24 Luke

If my opinion of Riu hadn't changed from when I only knew his name and reputation, I would've thought that the first thing he'd do after seeing three of his group killed would be to strike back. Hard. But it turns out, he's different than what he's known by. In all fairness, he's known by 2 things in Citadel: Leader of the Hornets, and the one who killed a Fire Nation Recruiter. One would think that the first impression is always the defining one, but that wasn't a first impression. That wasn't aa rumor either. He did kill him, but one action can be viewed as brash and an entire lifeline can be viewed subjectively from one event, but that'd not really fair, is it?

When we all returned to the Hive, the first thing he did was count our numbers to see if we were all present. 24. It was 26 this morning. 27 yesterday. It wasn't a great trend that was going on.

"I know…" Started Riu "That we're all going through what just happened over the last few hours. They were our friends. Closer to some than others, but he was our friend nonetheless. I know you want revenge. I do too, but doing something now will only get more of us killed. We're not backing down. Not at all, but things have just gotten a lot harder for us. We all know that food is starting to come in less than less. The Fire Nation isn't willing to share anymore. But we will not starve. I'm aware that some of you didn't know about my deal with the Fire Nation. I just wanted us to stay fed in a world where food is becoming more and more of a luxury. That doesn't change the fact that I should've told you all. Now, 3 of our brothers are dead and I cannot help but feel responsible, but the Fire Nation won't get away with it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but the Fire Nation will remember what they did and they'll remember it as the day when everything began to fall apart for them. We're just a gang, I know. We're just a small group of street urchins, but we can make life hell for them just as they've made our lives hell by putting us in this shithole of a city. Starting today, It's just us. We can't afford to feed anymore people. We'll make do with the numbers we have. 'Do more with less' as they say. I'm just sorry that it took the deaths of our friends to show us this lesson."

"From this point on, we're all that matters to us. Nobody else. We look after each other because we are a team. We don't lie to one another, we don't steal from one another. We're a family and the Fire Nation wants to destroy our family, but that won't happen. We put up with the hell of this city, I think we can last a little longer. Am I understood?"

As the cheers for Riu went up, I found it more and more hard to tell that we were just kids. The oldest of us was 14 being Riu, but when you grew up in a place like this, you weren't given a choice as to enjoy an actual childhood. Any actual children in this city were either dead of living it up in the military district, playing with their toys, listening to their stories, or sucking on their mother's tits. It didn't matter now. Children can be dangerous. I don't know how well the Fire Nation understood that. I guess there was one way to find out.