Chapter 5 – The Director
Fan-fiction based on Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender and other connected comics and series. Enjoy, and don't forget to let me know what you think in the comments!
Chapter 1 - The Boy in the Apartment
Chapter 2 - The Avatar Returns
Chapter 3 - Re-emergence
Chapter 4 - The Bending Alliance
They went through the opening. The blonde girl took the lead, followed closely by Steve and Chris and Segun, who took the rear. The last two earthbenders remained outside, and as the others passed through, they closed the entrance behind them with a deep, resounding thud.
Steve kept looking around him, amazed. The passageway was made completely of earth, with a lighted torch bracket every few feet, illuminating the way to the end. He could sense the ground sloping slightly as they walked –they were going deeper underground. It all looked very old.
Steve leaned forward, closer to the blonde girl. “How long has this been here?” He asked her, excitedly. His voice was low, but it sounded very loud in the silence of the tunnel.
She huffed. “You’ll get to ask questions when you meet the director,” she replied curtly. She had a slight French accent.
Steve drew back, bemused. Chris had a smirk on his face. “Did I do something wrong?” Steve asked him in a whisper which still carried to those around them.
Chris chuckled quietly. “Don’t worry, it’s not you. Jean dislikes everyone –that’s just how she is.”
She made no indication she heard him, just kept striding forward, her ponytail bouncing with each step. Steve shrugged and went back to looking around, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever was going on with the girl called Jean was more personal than Chris had said. He threw a glance at her candlelit profile. She had lost the disapproving frown. Instead, her frown looked quite angry.
Just then, they emerged in a circular chamber with four doorways, a circular bench around a mound of earth in the center and some relief sculptures on the walls. Jean led them to the bench and turned around to face Segun. Chris did the same, and Steve followed.
Segun nodded once at Jean. She turned again and strode briskly out of sight through one of the doorways. Then he gave Steve a faint smile. “You’ll wait here,” he said. “The Director will be out shortly.”
Steve nodded. “Alright,” he replied.
“And you, young McGregor,” Segun said, smiling at Chris, “I do think you’ve earned some rest, don’t you?”
Chris smiled broadly and gave a fake salute. “Yes sir!” He said. He winked at Steve. “See you in the morning, Avatar.” And he disappeared through another doorway.
Segun gave a small bow and turned back to the doorway they had come through. In a moment, he too was gone.
For the first time since Chris had shown up at his door, Steve was alone. He let out a breath and sat on the bench, pausing in surprise when he discovered it wasn’t made of wood, but earth. He traced his palm over it, but it was completely smooth and perfectly molded. Then his eyes fell on the mound in the centre, and his breath caught. Closer now, he could see what he had missed from the doorway. It wasn’t just a mound, but a sculpture, with such intricate designs as he had never seen. It depicted the four elements swirling around each other to form one entity, indistinguishable from each other at a distance. Up close though, the detail was so incredible that, even without color, he could separate every single whirling tongue of flame from the swirls of air, spurts of water, and spiraling pillars of earth. He raised his hand and slowly traced one of the grooves with the tips of his fingers.
“I thought you’d appreciate that one,” a strong voice rang out behind him.
Steve jerked. He had almost forgotten why he was there. He turned back around. From the doorway Jean had gone through, a man was walking toward him, flanked by four others all dressed in the same ninja attire as the guards outside, except without the cloth mask. As he stepped in, they separated, each going to man one of the doorways. The man, however, was a different story. He was in ordinary night robes and slippers, but even from a distance, Steve could feel the authority in his steps and the aura of power he carried. He had a tall and muscular frame, visible under the robe. Steve stood automatically.
The man stopped a few feet from him and smiled broadly. “Avatar Steve,” he said, and there was deep satisfaction in every syllable of his words. “It’s an honor to finally meet you, and for so many reasons! I am Leonardo Strongman, director of the Bending Alliance.”
Steve couldn’t help but smile back. The director had strong, willful but kind eyes. “Thank you, director,” he replied, a bit awkwardly. The name ‘Avatar Steve’ still sounded very strange to his ears.
“This is one of my favorites, too,” Director Strongman said, moving closer to the sculpture and running his fingers over it, as Steve had done. “It represents our entire philosophy in a simple, yet complex design.” He turned back to Steve. “You must have a lot of questions.”
Steve ran his eyes over the chamber again. “I wouldn’t know where to begin!” He said. “How long has this place been here?”
“Not very long,” Director Strongman replied. “We came here just a couple of months ago, actually, a week to your sixteenth birthday.”
“My birthday?”
“Yes. After years of searching, we had just found out you might be the avatar, so we came here to observe for a while, confirm and approach you. That was when this chamber, and all of this was built.”
“Really? It looks so old.”
Strongman nodded. “That’s because it was built with earthbending.” He said. As he talked, he began to walk slowly towards the wall. Steve fell into step beside him. “Bending is not merely a martial art ability, it is a way of life,” he continued. “Reflecting the balance of the universe itself. That is what we teach here at the alliance, the principle we were founded upon.”
He pulled off one of the torches from the wall and continued walking around the circular edge. “The Bending Alliance was founded sixteen years ago,” he said.
“Sixteen years ago?” Steve asked, surprised. “That’s the year I was born.”
“Yes, we now believe your birth had something to do with it. You see, the Alliance was founded by our first and only Grandmaster, a non-bender who had had a vision about the re-emergence and return of the Avatar, and a very dear friend of mine.” The director stopped walking and set his gaze on Steve. “It was founded by Thaddeus Wellington,” he said. “Your father.”
