Avatar: Two Brothers

Day of the Meeting

The day of the meeting had arrived. One by one the leaders of the fire nation, water tribe, air nomads, and earth kingdom gathered into the council room. The room was massive with banners and tapestry displaying each of the element’s symbols throughout the area. The tables and chairs were laid out in a circle formation but not everyone had arrived yet.

Ruthar was late entering the room as he saw all the leaders seated. He recognized some of them but wasn't familiar with most of them to join in a conversation. However, there was one person he spotted that he had been wanting to speak with.

“Well, if it isn’t the sleeping beauty herself, Fire Lord Risensa!”

The fire lord slowly turned around after hearing the familiar voice. “What are you blabbering about Ruthar?”

“I came to visit you yesterday but your guards had to turn me away because someone needed her beauty sleep.”

“Oh, be quiet. Unlike you, some of us actually have work to do.”

“Yikes, someone got off the wrong side of the bed.”

“At least I arrived on time.”

“Hey the meeting hasn’t started yet so technically I’m still early…”

“Whatever, the meeting should be starting soon, let’s go grab our tea before it starts.”

“Oh no thanks, I am more of a coffee guy.”

“Someone is high maintenance. You better watch your coffee cup then.”

“Hey! Don’t you dare!”

They could have continued roasting each other but they were forced to digress as the horn sounded, signaling the arrival of the Earth King. Entering into the room and taking the most majestic seat in the room was King Zaid. Unlike most kings, Zaid had a big smile on his face and seemed very friendly.

He welcomed everyone who was in the room and after he finished his greeting, the lower rank soldiers all left the room except one who stood near the king. When all the other guards left, Zaid began to speak. “We have all gathered here today because we have to discuss something of major importance. Does anyone know what we are having for our feast today?” Everyone gave him a strange look.

“My apologies, your honour but shouldn’t we be discussing the serious matter at hand?” questioned one of the leaders from the water tribe.

“Excuse me! Food is an extremely vital discussion topic. Without it, how can one live?!”

Realizing nothing else could be discussed until the food problem was dealt with, one of the king’s assistants went to call on the soldiers to find food from the palace. Moments later, someone entered the room with a cart filled with a mysterious food item. He pulled his cart to the middle of the room and bowed to the king.

“At ease, civilian. Please tell me what food you have brought to us today, Mr.?”

“They call me Manveer your majesty and do I have the best food item for you!” He opened the compartment of the cart and revealed the food item. “Everyone, feast your eyes on the most eloquent food that has ever been grown, the cabbage!”

The room went silent in disappointment. Without saying a word, the guards began to escort the cabbage man out.

“Wait! What are you doing! Don’t touch my cart! Or my cabbages! Stop!” and the door slammed shut.

Suddenly, one of the leaders of the Earth Kingdom stood up and made an announcement. “Have no fear King Zaid, the chefs are preparing a royal feast as we speak.” With that knowledge, King Zaid was satisfied and allowed his general to carry on with the meeting.

While the meeting was happening, Isabelle and Ruby were walking the halls outside and they were about to pass Ruthar’s room. “Hey Isabelle, isn’t that Ruthar’s room? You know, the air bender we spoke with the other day?”

Isabelle went up to the door to read the name plaque on it. “What do you mean ‘we’? I pretty much did all the talking! But yeah, this seems like his room. You know what we should do?”

“What?” Ruby asked in confusion. Isabelle pointed at the door and winked at Ruby. “Oh no! No no no! I ain’t getting talked into another one of your crazy ideas!”

Isabelle covered Ruby’s mouth as her voice was slowly getting louder. “Shhhh! I will be quick! Just stand guard here and I will bring back a souvenir for you.”

Ruby pushed away Isabelle’s hand from her mouth, “He’s such a nice guy, this feels so wrong!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t take anything important to him. Just something to prove to everyone back home that we met the great air bending master Ruthar! Please Ruby!”

Again, Ruby couldn’t believe what she was doing, but she turned around and stood guard, allowing Isabelle to sneak inside Ruthar’s room.

When Isabelle was inside, she quickly went over everything in the room to see what she could find. She found his spare change of clothes, a staff, and a whole lot of coffee beans. “This guy really loves his coffee.” She thought to herself.

After going through the table, closet, drawers, and even Ruthar’s bag, she didn’t find anything to take. She was about to give up when suddenly she heard something move on the bed. She moved towards the bed and found a baby wrapped up and sleeping soundly.

Many thoughts went through Isabelle’s mind. One of them being the fact Ruthar was quite up there in his age, so this couldn’t possibly be his baby. She tried to take a closer look at the infant but as she got closer, the baby woke up. Upon looking at Isabelle’s direction, it began to burst into tears.

“No, don't cry! I’m so sorry for waking you up!” Isabelle picked up the baby and tried to soothe it, but the tantrum continued. The baby was so loud, Ruby rushed into the room to see what was wrong.

“Hey Isabelle, is everything okay? I heard a lot of noise coming from here…” Right as she entered the room, Ruby saw an assassin up on the walls directing his blade towards Isabelle’s direction, but Isabelle had no clue. Immediately Ruby shot a fireball at the assailant, knocking him down behind Isabelle.

“Whoa, who is that?!” she shouted. Both of them realized that there was trouble within the palace and they needed to alert everyone else. They also couldn’t leave the baby behind so their only choice was to take the infant along.

They ran through the halls knowing there had to be other guards around but as they turned the corner, they found some lying unconscious on the ground. “Oh no, we have to warn the leaders in the room!” Unfortunately their path was blocked by three strangers.

Two of them wore masks but there was one that stood out. It was a lady who looked to be in her teenage years like Ruby and Isabelle but instead of normal arms, she had feathered wings and talons instead of human feet.

Not only were they outnumbered, they were most likely outclassed as these were the infiltrators that took out the Earth Kingdom guards. To compound their problems, Isabelle was holding on to the baby, which severely hindered her ability to fight. Noticing their predicament, Ruby stepped forward and told Isabelle to flee.

“What?! I’m not leaving you alone against these freaks!”

“Isabelle, you know we can’t beat them. Please, go find help, I will stall as long as I can.”

It was a tough choice but Isabelle knew her friend was right. But before she ran the other direction she yelled to Ruby, “We are definitely going to see all the cute bunnypups so hang on!” With those final words, she sprinted away.

The harpy commanded her two lackeys to chase after the runaway girl. Ruby fired off two flame streams forcing the two ninjas to back off initially. Realizing she was becoming a nuisance, the harpy attacked Ruby, which freed up the two underlings to pursue Isabelle.

Back in the dungeon, Chloe and Da-Wei were still locked up. “Da-Wei, how much longer do we have to be here for? I think I'm going to go crazy!” She then fainted on the ground. Da-Wei knew Chloe didn’t do well in confined spaces but he thought that perhaps some sustenances would help. So Da-Wei called out for the prison guard.

The guard replied to him with an annoyed tone, not even bothering to walk closer to him. Da-Wei requested some food for his friend but suddenly all was quiet. Then he heard a sound, like a blade going through something and then a body dropped onto the floor.

Da-Wei knew that was a sign of worse things to come. He could see shadows from the distance approaching, but there was little he could do, as he was tied up in chains.

Approaching them was a masked person, similar to the one he encountered back in at the Zuan Shi. The enemy had the prison keys in one hand and he was ready with his blade in his other hand. He tried to alert Chloe but she appeared to be out cold. He struggled with all his might but the chains were too much, he couldn’t break free.

The door was now unlocked and his enemy stood a couple feet away with his blade drawn out. Slowly he raised his sword up, ready to drive it through his next target. But right as he drove the sword towards Da-Wei, Chloe sprang up from her ruse and smashed the enemy with the chains on her hand.

The enemy was knocked on the head so hard he fell unconscious, dropping the keys in front of Da-Wei. Unfortunately, neither of them could pick up the keys with their hands but Chloe smashed her chains against the steel bars and with enough persistence, they broke off allowing her to pick up the keys and undo the rest of her chains.

As she finished with her chains, she moved over to help Da-Wei who was stunned by what he had just witnessed. “So, when did you learn how to metal bend?”

“Metal what? Oh that wasn’t any kind of bending at all. I just kept smashing it until it broke!” Da-Wei couldn’t believe her answer but he couldn’t argue with the results. Once his chains were unlocked they both made their way towards the exit where they found the body of the prison guard. They felt sympathy for the guard but they had to press forward and find Ruthar.