Element Academy: The Light of the Avatar

Way Back When...Crystal

"Crystal!"

"Talula!"

Jane shoves her forward and Crystal stumbles closer to where Talula sits tied to a chair.

"Five minutes ladies, better make them count." Jane smiles. "I'm making sure they're some of your last."

The door slams shut causing red dust to rise up in the air around it, but that's not important. She quickly looks around the bare room to find anything useful, but there's nothing except her and Tulala. Even their one window is too small to climb through and covered with a grate regardless of its size; there's no way to break out. Maybe they could try blowing down the door? It seems rusty enough.

Talula sniffs. "I'm sorry Crystal."

"What for?" Crystal closes her eyes and tries to focus on her hands.

"For being such a jerk," she sniffs again. "I saw how much you looked like me when we met at the camp. I got so angry thinking about how my mother or maybe my dad must have had another kid and here you were. I thought you were going to ruin my life."

Crystal opens her eyes and stares at Talula. "What? We look nothing alike."

Talula stares down at her shoes. "I uh- For my birthday a few years ago father got me plastic surgery so I'd look more like him."

"You had plastic surgery as a teenager?" Crystal's eyes widen. "We actually used to look alike?!"

"Not totally, but close enough." Talula flips her hair. "I still got better looks than you."

Crystal rolls her eyes and flinches under the heat on her wrists. There's a pop and she jumps away from the melting plastic that falls to the ground. She does a quick check of her wrists before moving to work on Talula's binds.

"Don't get all mushy on me Talula, we're going to be fine," she reassures her. "Maybe when we get back you and...our mom can sit down and have a nice long talk about everything."

"She'd really like that," Talula replies as she instantly pulls her arms away from the burning plastic Crystal frees her from. "How are we going to get out of here?"

Crystal stares at the metal door. "Did you know that metal bending was once a thing?"

Talula scoffs. "Yeah right."

"No, it's totally true," Crystal insists. "One of the elders gave me this history book and told me to read it. It said that metal bending was started by this blind girl and it used to be really popular, but during the fall of bending it just kind of faded away."

Talula struts up the door. "Think you can bring it back in style?"

Crystal shrugs. "Maybe not me, but the Avatar might."

Talula's reply gets lost to the sounds of an explosion. The whole building starts to shake throwing the two off balance.

A crack forms on the clouded window. The sound of shattering glass echoes in through the walls warning of the impending doom coming to the glass.

"Get down!"

Crystal pulls Talula down in the corner and shields her just in time. The window shatters, showering the room in shards.

She winces at the small pangs of pain that jolt through when she moves to stand, her body now littered with tiny cuts. She rushes to the window, needing to know what's happening.

"What is it?" Talula asks when Crystal reaches the bars.

Her voice is mute, lost to the surprise coursing through her veins. Just outside the building a team of benders dressed in both Underground and Camp outfits are storming the building.

"I-It's the benders. They must be staging some kind of rescue."

The metal door swings open. Nate stands behind Jane with a pistol in his hand. "And just on time too. The show is running perfectly. Get ready for your close up girls, your shinning moment is about to begin!"

Talula and Crystal walk to each other, taking each other's hand for support as they follow Jane down the corridor with Nate ushering them forward with his gun.

"Why do I get the feeling you guys wanted them to try and rescue us?" Crystal asks as the sudden realization hits her.

"All in good time, my dear." Nathan chuckles. "All in good time."

However, Crystal really doesn't want to find out. Her mind starts racing as she desperately tries to think of a plan to get them out of here.