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"All I'm saying is that you'd never stand a chance against a bender." Scout held his hands up in front of him. "Nothing personal, dude."
"Are you kidding? I've taken out so many that it ain't even funny!" Sniper snapped.
"Well sure, but they were probably weak. A non-bender would never stand a chance against a master bender, much less an Avatar."
Nobody was quite sure how this argument started, but Scout was striking every single nerve the Sniper had. After a while Sniper gave up, but he sure didn't agree with him.
"I'm not gonna argue with ya anymore." Sniper growled as he left the campsite and into the forest.
"Aw yeah, sure… just leave, coward!" Scout fumbled, he was hoping for a fight and, more importantly, a chance to show off.
"I'll go get him." Medic stood up, shooting a glare at Scout as he walked by.
"Hey boyo…" Demo and Spy walked up behind Scout with a length of rope. "How about we have a little chat?"
~0~
(In the woods near a small pond)
Medic used a small water whip to cut through the foliage. The undergrowth surrounding the pond was thick, prickly, and tangled.
How in the h*** does he move around through this so fast?! He thought to himself as he broke through the last patch of undergrowth.
Sniper was sitting on a boulder facing the pond. He tossed a couple of stones in causing little ripples tobreak the stillness of the surface of the water. Medic climbed up the rock and sat down next to him.
"Don't-" Medic started.
"Before ya say anything, I'm not upset about it. I've heard it all a million times before." Sniper cut him off as he threw another stone into the pond.
"Someone insulting you because you aren't a bender, or someone telling you that zhey're wrong?"
"Both."
"Oh."
"Just get's old, real quick." Sniper sighed.
There was a long period of silence. In that time, the fireflies started to come out and speckle the sky with light like low-hanging stars.
"If you don't mind, how did you end up in that svamp?" Medic asked, finally breaking the silence.
"Huh?"
"The svamp you lived in, where you born there or somezhing else?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Just curious."
"Fine, my dad was overbearing, so I ran away."
"Vhere did you originally live?"
"My dad insisted on living near this stupid desert."
"Why the svamp?"
"I don't know, it just seemed like a good place. Seriously, why do you care?"
"I have a theory…"
"I know I'm going to regret this…" Sniper sighed, "But what is it?"
"I have zhe ability to sense whether or not someone will be a bender, it's sort of an addition to healing. Anyvay, when we first met, I felt this overwhelming 'aura' of sorts emanating from you. The only other person I've ever met with something zhat even came close to zhat vas a bloodbender prisoner."
"And you think I'm one?"
"Everyzhing seems to point zhat way, yes."
There was a short pause, and then Sniper start laughing. "Have you been drinking that rat-poison Demo calls whiskey?"
Medic was slightly offended by this, "No I have not! I'm being serious!"
"Yeah, I think you need to get your mystical waterbender sense checked. All bloodbenders were offed when they were kids. Plus my dad made sure to tell me, multiple times, that I wasn't."
"Fine, vhatever. Don't believe me… We leave at dawn."
"Alright, mate." Sniper said as he went back to tossing rocks into the pond.
~0~
(The next day whilst traveling down a forest path)
They large group was still en route to the Northern Water tribe. They had to walk on foot. It would've been nice for them to have some sort of large flying beast to ride on, but nope; they got to walk, and sometimes ride a ferry, but mostly walk. Nobody really liked it.
It was a relatively cold day, and there was a slight breeze knocking autumn leaves to the ground. Clouds hung low, threatening to start raining at any moment. The whole atmosphere was horrible on everyone's sinuses, but it was still peaceful. Unfortunately, peace never lasts within this group, something always ends up going wrong, or weird, or both.
In this case things went wrong when a group of bandits jumped them. They put up a pretty good fight, but seeing as nobody was expecting it, Team Avatar was defeated pretty quickly. It was… embarrassing, to say the least. Sniper, Scout, and Spy managed to retreat into the woods, however, and were waiting for a chance to attack.
"They got anything good?" one bandit called to the others as he put handcuffs on everybody.
"Some money, a bunch of weapons, and a bunch of soup." Another called back.
"THAT IS MY SOUP! DO NOT TOUCH IT!" Soldier yelled, struggling to get free.
"Is that it?" the first bandit asked.
"Yeah, I think a few of these guys got away though, keep your guard up."
"Aye-" a bandit started as a blast of air knocked him over.
Scout jumped down from a tree and started attacking the bandits. Spy then appeared at the right moment to assist in kicking butt. Sniper helped to, but not as much because he couldn't hit a bandit without hitting Scout or Spy.
Unfortunately 2v7 isn't a very fair fight, so Scout and Spy were defeated fairly easily and joined the rest of the team. Sniper was still up in the tree because nobody noticed him. He took advantage of this by firing an arrow right into the jugular of a bandit.
"Oh my gosh he killed him!" one of the bandits said, looking over the corpse of his bandit-bro.
"That jerk!" another bandit yelled.
"He's up in that tree!" yet another bandit yelled.
They started to chop the tree down, and Sniper couldn't jump to another tree because the tree he was currently in was shaking too much. Eventually he, and the tree, fell to their doom. Luckily the tree wasn't too tall, so he survived the fall, but took serious damage.
He landed at the feet of the remaining 6 bandits, who were all holding various weapons ready to plunge them into his flesh. As they started to close in one him, he closed his eyes, knowing that he would probably be dead in the next two seconds.
He waited for a bit, and nothing seemed to happen. He waited another couple of seconds, nothing happened. He opened one eye.
The bandits were levitating a good foot above the ground, their bodies twisted in unnatural positions, and a look of pure horror on their faces. His currently-bound teammates were all starting at them with mouths dropped and/or eyes wide open.
Sniper then noticed his left arm outstretched towards the middle of the group of the bandits. Once the realization stuck him, his face paled. He lowered his arm and the bandits all fell to the ground, unconscious, but not dead.
Spy managed to pick the locks on the handcuffs, and after a while got everyone free. Sniper was still mid-brain shutdown.
Medic ran over to him, "THAT WAS AMAZING!" he yelled, then started blabbering about how he was right all along.
"THOSE TRAITOR-MAGGOTS WON'T STAND A CHANCE NOW!" Soldier said with a big grin in his indoor voice as he slapped Sniper on his back.
"Yeah! We might be able to actually win this thing!" Demo joined in.
"It's not that great…" Scout pouted because he wasn't getting any attention.
"Show us how you did that again!" Demo said, completely ignoring him.
"No way! I'm never doing that again!" Sniper said, snapping out of his miniature head-coma.
"What, why?" Medic stopped his bragging for a moment.
"That was horrible! I- that- it was just…"
"QUIT YOUR BABBLING AND SPEAK CLEARLY!" Soldier said in his slightly-louder-than-indoor-voice voice.
"Fine!" Sniper got in Soldier's face, "I. Will. Never. Do. That. Again."
This sparked a heated argument between the two that lasted for a good two minutes and involved a very long string of curse words. Eventually the Engineer stepped in and calmed them down.
"Simmer down fellas, no use fighting amongst ourselves." He then turned to Soldier, "If the Sniper doesn't want to bloodbend, he isn't obligated to."
"Thank you!" Sniper said in relief, glad that someone was actually on his side.
~0~
(Exactly 1 week, three days, and 23 hours later)
The bloodbending incident never quite died. Soldier kept trying to 'recruit' him, and Medic was trying to get him to bend so Medic could train him claiming that he shouldn't deny himself a part of who he was, but Sniper refused to do any sort of bending. Sniper tried his best to avoid them, but it never really worked they always ended up bugging him.
They were almost to the Northern Water Tribe and were currently riding a ship there. They had gotten the ship through… an inheritance. Yes, that is the story.
"This is a lot better than walking." Scout said, leaning up against a rail.
"I guess." Miss Pauling sighed, "I sort of miss walking through the woods though."
"Meh, I'm going to the restroom." Scout announced and walked to the head.
A little while later a large black boat rammed into the ship. Then a battalion of Fire Nation soldiers, which consisted of at least 40 guys, boarded.
"We have heard that the Avatar is aboard this ship. Turn him over to us and we will leave peacefully." Their commander demanded.
"NO! TRAITOR-MAGGOTS!" Soldier yelled (for real this time), as he shot a blast of fire at him.
The battle was short and awesome, but seeing as Scout was still on the toilet, it ended in an overwhelming victory for the battalion.
"Where is he?" The commander picked the Medic up by his shirt and held a small flame near his face.
Sniper, who was lying near a rail with at least three broken ribs noticed this, and could hear the water that surrounded the boat calling to him. Not in a mystical way, but more like: "Hey! A**hole! If you don't do something everyone on this freaking ship will die! And then the Fire Nation will win! Get over yourself!"
Sniper reluctantly stood up, and tried his best to ignore the pain coming from his ribcage. He imitated a move that he had seen Medic and Miss Pauling use several times, and lo and behold, it actually worked. A large wave crashed into the deck knocking down the soldiers.
A sudden wave of energy rushed though the Sniper, he was able to take out a large chunk of the soldiers. It was amazing, he had never felt like that before… and he liked it. Normally he wasn't even able to get to the fight before his teammates finished off whoever they were fighting. He laughed as he took out another couple of soldier who were trying, in vain, to stop him. It wasn't a giggle, or a regular laugh. This laugh rivaled the Soldier's or Heavy's evil laughs.
Unfortunately, there is only so much one man can do, especially against 40 or so trained soldiers. The battalion now surrounded him in the middle of the boat, and he wasn't able to reach the water.
He knew what he had to do, but he really didn't want to do it. He almost didn't, but his conscience told him otherwise. He lifted both of his arms.
He could feel the blood moving around inside the 40 or so soldiers, their muscles contracting, their hearts beating, and their lungs filling with air then emptying again. It was not a pleasant feeling. He clutched his hands together, and the soldiers all started to contort. You could hear the snapping of their collective joints. They started to float in the air, and move towards the edge of the ship. Sniper released them into the ocean.
There was a long pause, and then his team began to cheer. Pyro ran up and hugged him in thanks.
"THAT WAS INCREDIBLE, PRIVATE SNIPER!" Soldier said in his extremely-louder-than-inside-voice voice.
Everyone then noticed Scout, who was standing in the bathroom doorway, eyes bugged and mouth agape.
"I think ye broke him." Demo laughed.
Sniper laughed, and then clutched at his ribs which started hurting again.
"Give him some space!" Medic ordered the team who were crowded around him. He then started healing his busted ribcage.
"Thanks, doc." Sniper grunted.
"Don't mention it. Zhe rest of you, go do somezhing about zhat boat!" He pointed to the Fire Nation boat, which was still stuck to the side of the ship, once everyone was gone, he turned back to Sniper. "So, vill you accept my offer?"
"What?"
"Vill you let me train you? You've got so much potential. It'd be a vaste to not use any of it."
"Yer gonna bug me until I say yes, aren't you?"
"Zhat is correct."
"Fine."
"Good, you can join Scout and me tomorrow morning at five."
"Wait, five in the morning?"
"You are right! Meet us at 4:30 AM!" Medic said as he finished healing Sniper's ribs.
~0~
(The North Pole, 1 week of training later)
"Don't worry! I won't hurt you!" Sniper laughed manically as he chased Scout around the sparring grounds bending several pellets of ice at him.
"YOU SAY THAT AND IT'S NEVER TRUE!" Scout hollered as a bit of ice whizzed by his head. "SOMEONE HELP!!!"
"Zhat's enough." Medic said, and they both stopped immediately. "Good job Herr Sniper, you are ready to move onto the advanced forms."
"What about me?" Scout's voice reverted back to disappointed 5 year old.
"You still have a long way to go."
"Seriously?!" Scout whined, "I've been at this for how long now?! Why does he get to move on and not me?"
"Because he's better than you." Medic stated frankly.
"Yeah right, you're just saying that because you li- OW!" Scout's hand suddenly started hitting him upside the head. "STOP IT! THAT'S-OW-UNFAIR!" Scout tried to run away, but Sniper froze his legs, dooming him to perpetual why-are-you-hitting-yourself?
"Zhank you, you can stop now though." Medic said to Sniper.
"Alright." Sniper said, releasing Scout, who ran off yelling about how he'd get his revenge. "What do you want to do now?"
"It's almost lunch. I heard of a great restaurant nearby."
"Lead the way…" Sniper smiled, as Medic lead him to the town.
(THE END)

Description
"All I'm saying is that you'd never stand a chance against a bender." Scout held his hands up in front of him. "Nothing personal, dude."
"Are you kidding? I've taken out so many that it ain't even funny!" Sniper snapped.
"Well sure, but they were probably weak. A non-bender would never stand a chance against a master bender, much less an Avatar."
Nobody was quite sure how this argument started, but Scout was striking every single nerve the Sniper had. After a while Sniper gave up, but he sure didn't agree with him.
"I'm not gonna argue with ya anymore." Sniper growled as he left the campsite and into the forest.
"Aw yeah, sure… just leave, coward!" Scout fumbled, he was hoping for a fight and, more importantly, a chance to show off.
"I'll go get him." Medic stood up, shooting a glare at Scout as he walked by.
"Hey boyo…" Demo and Spy walked up behind Scout with a length of rope. "How about we have a little chat?"
~0~
(In the woods near a small pond)
Medic used a small water whip to cut through the foliage. The undergrowth surrounding the pond was thick, prickly, and tangled.
How in the h*** does he move around through this so fast?! He thought to himself as he broke through the last patch of undergrowth.
Sniper was sitting on a boulder facing the pond. He tossed a couple of stones in causing little ripples tobreak the stillness of the surface of the water. Medic climbed up the rock and sat down next to him.
"Don't-" Medic started.
"Before ya say anything, I'm not upset about it. I've heard it all a million times before." Sniper cut him off as he threw another stone into the pond.
"Someone insulting you because you aren't a bender, or someone telling you that zhey're wrong?"
"Both."
"Oh."
"Just get's old, real quick." Sniper sighed.
There was a long period of silence. In that time, the fireflies started to come out and speckle the sky with light like low-hanging stars.
"If you don't mind, how did you end up in that svamp?" Medic asked, finally breaking the silence.
"Huh?"
"The svamp you lived in, where you born there or somezhing else?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Just curious."
"Fine, my dad was overbearing, so I ran away."
"Vhere did you originally live?"
"My dad insisted on living near this stupid desert."
"Why the svamp?"
"I don't know, it just seemed like a good place. Seriously, why do you care?"
"I have a theory…"
"I know I'm going to regret this…" Sniper sighed, "But what is it?"
"I have zhe ability to sense whether or not someone will be a bender, it's sort of an addition to healing. Anyvay, when we first met, I felt this overwhelming 'aura' of sorts emanating from you. The only other person I've ever met with something zhat even came close to zhat vas a bloodbender prisoner."
"And you think I'm one?"
"Everyzhing seems to point zhat way, yes."
There was a short pause, and then Sniper start laughing. "Have you been drinking that rat-poison Demo calls whiskey?"
Medic was slightly offended by this, "No I have not! I'm being serious!"
"Yeah, I think you need to get your mystical waterbender sense checked. All bloodbenders were offed when they were kids. Plus my dad made sure to tell me, multiple times, that I wasn't."
"Fine, vhatever. Don't believe me… We leave at dawn."
"Alright, mate." Sniper said as he went back to tossing rocks into the pond.
~0~
(The next day whilst traveling down a forest path)
They large group was still en route to the Northern Water tribe. They had to walk on foot. It would've been nice for them to have some sort of large flying beast to ride on, but nope; they got to walk, and sometimes ride a ferry, but mostly walk. Nobody really liked it.
It was a relatively cold day, and there was a slight breeze knocking autumn leaves to the ground. Clouds hung low, threatening to start raining at any moment. The whole atmosphere was horrible on everyone's sinuses, but it was still peaceful. Unfortunately, peace never lasts within this group, something always ends up going wrong, or weird, or both.
In this case things went wrong when a group of bandits jumped them. They put up a pretty good fight, but seeing as nobody was expecting it, Team Avatar was defeated pretty quickly. It was… embarrassing, to say the least. Sniper, Scout, and Spy managed to retreat into the woods, however, and were waiting for a chance to attack.
"They got anything good?" one bandit called to the others as he put handcuffs on everybody.
"Some money, a bunch of weapons, and a bunch of soup." Another called back.
"THAT IS MY SOUP! DO NOT TOUCH IT!" Soldier yelled, struggling to get free.
"Is that it?" the first bandit asked.
"Yeah, I think a few of these guys got away though, keep your guard up."
"Aye-" a bandit started as a blast of air knocked him over.
Scout jumped down from a tree and started attacking the bandits. Spy then appeared at the right moment to assist in kicking butt. Sniper helped to, but not as much because he couldn't hit a bandit without hitting Scout or Spy.
Unfortunately 2v7 isn't a very fair fight, so Scout and Spy were defeated fairly easily and joined the rest of the team. Sniper was still up in the tree because nobody noticed him. He took advantage of this by firing an arrow right into the jugular of a bandit.
"Oh my gosh he killed him!" one of the bandits said, looking over the corpse of his bandit-bro.
"That jerk!" another bandit yelled.
"He's up in that tree!" yet another bandit yelled.
They started to chop the tree down, and Sniper couldn't jump to another tree because the tree he was currently in was shaking too much. Eventually he, and the tree, fell to their doom. Luckily the tree wasn't too tall, so he survived the fall, but took serious damage.
He landed at the feet of the remaining 6 bandits, who were all holding various weapons ready to plunge them into his flesh. As they started to close in one him, he closed his eyes, knowing that he would probably be dead in the next two seconds.
He waited for a bit, and nothing seemed to happen. He waited another couple of seconds, nothing happened. He opened one eye.
The bandits were levitating a good foot above the ground, their bodies twisted in unnatural positions, and a look of pure horror on their faces. His currently-bound teammates were all starting at them with mouths dropped and/or eyes wide open.
Sniper then noticed his left arm outstretched towards the middle of the group of the bandits. Once the realization stuck him, his face paled. He lowered his arm and the bandits all fell to the ground, unconscious, but not dead.
Spy managed to pick the locks on the handcuffs, and after a while got everyone free. Sniper was still mid-brain shutdown.
Medic ran over to him, "THAT WAS AMAZING!" he yelled, then started blabbering about how he was right all along.
"THOSE TRAITOR-MAGGOTS WON'T STAND A CHANCE NOW!" Soldier said with a big grin in his indoor voice as he slapped Sniper on his back.
"Yeah! We might be able to actually win this thing!" Demo joined in.
"It's not that great…" Scout pouted because he wasn't getting any attention.
"Show us how you did that again!" Demo said, completely ignoring him.
"No way! I'm never doing that again!" Sniper said, snapping out of his miniature head-coma.
"What, why?" Medic stopped his bragging for a moment.
"That was horrible! I- that- it was just…"
"QUIT YOUR BABBLING AND SPEAK CLEARLY!" Soldier said in his slightly-louder-than-indoor-voice voice.
"Fine!" Sniper got in Soldier's face, "I. Will. Never. Do. That. Again."
This sparked a heated argument between the two that lasted for a good two minutes and involved a very long string of curse words. Eventually the Engineer stepped in and calmed them down.
"Simmer down fellas, no use fighting amongst ourselves." He then turned to Soldier, "If the Sniper doesn't want to bloodbend, he isn't obligated to."
"Thank you!" Sniper said in relief, glad that someone was actually on his side.
~0~
(Exactly 1 week, three days, and 23 hours later)
The bloodbending incident never quite died. Soldier kept trying to 'recruit' him, and Medic was trying to get him to bend so Medic could train him claiming that he shouldn't deny himself a part of who he was, but Sniper refused to do any sort of bending. Sniper tried his best to avoid them, but it never really worked they always ended up bugging him.
They were almost to the Northern Water Tribe and were currently riding a ship there. They had gotten the ship through… an inheritance. Yes, that is the story.
"This is a lot better than walking." Scout said, leaning up against a rail.
"I guess." Miss Pauling sighed, "I sort of miss walking through the woods though."
"Meh, I'm going to the restroom." Scout announced and walked to the head.
A little while later a large black boat rammed into the ship. Then a battalion of Fire Nation soldiers, which consisted of at least 40 guys, boarded.
"We have heard that the Avatar is aboard this ship. Turn him over to us and we will leave peacefully." Their commander demanded.
"NO! TRAITOR-MAGGOTS!" Soldier yelled (for real this time), as he shot a blast of fire at him.
The battle was short and awesome, but seeing as Scout was still on the toilet, it ended in an overwhelming victory for the battalion.
"Where is he?" The commander picked the Medic up by his shirt and held a small flame near his face.
Sniper, who was lying near a rail with at least three broken ribs noticed this, and could hear the water that surrounded the boat calling to him. Not in a mystical way, but more like: "Hey! A**hole! If you don't do something everyone on this freaking ship will die! And then the Fire Nation will win! Get over yourself!"
Sniper reluctantly stood up, and tried his best to ignore the pain coming from his ribcage. He imitated a move that he had seen Medic and Miss Pauling use several times, and lo and behold, it actually worked. A large wave crashed into the deck knocking down the soldiers.
A sudden wave of energy rushed though the Sniper, he was able to take out a large chunk of the soldiers. It was amazing, he had never felt like that before… and he liked it. Normally he wasn't even able to get to the fight before his teammates finished off whoever they were fighting. He laughed as he took out another couple of soldier who were trying, in vain, to stop him. It wasn't a giggle, or a regular laugh. This laugh rivaled the Soldier's or Heavy's evil laughs.
Unfortunately, there is only so much one man can do, especially against 40 or so trained soldiers. The battalion now surrounded him in the middle of the boat, and he wasn't able to reach the water.
He knew what he had to do, but he really didn't want to do it. He almost didn't, but his conscience told him otherwise. He lifted both of his arms.
He could feel the blood moving around inside the 40 or so soldiers, their muscles contracting, their hearts beating, and their lungs filling with air then emptying again. It was not a pleasant feeling. He clutched his hands together, and the soldiers all started to contort. You could hear the snapping of their collective joints. They started to float in the air, and move towards the edge of the ship. Sniper released them into the ocean.
There was a long pause, and then his team began to cheer. Pyro ran up and hugged him in thanks.
"THAT WAS INCREDIBLE, PRIVATE SNIPER!" Soldier said in his extremely-louder-than-inside-voice voice.
Everyone then noticed Scout, who was standing in the bathroom doorway, eyes bugged and mouth agape.
"I think ye broke him." Demo laughed.
Sniper laughed, and then clutched at his ribs which started hurting again.
"Give him some space!" Medic ordered the team who were crowded around him. He then started healing his busted ribcage.
"Thanks, doc." Sniper grunted.
"Don't mention it. Zhe rest of you, go do somezhing about zhat boat!" He pointed to the Fire Nation boat, which was still stuck to the side of the ship, once everyone was gone, he turned back to Sniper. "So, vill you accept my offer?"
"What?"
"Vill you let me train you? You've got so much potential. It'd be a vaste to not use any of it."
"Yer gonna bug me until I say yes, aren't you?"
"Zhat is correct."
"Fine."
"Good, you can join Scout and me tomorrow morning at five."
"Wait, five in the morning?"
"You are right! Meet us at 4:30 AM!" Medic said as he finished healing Sniper's ribs.
~0~
(The North Pole, 1 week of training later)
"Don't worry! I won't hurt you!" Sniper laughed manically as he chased Scout around the sparring grounds bending several pellets of ice at him.
"YOU SAY THAT AND IT'S NEVER TRUE!" Scout hollered as a bit of ice whizzed by his head. "SOMEONE HELP!!!"
"Zhat's enough." Medic said, and they both stopped immediately. "Good job Herr Sniper, you are ready to move onto the advanced forms."
"What about me?" Scout's voice reverted back to disappointed 5 year old.
"You still have a long way to go."
"Seriously?!" Scout whined, "I've been at this for how long now?! Why does he get to move on and not me?"
"Because he's better than you." Medic stated frankly.
"Yeah right, you're just saying that because you li- OW!" Scout's hand suddenly started hitting him upside the head. "STOP IT! THAT'S-OW-UNFAIR!" Scout tried to run away, but Sniper froze his legs, dooming him to perpetual why-are-you-hitting-yourself?
"Zhank you, you can stop now though." Medic said to Sniper.
"Alright." Sniper said, releasing Scout, who ran off yelling about how he'd get his revenge. "What do you want to do now?"
"It's almost lunch. I heard of a great restaurant nearby."
"Lead the way…" Sniper smiled, as Medic lead him to the town.
(THE END)