Chosen by the Spirits | A male reader x Avatar the Last Airbender story

Chapter 5- The Duel

Two weeks had passed by since the Avatar and his friends arrived at the Northern Water Tribe. It had been a great pleasure teaching Aang and Katara waterbending, and they had learnt a decent amount off of me and master Pakku. Meanwhile Sokka, the member of the gang that I knew the least, continued his relentless chase for Princess Yue's love. Aang had made some good progress in his waterbending, but it was Katara who had drastically improved. Already she had become one of the better waterbenders in the class.

It was another bright morning, and master Pakku had arranged for a duelling session, so there were many waterbending students at the training grounds. Katara has quickly whipped through all of the students in her duels, the last of which resulted in a young lad by the name of Sangok being trapped in a large wave of ice. Katara look at him, proud of her work. "Nice try, pupil Sangok," master Pakku stated. "Another couple of years and you might be ready to fight a sea sponge," he joked, causing a wave of laughter from the other students. Pakku then quickly released the poor boy from his entrapment by turning the ice into water. Master Pakku then look across at the other pupils, who were mostly sat on the floor. "Would anyone care for a rematch with Katara?" he asked, to which he got many shaking heads in response.

Pakku then turned back to Katara. "Katara, you've advanced more quickly than any student I've ever trained,". I have to admit, it stung a bit to see my master have a new favourite student. Then again, he wasn't lying; Katara had certainly progressed faster than me at first. When I first started learning waterbending about ten years ago, it had taken a while for the spirits to trust me, and for me to trust them. Therefore I struggled at first, but later became a great waterbender like I am now. Pakku continued to compliment Katara on her abilities. "You have proven that with fierce determination, passion and hard work, you can accomplish anything. Raw talent alone is not enough," he added, with a passive-aggressive look at Aang, who lay on the snow messing about with his bat-lemur, which I had learnt to be called Momo. "Pupil Aang!" Pakku shouted at the boy, taking him my surprise.

"Yes, master Pakku?" he responded with shock, a sudden serious look on his face.

"Care to step into the sparring circle?" Pakku offered. "I figure since you've found the time to play with house pets, you must have already mastered waterbending," he jeered at the young boy, who swiftly stood up in front of the old master.

"I wouldn't say mastered, but check this out," Aang told him, and he used bending to cover himself in snow. Master Pakku and I shook our heads; Aang had so much potential, but didn't seem to care much for learning to waterbend. He is just a twelve year old boy, I had to remind myself. All of a sudden, master Pakku turned to me.

"And what about you, (Y/N)? Would you like to spar Katara?" He asked me as a genuine offer. "It's been a while since you last sparred anyone,". He was right, I had mostly been teaching over the last two weeks, and even before that I rarely sparred people. All the other young pupils were no match for me, and there weren't any adult waterbenders who ever had the time to teach me. While I knew my waterbending was very good, I was also aware that my lack of duelling experience may end up holding me back, so I accepted master Pakku's offer.

"Sure, I'll spar," I told him. "If Katara wants to as well," I added as I turned my head to look at the girl, who gave me a determined nod.

"Very well," Pakku said with a proud smile. "Pupils, you should watch this. These are my two best waterbending students, so you may just learn something," he said, turning to the lazy teens who were still sat on the floor.

A few minutes later and the duel was about to commence. Katara and I were positioned a few metres apart, with two large vases of water to either side of us. Unfortunately for me, I felt that the spirits weren't very strong today, which would hold back my power slightly. Nevertheless, I felt confident that I could beat Katara convincingly. After all, I had been training for ten years, while it sounded as if she had only been properly using her waterbending within the last few months. However, from the stories that Aang had told me, I had also become aware that, unlike me, Katara had experience in real fights, which may help her in the duel.

We stood silently for a moment, both of us ready for the other to make the first move. Although I hadn't moved a muscle, my heart was already racing. I inhaled deeply to calm myself, before slowly letting it out. Before I had a chance to take another breath, Katara initiated the dual by bending some water from her vase and forcefully launching it straight at me. Acting quickly, I rapidly bent the snow in front of me to create an ice wall that the water harmlessly hit off of. I then quickly transformed the large ice wall into many ice shards that I sent at Katara. I was aiming for them to pin her clothes, preventing her from moving, rather than going to a lethal hit. She quickly dodged the shards, even sending a few back, though I was able to stop them with ease. We exchanged ranged attacks for a few minutes, with none of us gaining an advantage. At one point she sent a particularly large blast of water at me, which sent me barrelling into the floor. She then formed a thick cylinder of ice in front of her, which she used to launch many sharp ice disks in my direction. Getting up from the ground, and realising I was now at a surprising disadvantage, I desperately manoeuvred my body to dodge the disks. I was mostly successful at this, but the sharp edge of one of the disks did cut my left arm. Luckily, the adrenaline in my body prevented me from really feeling it.

Katara had surely now noticed that she had the advantage, so she sent a barrage of attacks at me. I had to use all of my agility to dodge the attacks, and hope that eventually she slipped up. She swiftly ran up to me for a close-range attack, rapidly bending a small wave of water that she tried to ram into my face, but I turned it into ice before it made contact. We exchanged some more close-range attacks, though none of us managed to land a blow. Eventually I disengaged the close attacks, flipping backwards to create some space between us. Katara took this as an opportunity to present a large, aggressive attack, as she controlled a large wave that she sent straight for me. Standing strong in perfect form, I concentrated on the small tsunami and managed to gain control of it over her. Spinning it around my body, I transformed it into a whirlpool of water- almost like a liquid tornado- which I sent back at her. This took her by surprise, and she had to dive to her side to avoid it. This gave me the advantage, and I capitalised on it. I bent a large hurdle of out snow next to where was heading. After already being knocked off of balance by my whirlpool, she was forced to trip over the barrier, which I then bent into ice, trapping her feet. Katara fell to the floor, her feet locked in ice. Before she had a chance to get up, I controlled some more of the snow to engulf her entire body, except for her head, in a block of ice. I knew that master Pakku and I had not yet taught her how to escape from ice with hands bound, so I knew that I had achieved victory. The pupils cheered at both of us for our efforts, and Pakku announced that the dual was over and that I had won. I jogged over to Katara and freed her from the ice and giving her a hand up.

"Great duel," I told her. "You're a hell of a waterbender,".

"Thanks," she told me with a smile. I noticed that the other pupils had started to leave the training grounds. Aang was still stood there, next to master Pakku, and so I walked over to them. However, after I took a few steps, something terrible happened. It had started to snow, but instead of the reflective, white droplets that usually littered the sky, dark grey snowfall fell from the sky instead. Instantly I froze on the spot, a feeling of dread overcoming my body. I saw a similar look wash over master Pakku, too. We both recognised that something had polluted the air, causing the snow to fall dark. That something was fire nation ships, and judging by the sheer darkness of the snowflakes, we could tell there was a lot of them. The Northern Water Tribe had been left untouched from the fire nation for many years, but that was all going to change now.

"What's wrong?" Aang asked us, with worry in his face. There was a slight silence for a moment; I tried to speak but my voice seemed to betray me. After a minute, I managed to utter out a few words.

"The fire nation is attacking."

Word Count:1620

(A/N: Things are about to get good! Shorter chapter this time, but I hope you still enjoyed! The next 4 chapters have already been written and are ready for release, and Chapter 6 will release on Wednesday. Thanks for reading, see you guys on Wednesday! -JetDragon09)