Chapter ten imprisoned
Whap!
Another arrow flew by him planting itself in a nearby tree. He dipped and dove through brambles and bushes. He stumbled over a root and landed flat on his face in the dirt. He turned his attention around, facing his pursuers. There where at least twenty of them following him through the forest and he knew that there would be more following them. He groaned to himself, why did he have to be so narrow-sighted when it came to dealing with the fire nation. Right know he could probably have learned a little bit of fire bending with Kloer. But no he had to assassinate the mean bully general who mocked the southern water tribe. He got up and began sprinting again. Then all of the sudden he reached the cliff. He stopped and turned around, facing the firebenders, he waved smiling then jumped, doing a back flip off the edge of the cliff.
The firebenders stopped and stared at the insane kid who had just jumped off the side of a cliff. They then ran over to the side of the cliff and stared down. Yep, straight down fall to the bottom of the waterfall. There was no way that the kid had made it. He was gone, what a retard. Ah well, now they would have to go back to headquarters and reinstate themselves with a new general.
"Come on Xue lets head back."
"But what about the kid, shouldn't we go look for the body."
Fahn sighed sometimes Xue was hilarious, other times he was pretty stupid., "By the time we got down there the body will be halfway down the river."
"Oh yeah right."
The group of firebenders then turned around and began to head back to the camp. It took them a while to get back and the path was pretty difficult to follow, but they eventually got back to it. When they were about to reach the clearing Kloer, the kid's firebending instructor ran up to them panting.
Fahn immediately got into a fighting stance upon seeing this panting girl covered with bruises and scratches, "What happened!?" He asked alarmed, scanning the forest.
"It was Nazca," she said panting.
"Who? And what was Nazca?"
"Nazca, the boy I was training, he came and disabled the other four guards then he came to me told me he was sorry and then revealed that he was an earthbender."
"What do you mean he revealed he was an earthbender?"
"You should see for yourself," she said leading them to their camp.
When they reached the camp Fahn stopped and stared mouth dropped. The camp well wasn't really a camp anymore. In other word's Nazca had completely earthbended the camp of the face of the earth. He had come back and with an impressive display of earthbending flipped the camp so that the camp was actually upside down and five feet underground.
"Holy #$%," Fahn said exasperated, "Well it seems to me that we can leave right away and not have to worry about packing up. Well don't just stare at me let's go!"
"But Fahn what about our wounded?"
"They'll catch up, we however need to immediately report this assassin to headquarters."
They then looked around for anything that they could scavenge and seeing nothing went on their way leaving the four men laying dead in the dirt. Nazca smiled. They where oblivious.
As soon as Nazca was sure that all the guards had moved on he quickly ran out from where he was hiding and undressed. He then replaced his clothes with some from the fallen fire nation soldiers. When he finished dressing he ran trying to catch up with the crowd.
"What do you mean you 'where unable to determine his location'!? What are you a bunch of hammering drunks. How the #$% are we supposed to find him?"
Fahn cringed at the general's anger. Why did he have to be the one to take General Zoan's anger. Just because he was the smartest of the group doesn't he has to be responsible for him.
"Sir I believe that we may be able to recreate an image of his face and as a matter of fact we already have."
"Well where is it?"
"The girl named Kloer has it, she's the one who drew it."
Zoan stared at Fahn for a second then seethed, trying to keep his voice level, "Well, go get it."
Fahn got of his knees and began walking to fetch Kloer. Zoan sighed, why did he have to be the one dealing with all the minute problems of minute people in a war that was already won? He wished he could be back at the front lines leading his troops like he used to, not delivering orders for a fight he wouldn't see.
Fahn quickly covered the distance to get Kloer. When he finally found her he said to her, "C'mon the general wants to see the painting."
Kloer stood up then got really close to Fahn and whispered, "We have a problem."
"What do you mean?" he whispered back.
"We're missing some people."
"Well of course we're missing some people four of them where left back there."
"No you don't understand," Kloer interrupted, "We're not missing four people we're missing more like fourteen!"
" #$%!"
"So are you suggesting that the supposed assassin was in your group the whole time and you didn't even notice!" Fahn had told Zoan about the missing men and how he believed it was related to the assassin and Zoan was not pleased. Well actually he was so angry that he literally wanted to rip Fahn's head off.
"Yes sir, you see he had disabled four of our men back where we first encountered him so he probable stole one of the men's armor and blended in with us."
"You left four dead men behind with their armor and weapons! Do you have any idea how much that stuff costs!"
"Sir, they weren't dead."
"Oh that's even more splendid," Zoan said sarcastically starting to foam at the mouth, "So you left four living men who probable could have been useful soldiers, along with their weaponry?! Are you mentally challenged! Why didn't you just carry the men back, it's not like you where rushing here seeing as your journey took three days."
Fahn sighed.
"Oh quit your whining and why don't you actually do something useful and GET ME THE PAINTING OF HIM!" Zoan screamed.
"It's right here sir," Fahn said, pulling the painting out of his sack and handing it to Zoan.
"Guards," Zoan yelled.
Four guards in clad in fire nation attire came running to him, "Yes, sir."
"Search the premises for this man," Zoan said handing the painting to him, "He may have disguised himself as one of us so retrieve all the guards and then search every single person here."
"Yes, sir."
The guard ran off with the other guards giving them instructions. Fahn turned to leave when Zoan yelled, "Get all your men together an inspect them!"
"We've already done that, sir."
"Well," Zoan said, the anger spewing from his mouth, "DO IT AGAIN!"
All twenty two of them where lined up in front of the general. Fahn had told them that the general wanted to see them all for reasons that he didn't specify so that the assassin didn't know what was going on. They were all standing in a straight line across facing the general so that Zoan could see them all.
Zoan stared at them for a second then said, "REMOVE YOUR HELMETS."
They all began to lift their helmets revealing their identities. The general cast a fleeting eye over all of them and then saw it. One of the men had started to slide into the shadows. A normal man would not have seen this motion and would believe that the man just disappeared but Zoan knew better his eye was trained to catch the insignificant details, anything that could be useful in battle.
"Hey you," Zoan yelled, "You next to the fat guy, where do you think you're going."
The man froze then stepped back up.
"Nowhere, sir."
"Take off your helmet," Zoan said.
"Sure," The man cheerily said. He pulled of his helmet stared at the ground for a second them looked up and Nazca said, "Well how's it going."
The rest of the group gasped and stumbled away from him.
"Guards!" Zoan yelled. Five guards ran into the room and said, "Yes, sir."
"Arrest the man," Zoan said, pointing at Nazca.
"Yes sir." The guards began advancing towards, the Zoan said, talking to the remainder of the men, "Don't just stare at him do something."
The rest of the group put their helmets back on and advanced on Nazca. Nazca stepped back into the shadows then, when his pursuers where also in the shadows, he charged.
Then he was gone.
The soldiers stood there staring at each other until one of them said, "Where'd he go?"
Zoan sighed, "Take off your helmets."
"What?" One of the men asked as another laughed.
"Aren't you fire nation freaks supposed to be smart. I mean if you trying to spread your wisdom you need wisdom in the first place," They heard Nazca say chuckling.
The soldiers turned to the direction of the voice but they didn't see him.
"Remove your helmets!" Zoan yelled.
"Why? He'll be able to kill us easier." One of the men said.
"You could all already be dead. He's wearing his helmet therefore you have no way to distinguish yourselves, now TAKE OFF YOUR HELMETS."
The soldiers obeyed and removed their helmets until there was only one man with a helmet. The man with the helmet said, "Looks like I'm out for good," then took off his helmet. Nazca looked up smiled and then pulled out his swords.
The fire nation soldiers began circling him to get the upper hand but the battle was already won in Nazca's opinion. He quickly dispatched the nearest group of troops and then moved on to the second only having used his knife. He got rid of the second group just as easily and he was about to kill the last one when the person he was about to stab said, "Nazca, please."
Nazca realized he was about to kill a girl, but not just any girl but a girl that he actually kind of liked. He had almost killed Kloer.
"Please," she said, her voice barley a whimper.
Nazca stared at her a longing forming inside of him for her and all the people he had lost in the life. He felt the longing to be complete. He would not kill her. He would kill this woman for she was of the fire nation she was the cause of the death of all those close to him. He asked himself was he willing to give break all the moral and ethical boundaries he had created. At the thought of this he was swept off of his feet with emotional scars and lay crying on the ground. After a while he looked up. He was laying on the ground handcuffed. Two fire nation soldiers lifted him off of his feet and dragged him away to a prison cell. Nazca, too tired to fight let it happen and the last thing he remembered before falling unconscious was Kloer standing outside of iron bars whispering the words, "thank you."
They brought him food which ate greedily becoming animalistic. He began to get hungrier and hungrier for his food supply was diminishing. At the end of the first week he realized he could not go on like this and he began training, he trained himself doing an assortment of different activities returning to his previous strength and then getting even stronger and faster. He would act week and animalistic whenever a guard was watching but then when he was alone he would train. Although he could not escape his prison for it was made of metal Nazca practiced his bending by trying to expand his area of sight. Then one day when he felt a guard coming he remembered that he could control blood. So he tried but nothing happened. He tried day after day to no avail until he was finally going to give up but that night when a guard came he found a deeper sense of clarity in sight with the man's blood. It was no longer a liquid that he felt in the man but he know felt it pumping and moving through the body he felt the new power given to him by the moon and seized it.
Fahn was tired as he walked to give the prisoner dinner. He had been up all last night working for the new general Zato. He yawned as he neared the cell and then stopped. Something was wrong. He could just feel it like a tingling sensation in his blood. All of the sudden he uncontrollably felt his limbs being pulled forward making him walk towards the cell. When he reached the cell he stopped and reached into his pocket for the keys, pulled them out and unlocked the cell. As the door swung open Fahn gasped at the sight he saw. There was the kid Nazca sitting there smiling with his hand outstretched toward him as if he was the one controlling him.
"How?" Fahn questioned.
"I'm not sure," Nazca said smiling, "But to me it seems that under the right conditions a waterbender has the ability to manipulate blood by blood bending."
Nazca stood up his hand still out stretched.
"But you're an earthbender, who is waterbending for you?" Then what Fahn was saying hit him, "You're the avatar."
Nazca walked towards Fahn and grabbed Fahn's sword from his belt. He then leaned forward and whispered, "Not the, an."
Fahn gasped as the sword pierced his heart. Then he collapsed.
Kloer was eating dinner with her colleagues when they heard the alarm bell ring.
"What's going on," she asked the first person she ran into.
"The earthbending prisoner has escaped and is still on the loose in these walls, but be warned he already killed a soldier."
"Who?"
The man shrugged and then went on his way.
So Nazca was loose and dangerous. She silently wondered to herself how he escaped the prison, it was made completely of metal. Then she realized that he was going to have a very hard time getting out. The walls were nearly impossible to scale and were made completely of metal.
" #$%!" Nazca said to himself. All the walls where perfectly straight up and down and where made completely of metal. He still had one chance. The gate. As he raced towards the front entrance he kept quiet and to the shadows. Finally he reached the court yard. He took a deep breath and then sprinted for the gate.
"There he is," Zoan yelled, pointing at the figure running for the gate. Kloer turned facing Nazca saw him and began sprinting towards him along with other fire nation soldiers. Hurry, she willed Nazca to go faster the gate was almost closed and he wasn't going to make it. She knew that if the gate closed with him inside he was as good as dead.
He was almost there, just a little bit farther. Slam! The giant metal doors where sealed shut. He had no chance. He felt the hundreds of guards chasing towards him and realized he couldn't fight his way out of this one. He turned and looked at the door. He sighed and took a deep breath and then concentrated. What was the difference between metal and earth he thought. One was just harder and would hurt a lot more the first time he tried to bend it. He then smiled and punched the gate.
What was he doing Kloer thought to herself, trying to punch the door down. Then it hit her like a stone wall. She stopped dead in her tracks, was it possible, could someone metalbend. She saw Nazca turn around and waved. Then he jumped and kicked the doors down. Yep it was possible.
Nazca ran and ran. He kept on running until his feet burned and lungs felt like ice. Then he kept running. He ran trying to make sure that no one was trailing him then when he was sure that he had lost them he collapsed onto the ground. The last thing he felt before passing out was an old man with a teacup standing over him.