Shooting Stars | Lo'ak¹

Chapter 19: Warrior Training

"You take her from the left. I'll take her from the right," Neteyam whispered, and Ao'nung silently agreed with Neteyam.

The two boys stalked toward Ja'lia as she started to devise a plan in her head. Let them catch her, whisper something in one of their ears that would make them pissed at the other, enjoy the show, and win by default.

She didn't necessarily care about winning. It was more of the fact that she wanted to leave that session with any cuts or bruises. Also, because she didn't want to train in the first place, but because Jake and Neytiri were her guardians, whatever they said went, no questions asked.

Although, Ja'lia wasn't going to easily allow them to catch her. That would make it too obvious that she didn't want to fight them. No, she was going to defend herself this time, and if one of them happened to say take her to the ground, then so be it.

Ja'lia pulled herself from her thoughts, and just as she did, she immediately had to duck when she saw something coming towards her from the corner of her eye. Neteyam had been the first one to approach her, and now she was physically fighting him. Blocking punch after punch, she backed up when she needed to, and moved forward when she counter-attacked.

Little did she know that Ao'nung was coming right up behind up as a sneak attack. And as soon as he was close enough, he grabbed her by wrapping his arms around her waist. Ja'lia thrashed in his hold, but Neteyam quickly came up to the girl and grabbed her legs.

"Come on, Lia! You've got this!" Lo'ak cheered for his best friend.

This was the moment she had been waiting for. It was finally time to start conducting her plan, and she felt the adrenaline coarse through her veins as she gathered up every last bit of strength to begin her plan.

When Ao'nung and Neteyam thought they had her beaten was when she would start, and as soon as she saw that glimpse of victory flash across Neteyam's face, she smirked.

The girl immediately brought her legs as close to her chest as she possibly could, and kicked back, sending herself and Ao'nung in one direction while Neteyam fell back in the other.

However, Ao'nung was quicker to gather himself than Ja'lia anticipated as he moved from out under her and pinned her to the ground.

"Got you," He smirked. Ja'lia only returned his look of victory as she kneed him in the stomach and rolled over on top of him, pinning his hands above his head.

"Hmm, looks like Neteyam was right," She whispered, and Ao'nung shot her a glare. "You were easy to take down," Ja'lia brought her mouth down to Ao'nung's ear, "I guess it must suck losing to outsiders, huh?"

"I'm not easy to take down," Ao'nung seethed.

"No?" She taunted, feigning innocence, "Then prove it," Ja'lia whispered.

Ao'nung pushed Ja'lia off him as he stood up and stalked toward Neteyam. The teen girl took a few steps back until she was standing right beside Lo'ak. "What are you doing?" He asked, confused.

"Just watch," Ja'lia said.

Soon, Neteyam and Ao'nung were fighting each other. Neteyam tried to ask him what was happening as they were supposed to be fighting Ja'lia, not each other.

"Don't act dumb, Neteyam. You were asking for a fight," Ao'nung said, attacking at every chance he got.

Unfortunately, the fight eventually got out of hand as all the tension that had been building up since the Sully family first arrived started to come to a head. After about five minutes of fighting, Ao'nung and Neteyam were rolling on the ground cussing at each other, pulling the other's ears or hair, and overall causing a huge ruckus.