_______________________________........ | ____________________________________________________________________________.
Exit
Chae opened their eyes to find themselves in what looked like a metal box or a holding cell of some kind. Fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling basked the room in a harsh white light. Chae was in a metal chair, that was quite uncomfortable, and was seated in front of a metal table. Her wrists were cuffed although the cuffs were not connected by a chain. Sitting across from her was a man in uniform. He wore light complexion, dark eyes and muddy brown hair that was pushed to one side. On the table in front of him was a manilla folder that was unmarked.
”Can I get you anything? Water? Some food? You’ve been out for a while.”
KillamriX88
Chae-Won slowly looked around the room, getting her bearings. Yeah, this made a lot more sense. She looked back at the man sitting across from her and stretched before relaxing into the chair as best she could.
"Oh, yeah. Thanks, that'd be great. Oh, while you're at it, can I get a hot towel and a massage? Maybe some new boots so I can put my foot up your ass?"
This was going to be unpleasant for her, she was sure. Might as well make it suck for him too if she could.
Exit
Nelu snorted and his mouth twisted into an amused smile. ”Right then. Straight to it.” He nodded. ”Let’s just start off with some particulars about what’s going on here so we’re both on the same page.” He gestured at Chae. ”You’re a Bender and as a Bender, you have no rights. You’re scheduled for execution. However, due to your… unique bending, we’ve put that on hold. Now, I’m here to ask you some questions but before we start. Obviously you can’t bend in here and even if you could…” He tapped the metal table. ”This is all platinum. Alright? And no, this isn’t some trick. You’re not cuffed. The bands are just stopping you from bending but they’re not doing anything else. You can get up and move around if you’d like. Stretch. I don’t care.”
KillamriX88
Chae-Won stared back quietly for a moment as she considered her options. She really wasn’t tied down it seemed.
Her first imagining was herself jumping up, grabbing her chair, and smashing it into the man’s head. She took a deep breath and buried those urges for now. Even if it worked, which was a big if, so what? Instead of being locked in a box with an asshole, she’d be locked in a box with an unconscious asshole.
And also back on the execution block, most likely.
“You know, I knew all that, but it’s still funny to hear someone like you say it so serious-like.” She rolled her eyes. “And I really don’t care how expensive your table is.” She was vaguely aware that platinum was important for resisting benders, but she wasn’t sure what it had to do with her. Oh, wait, was it because of metal bending? She’d never even tried that, let alone seen it in action. She considered herself lucky that she knew it existed.
Then again, apparently her glassbending was even more special. At least according to this guy.
“Anyway, funny man, go ahead. Ask. I can’t stop you.” She really wished she could, though. “Keep making me laugh and I might even answer.”
Exit
”Why’d you stay behind?”
KillamriX88
“Dropping buildings on assholes like you gets me off. Next.”
Exit
The light in Nelu’s eyes shifted. Brightened. ”So that was intentional.” He said, raising a brow. ”Even with what was going down that day, it would take some amount of know how to do what you did. A lot of practice I assume which… even then there isn’t much material out there to learn from. Self taught?”
KillamriX88
“I had my ways. But yeah, not a lot of teachers to go around. So, you know, congrats on that one.” Chae-Won crossed her arms indignantly. “Take the cuffs off and I’ll show you a few more tricks I know.”
Exit
Amusement and some slight surprise found Nelu’s expression once more. ”We were actually going to get to that but you know what… I’m okay with skipping to the good stuff.” Nelu pushed the chair back a bit and stood up. ”We tried to make sure you were well rested before we got to anything physical. We had some of our doctors look at your injuries and made sure your accommodations were as comfortable as possible. You look and sound like you had some rest. At least I hope you did. How was the Duster Hotel?”
When Chae-won blinked next, the room around her changed. She found herself standing in a much larger room than before. The ceiling above her was impossibly high and the room itself incredibly wide. The walls were again made of metal as were the ceiling and floors. Light filtered in from a skylight. In front of her was a block of dirt about as tall as she and twice as wide, a peculiar looking black rock that stood to just above her ankle and a pane of glass that was as tall and wide as she was and was fixed to a wooden frame that was standing up. Nelu was now at the other end of the room some fifty yards away. The objects in the center between them both. Chae also noticed that her wrists were no longer cuffed.
”I hear it’s quite nice.” He yelled out to her.
KillamriX88
Chae-Won stumbled a little, disoriented by the sudden change in scenery. She rubbed her wrists, as she noticed she’d been let loose.
“All right, then…” She took a deep breath. “If you survive this, you’ll have to explain to me how you keep doing that,” she called back to him. Until just now, she’d been starting to think the Duster Hotel had been a hallucination of some sort, but now… now she wasn’t going to even bother trying to guess.
She began walking forward, running her hand across the pane of glass as she did.
“I’m sure you have some sort of plan, but… I really don’t have a reason to be gentle, so what happens, happens.” She knew the odds were probably horribly skewed against her in some way, but she had a lot of anger to let out right now.
She stomped down, only for the “rock” to… jiggle a little. She figured the boost to her bending must have worn off, but even so, that was just ridiculous. Nothing else felt wrong, though, so perhaps it was the rock and not her.
Well now she was even more pissed off.
“. . . fuck it.” She instead stabbed her hand into the block of dirt, and when she pulled it out, she’d gathered a fistful of gravel, leaving the softer earth behind. She then wound up almost like pitching a ball, and hurled the rocks at him. With her bending, it was more akin to a shotgun blast of stone flying at his face.
Exit
Nelu moved almost too quickly, as if he had a read on the attack before it’d been sent. He’d ducked low and darted to the side, keeping toward Chae’s left and maintaining his distance while moving out of the way. 25 yards was not much, but there was enough space in between the two that any one else wouldn’t have been able to maintain control over the individual grains. The spread remained small enough that much of the force behind the throw was preserved and the impact against the wall was surprisingly effective. Nelu smiled.
In the middle of him stepping away, the round metallic device he was holding left his hand and as a second appeared from behind him, joining the first in an orbit around his person. He was making no obvious bending motions. ”Very nice!”
With a wide swing of his arm, one of the balls left its orbit and flew directly at Chae aiming for her wrist. It was moving about as fast as Chae's initial attack.
KillamriX88
Chae-Won had no idea what the balls were, but she wanted no part of them. Maybe they were just his way of mimicking earth bending for the sake of the duel, or maybe they were zappy. Logic dictated that they probably wouldn’t affect her bending, as then what would be the point of this duel, but why take chances?
She didn’t have time for anything fancy as one flew at her so she did her best to side-step it.
With those things buzzing around, this would be annoying. She needed a moment.
She threw herself at the block of dirt, destabilizing it as she came into contact and sinking herself into it. When she was done, she found herself in a little pocket within it, doing her best to solidify it around her again. It had worked in the desert, hadn’t it?
She just hoped those metal balls weren’t strong enough to punch through.
What was even the point of this? Clearly this guy had some sort of interest in her. She thought back to the start of the conversation. He had clearly suspected she could bend metal, or at least had been prepared in case she could. She was an earthbender with knowledge of glassbending, so no doubt they were wary of her capabilities. They couldn’t know what she did and didn’t know, though by now he clearly knew she couldn’t metalbend if he’d been paying attention.
Did… he want her to? He actually seemed almost excited every time her capabilities were brought up. Was this some sort of twisted training?
That black lump of stone must have had metal in it. Perhaps it was a big chunk of unrefined ore. She just had no idea where to begin with it. Her bending wasn’t that good, especially now that the boost from the explosion was gone.
For now, metal was out, but she still had a few tricks. She remembered what that boost had felt like, so maybe she wasn’t back to square one exactly.
She slammed her hands against the inside of her earthen cocoon, and the whole thing crumbled to the floor. No longer compacted, she separated out the gravel from the soft dirt and spun it around her like the sandscreen she’d made in the desert… except much more painful to try and walk through.
It was hard, but the more she did it, the easier it got and the faster it spun. She’d never really had cause to push herself this hard in the past. Flashy shit like this was no go when you were trying to hide.
Today, she wasn’t hiding.
“Let’s try this again…” she muttered to herself. Her next move was to separate off a cluster of the spinning rocks and once more blast them at Tarnelu. This time, though, she had a lot more ammo in reserve to follow up.
Exit
...That’s more like it…
Nelu’s smile widened as he looked upon Chae’s work, recognizing a hint of the technique she had used the other day. Although much smaller given the limited amount of dirt, and made entirely of small pebbles and gravel as opposed to sand, the power behind the attack was the same; her movements identical. A temporary boost in power from an explosion was no excuse for the skill involved in such a technique.
Again, as if too early, Nelu moved to the right, easily dodging the first of the volley of rocks. Before she could correct the rest of the stream, the metal ball that had been hovering above her head looped down and smacked her wrist, momentarily interrupting her. It flew back up into the air again and remained there.
”I’ve already seen that trick.”
KillamriX88
Chae-Won hissed in pain as the ball struck her wrist, but in a way it emboldened her. So what if it hurt?. She’d had worse. It would take more than that to stop her.
The swirling stones began to wobble and drop, as she was interrupted, but she quickly spun, reaching out with her other hand to regather them and pulled them all toward her palm. She collected them between both hands and took a breath.
She’d done this before. She didn’t have to hide. This wasn’t the kid.
She could hurt him.
Once more she blasted the rocks at the man, but she fully put her anger into it. She fired them all at once, in a wide cone. He’d have to move real fast if he wanted to dodge them all this time. And this time she followed them, breaking into a run.
Even if some of the rocks hit, they’d have to hit something really important for them to put him down. No, she’d need to get closer and stop spraying gravel at random to do that. As she ran, she tried to keep an eye out for the metal spheres. She wanted to be ready this time.
Exit
The attack was wide. Too wide. The cone spread so quickly and moved so fast that even with his early detection, dodging would be difficult. A dive had the potential to clear it but even then there would be risk for a follow up attack and he’d be too unbalanced to properly react. His options were slim.
The ball still orbiting him swung into position in front of his chest and suddenly burst, rapidly filling his side of the room in white steam. The released pressure was enough to repel the rocks back toward Chae and would have swept the room faster than she could react. She was thrown to the ground. Behind her, the rocks peppered the wall and broke the glass pane.
Although initially nearly scalding, the water vapor in the room quickly cooled until it was almost refreshing.
”That’s precision. Power… control, Chae-won. Noone should be this capable and yet here you are, forcing me to defend myself… and we’re not even in an open field.”
The water in the air and on the ground began to collect, drawing toward each other and to Nelu like the branches of a river. It snaked around him and climbed into the air, spinning into an ice ball that was hovering in front of him. ”No one gets this good by themselves so who taught you? Your father?... Your mother?”
KillamriX88
Yep. There it was. The odds were well and truly stacked.
“Actually…” Chae-Won groaned as she slowly sat up. “It was your mother.” She pushed herself back to her feet and rolled her neck. “Or what, were you hoping I’d give someone up?” She chuckled darkly. “Sure. Why not? Want my home address? Or should I tell you where they’re buried?”
“Now come on. You’re putting me to sleep.” Of course he was a bender too. She’d have been disappointed if he wasn’t a hypocrite on top of everything else. A water bender this time? “You’re a bender too, right? Entertain me.” She stomped down on the ground hard, sending out a light tremor. All the scattered rocks from before leapt up and returned to begin swirling around her once again.
Maybe this was going nowhere, but she wasn’t going to be satisfied until she made him bleed.
”How about this…” The ball of ice began to rapidly melt and the released water began to spin around him. ”...You hit me just once, and I’ll tell you how I’m doing that ‘thing’. I’ll tell you about the ‘hotel’. ” The revolving water became a perfectly shaped orb that provided cover from all sides. ”You’re going to need a little more than a few rocks to get past this!” He yelled over the sound of water cutting the air. The speed of its rotation increased though it was hard to tell exactly how fast it was going what with how smooth the surface of the sphere was. Nelu stood in the center, waiting.
KillamriX88
She fired a few stones at the shield, only to frown as they bounced off harmlessly. She knew she couldn’t just power through it the way she had against the air shield in the desert. Water had a lot more substance to it and would just grind anything she threw at it to dust.
Well, if he was just gonna sit there and wait…
She shut her eyes even as the rocks continued to orbit her, taking a deep breath to try and calm herself. Seconds ticked by, until finally she opened her eyes again. She fired off two more rocks, watching as they again deflected off the barrier of spinning water.
The swirling stones then dropped to the floor as she cut her control over them.
She took another deep breath, gathering her focus. All the rock and dirt from the collapsed block began to gather to her, forming into a large sphere before her. The sphere then contracted as she compacted it. Even then, it still stood about head-height before her, obscuring Nelu’s view of her.
A moment later she kicked it, sending it careening toward Nelu and his shield of water. However, right before it could collide with the shield, it came to a dead stop. A second passed, then another and another with it just sitting there… and then it began to spin.
On the other side, Chae-Won had dug her fingers into it and spun it, using her bending to increase the speed dramatically. It began to careen off sideways, finally allowing Nelu and Chae-Won to see each other again, but before it could get too far, Chae-Won swung it back into the shield.
The two spherical objects collided, seemingly to no avail… but then Nelu might realize part of her plan. The earthen sphere was rotating counter to his shield. She was trying to slow it down.
The next part of her plan was far simpler and more obvious. She cocked her other arm back and then smashed her fist against the shield. In any other situation, a simple punch would have been deflected, and even in the best case scenario, the flesh would have been flayed from her knuckles, if she didn’t just lose half her hand.
However, her arm up to just below her shoulder had been coated in a dark material. She’d found a way to bend, albeit crudely, the metallic rock.
Even so, the shield resisted her. Her own strength was nowhere near enough to break through. It was only her bending the material around her arm then held it in place and kept the hard coating from being eaten away by the surging water.
She could see plainly the gap between their skills. She could have been getting soaked as the water sprayed around her arm, but any loose droplets just got quickly absorbed back into the shield by his precise bending. Her own earthen sphere was already slowing to a halt, only its sheer bulk doing anything to slow the speeding waters, and even that was rapidly being eroded away.
But she was stubborn and, as her sphere was worn away, it just meant she could refocus her efforts onto her arm.
Finally, her fist broke through… but could come nowhere near close enough to reach the man within.
Exit
It wasn’t until Chae had warped the metal rock around her hand and arm that he began showing any interest. Once the black material had pierced his shield, his eyes lit up and a smile spread across his lips that was less amused and more… enthused.
...Metalbending…
There it was in all its glory, protruding through the stream of water in defiance. A show of Earthbending he hadn’t seen in a long time. He wondered if his former teammate would have been as excited to see it as he was. Unfortunately for Chae, the victory was short lived as fighting against the quickly spinning orb was draining them of their strength. Shortly after breaking Nelu’s defense, Chae’s attack was repelled.
KillamriX88
As her earthen sphere was worn down and cast aside, the surging water finally overwhelmed her, pushing her away and sending her tumbling.
She rolled to a knee and looked back up at the man, panting, one arm hanging limp, held imobile by the stiff, heavy armor she’d coated it in. Her fist, however, had now unclenched ever so slightly.
There was one place the surging waters did not cover. Directly at his feet where he had to stand. A place that should have been safe, as she could not bend it or reach it past the shield. Or at least, she shouldn’t have been able to.
Technically, she hadn’t. The object she’d dropped had.
. . . Moments Earlier. . .
Chae-Won shut her eyes. If he was just going to stand there and let her think, she’d take it. She knew nothing in her current repertoire could break through that shield, not with the limited resources given to her here. That chunk of ore or whatever it was could probably withstand it, but she couldn’t metalbend! . . . right?
She recalled the sight of him turning steam to ice and back to water again. It was like her glassbending, just bending two forms of one material. Except, it wasn’t really. Glass had undergone a permanent, chemical change from sand. It had been a huge pain to grasp that, but it was still earth.
Metal… wasn’t that. It came from the earth, but wasn’t earth. Yet… somehow it could be bent. Yet… not all of it. Why couldn’t platinum be bent? What was so important? Why had he left her that shiny, block rock like she could use it? What was the difference?
Maybe it was simple. Earth could be bent, metal couldn’t. A platinum table, or those cuffs, must’ve been refined to a level of purity that made it beyond her reach. A raw chunk like that? There must have been earth still within it, or even other types of more processed metal.
Metal came from the earth, and within it, earth must still remain.
If it was earth, it would answer her. She just had to make it listen. Just like glass, she would make it obey her.
She used some of her rocks to gauge the direction the shield spun, watching the direction they deflected off of it. She then dropped her own “shield” and focused, gathering all the earth at her disposal into one, large boulder-like sphere. As she sent it at Nelu, she called upon the metallic rock behind her. She found it, in between the metal, the earth; the impurities that she could actually manipulate.
At first, she wasn’t sure what she was doing here. What was the point of all this? Now she knew. The kid was out there, somewhere, and these people found her of enough interest to keep her around. As long as she was still there, someday she’d have a chance. Wherever he was in this world, she’d find her way back to him…
… and make them regret letting her evolve this much.
. . . Now. . .
She swung her free arm up, and a glistening shard rocketed toward his chin.
Exit
Nelu sensed it only a second before it happened: An upward thrust entreated on something he wasn’t yet aware of. He looked down as Chae’s arm went up, just in time to catch a glint of something on the ground. There, near where his barrier met with the floor, was a piece of glass.
The small warning was the only reason why he didn’t end up with glass in his mouth. He leaned left, just as the edge of the shard was about to cut his jawbone. It flew past his ear and severed a strand of hair on his head before striking the interior of the barrier and ricocheting off of it. Immediately all the water in the room stopped. The orb. Any water on the ground. The mist in the air. Chae.
The orb was peeled open from the front and Nelu stepped through, holding a piece of glass in his and staring at it as if he were studying the thing. As he left the orb and it collapsed behind him, he turned to Chae, his smile looking as though it was on the verge of breaking into laughter.
”That... was impressive.” He began. He moved closer to the woman and knelt down by her frozen figure. ”So not only do we have a Glassbender, we also have a Metalbender. Well… Kind of.” Nelu looked at the crudely shaped gauntlet Chae had made. It wasn’t perfect by any measure, but the fact that they were able to command the material to take any shape at all was impressive in itself. The implications were huge and the danger even more so.
He stood up again and dropped the glass on the floor. ”I don’t have any more questions.” He said, almost sounding as if he were happy about it. ”I actually have a date I’m looking forward to and I need to get going. I don’t want to keep them waiting. But… a deal is a deal. You didhit me so I owe you an explanation.”
”The uh… the hotel… the Duster Hotel”... Again, a strange sense of exhaustion came over Chae. Their eyelids became heavy and Nelu’s voice became warbled and hard to understand. ”It’s not a place.” Chae heard before blacking out. |
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