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CHAPTER XI - SOME THINGS ARE WORTH A LITTLE SACRIFICE
- FALL 192 AG -
It was a historic location for Rohan and Jinora, but nowadays it was Rohan and Sung battling it out in the mountains.
Rohan's pseudo-sandbending technique clashed with Sung's authentic sandbending – along with all the other elements he possessed.
Rohan didn't go easy on the young Avatar, however.
"I'm getting kinda bored," Rohan yelled over the noise. "Think I'm gonna go ahead and end things here."
Rohan breathed in as much has his lungs would allow him. He bent over with his right hand on his hip and his other hand near his mouth, he kissed his hand and laid the palm flat, facing upwards. He puckered his lips, winked and blew a kiss - the concentrated air cannoned itself out of Rohan's mouth with more force than Sung had ever seen before - and he was right in the middle of its path.
Sung gasped and raised a wall of earth and braced for impact. The wind was deafening. It penetrated through the wall with a kick and knocked Sung right off his feet.
He landed quite a distance away.
Sung eventually got up. "You- you have got to teach me that!"
The bison landed a good distance away from a vast forest devoid of life. The trees stood, dry and barren, but great in number. The tall, brown, leafless shadows could only just be made out from this far.
"Alright, there's definitely no one around here," said the bald man.
He had been observing the area from the skies until now, making absolutely sure there weren't any people or animals in the vicinity.
The bald man hopped off the back of his bison holding a contraption of some sort. He unfolded the device and set it on the ground - it was a foldable wheelchair.
He jumped back onto the animal to carefully pick up the other man who was accompanying him and floated him down before sitting him down on the wheelchair.
The old man's tattoos would have been faded by now, but he had earned his mastery at an old age - his blue ink was as vibrant as of the bald one who pushed his wheelchair.
"You can still tilt your head upwards," said the young airbending master, stopping and walking slightly ahead of the cripple. "Can't you, Uncle?"
"...Ghhh... Hhh..." he replied, gazing at the cloudy sky.
It was the most he could hope for.
The young man removed his robes, revealing his slim figure. He was always slender, unlike his younger brother, whose physical and bending strength were unmatched. If the young man was honest with himself, he would admit that it was unlikely that he would ever reach his brother's heights - nevertheless...
"I've discovered something," he told his uncle, widening his stance. "Right now, you're the only one I can show this to."
"...Mhh..." his uncle said.
The bald, young man's feet were firmly planted, his eyes and palms pointed to the clouds above the dead trees, he was sweating already - whatever he was doing, it took him everything he had.
The gray, old man darted his eyes back and forth between his nephew's flexed back and the swirling clouds. He noticed a drop of liquid hit the ground in front of the airbender, and another, and another. Soon a small, red puddle formed at the strained man's feet.
"Hghhh..." the old man tried to call out to him, but failed to produce coherent words, just grunts.
His nephew made similar sounds as his entire body eventually soaked with sweat, save his feet, soaked in his own blood which had been running and dripping down from his nose and mouth.
The bison made concerned grunts too, but she had seen this before, she knew she couldn't stop her master from hurting himself and could do nothing but watch on.
The clouds directly above the trees disappeared first, followed by the surrounding ones- no, they weren't disappearing, they were converging into a single point in the sky, and the void began to grow for what seemed like miles.
In fact, all the air within that giant void in the sky had been condensed into a small, white, spherical mass. It was the size of a ball one would use for sports, but still barely large enough for the crippled, old man to catch a glimmer of sunlight reflecting off of it. He saw the object descend into the lifeless trees below.
He looked back at his nephew to see that he had brought his hands back together at some point, and the muscles of his back were at rest again.
Until they contorted and his hands flew away from each other.
All three of them felt the blast, the wheelchair was rolled backwards from the wind. After a deafening boom, the old man heard ringing in his ears. As the fog of dust cleared, the destruction could be assessed.
The dead trees closest to the white mass had been completely obliterated. Other trees were snapped in two, the rest fell outwardly, without exception. The crater in the center of it all was the size of a town.
The bison approached the only person who appeared to be injured, her master who was on all fours.
"It's okay, Naila, it's just a- Ugh-" He coughed out more blood.
Naila moaned woefully.
The man managed to get up to one knee, he caught the eyes of his uncle as he did.
"Hnghhhhh!" his uncle exclaimed.
"Really, Naila," he said as he rubbed Naila's furry head. "Uncle," He turned his attention to the distressed cripple. "I'm fine. It's not as bad as it looks."
His breathing was rapid, his eyes were wide, the veins in his forehead were visible. "Rrrghhh... Hnghh..."
"It's okay, calm down, Uncle." He wiped some blood away from his face with one hand and rested the other hand on his uncle's shoulder in an attempt to calm him. "It's okay, you don't have to speak, I know what you're thinking, Uncle. With this technique, the possibilities are endless."
He returned his Uncle and the wheelchair to the saddle and collapsed as soon as he did. The bison moaned as she heard her master coughing again.
"Take us home, Naila," he said, rolling onto his back after falling in the saddle. "The Air Nation will be more powerful than ever." The bald man closed his eyes and muttered as they lifted off, "We'll never be victimised again."
"Hghhh..."
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