Zero
Upon landing the jet in an airport, I woke Soul up so we could start our little quest. We were immediately greeted by airport staff, thankfully in English.
"Mr. Abyss we welcome you to Japan. And this is Mr..."
Soul cut in before I could answer for him.
"Kid. The names Soul The Kid."
The squinted eyebrows showed me how confused she was, obviously thinking that our American culture had strange ways of naming our offspring. "He's a special case miss. His given name is Soul. Surname Kid. The other word is non-necessity."
This seemed to clear her confusion.
Of all the people why do I choose the best friend named the Kid?
"Is there anything we may assist you during your stay here," she asked me.
Her accent made her words smash together. Although delayed I got what she was saying.
"We already have a hotel booked, but we need a..."
Soul slid in again "Two cars actually ma'am."
Just blow my money why doesn't he. It's not like I need it or anything.
"And that will be all," I quickly insert.
I had to make sure I got that in before Soul charged my card anymore. She bowed and turned to leave.
"Thank you."
Before she got out of sound range I added: "Oh if you can, a black SUV, and a green car."
She turned and bowed again. We waited a short while in the private lobby before she returned with 2 sets of keys.
"Mr. Abyss. Mr. Kid."
In the time we'd waited there, I looked around and it occurred to me that in the time we'd learned to speak Japanese, we had made no effort to learn to read it.
"One last thing. Could you write down instructions on how to get to the Hotel Sugicho from here?
"Ah, the Sugicho? Very nice hotel. But very expensive. You must have money."
Is this her way of asking me to pass her a couple dollars on the side? "Yeah, you could say I've had good fortune in my years." I left it at that and headed out to find our vehicles in the parking garage.
It was pretty obvious who'd be driving each vehicle. When we arrived at the hotel, check in was very smooth. I chose to only get one room but with two beds. We found a decent place to eat and rest up. Tomorrow we'd have to pass some trial or something to get into the vault of the monks.
I left Soul alone while I drove around the city some, to get a feel for the land. Tokyo's technology was so advanced. I thought I was carrying the state of the art gear, but I was clearly missing a few upgrades.
Note to self. Buy a vacation home somewhere in this country.
I wanted to get immersed in everything around me. Visit some of the other cities like Kyoto or Nagasaki. But alas, I was busy with other things right now. This was no time for vacation.
When I came back to the room, Soul had found a way to ruin my whole night. Before I even went to unlock the room door I heard a moaning inside. And it wasn't Soul.
Ah this bitch. Just couldn't fight the urge. Should be ashamed of himself. And my stuff is in there. Damn you Soul The Kid.
Although I didn't like having to get a whole extra room, I actually slept peacefully that night. If only I could have said the same for nights of the prior week. That morning I learned that Soul never failed to ruin things for me. When I went up to his room, I just used my key to walk in, assuming he was still asleep. In my morning haze, I forgot about what transpired the night before, and why I had a separate room in the first place.
When I walked in, his for-fire mistress was still in the bed. But obviously wasn't very modest about the way she slept. She had one breast hanging out of the covers, Soul's hand on the other, and her legs spread in a very obtuse angle. I might as well have died right then.
"Just couldn't fucking control ya self huh?"
"Look Zero, a man gotta do what a man gotta do. Airbenders gotta repopulate man."
"You little fuck, don't you know that closet pervertedness is the only answer!? You can't go around fawning over every attractive woman you see!"
"Shut up Zero. Everyone knows that open pervs always win. At least we fully accept who we are! If I like a girl, I'm not gonna hide it!"
This lil bitch. It's not even worth it. "Alright, whatever. I don't wanna talk about it. Let's just get to the vault."
"So Zero, here's the catch. Our vault has no guards but a lot of hidden mechanisms. The first trick is that system to open this tunnel is actually in the city. And it stays open for a short time. That way the only way to get in is to have used a glider and got in before it closes. But you don't know where it is until it's opened. So you have to station someone at both locations."
"Then how the hell are we going to get in here?!"
"I thought you planned for that?"
I sighed. "Why did he not bring this up sooner?"
"Alright here's my better idea. We just combine our bending, and blow it up.
Is that really such the better idea? Anybody could have thought of that. "Alright Soul, tell me this then. Why has no earthbender found this place sooner?"
"It was once guarded by sky bison. But after the 100 years war...well you get it. But after that, it almost seemed cursed to come to a former place of airbenders."
"And who would have suspected underground anyway? Airbenders typically hate caves and tunnels."
"Alright, I'll buy it I guess. Let's get on with it."
We each took deep breaths and he blew huge wind slightly after my burst of fire aimed at the base of the mountain. Almost no results
"Again." And we blasted the rock formation a second time.
"Again." Another round only put us deeper into the side of the mountain.
"Again." Yet still, only more rock.
"Again." Finally, something new appeared. We noticed a small hole, going downward.
"It would appear we found our tunnel Soul."
We squeezed our way through the opening and worked our way downward until we were in a big enough tunnel to walk normally. The small passageway opened up into a grand hall. Then to a sacred temple before us. I began to walk forward until the floor in front of me of me pulled away to a spike pit. Must be one of the little traps he mentioned. The gap was about 50 feet, though. I wasn't jumping that. Or actually.
"Give me a boost."
I took off running, and kicked some fire from my feet, as Soul willed the air behind me. Being an airbender meant Soul was light on his toes, so he had no problem with clearing the gap. We ran into a few more traps, tricks, and gadgets. But we made it to the base of the temple. At the top. I could see it reflecting what little light it was receiving just like the crystals in this room. The circular relic had the triple swirl of the air nomads on it. We climbed the stairs.
"Soul, you do the honors since you're the airbender. Picking up the relic, we were that much closer to our goals. A second exit appeared at the back. At the end of the tunnel, there was a door which also responded to the key.
Driving back the hotel I was glad something could be easy for once. "Don't get too comfortable Soul, we leave for Africa tomorrow."
"Africa? Why?"
"Well if she doesn't have the key already, Then we should at least try for it. And unlike today, our vault is highly guarded. Be ready to leave by 6 tomorrow morning."
"I know I'm late asking this, but what the whole deal with this elemental keys?"
I knew that holding the relic, a symbol of his culture, and a key to power, had sparked his interest. "You telling me that your family told you stuff about the Vault they were trusted to protect, but never told you its significance?"
"Not exactly. When you're a kid, you come across some stuff, snooping around the house when mom and dad are busy, or away."
"You're right I guess. When my parents died, I didn't know a thing about the vault. I wasn't supposed to be told about it, or responsible for it until I turned 25. Which of course didn't exactly work out. I found all this information while I was in my dad's private library."
"Yeah. So I know this all has something to do with unmatched bending prowess right?"
"The story goes something like this. Avatar Raijin, like all of us, learned history. He always thought that the 100 year war, and genocide of an entire culture could have been prevented if instead of Roku dying to be reborn a baby, but instead his Avatar spirit just transferring to a fully realized bender. Through use of the avatar state, and the avatar's ability to take bending, he created to ability to give bending to someone without it. But also, to give more than one element to other people. However, he locked away all this power in a vault. Seeing at that it's purpose would only be in an emergency if something like that happened again. Referring to the death of an Avatar while the world is on the brink of crisis. The idea was that, in that event, four guardian families, could each entrust their key to someone deemed worthy. With all four keys, the person could find the vault of the avatar, and become what the world needs to end the crisis, while the true avatar was a mere infant."
"Make sense. Each family only trusted with the information of one of the four keys necessary to unlock the vault. So Zero your family was one of such. And so is mine."
"And we're assuming that our two new friends know something about the vault's of their respective elements, considering that they've teamed up, and are hunting down the keys."
"Gotcha. So this is a pretty big deal."
"Relatively speaking, yes."
Flying the jet toward Africa the next day I could already fee a confrontation coming about. We'd be arriving at about 10 am. Good. So it was at least my time of day. After placing the air key in an eye scan lock on the jet I went over some last minute details with Soul.
"Alright remember, we came here to Africa first, we sure don't have the Monk's key in our possession, and you aren't even of age to have been told about The Vault of the Monks."
"I got it."
"Well good. Let's go make hell."
