CHAPTER 3

I regarded the man beneath me pointedly and got off of him, knowing he was not a threat to me. Taking a few steps back I took a deep breath and looked at the tree's around me. How did I get here ? The tree's around me were enormous, they stretched up to the heavens and had large roots snaking into the ground. The leaves were natural shades of red and orange, casting a dreamlike shade of light onto the foliage below. I had been here before, but a long time ago when I was a child, I was somewhere in the earth kingdom. Flashes of images played through my head of me escaping the Fire Nation port of Aros!

I remember now.

I had been fleeing Lord Caligar's estate, this I now remember, but I can only recall boarding the boat and that's it. I glanced at Jet, who now stood up and rubbed his shoulder gently, eye's still trained on me. Jet, yes Lord Caligar had mentioned his name once before at a meeting with a few of the Lord's that ruled over the earth kingdom territories. He was a notorious enemy, skilled fighter with a thirst for fire nation blood, some of the soldiers had nicknamed him the extinguisher. Jet looked dangerous, this 6'4 framed man reminded me of a prowling cat, ready to pounce if I so much as moved a few feet. He knew my identity, or what nation I belonged to anyways. I had a fire emblem tattooed on my forearm along with five thin bands just below it. The five bands signaled that I was owned by one of the high lords, and pretty pricey if anyone were to ever find me missing.

"You look confused?" Jet questioned, his demeanor pleasant "Care to sit a spell while I explain how we found you?"

I blinked, and remained silent. He was trying to calm me down, make sure I wouldn't run away. The good thing about this situation is that he didn't know what I was. My tattoo only gave away the fact that I was owned by a high lord, it didn't specify if I was his mistress, servant maid, guard etc. Jet didn't know if I was a born native to the fire nation, or a slave that was captured, trafficked and sold. But most importantly, Jet did not know if I was a firebender or not. Not that the last bit mattered, if the few stories I had heard about his burning hatred for the fire nation were true, I was in a predicament. Glancing around I realized that I would have to play it innocent, there was no way I was getting out of these woods alive. When my father took me through this forest on one of his trips we had to have a guide, it was extremely large and apparently a lot of taboo was connected to it. I wasn't sure if it was due to Jet and his people or just the ancient feeling that seemed to be alive with every breath you took.

"You see in my community of people there are those of us who have exceptionally good fighting skills, and being the type of strong willed, giving people that we are we make sure to never waste anything. That includes our talent, which we expressively use against multiple Fire Nation armies that love to take up camp around these areas. At the end of our victory with these scum ridden soldiers, we take the supplies we need and use it to keep our safe haven thriving. By either trading things we do not need for things we do, or repurposing some we have acquired, nothing is wasted. " Jet stated cordially, taking a few steps closer to me, resulting in me doing the same in the opposite direction. "This time one of our raids took us a little farther than normal, up near a small town called Kouda. I had been there a few times, met some really nice people on both occasions. This time however it had been scorched to the ground."

The air got thick with tension, this time his pleasant demeanor had vanished and the real Jet appeared in front of me. At the mention of the city something stirred in me, it sounded very familiar, I could almost touch the memory but still it was evasive. I already knew what happened even before he said anything. I must have been captured by Anders, which was the head of the Elite Soldiers Lord Caligar possessed. I was considered the master assassin, which was the job that Anders had always tried to outshine me for, even though the position was passed down by generation by my family. The master assassin had been a line of Cobrian men since a hundred years ago when the fire nation had began their siege on the world. I had been the first girl in the cycle, which posed some problems at first, until the age of 6 where I was proclaimed a prodigy bender and at the age of 16 when I was proclaimed a superior assassin as well. I took the title of master assassin five years ago when I was 18 years old when my father died.

"Every building was on some level burned, people were not only injured but three found dead due to resistance of the soldiers. 'But something was different about these soldiers' one woman had told me 'they had cold, dead eye's that did not flinch when they delivered death to these men'." Jet spoke coldly, then a wicked smirk graced his face as he ran his fingers through his dark mane of hair "We tended to these people as best we could during the day, helping in any way possible, we learned that they were looking for a woman. A strangely captivating woman who had been there the night before one man had reported. He had compared her to a goddess, with her long blonde hair, fair skin that made her voluptuous body seem to glow in radiance. The man who waited on her during the night at the local inn said it was her emerald eyes that charmed him into ignorance. At the end of the night he realized his change purse had been stolen with the previous month's earnings."

"When night fell we used that as our cover, we sent our archer to go scout the trail they had been using. But it didn't take long to track them because at that point they were in a full out brawl. A third of the two dozen or so soldiers were injured on the ground from a previous encounter and the others were fighting a pack of armadillo lions. Luckily that was the case because it made our job of swooping you out of there so much easier. We found you in the main tent, bound in tight chains." Jet continued, taking a few strides and coming right into my personal space. He gazed into my eyes and tucked a lock of golden hair behind my ear. The action was severely gentle, but held so much hidden malice and threat to it. His eyes were ablaze and he seemed to be amping himself up, this was the moment I started to worry. I learned never to fear any mortal man long ago. I have seen some of the most powerful men coware at my feet, powerful and ambitious men can be easily overcome, it is a man driven by insanity, that was a man to fear.

" You were a bloody mess and drugged up enough to take down three badgermoles. We stopped by Kouda to clean you up and bandage you so would survive the trip back here. It was funny really, you looked terrible but after they washed all that blood off you we realized it wasn't yours. Strange right? That must have meant you must have went through several of those men before they could safely detain you, we did see quite a few lying on the ground back there." Jet spoke shaking his head "My brother says there was no way you could have taken on so many men, but after that little display of hand to hand you just showed me I at least know you're one of them. Which confuses me even more because why would you be running away from the fire nation in the first place? Unless you went rogue, tried to get the glory all for yourself?"

Without any time for a reaction Jet's arm shot out and gripped my neck tightly. Instant air flow was cut off and I did nothing to retaliate against him. Keeping calm, I started to get uncomfortable as the air in my lungs started to dissipate, I couldn't give in. He wasn't going to kill me, he hadn't jumped hundreds of feet to save me from dying just to kill me now. Vision blurring slightly he growled as he didn't get a response and through me to the ground. Coughing I felt my neck bruising up already, before I could fully recover I felt a hard yank on my hair and my body being dragged. I couldn't help but clutch his hand grabbing my hair because the pain was quite excruciating.

"I really didn't want to have to do this the hard way," Jet admitted, feigning sympathy "But I'll be gentle with you, at first."

Dragging me down a path filled with rocks he yanked me hard onto my feet and I stumbled behind him awkwardly. We walked this way for a about ten minutes before we came to a small clearing. Kicking the back of my left knee Jet forced me onto the ground and took my hands and cuffed them tightly with mental chains. Then he hooked it onto a metal hook sticking out halfway off an eight foot beam coming out of the ground.

I was going to be whipped.

Resting my forehead on the beam I just wanted this to be over and done with. To think this man could break me was humorous to say the least, my will was stronger than iron. I had begun pain desensitization when I was just six years old, the whip was actually one of my dad's favorites. Jet crouched down next to my kneeling form, his hand caressed my back briefly as he leaned in. "I just want you to know I'm not going to kill you." He reassured me, tilting my chin to meet those dangerous orbs of gold "I'm just going to hurt you, really really really bad."

Standing up quickly I saw the whip unravel in his hand and out of my sight as he stood a few feet behind me. A mere second passed before the whip had cracked hard onto my back. The sensation of numbness spread like wildfire, suppressing the pain that would have otherwise wracked at me. I closed my eyes and tried to meditate and block out any pain that might seep through.

Crack

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Crack

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Crack

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Pain.

It nudged me out of my slumber and called for my attention seductively. Slowly coming back into consciousness the throbbing in my back grew stronger and stronger with every passing moment. My hearing came first again, soft murmurs of two people came up but I didn't have the care nor ability to distinguish what they were saying. I tried to focus on my body placement and where I currently was. Waiting just a few more moments I could sense I was laying on my stomach, on a padded bed, most likely where I was when I first arrived here. Not that I had a choice of moving I tried to keep my breathing even, which was ragged to begin with due to the pain.

"You heard what Lee said Jet, the soldiers had injuries when they arrived at Kouda.." A soft voice spoke firmly "This girl did not fight all those men, you just know that she was their prisoner. Yes, she might have been trained in hand combat, but what if that was just to protect her from men like you?"

Silence.

"MEN LIKE ME MAGGIE?" Jet roared and I can only presume he stood up abruptly because a chair fell over violently "This woman is a killer, I could see it in her eye's. She didn't even flex a muscle when I whipped her the first time, didn't cry out or anything. That's a trained soldier who belongs to a very important man. For the right price we will return her and get out money's worth."

"Jet did you ever stopped to wonder if that girl was captured because she was trying to escape the fire nation like everybody else?" The women asked gently, and there was a moment of pause. "When she first woke up and I looked into her eye's I saw pain so deep and so raw, that she almost reminded me of you when I first saw you. This girl, whoever she is, has no one. If she did then she wouldn't have left wherever she was from. We are supposed to be a source of hope Jet, or did you forget why we still fight?"

Jet said nothing, because the last I heard were footsteps out the door.

EN FIN

OKAY ! So one thing you need to know about me is that I am fairly impatient. I realized that the first chapter was extremely brief, and not much attention would come to this story if you hadn't read the original already. SO I wrote this chapter in hopes to lure more people in. Again I didn't want to go all out because if this story is not going to pick up again then I didn't want to write a lengthy chapter. Loved it ? Hated it ? Let me know, I will NOT write another chapter if I don't get at least three reviews. But I do really want to write this story so R&R PLEASE AND THANKYOU !