AUTHORS NOTES MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
So here is another chapter, this time about Dai'Li drills and heatbending.
This chapter was much more fun to write than the last one. I hope the next chapter will be just as much fun.
"Wake up recruits, this is going to be a long day of training. You better get used to it." The voice of a Dai'Li Agent woke me up. I bolted up and jumped out of my earth-bunk-bed cabin.
I quickly passed him and turned around. "Come on, you said we're gonna have a long day, don't make it be even longer." He looked at me and then turned back to the other air-benders. "Now that is exemplary. You better do exactly like him, now GET UP."
I was feeling hungry. I snapped my fingers at the Agent. "Where do I get breakfast?" I demanded.
"You will get breakfast once you earn it" he threatened me. "Head over to the training rooms, first left right then straight ahead and after that the 3rd door on the left."
I gave a low growl as answer and sped off to the training room. I looked around to find an empty room. There were a few crystals giving me some light but otherwise there was nothing to train with. And also nothing not to train with.
I sat down in the corner the most far away from the door. It took an eternity for the other airbenders to show up. As soon as the Agent entered, I jumped up.
"Find yourselfs in pairs, you will be sparring by using basic airbending moves." I looked for Kai and approached him. However the Agent didn't seem to like the idea of us sparring together. "You will be his partner" he grabbed me by the shoulder and assigned me a random other 'recruit'.
"Now hit him." he told him. I wasn't sure if he said that to me or my partner. I saw a blast of air come my way, luckily not really fast. I couldn't see him through the projectile he shot at me and jumped up get a better view. I teleported right next to him. I growled and drew my fist back for a powerful but slow punch to his chest. He saw the chance to dodge and took it.
The Agent seemed satisfied and turned to the next pair. I sat down and watched them hit each other.
When he came to Kai, I stood up to watch. Kai dodged every attack and was about to turn to the offensive as he got interrupted.
"Go easy on me please, I'm not that good." his partner asked. Kai changed his stance and used a really weak attack barely passing the distance between the sparring partners. The Agent didn't like this. "Never show mercy! Now attack your opponent ant this time like you mean it." "Yeah LIKE hemeans it, it will always be LIKE he means it." I shot back. He looked really pissed now. "Ok that's it. You will not get any breakfast due to the lack of air-bending used to fight and making rude comments." This time my stomach answered with a noticable rumble. "If there's a will, there's a way."
"You will find breakfast at your sleeping room." he said to the others.
"And you" he turned to me "are going to stay here for some extra training."
I smirked. "Am I?" I left him with those words, racing towards my long awaited meal with literally the speed of light. I wolfed down what was on the plate next to my bed. I was almost finished by the time the angry Agent entered. The only thing that was left was a slime I supposed to be ment to be soup. He earth-bent my plate and the rest of my breakfast was on the floor forming a gross puddle.
"As I already said, you will not have breakfast. Now clean up this mess." he threatingly build himself up over me. I had a hard time not laughing at how much funny he looked when pissed off.
"Three things. First: I already had said meal. or rather the edible part of it." with that I rubbed my stomach.
"Second: That soup is sour grapes. It smelt terrible. And don't even get me started on the viscosity. " I mockingly held my nose and waved with the other hand.
"Third: what if I don't?"
"Well this is going to be where you are going to live for a long time. You won't want a have such a... misfit in your living room." I could only laugh at this.
"That won't be a problem. I don't plan to live here. In fact I got an escape plan ready. I guess you will have to clean this."
I could hear footsteps coming in my direction. I exited the room to see the other air-benders come my way. "Hey guys, I was dropped my soup, don't step into it." I warned them.
Suddenly I was pushed into a wall.
"Now you may act tough but I will break you and after that there will be nothing left of you but an empty hull serving her Majesty." The agent slowly and threateningly whispered to me. "You may be a hard rock to break but in the end you will be shattered." He turned away to leave the room.
"You can't break sand!" I shouted into his direction. I saw him stop and then continue his way out of this room.
After breakfast we had classes about the glorious origins of the Dai'Li organisation being founded by Avatar Kyoshi and then becoming the Ba Sing Se police force of some sort. I didn't pay attention and instead trained my eyes-open-sleeping-skills.
After Lunch we had 'training of defensive skills' or, as I call it, avoiding rocks. One by one we were tested. The Agent shot an amount of rocks at each of us and we had to avoid it with air-bending.
As I noticed that he was going a lot harder on the weak looking recruits I was flooded with a raging heat coming my heart. First it flowed into my head then through my arms into my hands and through my legs into my feet.
When it was Kai's turn he also sent more shots than his average. However Kai dodged all of them perfectly and even found time to help the one next to him; the same guy he sparred with earlier. Because of this 'misbehaviour' he was punished with as many rapidly fired earth disks as it took to knock him down. When he fought back he was trapped by an earth pyramid trap and then thrown into a cell.
By the time it was my turn my entire body was radiating heat. I saw a rock disk flying towards me and dodged it with a step to the side. Because of his rapid fire the next disk - fired to the same spot - also missed. Next he send two rocks to me from above. I took a step forward and heard them crashing into the ground behind me. The red color of his face indicated he was getting angrier. However he only shot one rock at me this time. After I dodged this one he made a pulling motion with his hand. Intuitively I made a hollow back, grabbed the earth disk he fired at me from behind and threw it into him.
His face was glowing red by now, as was mine. He took a solid and low stance and rapidly shot even more earth disks at me. I couldn't resist the barrage and braced for impact.
But it never came. Instead it felt like being hit by a glass of honey. I also noticed the smell of burnt cloth. I looked down and saw a splash of lava. I could feel the heat of it, a similar feeling to putting your hand on a heated plate of the oven, just much stronger. Strangely I couldn't feel the pain that would make me pull my hand back quickly.
I was ripped out of my thoughts by another glass of honey hitting me. A dozen more quickly followed suit, covering me completely in lava. I sprinted forward, absorbing all rocks that were shot at me, building an even more powerful lava armour. I drew my fist back and aimed at the spot between his shoulders and his neck. As I punched him I pulled all the heat in my arm into my back, turning my arm into obsidian and making my back glow white instead of the usual lava red. The obsidian shattered when I knocked him out (AN: Now that's how to spike a punch properly) and left a wound that looked like it must really, really hurt.
Because of exhaustion I absorbed the heat I build up into my body and absorbed it by calming down. I let them drag me away and passed out.
I woke up in a small cell, about 1x1 meter. The only thing I could see in the dim light given by a crystal in the ceiling was a bench at one wall. I leaned against one of the side walls and rubbed my fingers over the small edges of the brick wall - a habit I developed when being nervous.
They dont use cement. I quickly recognized. I could shadow-bend myself through the wall using the tiny gaps between the bricks. I just had to develop enough fear. I sat down on the bench and tried to remember the most scaring moments of my entire life.
I skipped through my memorys searching for scary ones. I remembered walking through the woods when suddenly hearing a snort of some animal, most likely a boar. At that time I thought I would be attacked and even possibly eaten by that animal. it may sound stupid but you can't think logically when in such a situation.
No that's not scary enough, what else do you have? I remembered the Halloween creepypasta storytime last year. I couldn't sleep well that night as well as the following three ones. Nope. Still not enough. The next memory that came to my mind was that one dream. It started like a normal nightmare: It was war and I ran across the battlefield when I was suddenly hit by a bullet. I felt an incredible pain in my shoulder and fell. Strangely I didn't wake up there but continued lying on the ground. Man I really felt like I was dead.
I opened my eyes and saw that my legs and arms had a darker color now. With enough fear built up I jumped into the wall.
My first instinct was to go up as far as I could. Reach the surface then you are safe. So I went upwards as far as I could. Then I chose a random horizontal direction. In the distance I could figure out a cyan shimmer. Zooming in I recognized a rather familiar pair of eyes.
Jinora noticed me too. She stopped ascending and looked into my direction.
"Michael, what are you doing here? Were you captured too?" she asked.
"Yeah sort of, look I need your help now, I can only move on the surface of rocks but can't pass through them. Can you please help me find a way to the surface?" I replied.
Her eyes indicated that she was confused now. "What do you mean sort of? And stop playing games, this is not fun." "Lets discuss that later, I don't play games. That's how shadow-bending works. Just help me out right now. You search for a way and I wait here alright." Her nod looked really funny, only being able to see her face as one line.
After about five minutes I saw the cyan shimmer again. I sped towards Jinora. "Where do I have to go?" I hastily asked.
"OK, you can go about ten meters upwards from here then go to the left. Take the 3rd way upwards, the other ones are dead ends. Then you should be in the sewers. Turn left, away from the bars , then there is a way out after about 50 meters. Now where is the spot where you waited, I wanted to look where the hideout is. You just ruined my plan by moving."She raged a little.
"Look I've been down there, and let me tell you, they got a pretty big network, you are definitely not somewhere entirely else." I calmed her down. "By the way thanks for the help, I owe you."
With that I quickly used the path she described me.
"Phew you made it" I said to myself while dusting off. I took a deep breath. "I gotta tell the others that about the Dai'Li and stuff." I teleported on top of the highest building. After a few seconds I found the Airship haven/docking station.
"Alright, now where did we go after leaving the ship?" I asked myself while walking down the ramp. "Meh just trial-and-error." I decided.
I ran through the streets of the upper ring looking for a familiar house, a familiar bison or at least a familiar voice. I found a bridge over a river leading to a large building with three golden roofs at different heights.
"I can't believe Miss Queeny Smug Face had them right under our noses the whole time." a memory struck my brain. This is the right one. As I walked towards the mansion I saw a grey haired most likely female figure in grey and black armour knock on the door.
We stood at the door next to each other. She glanced in my direction.
"who are you?"
"One of the first two new air-benders in the air nation." I proudly announced.
The door opened. "Lin? What are you doing here?" Tenzin asked.
"We need to get Korra out of here immediately. Her life's in danger."
"What?" Korra asked. "What's going on?"
"Zaheer and the others have escaped." Lin clarified. Korra just looked more confused.
"Just so you know, those are powerful criminals wanting to take out all powerful entitys to create an utopia." I muttered to the Avatar.
"That about sums it up." Lin commentated. "How do you know?"
"I overheard a talk between my parents and their friends once. Those friends were members." I didn't even hesitate to lie. She just nodded.
"Korra I need you to come with me to republic city where I can protect you."
"I'm not running." Korra resisted. "Look, I'm not a little kid anymore, you don't need to protect me. I came here to find air-benders and I'm not leaving without them."
"Fine then lets get them and get you out of here. Where are they."
"At a Dai'Li/military compound." me and Korra said at the same time. "and we're busting them out." she added while I just giggled.
"Jinxed!" I said with my most childly and innocent voice.
We decided to use Jinora to lure the guards of the Dai'Li compound so we could knock them out. Once we were hid in the shadow of a circular stair.
"Bumi, Michael and Korra, come with me to find the airbenders. You three find Kai. We'll meet on surface shortly. Radio us if anything goes wrong." Tenzin decided.
After that we split into two teams.
I led Bumi, Korra and Tenzin to the sleeping room of the air-benders. "Wake up lazy butts, time to get out of this prison." I cheerfully announced, kicking the door open. The rest of the group entered after me. "What's going on? Shouldn't you be in a cell? And who are those people?" one of the recruits spoke up while stumbling out of their beds. "I'm the Avatar and I'm getting you all out of here." Korra answered. They all got out of their beds quickly, unfortunately making a lot of noise. "Everyone please! You must be quiet for this to work."Tenzin tried to calm them down. "What to work?" that same guy asked. "Are we sneaking out?" I frowned. "I just said that but yeah go ahead and ignore me."
We were about to leave. Bumi crouched down and spoke something into his radio. We were once again held back by guess who. "Wait, there are two..." he looked at me. "There is one air-benders that is not here. We need to get him." Tenzin put a hand on his shoulder. "We're already taking care of that."
After half of the way to the surface we ran into a group of three Dai'Li, one of them had some gildings on his hat. They blocked our way forming a triangle. "We have been infiltrated" The one I supposed to be their leader said. "Sound the alarm" with these words the other two left.
He got into a bending stance and fired two large boulders at us. Without much thinking I absorbed the fear of the recruits and turned into a shadow on the ground. I felt the shades of the boulders run over me and absorbed them. I sped through the ground behind him and dropped the boulders shades behind our attacker. I left the ground and materialized again. Then I stopped controlling the shadows, dragging the rocks in the place to create these shades. The sound of rock being crushed and the "oof!" of the Dai'Li told me I had knocked him out.
"Come on we're short on time, now they know we're here." I urged them.
The Alarm started about one minute later. Rushing through the floor we strangely didn't meet a lot more Agents than when we entered. Of course we couldn't really sneak past them so we had to knock them out but still something didn't feel right. When we reached the exit of the compound Korra stopped us. She took a step outside the doorframe and looked around quickly. "It's all clear."
She was already going outside when I held her back. I could feel the shadows on the wall the moon shone on. I motioned upwards and took a step forward. Clenching my hand into a fist I dragged the shadows of the Dai'Li hiding on the square right in front of me.
"Go!" I shouted. We all ran out and charged over the square, hoping we could escape. However we were cut off by a backup group of Dai'Li. Being forced back we formed a semicircle.
"So" a familiar and at the same time hated voice spoke up. "You've discovered my elite army. I see their loyalty needs some work."
"These Airbenders shouldn't be used as weapons. They have a right to choose their own path." Korra shouted back.
"These Air-benders are Earth Kindom citizens, and I am their Queen. Taking them will constitute an act of war. If you disobey me, I will bear down on you with the entire force of my kingdom."
"Actually not all ot them are earth citizens. I for example was 'recruited' by force and I am not from the Earth Kingdom. You are not my queen." I felt anger rise in me. "Also by what right are you their Queen?" I gestured to the air-benders "Have they chosen you as their leader? Or are you just another spoiled powerhungry monster that tyrannizes people because your father and grandfather did before? You know where I came from we already learnt how foolish a monarchy (AN: or a Führer state) is especially if there is a tyrant in power." I shouted at her.
"How dare you?" she screamed. "There will be definitely be war with you. Now get those air-benders back where they belong" she directet the last sentence to the Dai'Li and turned to go.
"You know freedom of expression is a human right. Starting a war because of human right usage will be displayed as an act aggression because of desposism."
She stopped her tracks, grumbled and then continued.
The Dai'Li shot their earth fists at us, but were blocked by a massive wind blowing them back.
One by one the air-benders climbed up the scaffolding to be picked up by either Asami or Lin in their respective airships. When there were only a few left on the ground they stopped and began climbing up the scaffolding. Simple air blasts were used to knock down the ones who followed us. At last only I, Korra and Tenzin were left. "Oogie!" Tenzin called his bison. Tenzin and Korra used air-bending to hop on the bison. I decided to take a jump. I grabbed the tail of the bison and heard a growl from the front. After that I was flipped in the air with a swift motion of the tail. I feared I would fall but landed in the saddle safely. Looking back I saw a dangerously well aimed rock flying at us, or rather Tenzins head. "Korra this one" I yelled at Korra. She understood and stopped the rock. She then split the rock into multiple shards to deflect more boulders flying at us. "Where are the others?" she asked.
"WE NEED HELP" Bolin yelled, running away from the compound and the Dai'Li on his back. He, Mako, Kai and Jinora were barraged by the Ba Sing Se police force standing on rock pillars and firing small rocks at them.
"Get me down there." I ordered Tenzin. He turned around. "Are you sure? You could get hurt there." "I am." I confirmed. "Now get me down there."
When we were at about five meters above the ground I jumped. The four ones we missed ran past me. "Up" I said and motioned to Bolin. The barrage of pebbles that followed them hit me like a rain of glue. The earth bullets melt into lava and then simply dripped off me. If I concentrate on one spot while light-bending I can teleport there. Lets See what this does with heat-bending. I concentrated on all my rage against the queen and then locked my head like a combustion bender would do. I focused on the middle pillar and watched a miniature sun form right there. The pillars melted like candles. The last thing I remember is the ground coming closer and a pain in the back.
So, there is a new ancient element heat, based on anger.
next chapter is going to be a bit more about universe travel. Man I have procrastinated that.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter and will follow/fav this story. and please leave a review, so I know what to improve.
bye
*waves*