WORDS: 2K
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CHAPTER X - WE WON'T BE CRUSHED SO EASILY
Zaheer approached his daughter. "Kaili, it's over… Tell us where you're keeping the Avatar."
"It's not over," she said. "The Lotus hasn't lost yet."
"No!" he shouted as she disappeared. "She didn't use the portal! She mediated here, she can go back!"
"She can meditate into the spirit world?" asked a confused Rohan, who looked around at everyone else for answers.
"I'm going back," Sung said.
"Wait, Sung." The Chairwoman was calm and efficient, she knew how to instruct him. "If you get out, show your bending to the first person you see and tell them that you're the Avatar and need to go to the nearest Air Temple, you'll be safe there. Now, go!"
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Sung awoke to find his metal encased room empty.
It wasn't a regular room, it was incredibly spacious and had trees and bushes with soil under them and a pool of water populated with fishes.
There was one exit, the metal door that beeps and opens when Kaili, Kav or his other teachers scan their eyes on the iris scanner.
He ran to the window adjacent the door but a metal plate had been mechanically slid over the other side of the glass. He banged on it. "Let me out!"
He managed to shatter the glass with a flurry of pebbles, but the metal plate behind it was as firm as the walls surrounding him. He broke the console controlling the door, but it was still locked.
He used all he could, the three elements he possessed, but nothing worked. Sung couldn't bend this strange metal that had surrounded him since before he formed memories. Punching it over and over only hurt his knuckles, he couldn't feel even the slightest particle of bendable earth within any of the walls, the door or the window plate.
"I can't..." He finally gave up and sat down cross legged in front of the now half empty lake and closed his eyes.
"Maybe I can help?" said a voice.
Sung opened his eyes to see that a water tribe woman had appeared before him, hovering above the water, mirroring his sitting position, although she sat a little straighter.
"Who- who are you?" he asked cautiously.
She laughed. "I never thought I'd ever meet someone who didn't recognise me, let alone my own reincarnation."
"Re... in... car...na-"
She smiled. "I'm Korra. I've been looking forward to meeting you."
"Are you a waterbender?"
"I bend all four elements, just like you."
Sung lowered his gaze. "Yeah… I thought there were only three until- until today." He sighed. "I can't bend this weird metal, I'm never getting out of here, am I?"
"It's platinum."
"P-platinum?"
"The metal you've been bending is iron, you use the unrefined earth inside to bend it - but platinum is different, it's so pure that... no one's ever bended it before..."
"So I really am stuck here."
"No, you're an amazing earthbender, it's your native element - I saw you bend sand and lava and glass and metal, you've already mastered them all. Platinum has never been bended before, but that doesn't make it impossible, if anyone can bend platinum, Sung," she closed her eyes, "it's you." When she opened them again, they were glowing white. The sight of it sent a chill through Sung's body.
"W-what are you doing?" he asked as she lunged to hold him by the chest and neck with one hand and pushed the thumb of her other hand into his forehead.
"This is the Avatar State," she explained with many voices as Sung's eyes began glowing too. "We'll use it to break free from here," her voice echoed quieter as her image began to fade. "Together."
The phone rang.
Jinora, Ikki and Rohan had been waiting for one of the other four Temples to call for hours.
"Hello?" Jinora answered.
"Jinora?"
"Mom?"
Ikki and Rohan gathered around to hear the conversation.
"He's here," said Pema of the East. "He's fine. He was alone and a little drained, but unharmed." The three siblings performed a synchronised sigh of relief at the news. "We'll get him to you as soon as we can."
"That's great mom! Thanks!"
"Jinora, there's one more thing - I don't think we're gonna be able to keep the Avatar's identity a secret."
"Why not?"
"That's why." Ikki pointed to the TV which displayed helicopter footage of a destroyed quarry site and a picture of a young boy with glowing eyes in the corner – the cause of the destruction.
"Did he hurt anyone!?" asked Jinora, standing up.
"Looks like it was empty at the time," said Ikki. "He was in the Avatar State when he did this, he must have had trouble controlling it."
"Hey," said Rohan, intrigued, walking up closer to the TV to get a better look at the damage. "Not bad for a ten-year-old." He punched his palm and bared his teeth in the shape of a grin.
DAYS LATER
"I mean, seriously," said Rohan. "he's the strongest, most versatile bender I've ever seen – and coming from me, that really means something!" Him and Ikki watched Sung ride around the cliff on his ball of wind. They let Rohan train him, but Ikki wanted to oversee them on their first couple of days. "Look how good his airbending is already!" On cue, Sung lost his balance and rode off the edge of the cliff into the water below. "Okay, he's not a master, yet, but we're working on it." Rohan said.
The two looked down over the side of the cliff to see Sung flapping and paddling his arms around helplessly in the water. "Help! I-I can't swim!" he yelled.
"Uh, Sung," Rohan held the bridge of his nose. "…You're a waterbender…"
"Oh," Sung chuckled. "Right."
"He's not very bright, is he?" Ikki noticed. Sung rocketed up to the cliff, bringing with him what looked like all the water in the ocean, pouring over and drenching everything in sight. Rohan bended an umbrella of wind to shelter himself and his sister from the falling sea. "But I'll give it to him," she continued. "You weren't wrong about his bending."
The Red Lotus was migrating once again.
Kav was behind the wheel. He drove the car at the front, leading the Red Lotus members who wished to remain to their new hideout – they were given freedom to leave, if they wanted to, they would divert from the group to their own chosen destinations.
"This is the worst thing that could have happened." Kaili sat in the passenger seat, head in her hands. "We went too far, we made him too strong, even the platinum wasn't enough to hold him." They had heard the news of the Avatar's appearance over the radio. "I lost him, I lost the Avatar… I'm nothing without him… We lost…"
"Hey," Kav couldn't bear to see Kaili like this. "We don't need the Avatar! We haven't lost yet, Kaili! We have the stuff, that's all we need."
He was referring to the strengthening drug that the Red Lotus had produced independently – he and a large team of researchers, including those with backgrounds in water-healing, had developed it. There was enough for the young Avatar, but it wasn't financially viable to fabricate much more.
"There's not enough, it's-"
"There's enough for you!" said Kav. He took one of his hands off the steering wheel to grab one of Kaili's. "You'll lead us to a new world! The Red Lotus still believes in you!"
Kaili scoffed. "If there's any members still left after all this."
Kav angled the rear-view mirror so Kaili could see behind them. Her eyes widened as she saw that even halfway through their journey, not a single one of the cars had diverted, all of them followed the leading car.
"Like I said," Kav kept his eyes on the road. "We still believe in you, so don't give up, yet. We're not done."
The Avatar and his master took a break from training. Their temporary supervisor joined them.
"Sung... That name's pretty interesting," Ikki said. "I've never heard it before."
"It's an old Earth Kingdom name."
"Does it have a meaning?" asked Rohan, he knew some old names had lost their meaning and were given to children purely because they sounded nice.
"It's a name from an old folk tale that my mom-" Sung cut himself off, took a breath and regained his momentum. "An old folk tale that Kaili used to tell me."
It was the first time anyone had brought up the Red Lotus since his arrival, a slightly uncomfortable silence fell upon the three.
"Uh..." Rohan broke the silence. "...I don't think we've heard any Earth Kingdom folk tales... How did it go?"
"Uhh... well..." Sung cleared his throat to begin telling the story as he remembered it.
"...There was a village at the foot of a mountain... The- the village would often be targeted by wild animals... But there was a Giant who protected the village... Whenever the animals would try to attack the village, the Giant would- would fight them off...
"But the villagers feared the Giant and mistook his protection as- as aggression and would shoot at him over their walls with arrows... The Giant didn't speak the language of the- the villagers, so couldn't explain himself to them... Even still, the Giant never fought back against the hostile villagers and continued to- to protect them from harm...
"One day, the Giant noticed a massive boulder rolling down the mountain headed right- straight for the village... It was big enough that it would destroy the village if it wasn't stopped, so the Giant wedged his back- back against the boulder to bring it to a halt...
"The villagers were terrified of the Giant facing their village and- and- and, not noticing the boulder, shot arrows at him once again... The Giant held the boulder back and withstood the barrage for as long as he could, but the villagers kept shooting at him and eventually... he- he died...
"When the Giant fell, the boulder came rolling down the mountain and destroyed the village along with all the villagers..."
"Wow..." said Rohan. "That's a heavy bedtime story."
"So you're named after the Giant that was killed by the villagers he was trying to protect?" asked Ikki.
"Actually," The boy smiled and scratched his head. "'Sung' is the name of the boulder."
"What? Why does the boulder even have a name?" retorted Rohan.
"I don't know," he replied, etching his name on the ground - it was written with a single character.
Sung
"The name of the Giant was Ka." Sung wrote the character next to the first one.
Ka
"And if you add another letter here..." Sung drew the second letter, adding extra syllables to the pronunciation. "...it becomes..."
"Kaili..." Rohan read the name. "She's named after the Giant and you're named after the boulder... It's like she sees you as her weapon or something..."
"Maybe it's more like she sees herself as the good guy, even though the Red Lotus is far from that," suggested Ikki.
"You know, Sung, you're completely free to change your name," offered Rohan.
"Mmm…" Sung stared at the name on the ground for a while. "But- but there's another way of looking at it - the villagers shouldn't have feared the Giant, and they should have checked to see if he was really a threat before attacking him, they should have made sure they weren't in the wrong. They destroyed- themselves. If we 'turn the Pai Sho board around' and look at it from the opposite perspective, we can flip Kaili's view - the Red Lotus should make sure that- that they're not in the wrong, otherwise they might get crushed by Sung."
Rohan shared an impressed look with Ikki before laughing loudly and rubbing the top of Sung's head vigorously. "Sung, you might be smarter than we thought!" He continued laughing.
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