Ripples In The World

Chapter 9 - Tree Living

I had been out for three days trekking deeper into the forest and the warming spring breeze had yet to lose its charm. I still found myself gazing around admiring the trees in between my paranoid scans. It was late in the evening and the sun was beginning to make the forest change colour the dying rays of the daylight brought out the reds of the magnificent foliage.

I wasn't sure where I had gotten myself but all the trees in this area had red foliage: it must be unique to the area but it was beautiful none the less. The contrast it created with the varying shades of brown form the bark and the orange and yellows of the sunset reminded me of a painting I had hung up in my room back home. It was called 'Autumn' after the season in the year. I was simple brush strokes of dark trunked spindly trees with a magnitude of varying reds, oranges and yellows for leaves on a creamy-tan scroll. It was beautiful but seeing the real thing was even better.

My mind came back to reality as I heard a gasp. Startled I jumped a little and brought my attention to the front. There, at least twenty fire nation soldiers were all turned to look at me: each on frozen in shock with either wide surprised eyes or glaring slits. Some were hunched over a bowl of noodles all huddles around a fire while other milled about the rest of their small camp. Oh crap...

Once I had recovered from my initial shock I turned to my right and began to sprint as they all got up and charged at me. Fireballs were thrown at me ringing me in. Damn it! All of them band together and dispersed the fire separating me from them. I immediately began to calculate my odds. Twenty of them, one little ol' me: I placed my feet down firmly slightly apart and hovered my hands over my water skins, "Let me through, I mean you no trouble." I glared up through my eyelashes at a man with an eye patch that stood out in front of the rest, the man in charge I guess.

"Ha, of course you don't what could you possibly d-" he was cut off with the sound of something contacting the back of his head. I smirked a little, well that, for starters. I chuckled to myself even though I myself hadn't done anything. A boy swung down from a high up tree branch and using his hooked swords grabbed two more soldiers by the ankles and flung them on top of the fallen, smart-mouth of a leader.

"Down you go," he said with a sense of condescension lacing his words. Suddenly one by one, other kids emerged from the shrubbery and began to attack the fire nation soldiers. The remaining soldiers open fire, quite literally at me and the others that suddenly came rushing out of the shrubbery. Dropping form the trees most battling victims with their own body or weapons, while one was shooting arrows with exceptional aim. I supposed I didn't have to fight them as we were both fighting the same enemy as I myself joined in on the battle. I caught glimpse of the unknown bush dwellers faces as they stared at me bewildered as I fought, what, had they not seen a water bender before? One stood out above the rest though: he looked older, more handsome, than the others.

He was swinging his hooked swords around taking out most of the soldiers himself. After I took out the two soldiers I had come after me I stood and watched and he agilely moved around take out at least three soldiers at once. After jumping over a fire bender as he knocked him out he sped over to me, stopping just short of where I stood.

"Hey," he said with a nod, "you were pretty amazing out there." He said smoothly.

"Ha, me? What about you? You practically took them on single headedly." I scoffed at his comment, I'd taken out two out of twenty.

"Well not quite, my name is Jet, and these are my Freedom Fighters; Sneers," a short young boy with a bob wearing leather amour and a red cape, "Longshot," a tall long faced boy with a pointed straw hat on his head, red and blue clothing and a quiver of arrows on his back and a longbow in his hand, "Smellerbee," a thin girl with two lines of red war paint across her cheeks, wild short cut hair held out of her eyes by a think bandanna, a sword in her moth and each of her hands, "The Duke," he seemed to be the smallest and youngest of them all a small leather and gold helmet on his head and a green tunic draping around his small frame, he was holding a staff as a weapon, "and Pipsqueak." He was twice the size of the rest with a large square face framed by a red headpiece with sideburns; he looked as big as a house and held an entire log as a weapon. I giggled internally in reference to how ironic his name was.