Avatar: Two Brothers

Ambush

It had been at least an hour since they left Zuan Shi. Ruthar was calmly sitting down, guiding Mikayla through the sky. Meanwhile, Da-Wei was doing his best to not throw up. Despite being an air bender, he had never had much experience with high altitude, especially not on a sky bison. He was hunched over on the side, ready to hurl.

“This reminds me of your brother.”

“What? You have taken my brother on a sky bison?”

“Of course! Not just him but with Chloe’s brother too.”

As Ruthar mentioned those people, Da-Wei began to have multiple thoughts come to his mind. He can’t remember the last time he saw his brother. Although they didn’t always get along, he definitely missed having him around as a sparring partner.

That was when Da-Wei realized that he never heard Ruthar speak much about his past or family. He saw this as the perfect chance to ask. “Hey Master Ruthar?” He waited for a response and Ruthar allowed him to continue. “Do you have a brother or any siblings?”

For a moment there was no reaction from Ruthar. Da-Wei was scared, he wondered if he had said something to upset Ruthar. “I had a brother but he was lost in an accident.” Realizing he might have brought up some painful memories, Da-Wei apologized.

“It's alright Da-Wei. Perhaps I will share another time. For now, could you please grab me some water from the wooden box?”

Da-Wei went over to the box and began to open up the lid that was sealed shut. “How much water did he pack in here that made it so heavy?” He wondered to himself. Then, right when he opened the lid of the box, someone pounced out gasping for fresh air.

“What in the world? Chloe?!” he said in complete shock.

“Man, what took you so long to open up that crate! A girl needs her fresh air, you know!”

“What are you doing here? Why were you hiding in that box? Master Ruthar!”

As he shouted, the air bending master responded. “Oh hey Chloe, sorry I almost forgot you were in that crate. Old age and all.”

Da-Wei was baffled. “You knew!?”

“Oh yeah. She visited me yesterday night after you left. She said she would really like to join us on our adventure and I agreed.”

“By the way, the hiding in the box thing, totally my idea.” Chloe bragged while looking up into the sky.

“This is absurd. Master Ruthar turn Mikayla around!”

“Hey what?! Why?” Chloe yelled in disagreement.

“It's way too dangerous, we need to get you back to…”

Their conversation was cut short as the baby began to cry. Behind them, someone wearing a cloak was launching razor sharp feathers towards Mikayla. Ruthar did his best to help guide Mikayla with some tricky maneuvers but being such a big target, it was inevitable that she would get hit.

While this was happening, Da-Wei motion sickness came back causing him to lose most of his strength. As the pursuer unleashed another cascade of deadly feathers, it forced Mikayla to lean hard to her right. That caused the baby to tilt over but thankfully Ruthar caught the avatar in his arms but Da-Wei fell over and was now falling towards the ground.

Master Ruthar wanted to help but he couldn’t leave Mikayla and the avatar unattended. That was when Chloe took initiative, “I’ll go after Da-Wei!” Without much choice, Ruthar agreed to Chloe’s idea. “I’ll try to shake this enemy loose, but if I can’t, then both of you must reach Ba Sing Se. We can regroup there.” She nodded to confirm, and she jumped out of the sky bison and went after her friend.

They were both dropping down at an incredible velocity. At this rate, if they made an impact with the ground, it would be the end.

Da-Wei was still unable to use his airbending, leaving it all up to Chloe to figure out a solution. First she straightened out her body so she could catch up to Da-Wei. Once she was within reach, she grabbed his arm and pulled him in.

They were now about thirty feet from the ground and still dropping fast. With one hand holding onto her friend and her other hand free, she tried to earth bend but the strong current was disrupting her ability.

Thankfully, Da-Wei somehow managed to regain a bit of strength, allowing him to airbend against the direction they were falling to slow them down. He was still weak and his bending wasn’t enough to cushion their fall but it gave Chloe enough time to surround the both of them into a giant mud ball, drastically softening their landing.

Once they landed, the mudball crumbled and Da-Wei quickly found the nearest tree and began to hurl. While he was getting over his motion sickness, Chloe shook off the impact and was back to her normal self.

“What a rush! We have to do that again!” She shouted in excitement but Da-Wei was still hunched over. When he was finally feeling better, he wiped the side of his mouth with his sleeve and voiced his opinion.

“Let’s never do that again.”

“Oh come on Da-Wei, where is your sense of adventure?”

He didn't bother replying and began walking away. “Hey! Where are you going?” Chloe inquired.

“Where else? To Ba Sing Se.” He grumbled.

“Do you even know where that is?”

That was when Da-Wei realized Chloe had a point. He had no idea where he was going, but not wanting to lose his pride he came up with an answer. “Well we can’t just sit here and wait, we have to…”

When Da-Wei turned around to look, he saw that Chloe was no longer paying attention to him. Instead she was on the ground being fascinated by some creature.

“What are you doing?”

In her hand she had a little crocomole; the face and jaw of a crocodile but the body of a mole. The critter was so cute, Chloe held it up to show her friend. “Look Da-Wei! Isn’t it adorable?”

“Chloe we don’t have time to be messing around with wild animals.” Again she wasn’t really paying attention as she was petting the crocomole. The critter was extremely receptive to Chloe and enjoyed her company. However, Chloe’s lack of seriousness was beginning to frustrate Da-Wei. He snatched the little reptile from her hands.

“Hey, what are you doing?” She tried to reach for it but Da-Wei got away from her with his air bending. “Sorry Chloe, but we need to focus, OUCH!” As he was speaking the crocomole bit Da-Wei’s hand causing it to bleed.

The bite from the animal also made Da-Wei drop the creature into the nearby lake along with some of his blood. When Chloe saw, her eyes began to fume.

“Look what you did! Now the poor crocomole is going to drown!”

“How is this my fault?! Besides, it's part crocodile, it won’t drown!”

As they continued to bicker, the crocomole popped its head out of the water. The sight of the animal stopped Chloe from clobbing Da-Wei but as she stared into the water, she saw a massive shadow that was drawn to the blood from Da-Wei’s hand, beneath the little animal. “Swim!” She cried out.

The clueless animal looked at Chloe, when suddenly beneath it appeared a giant snake shark. It had the head of a shark and the slithering body of a snake. It coiled around the defenseless crocomole, ready to have its snack.

As it lunged its jaw towards its prey, Chloe threw a massive boulder right at the mouth of the beast. The boulder was caught in its mouth, preventing its jaw from closing.

“Chloe what are you doing?”

“We can’t just let the poor guy get eaten!”

Da-Wei knew that there was no point in talking to Chloe about it. Rather than continuing to argue, he raised his fist, ready to help.

The giant snake shark spat out the boulder from its mouth but Chloe chucked another one striking its face. “Hey big ugly! Over here!” She successfully grabbed the attention of the beast and it bursted out of the water slithering towards her. Seeing the creature following her, she ran deeper into the forest. This allowed Da-Wei to pick up the crocomole out of harm’s way and this time, it didn’t bite him. He placed the little creature back on land and apologized for his poor attitude earlier. Once he made sure the critter was safe, he went to catch up with Chloe.

Chloe continued running away until she came into a dead end filled with trees. She attempted to turn back but by the time she turned around the snake shark was already there. She fired multiple stones towards the creature but it deflected all her attacks with the swipe of its tail.

Seeing her range attacks would no longer have much effect, she earth bended a couple of stone gauntlets on her hands. She surprised her larger foe with her tenacity and fearlessness, dashing up towards it and striking it with multiple blows.

Her punches packed much power when combined with the Earth gauntlets but the skin of the snake shark was tough. It allowed the creature to endure the first few surprise hits and then after it developed tolerance to Chloe’s attacks, it no longer felt the pain. It counterattacked by whipping its tail against the Earth bender, sending her flying.

It would have been a very painful impact as her back was about to slam against the tree but thankfully, Da-Wei arrived and used his airbending to stop it from happening. Chloe got back on her feet and the two were ready to take on the slithering beast together.

Da-Wei used the air around him to create an air funnel and Chloe guided the rocks into one end of the funnel and they shot out towards the snake shark at rapid speed. The beast was able to block some of the attacks with its tail but with the increased velocity, it became less effective.

The creature knew it was doomed if it stayed on the defensive. So it lunged towards Da-Wei who was not prepared but Chloe created a rock wall to protect him. The shark’s jaw devoured the wall in seconds but that gave enough time for Da-Wei to get out of the way.

“Its skin is too tough! We need to hit it with something bigger!” Da-Wei told Chloe as he was dodging the creature’s attempt to eat him. Chloe looked around to see what they could use. It took her a moment but she located what they needed to do. “Give me five minutes!”

Da-Wei was caught completely off guard by the idea but he didn’t even get a chance to dispute it as Chloe ran off. He turned his focus back on his foe. Knowing well his attacks weren’t going to break through its skin, Da-Wei elected to use the air scooter technique to escape the situation.

He managed to outmaneuver the beast for a good chunk of time but eventually, the beast landed a dirty hit by flicking some mud, knocking Da-Wei off balance. Now he was on the ground with a barricade of trees in front of him. The snake shark was slowly closing in and ready to enjoy its meal.

“Chloe, I’m sure it's been five minutes, anytime you want to use that epic plan of yours, please do it!” The beast launched forward with its jaws ready to bite. As it came inches away from reaching Da-Wei, Chloe smashed against the trees behind him one last time and a bundle of giant trees came timbering down towards them.

Da-Wei quickly used its air bending to blast himself out of the situation but the creature had nowhere to run. It was trapped in its place and the trees collapsed and piled up against the mighty beast. The colossal beast had been buried away by the pile of trees.