Avatar: The New World

Chapter 10: Bulltiger

Rorrick

"It's been over a month, Mae." Rorrick was on the ground, gasping for breath. "I'm never gonna get it."

"You will." The old woman waved her hand and a gust of wind lifted Rorrick to his feet.

"No, no more standing." He tried to fall back to the ground but Mae refused to let him. Another gust trailed around him and kept him standing. "Why are we still doing this? I'm never gonna get it."

"You have to."

"Cause the world depends on me. You know, every time you say that it makes me wanna give up even more."

"You don't have the luxury of giving up. Let's get back to training shall we?"
Rorrick was about to protest when an angry and pain-filled roar filled the otherwise silent night. "What was that?"

Mae looked towards the sound. "Strange things happen in these woods. I believe natural places like this are closer to the spiritual world, which means as Harmonic Convergence comes closer we'll see the changes here first."

Rorrick could hear tree limbs snapping and cracking. Something big was rushing through the forest towards them. "It's coming this way, what are we gonna do?"

"You said your air bending takes over when you're in an emergency." Mae shrugged. "Maybe this is just what your training needs?"

"That's not funny, Mae!" He could hear snarling now, and pained cries. At first he saw the round eyes of a tiger, then the curved horns of a bull but they were a part of the same face. The beast came frantically lumbering towards them and Rorrick noticed that its front legs had the huge paws of a tiger while the rear portion of the animal's body had the heavily muscled, hoofed legs of a bull. "Holy crap, it's, it's a... a bulltiger?"

Before Rorrick could make sense of the animal it launched towards them. Mae barely even moved, a twister of air formed beneath her and she easily avoided the beast's vicious claws. Rorrick was a little less graceful. He rocketed upwards, limbs flailing, and fell back onto a cushion of air. As the strange animal passed him, he saw an icy spear stuck deep into its flank. "Its hurt!" He called out to Mae, who was still soaring high above him.
The bulltiger rounded back towards Rorrick and came charging at him again. He bounded out of its way, firing himself up and over the beast and coming down on two feet behind the it.

"Well done," Mae called down to him. "It's coming back now, watch yourself!"

The bulltiger came charging again and Rorrick flipped over it. It had trouble slowing itself down and crashed head first into a tree. It fell to the ground, bleeding and struggling to breathe and Rorrick ran towards it. "It's okay, big guy," he said as he moved to get close to the bulltiger. It was trying to get back to its feet but Rorrick could see that the pain was overwhelming.

"Stay away from that thing!"
Rorrick turned to see Jeera approaching. "I've been stalking it for weeks. Its dangerous."

"You did this, didn't you?" Rorrick gestured to the spear of ice in the animal's side.

"I had to, to keep everyone safe."

Rorrick was inching closer to the bulltiger. It tried to back away from him, it snapped its jaws and even roared but Rorrick didn't back down. "You're not gonna scare me, buddy. I just wanna help you." He slowly reached out his hand and touched the animals paw. He felt it grow tense, its giant claws threatened to cut him but they stayed sheathed. "See? You like me, don't you?"

Eventually the animal allowed Rorrick to move close to it. He touched the animals horns and let his hand lower to its face. "You thought this guy was dangerous? Look at him?"