Dao and the Freedom Fighters

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟕 - 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐀𝐚𝐧𝐠

Third Person POV:

Not much had changed in the six years since Dao had joined the Freedom Fighters. Dao found his place in the group seamlessly. He could always be found climbing trees or playing with his dragon. Most commonly though he'd be seen training with his new set of dual dao swords. 

Dao was truly one of them. 

Still whenever they'd raid a Fire Nation camp, Jet would make sure that Dao knew to keep any Firebending hidden. They couldn't risk any of the soldiers finding out they had a firebender of their own. And Jet didn't want Dao being taken away by any of the troops they were fighting against. That's why Jet made Dao wear bandages, covering his fingers all the way too his elbows, and short black gloves above the bandages. 

One of the odd things they'd noticed in the last couple years was that there were less and less soldiers coming through their woods. Smellerbee said that it had to be word getting to the Fire Nation that the Freedom Fighters weren't to be messed with. 

As much as Jet wanted to believe that to be true, some part of his heart knew it wasn't right. He'd heard a rumor that the Fire Nation was going through a change of power in a quick pass through the nearby town. Apparently the previous Firelord had been arrested for treason after losing some duel.

That didn't mean anything. The Fire Nation was still moving across the Earth Kingdom. Jet didn't know exactly where the troops were going, but if anything, he was thankful they were finally leaving their forest.

However, from Longshot's last report, they still hadn't left Gaipan. If anything, they'd been lingering in the town, probably waiting for more orders from their Firelord. No matter what they were doing there, Jet wanted them gone. The Fire Nation had already hurt the Freedom Fighters enough, Jet didn't want anymore kids getting hurt because of the Fire Nation.

They spent months working to come up with plans on how to rid the soldiers. They'd worked through different variations of the same plan, tweaking it until it was perfect. Smellerbee, Longshot, and Jet had spent many sleepless nights drawing up plans to help the town. And finally when they were happy with their plans, then it was time to get everything they needed, so when the next Fire Nation camp settled not far from their treehouse, they knew it was time to strike to get the supplies they needed.

By the next afternoon they were ready. All the kids were ready for the attack. Longshot would draw the soldiers attention so that Jet, Smellerbee and Dao could help him keep them distracted while Pipsqueak, the Duke, and Sneers got out the supplies. They'd accounted for all kinds of scenarios if something were to go wrong.

The one thing they hadn't accounted for was the fact that they'd have to save three other teenagers from the soldiers in addition to their own need to take a bunch of the supplies.

Jet dropped down from the trees, Dao close behind him, knocking over Fire Nation soldiers left and right. At first only a few soldiers ran off, but when it became apparent to them that this was a fight they would most definitely be losing, they took off from their camp, leaving everything behind much to Jet's delight.

He dusted off his armor before turning to the other three they'd just saved.

The boy with the arrow tattoos spoke first. "You took out an army almost single-handedly!"

The other kid with a boomerang scoffed, "Army? There were only like twenty guys."

Jet rolled his eyes at that. Army or not, that was still twenty more Fire Nation soldiers out of their forest. 

"My name's Jet, and these are the Freedom Fighters," he said, motioning to each one as he said their name, "Smellerbee, Longshot, Sneers, Pipsqueak, The Duke and Dao."

Dao was wearing his hood and mask, so his face nor hair weren't seen, a bit wary of these new people. He always was, whenever they found new people and Jet had figured that that had something to do with the burn hidden mostly by Dao's mask and eyepath, which he stopped wearing at fourteen. That hesitation went away when some sort of flying critter landed on the arrow boy's head. Dao darted out from behind him, eagerly talking to the boy about his pets.

Jet let him have some fun. Dao always got so excited around animals, so he'd let him have this time. They probably wouldn't be seeing these people again once they left.

"Thanks for saving us back there," the girl in blue said.

"I should thank you. We were planning on ambushing those soldiers all day. You guys stumbled in right on time."

As the girl was about to say something else, the Duke called from off by the soldier's supply tent. "Hey Jet, these barrels are filled with blasting jelly!"

Score. "That's great, let's get all this back to the hideout."

"You guys have a hideout?" the boy with arrows asked from where he and Dao had been playing with the winged lemur(?).

Dao perked up. "Yeah Jet, can we show them?"

And as usual, Jet was completely unable to say no to Dao.

"Come on."

Zuko loves animals, pass it on :))