Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, I don't own Avatar, Bryke rules, blah blah blah.
The Fire Begins to Burn
It's true that Max feels a lot different… but he hasn't had any practice with his waterbending for a very long time. Max was just about to repeat his thought to Huang when the sound of sirens suddenly exploded in every direction.
"They must have noticed one of us is missing… Damn it, what are we going to do now?" Huang said this quietly, but the sound of the sirens no longer made that precaution necessary.
"We can make a break for it… We're going to be caught anyway so we might as well go down fighting!" and before Huang could say anything to the contrary, Max ran out from their hiding place. A guard looking down on the main yard spotted him, though with difficulty.
"I see one!" she yelled, "He's down at the yard!" 'I see one', Max repeated to himself, so they know we're both missing… As Max ran, a guard shot a fireball at him. He dodged it, feeling the heat of the blast on his skin, but only to run into another guard. Max tried to fight him, but his lack of knowledge of the martial arts made it a feeble attempt, and he was captured.
"Let me go!" he half-grunted, half-yelled. Max tried to break free, but his strength was unparallel to his captor. As the energy cost of struggle started to take its toll, Max was suddenly released. "Wha-?" Max turned around and saw Huang's arm rapped around the guard's throat.
"Maaax…" Huang said through the strain of holding the guard, "Don't just stand there, use some waterbending!"
"But there's no wat-" Max couldn't get the words out, for a big hairy arm suddenly rapped around his neck. As Max looked up, he saw that two more guards came to assist the original one holding down Huang. No… Max thought furiously, I won't go down like this, not anymore… He put his arms against the guard's and pushed with all his might. To Max's astonishment, the grip around his neck started to weaken. Max pushed more, and he noticed that, though the guard's arms were shaking furiously against the pull, Max felt no counter-force.
"Hey, I need help over here! There's something with this kid!" The guard sounded panicked. Max realized that he wasn't using his strength either, not even touching the guards arms, in fact! Sudden realization dawned on him. I'm waterbending! I must be controlling the liquid in his arms! Max pushed against the arms with his physical strength and they sprang apart, almost exaggeratingly. Max looked over at the guards holding down Huang, closed his eyes, and concentrated on the unseen water surrounding the prison. He moved his arms, feeling that the water is moving along with them. He moved them higher and higher when suddenly the sound of water hitting metal told Max to open his eyes again. Water flowed from the top of the front wall and into the yard. The guards only had time to yelp as the boiling water engulfed them. Max was so surprised by what he'd done that he almost lost control of the water, though he caught himself in a fraction of second. When the guards holding Huang finally loosened enough to look back, only to see a wave of boiling water coming towards them, they scattered. Huang, no doubt wondering why they suddenly released him, looked back and saw the water. His eyes widened, too stunned to move out of the way. Max saw this and brought his arms together into a V, then separated them again. The water parted into the same shape, just barely missing Huang. The boiling water instead hit the guards about to advance onto the two and were swept away by the pounding force. Keeping the move going, Max slammed the two sides of the water against opposite walls of the prison and froze it. Then there was silence.
It was Huang's turn to look at Max with concentrated disbelief.
"How… the hell… did you do that?! Have you been practicing this whole time?!"
"No, it just… came to me, as if I just remembered how to walk again." They both stood, not saying anything, almost in an embarrassed silence. Then Huang was the first to emit sound.
"Well, we shouldn't put that fantastic stunt to waste. Let's get out of here!" They hurried over to one of the newly formed ice-burgs groping the side of the prison wall and climbed up. Max brought up some of the ice and used as an elevator to slide down the wall. When they got to the boiling lake, they stopped.
"So, do you think you can freeze a segment so that we could walk across?" Huang asked.
"A segment, ha! I can probably freeze this entire lake!"
"Max, there's no reason to freeze the entire-" But Max was already bringing his arms up, hands face down and fingertips facing each other. He took a deep breath, and let it out with a grunt as he forcibly put his hands down. As he predicted, the entire lake froze over. Huang sighed.
"Okay, you froze it. Happy?" Max could tell that Huang was trying to hide his amazement.
Meanwhile, a man on a Fire Nation ship about five miles away was looking over at the Boiling Rock.
"Lieutenant, hand me your spyglass!" he said suddenly. He had noticed something… The lieutenant obeyed unquestionably. The man looked at the volcano with the instrument. He stopped and looked at it with his naked eyes again. "There's a gap in the flow of steam coming from the volcano… Now why would that happen?" the Lieutenant shrugged.
"Beats me, admiral."
"Well I think we should investigate. Tell the helm to turn to the Boiling Rock."
Please be critical. I like compliments, but I can still go back and improve this thing. Point out any inconsitencies or any errors you find.