The White Lotus War

Chapter 3: The Diamond Is Revealed

The next morning, Midori's husband arrived home from his business meeting in Omashu. His sato-mobile pulled up to the mansion where he reunited with his wife. He was planning to talk to reporters and photographers later about the growth of his business and planned to throw a party afterwards. Midori was determined to throw the most elegant party she had ever given and rushed to wake up all of her servants.

Hitomi was still sleeping her in cot, dreaming a very unusual dream. She was walking down a winding road in the middle of a desert. When the road suddenly came to a halt, she looked around to try and find someone. Then out of nowhere, a mob of robed elders from different nations were slowly approaching her. She wanted to run out of fear, but she suddenly felt all the fear rush out of her and didn't move a muscle. A darker skinned old woman wearing water tribe armor approached Hitomi and said, "Please remember us."

At that moment, Midori burst into her room and screamed for Hitomi to wake up. Hitomi fell out of her cot, hitting her head, and rushed to get up and translate what Midori was shouting. She left before she could figure out what she was screaming about. Hitomi wondered about the dream and questioned, "What did that woman want me to remember? And why did I get the feeling that I met her somewhere before?" The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she felt like she had met all those people before, one time or another.

Still, she shook this thought out of her head and concentrated on getting ready for the new day. She washed herself up, put on her uniform, and raced outside her small room and down the stairs to find all of the maids, chefs, and gardeners lined up in perfect rows as if they were going to war.

Hitomi quickly got in line with the maids and asked one of them, "What's going on?"

The maid whispered, "The Master has come back and The Lady wants to throw a grand party for him when the reporters arrive."

Hitomi almost forgot that they actually called Midori, The Lady. She remembered that whenever Midori or another servant asked her to start calling her that, she just laughed and continued with whatever she was doing at the time.

Midori rushed into the room and everyone fell silent. Midori really made the rows feel like they were warriors planning to head into battle.

Midori even spoke as if she were a general, "Listen up! My husband's business is on the verge of gaining even more success and popularity than ever before. To celebrate, we are going to throw the most elegant party the EarthKingdom has ever seen. Everything must be perfect! Is this understood?"

Everyone said, "Yes, my Lady!"

Everyone except Hitomi who replied, "Yes, Midori."

Midori glared at her, but decided not to get into a fight with her. Hitomi assumed that this party was so important to her that she didn't want to delay any time by arguing with her. She made a mental note to herself that she could get away with some things with Midori as long as it was during an important event.

Midori listed her orders, "Maids! I want this house spotless! If I find even one spec of dust on any piece of furniture, I'll make sure that you never forget the day you defied me! Chefs! I want fifty portions of the most mouthwatering of meals you have ever made in you entire lives! If one dish does not meet my expectations, I'll make sure that you never forget the day you defied me! Gardeners! I want the outside of the house to be covered in marvelous décor with every flower shining like a star! If one inch of the décor does not meet my standards,"

Hitomi finished her sentence, "You'll make sure they never forget the day they defied you. We get it, move on."

Midori appeared to be on the verge of exploding with anger, but to Hitomi's surprise, she didn't lash out at her. She simply glared at her with great frustration and told everyone to get to work.

For the rest of the day, Hitomi and the other maids prepared the rooms for the party by cleaning up every spec of dust and decorating each room with traditional Earth Kingdom wallpaper, tables, chairs, silverware, even the paintings on the wall were taken down because the majority of them were from the Fire Nation or Water Tribe. Midori wanted everything to look so elegant and traditionally Earth Kingdom that people would mistake it for a royal Ba Sing Se party.

A few hours later when Hitomi saw that the majority of the work was done, she headed out into the gardens to practice some of her earth bending. She remembered Midori's warning about earth bending around her garden so she made sure that she was a safe enough distance away from it before she started.

While practicing the movement of her feet for specific earth bending moves, she thought about the dream she had last night. She wondered who those people were and what exactly they wanted her to remember? The woman said, "Remember us" but who were they? She thought that she had seen them before, but as the dream faded from her memory, she couldn't remember what they looked like. Hitomi became so frustrated that she stomped on the ground, creating a small rock, and chucked it without looking.

To her horror, the rock knocked off the head of the statue of Midori's husband.

Hitomi, for a moment, just stood there with her jaw dropped. How in the world was she going to fix this before the reporters got there? She stomped on the ground, creating another small rock, and attempted to shape it into Midori's husband's face. The major problem was that she didn't know who he looked like! She knew absolutely nothing about him! Not his face, name, age, job, not one thing!

"Hey Hitomi!" called out a familiar voice, "I think you dropped something." It was Yuko on her motorcycle holding up the head of the statue.

Yuko parked her bike and walked up to Hitomi and stared at the headless statue.

"Boy, she's going to be on your case for this one."

"I didn't mean to knock off the guy's head," Hitomi said with some fear in her voice, "it was an accident!"

"Calm down; it's not like you took the actual guy's head off. We'll just have to find a way to put this thing back on before…"

Too late. Midori walked outside to see how her gardeners were faring with the decorations when she saw Hitomi holding the stone head of her husband next to the headless stone figure of his body. Midori let out a large scream at the sight of it. Yuko quickly placed the head back on the statue and tried to laugh it off as if it weren't busted, but this "brilliant" idea of hers didn't stick. Midori let out another scream when she saw about four to five sato-mobiles head toward the mansion. She quickly dragged the two girls inside the house and shut the doors behind her.

The look on her face was like the face of a demon. She even asked the following question in a demonic voice, "What happened?" Both Hitomi and Yuko were about to speak, both about to take the fall for the other, but Midori stopped them for speaking by shouting, "Never mind! I don't care how it happened or who did it, but I know that outside there is a dislocated stone head sitting on top of my husband's stone body! I can't do anything to you, whoever you are, but you Hitomi, you are in a serious amount of trouble! I'm not going to allow your childishness to ruin my perfect evening!"

"But if I could explain," Hitomi managed to say before Midori silenced her.

"Be quiet you dirt! I should have known that you were nothing but trouble when I adopted you! Your parents did the right thing when they abandoned you at that orphanage! You should've rotted there forever!"

She crossed the line. Hitomi could handle every single insult, every single stupid assignment, every single mistreatment; but there was no way she was about to let her dishonor her parents.

"My mom and dad loved me from the bottom of their hearts and I loved them from the bottom of mine!" Hitomi protested.

"I can hardly imagine anyone who would dare call themselves related to you let alone love you! You're nothing but a load and I can just imagine your parent's happy expressions when they gave you up!"

"Shut up!"

"You're a waste of valuable space!"

"Shut up!"

"You're an idiotic mistake!"

"Shut up!"

"You're a useless pile of dirt with no family or future!"

"SHUT UP!"

At that moment, Hitomi's eyes were engulfed by a blue light that outshined the entire room. Midori and Yuko stood there, speechless to what they were witnessing. Hitomi clenched her fists and multiple rock walls formed around Midori. By spreading her hands and sharply forming an X with her arms, the walls turned to mud and trapped Midori within a mud ball. With the tightening of her fists, the mud turned back into rock. With the thrashing of her arms, she had the rock crash several times into different walls around the room until she grabbed the rock and threw it through the wall into the main room! Hitomi slapped her hands together, destroying the rock and revealing an injured Midori who still held her look of shock. Hitomi raised both her hands into the air and began shooting fire and air from her finger tips, raising several giant boulders from the earth below, and bended the water from the pipes behind the walls until water swirled around her! She stared at Midori with furious hatred in her eyes and was planning to strike once, and finish her. She charged at the defenseless woman with full force.

"Please!" Yuko shouted, "Stop!"

Hitomi froze as she hit the ground in front of Midori. She wanted so badly to drive each and every single element through her luxurious fabrics and furs, and finally drive them through her body for what Midori had said about her and her family. But from hearing Yuko's voice, she began to calm down, and she realized that if she did go through with it, she'd be no better than her; in fact, she'd be worse.

The light faded from Hitomi's eyes and the fire and air stopped shooting from her fingers. The water splashed down on the ground and the boulders crashed into the floor, doing a large amount of damage to the tiling.

Yuko ran up to her and hugged her best friend, asking repeatedly if she was okay.

Hitomi just stood there, shocked at what she did, and what she was about to do. She then looked at the group of reporters and photographers being lead by, who she assumed to be, Midori's husband who just stared back at her.

Everyone and everything was quiet until they all shouted, almost in unison, "It's the Avatar!"

Thanks for reading and I hope you all loved this Chapter! Tune it next time to find out how Hitomi will begin her adventure as Avatar and who her friends and enemies will be along the way!