Kai's POV

"Don't water bend!" This was a saying my mother used to say to me. She used to tell me that a young age, I was a master at water bending. My mom however told me that one day the my abilities were just gone. I had no memory of why or how….that is, until I woke up this morning. I always heard that dreams were a gateway to suppressed memories and desires. I never had an encounter of the sort before today. I remember water bending an entire river dry and then taking all the fish we needed to feed our village. One day, my dad—my water bending teacher, challenged me to a battle for title of the strongest in the village. He was strong with battle scars from past wars. He wore a blue water tribe shirt and had a giant snowflake imprinted on the back of his shirt. This was a shirt only the leader of the tribe wore. We were fighting over a lake and focused part of our bending into our feet. Doing this caused what would normally be simple actions: walking, jumping and bending, to become strenuous work to do without falling. We began fighting as my dad shot several icicles from beneath me as I stood on the lake. I jumped up and redirected those same icicles towards him which he broke with his frozen hammer. The frozen hilt was originally my dad's invention. Unlike my sword, his hilt transformed into a hammer. I pulled out my frozen sword and with both charged towards each other. My sword grazed him and his hammer was heading straight for me. Before it could hit me, I stopped focusing my bending in my feet and fell under the water. While I was under the water, my dad bent the water directly under him and me along with it. He forced me upward towards the surface of the water. With no control of my body or the water uplifting me, my dad pulled me up to the surface and immediately smashed his hammer into my skull. I fell deep underwater and was knocked unconscious. Minutes later my dad had fished me out of the water and brought me to a doctor. I woke up 5 days later with no memory of the past few days before. With this diagnosis, my parents thought they had nothing to worry about anymore. But that same day, I went to fish using my water bending and it didn't work. I had lost my ability to bend. I had always wanted to try and learn again, however my mother insisted I not. This was due to the life risk it put me in. A hit to the skull that strong could have done much more damage and we were lucky that it had not killed me. I remember saying to my mom, "Then who will be our tribe's leader when dad passes?"With that, I woke up.

I was in my room and the sun was high in the sky. Without a clock I could tell it was about noon. I went down into the kitchen area where I saw Mikeru and Dylan speaking to someone.

K: Hey everyone, what's going on here?

D: Oh hey, this man wants to put in a job request.

K: and your name is sir?

Man(J): James.

K: So what do you need from us James?

J: Well, I recently heard about a serpent in the lake west of the market that has been terrorizing fishermen and killing them. Without the fishermen around, the market will lose a heavy amount of their food supply. Not to mention the food prices will go up and the people—

K: Ok, ok I understand that part. What is it you need from us though?

J: As I passed through the market, I saw your ad in the marketplace as mercenaries for hire.

K: Ad? What ad?

M: I put them up yesterday morning. How else are we gonna make some money if no one knows about us? Plus you guys owe me a lot for housing.

K: Alright, so in short, what do you want us to do?

J: I'm hiring you to kill the serpent.

D: What kind of serpent is it? Is one of the Fire breathing ones from the fire kingdom? Our the ones that shoot water from their mouths from the Arctic area of the southern water tribes?

J: Its water breathing, although it not being a fire breathing serpent does not make it any less of a problem.

K: How much are you willing to pay for this endeavor? This is no small job and would be suicide for a lot of people and—

Dylan pulls me aside.

D: What are you saying here? You don't want to drive the man away.

K: But we can't just risk our lives for free! Plus we need to eat every day.

Our argument grows louder.

D: If you continue talking like that, we won't be eating again!

James butts in.

J: Excuse but, I'm here on behalf of all the fish selling vendors in the market. We are willing to pay 10% of the profit of fish from each of our stores.

M: And that amount would be…?

J: 30 Grand.

K,M,D: Sold!

K: split three ways of course.

M: We'll get right on your job after we get ready. Now let's discuss the terms of payment.

K: You two do that. Dylan, come with me so we can get everything we need.

We gathered our things and began to get ready to go. However there wasn't much for us to do. Dylan grabbed a bag of cheese crackers and I grabbed my hilt. As we headed for the door, Mike and James were just finished and we headed out. For once, the distance to travel wasn't so far. Maybe it was so much faster because of Frost but the trip took us 10 minutes. We stared at the lake and we could see the bright sunny gleam off of the lake reflecting into the sky. There were few trees and tall grass near the edge of the lake. I could see the serpent dragging its face across the lake as if its face was a shark fin.

K: So what are we gonna do?

M: What can we do?

D: No, the question is, what can you two do?

K: Say wha…?

D: The serpent is in the middle of the lake. There's not much I can do if I can't water bend. Even if you drag me onto the lake, it's not like I can earth bend at it.

K: *sigh* I guess it's just you and me then.

We walked onto the lake with our bending focusing at our feet. This was going to make us tired more quickly. I knew we would have to end this fast. We began to approach the serpent and it began to emerge out of the water. It was a jade green scaled beast with intimidating fangs. He charged down at the water near us and we began to dodge. Mike crystallized his fists and began to punch the serpent repeatedly. It didn't seem to do much but the serpent shot water towards Mike. I bent the water heading for him and redirected it towards the serpent. It pushed it back slightly but it began to charge at us again. We dodged and I pulled out my frozen sword and stabbed it in the neck. I hoped it would have done more damage, but it seemed to ignore the pain and shot water at me. The high pressure from the water knocked me back into and under the water. By this time, I was already almost exhausted. I remerged to the surface to see Mike still punching it until it slapped him away with its tail. He landed on his feet and began to charge at it again. I began to remember my dream from this morning and something….something just clicked. Like déjà vu, I felt as though I knew what to do next. I began to bend the air around the serpent. Mikeru was punching him but he didn't seem to notice again. As I continued to bend the water, I knew that both air breathing and water breathing creatures need a little of air and a little of water in what they breathe. I took away the water nearby the serpent's mouth and gills and it began to sort of…gasp at air. With it distracted from the lack of water I bent the water from the lake towards the serpent's mouth. As it hit the serpent's face, I froze the water and its head became a block of ice. It was then I saw Mike jump up and punch the serpent's frozen head off its body and into the lake. Blood began to spurt all over into the lake and the lake began to turn red.

K: Hell yeah…

M: Now how does 30 grand sound?

From a distance, we could hear Dylan clapping and with James and eating cheese crackers.

K: Lazy ass…