Avatar: Two Brothers

Calamity of Fire

Chloe, Da-Wei, Dilraj, and Isabelle made their way towards the temple. They ran as fast as they could hoping Ruthar wasn’t hurt but Da-Wei noticed that Isabelle didn’t seem her usual self. “Hey Isabelle, is something wrong?” he asked.

“I’m just worried about leaving Risensa and Rice alone back there. There are a lot of enemies there and I just can’t shake the feeling that something bad might happen.”

Neither Da-Wei or Chloe could come up with anything to say so Dilraj stepped in. “I know it's tough but they knew the risk and accepted them to carry forth this plan. The best thing we can do is make sure we do our part to make sure the plan succeeds.”

His words made Isabelle feel more at ease. “Thanks Dilraj. I didn’t know you were capable of understanding human emotions.”

“I have my moments. Just don’t get too used to it.”

As they were having their conversation, a barrage of feathers was about to come crashing on them but Chloe was attentive and yelled, “Everyone look out!” She reacted by uplifting a stone column from the ground to block off the feather storm.

Isabelle and Dilraj thanked Chloe for protecting them. She acknowledged their thanks as their enemy finally revealed herself in the air, Sonoor had appeared.

“Drat, I was hoping to hit at least one of you with that! Oh well no matter, none of you will be getting through me anyways!”

Da-Wei, Dilraj, and Isabelle were all ready for battle but Chloe had other ideas. She told both Dilraj and Da-Wei that they should continue on and leave Sonoor to her and Isabelle. Knowing how tough their opponent was, Da-Wei felt uneasy leaving them but time was of the essence. “Take her down!” Da-Wei told Chloe before he pressed forward with Dilraj.

“Looks like it's just you and me against this bird lady.” Isabelle announced.

“Yeah! Are you ready?”

“Just one question, why did you pick me to be your partner in this fight?” Isabelle asked.

“I figured you and I both have a personal vendetta against this one.”

“You bet I do. Let’s make her regret ever meeting us.”

As Chloe and Isabelle were about to face Sonoor, Dilraj and Da-Wei continued further towards the temple. After making great pace, Da-Wei held out his hand to stop Dilraj as he sensed a shift in the wind. They waited and coming out to greet them was the younger revenant sister, Ruvnia.

Not only was her presence overwhelming, but when she slammed her fist together, both Dilraj and Da-Wei could feel the force standing meters away. Da-Wei still remembered his first encounter against Ruvnia but this time he was much stronger. However, Dilraj stepped in front of him and told Da-Wei to press forward.

Da-Wei couldn’t fathom allowing Dilraj to take on such a powerful foe alone. Da-Wei stood his ground and told Dilraj he was going to fight with him. Dilraj let out a sigh realizing that arguing was pointless. So instead he held his hand out and told Da-Wei that in the water tribe it was a custom to shake the hand of your ally before going into combat with them.

Da-Wei grabbed his hand and agreed to fight alongside Dilraj. As Da-Wei finished his words, Dilraj replied, “Forgive me Da-Wei.” The airbender was confused but suddenly Dilraj threw Da-Wei away from the battlefield and right after doing so, he began to form ice walls around him and Ruvnia. Da-Wei got up quickly but as he tried to dash back to help Dilraj he was too late, as he was caught on the other side of the walls.

Da-Wei slammed the barricade in frustration but his physical attacks couldn’t break the ice. Basic air bending wouldn’t even scratch the ice and using any advanced level airbending would be too costly. He knew he had to conserve his energy to face Laghima. And so, realizing that it was pointless to try and break the ice prison, Da-Wei accepted the opportunity presented before him and continued on to find Laghima.

Returning back to the first battle, Chloe and Isabelle were both panting as Sonoor hovered above them. The two benders had tried a multitude of attacks but none of their tactics seemed to work against their opponent. “Is that the best both of you can do? If so, neither of you are a threat to Laghima.”

Aggravated by her comment, Chloe began sprouting rock columns from the ground. Sonoor avoided them all with ease, “Ha those rock towers will never reach me. You are just wasting your energy!” But Chloe wasn’t trying to hit Sonoor with the columns, instead she used them as an elevated platform to jump on. She maneuvered through each column and got enough momentum to launch herself high into the air where she could now hit her target.

Chloe gathered her strength and threw a barrage of punches at Sonoor who shielded herself with her wings. Her wings were tough so Chloe gathered the rocks to her fist, forming a knuckle weapon and continued pounding at her opponent’s wings. It seemed Chloe had swung the battle in her favour but Sonoor found the precise time to open up her winds and blast a huge gust of wind, knocking Chloe away and causing her to fall towards the ground.

As she was falling to the ground Sonoor fired her deadly poison feathers at Chloe. Now the earth bender had two problems to worry about, surviving the fall and the poison feathers. Thankfully, Isabelle saw what was happening and used her fire missiles to shoot down the feathers. That allowed Chloe to reorient herself to pound the ground and break her fall.

“Phew, that was close! Thanks for the save there Isabelle.” Isabelle accepted the gratitude and was glad Chloe was okay. She also realized that being an earth bender seemed to be a high disadvantage against their current foe.

“Chloe, I know you will disagree with this idea but I think you should go on ahead.” Isabelle suggested.

“WHAT!? I think the heat of battle is getting to you! There is no way I’m going to leave you alone to fight her!”

“Please listen, Chloe. I've been thinking about this ever since we split off the team. There is still one other sister we would have to fight even if we won this battle.”

“Yeah I remember her, I’m sure Dilraj and Da-Wei can handle her.”

“Maybe, but what if Dilraj decided to fight Ruvnia alone?”

“WHAT?! That’s crazy, why would he do that?!”

“Because that would allow Da-Wei to fight Laghima with all his energy saved up.”

“Oh, you have a really good point.”

“And it's also just a guess, but I’m assuming the other sister is much stronger than the one we are facing now.”

“Wait, so that means… Dilraj is fighting her all by himself?!” Chloe finally caught on.

“That’s right Chloe, you need to go help him.”

“But, I can’t …” Before she could finish, Isabelle took over. “Don’t worry, I still have some tricks up my sleeves. Risensa taught me some moves. Now go, they need your help.”

Chloe clenched her fists as she had a tough decision to make. She stomps the ground before telling Isabelle to defeat Sonoor. Then Chloe ran off and made her way towards Dilraj and Da-Wei. However, Sonoor didn’t want Chloe to leave as that would put her sister in greater danger. She attempted to dive down and stop her but her attempt was thwarted as Isabelle fired a warning shot to create separation between her and Chloe.

Thanks to Isabelle’s efforts, Chloe managed to escape the battle and was far from Sonoor’s reach. If Sonoor wanted to help her sister, she knew she had to deal with Isabelle first. Seeing as she had no problem fighting her and Chloe initially, she expected to make quick work out of fighting just one of them.

Not holding back, Sonoor took to the skies and then released a storm of feathers that rained down on Isabelle. There were countless feathers and they were fired at high velocity giving Isabelle no time to dodge. Sonoor thought she had the battle in the bag with this attack.

However, Isabelle calmly inhaled a deep breath and as she opened her eyes, her hands slammed the ground and she created a massive fire wall that incinerated all the feathers. Sonoor then flew in and struck Isabelle in the gut with her wing.

Despite the pain, Isabelle fought back by launching three consecutive fire balls. Sonoor was confident she could fan away the flames with her heavy gust attack. She flapped her wings and managed to stop the initial impact of the fireball but the intensity of the heat was so great, some of the residue flames got near her wings and burned her a little.

“How is this possible? I had no problem fighting you and your friend earlier but now that it's just you, why am I having so much difficulty?” Sonoor spoke in frustration.

“Isabelle was still trying to catch her breath. “Ha, I actually never been much of a team fighter. I always had a hard time controlling my firebending, so after Chloe left, I didn’t have to hold back anymore.”

“I see.” Sonoor then immediately dashed towards Isabelle and swung at her with her wings. Isabelle took another hard hit from her right side before she regained her focus and conjured two fire daggers to fight back. She managed to get a couple of slashes against Sonoor’s wings but she had the final strike as she created a massive gust that sent Isabelle crashing.

Isabelle managed to pull herself back up but she knew that the next attack she received from Sonoor could be lethal. Sensing that, Isabelle realized she had to resort to her final technique. One that she had been training with Risensa during their time together.

Suddenly, the temperature around Isabelle’s vicinity began to rise drastically. Sonoor was clueless as to what Isabelle was up to, but for the first time in a long time, she felt a sense of fear as her wings were shaking. When Isabelle finished charging up, Sonoor was staring down countless fiery swords in the sky that were at the fire bender’s disposal.

Hoping to catch Isabelle off guard, she fired a couple of deadly feathers at her enemy but Isabelle summoned one of the fiery blades and whirled it around, nullifying the attack. It was at that moment that Sonoor realized how powerless she was in this situation. It was a feeling she hadn’t felt since she first became a revenant.

For a moment, Sonoor looked on hopelessly as she felt her fate was imminent. But suddenly, memories of her sister, Ruvnia appeared in her mind. “No, I can’t give in now, I must protect her!” In that moment, Sonoor was reinvigorated with one last burst of energy. She ascended into the skies and focused all her power in one final feather storm.

She unleashed the largest storm of feathers straight for Isabelle who retaliated with her calamity of fiery swords. The two attacks clashed together and created an explosion followed by a large smoke screen that could be seen by others throughout the temple grounds.

The smoke was far too dense to see through so Isabelle stayed and waited for it to clear. On the other hand, Sonoor saw this as her only chance to strike. Using the smokescreen as cover, she dashed through and appeared right in front of Isabelle, ready to strike her with her talons. Her talons came inches of making contact against Isabelle’s head but Sonoor’s attack never connected as Isabelle struck her near her heart with one of the fiery blades.