Side Chapter - Second maple leaf

And suddenly, Michael was hit by hundreds of sensations. The smell of the forest, the dry earth, the trees, even Ty Lee's soap mixed with her sweat from their impromptu run. He felt the air in his hair and suddenly realized that he could control it again.

The howling winds obeyed his will again and Michael felt raw fury in his veins.

"That doesn't make any fucking sense!" Michael screamed and jumped to his feet. The box fell to the ground and slammed shut with a loud click. Ty Lee winced at his sudden outburst of emotion, but didn't move, only watching as Michael started pacing back and forth.

'First some strange spirit blocking my Bending and then all of a sudden I get it back even stronger? Who the hell would believe this nonsense?!' He punched a tree that was in the way and did not even flinch when his fist sank a few centimeters into the trunk.

'If I unlocked Waterbending first after that octopus' advice, then what happened now?!' Another punch. 'How could one leaf help?!' And another. 'That's why I hate gods, fucking arrogant bastards who don't even think to explain anything!' He hit the tree again, but this time his fist went right through the trunk. Michael sighed heavily and slowly pulled his hand out of the hole and looked at the splinters in his bloody fist with a twitching eye.

'The Nameless Goddess definitely helped me with this, but why? How? I thought gods couldn't interfere in the mortal world? How the Mother of Faces or someone else of her caliber didn't notice her interference?' He stopped at the thought and felt a cold, sticky terror crawl up his back. "They don't know about me." He muttered. "They don't, or I would be already dead. But how? The Elder Air Spirit knows, but not them."

He knew that the Spirits didn't need more trouble than they had now, and that even the most peaceful spirit would want to get rid of him once they knew he was responsible for the cracks in reality. He's been lucky up to this point, but what happens when he meets something much stronger than him? Now he only had a couple of aces up his sleeve and was confident in his ability to survive, but he forgot a very important thing. The world of Avatar was much larger than it was shown in the cartoon.

There could be a War Spirit here that would find him and crush his skull with one hook, and that was a very possible thing. Michael began to breathe heavily and the smells intensified, he could even smell the burnt wood that lay in the city. But things got much worse when he started to HEAR.

The rustling of leaves is too loud, the steps of animals in the depths of the forest. Something on four legs jumped over a hole to catch up with its prey- a bird landed on a branch to feed its chicks- worms under his feet dug a passage for themselves to find water - Michael could hear his heart pumping blood through his veins. And everything was so loud loud loud loud-

Why did he choose the world of Avatar? He knew that the Human World is in close contact with the Spirits. The same Spirits that have much more power than Benders, Spirits that can grow to the size of islands, Spirits that can take his soul and crush until there is not even a fragment left of it. Of course, if they manage to snatch his soul from the clutches of the Void take him.

Ty Lee watched Michael with growing consern. She'd never seen anyone go from rage to terror so quickly - not even Zuko when she and Azula played pranks on him. She approached him from the front so that he could see her every move. Michael's head immediately snapped in her direction and it seemed to Ty Lee that he had stopped breathing.

"Michael?" She asked gently, but he still grimaced. "Are you all right? Is there anything I can do to help?"

Michael focused all his attention on Ty Lee and felt the sounds and smells slowly fade into the background. He wasn't sure how to control his newly discovered hypersensitivity, but he remembered the method Superman used. He took a couple of hesitant steps towards Ty Lee and scooped her up in his arms. She squeaked as her feet lifted off the ground and she threw her arms around Michael's neck to keep herself from falling.

'Focus on her, imagine that she is an island in an endless ocean and there is nothing else around. Her breathing, her heartbeat, the smell of her hair...' Michael buried his face in her hair and closed his eyes to focus. 'Lilies? No, there are no lilies in this world, is there? Something else.'

Slowly but surely, Michael hammered his feelings back down to manageable levels. It wasn't as difficult as he imagined, but the very thought that something like this could happen again frightened him - who in their right mind would want to be hit by a wave of information?

"Thank you…" He said softly and lowered Ty Lee to the ground.

"What was that?"

Michael frowned and looked down at the innocent looking box on the ground. "This is a message from my… friend. She gave me back something that should never have been returned to me. At least not like that."

Ty Lee didn't exactly like his non-answer, but she just shrugged and patted his shoulder. "Maybe it's for the best? How would you get that - well, whatever she got back - without her help?"

This made Michael think. But no matter how long the gears in his head were spinning, he couldn't think of a way to get his Airbending back. "Some serious soul searching, I believe." He answered with a serious face.

Bending arts were a strange thing, especially when someone's Bending was removed. The Avatar is technically immune to that technique, but normal people couldn't just go and get their powers back. At least not in the same way that the Avatar did. Michael believed that he regained his Waterbending due to a better understanding of the element, but he had no idea how to better understand the air.

Ty Lee sagely nodded and put her hands behind her back. "Sometimes that's exactly what you need. Through soul searching, I found out where I belong in the world, and from the day I came to the circus my aura has been pink!"

Knowing bits and pieces of Ty Lee's past from the show, Michael wasn't surprised at all. He didn't know and could never know exactly what it felt like to live in the shadow of six sisters, but he could understand where Ty Lee's desire to shine came from. She was happier here than with Azula and Mai, or with her family.

And the knowledge that she would have to travel with Azula again hurt Michael.