Sorryfor the delay yet again , but now that winter break is soon at hand, more chapters will soon be written.
Chapter 35: A Night of Surprises
In the locker room, Tal was still fuming about what he did. He was mad that the two boys he considered his best friends decided to ask him if they could marry his sisters right before the match of their lives. Ru should have considered himself lucky. If Tal could have gone against him, he would have chocked the firebender out for asking him it. Poor Hiroshi might not have been the one asking, but he was in with Ru's idea, Tal thought the earthbender needed to have a head check before asking to marry a relative of an Avatar. The Sato boy also got it because Tai had been hurt although not by her fault.
He was fully dressed when he realized he didn't yet hear the buzzer to signal the end of match when Katara took out Tay easily. He had heard the crowd cheer a few times. He exited the locker room and went back to the stand-by room only to see that the match was still going on. He was also surprised to find that the healers were using it as an aid station instead of taking the injured back to the infirmary. He found Ru lying in a chair facing the ring and watching. He was beginning to move a bit but his firebending would still take a bit longer to return to him. He saw that Hiroshi was now awake but still unable to move at all.
Tal walked over to a healer in a corner who was treating Tai's injured side. His sister had her shirt pulled up a bit to reveal a large purple bruise on her side and the healer was waterbending ice water on it to help speed up the healing process. It was the same type of treatment he had been taught by Korra and had seen thousands of time before.
"Can you believe this Tal!" Tai tried to yelled over the noise of the crowd as she winced a bit from the effort need to do so. "Our sister is singlehandedly taking on your girlfriend."
"I thought the match was over. What happened?" He scratched his head in confusion before leaning over at the railing to see the ring better.
"After you got ejected, the refs announced that the rules said in a situation like this where only one player on each team is left before the final round. The playing field is reduced in size but there is now no time limit. And to cap it all off...chi blocking is allowed now." Ru told him, without even a hint of anger in his voice. He seemed to be over the whole fact of being chi blocked by a smaller 16 year old girl. "Katara tried to get to Tai early but as you can now see, Tay is easily evading Katara's attack and sending back her own ones now."
He went over to the railing overlooking the ring and watched as Tay was now sending bigger and faster water whips at Katara's face while she could only now send back whips of much smaller size which barely reached Tay. He saw Tay pass the line and watched as she wasn't penalized for doing such, another rule change.
Back down in the ring Katara was about to lose it. Tay had been just too quick and now had entered her zone. She tried to strengthen her attacks but Tay was now simply blocking them. She watched as Tay slowly walked towards her, she knew what would happen soon if the girl raised by Equalists got too close. Katara stopped her attacks to quickly summon a large ball of water to throw at Tay.
This was when Tay attacked. She rushed at Katara who had to stop her waterbending to try and defend herself. The large ball of water she had been trying to make fell onto them, soaking them to the bone. The water was cold but Tay did not care, she was after Katara and had tackled her friend and sent the two of them skidding to the edge of Katara's zone one.
Katara summoned the last of her strength to throw Tay off of her and stand up only to have Tay chi block her in the arms and only the arms. Katara felt her arms go suddenly numb and limp. She was standing only a foot or two from the edge of zone one and watched as Tay stood away at a distance and waterbended a jet of water at Katara's stunned face and send her friend well out of her zone and out of the match.
The buzzer rang out and the crowd roared louder than ever. The sister of one Avatar had beaten the daughter of another Avatar. Tay threw her hands into the air with joy and involuntarily waterbended all the water in the grates that lined ring, making a cloud of mist as it crashed down after being sent a dozen meters into the air. Katara struggled to roll to her side and get up to her knees without the use of her still numb arms. The only waterbending Katara could do now was tearbending...which she began to do greatly as she realized she had lost in the finals...again.
The bridges extended to the ring and Tal an Tai rushed over to Tay. They hugged each other as they cheered their victory...or more specifically...Tay's victory. As soon as Tal could give Tay a big hug as he lifted her well off the floor and put her back down, he went to Katara and helped her up to her feet. He saw that she was crying and he hugged and told her that he was sorry that it had to come down to this.
She must have not hated him for the loss, she didn't try to shove him away, but that was probably because she couldn't move her arms. He then noticed that the front of his clothes were now soaking wet from hugging his drenched sister and drenched girlfriend. But right now he didn't care, his sister had won the match and he was busy trying to comfort Katara. "I'm alright Tal," She told him as he helped her take her helmet off. "I just wished that I could use my arms right now."
"Considering that Tay only did your arms," he calculated, "you should regain use of your arms in about another minute or so but the bending will be another ten or so after that." He walked along side her as they followed Tay and Tai back to the stand -by room where the others were still. By the time they had reached the room, Katara could now move her arms.
Tal went right back to Tai to check on his sister's treatment. He found that she was already back on her feet and was kissing Hiroshi who was still stuck in a chair until the chi blocking wore off. He found his now champion probender sister Tay making out with Ru who was now able to move but whose firebending was still a while from returning to him. Seeing that his presence wouldn't be well appreciated by his sisters at the moment, Tal went back to Katara to see how she was coping with the loss. She used her renewed use of her arms to embrace him from behind and kiss his cheek. "You might have won this year Tal, but the Fire Ferrets are going to the next year's champs for sure now!"
She was going to kiss him again when all the lights in the arena went out at once.
Everyone in the arena began to panic as dozens of series of electric arc dazzled in the darkness. Many of Mako's extra cops were being knocked out by either be shocked by electric gloves or by being chocked out by Equalist agents who had been hiding amongst the crowd. The main spotlights turned back on to show a dozen or more agents repelling from the arena's roof onto the ring. When they reached the ring, they advanced in the direction of either the suite where Korra was with the Satos and the Fire Lord or right at him, his sister and the Fire Ferrets.
Tal felt like kicking himself for letting him not remember that the Equalists were planning to attack. "I'm going to take care of these clowns," he yelled to them as he began to move towards the advancing agents now crossing the bridge from the ring. "You all need to stop those going after the others." He pointed towards the suite where the others were. They all rushed out the door as the healers who had been in the room with them helped carry the still immobile Hiroshi out towards safety.
Tal, having been ejected from the match, still had a whole lot of energy to use for bending. He had half a dozen opponents coming at him. They had no electric gloves or the new guns, they had to be crazy to take on him without any weapons. Tal held out his hand and was about to firebend to push back his oncoming attackers.
Before he even knew it, he was flying backwards through the air and crashed into the far wall of the room he was in.
He was slow to get up, but he received some unwanted help, when he suddenly was now floating in the air as he felt his entire body cramped up in immense pain. He was being bloodbent and he knew that he was in trouble. We could only watch as one of the Equalists near him step forward with one of their hands posed in the trademark bloodbending form. "Didn't expect this little surprise did you Avatar?" The masked Equalist said as he threw Tal into another wall. "Your little friends are going to be in a whole heap of trouble if they get in our way." The voice was male, the other agents all had the body shape of men but one did appear to be a woman.
Tal was again hoisted into the air by bloodbending and was barely able to breathe let alone speak. "You're a bloodbender?" He gasped for more air. "But the Equalists hate all benders." He had to pause for more air and to try and break the grip of the bloodbending. "How can you side with people who want all benders dead?" The only real way it seemed to tell them apart was that two of them had a blue sash tied around their waists. One of them wearing a sash was the bloodbender so Tal assumed the other might be another as well.
He fell to the floor with a hard thud as the man released his grip. He got up to his feet and was surprised that he was not bloodbent again. The other Equalists who accompanied the bloodbender had moved into positions that surrounded Tal on all sides. "Take care of our little guest." The bloodbender ordered as he left the room back onto the bridge to the ring. "I'm going to take care of our primary objective, with the other commanders and the Doctor. But be gentle, the boss wants him taken alive." He walked over to the other agent with a sash, "You better stay in case he tries to make a run for it."
The agent answered him with a female voice, "My pleasure." When Tal heard this, his eyes went from his many closing in attackers, over to the one person leave them behind to take on Tal. That bloodbender was a subordinate to The Doctor. That must mean that The Doctor either had a way to not be affected by bloodbending...or maybe he was a bloodbender too. It was just like back when that nut Amon was running the Equalists, the whole operation to rid the world of bending was being lead by bloodbenders.
The one other bloodbender walked up to Tal who was still a bit out of breath from being bloodbent. "Well Avatar, we can do this either the easy way in which you simply surrender and come with us peacefully." She then put his arm around the back of her belt and pulled out a large knife, a motion the others soon did as well. "Or do was need to do this the hard way. Don't try to metalbend, it's useless, these knifes are made of pure metal."
Tal held out his arms, his hatchet was visible on his belt but he would be overrun if he tried to make a move for it. Metalbending would be useless if the agent wasn't lying about the knives. "Well since we're going to do it that way, " he told them. He had to go after this possible bloodbender first. The others would be easier to beat after Tal was able to fight without the possibility of being bloodbent again. "And the fact that you are threatening not only me, but my sisters, my friends, my teacher, and...my girlfriend. You should be the ones who should be considering surrendering."
"And why should be you that you little punk?" The agent said as he began to pose his hand in the form ready to bend Tal's blood.
"Because when you threatened the lives of those people and the hundreds of others here in this arena and the rest of Republic City and the world." His blades from under his wrists shot out of their concealed spots. "You then given me the permission of the spirit world to go all glowy eyed on you..." He then with incredible speed and force pounced forward and sent the blades into the chest of the agent, "...and kill you!"
He lunged at the female agent stabbed her in the neck and chest with his blades. Before he could feel her body begin to fall to the ground, he had already pulled out his blades and picked his next target. This one was a much taller agent who Tal effortlessly dispatched with a single slash across the agent's neck. The agent's arms flew to his neck as he gurgled in agony at his rapidly approaching death.
The last three were even easier for Tal to kill. The first was stabbed in both eyes before being stabbed again in the chest. The next had spun around to watch his fellow agents who had been killed first fall to the ground dead, he now had his back turned to the Avatar. He was grabbed by Tal who performed the very real neck snapping move that was portrayed before the match. The last agent could only stand still in shock as he watched his fellow agents die in only mere seconds of one another. He thought the Avatar wasn't supposed to kill. Now he was watching the Avatar violently kill a very close fellow agent with a sickening snap of his neck. The last thing he would see, was the teenaged Tal pouncing into the air like a wild predator, and crashing down onto him with two blades sticking into his chest.
Over on the other side of the arena, Korra finally determines why she didn't feel so comfortable for the last few days. She had felt so uneasy about a possible attack and now it was happening. She had been sitting in the Sato family's suite next to Mako, each of them had either of their 5 year old twin sons sitting in their laps so that they too could watch. One minute she was watching her daughter waterbending like no other, and then she had lost to Tay.
She and everyone else in the suite were about to leave to go find the teens to celebrate the end of the probending season and to celebrate the Tree Line Three's win. She was just about to open the door when the lights went out and she heard people screaming. When the lights turned back on, there Equalists advancing towards her and her family and friends. Korra yelled for Asami to take the children and get to the ferry. Her friend might have been a very good fighter back in the day but now she would be a sitting turtle-duck without bending powers.
The teens were on the complete opposite side of the arena and had their own Equalists after them. They would have to go on their own, Korra had her own problems. She would have to fight these agents with Mako, Bolin, and Iroh by her side. They were about to unleash their first attacks when they were suddenly screaming in agonizing pain as they were lifted into the air from being bloodbent.
Korra wasn't just screaming from the pain of the bloodbending, she was also having flashbacks to when she had to face Amon over 20 years before. It was her greatest fear, a fear she never told anyone about other than Mako. They could only hang there in the air as the Equalists closed in. The dozen or so agents now entering their room took out ropes and handcuffs made of pure medal.
She was just about to be handcuffed when one of the agents spoke, "Commander, look!" The one who was bloodbending her, who she now knew was one of the more higher ranking Equalists, turned his head to over back out on the arena's ring. The bloodbender commander continued to hold his grip on his prisoners but Korra could see why the other agent spoke out. Tal was jogging towards them, and he looked mad...very mad.
Korra couldn't believe it as she saw that Tal's eyes had began to glow, one glowed white while the other glowed red. Tal had entered the Avatar State not only for the first time in the real world, but also for the first time under his complete control.
Well, now things are really going to heat up...literally!
Like I always do at the end of every chapter, I would like to thank all of those who are reading this story many days after updates. And I would like to ask that if you like this story or just have some creative critiques, please leave reviews or pm me. And please fav or follow me and or this story. This is the reason why I still update this thing after all.