A/N: I am officially Exam free! It feels good to be relaxing and doing nothing. Sooo I've got a 3 month summer holiday and I intend to update more frequently. I hope you all enjoy this chapter.
Aang POV:
No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to connect with my inner peace and I find I am unable to let my troubles flow down the river. Mediating has never been hard for me before, but there's something about this atmosphere, or maybe the environment that unsettles me. I sigh, I probably should be heading back for that dreadful meeting. I try one last time to connect with the spirit deep within me, yet I still don't feel the peace that I long for. Throwing my hands in the air I shout angrily,
"Why is this so HARD?!" I feel the wind brushing past my cheek, but I get no response to my question. I shake my head in frustration. "Fine don't answer me!" I know it seems like I'm talking to myself, but the wind blowing past me is something I usually associate with the Air Nomads presence, though they never responded to me before, I don't know why I expected anything different this time.
"Maybe it's because you make it so hard." The sudden cold voice startles me. I jump to my feet and take up my fighting stance, when I find the speaker to be Toph I relax my stance, but my body maintains its rigidness in anticipation of what will happen. 'Why is everyone from the old gang trying to buddy up with me? How many times do I have to make it clear to them that our friendship is broken, and that I'm the one that broke it and I'm also the one who wants it to remain broken!' I contemplate whether I should just ignore her or reply. But as my eyes focus on Toph's tense stance, I decide it would be safer for me to reply 'an angry Toph leads to a world of pain.' I think bitterly, before finally deciding to question her presence.
"What are you doing here?"
"You're late." I blink a few times, trying to comprehend the meaning of her words, my eyes widen suddenly in understanding, 'oh no, the meeting!' I slap my forehead in frustration.
"Oh man." I mutter as I bend down to grab my staff, but as soon as I stoop down to pick it up, I find it encased in rock. Just as I'm about to dismantle the rock binding I find it shifting and moving along the ground towards Toph. I stand up straight again and glare at her, knowing exactly what she wants, 'a confrontation.'
"Toph I don't have time for this now!" I snap at her, barely able to hold control on my anger from all the stress that's being piled up on me.
"I don't care. What I do care about is finding out what is your problem?!" I gape at her for a moment, before shaking my head and reminding myself that this is Toph, who has never cared much about keeping up appearances.
"The only problem I have is that you aren't letting me go to the meeting!"
"You're lying!" I bite my lip in worry and silently berate myself, 'way to go Aang! Why not tell her that you've been targeted for numerous assassinations while you're at it?!' I groan inwardly. 'I really don't have time for this!'
"Maybe we can argue about this another time, but right now I've got an important meeting to get to which decides the future of the Air Nation." I respond quickly with mock-confidence.
"What Air Nation? There is no Air Nation!" I close my eyes tightly in anguish, her brutal words, unfortunately hold truth in them, yet I'm so shocked that she would actually say that, knowing how much that would hurt me. My shock is so great that I actually take a step back, away from her. I feel the vibrations as she takes a hesitant step towards me, 'it's like she regrets what she said, but Toph never regrets anything, I must be misreading her.' I resist the urge to open my eyes and keep my attention on my surroundings.
Suddenly I'm all too aware of the presence of something, no wait, somebody or somebodies hiding between the trees a few metres away. 'Oh no, they can't be who I think they are.' I hone in my sensitivity and pick up the vibrations, telling me exactly what I didn't want to know, 'but how come Toph hasn't picked them up? Maybe she's too focussed on her emotions that she isn't taking any notice. I've got to anger her some more to get her away from here, but what? Anything I say she'll pick up on any lies...unless I'm not in range.' An idea quickly forms in my head, with a vague plan outlined I open my eyes and look at her. Her expression is a mixture of anger and remorse. 'All I've got to do is make sure her anger outweighs her remorse.'
"Just get out of here.' I hiss at her, in a hopefully threatening voice.
"Excuse me?!" I watch as she reels back in shock at my words, 'I guess she wasn't expecting that response from me.'
"You heard me. Get out of here now!" She sprints towards me, quickly closing the gap between us and grabs hold of my shirt while slamming me into the trunk of a nearby tree.
"You have no right to tell me to do anything you pathetic excuse of a person." I watch as her features scrunch up into a snarl. 'Not the face you'd like to see on a frequent basis.' I push down the suffocating feeling as she increases the pressure on her hold, and I smirk, my next words hopefully will convey my arrogance.
"Yet you find that I'm the Avatar, I do have a right on what goes and what doesn't." She slams me once more against the tree, but this time the force is much greater and my head smacks the tree with a sickening thud, I try to shake my head to get rid of the black spots dancing across my vision. She pushes me up causing me legs to dangle off the floor, 'just what I was waiting for; she's so mad that she'll believe whatever I say now, especially as she can't tell that I'm lying now that she can't feel my vibrations.' I try to ignore the throbbing pain in my head as I choose my next words carefully.
"Of course I would listen to people I respect and care about. But I don't care about you, never have and never will. It was all a trick so you could teach me earthbending and so I could fulfil my destiny. It was never about you." With a loud roar she chucks me on the hard unforgiving ground, I gasp in pain as my back collides onto the tough surface. I watch as she tightens her fists in fury. Subconsciously I shrink back into myself, her anger is actually scaring me and making me fear for my life. Instead she walks away from me, her back towards me.
"I hate you. I hate you so much for what you've done to me. To all of us. And I never want to see you again, if you ever cross my path I'll end you permanently." The chilling tone paralyses me to the spot. I slowly unfreeze as I hear angry steps moving away from me. I reach out my hand to the ground and using seismic sense I wait until her vibrations are no longer visible to my mind's eye. I roll myself onto my stomach and use my hands to push me up into a kneeling position. A sharp pain hits me in the spine, almost making me collapse back unto the earth. My arms shake at the exerted pressure of holding my weight and tears start leaking from my eyes in anguish until my vision is completely obscured, 'why did this have to happen?' I take a shuddering sigh, before pushing myself off the ground and unto my feet. The world around me seems to spin and I grasp onto the same trunk that I was ironically pinned to just moments ago. I wait until the vertigo passes and straighten myself up as much as I can. Turning my back on the direction that Toph went in, I shout to the trees ahead.
"I know you're there!" At this a group of 6 people jump out of the branches of several trees. Soon I find myself surrounded by them. 'Oh just great. Why is there so many?!' Two more people come out from behind a tree nearby. One of them with an Earth Kingdom insignia steps closer to me, I presume he's the leader of this group.
"Avatar, how pleasant to meet you." His cunning tone emits a confident air about him, my eyebrows shoot up in realisation of why he's so arrogant. 'He thinks he's going to win this time.' I take up a fighting stance, but black dots seem to dance across my vision once more, 'why do I get the dreaded feeling that his confidence is well placed?'
"What are you doing here? Have you got bored with just attacking me at the Air Temples?" He shakes his head in disagreement.
"No, today we are going to assassinate all the world leaders and those who contributed to ending the Hundred Year War, so that we, the Snipers, can rule over the world. And you're the first one on the list." I gulp and take a subconscious step back, 'this was their plan all along.' My eyebrows shoot up, 'today is the last set of meetings, they've been planning this all along and I haven't done a thing to stop it!'
"So why have you been just attacking me all these years, why not anyone else?"
"If we attacked anyone else everyone will be on their guard, with more protection. You are the only one who tends to keep secrets from everyone else. With you out of the way, we could've conducted a wise spread assassination all at the same time, but since you were always fleeting from one place to another, we knew we had to pin you down first."
"No. I'm not going to let this happen!"
"Why try to delay the inevitable? You are weak now, dizzy even, I can tell from your feeble stance." I glance down at my feet to find his words ringing true. I tighten my grip on the ground, for once taking an Earthbender stance and look back up, staring at him directly in the eye, the contact is unwavering.
"I may be weak but I'm not out."
"We shall see about that. No matter what happens, Operation Assassination takes place today in 20 minutes." I widen my eyes, 'oh no everyone is still in the hall waiting for me! They are practically sitting ducks. I've got to finish this quickly to get to them before anything happens.' I smash my foot onto the ground to create an uneven surface, causing half of the troops to lose their balance but the rest stand firm, 'those ones must be earthbenders.' Swallowing, I shift my position to that of an Airbender's stance, in order to throw them off and start throwing air blasts at them as they throw fire and earth. I jump, dive, dodge and evade as much as I can, but the fogginess in my mind slows me down much more than I realise. A chunk of earth hits me square in the chest, making me drop to one knee in pain. 'What am I going to do? Usually I could finish them in no time but this time I'm too exhausted to continue and dare I say it, they're stronger than the usual bunch I get attacked by for the last few years.'
"What's wrong Avatar, surprised? You should be, we've been watching how you've attacked all our earlier divisions and this is an elite group that are going to push on every single weakness you have." I grind my teeth in exertion. But I pull myself up and dance away from each strike, trying to counteract, but each time I try the offensive I get pushed back by someone else. 'I need help!' I scream to myself as a narrowly miss a full on fire blast.
A/N: Well, I should think that's definitely added a bit more of a flare to the story, I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I apologise for the lack of length, but I felt it was best to end there so that the next chapter can take place in a different POV. Reminder: Please review and let me know your thoughts, I won't update till I have at least one review ;) Until next time, I hope you all have a lovely day and enjoy the coming summer days!
8/6/2017
