The Avatar's Will of Fire

The Storm Part 1

"The layout of Republic City could best be described as haphazard. If one were being generous.

Some would argue that the streets had been made this way on purpose – it had been made with an airbender's approval, after all – but even they had to admit that the layout made little to any sense if one were to look at it rationally.

Really, what kind of city had its government offices on the other side of town from City Hall? Many had tried to come up with some kind of logical reason for why the city had been built this way, but none had been able to so far.

This wasn't even counting the streets themselves, some of them seeming like they could go on miles, while others were barely the length a city block.

It was on one of the former streets that a Satomobile, maybe not new but still top of the line, powered through at speeds that went well beyond the approved limits.

Most people wouldn't have guessed it when they first met her, but Asami Sato was an incredibly skilled driver. She wasn't really sure where she got it from – she knew for a fact that her mother, while she had still been alive, had never driven that much, and her father could barely handle a care going faster than 50mph.

Naturally, this meant that the man used every excuse in the book to avoid being in a car (or any vehicle) if Asami was the one behind the wheel. And although Mako and Bolin were unaware of this, had they known, they would have instantly sympathized with him. Asami had chosen to drive the group over to the party, and now she was the one driving them towards the Equalists downtown. Mako and Bolin were seriously wondering if they would have been better off with Korra and Naruto.

"Uh, Asami?" Bolin managed to choke out, having to brace as Asami made another high-speed turn. "You do know this isn't a race track, right?" The last part of the question came out in far higher pitch than he would have liked to admit due to the incredibly sharp turn Asami made at that moment.

"Yeah, why?" Asami asked distractedly, too focused on her driving to pay any attention to the younger boy. Although, now that she thought about it, her father had asked something similar the first time he had ridden with her. And the instructor he had hired after that first ride.

"W-well-" Bolin was cut off during yet another sharp turn. Swallowing, he started again. "I just thought you might not have known, is all."

Neither he nor Mako – who was riding next to Asami and gripping onto his seat for dear life – were reassured at all when the older girl actually turned her head backwards to address them, somehow managing to swerve around the stalled cars in front of them. "Are you saying I'm a bad driver?" There wasn't any real heat in her voice, but both boys could tell that they were on thin ice here.

"No, no, no." Bolin hastily replied in a desperate attempt to prevent Asami's impending anger. "It's just that—"

He was cut off again by Mako's unusually panicked ,"EYES ON THE ROAD!"

Asami turned back, eyes widening as she saw that they were almost out of road, about to crash into the back of a rather large building. Asami quickly slammed the wheel hard to the right, managing to take them into an alleyway that was just barely wide enough for the car to drive through. The cars' mirrors were snapped off as they collided with the walls, though.

This set Bolin into a panic again. The way she was driving, Asami was going to get them killed before the Equalists!

"What was that!?" Oh, crap, did he say that out loud?

Mako, for his part, had decided to just close his eyes and wait for it all to be over. If someone had asked him just a few days ago if he ever wondered how he might die, Mako would have never in a million years guessed that his death would come at that hands of a girl who seemed to have no concept of traffic laws.