Zero
At the airport, we picked up another car to transport us across the Egyptian desserts. We parked with some distance between us and the museum to dodge the influx of traffic. The line getting into the museum wasn't all that bad. Inside the cultural heritage would have proved to my history teacher just how bad her class was.
"So Zero, where are all the guards you talked about?"
"The fire sages are everywhere in here. Sorry to disappoint if you were expecting the old school robes. They come in the form of a governmental group called Sigma 6. And behind firebending, one-way walls are their specialty."
"That's sorta creepy."
I didn't have time to respond because I looked across the courtyard and saw a pair of... memorable faces. One belonged to a light skinned earthbender. The other, a cute and devious waterbender. I wasted no time getting to business this time around, shooting a fire blast straight at the pair. The earthbender, who had obviously had his eye on us through vibrations, protected them with an earth wall. Non-bender tourist screamed, shouted, and ran away. Leaving the stage clear. Soul and I closed the gap between our two groups. A host of men in red suits poured from every direction and circled the four of us. They were all in a synchronized stance to shoot fire. The same basic stance I'd learned years ago when my father first trained me to bend.
Immediately I bark at them all, "clear this building, retrieve the fire lord's key, and bring it to me. My name is Zero Abyss, from the guardian Abyss family.."
A few of the men seemed confused, but I made the assumption they were the ones who didn't read the job description. The others ran off to do what they were instructed and the others followed.
The earthbender took a step forward as if to signal he'd be fighting.
"Zane don't be stupid."
Zane huh? I'm not sure the name fits him.
"Kyana, I got these two."
And a Kyana? Interesting. I looked around to survey the environment. I felt a smirk come across my face when I realized the new best part of our quest. There was no water here. Our new friend Kyana was going to have to sit out this fight. I'd beaten Zane alone at around four in Republic City. It was only 45 minutes from noon right now, and much closer to the equator. My power was coming up to it's fullest in the day.
Should I tell Soul to sit this one out? Hell no. This isn't about honor. This is punishment. This is revenge.
Just like that, I initiated the rest of our fight, torching out fire from my mouth. Zane did the obvious thing and blocked with a wall, as the impact made a cloud of smoke. Soul then ran around behind Zane and blasted his way. Zane pushed up the earth up from underneath himself and launched into the air over the attack.
Heh. Perfect.
"Soul, let's bring em down!"
I took in a breath and took in the power of the sun. Clapping my hands together, I put them above my head and shot a huge stream of fire, before bringing my hands to the ground, the fire following like a massive whip. On the opposite side, Soul mimicked, supplementing my attack.
I heard Zane hit the ground hard and opened my eyes to see him struggling to get back up.
"Soul, think we overdid it?"
"HELL NO! Man, this is revenge from what they did to me!"
I smirked.
What the hell is wrong with me? Aren't I the good guy here?
I assumed Zane was finished for the day, so I let my guard down. But as soon as I turned around I was flying back 10 feet, with a wad of sand in my gut. Zane had managed to get to his feet and attack me in the process.
So you're not done huh?
I made a swift hand gesture to Soul, who dropped and did a sweep on command. The air tripped Zane from behind. I had forgotten Kyana was here until she was by Zane's side now.
His voice was hoarse trying to talk to her. "Kyana let's just let them have this one. We'll get them after Alaska's vault."
Just giving me all the answers today. Both your names. The location of a vault.
This was going nicely. Zane tried to get back up, but another fireball brought him back down. Soul appeared to be enjoying this as well, so maybe I wasn't as evil as I was feeling. He walked over to where Zane and Kyana were.
I spoke up again, "I hate to use typical lines. But honestly, this is rich. We can consider today...compensation for last week."
I met eyes with Soul. He had a bit of a perverted smile going. Then he goes right into his sentence, looking at Kyana, "since hitting a defenseless woman would be wrong, this'll do instead."
I could feel my eyes get wide when he grabbed the front of her tank top, and ripped off not only her shirt but he got her bra in with that.
She screamed and covered herself as best she could. But not before I caught a very nice peek. I saw Soul catch her gaze. The look on her face said that if there had been the minutest water in bending range, she'd have killed him on the spot. If this had been, only a few weeks earlier, I would have said this was enough. But I felt that I needed to leave a message. Something to tell her 'this is over'. Something she'd never forget.
Then it hit me. It went against all the morals I had. But honestly, I didn't feel anything about it. I turned my back to them. No one would see the cold look in my eyes.
"Soul get her out of the way, then gimme a boost." He slid her a few feet over with some air before I turned around and ran at him, jumping as he tossed me up with an air blast. He stepped under and made a small tornado which kept me going up. When I felt I was maybe two or three hundred feet in the air I set my whole right arm ablaze, and Sou knew to drop me. When the tornado vanished, I came accelerating down, fist first, until I brought down all my force on Zane's chest.
Honestly, I'm not sure how I felt about it. He grabbed his chest and fumed in agony as he was being burned from the inside out. His anguish filled yells and screams didn't create any feelings in me. I knew I should have felt guilt, or regret maybe. But watching his wiggle and writhe didn't do that for me.
"AAHHHH! ARGGGGH!"
The smell of burning flesh captures the air. I looked over to see a devastated Kyana.
Zane tried to force his last words through coughs of blood. "Ky...Kyana...Don't...aargh...bl..." He spat out a big wad of blood and squirmed until he grew still, soon to grow cold. Never to give Kyana his final remarks. The fire sages had watched me kill him and seemed a more than frightened when I approached them.
"Key."
I remained static while it was handed to me. I called to Soul, then left one final remark.
"Clean that corpse. Burn it. A body would scare away tourists. And be sure to lock her away somewhere. Don't be fooled she's a master waterbender."
I couldn't imagine what she was thinking over there. She only sat there. Blank faced. No tears. No threats. I decided not to warn the sages she could bloodbend on the sign of any moon. I wanted to see if she'd really come for us after that. After watching her partner be murdered.
Show me your determination.
