Haru looked among the rows upon rows of people sitting on the stands, looking for two people in a sea of way too many. He squinted his eyes, trying to pick out his date in green against a hundred and more also dressed in green, some in red, and some in blue. He regretted not asking Jin to wear something more noticeable or forgetting the number of his seat.
He sighed and started walking down the stairs, hoping his girlfriend would see him hopelessly lost.
"Haru!" he heard her. She was waving at him with a scarf and wearing the smile he fell so hard for.
He waved back with his one free hand and squeezed through the tight row of people lining the seats. Jin patted the open spot next to her and he passed her the bag of cheesy fire flakes.
"Thanks." She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "This new flavor is really good."
Haru didn't understand how she could stand the spicy and salty crisps, but whatever made her happy was all that mattered. He wasn't sure what he was expecting to see today at the arena, but talk among the town was the royal family was going around the cities and villages to promote the start to this year's Interbending Games.
He thought it was a mockery of the war when he first arrived at this new life—with his father being a prisoner for so long and now a proud citizen of the Fire Nations—but the Games had grown on him since then. It was a fight, with no one two ways around it. A fight where people could just have it out without having to worry about the nobles or Fire Lords behind them, of how the villages and lands would later be divided by the fat and far-removed rulers but in name.
That was something everyone here understood.
The Games kept everyone sharp. People learned. And people got to let out steam. Bending schools were only for the richest nobles back in the Earth Kingdom. Sons learned from their fathers who learned from their fathers before them. Or if they weren't as lucky, they learned from the field commanders who only cared about getting the next rock forward.
Here, everyone could see how everyone else bent. Here, everyone could understand how a water bender needed to keep moving to get their water to follow them or how an earth bender always needed their feet on the ground, and even better, how important it was for fire benders to keep breathing to keep making fire.
Haru wasn't sure why the royals ever put these Games on display for everyone to see, but the only thing sure was how confident they were in keeping their precious order. The few rebels that popped up through the years were always put down so quickly by the butchers, so few really dared bare their teeth against the royal family.
Though he couldn't wrap his head around why anyone would do that other than to reopen old wounds.
A few more minutes passed until the announcer came to the middle of the ring with his cone.
"Welcome everyone!" said the enthusiastic rotund man with the colorful mask. "Thank you all for coming to the Game today, and yes! We do have a very special guest!"
A shadow came over the arena. It was an airship that had broken away from their usual routes in the sky, that unleashed a bright green ball of flames—and straight down to the middle of the arena.
Revealing a boy wreathed in fire, his arms and legs shooting the jets of unnatural flames at the ground and keeping him afloat in the air. It was a great blaze no one would have ever expected of a child, and yet here he was.
He landed with a flair and screamed. "Are you ready to runble?!"
The crowds cheered. People of all different nations just a few short years ago, all wronged by the Fire Nation, cheerBed. As much as some might still hate the royal family that started it all, no one here could deny the impact of a big and flashy entrance.
"Is that really that prince?" Jin asked. She ate her flakes through hard scrunched brows.
"Jeong Jeong said we wouldn't miss him." And it was hard not to.
The announcer raised a brown fan and the cheers died down.
"Our prince Raizu is here for an exhibition match, and he's willing to take anyone on for a quick match!"
The boy raised his hands and screamed again, though the cheers weren't as strong this time. Still, a royal was here to fight with them in the dirt, though he was sure they planted their own people among the crowds, but it was still a nice gesture.
The prince walked over to the announcer and snatched his cone. "You guys don't believe me, eh?"
Because who in their right mind would.
"I'll fight," cried out a tiny but loud voice.
It was a girl.
The crowd went silent.
The prince then walked over to the girl and they… argued. Rocks were thrown at the prince who deftly slipped out of the way or crushed the odd rock thrown at him. After a short while, the girl bent one last mound of earth that shoved the prince to his butt into the middle of the ring.
"Fine," the girl said, and went back to where she was seated—surrounded by uniformed imperial fire benders, and together with people dressed in robes marked with gold: other royals.
Haru rubbed his eyes to make sure he saw that right. The earth bender girl, he realized, was also wearing gold trinkets against her green robes—and so was either a royal or part of their entourage. He heard so much about the prince, but he didn't quite expect what he'd just seen. And she also wasn't the only
"Right," the prince said, "maybe one of the local fighters here want to win a bag of a thousand gold pieces?"
But again the boy was met with silence.
Haru shook his head, disappointed. Whatever good will he'd garnered earlier was lost just now with the ignorance.
"I'll fight," said a voice he knew all too well.
Father stood up from the fighters' area and stepped towards the ring.
"I'll fight you prince, if you are alright with me." Father bowed towards the boy.
And the boy returned the gesture back. "I'm honored a master would deem me worthy of his attention."
"And I am honored to clash my bending with a royal."
Father walked over to the boy and bent down. Then the boy slapped himself and threw the bag of gold over to the announcer, who was dragged away by the momentum from catching the bag.
"Err, for the maintenance of the arena then."
"Thank you, prince."
The announcer appeared with another cone. "If both fighters are ready then, you may begin."
Both combatants bowed to each other before reopening the distance between them, Father slowly walking backwards with both hands in front of him, ready for anything.
The prince however, brought his hands together and started charging a ball of blue fire between his hands. Other fire benders had shown the act of charging before, and it could be seen in how they would press together whatever flame they had with them. Though the different colored flames were somewhat new, it was still something Haru had seen the odd fire bender fighter use before—though never one that could use both.
Father brought his hands together and raised a wedge of earth when the prince shouted something about turtles and shot the bright blue fire blast. It tore through his father's shield, but the force of it was broken by an earth pillar from below. Raw power was only good if one could keep fighting after it, though it was impressive nonetheless that someone could break through those shields.
From the dust came the prince running straight towards father, the earth beneath him cracking with each step that brought him shooting forwards faster and faster. His mastery of the inner fire was also on full display, but he was falling for the common trap all green fighters fell into—bad pacing.
Father shot a trio of rocks at him—that the prince barreled through with his body, his charge undeterred by the forces he just met.
The crowd went wild.
A wave of sand spread outwards from Father's shifting kick, the prince put his hands to his sides and let loose a series of explosions of red flames, throwing him around in an erratic pattern that had the people gasping and cheering.
Father raised a mound of earth all around him and shot a great wave of dirt at the fleeting blaze. The prince spun into a ball of green flames that dispelled the wave with his own wave.
Then the prince had closed the distance out of nowhere with a blast of blue flames behind him, putting him within close quarters of father.
Father punched the prince, who deflected the blow and shot his own kick, making up for his shorter reach. It was blocked by a small pillar of dirt, whose tip shot towards the boy, who caught the bullet then crushed the rock with his bare hands wreathed in green flames.
The prince took to the ground and spun with his legs out, unleashing whips of yellow fire. Father leapt towards him with a twist, as his leading leg brought a rock from the ground and the following leg shot it at the boy.
Who blasted the rock with a sharp breath of fire.
The crowds were standing and cheering where they were.
Then the boy exploded into a ball of breathing yellow flames like a roaring sun.
And father wrapped himself in rock and the two battered each other blow for blow, no longer paying attention to any dodges or flairs. They came at each other with their full power and nothing held back, the dull echoes ringing true within the ring and unleashing a great flurry of earth and fire.
When the dust had cleared, Father was on his back and laughing deep from his belly, no longer covered in dirt and neither was he covered in burns. The prince, however, was covered head to toe in dirt but neither worse for wear. Though the same couldn't be said for his hair.
"Shit," Jin said.
Haru finally released the breath he didn't know he was holding.