Avatar: Two Brothers

New Born

There was great joy within the walls of the Western Air Temples this day. A baby was born into the world and not just any baby, it was the Avatar! Many of the residents gathered to celebrate the birth of their future protector.

The monks held a ceremony to initiate the baby by giving him the air nomad tattoos. The mother held the baby in her arms as both parents looked on with joy for the future that awaits their offspring.

After all the initiation was complete, the lead monk told the parents that this was a momentous day for not just their child but for their family as well. However, with such responsibility comes great danger. He notified them that for safety precautions the family will live with the monks inside the main Air Temple under the protection of the most highly trained air benders.

The parents accepted what the monk said and the ceremony concluded. That allowed everyone to celebrate for the rest of the day. It was quite the celebration, for Air Nomad expectations. Kids got to play tag with flying lemurs and and the adults rode the sky bison along with their children. It was a day to remember and when the sun came down, everyone returned home.

When night appeared, all the families were sound asleep as were most of the monks in the monastery. There was however, one monk that had trouble sleeping so he decided to leave his resting area and go for a walk.

As he walked through the halls of the monastery with a candle light, he thought he heard a sound behind him. He turned around and pointed the light to where he heard the noise but nothing was there. Perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him, but as he turned around, a hand appeared and covered his mouth to prevent any sound from being heard. Seconds later, the man was lying lifeless on the ground.

Everyone in the temple was sound asleep but there was a cry coming from one of the rooms. The baby began crying, waking up his mother and father. The father was too tired to roll out of bed so the mother went to check on the baby. She found the baby crying in the crib so she picked him up and soothed him. As she was soothing the baby, she was suddenly ambushed and restrained by an unseen person.

As her mouth was covered by her captive, another intruder came in and took the baby from her hands. Seeing her own firstborn taken away, the mother went into a frenzy and bit the person’s hand. Once her mouth was free she let out a loud scream. One of the infiltrators finished off the woman with their claws but their cover had been blown.

The husband upon hearing his wife’s voice, sounded the gong which alerted everyone throughout the entire temple. The two intruders knew they could no longer linger around and began to make their escape.

The two intruders made their way towards the exit of the temple with their hostage in hand but as they were near escaping, they were surrounded by the monks in circle formation. Some held a staff in their hands, others with lanterns to light the room and some had their bare hands as weapons.

“Release the newborn at once!” Shouted a man with a stern voice. His name was Monk Mesja and he was the Head Monk of the Western Air Temples. The two infiltrators who had their cloaks on refused to return the child. Left with no other choice, Monk Mesja ordered the monks to apprehend the trespassers.

As the first wave of monks rushed towards the two infiltrators, one of them jumped forwards and out of their sleeves shot deadly feathers that knocked out all the lanterns in the room. With that the room went dark and all that could be heard were punches, kicks, and the sound of some of the monks being defeated.

When Monk Mesja managed to get some light back on the situation he found over half of the monks were lying down on the ground, unable to fight. With such a demoralizing sight, he immediately told the rest of his comrades to halt their attack. He then stepped forward to challenge the two combatants himself.

Again, one of them shot feathers from their sleeves but Mesja used his air funnel technique and directed them back. They were both able to dodge them but they realized their new opponent was in a completely different class from his followers.

With their first attack failing, the other one in the cloak passed off the hostage and charged forward and began throwing punches towards the monk. Mesja was able to dodge all the punches but he could also sense that if his current foe landed a single strike against him, it would be disastrous.

After being on the defensive, he found an opening and slammed his opponent with his palm, sending the person flying back. Then the cloaked person collided with its ally, knocking the baby up into the air. With the baby falling to the ground, Monk Mesja calmly uses his air bending to catch the baby and bring it into his arms. The Avatar had been secured.

The two intruders were slow to get up and they were now surrounded by the remaining monks. Monk Mesja was ready to give the order to arrest them when suddenly, someone else appeared at the exit. It was a man in a black garb wearing a mask to conceal his face, with only a symbol to distinguish himself. The same symbol that was on the seal sent out by the fire sage.

When demanded to speak his intention, the man stood motionless. That caused one of the impatient monks to try to restrain him but suddenly, the monk stopped moving and out of nowhere, had a giant cut on his abdomen and fell to the ground bleeding.

The air nomads were stunned by what had happened and were filled with fear. Sensing the terrifying aura that this man was giving off, Mesja called for one of his pupils, “Armaan.” A young air bender rushed to Mesja’s side. “Yes, Monk Mesja!”

“Take the baby and get on one of the air bison. Fly as far away as you can.” Mesja instructed. “Wait, why?” but Mesja didn’t explain, he signaled for Armaan to follow his orders. Armaan stopped, nodded and took the avatar away. He ran fast, not looking back as he couldn’t believe someone like Monk Mejsa, an airbending master could lose.

Two more monks attempted to take down the mysterious man but once again, they were easily casted aside and the enemy barely moved. “Heh, air benders these days aren’t what they used to be, don’t you agree?” He directed his comment towards Monk Mesja.

Monk Mesja wasted no time and blasted two high streams of air towards his enemy. Most opponents would dodge this initial attack and after avoiding it, Mesja would have them right where he wanted his opponent, but this enemy was different from any he ever faced. The masked man stood tall and took both the air blasts head on. As the stream collided near his body, the attack was nullified and had absolutely no effect.

Monk Mesja was completely stunned. “Is that all you got? How disappointing. They call you an airbendering master but you can’t even comprehend what just happened. You are not worthy to exist in this world.”

Immediately, all the remaining monks jumped to Monk Mesja’s side. They all braced themselves for the fight of their lives and the mysterious man encouraged them to all attack at once.

While the battle continued on, Armaan ran with the avatar in his arms. He finally made it out of the temple and into the courtyard where he could hear some of his comrades yelling in pain. He was tempted to turn back but he knew he had to carry his master’s orders.

He continued past the courtyard and towards a stable where the sky bison were kept safe. Quickly, he opened one of the gates to let her out of the barn. “Come on Anaya, we have to hurry before…” As he was talking to the sky bison he turned around to see the cloaked warriors from back at the temple.

They threatened Armaan to hand over the baby. His mind was racing, thinking about what happened to Monk Mesja and everyone else if these two were able to catch up to him.

Impatient, one of the cloaked enemies lunged towards Armaan in an attempt to punch him but the tail of a sky bison slapped them aside. All the other sky bison charged out of their stable and attacked the two intruders. One of them looked at Armaan and communicated to him to leave with Anaya.

“Thank you everyone! I won’t let your sacrifice be in vain!” He quickly got on Anaya’s back and as Anaya was about to take off, one of the cloaked members shot a few feathers that struck against one of Anaya’s legs.

Anaya was hurt but she shook off the hit and managed to continue flying on. The cloaked enemy was ready to release another wave of feathers but the other sky bison blocked the attack, allowing Armaan and Anaya to escape.

The sky bison completed their mission and they fought valiantly but they were eventually overpowered by the cloaked duo. All the sky bison were extremely injured and as they lay helpless, the masked man reappeared.

The cloaked intruders immediately bowed in the presence of the masked man. “Master, we were unable to retrieve the avatar. We will accept any punishment you have for us.” One of them spoke.

The masked man chuckled, “No matter. Everything is going according to plan. Proceed to the next phase.”