Thunder sounded throughout out Republic City and dark clouds seemed to slowly moved their way over the vast city. Many of the people that were walking on out on the streets began to make their way to shelter in fear of the coming storm. Many of the shop owners and business still carried on in hopes of making a few extra Yuans before the storm hit. One could still hear the street vendors selling their wares over the sounds of the thunder. A small boy ran down the main street carrying a stack of newspapers. As the boy ran passed a small tea shop which was packed full of customers that were escaping the soon to come rain. The new model Sato mobile rumbled past the tea shop the driver honking her horn at a cart being drawn by an ostrich horse. The older couple that was riding in the cart steadied the ostrich horse as the Sato mobile flew past down the main street of the city.
All this noise and commotion did not bother Li Fong most of the time. Being used to the noises of the city he slept soundly through the morning before taking his shift at work. However this morning Li Fong was awake because he had not slept at all throughout the night. Li was having trouble slept because of the dreams that came to him. Being a ex-soldier of Ba Sing Se Li had seem a lot of troubling things during the 8 years of service he had with the Earth Kingdom military. Li tried to rub the tiredness out of his green eyes and then he yawned. He ran his hand through his brown shaggy hair and stood up to his five foot ten inch frame. Li then shook his head trying to get the terrible images out of his head. He kept dreaming about the mission he and his regiment had that ended in the deaths of 20 fire bending separatists. Li could never get the faces of those men and women who died at his hand. Though he and his regiment were exonerated and only his captain was found guilty of war crimes. Li still felt the guilty and shameful. Now, he could not figure out why these images were coming back to him.
Li tried to think when were started having these vivid dreams. Must have started right after that new section Foreman Ting wanted done. Li remember this because of the hard time he and his crew had in removed the stones and earth from the hillside. The area which Li was working on was North of the city in near the mountains. From Li's understanding the Council wanted to expand Republic City to accommodate the Cabbage Corp and other smaller manufacturing business so that they do not flood the city with pollution. Also Cabbage Corp's facility did tend to smell bad. Li got up out of his bed and walked over to his small kitchen. Li then lit his stove and put on some water for his morning tea before getting ready for work. Tea always calms me, Li thought. The smell of tea and jasmine fill his small room.
After drinking his tea and getting his work clothes on Li set out to the work site. Living on the second floor of his apartment building Li took the stairs down and walked toward through the small hallway that lead out to main floor of the building. Li went throughout the hallway doors that lead to the main floor as he walked across Li noticed Mrs. Chen trying open the main entrance door to the apartment building. Li could see that Mrs. Chen had her hands full of groceries and her little fire ferret Bo-Bo was squeaking at her heels. Li stopped and focused his chi by dropping into a horse stance. He then thrust his arm out and his palm up. A wave of earth bending energy flowed through Li and snaked its way to the door metal. The door gave a shutter and it opened banging against the wall. "Thank you Mr. Fong" Mrs. Chen said. "You are always the proper gentlemen" With that Mrs. Chen smiled at Li and continued her journey to her third floor apartment with Bo-Bo trotting behind her. Li considered offering to carry the groceries but that would make him late for work and getting on Foreman Ting's bad side was not a pleasant thing to.
He then briskly walked out of the apartment building and turn down the street which would lead him to the taxi cart service that ferried all the city workers. Lightning streaked across the darken sky making Li look up. He noticed the dark clouds and thinking that it was going to rain soon he picked up his pace. Ten minutes later Li was on the taxi cart along with a couple follow workers on their way to the work site.
"Hey Li" yelled one of the workers in the taxi cart. "Me and a couple of buddies are going to go to the pro-bending arena to watch some matches you want to go?" Li looked over at the speaker and shook his head no. Li hung his head down and looked at the floor as the taxi rumbled on through Republic City. It took the taxi about 30 minutes to travel from the pickup point to the worksite. As they traveled Li felt a few drops of rain on the top of his head which made him look up at the sky. It seemed to leave that the clouds were getting much darker. Thunder began to rumble again much louder this time and Li wondered if this was going to be a very bad storm. Perhaps he thought that they may cancel work and will get to go home and rest some more which he really wanted to do. The taxi stopped at an intersection because there was a slight traffic jam in the middle of the intersection. Li noticed that a Sato mobile and a Cabbage Corp. truck had an accident. The truck Li noted to most of the damage and was flipped over on its side the driver of the truck was yelling at the top of his lungs at the Sato driver. He never understood the fascination of these new motorized machines. After a few minutes a couple of metal Binder officers showed up on the scene. One of the officers lifted the Cabbage Corp. truck up with his bending and set it straight however he saw that the front end of the truck was completely destroyed. The metal benders moved both vehicles out of the intersection so that traffic could continue.
"So Li do you think will finish up at the site today I mean you think the Foreman will finally say were done? I mean really remember working on this project for the past year and always done his move earth around." said Fang. Li looked over at Fang and sighed. Fang was a burly earth Bender a little overweight and he had no hair. His clothes were the same as Li's uniform however it seemed to hardly fit Fang.
"I don't know thing but to me it seems like were more like were looking for something other than building. I did hear rumor that there was gold or some kind of silver in the mountains right near where were working but that's just a rumor." said Li.
"Well, if I find any gold I'm not telling anybody but I'll share couple nuggets with you Li."
Li smiled, he always liked Fang a lot. As they rode on the taxi Li in fang talked over the various pro-bending players and their stats. The ride to the work site was uneventful the rest of the way there. Once Li arrived at the work site he merely went to his portion of the dig site north of a large shill that they were all working on. Foreman Ting had told all the workers that they needed to shape the hill into a square building for storage. But for the past week it seemed like the earth kept getting harder and harder to bend. Even Li who was a metal Bender had a hard time moving in shaping the earth near the hill. Li walked to his work area and surveyed the site. Li noticed that the grass on the hill was very brown almost the color of the earth underneath the grass. Li took up his horse stance and within upward arc was his arm he made a fist which sent a wave of earth bending energy into the hill which moved a good-sized chunk out of the hill. Then he slowly moved his left arm straight and palm up which made the chunk of earth move to the right of the hill where the rest of the piles of earth he'd been moving the previous day. Slowly Li felt drops of rain fall on his head and the thunder rumbled it felt as though the thunder would shake the whole hill apart. Li worked for a few hours then syddly a loud horn sounded and he knew it was time to eat. However, Li just wanted to get done for the day so he worked through his lunch moving rocks and earth. Then when Li started move a large boulder he felt something was different about the earth underneath the boulder and with all his might Li pushed the boulder. The rain started to really pour down as Li struggled with the boulder and suddenly lightning streaked down from the sky and struck the boulder with a large explosion. Li was knocked back and he fell to the ground and when he looked up he saw a green light shining. Li squinted to see where the light was coming from. He could not hear anything because of the ringing in his ears but he could still see. Slowly Li stood but and walked very carefully toward the hill.
"Li! Li! Don't go any closer to that" yelled Fang."Li what are doing?" Fang grabbed his friend and pulled Li back from the glowing green light. Li turned around and punched Fang in the face. Li's face contorted with rage because Fang would not let go of him. The light was calling him, pleading him to...
Suddenly Li sank to hhis knees in the earth. Fang had bended the earth to stop him and Fang walked over to the subdued man and slapped him hard in face. "Wake up Li!" Fang loomed over his friend hoping he would snap out of this wierd trace. Li blinked and looked down.
"How? What? What am I doing stuck in the earth? I don't think this is funny Fang. Foreman Ting is going to anrgy if he catches us goofing off." Fang let out of a sigh of relief and helped his friend out of the earth. They could hear the other workers coming to thier side of the hill to see what had happened. Li looked over at the crowd that was heading for them and he sigh. Li could see Foreman Ting at the lead of the group and the expression on his face could curdel milk. Li looked back over at the hill and the green light had faded. All that was left was a light green crystal the size of a door. The crystal was shaped oblong like it was stretched almost as if it was not a natural formation. Li thought that it could be possible that someone may have left the crystal there. Li knew that some earth benders could bend cyrstals like he could.
"What in the name of the spirits is going on here?" yelled Foreman Ting. "I thought I told all of you that we are not using blasting jelly on this site!" Foreman Ting's face was a very bright red and the veins in his neck bulged out. The foreman was still very new to the site and he wanted to impress his bosses by showing them that he could properly motivate all the workers to finish the job ahead of schedule. "It wasn't blasting jelly sir. It was lighting that hit the hill and made the explosion." Li said. Foreman Ting turned and looked over at Li and Li pointed over and the newly formed crater. The foreman's eyes wided when he spyed the green crystal. "All right the excitment is over everyone back to work." All the workers grumbled as they headed back to thier positions around the hill. Fang and Li started to walk back too but Foreman Ting stopped them. "I want you two to clean this up and move that crystal to tent five and if everyone finishs thier quota today they can leave early" All the workers cheered beacause most of them were already finished thier quotas. Li sighed because he knew he and Fang were going to have to stay late. Li walked over to the crystal which seemed to be much darker or it could be that the sun was covered by the clouds. Li pushed those thoughts away and began to examine the crystal to see how best to move it. Li noted that the sat at a 45 degree angle and it was very smooth. "Fang go and get the heavy cart so when I get this thing out of the hill we can load it up" told Li to Fang. Fang trotted off to get the cart.