"Quick!"714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOaIF6DrssP
Yuni tramples all the leaves and vines on the ground in front of him as she moves her legs with lot of tenacity. Rei following behind her with the same thought of getting there as quick as they can.714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo2U7dwTWi8
“Hey, I am the one who heard it first, though”714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxajAArIvZy
Rei lower his eyebrows. Why I am the one behind even though it was me who notice the sound? He thinks he should be leading the run.714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF9oPj9TRoT
“Does it matter? We have to hurry.”
He knows that. Rei. After all it was him who heard the sounds. The sounds of the rough movement of people. The sounds resembling of someone fighting. And the most distinct sound he heard were the sound of rock beings thrown and smashed. The sound of the earth moving. Soon as he heard that, he assumed there was an earthbending happening somewhere.714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS42iyVlFFa
If this was the Republic he would have just ignored it. After all, the city is full of bender. One fight or two could happen there. In fact, it happened one day when he lived there. Thankfully, there were authorities who sorted it out.
But this is a forest at the outskirt of the Fire Nation Capital. Any fight would be uncommon here. Not inside a forest where almost nobody goes. At least nobody but him, Rei think.714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUy1ApanAxv
He goes to this forest almost every day. He spends his afternoon leisure (napping) here where no one from the capital would bother him.
This day he thought he could nap safe and sound like he always do, but the sounds was bugging him and he couldn’t rest. Especially when Yuni came found him and bicker him to investigate on the sounds.714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7qMmsilA4T
Rei don’t know why Yuni always successful on bothering him. As if there are no places safe from her, he thinks. He is grateful that he has a good friend like Yuni; a native firebender girl who's the same age as him. But sometimes he thinks for just a little that she is kind of a nuisance. Because she always follow him around. That’s why he thought of making this forest his sanctuary. But Rei didn’t see it coming, when Yuni tailed on his shadow and found him on his secret haven.714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGdD9H6vWzv
*****714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz9HqtQzC2m
“It’s close.”714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwyDkuua5f6
Yuni move her feet faster leaving more distances in front of Rei. Her long socks cover her feet up to her knees so that it protects her from the low grass graze. Her short pant makes her slender legs run easier. And her red upper looks like it was made specifically for her. It’s not thick enough to prevent her from moving easily. But it’s not also thin enough to make her vulnerable to the coldness of the Fire Nation’ high altitudes.714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnJebL3YK9G
In a sudden an object flying between them from the east to the west, pass right in front of Rei’s eyes.
“What was that?!” Rei stops his feet and look to his left side. He sees the flying object that passed his eyes before. The object shaped of 4-pointed diamond. It glows a transparent light blue color. 714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq7p069W7Pt
“Is that a … spirit?”
Seeing his distances are getting more farther from the running Yuni, he shouts to her with his loudest voice “Yuni. You go ahead. But wait for me there! Don’t do anything yet until I come!”
From the north, Yuni look back for an instant at Rei without stopping or slowing down. As he head west, Rei sees Yuni keep running to the north.
Rei now are not following his friend anymore, but a foreign object flying to the west with a considerable speed. The object swing left and right, indifferently, avoiding hitting the numerous trees that stands on its way. Rei does the same thing, only he was on the ground, running. It’s almost as if he is chasing a kite.
“What a spirit doing here? What’s going on in this supposedly lonely forest?”
Things just getting more and more restless for him. First were the sounds of the fighting, and now this foreign object (which he assumes is a spirit). He has been spending his afternoon here for more than 2 years, yet this is the first time things like this happen. He knows he couldn’t let it be.
As he gaining up on the spirit he look ahead and see a fallen tree which lie above a large stone diagonally upward. He thinks that he could catch the spirit by running to that tree and jump to grab it when he reaches its height.
So he put more forces on his feet and starts accelerating. The flying spirit doesn’t have a tail, but its glow leaves a trail where Rei follow it behind. He stretch his hand as he start running on the tree, gaining elevation.
“Almost…”
His hands and the spirit are so close that he thinks he could grab it if he jumps. And that’s what he thinks he should do. Because he almost reaches the edge of the tree and he is already high enough to catch the flying object.
Without stopping his fast running, Rei jump with one foot making a strong push and leaping toward the flying object.
“I … got… you …!”
His hand grabs the object or to be precise, he pinches it with his index finger and his thumb.
The spirit, swing around aimlessly as if it is trying to let down whatever holding it. The spirit, unaffected by the fact that Rei –a human with weight- hanging on it, still levitating on the air, spinning at every direction.
“Ugh…”
Rei trying not to let it go still holding on to the object with only a pinch. 714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8p5vgDnRP4
“Hey, stop..!”
He looks bellow and realizes that he could not let him fall from this height. The only way to safely land is to drag this thing down without letting it go. But he doesn’t know how to do it because he is being tossed around easily like a sack of meat.
And then the spirit suddenly stops swinging around with no guidance. It levitates still in the air giving Rei time to breath.
But when He is going to grab the spirit with his other hand, it moves with a high speed toward a direction of a thick-looking tree.
Rei think that the spirit is going to make a hit on the tree or fly upward and make him slam the tree. But he knows he could make this a chance. If only he could hug the tree when he hit it, he could drag the spirit down.
The spirit soar away making the leaves it pass fall from its branches. Rei are hanging away on the tail like a weightless paper.
The spirit is getting closer on the tree making a hit seems unavoidable.
“I can’t … hold on…”
As Rei’s hand reaches its limit, his hand loses its grip and causing the spirit the spirit to be freed. After all it was only a pinch.
The spirit fly upward before hitting the tree just as Rei had expected, meanwhile he hit the tree and fall down to the ground.
“For the curse of crumbs!!!”
He grumbles on his own comprehensive way of talking while he sweeps the dirt on his back.
As there is no more sight of a glowing flying object, Rei headed northeast to meet up with Yuni.714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaHtBAY4yik
*****714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyJuLbj1jsK
“Where in the world have you been?”714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiHIcDpX0mF
Rei look at the angrily asking Yuni who’s crouching behind a wide bush.
“I found a spirit and followed it to the west. It was flying. I jumped and grabbed it. I thought I had it, but it swung me around. It made me hit a tree in the mid-air.”
He kneels down next to Yuni after he told his previous misfortune.
“Spirit? Why would a spirit be here? And how could?”
“Exactly! That’s what I thought. And for the curse of daffodil, my back and my butt hurts.”714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx15nAXByMJ
Rei rubbing his rear end and his back with each of his hand to ease the pain he feels.714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWMz6ECtf1Q
“Whatever. Look!” Her eyes roll at Rei before she point out something.
Rei look at the opening Yuni make of the bush and see five figures standing beyond. They are four men and a girl.
The four men wear the same hooded black-robe with a mask that covers only their mouth.
“That gloves….”
Rei’s eyes fixated on the gloves those men are wearing. It is a glove with addition of wires and metal armament. There is some kind of glowing round glass at the center of the gloves.
“… It’s the same ones the Equalist used before.” Rei noted the mechanical-looking gloves.
“Equallist? I thought they don’t exist anymore.”
“I know, but…”
“It doesn’t matter. We have to help her. They have been fighting ever since I arrived here.”
Yuni now mention the lone girl among the four men. She is a girl with a long braided hair, the opposite of Yuni’s short hair. Her green clothing from the top to her bottom make it obvious that she is the earthbender that could be causing the sounds Rei’s heard before. In fact there is an Earth Kingdom emblem at the back of her long sleeved clothes.
“She is impressive. She’s been holding them off alone only with her earhtbending. All those men seem to be non-bender, because they don’t use any.”
Yuni reviewed what has happened to Rei while he wasn’t there.
“I think she twisted her ankle. Her recent steps seem a little bit off.”
“Let’s help her!”
“Wait . . .”
Rei hold Yuni’s hand stopping her from standing up and jumping right at them any second.
“What are we waiting anymore?!”714Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyUb3U7VOjv
Rei take the knuckle gloves that’s been hanging on his waist belt. He put them on firmly as he makes a strong grip with both of his hand. He bumps his fists making the silver rings on the knuckles resonates a clinking sounds.
“Now, let’s go.” He makes a sly grin as they both stand up and rush to help the girl.
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