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

Chapter 22- The Serpent's Pass (part 2)

"Just because I live near the Unagi, doesn't means I'm an expert!" Suki shouted at him menacingly. I didn't know what a Unagi was, but if it was anything like the monster in front of my eyes, I don't think I want to know.

The serpent screeched at us once more, this time more loudly, and abruptly lunged at us. Aang, with some quick thinking, shot some air at it, making it just narrowly miss the platform we stood on. But this didn't deter the serpent, who just screeched at us one more time, before looking like it was going to lunge again. There was little any of us could do; clearly airbending didn't bother it, waterbending seemed futile against an ocean beast that literally lived in water, and there was very limited earth to for Toph to earthbend against it. Clearly, this was the end for all of us. We had chosen to give up our ferry tickets to travel across the dangerous Serpent's Pass, and now we had to suffer the consequences.

And yet, something inside of me felt like this wasn't going to result in our deaths. In fact, I didn't feel like my normal self at all. I felt confident, and stronger than ever before. Additionally, I suddenly felt absolutely no pain from my left arm, as if it had suddenly healed in a matter of seconds. I had only felt like this once before: at the Northern Water Tribe during the siege, right after my battle with Zhao. This allowed me to reach a conclusion about what had just happened. La and Tui must have gifted me their power, just like they did during the siege. That's why I felt so powerful and confident.

"Everyone, stand back," I ordered, though it wasn't just my voice that barked the instruction. La's deep voice echoed alongside it, as did Tui's gentler voice. That's when I knew with confidence that the water spirits had gifted me their power in order to save my life. The gang followed my order with haste, standing behind me. I glared up at the giant serpent, and stared it in its huge beady eyes, as if trying to intimidate it. The serpent didn't seem scared in the slightest, though I didn't expect it to, and seemed to ready itself to fatally lunge at us once more. It then dawned on me once more that perhaps waterbending wouldn't be very useful on the huge beast, considering it was an aquatic creature itself. I would have to show it something that it hadn't seen before, but that meant taking a risk. Instantly I started to form a plan, though I wasn't convinced it would work. Even with the power of the ocean spirits flowing through me, if the move I was planning didn't work, there was going to be little I could do to stop the creature's devastating lunge.

I inhaled deeply as I stood in a strong waterbending stance with my knees bent. I quickly glanced to the sky, and spotted a large cloud floating over the serpent's head. I closed my eyes, and focussed on feeling the water vapour from within that specific cloud. Luckily for me, the cloud was dense with water vapour, meaning I could easily manipulate it. I then switched my focus onto my breathing, all the while concentrating on feeling the heat from the sun and from within the body. Just as Wan Shi Tong had hypothesised, I bent the water in the cloud so that I felt both ice crystals and hail form within it. According to the hypothesis, this would create an electrical imbalance. It did feel as if the cloud were becoming unstable, which filled me with hope. I looked back at the menacing serpent as I built up the imbalance, and saw that it was getting ready to strike. Just as it lunged it's long, lethal body towards us with its mouth open, I exhaled sharply and suddenly released the energy that I had built up inside the cloud. In an instant, a long, pure beam of white shot out of the cloud and, in the blink of an eye, made contact with the attacking beast. There was a flash of blinding light as the bolt of lightning hit the serpent, but I didn't look away. I couldn't look away, I was too amazed. I had just generated lightning, albeit in an unconventional way.

The beast shrieked in pain as the lightning made contact with its scaly body, and immediately cancelled out attack on us. It screamed once more, and then dove back into the ocean in fear. I couldn't believe what had just happened; I had just created lightning, and saved everyone's life from the serpent. Abruptly, there was a sudden rumble of thunder that rippled through the sky due to what I had done. Now that we were all safe, I felt the spirits withdrawing their power from me. The sudden reduction in strength made me feel weak and faint, just as it had done after the siege when I unexpectedly passed out. This time I stayed conscious, but my legs gave way, so that I collapsed with my back to the floor. There was a moment of silence amongst all the gang, likely due to shock, as they processed what had just happened.