Chapter 3 – Yuri, And What We Know About Him
I am a very good person. Naturally, I could sense something was amiss in the Gifted Laboratory. I vaguely recognized the term Yuri having to do something with the school. So I looked him up. And I found a book in the Great Library at the center of the city called 'Yuri – Non-Bender Vengeance. The Story Of The Founder'. This looked promising, so I opened it up and started reading:
Yuri was the greatest and most infamous non-bender to have ever lived. Upon his arrival into Utopian City nearly 90 years after it's founding, he realized that there was no place for the gifted to co-exist with benders in the city, despite it being a so-called utopia. So Yuri settled in the previously unexplored part of the city known today as the Gifted Embankment. He was the first non-bender to show the talent known as the gifted, He was the first to form the mechanical structures that run and are the Embankment. But unfortunately for everyone, Yuri's gifts were wasted on his evil mind. He grew increasingly frustrated and angry with the benders for not accepting him and his followers. So secretly, under cover of night and in the secret places of the Embankment, he formed a secret resistance with many of his other followers. With this resistance and the technology of the gifted, he launched a full-scale resistance against the benders, assaulting them and attempting to wipe them out of the city. But soon his resistance became a war, with his goals extending towards extermination of all of the benders and their four nations. A double agent known as Chan Lin infiltrated his ranks. Chan was a non-bender just like himself, and she was one of the greatest non-benders to ever have lived. While in the giant war-boats, created by Yuri, on their way to invade the Earth Kingdom, Chan and her group of double agents and secret benders attacked Yuri and his resistance. No prisoners were taken except Yuri himself, and while Chan and her group of double agents were revered as heroes, all of the little faith and trust the four kingdoms had in the non-benders, and specifically the gifted, was lost forever, forced to gradually grow slowly over the years. Before his incarceration to life in the great prison known as Forever Eons, he swore his vengeance on all of the benders. He vowed that one day his followers would rise up from the ashes of defeat and defeat the benders forever.
And here I am now, hit upon by the realization that Yuri's followers had indeed risen – and, in fact, were using the Gifted Laboratory as a front to make weapons and prepare for their upcoming battle with the benders. I rushed out of the library, unsure of what to do next, but realizing that I needed to get someplace safe and calm to think this through. Unfortunately for me, I was too distracted to notice the two figures in the rafters. Too figures that had previously been watching me intently.
One of them, a female about my age, spoke to her companion. "He knows. He has figured out about the resistance."
Her companion nodded. "Don't think we haven't been monitoring him. We actually thought that he would be a nice fit for our group. But he is too upstanding, too kind. Too warm. And he possesses and unnatural obsession of fire. He has also stumbled upon our resistance for all of the wrong reasons. Coralin, it is your newest assignment to find the boy. Track him down. And kill him."
Coralin nodded. The young Earthbender was ready for this mission. Ready to finally put all of her doubts to rest – or to finally accept them.