Bandits

"Get out of the way you damn beggar!" loudly yelled someone on a carriage as they passed a beggar supporting himself on a stick wearing a tattered and dirty cloth over their body.

"Tsk."

"What's wrong?" asked a young man inside the carriage.

The coachman sighed and shook his head, "It's nothing young man. Some beggar tried to get in my carriage."

"That's no good for business right?"

"Indeed, that beggar probably doesn't even know what a silver coin looks like," said the coachman as he turned to look at the beggar and shook his head.

Along a dirt road, a carriage was passing by with some people in it traveling from village to village. The coachman had established this transportation business of his ever since he bought his first carriage.

A few years later, from transporting people in his own village, this man had increased his transportation services to various villages.

"Sir Tsun, how long have you been traveling?"

Hearing a young man's voice, Tsun turned around to look at the young man and said, "Traveling? I have been a coachman for almost 36 years."

"Wow, that's fairly impressive," said the young man, exclaiming his surprise. "Have you ever run into trouble whilst escorting people?"

Tsun rubbed his chin and recalled his past.

"Hm, only three times. Once by a crazed client and twice by wild animals. Luckily some of my clients could earthbend, so the issues were dealt with quickly."

"Woooo! That's impressive sir," said the young man in awe. "I thought you would have bandits often attack you daily."

HAHAHA!

Tsun gave a boisterous laugh after hearing the young man's words.

Shaking his head, the man said, "What you hear is all lies. I've never even run into bandits in my 36 years of transportation."

"Really?"

The young man grinned and asked, "Then, you must have a lot of money saved because of your lucky life? Lucky old man! Haha…"

Tsun laughed along with the young man, "Haha! That's right! I must have been blessed by the Spirit of Luck."

"Haha," the young man continued to laugh and looked at the coachman.

…

Hmhmhm…

Humming lightly, the coachman, Tsun, transported the few people in his carriage over to the next village.

In the carriage was a young man with a staff, a young woman, and two hunters carrying their kill for the day, an agile Monkey Deer.

Whilst traveling with no problem for the entire evening and the night approaching quickly, everyone was calm and getting ready to camp out for the day.

?!

Suddenly, one of the hunters stood up on the carriage and looked around hastily whilst the other hunter turned to the coachman.

"Stop the carriage! Somethings wrong here…"

Hearing the hunter, the coachman frowned but decided to listen due to the seriousness in the voice of the hunter.

"What's going on?" asked the young woman.

"We've been surrounded by bandits," said the hunter who was scanning the surroundings. "If we continued moving, the Ostrich Horses pulling the carriages would have been shot down by arrows…"

In just an instant, the atmosphere in the carriage got tense and everyone turned to look at their surroundings. There were no trees in the surroundings and only grass as far as the eye can see.

"Are you sure we're surrounded?" asked the young man as he turned to look at a hunter skeptically.

The hunter nodded and looked seriously at a certain area in the distance.

The young man furrowed his eyebrows and jumped out of the carriage and looked over to the area where the hunter was staring towards.

"Come out, we know you're there…" said the young man as he brandished his staff and focused his gaze.

Silence ensued for a couple of seconds and the young man began to question the validity of the hunter's words when suddenly he felt the ground shake and a large wall of dirt and grass moved.

With the wall of dirt up, a figure emerged from behind the wall and glared at the young man, "Put down your staff and no one gets hurt."

Scoffing, the young man said, "You're a single earthbender, why would I give up."

The earthbender smirked and the ground began to shake lightly once more as more walls of dirt emerged from the ground. Various shadowy figures stepped out and revealed themselves to be more earthbenders.

"Now… hand over all your valuables to us," said the first bandit as he walked over to the young man with a smirk on his face.

The young man shook and took a step back before biting his bottom lip and resolving himself to stop the bandit before him.

"I… won't say this again. Surrender or leave us alone."

The bandit stopped and looked at the kid weirdly.

"Hahaha! You have nothing to offer to make us leave! You aren't even strong enough to make us leave. What makes you think I would just listen to you? Are you delusional kid?"

The young man furrowed his eyebrows but he knew that the bandit was correct. He couldn't do anything to the man before him. If the man was alone, he could have probably defeated him.

Now that there are 10 more people, he's not as confident to defeat them. Unless he…

"Detain them," the bandit ordered.

The other bandits listened to the man and moved out to attack and detain the other people on the carriage.

"AAAHKK!"

"KYAA! Get away!"

"Huf!"

The young man and the two hunters quickly took a defensive stance and were fighting off the bandits that were attacking them. They were being overrun by the tactic of the bandits with some fighting close range and the more skilled earthbenders attacking from a distance with small rocks.

Bang!

Getting hit in the shoulder, one of the hunters who was using a bow was hurt and could no longer hold the bow. It wasn't longer before he was soon down after being hit by two more rocks.

The other hunter who was fighting with poor earthbending skills and a dagger was soon taken down.

The young woman and the coachman Tsun were the first to be taken down in an instant.

Finally, the last person standing, the young man with the staff.

Only two bandits fell and it was at the hands of the hunters, specifically the one with the bow.

Surrounded by 6 bandits, the other two bandits restraining the hunters and the other two average people, the young man felt cornered.

He looked at the six bandits around him before eyeing the bandit leader in the distance looking at him with a smile.

'Do I have to use it here… NO! I came here to live a new life… I will fight till the end as the new me!'

"RAAHHH!"

Roaring, the young man sprinted forward and swung the staff in his hands expertly, quickly striking two bandits before dodging some attacks from some of the earthbending rangers.

Turning around to look at the remaining two, the young man quickly moved forward whilst dodging multiple attacks. With his eyes serious and his movements sharp, the young man quickly struck at the bandits but they dodged the strikes rather easily.

Bang!

Bang!

The rocks began to get heavier as soon as the bandits realized that the young man was much tougher than they had expected.

BANG!

!!!

"See! That easy! Why couldn't you guys land a single hit?!" said the bandit leader as he glared at the bandits and pointed straight at the young man lying down on the floor in pain.

A large rock had hit him earlier on the back and quickly threw him down to the floor.

"Amazing boss!"

The bandits all nodded and praised their captain while inwardly rolling their eyes. The bandit leader took advantage of the fact that the young man wasn't looking at him and quickly bent a rock to fly over to the young man.

The bandits knew that this would have been the only way to take down the young man, so they didn't say anything to their boss.

"Quickly tie him up with the others," said the bandit leader as he waved at the bandits to make a move already.

The bandit leader no longer paid attention to the young man and instead walked on over to the carriage to see if there was anything valuable there.

Just before he could get to the carriage, out of the corner of his eye, the bandit leader saw one of his men being sent flying toward the carriage with fire over his body.

Bang!

"By the spirits…"

Surprised, the bandit leader turned around and looked at a person firebending and fighting with his men in an equal battle.

Bang!

Fwoosh!

Earth and Fire clashed against each other. Sometimes the earth was destroyed and at other times the earth passed through the fire before hurling towards the young man.

The young man dodged expertly and counter-attacked.

Soon, the young man took down another bandit.

Fwooosh!

"AHHH!"

A bandit was blown back and his body was on fire as he rolled around the ground to put out said fire.

"He was a firebender?!" the bandit leader looked at the young man with a look of anger before quickly bending some earth.

Ghghgh- BANG!

Launching large pieces of rock towards the young man, the bandit leader furiously made his way over to the young man who was suddenly being attacked by the bandit leader.

Prepared this time, however, the young man dodged the large rocks and began to attack the earthbenders back.

It was a shame the young man wasn't skilled enough as he was soon defeated by the more experienced bandit leader as he sank half of the young man's body into the ground, preventing him from moving.

Bang!

Small rocks began breaching through the disrupted defense of the young man and he was soon being attacked by many rocks.

Bam!

Bam!

"Ah! AGh!"

The young man gasped in pain and tried dodging the rocks but couldn't move that much. With no way to escape this torture, the young man stopped firebending and began to focus on stopping the rocks with his hands.

Bang!

!!

The young man was eventually hit perfectly on the head with a rock and knocked out.

"Heh…"

The bandit leader smirked and kicked some dirt towards the unconscious young man.

"Disgusting ash maker.. Ptui!"

Spitting on the face of the young man, the bandit leader walked away once more and ordered his men to tie up the firebender to a rock pillar for more beatings later.

Two bandits followed the orders whilst the rest began to take care of the fallen bandits.

Turning to look at the tied up people, the bandit leader smirked before walking away.

"He was a firebender…?"

The hunter looked furious when he remembered how the young man was acting all happily earlier without a care in the world. He tightened his fists and sighed in anger.

Next to the hunter was the coachman who had a look of disgust on his face as he remembered how chummy he was talking with the young man. He spat in the direction of the young man and looked away angrily.

Finally, the only one without any anger or disgust, the young woman who looked at the young man with pity.

Quietly, the young man stared into the floor as he ignored the glares from the bandits and the people he traveled with. A look of sadness on his face.

What was once a look of resoluteness to escape the Fire Nation and it's tyranny had now turned into one of mild regret as he felt the hate from the people around him.

He never participated in the war and neither did he want the Fire Nation to fight against the other nations.

His parents tried to force him into fighting for the Fire Nation and were forcing him to take the lives of innocent people. With no resolve to do that, the young man instead made up his mind to escape the Fire Nation and it's propaganda.

To wish to live a peaceful life, the young man wished to escape to the Earth Nation to a city or town deep into the Earth Nation to live quietly. All he wished was to stay away from the war and especially the firebenders.

However, all of that was going to end today.

Along his travels, he had heard stories of immigrant people from the Fire Nation being killed because they were thought to be spies or just done out of hate for the Fire Nation. Despite knowing this, the young man fled to the Earth Nation.

'And here I am now… soon to be killed here…'

Lifting his head, the young man began to hear some stuff in the distance.

'What is that noise?'