Chapter 2

Luyi

By the time Ranshi woke up and came to the center room the tiredness had already left the rest of the family. Dad was at work and mom and I were waiting for her to get up. It was the same ritual everyday. Mom and I never started our days fully unless Ranshi was up and awake. In case, you know, she wanted to join us. She never did, but we wanted the offer to always be there. We even started waiting to pick up our dishes so that it wouldn't look like it!

Our conversation with Ran this morning was short by most people's standards, but for Ran it might have well as been playing catch up with an old friend. When asked by our mom, she said her only plans were to find something to do. I only hoped she would find someone to do something with.

Like every day I was sad to see Ran go. Why would she not give me and my friends a chance? Sure she couldn't participate in everything we did because of her lack of bending ability, but she was still my sister! I'm sure we could find something else to do if she only asked! Instead she went off to do...whatever it was she was going to do. I felt bad for not knowing what my own sister was doing but she had just admitted to mom that even she didn't know yet.

Mom just put her hands on her face and sighed. There was an awkward silence, but we both knew what each other were thinking.

"Go play with your friends, sweetie," Mom said. "I'll take care of things from here." She sounded tired all of the sudden. It was jarring after all that added cheerfulness from when she was talking to Ran.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "I could help you with-," before I could offer anything I was cut off.

"Yes I'm sure. Have fun Lu." She said, grabbing my shoulder and squeezing it as she smiled at me. I gave her a smile back and nodded as I got up.

By the time I got out of the house, Ji and the rest of my friends were waiting from not too far away. I waved and ran up to them.

"What took you so long?" Ji asked. She was the poster child for an earth kingdomer, her shirt the national dark green and her pants it's dark brown She was also looking very annoyed.

"Sorry," I said. "Ranshi took forever to wake up." I said apologetically. Ji took a big dramatic look around, her eyes scrunched up in confusion.

"Where is she?" She asked in a showy voice. "I don't see her anywhere!" After she was done looking around she glared at the others and they too followed her lead of pretending to look for Ran, except for Zan who already looked genuinely confused.

"You know she isn't coming." I said, crossing my arms. I swear Ji could never tell when a joke was actually funny.

"Then why were you waiting on her and wasting our time?" She asked, dropping the mask of confusion.

"Because she's my sister!" I said defensively. I saw my other friends start to get antsy, but I didn't know why. It was just me and Ji. Fen in particular took a step back.

"Maybe she was trying to get Ran to join us?" Xin offered. His sister, Zan, seemed to get excited at the idea.

"Whatever," Ji said. "We've already lost enough daylight. Let's get going." I was glad she was finally dropping it.

"Awesome, what are we doing?" I asked. Ji smiled widely.

"Just wait and see what we set up at our house!" She said excitedly. The energy wasn't just high from her either. Everyone, who presumably knew what she was talking about, all looked excited as well.

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" I asked. With this Ji and the others started off to Ji's house, me following close behind.

By the time we were going to Ji's house most people were either not home or were committed to staying inside for the day. Everyone that was, except for Mrs. Wei. Normally she was out in her lawn watering her flowers, but today she was just sitting in her rocking chair not even rocking.

"Hey Mrs. Wei!" I said waving to her. She raised a hand to wave back, but then grimaced in pain. I stopped seeing this. I wondered how she hurt herself. I started to walk up to her, and of course if I was taking a detour that meant we all were taking a detour.

"Hello dears" she said, her voice shaky. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"I saw you looked hurt, what happened?" I asked. "I wanted to see if everything is OK." Mrs. Wei sighed, which caused her to cough violently. Everyone in town knew that she wasn't doing to well as it was, but I had never seen her this bad before.

"It was another one of those attacks last night." she said. "I woke up under a boulder last night." She said after she had finally caught her breath. I couldn't believe it. I knew that someone was attacking people, but who would attack a sweet old lady like Mrs. Wei?

"Oh my gosh!" I explained. "How are you now?" I fretted. I knew I wasn't a medical professional, but maybe there was something I could do to make her feel better. There had to be something.

"Oh don't worry about me dear, the doctor bandaged me up and said I should heal. I just have to be careful in the meantime to give myself a fighting chance. But please be careful for yourselves as well. Things have gotten dangerous around here."

"Don't worry about us," Ji said "we're all benders, we can take care of ourselves." As though to prove it, she stomped a foot on the ground and made a rock the size of her shoot up and then let it down after a few seconds.

"That's nice dear." Mrs. Wei said. She was obviously annoyed, but there was no malice in her voice. "Why don't you all go run along and play now?" she asked. Taking the obvious cue we left her alone.

The walk to Ji's house wasn't long, On the way there though I noticed Fen had started to slow down. I eased up on my pace until we were side by side.

"What's on your mind?" I asked. Fen hadn't even reacted to me coming next to her so I assumed she was completely spaced out.

"What if bending isn't enough?" She asked. Fen had never been the strongest bender. Combine that with her small stature and I could see why she was scared with everything going on.

"Hey," I said, putting a hand on her shoulder "we'll be OK. Even if bending isn't enough we've got each other." This seemed to put her a bit more at ease.

When we finally got to her house she and everyone else ran up ahead into her backyard saying they wanted to make sure they all 'saw my reaction.' When I got to her backyard I saw a large earthen structure that had obviously been bent into existence.

"What...am I looking at?" I asked. The structure had no defining features on the outside and I couldn't see in from where I was standing.

"It's a bending course!" Ji said grinning. I grinned too. She had been designing one for months for her dad to make. I had asked to see her designs a million times but she never let anyone but her dad see because she didn't want us to 'cheat by memorizing everything'.

"We've all already went through it before we got you." Xin said.

"Multiple times." Ji added. "Meaning it's your turn! I managed to shave my time down to two minutes!" I glanced back at the structure, what could possibly be in it? I walked around to the front. I couldn't see anything because a cloth had been draped over it.

"Who's time keeping?" I asked. Xin pointed at his sister who held up an hourglass filled with sand. I cracked my knuckles and took a deep breath. I had a minute and fifty nine seconds.

"Time starts when you get in." Ji said. "Whenever you are ready." I nodded at her. It was go time. I ran through and allowed the cloth to pull itself over my head. It seemed the inside was lit by torches.

When I got in I saw a chasm deep enough to make me not want to fall down it and on the other end was a wall. I stomped and a bridge arose in front of me to cross the chasm. Easy.

I stared at the wall for a second wondering what I was supposed to do until it hit me. I took a step back and took my bending stance, pulling my arms back and forth. With each cycle of me pulling my arms another slab came out of the wall. When I finished my staircase I ran up it.

Now on the top of the wall there was a spider web of earth pillars. Was this supposed to be a puzzle or a test of brute force? I didn't matter either way as I punched the middle of the pillars causing them to fly away from me. They hit the end of the tunnel and fell beyond where I could see.

I ran to where the pillars had fallen and saw that once again there was a giant fall, only this time it wasn't a chasm like before. At the bottom I could see the light of the outside. For the last time I took my stance and raised my arm straight in front of me, then bending my forearm and downwards so that my arm made an acute angle. One of the pillars that had fallen erected itself at a slope. Now that I was seemingly done, I slid down my slide and covered my face as my eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness of the outside world once again.

"How'd I do?" I asked Zan as I stood up. I looked around at everyone who had shocked looks on their faces. Except for Ji, who just stared at Zan

"About a minute and a half." She said. I pumped a fist into the air and wiped some sweat from my forehead.

"No way!" Ji said, going from her dead stare at Zan to anger. "There is no way she beat me! That was her first time! I didn't even beat it that fast when I knew what to do!" I just shrugged at her.

"Maybe she's just a better bender then you!" Fen teased. Ji went red in the face as the siblings snickered.

"Shut up Fen! I'm not even sure you're a real bende. With the rocks you bend you might just be getting lucky that the wind is blowing your pebbles around. At least I made it through without having someone come and help me." This time it was Fen's turn to go red, her face redder than her hair.

"Hey now, no need to fight. I'm sure I just got lucky." I said. Ji just looked away from me and Fen still looked embarrassed. "We're all perfectly capable benders, Fen included." Fen smiled at me, and I smiled back. Ji, however, was not satisfied. She walked up to me and got in my face.

"Since Fen thinks you're so much better than me, why don't you just prove it? Let's have a duel. Right here, right now." I wished she hadn't tried to bring Fen back into this, but I also knew that she had hurt JI's pride. She would have been less mad if Fen had broken Ji's arm.

"Sure, I'm down." I said nonchalantly. Ji smirked. I turned around and walked away so that were the standard six feet from each other.

"Zan, you ref!" Ji yelled. Zan sighed and walked to the reffing position in the middle and to the left.

"Begin in three...two...one! Go!" She yelled. Ji wasted no time and hurtled a good sized rock at me, making me duck.

"Good one!" I yelled. She smirked again but didn't say anything. Instead she launched another rock at me. I couldn't duck this time. I stomped my foot and a wall came out of the ground in front of me. I sighed as I heard a crashing sound on the other side of the wall.

"You can't just play defence!" Ji shouted. I couldn't tell if she was calming down and just getting into the game, or if she was just frustrated she hadn't hit me yet.

"Yeah, yeah." I muttered to myself. I let the wall down, which was a huge mistake. She had been waiting for that, and as soon as I did her third rock slammed into my stomach and knocked me onto my back. A pain erupted in my stomach as I gasped for a breath.

"Whoo!" Ji yelled, celebrating out of my view as I gazed at the sky. "Who's the better bender now LU?" She taunted. Finally I caught my breath. I slammed my elbows into the ground and then shot them out again so that a slab from the earth would tilt me back to a standing position.

"Pretty good Ji." I said smiling. "My turn." I stomped, causing a small rock to lift from under Ji's feet to lift up, making her fall. While she got up but was still shocked from my sudden recovery. I stomped again, causing a cage of spikes to form around her. Of course she punched her way out of it, but I was expecting that. As she was occupied with the cage I took my chance to shoot my arm out diagonally, causing a pillar to jet out and stop right before her chest. The look on her face was priceless. I shot a look at Zan. Zan shot a look at Ji. Ji didn't meet her look.

"That was pretty cool," Zan said. "You want to keep going JI?" Ji didn't respond. When it was clear that she wasn't going to, Zan took her answer. "Alright then. Lu wins."

I walked over to Ji, who still didn't look very happy. I reached out my hand to shake. "You got me pretty good for a moment there." I said. "I wasn't sure I was going to be able to recover from such a hard blow." In all honesty my stomach was still hurting pretty badly. It wasn't a big deal though. I had gotten plenty of bruises learning to earth bend, an embarrassing number of them self-inflicted. Finally Ji looked me in the eye and shook my hand. I smiled at her, and she gave a reluctant smile back.

"Yeah. I guess your thing was pretty cool too." She said. I was fairly certain that was the nicest thing I had ever heard Ji say.

"Thanks!" I said. I looked around to see what the state of the group was. The siblings were reconvening, and Fen seemed to be looking at the sky.

"Hey guys," Fen said. "It's getting to be about noon. My mom said she could make lunch for all of us today." She said. Score! Fen's mom was a chef from Ba Sing Se. Fen liked to claim that she had even served the Earth King once, but her mom wouldn't say if that was true or not. Anytime I had her food though, it was easy to imagine the king had eaten the same thing and asked for seconds. As a matter a fact, as soon as Fen mentioned food I realized how hungry I was. Waiting with an empty breakfast plate for your sister to wake up all morning long is not the same as having just eaten breakfast. Add that to an obstacle course followed by a duel and I didn't need a royal banquet to be convinced to eat.

"Awesome! I'm starving!" Ji said. The siblings nodded in agreement. It was settled. Ji's house was near the middle of all of our houses, so it wasn't a long walk anyways. As we were walking Zan nudged me and pointed.

"Hey, isn't that the house your sister likes to hang out at?" She asked. I realized she was right. I didn't know Kansay very well, but Ran had made me go over to his house once.

"Yeah, it is." I said. I could hear some talking coming from the back yard, but I couldn't actually make it out.

"I wonder what your sister is doing at some old man's house." Zan said. I had wondered that plenty of times myself, but anytime I had asked I was just told that they talked. I guess that was fair enough though.

"She got really close to him after she finally came to terms with not being able to bend." I said. "She's like a grandpa to him."

"That explains it." Ji said. "They just sit around moping the whole time and complain about being nons."

"Nons? Is that what they're called now?" Fen asked. I'd never heard the term before either, but it made sense.

"Duh." Ji said. I heard a snicker from Xin. "Non benders is such a mouthful." She began to laugh at something unknown to me.

"What's so funny?" I asked. It took Ji a moment to stop laughing and catch her breath.

"I can just imagine it," she said "oh woe is me, Ranshi, the only nonbender in my family! My family is so cool! They can make rocks fly and make entire buildings by themselves! All I can do is sleep half the day and hang out with another nonbender because everyone else is just too cool and powerful to hang out with." She said this in her best imitation of Ranshi, and by proxy me. She feigned tears, just really hamming it up.

"Oh shut up." I said. "Besides, Ran hasn't shown an interest in bending in years." I said. Of course no one could forget the bender phase she had when we were younger.

Suddenly the door to Kansay's house opened, and out came Ran. She looked happier than I had seen her in who knows how long. That was until she saw us. I wondered if it was because of me. Did she just resent me for being a bender so much that the mere sight of me was enough to suck the joy out of her.

"Hey Ran!" Zan called. At first she didn't respond. Then she slowly began to walk over to us.

"Hey," she said tentatively. Her eyes never settled on one of us, but she didn't avoid looking at us either. Instead she kept looking back and forth between the five of us.

"We were just going to eat lunch," Zan said. "You could join us if you want! My mom makes really good food." Again Ran did not respond immediately. "I mean, you don't have to if you want to I just thought maybe you might want to so I just wanted-" she was talking more and more quickly until Ji nudged her. "Sorry, it's up to you." She said before shutting herself up. Finally, Ran's face softened.

"Thanks Zan, really. But if your mom is making food she's probably already having to make a bunch to feed five people." She hesitated, then looked at Ji, then at the ground. "Maybe another time though." She said. I was stunned. Whatever she had done at Kansay's must have really put her in a good mood. She muttered a bye and began to walk away.

"She just doesn't want to go from complaining about being a non to hanging out with a group of benders." JI said to Zan. "Hey watch this." She stomped, and a rock came up. Before anyone could say anything she launched it towards Ran. A fire lit inside of me that burned so much it made me nauseous. I barely had time to stomp my own foot to bring up a wall to protect Ran. After the dust from the collision cleared I let the wall down and saw a petrified Ranshi. After I saw she was OK I turned to Ji. Lunch was going to have to wait.