"Is that all you've got?" The man whom spoke had caramel toned skin, with graying hair, which was currently slicked back and cut short. On the center of his forehead, a crimson crescent moon rested upon his wrinkled braw. His eyes, the color of sapphires, seemed to be scanning his surroundings. Ice. Ice and water, as far as the eye could see. Although there seemed to be a village in the small distance, consisting of numerous huts, his attention seem to stray away from there. The man's body was completely hidden away by his baggy blue parka, with white fur hood. He also wore matching blue mittens, with blue pants and high black boots. Suddenly, much to the surprise of the middle aged man, a figure suddenly busted out the water, and more peculiarly, the water seemed to trail behind him.
"Your guard is down, old man!" The voice belonged to a male much younger than his opponent, yet still bearing a striking resemblance to him. Like the elder man, this young warrior also had skin the color of caramel, eyes the color of sapphires, and a crimson crescent moon upon his brow. However, the young man's crescent moon had twin, crimson dots on either side. His shoulder length, brown hair swayed in the wind he created with his jump. His side bangs covered both his ears, and a few loose strands landed in his eyes, with a large amount of bangs across the bridge of his nose. His ocean blue shirt was sleeveless, with a v-cut at the neck. Along the edges of his collar, white trim lined the blue cloth. He also wore fingerless gloves, which matched the navy blue, baggy pants he wore. Over his right leg, he bore an ocean blue half skirt, matching his shirt. As a belt, he had a simple white band across his waist. His boots seemed to match the elder man's boots, however unlike his; the tops of his boots were covered by his pants. The young man waved his arms in the pattern of a fan, causing a large wave of water to eloquently flow from behind his back, overtop his head, and directly toward the surprised man. The tidal wave consumed him completely, and carried him off into the frosty sea.
"You win, Nero! You, win!" In between gasps for air, the man shouted towards the younger one, Nero, whom had landed gracefully upon a pillar of ice. A smile floated upon the handsome young man's face, as he waved his right hand towards his side. The water parted, revealing the rocky bottom of the sea, and the elder man who fluttered at the bottom along with a few koi fish. He sprang up, and ran over to Nero, pulling himself upon the iceberg just as the sea came rushing back to its rightful area. Standing side by side, the elder man was taller by several inches. The top of Nero's head reached the elder man's shoulders, making it exceedingly easy for him to place a hand on top of Nero's head and ruffle his hair. "You're getting too good at this, Nero." A proud smile was etched upon the man's face. Once he removed his hand from Nero's head, Nero began to smooth his hair back toward its original placement.
"Well, I am the avatar, dad." Nero looked up at his father, and flashed his bright teeth in a grin.
"And a water bending master. I've got nothing more to teach you son....so you know what that means." Nero's father's voice seemed heavy as he spoke, filled with sorrow while having just a small spike of pride mixed within.
"Yeah...I do. It's time for me to leave the Southern water tribe, and master the other three elements." Nero's grin faded. He wasn't ready to leave his home, but he knew it was coming ever since he found out about his destiny at the tender age of sixteen. That was a year ago, and he had more than mastered water bending. It was high time to move on.
"Chief Hakuren, the warriors await your training!" A voice, deep yet gentle cried out from the village. Hakuren let out a groan, just barely loud enough for Nero to hear. He rather hated training the new warriors, as he always found himself getting injured by a stray boomerang, or cut by a sword that had been disarmed. Nero sympathized with his father, as he was in charge of training new water benders, and always found him being blasted by an uncontrolled stream of water, or nearly frozen by one of his pupils who tried to master water manipulation well before they were ready.
"I better go, sadly. You should start getting packed; the tribe will send you off tonight." Hakuren patted his son on the right shoulder, and jumped towards the water, forming a bridge of ice that he walked across back towards the tribe. Once his father was well out of site, Nero sighed heavily, before jumping in the water himself. He formed a surfboard out of ice, and controlled the waves in order to propel himself back toward his village.
"If I gave my everything to you, would my everything be for nothing? But if you promise to, stay so true, I won't be afraid to fall for you. So baby please look my way. I want you to see what I've been seeing. I belong with you, so be my boo, and give me the chance to fall in love with you. So please, please, please look my way.
I'm on the edge, close to slipping'. Just take my hand, ignore all plans, and see what destiny has in store." Nero, having returned to the snowy village that is the southern water tribe, found himself singing to a group of female admirers by the edge of the sea. The fact that Nero was generally viewed as a handsome young man, along with the fact that he had a very pleasant singing voice caused him to often be the object of the tribe's teenage girls' affection.
"Ok, break it up ladies." From the modest-sized hut on Nero's left, a female's voice floated out. It had a very odd combination of being sweet, yet stern. A young female, appearing to be the same age as Nero walked out of the hut. Like Nero, her skin was caramel colored and her eyes shimmered the color of sapphires. Her wavy, dark brown hair extended to her waist, with a thick layer of hair hanging across the left side of her forehead and in the corner of her left eye, ending just slightly below it. Her face was just slightly rounded, due to her large cheeks, but otherwise she was a generally slim girl. Her ocean blue shirt had short sleeves, and extended down to give her a skirt overtop her navy blue pants. Around her waist, she bore a plain white piece of cloth she used as a belt, and on either side of her belt she kept a brown sac used to hold water, called water skins. Her brown boots extended high, covering parts of her pants and ended at the ankle.
"Don't be a buzz kill, Kuru." Nero stopped singing, and despite his rather lecturing choice of words, he had been smiling at the sight of Kuru. Kuru was the only female in the tribe whom was immune to Nero's charm, and that ironically made her the closest person to Nero. The two had grown up together, and did nearly everything together. In fact, she learned water bending with Nero and even helped teach the water bender trainee's whenever he so graciously requested.
"You should be packing for your trip. I'm already packed...are you?" She crept closer to Nero, and was now standing next to him. Nero was several inches taller than her, a fact he teased her about constantly.
"I've been packed for quite some time now...but why are you packed? You aren't coming."
"Oh? And why not?" Kuru stared deep into Nero's eyes. He hated when she did that as it always meant she had a million reasons to counter Nero's one or two.
"It might get dangerous." Even in Nero's head, his reason sounded feeble, but he meant it. Nero would kill himself if something should ever happen to his childhood friend.
"You think I can't take care of myself?" Kuru at first, seemed angry at Nero, but she simply smirked, and with a quick chop of her hand, a whip of water smacked Nero in the face. He fell to the ground, but quickly rolled back to his feet. He looked around at his surroundings. On either side of him, people had been pouring out of their huts like rain, and joining the crowd of female admirers. They looked on at the pair, becoming increasingly interested in the outcome of the battle ready to unfold. Kuru stood in her usual ready stance, both knees slightly bent with both hands opened, with her fingers pointed in the air. Her right hand was extended straight out in front of her, parallel to her head, while her left hand rested just slightly in front of her chest.
"You want to take it there? Fine then, let's see what you've got!" Nero always found himself excited when it came to combat. With an open palm, he thrust his right hand forward towards Kuru, which caused the snow in front of him to turn to water, and spiral into Kuru's chest. She slid back a bit, before dragging her hands across the snow and flinging it at Nero, causing icicles to rapidly fire at him. Nero performed a hands-free cartwheel, causing three icicles to pass harmlessly on either side of him. Once landing, he slid on his knees, allowing the remaining two to fly over top of him. By then however, Kuru had raised her hands high, and then pulled them both back hard, sending water from the sea behind Nero towards his back in a large tidal wave. Nero then quickly sprang to his feet, held his right hand towards the wave, and allowed it to slam into it. The wave turned into ice almost instantly, and Nero whipped around, forming a drill of water out of the ice wave. Just before it reached Kuru, she forced the snow to move up in front of her, turning into a wall of water that canceled out the drill. Kuru placed her hands very low, nearly touching the snow beneath her, and raised them slowly, forcing a massive amount of water to form. She then spun around while waving her arms around her, resulting in the water taking a semi-solid form. Once she had fully finished, the water had formed eight tentacles which surrounded Kuru, and responded to her movements.
Kuru's specialty, aside from healing, was her octopus form. She moved so eloquently with her aqua tentacles, they appeared like extensions of her own body. It was often hard to tell the difference between Kuru's physical limbs, and her tentacles, and it resulted in her combat being nearly unmatched. "I guess you're serious." Nero sighed, and brought a massive amount of water from the sea behind the two combatants, towards his own body. Overtop his head, the water he summoned turned to solid ice, forming a helmet that resembled a wolf with its mouth open. Nero's actual head stuck out in the opening of the wolf's mouth, with its bottom jaw lining Nero's chin and its top jaw at eyebrow level. Semi-solid water formed over Nero's arms, and just above his waist to take the form of a wolf's tail. The water expanded over his hands, forming large claws, with ice for the tips, and ice streaked up and down Nero's tail. Overtop his chest, ice armor formed. Nero's self made form, which he referred to as Lupine hunter, was his response to Kuru's mastery of the Octopus form. Where the Octopus form was was more defensive, the Lupine hunter form focused more on offense and agility.
Kuru fired one of her tentacles towards Nero, whose new form allowed him to rapidly form ice to skate on below his feet with no conscious effort, allowing an increase in mobility. He approached Kuru quickly, crossed his arms, and slashed towards her. The icicles that resided on the tips of his claws fired off towards Kuru, whom easily grabbed them out of the sky with her tentacles, and effortlessly tossed them aside. Nero jumped high into the sky, using a burst of water to propel him higher, and spun in a ball. With a mighty yell, he sent all of the water and ice which had collected upon his body towards her in a large, wolf shaped wave of water and smashed into Kuru. Once he landed however, his foot slipped into the ice and instantly froze. "Ha! We tied." Kuru had been engulfed in ice, except for her head due to Nero's attack.
"Hardly! All you got on me was freezing my foot; I froze your whole body. But..." Nero used his arms to bend his foot free, and then released Kuru from her ice prison. She slid onto the ground, and quickly picked herself off it. "...I see your point. I guess I can't convince you otherwise, but the moment things get out of control, I'm sending you back home." Kuru ran over to Nero, and quickly embraced him, before running back into her own hut to finish getting ready to leave.
Night came almost too quickly, and soon Nero and Kuru found themselves by the edge of the sea once more. This time, however, the entire tribe had been standing before them, wishing them off. A large, brown wooden boat floated in the sea behind them, and had already been ready for them to board. It operated on water bending, which allowed it to sail with no rows. Hakuren stepped up, giving the two water benders a hug, and then kneeled before his son. He had a long, rectangular object in his hands wrapped in cloth, which he held up towards Nero.
"Avatar Nero, I present you with this." As his father spoke, Nero had reached his hands out and unraveled the cloth off the object. It was a sword. A Chinese jian to be more specific. The sheath was dark blue. And the handle was turquoise with a gold hilt. He pulled the sword out of its sheath, revealing a blade as white as snow. It was a beautiful weapon, Nero acknowledged, and carefully placed it back within its sheath. It was then that he noticed the bottom of the handle held the symbol of the water tribe, a crescent moon with three waves beside it. He placed it across his back, and bowed to his father. "This sword was passed down to me by the great Water tribe chief Sokka, whom made it himself after he recovered from the battle of Sozin's comet. May his valor and spirit protect you on your journey." He then tightly embraced his son once more, and sent the two on their way. Nero and Kuru boarded their ship, and set sail.
"Next stop...the fire nation." Nero allowed the wind to blow through his hair, as he left the comforts of the Southern water tribe, and started his quest to master all four elements of bending.