When he was eight years old, he had a name. It was not a proper name because he did not come from an elite family (although he was very distantly related to one such family). It was his name alone and his only.
Growing up in the sleepy Earth Kingdom village in the mountainous valley, he often heard war stories. They were stories about the heroic and brave Earth Kingdom warriors, who fended off the Fire Nation army with their superior earthbending abilities, and there were stories about the great King of Omashu whose earthbending strength was unparalleled elsewhere. The greatest earthbender, he had thought wistfully. But most of all, the most appealing story was the story of the great Ba Sing Se, the most legendary city in the entire Earth Kingdom. It was there that the Dragon of the West of the Fire Nation had once attempted to lay siege to for six hundred days. It was there that the Dragon of the West had ultimately failed, and the Earth Kingdom had been saved, once more. With its many walls and indisputably skilled defenders, Ba Sing Se was considered infallible.
Everyday after school, he would sit attentively with other children, eagerly watching the crudely made sock puppets demonstrate the war stories. He often sparred with other children, ignoring lessons by the oldest, haughtiest boy in the village, using mere sticks as powerful swords. Although he was decently good with his make-believe swords, most of the time, he was immediately defeated by boys and girls who naturally earthbended a.k.a. pelted tiny rocks at him.
Whenever he fell to the ground, he usually lied on the warm, moist ground that had received the evening dew, wondering to himself in sadness. How could he join the Earth Kingdom troops when he was only eight years old and could not bend anything? Granted, he knew that the minimum age required to join the Earth Kingdom army had been fluctuating, consistently being set lower and lower with every year. This year would be the first year that sixteen-year-old earthbenders would be allowed to serve in the military. He envied the earthbenders' natural prowess, constantly wishing for his part in the war.
He never believed that he would soon have his own war story.
One particularly memorable night, he was rudely awoken by his mother, who very quickly shushed him with her thin hand and whispered to him haunting words that he would never forget,
"The Fire Nation has come. You must run away. Never forget that we love you."
She gave him a quick peck on the forehead and abruptly shoved him outside the back door, right as the Fire Nation soldiers kicked open the front door with a terrible fire blast, instantly lighting his father aflame. He watched in horror, backing away instinctively as his sword-wielding father, now on fire, bravely tried to fend off the firebender, who looked unlike anyone he had seen. He watched in horror as his mother collapsed to the ground, the flames consuming her body, with a fiery arrow in her chest.
Then a familiar voice of a villager reached his ears, "Come on!" A couple shiny objects caught his eyes: Hook swords. He halted and, without a thought except that he would need them one day, took them from a dying man's grasp. He yelped as the fire spread to only mere feet away from him, tickling at his toes, and sped away from the burning air along with the rest of the fleeing villagers. He briefly turned to watch his once beautiful and sleepy Earth Kingdom village, where he had lived all of his eight years, burn in hell.
It was not until he was a far distance away from the village that he stopped running. He was alone at night, fitted with only his night clothes, hook swords, and none of the earthbending. Dropping to his tanned knees, he stared at the expansive black sky filled with cool stars and the cold moon but all he saw was fire.
He would never forget the fire of destruction, the way his parents died, and he would never forgive the Fire Nation for their wrongdoings. He would use every single means, regardless of his lack of bending, to defeat the Fire Nation, once and for all. He would make them taste misfortune, terror, torture, and death. He would make them pay for what they did to his village, to his parents.
That night, he became Jet, leader of the freedom fighters, whom the Avatar and his friends would encounter eight years later.