.: Chapter 3: Six Months Before :.
We'd mostly built the tree house for Smellerbee's sake. Longshot, in one of the longest speeches he'd ever given, insisted that she'd grown up in a home. "Girls need a house to come home to," he'd said. I knew the reason behind it wasn't logic, but his feelings for her. Nevertheless, I had to agree. Our group was getting a little too large to be hanging around a single campfire at night, and two or three campfires would be like a giant beacon to the Fire Nation.
So I sent the younger Freedom Fighters to the task of building it, and they'd pulled through. We now had our own house to come home to after destroying more of the Fire Nation outposts and occupations. I even had my own room, where I slept in a corner near the window. The entire place was inaccessible unless one of the Freedom Fighters knew you. Then they'd toss down a rope, and when you had a secure hold, you'd fly up into the trees and disappear. The clever guys even made a pulley system to fly around from house to house. We'd worked so hard to get to where we were.
I'd worked harder than any of them. Sure, they'd seen their villages burned down before their eyes, but they had found me. I hadn't found anyone. I survived alone for six years before I really started punishing the Fire Nation for everything they've done to me. Those years in the wilderness had changed me. I wasn't the cute, chubby little eight year old anymore. I wasn't Xin anymore. I was Jet now, a dangerous muscular fifteen year old. I'd saved people and stopped the Fire Nation countless times. I had rebuilt my life the way I wanted to live it. And no matter how hard they tried, the Fire Nation could never take that away from me. But I almost destroyed my life, and the lives of all of my Freedom Fighters, single-handedly.
It started on another raid of an occupied Earth Kingdom town. Completely normal day, and it seemed like nothing could go wrong. As was typical of such a town, we'd picked up several kids along the way who wanted to join us. I never gave them a second thought. They were only eight to ten year old boys. What could they possibly do to destroy me, the big bad fifteen-year-old Freedom Fighter? In a brilliant move that capitalized my stupidity, I brought them all to the tree house that night without questioning them first. I didn't consider that some of them might not like the way we lived. I was so elated from our victory that nothing could bring me down.
The dinner that night was amazing. Longshot had taken down many of the rooster hens that had escaped the town as it burned. We cooked them right there and ate them with stewed lychee nuts. It was absolutely perfect. I went to my room with a full stomach and a satisfied feeling. Then, the shouts came in the middle of the night.
"Over here!" I sat straight up in my corner. I'd always been a light sleeper, and these voices were like gunshots. Mostly because I'd heard them before. They were metallic, echoing, and fake sounding.
"Where?" another Fire Nation soldier demanded.
"The kid said they were up in the trees!"
"Well, I don't see anything!"
I didn't wait to hear any more, just grabbed my hook swords and swung down, landing on the ground in front of them. Before they could react, I rushed them. I shoved my left hook through one soldier's eyehole and tugged. He fell to the ground, hard. His rhino panicked and backed right over the guy. He didn't even have time to let out a shout. A second soldier fell, Longshot's arrow buried in his back. The rhinos were going absolutely crazy now. Two others mounted on rhinos approached us. I felt Smellerbee swing down beside me, and together we leapt into the fray.
She attacked left, I swung right. I was suddenly very happy that we'd gotten her those daggers, even if they were from the Fire Nation. I cut a soldier down as he started throwing fire at me. Smellerbee threw a dagger at the soldier to my left; it buried itself in his shoulder and he dropped. The rhino trampled him for good measure and then ran out the way it had come. I circled the soldier in front of me. He urged his rhino forward. I jumped right over the rhino's head and landed behind the soldier, on the rhino's back. Two swift chops to the back and he fell off too. I seized the reins and steered the rhino back to my Freedom Fighters.
The Duke had leapt on top of one soldier and started poking him in the eyes. The guy clearly wasn't a Firebender because he kept trying to throw The Duke off. Eventually The Duke leapt off the soldier, and that was when Pipsqueak clubbed the Fire Nation scum. Longshot was hitting everything within reach. Even Sneers was getting into the action, fighting hand to hand with some foot soldiers. I felt my heart swell with fierce pride. We truly WERE a force to be reckoned with. My eyes skimmed over the battle, and that was when I saw it. The rustle in the bushes, and large eyes that blinked before disappearing.
I knew that I had him as soon as he disappeared. He didn't know the forest the way I did. I jumped off the rhino and marched away, listening closely to the sounds around me. I finally picked him out – one of the new recruits from the day before, running as far away from me as he could possibly get. I grinned to myself.
He wasn't going to get very far.
I found him quivering near a tree. "What's up, kid?"
"Jet, I didn't mean to… I mean, the Fire Nation found me and… Jet, please, I didn't mean to, I swear!"
"Sure you didn't, kid. Just like the Fire Nation didn't mean to burn down my home!" I was shouting now, because I didn't care who heard. "Just like the Fire Nation didn't mean to burn down Longshot's home! Just like they didn't mean to make The Duke an orphan, or ruin Smellerbee's life!"
"But Jet, it's not the same thing. I didn't do it on purpose!"
"Neither did they," I sneered, my lip curling fiercely. "I gave you a second chance, you ungrateful sneak. And you betray me like this?"
"I didn't mean to, Jet!" The little boy looked up at me with big brown eyes. Well, I'd fallen for that once already, and I wasn't going to fall for it again.
"I don't really care," I snapped. He turned and ran, as far away from me as he could possibly get. I tightened my grip on my hook swords and followed.
He wasn't going to get very far.
A/N: Oh Jet. -shakes head- As a side note, make sure to follow the chapter titles when reading the story. They indicate the passage of time. It has been six months since Jet found Smellerbee and The Duke, so it is possible that Longshot has since developed feelings on her. I figure that Jet would just address something like this point-blank in his own mind, since it is already fact.
Wow, reviews! That's pretty cool, since I only posted this at the prompting of a friend :) Thanks, guys!
Skyla: First reviewer! :D You have earned a special place in my heart for this.
JackieStarSister: I'm afraid I've never heard of that song. But I will definitely look into it now! As for the fight, I agree that thirty people taking on one kid is very unrealistic. I think that the idea was to demonstrate that even at a young age, Jet has the tendency to exaggerate his emotions/viewpoints of the world. Obviously I did not do this well enough. And yes, the question posed to Pipsqueak twice is indeed a typo. Thanks for reading!