( mako likes to think he has a high tolerance for being annoyed. after all, he grew up with bolin. he dated korra. he spent a year as a beat-cop during some of the most tumultuous times of the city. he's a detective now, and he still has to deal with every grandmother who can't get her cat out of a tree in addition to all the actual crime. if he didn't love the job so much, he'd hate it.

the blue spirit, as he's thusly been dubbed by people with less (more?) imagination than mako himself, makes him love/hate it that much more. it's like his entire goal in life is to humiliate mako, but not just him, every single generation of his family, on both sides, for the last thousand years.

it doesn't matter how many chains they sling at him. it doesn't matter how tiny the cell they lock him in. it doesn't matter if it's underground or enshrouded in ice or. anything. mako starts seriously wondering if there's some sort of... teleportation trick out there in the bending disciplines, just waiting to be unlocked. he's been meaning to ask tenzin if he's heard of anything like it across any of the elements, but then. there's no evidence the guy can even bend at all. maybe he's using the spirit world, and has figured out how to transport his physical body. maybe, maybe, maybe.

mako feels like he's losing his spirit-damned mind.

that feeling intensifies when the guy drops to a lamp post above him, utterly soundless. mako startles, stepping back automatically into stance, one hand already curled around a condensed, molten-hot blade of fire, but. oh, for crying out loud, he knows the guy won't actually attack him. he actually seems harmless in that way — not to the criminals he drops off in front of the station, but he's never hurt a cop. the blade dissipates in a shower of sparks he hopes demonstrate his intense unhappiness. )

No, thanks, no, no, no and no. I don't need you going easy on me. Are you here for your weekly arrest report or can I get on with my patrol?