A/N - Greetings readers, I hope you enjoy this next installment of Rise of Suro. This particular chapter introduces some important characters, and I'm glad I finally got through editing. If you have any comments, feel free to leave a review as they help motivate me to continue. Regardless, the next chapter should be up within a couple of weeks, possibly even one if I'm lucky. I managed to fix my pc since the last update, so I'll be able to write more. Thanks for reading so far and I hope you find it to your liking.
Sincerely,
~Sitend
FIRE AND GOLD
"Well, I woke up and you were gone." Suro begins his story.
Suro rubbed his eyes and looked around the room. Araji is nowhere to be found. While washing his face, Suro mulled over taking the luxury of another shower, eventually deciding to indulge. Quietly standing under the lukewarm flow of water, he closed his eyes and emptied his mind, relaxing.
Minutes passed and Suro began to feel his skin prune up, so he exited and dried himself. While looking around for fresh clothes, he realizes that he had none.
Yesterday's clothes will have to do.
The window blasted bright midday sun beams through the shades and illuminated a large square of the room. Suro stretched his arms while exhaling with a soft yawn then got dressed. He lounged around until the sun began to slide down into the latter part of noon and hid among clouds. Throughout the day he had been growing hungrier.
A loud explosion sound shook him out of his stupor, and the rest felt like a blur.
Suro continues to keep pace after the man he is chasing, sidestepping left and right around tripping stones. His target had caused the blast down the block while Suro had been lounging about. Curiosity taking priority over caution, Suro ran out of the apartment to see what was happening, grabbing the spare keys that Araji had left on his way out. The streets were strangely devoid of occupants as Suro ran toward the source of the disturbance.
As Suro approached the scene, he saw a collapsed, flaming building covered in protruding rock pillars. From inside of the building fled two men with satchels. The men split up as Suro decided to give chase, the firebender out of the two jump-blasting himself over a fence and eluding the chase. Meanwhile, the other criminal had decided to take a straight path away from Suro. The chase leads Suro far from his apartment and as he runs on, the streets take on an unfamiliar desolate feel.
Sirens wail distantly, likely attempting to apprehend the other transgressor. Newly confident after yesterday's spar, Suro uses his good arm to rips chunks of concrete from the ground and lob them at his target, who smashes through the projectiles as they fly at him.
There's no room to counterattack him yet. But maybe if he can run himself into a corner...
Suro begins to raise concrete slabs diagonally in front of the man, causing him to turn off around alternating corners as the chase moves into shadowed grid-laid streets. The poorly-paved cobble road gives Suro an idea. He begins to rip the individual cobble rocks out from the ground and pelt them towards the criminal. The barrage manages to hit its mark, despite the man's best efforts to dispel the airborne rocks.
The man faces Suro, halting the chase. Pursuer and target stand still, face to face.
"You're a persistent one, aren't you?" he grunts.
"What's in the... purse?" Suro pants in retort.
Chuckling, the criminal replies, "You look a bit tired, have a seat!"
Cobble slabs burst out from the ground, encasing Suro's legs. Before the man can follow up with an attack, Suro smashes the rock barrier at his knees and squat-jumps, launching himself with stones into the air. Rocks woosh underneath Suro as he lands back on the road. He digs his left heel into the ground and uses the tip of right foot to spin kick around, sending rocks spiraling toward the criminal. The volley once more hits its mark as the man stumbles.
"You want to try that again?!"
"Why not?" Suro responds as he repeats his maneuver several times.
The man punches through all of the successive barrages while pulling blocking slabs up from the street.
This isn't going to work. It's obvious bait.
Suro resumes his maneuver, and midway through a twirl, Suro switches direction for one full rotation, then preemptively dives to his right. He swipes the ground as he falls, sending a scoop of cobble at his target while simultaneously dodging a rolling wave of rock. Mistiming his swipe, Suro slams into the ground on his side, absorbing the full force of the dive. The man stomps up a column under Suro's stomach, throwing him a couple of feet in the air.
Suro spins aerially while clutching his injured arm to his chest, then strikes at the ground with his forearm, pushing himself off of the street diagonally with a small handhold and back onto his feet. The criminal sends another wave of earth at Suro, the rock having been stripped from the street by the first one. Regaining his balance, Suro enters stance and slides his right shin right through the wave, peeling it around his body into two halves and subsiding it.
Suro dashes toward the man to close the distance. Long range won't provide any advantage; the smaller the gap, the harder the hits that Suro can muster.
Sensing the strategy, the man uses both arms to push himself backwards, trailing his feet through the pavement as he zips away. He then kicks up some cobble and with an open-palm launches it at Suro. The frequency of the incoming projectiles increases as the criminal grows more frantic from the rapidly closing distance between the two. Suro pulls a column to strike the man from behind as he leaps and knees him in the abdomen. A pillar quickly follows Suro's leg to double-tap the criminal and knock him upwards. Suro lands low on his feet on the other side of the man and whips around. The crook crashes into the street and slowly works his way to his feet.
It's close. That recovery took significantly longer than the last time he landed a good hit.
As Suro charges forward for one last assault, he is suddenly smacked in the side by a heavy stone relief railing. The man had ripped it from a nearby brown-brick home and sucker-punched the younger combatant.
The hit sent Suro flying onto the sidewalk to his left and he feels something nearly crack in his ribs as he lands onto the ground. Finally finding the opportunity, the criminal flees as a few yuans fly out from his satchel and delicately float to the ground.
Pulsating pain rocks Suro's body as he moans loudly and rolls onto his back, the edge of the sidewalk jamming into his spine. He lay looking at the sky. Grey clouds had long since covered the bright sun that Suro saw when he woke up. A cold wind picks up, causing him to shiver and prick up the hairs on his skin. After a few minutes of rubbing his various injuries, Suro feels ready enough to sit up.
Pain runs up the surface of his chest, and Suro lifts his shirt to observe the damage done. Along the right side of his ribcage the skin is bruised and stings, the skin broken in small patches along the injury site. Gasping quietly, Suro carefully lowers his shirt and stands up. He almost falls over as he shambles to examine the scene of the fight.
A long, deep scar of dirt cuts across the middle of the street; missing stones and spirals of upturned cobble mark where the fight had just taken place. Along the road lay several blue bills. Suro meanders over and gathers them all, shoving the seven banknotes into a pocket.
The right thing to do would be to return them, but where? Suro thinks of the burning building, then frowns. Guess there's nowhere to give it back to. Even if he could…
Suro looks around.
He has no idea where he is.
It's been a few hours and Suro has grown hungry and tired. The injuries still ache, however he presses on in exploring the area. Suro has wandered into a market area, surrounded by tall tenements on either side. The natural lighting of the cloudy sun has faded, now overpowered by yellow paper lanterns strung across the tops of the streets. The road has turned into a poorly paved mishmash of dirt and gravel. Due in part to the locked-down shops and empty streets around him, the dingy atmosphere of the area does not sit well with Suro.
Suro let him get away. He still can't believe it.
Suro stands quietly in the middle of the street, looking around. It's dark now, and although shops line the streets around him, Suro doesn't hear nor see any people. Unfamiliar alleyways encompass him, shooting off from the thin market street he occupies.
"I'm not going to let that happen again," Suro huffs under his breath.
Suro's stomach grumbles as the scent of freshly-cooked meat wafts by. He turns to the direction of the scent and begins following along. It leads him into a thin alleyway; Suro has to skirt sideways in order to fit through. He makes his way through the shadows of the buildings on either side of him and steps out once more into the warm orange light of another market street.
Immediately, Suro is greeted by the source of the pleasant smell: a food stand with a small yellow and red umbrella. The vendor is shorter than Suro by a few inches and is wearing a small red paper haircap that roughly brings him to Suro's height. His tanned, muscular arms come out from the sleeveless red uniform apron and sit upon his otherwise inconspicuously slim form. Suro notes that the umbrella seems to be more of a decoration than a functional attachment. It idly casts a shadow over the slowly rotating sausages on the grill section of the cart. Text on the umbrella reads: "The Hogmonk's World Class Flamie Dogs" in a rounded-edged font.
As Suro draws closer, he examines the vendor's face. It looks young, despite being written over by stress-induced features in the forms of crow's feet, forehead wrinkles, and laugh lines. Below his medium-wide and tall nose and thick maroon lips, his hexagonal-bottomed chin is prominently defined and sharp, though partially hidden behind a small, but traditional-looking black beard hanging off the bottom. The vendor's hair is hidden for the most part neatly behind his uniform's paper cap, however the few tufts that have slipped out onto his wide forehead are of a deep dark brown, with slight gray streaks.
The heat from the grill rises, blurring the air between Suro and the vendor, who has small beads of sweat built up on his arms and cheeks.
"Flamie dogs here, get your flamie dogs here!" the vendor calls out to no one in particular, avoiding eye contact.
Suro knows that the vendor's nonchalant call was certainly targeted at him, and despite the generic nature of the statement, finds himself hooked by something subtle in the tone of the vendor's voice.
"Hey young man, you look hungry. Want a snack?" the vendor asks while looking straight at Suro, continuing to reel in the line.
That was the last straw. Suro feels starved, and as a moth goes to a light, Suro has been hooked by the stomach and is drawn to the counter of the small metal stand.
"How much would a flamie- thing cost?"
"Flamie dogs are 5 yuans a pop. They're the cheapest this side of town." Through the last half of his statement, the vendor puts on a faux-prideful smile.
Suro barely catches it out as false as he notices a slight twitch and the speed of the vendor's speech being slightly too hesitant. The vendor's tone of voice sounded completely genuine, however, and continues to throw him off. Suro remains unmoving as he tries to process the vendor's smooth mannerism.
Noticing Suro's lack of reaction, the vendor slowly drops his smile.
Suro asks the only question he can think of, feeling the pressure. He voices it carefully, bracing for the impact of a potentially mocking reaction.
"How much is that?"
The vendor's expression quickly turns sour, eyebrow raised and mouth turned inward. He crosses his arms and his muscle tightens up slightly. He speaks up with a calm voice in a tone bordering on disappointment.
"Listen, kid, do you have any money or not?"
Suro pauses for a moment, then reaches into his right pocket. He rummages around the wrinkled bills until he isolates one in between his index finger, middle fingers, and thumb. Suro pulls the bill out and examines it, tilting it around. The note is of a gradient sky blue in color, with holographic gold borders and designs delicately lacing themselves across the surface of the bill.
In the center of the bill resides a large, monastery-looking building among tall, plant-covered earthen pillars. A small label below the image reads: "Southern Air Temple." Suro quickly scans for any denominations of value, however upon finding none, flips the bill over.
The other side contains a similarly intricate holographic golden leaf pattern on sky blue and has an oval-shaped image in the center. Within frame stands the statue of a man standing valiantly, arm outstretched and some kind of staff in hand. The label reads: "Avatar Memorial Island." Yet again finding no numbers other than small serial codes, Suro holds the note out over the counter and asks:
"This enough?"
The vendor frowns sarcastically as he gives Suro a curious look, eyebrows raised to the point that they begin to quiver.
""Keep the change." Suro says nervously.
"Are you seriously going to pay for a flamie dog with a limited edition 10,000 yuan note?" the vendor says in disbelief.
"What?" Suro replies, wide-eyed.
"You could buy a small apartment, a car, or 2,000 flamie dogs with that much money. I can barely even break a bill a tenth the size with the cash from this stand! " the man spouts chidingly while waving a hand in emphasis.
Suro's shoulders go limp as he places the bill on the counter and reaches back into his pockets. His face whitens and his skin loses color as he feels out the handful of such bills still in his pocket. Suro's rooting around slows as he attempts to calm himself through deep breaths. Withdrawing his hand from his pocket slowly, Suro picks up the bill politely, saying:
"Thank you, but I don't think I can buy a flamie dog then."
Suro starts to turn, but the vendor gently holds him by the shoulder and Suro stops in his tracks.
"Listen, I can tell you're new around here. Do you need help finding your folks?"
Suro turns towards the vendor and replies, "I don't know my parents."
The vendor bites his lip gently and glances towards Suro's bandaged, limp left arm. He begins to warmly smile.
"I'll tell you what. How about I give you a free flamie dog. You look like you need it."
Suro's stomach rumbles.
"Thank you."
The vendor begins to rotate the sausages laid out on the grill with a metal grabber. With his free hand, he reaches behind the grill and releases fire from an open palm. The flames travel out through the top of the grill and the meat begins to sizzle.
Without thinking, Suro mumbles under his breath, "Firebending..."
"Huh?" the vendor asks, busy at work preparing the bun.
Feeling brave, Suro follows up.
"Can you teach me firebending?"
"What? Oh, well I didn't take you for a firebender, kid. But sure, I've got until the end of my shift to show you a thing or two. Plus, business is pretty slow today if you can't already tell. There's a TV special going on tonight and everyone's tuning in. You want your dog with or without sauce?"
"With, I think?"
The vendor takes a red bottle, flips it upside down, and squirts red sauce onto the sausage. He wraps the flamie dog in some napkins and hands it to Suro.
"Thank you," Suro says and bows respectfully.
He takes the flamie dog and begins diligently working his way around it, biting from every direction. The savory flavor of the meat and the spicy sauce rushes Suro into enthusiastically finishing off the meal in less than half a minute.
Suro wipes his mouth on the tissues all at once and then holds them idly, not knowing where to dispose of them. The vendor pulls a small drawer out of the side of the cart with a small refuse bin in it and motions for Suro to throw the used napkins there.
As Suro does so, the vendor hands a cup of water out to Suro. Not looking where he is moving his arm, Suro accidentally knocks the cup out of the vendor's hand. Quickly noticing his mistake Suro shoots out his right arm towards the falling cup and tries to grab it before it falls. As he does this, the water hangs still in mid air and the cup lands on the ground.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to." Suro sputters.
"No, it's fine. You, uh, caught it I guess." the vendor mouths out in confusion.
Suro clasps his fingers together slowly until the water combines into a fist-sized sphere. Suro brings the sphere to his mouth and siphons a small stream from it until it has vanished.
"Are you sure you can firebend?" the amused vendor asks.
Suro nods.
"Show me what you've got, then, I guess."
Suro makes the best stance he can think of and faces sideways. He folds back his ring and pinky finger, draws his arm back, and thrusts forward, focusing the force into the tip of his fingers. A fist-sized fireball comes out of his fist whilst a blue spark simultaneously dances around his wrist.
"Whoa, careful, kid! What technique are you trying to use? You can't brute force all your energy like that with such poor form or you'll end up blowing your arm off. How'd you even come up with that?"
"But that's the only way I know how to firebend. It's much harder than the others."
A look of wonder dawns upon his face, "Water, Fire, uh- others? You know others?"
"Uh-"
"That's remarkable," the vendor interrupts. "Would you mind demonstrating them for me?"
Suro nods once more, slowly.
Suro balls his right fist and motions upwards. A head-sized chunk breaks out from the asphalt and floats in front of his balled hand. Suro releases his fist and lets the rock drop to the ground, then opens his palm. He forces his hand forward swiftly, blowing a strong gust of wind out into the street.
"Impossible. You can't be." the vendor says as he puts out the grille and starts locking up his stand, "I need to show you something, follow me."
"Who are you?" Suro asks.
"My name's Ogon, and I'll answer your questions on the way."
"I'm Suro."
The man snaps a chain around the cart to a lamppost and motions to Suro, then jogs off. Suro rushes off to follow him, clutching his chest.
The man had led Suro a few streets down and into an apartment above a store. The interior struck Suro as similar to his own shared apartment with Araji in size and relative barrenness. Ogon walked over to a TV set and turned a knob to bring the small, line-dashed screen to life. As he turns a second knob, the initial static buzzing tunes through various images and brings the screen to rest on a TV-studio with a desk.
Several people stand behind the desk and lean over microphones, frequently switching from looking directly at the camera to each other, then to an audience below the set stage. Sound begins to come through the TeleVarrick box speakers as Suro takes a seat on a worn recliner.
"So, Zolo, tell us what you think about this season's latest fashion. I hear you tried it out, but just couldn't find your color," one of the people behind the desk says jokingly, addressing a young man to his left.
The audience laughs in waves.
"Well, you see, when you start running out of hair strands to pick a color for, there tends to be a problem," the young man responds.
The same exact laughter plays.
Though the screen is fuzzy, Suro can tell that the young man has blond, wild hair and has somewhat of a tan.
"Jokes aside, what did you think of today's festivities so far?" the female caster to the young man's left asks.
"No doubt, the show has been impressive, but there's nothing like looking forward to NEXT YEAR'S ELEMENTAL ARENA SHOWDOWN SEASON TO TOP THE PREVIOUS ONE, AM I RIGHT, PEOPLE?!" the young man shouts.
The crowd cheers along, nearly drowning out his voice halfway through.
"As we draw one more week closer to the end of the final event, how do you feel about challenging this year's top benders one on one?" the female caster asks.
"The crowd this year looks fierce, and I don't know who's gonna come out on top. I guess we'll have to wait till the finals next month to find out who tops the season and has to face me!" the young man hypes up once more and the crowd cheers.
"What specific picks do you have this season, though? Who are you looking forward to fight the most? Give us your Avatar opinion."
Suro gives out a dry cough and reels from the pain in his chest.
"Well, Blue Team's top player Okker has an icicle jab like an iceberg, Green Team's Ganji has a power stomp like a mountain, and Red Team's Uffizo has a fire spin like a cyclone. I guess those would be my most anticipated matches for next month's show tourney."
"For now, who do you think will win the standard tourney before they teams have to face you?" the host to Zolo's right asks.
"All three teams look very even right now, and we still have tomorrow to see the three top players face off, so I'll refrain from jumping the rock if you know what I mean."
The crowd laughs.
"Tell us about mistakes that you saw during the tourney so far and what techniques you would recommend instead."
"Am I allowed to demonstrate?" the young man replies, confidently raising his eyebrows and smiling at the camera.
The crowd goes wild once more, cheering and whooping. He somersaults out of his seat as the crowd claps.
"I can't list out all of the mistakes I noted, so I'll just show the biggest one from each team. Firstly, I don't think this is how you do a fire spin, Omozea," he says.
He spins, flinging flames in a circle around him, then mocks slipping and falling forward on his face. The crowd laughs as he flips back to his feet and continues:
"Jokes aside, though, the mistake that Omozea made during that fateful deuce round is a common mistake that most beginner firebender pros make. The trick is deceptively simple, as all you have to do is make sure that your torso doesn't overextend past your arm swing. You must uniformly glide so you don't trip yourself up with your own limbs. LIke so."
The young man demonstrates the same technique, flawlessly whipping blue-tipped flames around him and gracefully landing on his feet as the audience 'oohs.'
"For Green team, the mistake comes from my pick Ganji." The crowd 'huhs' as he continues:
"I know what you all are thinking, 'Not Kan's crazy headbutt miss or Dem's self-knockout?' but hear me out. While Ganji ended up winning the semifinal in the end, he nearly lost himself the tournament with one small error. If he wasn't the professional that he is, that mistake would have cost him. An error like that would have crushed a rookie.
"See, what he did wrong was when he was in the air, he decided to launch an attack against an agile target. An earthbender is a generally slow target in competitive bending due to their need to remain close to the ground to continue the fight. The only reason that Ganji won that encounter is because he happened to raise some of the arena into the air with him to use as ammo. Without that quick thinking, he would have definitely been knocked out by Paku that round. Let me show you what I mean."
The young man blasts himself upward with a jet of air and rips a metal chunk of the stage up with him.
"If you find yourself in this situation as an earthbender, the best strategy is to immediately ground pound by pulling yourself towards the nearest surface like so," he says, while hovering with a small circular ball of wind. He then releases the large stage chunk and pumps his arms to his side, pulling himself straight towards it as it descends.
He lands into the metal, indenting into it and causing it to groan as he passes through. The young man lands and catches the metal in the air, then forms it back into it place as the crowd 'aahs.'
"Finally, the Blue Team's largest error came very early on in the tournament, where Moka tripped herself on her own sheet of ice." he says and pulls liquid out from the drinks in the crowd, causing them to gasp and laugh. He floats the bubbling soda mixture in front of him and jokes, "Pardon me for the sodabending."
The laughter intensifies.
The soda freezes as he jumps onto it and slides in a circle.
"With this, there isn't really any guide. It takes practice to be able to balance and maintain momentum on ice. I recommend ice-skating for people who have trouble with it." he says, winking at the audience, then waves to the camera and dispels the frozen soda. It splashes loudly onto the stage floor. The young man gathers it up and pushes it into a nearby grate on the edge of the set.
The crowd claps and whoops as he bows.
"And that's Avatar Zolo, folks. Have a good night and enjoy your evenings."
Ogon clicks the television set off as Suro sits, dumbfounded. His mouth is open and his eyes begin to feel dry.
Ogon turns off the set and places a hand on Suro's shoulder.
"I'm not sure how to tell you this, but you might have a twin brother." Ogon says, then adds: "I didn't even know it was possible to have twin Avatars."
"I don't know if it is," Suro responds dryly.
Suro's been in the Avatar State before, he's shown use of all four elements, but he's not the only one?
"In any case, I would be honored to teach you firebending, young Suro," Ogon assures the shaken youth.
"How will I be able to compare to that guy? I can barely light a candle, let alone fire spin!" Suro exclaims.
"That's not a problem. I used to be a teacher at Fire Lord Academy back home in the Isles. I've trained students into masters who could do less than you right now." Ogon says, his voice filling with careful pride.
"When can we start?" Suro eagerly asks.
"It's late today, so it would be better to resume training tomorrow. Do you have a place to stay?"
Suro thinks for a moment, then remembers the name.
"Do you know where Jade Arms is?"
"Jade Arms?" Ogon strokes his beard.
"Yeah, it's on a wide avenue with large apartment buildings on either side."
"You must be talking about Iroh Avenue. It's one stop down on the S train."
"Is that by any chance the Sokka line?"
"Yes it is. There's a station one block up from here. I'll give you the 2 yuan fare since you have a bit too much to exchange and one of my spare ID's so you can ride whenever. Out of curiousity, how did you get such a large amount of money anyway?"
"I got lost chasing a bank robber. These bills fell out of the satchel he was carrying. He beat me pretty badly, but I don't think it's anything worse than a few bruises." Suro attempts to assure Ogon.
Ogon frowns, "I should invite my friend over to check you out. She's a licensed doctor at a big hospital here."
"I don't think that would be a good idea."
"Why not?"
"It's a long story, but to keep it simple, I should keep out of the public eye."
"She took an oath for this, you know? I'll go and see if she can come tonight," Ogon says as he walks over to a wall-mount phone and begins dialing a number.
Suro sits patiently as Ogon picks up the phone and begins speaking.
"Hey Ahana, would you be free to stop by this evening?
"Uh-huh. Is there any way you can get out earlier?
"You're about to go into the OR? Well then, good luck.
"Yeah, tomorrow midday sounds good." Ogon clicks the phone into its mount and addresses Suro.
"Well, she can drop by tomorrow. Are you able to come around noon? Do you have school or a job at that time?"
"No work or education at the moment. I just moved in with a roommate who's in college." Suro replies.
"Need me to walk you to the station?" Ogon offers.
"No thanks." Suro says, standing up.
Suro arrived at the apartment as the sun had just finished setting. Feeling guilty and not knowing what to do with his pocketful of money, he shoved it under the couch cushion then lies on the same cushions that guard his trove. Suro attempted to meditate on the couch, but gave up after finding no success in reaching the astral plane.
He slid onto his side and stretched out on the cushions. Soon after he lay down on the couch, Araji came through the door holding a duffel bag under one arm and a small black plastic bag in her other.