The Firebender

Chapter 15: Are We There Yet?

Water, Earth, Fire, Air

Long ago the four nations lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the avatar master of all four elements could stop them but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed and my cousin and I discovered the new avatar. An airbender named, Steven. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Steven can save the world.

August 30, 1245

Operation save Peridot is definitely a go. We've spent five days trying to make our escape plan perfect, we wouldn't want something to go wrong and not have a back up. That's why we've been thinking about every possible thing that can affect our mission.

Despite this being super dangerous, I can't wait to meet Peridot but on better circumstances of course. Ruby…actually, now that I'm thinking about it, Ruby hasn't told us one story about Peridot where she was a regular person. I wish she would, just so I can get some background about Peridot.

Maybe then I can look at her like a normal person opposed to a benevolent firebending foe.

Connie closed her journal and slid it into her bag that rested beside her in Lion's saddle, she smiled. "Are we almost there yet?"

"Not yet," Ruby mumbled, looking down at the light clouds in the sky from her spot beside the waterbender. "It'll take a while for us to get there, especially if we're planning on getting there at night. I sent Peridot a letter in advance telling her to come out and meet me in the forest, that way when I go to retrieve her the rest of you should be safe,"

The curly haired girl looked them all in the eye, expression serious. "…if I don't come back in fifteen minutes then leave without me, I can't risk you guys getting caught."

Amethyst frowned. "No way, we're not leaving—"

"It's fine Amethyst, you guys would be killed on the spot or separated in prison awaiting a proper death sentence," Ruby spoke honestly. "…if I'm captured then I'll find a way out," She smiled reassuringly.

Pearl nodded stiffly, unsure. "Okay, we'll wait fifteen minutes but you're still not going in alone,"

"I'll go with you," Sapphire said softly, earning a stifled laugh from Amethyst who was jabbed in the stomach by Connie and Pearl. "I can protect myself and if one of us gets hurt I can use my healing powers,"

Ruby bit her lower lip, looking at the waterbender worriedly. "…I don't want you to get hurt," Sapphire felt her cheeks light up and then just as quickly, her stomach dropped; Ruby looked at the others. "I don't want any of you to get hurt,"

Amethyst shook her head. "Don't worry about us,"

"Yeah don't, we all know that you wouldn't let anything happen to us Ruby," Steven said, leaning on the edge of the saddle to look at them from where he was guiding Lion. "We trust you,"

Ruby nodded sheepishly when she earned reassuring smiles from the others, including Pearl.

Connie picked this moment to bring up something she had been meaning to ask. "We barely know anything about Peridot. It would be nice if we could get some background information about her so we can see where she comes from, that way she'll just be sweet little Peri instead of the notorious Peridot whose tried to kill us dozens of times," She ended sweetly.

"What do you mean?" Ruby questioned nervously.

Steven squealed. "Story time!"

"Yes," Sapphire added, voice monotone, with a small smile. "You've told us a story about almost everyone but her,"

Ruby scratched the back of her neck. "There really isn't much to tell but I guess I can start from the day I first started hanging out with her. It was shortly after Jasper and Lapis had begun getting really close so I was left out most of the time,"

Connie grabbed some of the offered fire-flakes from Amethyst and listened. "…"

Seven year old Ruby cheered as she jumped out of the royal carriage that had dropped her off in the Fire Nation Slums. Her driver had gotten off of the horse to open the door for the Fire Nation Princess.

"Thanks for driving me Neil," Ruby smiled up at the dark haired man.

Neil bowed politely. "Anytime your majesty," He looked around the land of the firenation slums with his nose turned up. "…I will return shortly, I have a few errands to run for your mother but I will be back soon. Please don't go too far," He begged, not wanting to get another lecture from her father; then again, it was better than a meeting with the Queen.

"I won't," Ruby admitted, gesturing to a small hunt a few feet away. "I'll be at Peridot's house if you need me,"

Without another word they each went their separate ways. Thankfully Neil didn't have to worry about the princess's safety, people knew better than to lay a hand on her. It helped that Ruby was beginning to become a great firebender, thanks to the lessons her father had began giving her.

Jasper was too wrapped up in Lapis, so Ruby found herself either learning new moves with her father or meeting up with Peridot to test her inventions. Yellow Diamond actually got rid of Ruby's royal guards a few months ago when she peeked into their training sessions and saw her youngest daughter almost redirect lightening.

Even when the powerful spark shot her across the room Ruby jumped up with a goofy smile. Now, Yellow Diamond punished them severely whenever they tried to assist her children with anything; she believed they could only get stronger if placed in a dire situation.

Neil didn't agree but he didn't dare voice his opinions, he very much liked to be alive.

"Peridot," Ruby called out, opening the old wooden door without knocking. "Hey—whoa, what kind of cool contraption are you cooking up now?" She stepped over the scrapes of metal surrounding the ground; she leaned on her knees to get a closer look.

The seven year old fixed her glasses as they began slipping. "It's a fake arm for my neighbor; his arm was amputated during the war,"

Peridot was wearing a slightly ripped brown baggy shirt and similar pants to match, opposed to Ruby who was wearing royal silk clothing. The prodigy engineer had a large bush of hair that was standing up, wild and unmanageable; almost triangular shaped.

Ruby smiled, dropping to sit beside the girl. "You should make some stuff for my mother, she needs some new blue prints for war tanks and she'd pay you," She glanced at the girl. "You could even move into our palace, we have so many free rooms," She leaned back against her hands lazily, stretching out the word 'so' like any other child would.

"…it gets pretty lonely,"

Peridot stopped tinkering with the arm, she nodded. "Yeah, it gets lonely over here too. I'm an only child and all the kids here think I'm weird," She huffed, tossing the arm on the ground angrily. "They hate my inventions—"

"Well, they're dumb," Ruby said with ease, a carefree grin on her face. "I know your inventions will change things and I think you should move your market somewhere else that has more to offer, like pay. What else do you have to lose?" She asked.

The inventor shrugged. "It would be nice to give my family something more, but I don't know about moving into the palace with you guys. I can barely stand Jasper as it is," She rolled her eyes at the thought of that arrogant jerk.

Ruby snickered. "She's not that bad, plus she's too busy with Lapis to pay attention to anything else,"

"So I'm your second choice then, hm?" Peridot raised an eyebrow, not even upset about it.

"Basically." Ruby replied easily, another teasing grin on her face. "But I would still have come visit you today even if they were paying attention to me, I have a request."

The poor girl crossed her arms. "…what are you going on about now? If it's the wings, forget it I can't make you fly—"

"No, it's different. And I can totally hover in the air for about two minutes now," Ruby informed her friend.

Peridot seemed impressed. "Two minutes," She nodded. "Your flames must be getting stronger, last time it was zero seconds and five minutes of you lying flat on your face." She snickered.

"Very funny, but back to my idea," Ruby jumped up very energetically. "Lasers, huge laser cannons that we can put on our tanks. They could wipe anything out in seconds," She finished, bouncing on her toes giddily.

"No,"

Ruby deflated. "Aw, why not?"

Peridot scoffed, as if it were even a question to ask. "Your mother would probably use those lasers for evil, she'd come after my village to test it out for fun and then take on the other nations." She leaned her face into the palm of her hand. "…that's why I refuse to show her how useful I am, she'd probably use me and then lock me away once I was—"

"Don't talk about my mother like that," Ruby huffed, eyes set ablaze as she clenched her fist. "I know she isn't the nicest person in the world but she would never do that to you."

Peridot frowned. "Why wouldn't she? You tell me all the time that she locks you and Jasper in the freezer even when you make simple mistakes, like forgetting which stupid fork to use at dinner."

Man, did Ruby hate those fancy forks.

"It's a royal firenation thing—but look," Ruby took a calming breath. "You can trust me on this, as long as I'm around she won't lay a hand on you or this village," She smiled sheepishly. "I promise," She held out her hand for the other girl.

After a moment Peridot nodded, taking the offered hand. "…fine," She scratched the back of her head nervously. "If that's the case, then, I think lasers are a great idea,"

Ruby's grin couldn't have been wider.

Steven leaned in closer to the rest of the group who were huddled in a circle as the firebender told them her story. "So she left to live with your family after that?"

Ruby shook her head. "It took a while for my mother to believe that someone of such low class could be competent enough in engineering weapons for our army," The firebender said, mocking her mother's stern voice.

"Nice impression," Amethyst snickered, shoving more fire flakes into her mouth.

Connie, still wrapped up in the story, asked follow up questions. "Wait, if she didn't trust her then how did Peridot end up in your palace?"

"Oh," Steven gasped excitedly. "Did the laser idea come true?" He pouted when the curly haired girl shook her head. "Man…"

The firebender smiled softly. "There was too much involved into making them and we both knew my mother wouldn't use them for justice. So we came up with something painless, something that couldn't destroy entire nations," She rolled her eyes at the last part, knowing that's the first thing her mother would go for.

"Something like the security system around the fire nation palace," Sapphire said after minutes of remaining silent.

Ruby smiled, still amazed at how easy the waterbender could put two and two together. "Yeah, I helped Peridot design it to impress Yellow Diamond but in her letters Peridot told me that they've added some changes. She isn't the only person who works on the designs, a lot of things have changed," She whispered.

"That's why I have to be careful when I infiltrate the yard," Ruby mumbled, scratching the back of her neck as she plucked a rolled up piece of paper from out of her pocket. "These are the original blue prints Peridot and I made when we were younger; it depicts every trap, sensor detector, blind spot and—"

Amethyst couldn't help but ask. "Why would you have blind spots if you didn't want people sneaking in?"

"So Peridot and I could sneak out if we ever needed to," Ruby answered, recalling her complicated childhood and relationship with her family. "Yellow Diamond wasn't the best mother; do you know how many times I snuck out of the palace after my father died? It didn't help that it was about the same time when Jasper started hating me, I needed to get some space away from them,"

Sapphire wanted to pull her in for a hug but insisted with asking. "Where did you go?" She mentally slapped herself for not asking what she truly wanted.

"Just walked around in the forest and snuck down to the slums to get a decent meal," Ruby grinned. "They really know how to make a homemade meal,"

Connie squealed. "Ooh, that's what we should do then! Once we obtain Peridot we should cook an old fashioned meal from her home town. She won't trust us right away, and neither will we, but at least this can be an icebreaker."

"That sounds cool, I bet she'd love that," Ruby grinned.

Amethyst cheered, gaining a glare from the skinny airbender when her fist almost connected with her face. "I am so down for that!"

"Sorry to burst everyone's bubble but I think that's going to have to wait," Steven said, standing up from his seat to point ahead of them where the firenation flag waved in the air; just a few miles away. "We're going to have to summon some fog and rest on that rock until it gets dark enough,"

Sapphire took her cue and jumped up to assist the Avatar in creating fog to surround them.

"Fun times over," Amethyst groaned, leaning heavily on her left hand. "Back to work,"

Ruby nodded. "Yeah, I guess so,"

Things are going to be a little different next chapter. Connie will still open up with her journal entry and I will show what's going on with Ruby's side but then I will skip over to Peridot's point of view.

You've read the flashbacks but now you're going to be reading about them in the present as Jasper makes an appearance, maybe (keyword) even Yellow Diamond and Lapis as well. This story is going to start picking up after this.

Hope you liked this chapter, sorry for the slow updates, and let me know what you think.