Dustbender 005 (ATLA)

Terrah was a few miles away from the farm, and had noticed that he was being followed. 

At first, he thought it was just some laborers returning home, because the streets leaving the city were clogged with villagers who worked in the city, but couldn't afford to live inside, and commuted from afar. 

But as he started taking side roads, it was rather obvious that these 30 or so rough looking dudes a mile back were up to no good. 

When he made this discovery, Terrah almost spooked the ostrich-horse drawing the cart, however, thanks to his [Animal Handler] ability, he was able to calm it down, and in fact, it was thanks to this ability that he was even able to pilot this thing in the first place! 

But animal snafu's aside, he was in very real danger. 

Thankfully they hadn't decided to jump him anytime in the last 10 miles, because then he'd have to ditch the cart, and the supplies that he had spent Old Man's money on. 

Terrah thought Old Man would be understanding, but he was also a bit of a cantankerous ‘kung-fu’ master stereotype. Those guys always thought differently than normal people. 

Anyway, since they hadn't bum rushed him, Terrah had started to plan on how to deal with them. 

For one, their objective was probably something at the farm, or they were in some way related to the corrupt guards, and wanted revenge. Whatever the case was, this was in his favor, because he could rely on the old man if the situation got dicey. 

Knowing this, he had peeked over his shoulder a couple times, and ascertained the mooks’ levels. 

From what he counted, there should be around twenty five to thirty of them, with most of them hovering around level 5 to 10. Maybe five or so were in their teens, with one being higher near 18. This was a cause for concern, but what was really dangerous was the lone guy at 21. Terrah knew how important the threshold between level 9 and 10 was, he could only surmise that the difference between 19 and 20 was just as large of a gap. 

Knowing all this, he had developed a plan. 

Firstly, at the angle that this slope was at, and the height of the rapidly descending sun was dipping, the light would be strongest at his back, and in their eyes within 15 minutes. At the rate he was traveling, he would arrive at the farm in 5 minutes. As a consequence, he deliberately slowed down the ostrich-horse to a crawl. 

Secondly, at the farm were the condensed bricks he had planned on using to build the wall. These things were easy to handle, but hard as heck. Considering he had to conserve his energy when fighting against such a large group, these premade objects were ideal in this scenario. 

In fact, Terrah made a mental note of this. Conjuring a condensed rock out of the ground and then throwing it would always be more time/energy consuming in the middle of a fight than having prepared this ammunition ahead of time. Thinking about it further, this was the exact same concept the Dai Li (elite secret black ops Earthbenders) undertook with their gloves made of earth, and their finger bullets. 

These bricks would be his primary weapon.

Lastly, he would work his Dustbending into the mix to sew confusion in the enemy ranks. All the while, he would be practicing the breathing technique he learned earlier in the day. 

By the time he had finalized this plan of his, his slow-crawling cart had reached the farm, and the bandits were practically on his heels. 

“Hyah!” Terrah suddenly whipped the reins, and barreled his cart through the farm-being careful to avoid the crops-and parked it next to Old Man's house. 

All the while he was squinting his eyes as painful levels of sunlight entered his pupils. 

He then hopped off the ride, and ran towards the brick pile. By the time he had command over the high ground, and was looking down at the bandits-who at this point had run to catch up-and they were only a few dozen feet away. 

“Give us yer dragon-potatoes!” A tiny level 18 man demanded. 

Terrah noted that the small guy appeared to be non-threatening, but he was in fact, the second highest leveled person here! 

Keeping silent, Terrah began to shift his weight left and right, copying a movement he had seen Toph perform. 

Within seconds, the heavy bricks started to pelt the densely packed group. 

Heavier than normal bricks, every low level mook who was hit by one of these was taken out of the fight. 

In less than a minute, Terrah had seriously injured a good number of the would-be thieves. 

By this point, the rest of the group had reacted, and they all pulled out short, single handed axes. Some lunged at him, trying to climb the pile of bricks, others stopped and threw their axes at him. 

Terrah was forced to redirect bricks that would've struck his enemy, and instead had them block the thrown axes. As for the men rushing at him, he took out 4 of them, but 6 more were getting close, and Terrah wasn't comfortable remaining where he was. 

Clapping his hands, a large cloud of dust was spawned into existence, obscuring both his and his enemies' vision. 

“The fuck?!” 

“Where is that little shit?!” 

Creating opportunity from chaos, Terrah slid down the backside of the brick pile, and then activated ‘run the fields.’ 

Skating around their position to their left flank, Terrah couldn't exactly see the enemy, however, he could see the faint number indicating their level floating above the position where they should be! 

Initially, he was going to blindly blast into the cloud, but now he could snipe them, and they wouldn't know any better! 

Pulling up a clump of dirt, Terrah condensed it into 5 finger length rocks. As he drew it from the ground, he shaped it like an arrowhead. 

Flinging his hands forward like an opera composer, he targeted anyone who was in the low to mid teens. 

“Yeow!” Several men let loose blood curdling screams. 

The number above their heads fell down to the ground, letting Terrah know he had likely taken them out of the fight. There were even two people that had their level disappear completely. 

Terrah knew deep down that they must be dead, but he didn't want to think about it, because by this point, he had only taken out maybe 9 to 11 out of 30 men. There were still 20 or so bandits who put his life at risk! 

As if to accentuate that point, the level 21 shifted the dust to the side, and proved himself to be an Earthbender! 

Terrah deeply breathed, mimicking the Airbender technique he had learned earlier in the day, then exploded into motion as he was forced to skate around an earthen spear. 

The Earthbender began to relentlessly create spikes, and was driving Terrah right into the waiting axes of his subordinates! 

Terrah cursed that the leader had finally started to get involved, but this wasn't some game where the boss would stand back and let all his minions die before joining the fight. Maybe some people respected the 1v1, but this was real life. Defeat meant death, and you had to go all out to win.

Gritting his teeth at the oncoming axes from all sides, Terrah performed ‘dig the moat’ to both his left and right. As a result, 5 gangsters on each side of him stumbled, and tripped forward onto their faces. They were so close, that they had actually fallen onto one another, and become entangled. 

However, Terrah couldn't capitalize on this situation because the Earthbender had kept up his assault. 

Forced to keep moving forward, and advance towards this menace, Terrah picked up a couple axes from the ground whilst he skated towards the Earthbender. 

Twirling them in his hands, he flung one at the bender, forcing him to erect a wall. 

Then, Terrah skated over the wall, and as he passed overhead, he saw the surprise in the bandit's eyes. Lowering his remaining axe, Terrah was going to slice open his neck, but he caught a reflection in the corner of his eye, and twisted his body. 

A woosh of air passed over where he had been a second ago, and a thin line of blood squirted from his forehead, drowning his face in blood. 

Rolling forward roughly, Terrah saw that it was the rat-like level 18 man who had saved the leader. 

Breathing heavily, and trying to maintain the Airbender technique best he could, Terrah was beginning to feel a slowdown as repeated bending was starting to take its toll on his body. 

To make matters worse, the men he had knocked over were all standing, and were beginning to spread out to surround him. 

“Why did you attack us?” The lead bandit, seeing that the situation was developing into his favor, questioned in an attempt to buy his men time to get into position. 

Terrah looked all over the place, but couldn't spot Old Man anywhere. This wasn't good. 

“Foo-few.” The guy whistled. “I'm talking to you. All we wanted was to buy some dragon-potatoes, but you struck at my merchant caravan out of nowhere. Don't you think you owe us an explanation?” 

“Hey boss, look at what I found, they even have armadillo-pigs, and phoenix-chickens!” One goon came up, and exclaimed. He then unlocked the nearby pen to show everyone, who had looked over curiously. 

“Now is not the time-” The leader said without looking over his shoulder, but was interrupted mid sentence as Star stampeded towards him, and ran right over his back. 

“Oink!” 

“Great going, Star!” Terrah praised. 

Star-who was strong enough to manhandle Terrah whilst wrestling-was stupid strong, and like all armadillo-pigs, had a heavy club-like tail. Thwacking several people, Star took at least 5 bandits out of commision as she ran up to Terrah's side. 

The confusion this caused was the opening Terrah needed. Whilst the bender was down, he clapped his hands forming another dust storm, and then repeated the stone arrowhead attack. 

This time, he aimed all 5 arrowheads directly at the bender. 

As he did, he didn't remain still, and started skating to the side. Along the way, he threw in several more arrowheads into the mess. 

“Follow me Star!” Terrah shouted. 

A second later, the dust cloud was broken apart once more, and the bender was bleeding from a nasty wound beneath his ribs. 

“You're…fucking…dead!” The man raged between pained gasps. 

Tons of earthen spears came at him, but Terrah danced, flipped and twirled around each and every one of them. He was almost struck several times, but he was decently skilled at this movement technique since it was one he practiced for hours everyday when he watered the crops. 

Gaining sufficient distance from the bender, about 5 men remained, and were chasing after both Terrah and Star with anger in their hearts. Curiously, the level 18 guy was nowhere to be seen. Terrah, fearing an ambush, ran around the chicken coop, jumped on top of it just out of sight, and when the bandits turned the corner, he dropped down behind them, and scored an arrowhead into each of their backs. 

Their blood curdling screams and moans of pain attacked his psyche, but his pulsing veins, and adrenaline fueled heart let him know that he had to keep up the pressure. There was no backing down from this fight. 

Emerging from behind the coop, Terrah saw that the bender had created a makeshift bandage, and in his hand was a dragon-potato. Everyone else had either fled, was dead, unconscious, or groaning on the floor. 

His opponent's face was losing color fast, and he glanced hatefully at Terrah. 

As soon as their eyes locked, the man bit into the potato, and a red aura began to cover his form. Steam wafted off his wound and the bandage became a deeper red as his blood seeped through. At the same time, a heavy pressure wafted over the entire field. 

“So this is spiritual energy! This is musou! Hahaha, the boss won't stand a chance against me now!...but first, you're dead!” The man said aloud to himself, and then stomped on the ground. 

Earthen spikes infused with that same red energy erupted underneath Terrah so fast, this time he couldn't react. 

“Oink!” Star pulled him out of the way with her tail, but as a consequence, it became impaled. 

A great wave of blood erupted out of Star's backside, and she slumped, squealing in great pain. 

“Star!” Terrah called out in worry. 

However, he didn't have time to worry about her as a continuous wave of spikes flooded towards him as if it were a flood. 

Terrah could only do his best to skate around the unruly terrain. 

During his duel, Terrah spotted a dragon-potato fly up into the air. It still had some dirt on it, so he reached his hand out, and pulled it towards himself. 

Biting into the dirty thing, Terrah felt an incredible amount of something enter his pores. 

Eyes dilating, heart rate skyrocketing, Terrah almost felt like he was going to collapse. Then, when he thought he might die, a deep violet aura erupted from his pores, and he felt as if he could lift an elephant! 

When the river of spikes came at him, Terrah waved both his hands in the ‘pluck the weed’ style. As the dirt broke apart, he then clapped his hands, transforming it into a massive wave of dust, at the same time he exercised the breathing technique to help him focus the wide AOE dust cloud. Using his mouth and a sharp exhale, he focused the dust cloud into a narrow cyclone, at the tip of which was a sharp stone! 

The bandit raised a wall to protect himself, but the cyclone pierced it, entered his body, and then the centrifugal force caused his entire chest to disappear. A whirlwind of gore was carried onto the horizon, and disappeared. 

A pair of notifications dinged upon this victory. 

[Conditions Met Earthbending 19 -> 20] 

[Spiritual Training lvl 1 -> 2] 

After releasing all the air in his lungs, Terrah gasped, and took a knee. His vision was swimming, and his pulse was weak. 

Collapsing to the ground, he caught Old Man out of the corner of his walking up to him. 

“O-Old Man, I gooot the ingredients. Didn't speeend a c-c-cent on…blergh.” Terrah slurred, and then vomited blood as it felt like ants were eating him from the inside out. 

“You did good, Vagabond.” Old Man said in an uncharacteristically tired voice. 

Terrah smiled, but then cramped up like a shrimp as the pain became almost unbearable. 

“Bite down on this.” Old Man said into Terrah's ear, yet his voice might as well have come from a mile away. 

Terrah-unable to see by now-opened his mouth, and bit down. 

Old Man then began to poke his back in certain places, and he vomited some more, except this time it was bile, and he felt much better. 

His vision began to return, and Terrah blinked, realizing he was still in the field, and the moon was gently rising on the horizon. 

The rotten stench of dead flesh tickled his nose, yet Terrah had nothing left to wretch. As his mind awakened from the mental fugue of his near death experience, Terrah desperately looked around for Star, and found that she was next to him. However, the wounds on her were much more severe than when she had first been struck…Star must've been caught up in that flood-like wave, and was unable to dodge!...something was wrong! 

Placing his hand onto her to see about her condition, she was cold and lifeless to the touch. 

“Star? Star!” Terrah cried out as large pools of water dripped down his face. 

His first friend in this new world was gone, and it was all his fault. If he had been more famous so that the goons wouldn't even try, if he had been stronger so that the bandits would die faster, if he had only been more clever in his return home. If, if, if! 

Terrah pounded the dirt till his hands bled, cried till nothing more came out. 

When finally, he lifted his head, Terrah saw a group of 8 or so of the thieves tied up, and with their mouths covered. 

At that moment, hatred entered his heart. 

“What are you going to do?” Old Man questioned from behind. 

Terrah turned back, and glared at the old man. 

‘You had the power to stop this, yet did nothing.’ Terrah thought, but did not say. 

It was true that that was the case, but at the end of the day, Terrah had brought this trouble back to the farm. And for all intents and purposes, Old Man was nothing more than a knowledgeable farmer. Maybe he had his own demons, why else would a kung fu master retire to the edge of nowhere without a single person for company? 

But knowing this didn't make Terrah any less angry. 

Clenching his fists, he found a nearby axe, picked it up, and stood before the bound men. The light of the moon cast a shadow over him, and the prisoners shook their heads, muffled screams entered the cloth binding their mouths shut. 

Taking several deep breaths, Terrah's hand shook as he looked down at the men pissing and shitting themselves. They each were dressed in poor, ill fitting clothes, and had broken unhealthy skin. Three of these bandits were so short and skinny, they couldn't be older than 13 or 14.

They were kids. 

“Fuck.” Terrah spat, and tossed the axe to the side. 

Clenching his fists, he looked up to the stars and moon, then wordlessly screamed out everything he had in him. 

Old Man stood nearby, his face was like stone. 

Terrah turned around, and punched him in the chin with everything he had. It was like striking a brick wall, but Terrah didn't care. 

Fists already bruised & bloodied, Terrah went for another swing, only to end up on his ass. 

Terrah was going to go on a swear ridden tirade, however, Old Man then kneeled down, and pulled him into a tight embrace. 

“Let it out my boy.” 

Terrah thought he had no more tears to give, yet being treated like an actual human being after all he had experienced-the fighting, the corruption, the extreme poverty, no internet, no friends/family, the death and murder-it broke him. 

Snot dripped down his face, and Terrah became a blubbering mess as he let down the mental walls that he used to protect his psyche in this insane fucked up death world. 

Old Man sighed, and then ruffled Terrah's hair as he stood up. 

Holding out a hand, the white moonlight bounced off Old Man's figure magnificently, and for the smallest of seconds, he appeared to be a celestial. 

“My name is Huang Zhong, will you be my disciple?”