Brothers Avatar

The Legend of Two Avatars

Book 1 – Family

Chapter 11 – Scattered & Together

Xulo's body felt numb, his mind awoke but his body was dead asleep on the sand. He got the strength to open his eyelids, braving the burning sun of day two, he indeed saw that he survived the wave and landed on some beach. As he looked around he noticed that Pio too washed onto his shore. Slowly but surely, he got the ability to push himself off the ground and stand wobbly on his two feet.

He hobbled over to Pio and gently kicked him, "Wake up." Xulo went and sat down on a rock while Pio also struggled to his feet. "Where are we?"

"Wouldn't you know the response to that question?" Pio dusted the sand of his clothing, "You are the one who set our course to this isle."

Xulo rubbed the sleepiness out of his face, "What are you talking about?"

"You don't remember…" Pio banged the right side of his head, trying to get rid of the water in his ears, "I remember, you went into the—what did Ibera call it?" Pio searched for the word, "Avatar state?"

"I went into the Avatar state?"

"You did and I'm presuming that's why you have no recollection of saving us." Xulo unenergetically shook his head, "Well after the ship was destroyed, we were all loose in the middle of the ocean when you burst out of the water and summoned a wave of your own. It scooped us up and discarded us on this island; at least I assume it's an island, it's certainly tropical enough."

Xulo looked behind him and saw the lush jungle that they'd likely have to traverse, "Are the others accounted for?"

"I do not know." Xulo strained in fear, "I could only identify you in the wave and once we crashed, the figures I saw got tossed in all different directions."

"We're moving." Xulo struggled to his feet, "We have to find the others and get to the Eastern Air Temple." Xulo then started striding through the thicket of jungle foliage.

Pio had to run to keep up with Xulo's slashing of leafs and vines as he intently peered side to side for his brother, "I've never seen you so unnerved, Xulo."

"Taresc!" It was true, Xulo transitioned into a purely tunnel vision version of himself. His mind was only filled with thoughts of Taresc and how he could more efficiently use his airbending to storm his way through the jungle, "My brother might be dead, I'm worried."

"Is he your only family?"

He paused, "He's my only friend." His tone was mournful.

Pio never expected such cloudy conduct from the ever-stoic Avatar Xulo. Then again, this undying devotion he has for his brother was foreign to him. Firstly, he never thought of Taresc as some target for eternal dedication and secondly, "I never connected to my family as you do with Taresc."

"Maybe you haven't lost enough of them."

"Well, they've lost me, so I hope they'll fling themselves onto me if I ever go back." Pio said.

Xulo continued his rampage through the trees, "Keep talking, it helps distract me from my worry."

"What ever shall I talk about?" Pio mused.

"I don't know much about your time in the swamp, talk about that."

"Well, I'm one of 12 children and I certainly felt the product of it." Pio ran his hands through his long hair, "My parents never remembered my name, but for fairness's sake, they never were able to recall any of our names… except Owa. My oldest sister was always their favorite."

"You're a very good waterbender Pio, I'm surprised they didn't cling onto that."

"The best, even better than Owa. Better than Paina, better than Alite and way better than Lalo. I even think I was better than my mother, but my dear, did she give me a wallop when I told her that." He gave an anguished chuckle, "Some call it arrogance, but when the facts back up your ego, I tend to just call it the truth."

Xulo laughed, "That's a good one."

"Thank you." Pio lightly blushed, "Life was adequate; I based all of my goals and dreams on trying to impress my parents, so I spent my days training and scaring off passersby. I realized that there had to be more to life, but all my knowledge came from the swamp and its limited education system. I could try to escape the swamp and find out but that conflicted with my hopes of impressing my parents, what was a greasy vernal swampbender to do?"

"You left?"

"I did," He paused, "but not until I was allowed to. One day my mother was stricken with illness and needed medicine so my father sent me to the town near Foggy Swamp. Things transpired," Pio vaguely put, "and I fell in love with the outside world." Pio's sparkly eyes dimmed, "as I returned, things only got worse from there. My siblings began to bully me without relent. They said that I changed and that they didn't like that. They found it stuck-up that I would refuse to wear clothing made of leafs and spend my time reading the few books I had."

"What'd they do to you?"

"They'd always be splashing me with mud and other disgusting things. If we'd be doing a mission, they'd sometimes push me from the treetops." Pio seemed none the bothered, "Childish things. It was the one time I appreciated Owa, she'd try her best to reel them in." Pio spoke in a mocking voice, "You've changed, Pio! When did change become so negatively connoted? As I've recently learned, seasons change and no one complains."

"Sounds rough."

"Nothing I couldn't handle. I'd rather be a miserable civilized citizen of the world amongst the dreck than be a happily boorish swamp-dweller never aspiring for more." Pio chuckled, "One good thing about being so flagrantly superior, is that my parents finally noticed me; the bad apple."

"Taresc!" Lozulia yelled, "Where are you, Taresc!"

"Just chillin, Zuli, how 'bout you?" Ibera teased.

"This isn't funny." Lozulia fumed, "Taresc is a helpless young child and will likely starve to death if we don't find him in the next couple of minutes." Lozulia combed her hair with her fingers.

Ibera sat next to a palm tree as Lozulia paced about, "I think your baby plant will be plenty fine if you don't water it every 2 to 3 seconds."

Lozulia laughed at Ibera's stupidity, "Taresc isn't a plant, Ibera, I thought you knew better."

"Oh baby…" Ibera shuttered at the thought of him being with someone unable to fully understand his sarcasm, he looked to the sea and considered the length of time it would take him to drown.

"What even happened?" Lozulia collapsed onto her back.

"I don't know, I was going to the brig to wake you up and suddenly the sea decides to go full tsunami on our Team Avatar asses, Xulo then goes Avatar State on our drowning asses and then we wake up here."

"With our asses?"

"Yes, Zuli, with our stranded-ass asses." Ibera shook his head, "You seem awfully into Xulo's bro."

Lozulia perked, "What do you mean?"

"You spend every waking second fawning over him, that's what I mean."

"Fawn? Like a deer?" Lozulia scoffed as she sweated, "I don't fawn over Taresc, why would anyone like that kid."

"My point exactly, I don't get why anyone would join that kid's fan club."

"Woah, woah, woah." Lozulia held out her hands, "Hold up. There are a couple reasons to like Taresc. He's super compassionate, he will go out of his way to help someone out, he's super clever and comes up with the best solutions, he's got connections—I mean, Hello? Avatar's brother—he's got the most pretty and soft eyes, he never gets angry no matter how bad you goof, he apologizes when he makes a mistake, he's kinda tall but not too tall, just that right tallness, he so approachable and what a great listener—" Lozulia looked up and saw Ibera nodding with the stupidest grin, "Oh damn it."

"I can feel your indifference from here," he hugged himself, "Brrr, cold."

"I can't help it." She hopelessly looked to the sky.

"I don't blame you, he's a cute kid." Ibera basked in the sunlight.

Lozulia narrowed her eyes, "Oh really?"

"Don't worry, I won't impede on your own personal crusade to get into that boy's pants." Lozulia reddened profusely, "He's cute, but I need more, he doesn't quite have that thing I'm looking for."

"Thanks, Iby." Lozulia jumped up and hugged Ibera.

"Let's go looking for those hooligans," He got up and offered a hand to Lozulia, "and If you call me Iby again, I will airchop your hair into a ghastly bob." Lozulia squeaked and clutched her hair.

"Minege, I think it'd be best if we waited so that Xulo and the others can—" Taresc pleaded.

"Shut up, Honey." Minege didn't even look back at Taresc, "If you want to wait, you can wait but I'm finding Tanton."

"But what if something happens to you and I'm not there."

"Sweetie," Minege laughed, "I don't think that I'm the one you should be worrying about." She ravaged her way further into the jungle.

Taresc trotted onwards as his confidence continued to drop, "I get it, I have Woorq that I'm worrying about and—"

"Did you just compare Tanton—who I have had since I was a child—to Woorq, who you've had since about a week ago?" Minege glared like she had heard the most insulting phrase ever.

"Yes?" Taresc pathetically whimpered.

Minege expressed her contempt, "Bah!"

"I have a connection with him, just because you've had Tanton for longer doesn't mean I love Woorq any less."

"Are you saying that you love Woorq more than I love Tanton?"

"No!" Taresc simmered down, "Please stop twisting my words."

"I can't help it, I'm anxious right now. Tanton's always been with me and I can't even think of a day where I don't have Tanton supporting me."

"How did you get her?"

"I haven't told you, hun?" Minege was astounded.

"No," Taresc slowly shook his head side to side, "You really don't tell me much."

"My dad found me her egg on his travels. I was so excited, I thought it was going to be a dragon or something but what I got was a dopey little duckling. I was so disappointed until I realized how rare Tanton was. Not a single other sighting of an alligator-duck. Also just looking into those beady eyes, my heart still hasn't recovered from turning into mush."

"She's your little slice of uniqueness." Taresc commented.

Minege smiled, "Exactly, she was my closest thing to getting away from the mundanity of Dayue." Minege wiped a little tear from her eye, "I guess I shouldn't be talking about uniqueness around you."

Taresc remembered his twin, "It's alright." Taresc realized something, "She's also one of the only things you have left of your father's right?"

Minege stopped in her tracks, "Uh, yeah." She clasped her hands, "That's right, Taresc."

"You were sporting some real money back there, Ibera." Lozulia stepped carefully through the vine-infested ground.

"Well you work at work at the world's premier flying casino and resort and you try to not end up with a little coin in your pocket. Don't worry, though, I tried." Ibera mimed drinking from a bottle.

"I don't get it." Lozulia stared blankly at Ibera.

"I was drinking from…" Ibera looked into her clueless expression and couldn't help but laugh, "Never mind, Zuli, make up your own story."

Lozulia shrugged it off, "Okay."

"I better get some kind of return on my investment, because 10 gold coins is a lot of money." Ibera muttered, "It's also just about all my money."

"As long as I'm here, this group is going to go down in history as the most successful and impacting Team Avatar ever!" Lozulia raised her fist to the air and shot out flames. The tree above set on fire and Lozulia freaked out. "I didn't mean to do that!"

Ibera sighed, "I'm just going to pretend that this tree is not on fire right now." Ibera patiently stood in place, "What a beautiful sky." Ibera looked up, "Not a single burning tree in sight."

"Use your wind, blow it out!" Lozulia tugged on his arm cape.

"These aren't birthday candles, Lozulia! I'd just be feeding the fire if I use my air." Ibera scolded.

"Should I use more fire?" Lozulia bit her knuckle as she looked towards the flaming tree.

Ibera decided not to justify that response, "Good news is that we have a signal fire going. Now everyone, from Stormbender to Team Avatar can pinpoint our location. I'm just going to walk this way." Ibera began walking away from the burning tree.

"We can't burn down a whole jungle, Ibera! Spirits could—" Just as Lozulia ran to pull Ibera back a giant splash of water hit them from behind.

Ibera cricked his neck, "Lozulia… Is there some secret bucket of water you have that I don't know about?"

"No, but wouldn't that be a cool bending technique, bucketbending…" They turned around and saw the tree fire had been put out, but as for the source of the water, there was no indication of anyone being there.

Ibera went over to the scorched tree. "Who did this?"

"Water spirits." Lozulia nodded confidently, "Definitely water spirits."

"Water spirits in charge of protecting this one tree?"

"There are weirder spirits, Ibera."

Ibera chuckled and wrapped an arm around Lozulia, "Okay then, I say we wait here and let our team come to us."

Lozulia puckered her lips and noticed there was something going on with the ground, she bent down to see what was going on. Lozulia shrieked when out of the ground came a cage of earth, that completely enclosed Ibera and Lozulia in darkness, "Ibera, I'm scared!"

"Me too, Zules, me too."

"Can I ask you a question, Minege?" Taresc shyly said.

"Shoot, dearie."

Taresc pondered if there was better way of saying it, "Why don't you like me?"

Minege didn't answer immediately, "Now honey what makes you think that? I perfectly like you, just the right amount."

"Well you yell at me a lot." Taresc said.

"That's because you frustrate me to no end."

Taresc stuttered, "B-but you just said…"

"You can still frustrate me and I can still like you."

"How do I frustrate you, Minege?"

"Well, the fact that you whine so much is what really kills me. I honestly don't think you quite realize how lucky you are. You're an earthbender, something that countless nonbenders like me would kill for. You have a loving brother who willingly brought you on this journey to fame and fortune. Do you realize how easily it would have been to pass on you if you weren't his brother? But all you do is complain and whine about how hard life is for you. I've recently become an orphan and you don't see me moping around." Minege flicked her hand, "That's all."

Taresc realized that he was a fairly whiney human being, he couldn't help it though, the main cause of his despair was the fact that he had to hide a huge part of himself from Xulo, his best of friends. He then looked back on that and realized that complaining about being the Avatar would be something that'd make Minege go crazy, "I'm sorry, Minege, I'll work on it, I promise."

"Thank you sweetheart, it'd do my heart good. Who knows, maybe I'll stop teasing."

"It's pretty harsh teasing." Taresc and Minege laughed.

Minege hushed Taresc, "Did you hear that?" Taresc listened closely and he heard the distant sound of quacking and croaking. "That's Tanton and Woorq!" She tore through the jungle as soon as she identified the noise. Taresc followed suit.

Once they got to the sound's source they saw Woorq and Tanton being approached by an older man shrouded in grey cloaks. Tanton backed up, untrusting of the man while Woorq sat on her head croaking threateningly. "Back away from Tanton!" Minege screamed.

The old man turned to the owners of the pets, he sucked water of the trees and foliage and used it to freeze both of their feet, as the water creeped up their legs, Taresc feared for his life and the life of his parrot toad, "What are you doing to us?" Taresc said as he felt his vision fading.

"What's it like being the Avatar, Xulo?" Pio wondered.

"It isn't easy, it's really not easy." Xulo said, "Every day you meet someone and you have to wonder if they're going to hate you or love you for being the Avatar. You wonder if they're going to try and kill you and your friends or are they going to invite you into their house and let you stay for dinner."

"How do you cope?"

"I try my hardest to let people in, but that scares me, because if I let someone in, they could very well betray me." Xulo tightened his arms, "I won't let anyone betray me, it may be hard but I would rather die than lose this privilege of being an Avatar. I've been working my whole life to be strong enough to carve out my own destiny, to finally be seen on a global level. Funny thing is that I never thought I would be the Avatar. I thought I'd be, at best, an earthbending teacher to one but… here I am."

"Listen, Xulo, if you need a friend, I'm here." Pio said in kindness, "I know it must be hard to let your walls down to anyone other than your brother, but I can promise you that I would never deceive someone I respect as much as I do you."

Xulo sensed a deep sincerity in his voice, "Thank you, Pio." He began to think about actually accepting him into his life. "What is that?" Xulo pointed to a large cloud of smoke billowing in the distance.

"Look at that, Lozulia was able to set the jungle ablaze." Pio crossed his arms, "Let's follow it, we might be able to find some of our teammates. Xulo nodded and they dashed off.

They got to the charred tree, "Hm… nobody here." Pio and Xulo inspected the area, looking for clues of where their friends might be, "Come look at this, Xulo."

Xulo walked over and saw a ring of earth had been bended. Pio knelt down to feel the earth when Xulo got the suspicion of someone was watching them, those fear were only magnified when he could feel the earth moving. "Get out of there, Pio!"

Before Pio could even look Xulo's way, a cage of earth entrapped him, while Xulo dodged out of the way. Before Xulo could destroy the earthy prison, a splash of water hit Xulo's legs and started to freeze his leg. Xulo quickly liquefied the water and threw it back at the waterbender.

Xulo fired back against the old man with balls of fire, the old man bent a wall of earth to hide behind. Xulo became extremely confused, he'd seen the man waterbend and now he'd seen him earthbend; Was he too the Avatar, is that possible? He jumped onto the man's wall, crushing it into the ground. The old man was so surprised he fell to the ground. Xulo moved in on the crawling man, when he yelled, "Wait, wait! I'm sorry." The man released Pio from his prison, "I'm very sorry, I'm not good at introducing myself."

"Not being good at introducing yourself is one thing, straight up ambushing is another." Pio stood up.

"I'm sorry." He lowered his eyes, "Do you happen to have a twin?"

Xulo was shocked, "Yes, do you know where he is?"

"He's at my cabin; in fact I believe all of your friends are. Follow me."

The old man led them through the jungle until they reached the old man's hut with campfire where the whole team was situated around, "Xulo, hey!" Ibera yelled.

Xulo looked at everyone's smiling face but noticed one was missing, "Where's Taresc."

"Your twin is resting in my hut with the parrot-toad." The old man said. "He was so shocked when I froze his legs he went unconscious."

Xulo gave the old man untrusting eyes and stormed over to the hut. Xulo konocked open the door and saw Taresc was resting peacefully with Woorq resting on his forehead. "He's gonna be fine." Minege announced, "This isn't the first time he's pulled these dramatics."

Xulo left the hut and returned to the campfire, "Where are we and who are you?"

"You are on the island of Yinshi Dao." The old man announced.

"I'd show you on the map but," She unpocketed a wet lump of paper, "It didn't fair too well in the ocean."

"Shuangchong is the name, but you may call me Shang." He said.

"Shang, I'm rather curious as you how you're able to bend two elements," Ibera said, "I thought the Avatar had some kind of patent on that kind of thing."

Shang looked down at the fire, "Truth be told, I have no explanation as to how I can do it, I simply know I can."

"Hold it!" Lozulia banged her fist on the ground, "I remember reading about this in a scroll. It's an extremely rare genetic defect where two parents of different bending styles are able to have a child with the ability to bend both of the parent elements."

"So, there's a possibility that you could breed an Avatar?" Pio asked.

"Well it only happens once in a thousand years so you gotta hope that you have two people of opposite sex and exact opposite bending combination. Then those two individuals would have to have shoot out babies like crazy for the chances of producing a baby with not just one, two or three but four bending techniques."

"So definitely, Pio, go get busy." Ibera winked.

"Even under those circumstances the child wouldn't likely survive. The human soul is only meant to hold one bending spirit, only the avatar is meant to carry more than one. When I was younger, I was deathly frail and sick most days."

"Well look how far you've gotten, sir." Pio remarked.

"I'm 32."

The entire team gasped, Shang looked like he could've been 75 at least. His face drooped and had countless aging spots, his hair was thinning and fully gray. Not one of them could believe the brittle and worn man in front of them was 32, "Don't worry, you don't look a day over 96." Ibera said.

Shang laughed, "It takes a lot out of you."

"A synthetic-Avatar would look 85 by his fifth birthday." Lozulia said.

"We need to get to the Eastern Air Temple, Shang, do you know how we could get there?"

"Of course, we're just adjacent to it after all."

Lozulia punched Xulo on the shoulder, "Good pick in islands, Mr. Tsunami."

"We're moving now," Ibera groaned at Xulo's persistence, "If we can get there before dark, we might be able to pull this off." The team got to their feet and stretched out, "I'll go grab Taresc."

Pio stopped him, "No, let me grab him." Pio gave a warm smile and ran into the hut, Xulo was left speechless, he felt his walls coming down. He turned around and talked to Shang, "Hey, Shang?"

"What is it, Avatar?"

"Why did you decide to help us and bring us together?" Xulo asked.

Shang was puzzled, "No particular reason, I get a little lonely on this island, it feels good to make a connection with a stranger."

"But, what if we turned out to be horrible people?"

Shang laughed, "Avatar, if you go in with that attitude, everyone is going to seem awful. I don't believe that horrible people exist and therefore I've never met one." Xulo couldn't help but glance away as he'd be overcome with jealousy for Shang's philosophy. "So many people are great on this planet of ours. If I lived my life running away from everyone because one in a thousand has a sour attitude, I'd go crazy."

"Hey Xulo, you ready to go?" Lozulia called from atop Tanton.

Xulo looked at all the relationships he dismissed because he was scared that they would be the ones to betray him. "We should go, Avatar, it'll be a long journey ahead." Shang said.

Xulo got onto Tanton and the team was off to the Eastern Air Temple. He rustled Taresc's hair as he thought about Pio's thoughtfulness and Shang's words. He chuckled as he wished that the betrayer would just rip off the bandage and betray him already, just so he could begin to make a connection with his team.

Taresc seemed to fade into consciousness, "Oh, hey Xulo…" his mind was cloudy from his fall.

"Welcome back, Tare."

"You're alright, Xulo. Is Woorq alright?" A parrot-toad tongue thumped onto Taresc's dreaming face, "Oh, hey Woorq."

"You should probably go back to sleep."

"Xulo, the weirdest thing happened, Minege said she didn't hate me." Taresc smiled.

Minege turned around, "Only if you stop whining, Taresc, remember our deal."

Taresc chuckled, "Yeah, I remember." Xulo looked around and saw that Lozulia and Ibera were laughing it up as well. He looked further back and saw Pio, but in a much different light from before.

"Are we all alright, Xulo?" Taresc said, fading back into sleep.

"We're better than alright," A smile creeped its way onto Xulo's gloomy face, "we're going to make this happen."