Thanks to anyone who left a review, you made my day and made me want to continue writing c:
Hope you enjoy this chapter.
Quietly, Jaya and Leonardo walk out the door of the presumed storage room. Expecting the worse, Leo peeks around the corner - only to find it deserted.
Jaya follows him as he leads her down the hallway, hopefully to their way out.
Leo finds a fire escape door and opens it cautiously. No alarms go off - were they in an abandoned building?
Slowly he looks around. It was night, with the moon high in the sky, and the street around them was completely deserted. He takes a step outside, and Jaya follows right behind him.
To Jaya, the darkened New York City looked familiar. She couldn't make out anything in the darkness, only the shadowy bits and pieces.
"This is odd." She thought aloud, looking around at the buildings around her. "Looks almost like the Spirit World."
"The what?" Leo questions softly.
She shakes her head. "It's— the place that saved us." She breaths the fresh air, and steps out onto the gravel. "I can feel the earth again."
Leo smiled slightly; She looked genuinely happy to be outside, unaware of the dangers.
Suddenly they hear a voice from behind them. "HEY!"
The turtle grabs the Avatar's hand and starts to sprint, not towards the street, but rather deeper into the alley beside them. Jaya was about to question where they were going when she felt a searing pain in her arm and yelped.
Leo turned towards her as she held her arm. "What the..?"
A man stood at the end of the alley with some kind of gun Leo didn't recognize. Jaya shifts her weight and the ground beneath her buckles, moving quickly straight towards the gun man. She hears his grunt as the rock hits him.
"Oww." The girl put a hand on her arm and held it, as if that could take the pain away.
From the door behind them, they see more men approaching. Each carried a variation of the same gun. Leo unsheathed his katanas and stood in front of Jaya.
"I don't know what you are, freak, but you better step away. The Avatar is ours." One of the men said. Each were dressed identical in simple black bodysuits, bearing weaponry at their belts. Even their faces, covered in masks, looked like duplicates of each other.
The turtle grimaced but didn't stand down, preparing for the oncoming fight. The gunmen opened fire and Leo sliced the bullets with his swords in a flurry of motion, pressing backward against Jaya as they both were pushed back from the oncoming fire.
Jaya let go of her arm and took a stance, swaying slightly.
"Don't know who you guys are, but you sure aren't getting me again." Jaya let go of her arm and reached downward, pulling upward in a quick motion to summon a wall of earth, separating them from the men. She heard them cry out on the opposite side, and immediately went back to clutching her arm.
"We need to get you out of here." The leader immediately looked around for a manhole cover. But they had reached a dead end, there wasn't any in sight. "Can you run?"
"I can barely bend with this." She grimaced, unhooking her water pouch from her belt. She heard gunfire on the other side of the wall. "They're trying to take down the wall. We have to hurry."
Leo watched as she frowned and held the water pouch upside down, where only a single drop fell out. She grimaced.
Behind them, cracks started to form as the men struggled to break down the wall with any means necessary - Leo could hear their efforts and ragged breaths.
Without another word, Leonardo sheathed his blades and picked up Jaya and immediately leapt onto the fire escape, climbing with one hand. She wrapped her arms around his neck as tight as she could, but even that made her wince.
They were now on the rooftop, however, the men chasing them also noticed their attempted escape. They started to open fire.
Leo set the girl down and unsheathed a blade, dodging the bullet fire quickly. Jaya was barely able to get out of the way of the oncoming gunfire, not knowing what it was. She fired several quick fire blasts towards them with her good arm, trying to ignore the pain.
"We have to keep moving. Leave them, come on!"
Jaya paused before sending up a cloud of dust with air-bending, shielding their escape. "What the heck are those? Some wacked up kind of metal bending?"
"They're called guns. They can shoot bullets, which are like little pieces of metal, at people to hurt them." The turtle explained as he pulled her along.
Jaya stopped, panting, halfway across the next roof.
"Did we lose them?" She whispered.
The turtle looked around, seeing nobody following them. If they were so desperate to chase down this girl.. This "Avatar".. Why did they give up so soon?
Something didn't seem right.
"Come on." Leo climbed onto the fire escape and offered Jaya a hand up. She accepted, using her good arm and climbing down the fire escape one handed.
At the bottom, she looked around again. There was more light here, and the buildings were tall - unlike anything she'd ever seen. Different smells waved through the streets, some sweet and some disgusting, but most of them were unfamiliar to her.
And there was people of all kinds - dressed in outfits so different to hers that she instantly felt out of place. Jaya instinctively buried herself deeper into the shadows, hoping none of these were her enemies.
Her enemies.. Who even were they? Who even took her and brought her to this strange world, where apparently giant turtles were the norm? She didn't see any more around, but she assumed that there must have been more because why else would the first contact she'd had with anyone in this strange world be one of them?
The turtle had scanned the streets for signs of pursuers, and, deeming them safe, motioned for Jaya to follow. He didn't notice that she was deep in thought and jumped slightly upon seeing him again.
"Come on, I'll take you somewhere safe and then we'll take care of your arm."
He pulled up the lid to the sewer and motioned for her to go down. Jaya jumped in and used air bending to lower herself to the ground. To her surprise, she landed in water. Leo dropped down beside her after silently closing the lid, and the two of them disappeared into the darkness.