Brothers Avatar
The Legend of Two Avatars
Book 1 – Family
Chapter 7 – The Flying Chakras
In the thickness of night Taresc's whining pierced the cooing of far-off owl-racoons, "Are we almost there yet?"
"No, Taresc, we're not even close." Minege said with a growl.
Lozulia added in, "Yeah, so how about you shut up, Tare!" Taresc could barely see where these insults were coming from in the darkness.
"Stop beating up on Tare, he's very sensitive." Taresc turned to Xulo's voice.
"It's his fault, that's all he ever asks!" Minege spoke in a whiny voice, "'Are we there yet? When are we getting there? My butt is tired!' That's all he ever says!"
"I agree! Strongly!" Lozulia shouted to the obscure crew.
"I'm sorry if I'm annoying everybody." Taresc should have known better than to have talked to the sleep-deprived crew. After their 18th hour of travel, everyone's frowns drooped a little deeper and their mouths got a little viler.
"I'm sorry too, Taresc" Lozulia's arms came out of nowhere and wrapped around Taresc, "Sometimes I got too real when I'm tired."
"I'm sorry about nothing." Minege said.
"I say that we keep quiet until we get to the next town, everyone agree?" Xulo said.
"Yup." Said Minege.
"Yeah." Said Lozulia.
"Yes'sir." Said Taresc. "Wait, what is that?" Taresc pointed to a light he saw in the distance.
"What's what?" Xulo asked.
"There's a light in the distance."
"I see it, what do you think it is?" said Lozulia bouncing up and down on Tanton. "A village? An inn? A camping ground where we can hopefully sleep for five seconds?"
"A Stormbender camp?" Minege casually killed the excitement.
Xulo weighed the possibilities in his head, finally he said, "Minege, take us towards the light."
What probably should have followed was Lozulia and Taresc hollering for joy, but they simply collapsed and sighed in relief with inaudible thank you's being said in-between. Minege reluctantly swerved Tanton towards the mysterious light.
As they got closer they used their tired eyes to make out various details. What they were approaching was a large stone structure, comprised of two towers. They also saw a large number of flying bison as well, usually there would be some excitement about these fabled creatures, especially by Minege, but the fabled creature known as the 'bed' was more impressive to the group. They got to some stairs that was blocked by a woman.
The woman began his spiel, "Hello! Are you—"
Xulo interrupted her by throwing a coin purse into her arms, "Two rooms, take it." One by one they climbed the steps and then into the tower as the woman confusedly attempted to talk to them.
"Wait! I- uh, can I- Hello?" She gave up and jangled the coin purse, "Rooms 302 and 303."
"Thank you!" Minege yelled behind her.
Lozulia was the first to wake from their comatose-like slumber. She rose to a pleasant breeze, lightly blowing her messy hair back and forth. She looked over at Minege and saw her still dead asleep. She put on her robes and combed her jet black hair. She exited the room and walked down the hallway where she could see out the only window and what a gorgeous day it was. There was the clearest blue sky she had ever seen, it was the kind of color you'd see in a royal flower. How big and beautiful she thought, but suddenly panic started to set it, it was rather big. Scarily expansive, as in, where was the rest of the world? When she looked down she saw there was no ground there. She ran back to their rooms and knocked on Room 303, yelling. "Wake up, boys!" she ran up into and 302 and shook Minege awake "Minege! MINEGE!"
"…Zuli… what are you doing?"
"Oh, just waking you up, by the way, we are in Room 302, right?"
Minege squinted, trying to get used to the light, "Yeah, why?"
"Oh, I don't know, I just thought we were in like Room 3203 or something, I don't know…" Lozulia paced the room at length, "Minege, you should come and see this."
Lozulia dragged Minege out of her room and they ran into a disheveled Taresc and Xulo. "What is it, Lozulia?" Xulo said unamused.
"Come with, you guys are gonna freak!" Lozulia took them down the stairs and onto the plaza.
The group looked around and figured out quickly that they were no longer on the ground. Instead they were on a mini island in the sky flown by many chained air bison. This island consisted of a nice little garden pavilion and two towers, one for hoteling and the other for recreation. The team was shocked, looking over the edge to see how high they were flying. When Xulo saw enough, he turned around and saw the woman from earlier. "Hey, you!"
"Hello there! I believe this is yours." She handed him a near empty coin purse, to which Minege nearly fainted.
"What exactly is happening here?" Xulo said.
"Ah, I assumed you kids would have slept through the introductions. This here is 'The Flying Chakras,' the world's number one flying casino and resort."
"Wait a minute." Minege's face went pale, "I left Tanton on the ground! Oh god, oh no, oh no!"
"Don't worry Madam, all animals are left at the stables and will be there when we land in the same spot."
Minege resided, "Okay… but what about these bison! Are you gonna treat her as nice as you treat these animal slaves!"
"I beg your pardon, these air bison are treated like royalty when we get on the ground and we allow them to take turns resting on board, so yes your alligator-duck will be treated like these animal slaves." The woman clapped her hands together, "and that pushes us into our next agenda and that is our number one rule, no firebending or earthbending."
"Great, our only two bending styles." Lozulia twirled her finger in the air.
"I'm sorry, it has to do with the air bison. They are deathly afraid of fire and the stomping that earthbending brings certainly doesn't help in lift this stone palace. All other rules should be common sense. I have other things to tend to, so you all have a wonderful time aboard The Flying Chakras." With that she left.
"This isn't good…" Xulo said.
Minege scoffed loudly, "Honey, my goodness Xulo, can't you just let a good thing happen once? We're already on here, we might as well live up the experience, we certainly paid enough for it."
Xulo rolled his eyes, "How is this going to further us towards our goals, I don't need fun."
"This has to be the crossroads for some of the wealthiest people from all around the world, you could go and mingle and get some Intel on our enemy, or maybe a backer?" Taresc said.
Xulo looked around at the casino tower and sighed, "I guess I might as well, better to make the best out of a bad situation. Now for the rest of you—" He turned around and saw pleading pained grimaces, "The rest of you… can relax, I suppose…" The words left his mouth painfully; he turned around and walked towards the casino.
The recreational tower was unlike the hotel tower as it had no walls. It was simply made up of floors and pillars to support it.
He walked up two flights of stairs and got to what seemed to be the card-playing level. Every now and again one of the many affluent people would give him a condescending look because of his age, Xulo would attempt to get a foothold in their conversations but would be denied access every time. Eventually Xulo had enough of the constant rejection and decided he'd try his luck at a card table.
He sat himself at a table that didn't have any people at it, "Hello?" The card-dealer was distracted shuffling his cards.
"Oh, hey." The dealer stopped shuffling, "You here to play?"
"Yeah, sure." The dealer started passing out cards to him, Xulo down at the table and saw a little wooden plaque that said 'Your Dealer: Ibera.' "Ibera, right?"
"That's correct, that'd be my name. Where are ya from, mister…?"
"So, what kind of people do you see come through here?"
Ibera was taken aback by Xulo's ignoring of his question, "Well we have rich men, rich women, rich men with long hair, rich men with medium hair but surprisingly not a lot of rich men with short hair. Weird, right?"
Xulo set down his cards face up, Ibera could only respond to this by resting his head on his hands, "But I mean…" Xulo said.
"Yes?" Ibera blinked his eyes delightfully.
Xulo brought his voice down, "Are there any Stormbenders that come through?"
"You're not great at this conversational thing, are you?" Xulo started sweating, "If you want to go probing through my mind the least you can do is pretend like we're doing small talk." Ibera ran his hands through his messy hair. "And you're bleeding too, just so you know." Xulo checked his arms and body, "It's a card game term."
Xulo got a good look as Ibera recollected Xulo's cards and started handing out the cards again. Ibera seemed to be tall and lanky, but with a good build. His whole entire right arm was covered with a sleeve of light blue tattoos, the kind of ink the air nomads would use for their head tattoos. His hair was thick and wildly shaggy, it extenuated his grey eyes. "I'll ask you again, where are you from, mister…?"
"Xulo, you can call me Xulo. I'm from a little village called Dayue."
"Ah Dayue, I love Dayue."
"You know Dayue? You're probably the first person outside of Dayue to know of it."
"Well I'm from the Western Air Temple and you guys were the first to house me when I left the nomads. I'm surprised we didn't meet."
"Wait, I do remember a young Air Nomad coming through, did you always go by Ibera?" Xulo put down a card.
"I didn't, I think I went by Iby when I left."
"I do remember you! I saw you from afar, I didn't approach, because…" Xulo blushed.
"Why?" Ibera cracked a smile, "Let it out, secrets are ugly. I won't let the past be a judge of your character."
Xulo created an unbreakable eye contact with the king on his card, "Cute, I thought you were cute."
Ibera got a little red himself, "How are the Dayue people? Is Mr. Siqiy doing okay?"
Xulo looked up from his card, face totally flushed of red, "Not well, Dayue was raided and ultimately destroyed. As far as I know, only me, my friend and my brother survived."
"I'm sorry to hear about that, Xulo."
"I'm not at peace with it, that's for certain. That's why I need to know about the Stormbenders and how I can take them down."
"See!" Ibera threw his hands in the air, "Was that so hard? I feel so much more inclined to share some info for this rueful, angst-ridden and flattering young individual. Not the shady kid trying to get me to blab on The Flying Chakras' biggest financial supporter. Tell me your plan and I'll give what knowledge I have."
"Did you see this, Taresc?" Lozulia and Taresc were sitting on a bench by the koi pond, in the middle of the pond was a statue of some wise-looking man, on its pedestal was an inscription.
The Flying Chakras
The Flying Chakras was established by Master Lygil, Airbending Teacher to Avatar Rinley. Each level of the seven-level Chakra Tower represents one of the seven chakras.
"No more stalling! I want to know our plan!" Taresc was bouncing.
"Fine! Here's our plan: we're going to start by making our way all the way south and go around the moutains from it's southern side. From what I've heard, there aren't too many Stormbenders there. From there we go east and take a boat to the Eastern Air Temple."
"What's there at the Eastern Air Temple?"
"It's one of the Stormbenders' three strongest holds; apparently that's where one of their generals is."
"Eastern Air Temple," Ibera put his hand on his chin, "That's where General Cersiek is, right?"
"You know better than I." Xulo threw down a card.
"Well, Cersiek is the one stationed at the Eastern Air Temple, in fact she's also the very one that took it over. The worst part is she's only a couple years older than us! Doesn't that just kick you in the crotch? Already taking over nations before she could drink…"
"That's worrying."
"Well she didn't do it alone… she had her other General friend. She's strong and inventive but I'd leave the words 'tactical and cunning' on the side when describing her. So where you headed next."
"Once the Eastern Air Temple is reclaimed, we head north," Lozulia paused, "to our wonderful friend Hintrichi."
Taresc interrupted, "Lotus King Hintrichi? Didn't you say he was crazy?"
"I did and I stand by it, with burning passion." She sucked in a lung full of air and exhaled, "But for some reason, Minege is determined to get his support." She looked left and then right, "Wait, where is that gal?"
"She said she wanted to ask around about… something, then she just disappeared."
"So mysterious." Lozulia overacted the chills she got, "Well luckily, if we do successfully conquer the Eastern Air Temple, he probably should willingly meet with us and not off with our heads at first sight."
"So once we've gotten help from the White Lotus, we're going through the Northern Air Mountain Ranges, and we'll be at—" said Xulo
"Oh yeah, no problem just the Northern Air Mountain Ra—No!"
"What?"
"Xulo, do we understand what's in those mountains?"
"Yes, the Northern Air Temple and yes, I know that's where the Stormbenders' main base of operations is. It's just a temple though; they don't own the whole mountain range."
Ibera set down his cards, "That's cute, Xulo, this fantasy of yours. But in actuality they DO own the whole mountain range. I'm going to throw out a name and I'm going to need you to quiver in fear upon its utterance—Regille."
"Is that the leader of the Stormbenders?"
"Regille is the QUEEN of the Stormbenders, in fact her name is The Queen of the Storms. Do not half-step with her, because she is the kind of woman who could take down an army on her own if she wanted to."
"Now that is worrying."
"So let's say Regille is taking her midday beauty nap and you miraculously end up safely in the Northern Water Tribes."
"We take out whatever general is there and Regille will have no legs to stand on, making it easy to take her out."
"Yeah, 'whatever general,' he'd be General Aurut, by the way. Remember when I said Cersiek had help, that'd be him. He's a borderline genius, he doesn't come to play games. Want a second kick to the crotch? Same age as Cersiek. There must've been some good stuff flowing in the waters that year they were born."
"THAT, right there, is—"
"Worrying? That's right, you must have an egotistically pleasant helping of confidence in your abilities."
"I'm not bad to say the least." Xulo laid down all of his cards, "I've had a great time talking with you, I know this will sound a little abrupt but maybe you'd like to come with me and my team on this crusade? You seem to be very knowledgeable about the subject and—"
Ibera flipped over all the cards on the table, "I don't think I can or even… should." Ibera had guilt in his eyes. "It's not that I don't like you, because you seem great, but the problem is that I don't like to get behind projects that I don't see succeeding. Not that I'll think you'll fail but from the information given," Ibera collected his winning from the coin purse placed on the table, "I just don't see this puzzle being fully realized, there's just a piece missing."
Xulo quickly receded into his shell, "That's… Okay. It was nice meeting you."
As Xulo was collecting his coin purse a voice announced itself, "Nobody move!" Stormbenders in full gear stood at every corner of the casino, "We have confirmation that the Avatar is aboard." In the turmoil of the patrons one seemed to have asked how they knew, "In the stables, we found an Alligator-duck, signature ride of the Avatar."
In Xulo's brain he quickly thought of all the ways he could secretly kill Tanton without Minege knowing. "If the Avatar doesn't come forward we're going to start cutting the chains of the air bison until this place falls to the ground."
"Ugh, the Avatar is aboard?" Xulo heard coming from behind him, "I wished he'd just come forward and save us the trouble." Ibera was tapping his fingers on his table. Ibera quickly noticed the death glare coming from Xulo. "What?" Xulo started rapidly pointing at himself, "You? You're the…" Xulo anxiously nodded.
Ibera got deep into concentration, "Can you bending dirt without stomping?" Xulo confusedly nodded, "Get to the plaza and take care of the Stormbenders there, I got these ones." Before Xulo could ask any questions, Ibera jumped over his table and ran towards the center of the casino. He planted his hands firmly on the table and in one fell swoop he swung his legs around and created a giant vortex. Xulo decided to take this time of flying cards and Stormbenders to make his escape; he skipped the stairs and jumped from one level to another. He found Taresc and Lozulia being interrogated by a group of Stormbenders. He went around and found a nice little patch of soil, he scooped a nice clump in his hand and hardened it into a rock. He kicked in into the back of a Stormbender's head with the speed of an arrow, quickly catching their attentions.
The group was easily able to deal with the Stormbenders, Lozulia immediately pounced on the Stormbenders while they were distracted. She was severely limited due to her restriction of bending, but she clearly displayed great command of martial arts. Xulo and Taresc were able to work in sync, with Taresc shifting the grounds on the enemy and Xulo dishing out a barrage of little stone pellets. Not before long, the Stormbenders were on the floor unconscious.
As the dust settled, The group saw Minege running towards them, "What is happening here?"
"Stormbender business… per usual." Taresc said.
"Hey!" Ibera stood from the third level, he floated down and patted Xulo on the back, "Looks like you did alright for yourselves." Ibera looked at the groaning people on the ground. "Now go and grab your stuff."
Xulo noticed that Ibera had grabbed himself a backpack, "Wait, does this mean…?"
"It means we're grabbing an air bison and flying ourselves down to the ground."
"Together?" Xulo said.
"Well I just made a real mess of the casino floor, so I'd imagine my tenure is about up." Ibera clenched his teeth, "Is your offer still on the table? I think I may have found that puzzle piece."
"Of course, in fact I think I may have found mine too."
"Now get going! We don't have much time until the Stormbenders wake up." They ran off and Ibera stared miraculously, realizing he's just begun an unstoppable journey. Just then he realized he forgot something, he called out "Oh yeah I'm Ibera by the way, nice to meet you team!"
