Avatar: The First Fires

"You BITCH!" Minoru spat ducking behind a column as Asuka's lightning arced and exploded sending sharp shards of paving flying in every direction. "Just because I'm here you attack me, and because I defend myself you call me a traitor." He shot forwards as the column exploded, she wasn't even listening to him. He was done, had enough, no more hiding, time to fight back. And he faced her noting her smirk, in fact she almost laughed to see her opponent coming out into the open.

She wouldn't be smiling for long.

"I HAVE BEEN SHIPWRECKED." He fed his anger and frustration into his breath as he shouted his arm shooting forwards a stream of fire flowing from his limb. "BLOWN UP!" Another stream this time from his left arm. "HAD MY WIFE TRY TO SLICE MY HEAD OFF." He kicked a fireblast sailinf towards Asuka.

She recovered and faced Minoru. "Oh whine! Hold still so I can put you out of your misery." It looked like she exploded as she directed her bending at the ground but out of the cloud of bust she came flying in a high arc strait at Minoru her legs leading that way in a firey kick that could knock a man's head clean off his shoulders.

He reacted quickly the crackly of lightning lighting up the front of the palace followed by a fireball. His second shot graved her face but she remained focused as they bothe disappeared in a cloud of dust. Then a figure flew from it. Minoru rolled down the stairs unconscious.
 
Kurai appeared to be sleeping soundly--up until she jerked into a sitting position, breathing hard, eyes moving nervously from side to side. Her breaths eventually slowed and she remembered where she was and how she had got here. She yawned. How long had she been asleep? And what the hell had woken her up? Sounds of battle? No. She couldn't hear it so far in. She turned to Suzumi and the man Shao. "How long have I been asleep?"

She didn't wait to hear the answer. She was already glancing around. Ah-ha, there was the old woman. Busy making other people miserable. Good. She'd be out of here before she realized she was gone. She stood and was walking to grab her halberd. Now she had to get Jin and find Minoru. If he wasn't dead by now, by the Fire Lord, he was going to wish he was after she was through with him.

***
The dust cleared. Everything was silent. Minoru lay unconscious. Asuka was struggling to get up. She got on her hands and knees, felt a burning sensation on her face. There was blood dripping on the ground. She stared at it, speechless for a moment. She put a hand to her face, swallowed. She looked around and found a polished brass bowl nearby, then staggered to it ...

A loud shriek pierced the air. "MMMYYY FFFFAAACCCEEEEE!!"
 
Suzumi smiled at Fei as she had entered and Shao had introduced himself. It seemed like they would finally be getting somewhere. As Suzumi sat back down in the corner she noticed Kurai thrashing in her sleep. It wasn't long that she did that before bolting upright.

"How long have I been asleep?" Kurai asked before getting out of bed while the healer was distracted. Suzumi decided to follow her as she got up and tried to sneak out. She shot a glance to Fei and Shao and nodded as a group of Earth Guards piled into the healers with various burns and wounds from fighting with the fire nation. The healer was quickly swamped and began grabbing healing implements and working with the guards.

"Miss Kurai, I'm coming with you..." Suzumi proclaimed watching the hallway ahead of them shifting about.
 
"You should stay here." But it wasn't like the bounty hunter was going to make her stay if she insisted on coming. "Fine. Just ... whatever you do. Stay back." She had some unfinished business outside. The Fire Nation witch. Her Earth bending Pet. And her husband. Not necessarily in that order. The walls around them shifted and moved but whatever guided them, it allowed them to get to the entrance of the palace in no time at all. They even managed to find Jin on the way and he walked beside Suzumi behind Kurai.

Kurai was forced to squint as she stepped out. It wasn't long before she saw the destruction Minoru and Asuka's agni kai had caused ...

Asuka was breathing hard. She had wiped the blood away, despite there being so much of it. The burn of the scar was still there but it paled in comparison to the burn of hatred in her chest. She approached Minoru, daggers of fire in both hands. She would tear him apart and feast on his flesh! "Now ... Heh heh ..." she cackled, standing over his unconscious body. "Now, you DIE!"

"Hey, bitch!"

Asuka, a hideous scowl on her face, looked up to see Kurai there, flanked by Jin and Suzumi. "Too afraid to fight a real woman so you had to make do with a man instead." She tilted her head slightly but to Suzumi and Jin, never letting her eyes break away from Asuka. "Stay here, hide behind the doors. If something bad happens, run. And don't you dare stop."

The Fire Bender cackled, the daggers disappeared. "Oh, this man. The one I killed just moments ago? So sad, so bad ... I guess you're down a lover," she sang.

The bounty hunter smirked. She had to get the witch away from Minoru. "It's going to take more than cheap tricks to kill him. I should know. I've been trying to kill him all day."

Asuka suddenly snarled and twisted her body. Lightning arched at her finger tips and straight for Kurai! Kurai was quicker, though. She was already running for her. She suddenly stopped, rolled, dodged the lightning that struck the spot she'd stood in just moments ago. Lightning bending required time to do, was more complicated than fire bending. If she could get close enough, Asuka would be forced to use hand to hand combat and her blasted Fire Bending tricks.
 
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Ko frowned, she really wasn't sure. "Do we know even what they are after here? Are they attacking for the simple pleasure of destroying this city, or perhaps is there something we could protect? Any good that we can do, it would simply be wrong to sit back and watch like children caught up by waves.." she blushed, realizing the might have sounded condescending or worse, insulting. "I am sorry, I did not mean to insinuate that you would sit back idly, only that I would have only a year or two before now and I am ashamed at that underlying tendency in myself. I feel the need to try to circumvent this in some way..." she fought back the urge to cry, thinking to how little resistance her humble village would have met with their elders, their children, simple men, and obedient women.

"Do either of you know if there is something here we could safeguard, to try and at least make sure that their attack was, to them, a vain act?"
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The battle between the women were fierce. Asuka didn't have the time or the distance to lightning bend but there were plenty of Fire Bending she could do instead. The kick sailing for Kurai's head, trailed fire but Kurai raised her arm and let the foot hit the leather gauntlet she wore instead. She grabbed the leg and pulled--then let Asuka fly into her fist!

Asuka staggered back but then she thrust her arms forward, sending fireball after fireball at her! Kurai stepped lightly to one side, then another, dropped to the ground and lashed out with her leg. The Fire Bender fell but she pulled Kurai's arm and the two of them rolled around in the dirt, kicking and punching. Asuka finally kicked Kurai away and jumped to her feet. Kurai looked up and rolled away, in time to avoid the wall of fire that shot out at her.

The two women faced each other. They both bore scratches and smudge marks from the dirt. They had been through a hell of a fight. Asuka glared daggers. Kurai only smirked and then they charged for each other again ...!
 
"I guess you're the one in charge!"

A voice shouted out at the two fiercely fighting females as a stream of raging water suddenly tried to blindside the slightly battle-damaged Asuka. Whether she chose to dodge it or failed to and was struck did not completely matter. But whenever the Admiral chose to look at who this knew attacker was she would see a young man holding a surfboard much like a regular warrior would wield a sword. Despite the long amount of time and vast amount of sneaking around it had taken to get here the Water-Bender had finally made it to the main battle.

Orion smirked as only someone full of hate on the inside for another could. This woman had led an attack on the place he had called home for over a year now. She had burnt it to the ground. Most of it anyway. Just about everything but the palace itself had completely gone up in flames due to the Fire Nation soldiers. Fighting all the invaders he saw along the way would have been suicide, so more than enough of those who had already made landfall before his attack on their ships were still running loose. Even Ts'ao had been avoided on his way up here which meant he might have found that Komodo Rhino by now.

Unless it had still been on one of the ships. . . so perhaps the creature might have been drowned.
 
Suzumi charged out and took the wave that Orion had sent towards Asuka and bent it away, protecting Kurai from it as well. They were close...too close. And besides this was not a fight that anyone else wanted to get involved in.

"ORION! GET AWAY FROM HERE! RUN TO SAFETY!" Suzumi shouted as the wave was pulled towards her and splashed into her water bottle, whatever didn't fit splashing up against the palace walls. She knew that she should take her own advice but Kurai was someone that she respected and couldn't help but watch this fight meet its bitter conclusion. If Asuka of the Sun was defeated here it would be a strange day indeed after everything Suzumi had heard about Asuka's feaersome might. And just where is her lapdog? If he gets here I will haave to fight as well and drag Miss Kurai away.
 
"Stop interfering, you honorless bastard!"

Perhaps Fei Long was not being as covert as she could, but there were rules about how you behaved when a duel was going on and how a crowd behaved when one of those rules was broken. And one of those was to heckle people who messed things up.

It was only afterwards she realized that Suzumi might take it the wrong way...still, she wanted Kurai to win. She and Suzumi were, unlinke Asuka, not jerks.
 
"But I thought-"

Orion got a confused look on his face, showing that perhaps he was in fact some sort of honorless bastard. After all how honorable was someone who left their village behind and training incomplete just to avoid ridicule. But this most recent action was likely only from having the best of intentions. Mostly that he wanted to stop Asuka from hurting anyone else today. Sheer ignorance or forgetfulness of how duels worked obviously factored somewhere into this mistake by the Water Bender.

"Fine."

He backed off, trying to get back into his more relaxed state of mind. Words from both Suzumi and Fei had undermined the confidence which had possessed him to even attempt attacking such a powerful opponent. Orion took Fei's words as directed at him, given the word 'bastard' could usually be associated with men. But just how honorable was anything going on today? A city which had done nothing to the Fire Nation was under siege of full-on war with no real justification. Right now this was war going on. Those soldiers had attacked civilians with hardly any serious combat training. Did honor factor into that at all?
 
Kiyo had progressed several hundred feet in front of Risa and Ko and saw the battle commencing in front of the palace. This was good news at least for Ko it was. The fire leader Asuka was in battle and was having a rather difficult time with her combatant. Then communicating back to Risa and Ko, Kiyo prepared an arrow that he spoke into saying "The palace that Ko wishes to protect it being fought for valiantly, with reinforcements for the defending side increasing" Kiyo then prepared the arrow and shot it in front of Risa and Ko. This would be his first display of his air bending towards Ko so hopefully she wouldn't be freaked out by finding another air bender.
THe arrow landed in front of the two walking and Risa exclaimed a joyous noise when it landed. She then picked up the arrow and crushed the air with her hands for the message to be played. The message was relayed and then Risa said to Ko "See Ko everyone it already hard at work protecting that which is important. "We can still head over there and give encouragement to those fighting what do you say?" she said with a smile.
 
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Ko smiled as best she could at Risa, her stomach fluttering. She had never been to battle before, but she could feel now the almost tangible presence of fighting as she darted forward, using her airbending to propel her faster forward. She yearned to protect something in a way her own village had not been protected, she ached inside at her loss.

"I say we hurry that we might find a way to assist their efforts" Ko replied, her voice determined. The fear inside her burned at her mind as she hurried forward. What if this were how it ended, if she died here on this unforgiving field? Unremembered, her village would be lost without anyone to grieve for it or avenge the deaths that tolled within the confines of the walls. This could not be the end of her, she thought with renewed conviction. The fight came slowly into sight as she surged ahead.

"Kiyo, where are you?"
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"Aagghh!" Kurai clenched her teeth as Asuka twisted one arm behind her back.

Asuka's hot breath was in her ear. "Ha!" She twisted a little more, forced Kurai to arch her back. "Foolish wench!" She kicked the back of Kurai's leg, forcing the woman down on one knee. Kurai's chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. "Bow down to a superior! To the ultimate Fire Bender!"

"I ... bow down ... to no one!" Kurai reached into her boot and pulled out a small knife. She stabbed it into Asuka's toe. The woman cried out and quickly released her to stagger back a few feet. She pulled the knife out and threw it to the ground.

"You have made a mockery of me LONG ENOUGH!!" she screeched as Kurai was getting to her feet and turning to face her. She took a deep breath--and sent a huge wall of fire at the bounty hunter!

The flames were so hot, Kurai knew she'd never outrun them in time. If the fire didn't get her, the heat certainly would! She smirked. So this was how it was going to end, huh? She huffed. "Talk about a crappy ending ..."
 
The world was a blur, his ears rang, he could feel blood running down his face, event muscle ached bu still the sounds of battle came urging him up, making him fight through the pain and grogginess that cried out for him to close his eyes and sleep.

There was a shout of pain and Minoru turned over slowly, grime, sweat and blood merging to run down his body, he was hurt but not beaten, battered but not defeated. His movements quickening he pushed up from the ground. He recognized both voices, Asuka the hated, and Kurai the estranged. They were taunting eachother, neither willing to back down.

Minoru collected his feet underneath him and stood sweat turning to steam as he rose fists clenching.

NO! ONE! NO ONE!

The wave of fire was heading for Kurai, It was undodgable mov, not without cover, he had heard it used by masters to win entire battles, o survive you needed to hide, ro be a bender yourself.

He watched Kurai brace for the blow on instinct, he had seen enough.

The fire flowed around kurai harmlessly.

"I'm not done with you."

Minoru spat turning to Auka, his countenance was defiant though his weakness showed itself when he overbalanced just a fraction taking his stance. The firebender was weakened.
 
Waiting and ... waiting ... and--"I'm not done with you."

Kurai turned. She wanted to call out his name and see if it was really him. She'd been so worried! Worried that ... her investment and her chance at regaining her honor had burned to ash! Then again, it wouldn't have been the first time someone who seemed so real turned out to be a hallucination. But she caught herself in time and watched him closely. She saw that brief falter in his step, the faintest waver of his stance and she knew Asuka would see it, too.

Asuka tossed her hair over her shoulder. It had come out of its neat arrangement during the battle. "You two are really starting to annoy me," she said matter-of-factly. She examined her nails. "I guess I'll just have to finish what I started and be quick about it." Yes, their body parts would litter this place, they would serve as an example.

"You honestly think I'm going to let you take this creature on by yourself?" Silence from her ex-husband. "Fine. But I want her head mounted on my wall as a trophy, so how about just this once, we take her down together. Then I can finish killing you."
 
Together or alone Asuka would die this day.

"You've done nothing but surprise me today Ku." He said his voice with less of an edge to it "Don't see why you should stop now." He seen Asuka's eyes narrow and as he spoke to Kurai was expecting her strike. Now facing two opponents she was conserving her energy and her fireblast was easily turned aside, what Minoru was not expecting was the following kick that caught him in the chest knocking him backwards, even wounded and cornered Asuka was still as fast as she was deadly. Off balance he barely dodged her next attack dropping low and lashing out with his feet making Asku jump and dodge away.
 
"STOP!" The voice rang out, catching everyone off guard. Suddenly the earth shook as the stone beneath the three fighters lunged up and encased them in stone up to their necks, except for Kurai who simply bore thick weights around her wrists and ankles, heavy enough to slow her movements so much that she couldn't fight.

Suzumi gasped as the king of the city stepped out of the palace past her, walking directly to the three fighters, now trapped by the earth. Yuan Ping quickly chuckled as if he had remembered a funny joke and quickly made a shield of stone in front of Asuka's face, enough room that she could breath but close enough that if she tried to breath fire it would burn her face. He stepped over to Kurai, looking over her wounds, then doing the same to Minoru.

"That is quite enough. I will no longer have your fighting here. Now if you try and resist, know that I could crush your fragile bodies with a simple flick of the wrist." The smile that played across his lips at the thought hinted at the legitimacy of the threat and possibly a touch of insanity to go through with it as well. "As for you, Asuka of the Sun," he turned pointing directly at her, the venom in his voice when he spoke her name almost visible, "you will leave my city alone now. And if you even think of coming back I will find you and crush the life from your very bones."

The king's words frightened Suzumi a bit, realizing that he was completely serious, he had no issue slaughtering all of them. She grabbed Fei's hand and stepped back a little bit, keeping her mostly behind her and hidden, feeling protective of the younger girl. She watched as the king stepped around each of the fighters again, surveying them almost before lifting Asuka out of the ground and one of his guards rushing out to take the stone-encased woman away, out of the city.

"I would tell you to drop her in the ocean, a befitting grave for one such as her, but no. Leave her on the beach and seal the doors shut, get all the earth benders you may find to do this deed, and reinforce the walls thirtyfold, use the damaged buildings you can find as material." The king instructed, turning back to look at the everyone else that remained, Asuka's shrieking in the background the entire time.
 
"Hey!" Kurai protested. She wanted these stone shackles off and she wanted to finish this. Asuka was going to die one way or another for a whole bunch of reasons she couldn't bother with listing. But despite even her skills, the chunks of rock were a real pain in the ass. The adrenaline was already subsiding, leaving her body aching and reminding her she was only human. An incredible bounty hunter but human nonetheless. So she was forced to watch Asuka being taken away and she could only wonder where that Earth pet of hers had gone.

Kurai took a hop forward. Her wrists and her ankles were bound together but like hell if she was going to let that keep her immobile. Stupid, psychotic rulers getting in the way of a showdown to the death. Was there no justice in the world these days?!
 
Trapped in a cone of rock it was impossible to move. It pressed painfully in on all sides and make breathing in all but quick shallow breaths impossible. There was no way get a deep enough breath to firebend with any power larger than a candle or complete the movements needed to summon lightning. If it wasn't been so he would have been tempted to burn up his prison in a suicidal attempt to do what the king lacked the resolve to do. He looked to Kurai to make sure she was alright. Despite himself me didn't want to see her hurt and had lost the will to fight her. Her hair hung pulled loose from her fight and she was covered in dirt and sweat, he found himself once again drawn to her. He would look out for her while she had his child, his father would get his wish...

"Why are you doing this father? Some new way of punishing me or simply to get me further out of your sight. I will not marry someone I have never met. I refuse this wedding, and I refuse your interference in my life." Minoru shouted at the Admiral as the aging man sat calmly. He had expected this. His son would complain, he would threaten, he would resist, but the contract was already signed there was nothing he could do.

"No! I won't listen. Its time you did something with your useless life and made sure my bloodline doesn't die with you. You will marry her and thats final." He said standing and meeting his son's gaze his famous steely determination shone in his lines face.

"From what I've heard, father, you don't have to worry about your bloodline ending Unless half the women in the capital lose their children." Minoru sneered before turning and leaving not trusting his temper to stay longer.

The Admiral sank back into his seat as if his body had suddenly grown heavy and much of the light left his eyes. "I only hope that married life removes the fire from your heart Minoru. For both yours, and her sake."
 
Kurai found she couldn't take another hop. Was it just her imagination or were these things actually getting heavier? She huffed and was forced to sit herself comfortably ... somehow on the ground of the courtyard. "I guess that's it then. No more Fire Nation invasion ... Yay." She sorely needed to take a bath and sleep. Lots of sleep. And food. Lots and lots of food. She looked up at the Earth King. "So yeah, would you like to let me go now or what?" It looked like playtime was over. She'd capture Minoru again later.
 
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