I hated council meetings, but I had to come to them to fulfill my "Princely Duties". The Council meeting was a bore, the only one that looked more bored was my father - King Wu. His head resting on his arms, he really had no taste for council meeting either. I admire my father for a lot of things, one of them is not dissolving the council. My father could have had it easy and not have to sit around with a bunch of arguing elders, but instead, he sits around listening to them argue, vote and carry out a sentence. Ever since I started coming to the council meetings, I have already become bored and restless. But in all, I have already started to despise these people for dragging out what could be done in minutes.
"All in favor!" one of the councilors said, dragging me out of my thoughts.
"Aye"
"Aye"
"Aye" Pretty soon every council member had cast their vote for Aye.
"Aghh! My Ayes!" My Father said after the votes were tallied up. I suppressed a chuckle from this, and so did a few others. But Kazo, one of the lead elders frowned. His daughter Aria was a very good friend of mine, but none of Aria's happy, free-going nature came from her father.
"Your majesty, I would prefer if you would save your joking antics for another time," Kazo said distastefully.
"Councilor Kazo!" A commanding voice, which I recognized as Adviser Mako spoke out, I could feel Maya shuffle next to me trying to get sit higher, " I think we would all prefer that you hold your tongue and remember that you are in the presence of the King." Kazo sat down with an angered face, he scowled at his papers wise enough not to speak out again.
One of the announcers, I always forget his name, Spoke out," The last problem on today's agenda is a trial." I winced. I never like the trials, the person guilty enough to be brought out to the king and his council, usually gets the death sentence or worse. My father tried to abolish this but the citizens had a huge outcry over this.
My father sighed,"OK bring him in"
"Her," The announcer said before signaling the guards to bring in the prisoner.
Two guards walked next to her, while two stayed behind her, wary of this girl. She looked as young as I, she had white pale skin, blood red lips, she wore a metal red- gold shirt, a long red skirt with a long tear on the side, revealing dark red pants, and black boots. But the strangest thing about her was her dark red straight hair, the perfect hue, but that wasn't important. She had a smirk on her face like she knew that she was going to be ok.
"This female, that goes by the Phoenix, is charged with assault, blackmail,multiple charges of dangers fire bending, burglary, deadly weapons, death threats, embezzlement, jaywalking, pickpocketing, police impersonation, robbery, sabotage, shoplifting, treason, witness tampering, forgery," My eyes were wide open with shock and disbelief, some of the other counsellors gasped in disbelief also.
Maya leaned over next me, " She gets around," Breathless I forced myself to nod, I could bearly wrap my head around the idea that a girl my age could have racked up that amount of charges
But the announcer didn't stop there." As an active member of the fire triad, she is guilty with unlawful gathering, and murder, also seen with the red lotus and has been seen with members of the Ice Clan."
Adviser Mako rose and said, " say well how do you plead?"
The "Phoenix" spoke" Guilty, except that I am associated with the Ice Clan," Her voice was a smooth as honey, but had a sense of coarseness, not that was important." They kidnapped my friend so naturally, I had to save her," She finished with a smirk.
"Oh, well that makes it all the better," Kazo said scornfully." with your kind of reputation, it must be very hard to catch you, who apprehended this criminal," Kazo said the last part to the guards.
The Captain of the Royal Palace Guard stepped forward," I did, sir"
Kazo smiled happily, " Did the prisoner have anything that should be brought to our attention?"
"Yes, when I apprehended the criminal, she was carrying two Katana's." Captain Jade Geva said presenting the two blades. The handle was red but the blade was tinted blue.
Kazo turned to King Wu saying," Your Majesty, she is obviously a criminal, with many more charges across the world, we should execute this heathen before she makes more trouble for the normal citizen"
My father looked conflicted, he didn't like the death penalty but he definitely did not like the idea of a criminal creating trouble.
"Fine," My father said leaning back on his throne.
The "Phoenix" Smiled like she was expecting this, "Shame," She suddenly spoke," and I was looking forward to an easy escape." In a blink of an eye, she was halfway across the room and already snapping the metal chain that formerly bound her.
"Stop her!" Kazo screeched. Everybody was too much in shock to think that this person was trying to escape in the middle of one of the most heavily guarded room, in the most inescapable city on earth.
Captain Jade unsheathed her huge sword and rushed to stop the escaping prisoner. With a resounding clang, Captain Jade was suddenly was kicked from behind, the red-haired girl was amazingly fast and was already sprinting toward one of the hallways. Maya stood up to intercept her, and that's when I realized rather stupidly that I could stop her. She sent a wave of fire towards Maya, sadly Maya didn't anticipate this move and was known unconscious. She sent a kick towards my head, obviously ducking to protect my head, I earth bended the ground around her to hold down her feet. Using her sharp blades to break the rock that encased her boots, she then sent a fume of fire in my direction, mimicking a movement that I have seen Aria do a million times. I heard a crash as the fire bending beauty ran through a window dropping down perhaps 3 stories down, where she would disappear. There was a silence in the throne room, not because a katana wielding female escaped, but because I just air bended.
YAY! now we are finally getting into the story!