A/N: As you can see, this was written YEARS ago. I just came across it a few weeks ago, and decided to throw away the ideas for the old story this almost was, and to write an entirely new one based on this chapter. So here's the prologue as I wrote it years ago (I decided against changing it.). I'll be posting new chapters soon. I'm glad I'm finally coming back to this. :)
Prologue: The Girl In The Shadows
The bright glow of battle caused the crystals on the cave ceiling to look all the more brighter. The girl took in her surroundings, studying the cavernous space that she suddenly found herself standing in. Automatically, she slunk into the shadows, glancing around for escape routes, plans forming in her mind. Years of running and hiding had taught her that.
She spotted an entrance to the cave to her left, a high ledge to her right, and a small, narrow river directly before her, in the center of the room. From her spot in the darkness she looked across the vast area, towards the four figures currently locked in fierce combat, trying to decide which posed the most threat to her. To her surprise, she realized that the foursome consisted only of children, teenagers in fact. Two boys and two girls, a very strange group indeed.
The first boy, (he seemed to be the oldest) had an odd burn scar covering his left eye. He was battling a younger boy, and a stranger one at that. This child seemed to be the youngest, but he was fighting with just as much power as the three others. The girl also noticed that he had strange markings covering his body, almost like tattoos, making her more and more suspicious of the origins of the fighters before her. The other two, the girls, were fighting each other with such hatred in their eyes that made the girl in the shadows sure that if they could, they would kill each other, right then and there.
Though they were all clearly very young, (The oldest couldn't have been more than seventeen) they dueled with the intensity of grown men in the army. What was more, they were all…bending!
All four elements, represented in that one great battle.
Bending…. And without worry of getting caught! These were brave warriors indeed.
Her attention was brought quickly back to the fight, where the oldest of the four (The boy with the burn) jumped across the little river and switched opponents, so that he was now fighting the darker of the two girls, leaving the other one, (this one dressed in green) to fight with the tattooed kid.
The battle continued for quite some time, the four enemies finding that their powers were equally matched. Scar Boy, (that's what she had named him) and Lightning Lady (that's what she had dubbed the girl wearing green- she could lighting bend!) seemed to be on the same side, and together they shot out jets of their respective elements (Scar Boy's was fire) at the other girl, the one wearing blue.
She never had a chance.
She was blown backwards, slipping into immediate unconsciousness. The watcher gasped from her gloomy spot in the corner. She was enjoying this, but the battle seemed to be getting more and more hazardous.
She watched as Super Arrow Kid, having seen that his comrade was down, got up and began to make his way towards his two enemies. Just as he was within striking distance, something completely unexpected happened.
A man rose up in front of him, out of nowhere! He was wearing a green uniform with a strange symbol on the front, and a hat that, the girl thought, caused him to look as though he were a merchant.
Even as she thought this, dozens of men, wearing the same strange green uniform, began to rise, just like the first man, from seemingly nowhere. Gazing around at the lines of uniformed guards, she noticed that the girl wearing blue, the water bender, was gaining consciousness and immediately struggling to take up a fighting stance.
But the spectator in the shadows knew that it was no use. There was no way that Water Girl could take on the dozens of trained men with only her bending and the strange tattooed boy to rely on, and she knew it. It was in her eyes.
The look of fear, the look of certainty that sometime, sometime very soon, you would lose.
From the other side of the room, the girl in the darkness sighed. She knew that feeling well.
The boy with the arrows seemed to understand this too, she saw, as he looked around sadly. All was still for a moment, and the girl, watching from her tiny spot, knew that this battle would end badly. She glanced forlornly and sympathetically at the Blue Girl, who was now trying to fight off the many oncoming men in green.
Then, right in the heat of the battle, Arrow Boy sat down.
The girl watched on in shock as he created a tent to surround him, protecting him from the violence of the battle. " How can he just sit there, protecting himself, while his friend is being attacked?" She thought, horrified. " Doesn't he know that will never work? If you don't do anything to help,she thought bitterly, wishing her words could reach him, for she somehow knew that she could not speak here. Then...She paused, letting the pain wash over her, tears spilling down her face, nobody will."
She silently gasped, her eyes widening. She hadn't cried for a very long time, and it had surprised her to see that she was now. She turned, wiping her streaming eyes, to the battle, where everyone was now watching the shining crystal shelter that housed Tattoo Kid. In the silence, the girl could faintly hear him whispering, but before she could contemplate on that, the most outrageous thing, even weirder than her crying, happened.
The boy was flying.
One moment, he was on the ground, whispering, and the next, he was in the air, glowing. His eyes, his hands, his tattoos, all…glowing. The spectator watched in amazement, forgetting her own sorrow for a moment and watching the strange boy.
"How did he do that?" She thought to herself, furrowing her brow. " He sat down, and then he just flew up into the air!" She repeated this over and over to herself, trying to unlock the secret of the mysterious boy. " Wait.."She stopped, an unwelcome thought reaching her mind. " Before he rose into the air, he….he whispered something…"
An incantation.
She was almost sure of it. But that meant…..Magic.
She had always assumed that it was only made up, that it didn't exist. Now, she wasn't so sure.
Stunned, she stared up at the floating boy, feeling, for the first time, strangely connected to someone. That had never happened before, but she really felt as though she could relate to this boy, this strange little boy that she didn't even know.
She needed to find out more about these people.
For the first time since finding herself in the cave, she stepped out of the shadows, glancing nervously around, afraid that someone might catch her. She was always careful, and she used all the skill that she had now, but no one seemed to notice her, the stranger emerging from the depths of the cavern. After all of that hiding, it appeared that she was invisible, as transparent as a bubble, a strange experience that she had encountered before.
She tentatively stepped toward the boy, but before she was anywhere near the action, she saw, out of the corner of her eye, the girl in green, the one that she had christened Lightning Lady, slowly entering a fighting stance. She had forgotten about her, but she knew how evil and dangerous that girl could be.
She knew what would happen a split second before it did.
She also knew that there was nothing that she could do about it. She closed her eyes.
She had seen enough of death to know just how cruel it really was.
She heard the sizzle of the lightning as it reached its target, the thud of the body crashing against rock, the sound of an anguished cry that she knew all too well, all fading away as she was slowly pulled away from the cave, away from the great battle she had just witnessed.
And then, all was black.