's playing?" The chef asked, sitting down at the table while the man in white clothing sat down next to him.
  Alfred answered in no-time. "The dolphin piranhas against the eel-hounds." Kiku had never heard of either of these teams, but then again, he wasn't into pro-bending.
   "The eel-hounds have not a single chance" Heracles answered, although he didn't seem too interested in it and gave more attention to the three more cats that had just entered the room. Now that Kiku thought about it, weren't the eel-hounds a team from Enkh Taivan?