The following is the recipe of sadistic gods—
Take:
- Three young men (all with special abilities and similar goals; aged to maturity)
- Place ingredients in a townhouse paid for by sponsors and winnings from using special abilities. Simmer with equal parts pride, entitlement, lust, and achievement with a healthy dash of hard work until bubbling with corruption.
- Remove: special abilities (Best results: violent, theatrical manner, should have an aftertaste of humiliation and impotence.)
- Place back into townhouse to chill until ready to serve. As dish is cooling, observe stages of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance). Depending on ingredients, stages might mingle, though Acceptance should be preceded by some sort of Upward Turn to signify readiness of the dish.
Desired result: Three young men purged of corruption, with valuable life experiences, and with well-rounded character brought about by trials.
- If dish has been improperly prepared, one or more of the young men will never reach Acceptance, and the recipe is ruined.
Han Xin Ye, a spirit of wealth and gambling laughed to himself. "I'll take your bet," once he saw the three proposed men. The Monkey to his right cackled and hooted, shaking his staff.
The Moon smiled to herself, and her partner Ocean held her hand. "I believe in him," she said calmly. "Yama? Would you be so kind as to facilitate our wager?"
Yama snorted as he was denied a death—he was denied many deaths in this maniac's call for a bloodless war in his fight for equality among humans—and was forced to accept a half death, the death of human's bending.
Futushi, a god of storms laughed with the monkey as Yama handed him a jade skull for blessing to act in the storm Futushi was brewing.
The Ocean did not speak with words, always with atmosphere and signs.
Yue agreed. "Izanami will judge the fairness of this bargain," she declared. It was only appropriate for a goddess who watched over life and death to determine a contest based on the question of rebirth after a cruel crime. The goddess appeared in white vestments and nodded silently.
Tu-Di Gong arrived punctually, as always, to notorize an official wager among spirits and gods in the name of the emperor, and placed a burning contract in each spirit's hands before hurrying off to other administrative duties.
And so, in that way gods have of messing with humanity while not understanding the human cost of it all, they agreed to play a game that the Wolfbats would never have been capable of training for and Amon carefully planned his attack on the Pro-Bending Championship.