The Rise of Kyoshi (Avatar, The Last Airbender)

He stepped up into the thin air.

Lek ran higher and higher on invisible stairs. It was only after he’d gone above eye-level that she saw how. The thinnest columns of earth she’d seen anyone earthbend shot up from the ground with each of his steps, anticipating where his foot would land next. They provided a moment’s support and then crumbled into dust immediately once his weight shifted off them. His rising path left no trace behind him.

Kyoshi had watched children around the village play by bending the ground they stood on into the air. It was sometimes a test of courage, who could make their pillar the highest, or a game of coordination, taking turns with a partner to see-saw back and forth. But it was always highly destructive to the ground, leaving jagged markers of what had happened. And the players had to remain still, or they’d fall off their platforms.

Lek had none of those concerns. He floated, weightless, free of the earth’s pull. He stepped over the top of the wall and onto a rooftop before disappearing.

The feat wasn’t limited to Earthbenders. Kirima uncorked a small pouch at her waist and wisps of water spilled forth, gathering under her feet. She stepped higher into nothingness much as Lek had, only her stairs were powerful, thin little jets that provided the same resistance as earth. If the timing was more difficult for her, or the water less stable, she compensated with supreme grace.

Wong glanced at Kyoshi as if to check what she was thinking. You can’t possibly, was what.

He shrugged at her skepticism and followed his teammates skyward, using earth and dust as Lek had, like it was no big deal. The sight of the gigantic man defying all notions of gravity made her jaw drop. It looked less like bending and more like spiritual chicanery, an invisible hawk lifting Wong’s bulk over the roofline. Kyoshi watched him and Kirima run over eaves and windowsills and the blank spaces of alley gaps with equal ease.

The whole show had happened in less than seconds. It was a mind-blowing stunt. And highly unfortunate.

Because no one had taken into consideration that Kyoshi could not do that. She expressly, with utmost certainty, could not do that.

“Cut her off!” a policeman shouted behind her. A second slab of rock shot up to her right.

Left, then. She sprinted for the nearest remaining avenue and made it out of the square before it was blocked shut. Immediately she knew it was a mistake. The alley veered sharply away from the direction the others had gone. The forks in the narrowing street had no markers, and each subsequent guess she made only got her more lost. The houses squeezed in on her as she ran, promising to throttle her by the gills like a fish in a net.

A blast of flame shot into the darkening sky. And then another, the source slightly to the right. Rangi was signaling to her where to go. Kyoshi felt her heart skip a beat for her friend. It was either that or a conniption from running at full speed for so long.

She followed the upcoming bend in the direction of the fire, but so did the lawmen. In fact, they used their knowledge of the town layout to steal a march on her, suddenly popping into view closer behind her. She couldn’t double back. And up ahead, a dead end loomed. The alley had been walled up with bricks.

“No way out, girl!” an officer with admirable lung capacity bellowed.

Step, she thought to herself. Do the thing like they did. Her self-berating voice sounded a lot like Rangi in her head.

It should be easier with more speed, right? She hurled herself toward the wall, praying that she could Avatar herself into picking up a technique she’d only seen once. Her on-the-run attempt to bend the necessary struts without destroying the whole town resulted in only pitiful bumps of earth appearing before her. They collapsed under her weight, tripping her up. She fell forward uncontrollably, face-first. She wasn’t able to cross her arms in front of her before she made impact.

Kyoshi shut her eyes as she slammed into the wall. There was a terrible crash, an explosion of snapping bricks and tearing mortar. When she opened them again, she was on the other side, still running.

She’d plowed straight through without feeling a thing. She must have bent reflexively, flinched and wrapped herself in her own power like a cloak. A quick glance back showed a Kyoshi-sized hole in the wall and surprised guards trying to decide whether to leap through or go over the top.

In her distraction she collided with the corner of a house. Fear of broken bones caused her to force her way through the clay structure the instant she felt the pain of impact on her shoulder. The building stayed standing, a neat chunk of it ripped off like a sampled loaf of bread.

Ahead of her the spaces between closed-up merchant shops were so narrow that a person smaller than her would have had to stop and wedge through sideways. Rangi sent up another beacon. The only way to get there was as the bird flew. Kyoshi sent an apology into the cosmos for the damage she was about to cause and barreled straight into the cluster of buildings. If she couldn’t be a creature of grace, then she’d be a battering ram.

She smashed through the first wall like it was rice paper. Inside, she crossed the floor in a few steps and burst into the neighboring section, boring a passageway through the cluster of storerooms. Each section she stampeded through offered a momentary glimpse of different merchandise. Dry goods, wet goods, weapons, ivory that was certainly illegal, fancy hats. She was glad that she was only ruining inventory and not harming living occupants with flying debris.

Her face felt tight and she wondered if she’d injured herself, ripped her skin open. But no, she determined. She was grinning with a locked, maddened expression, mindlessly exulting in her own power and destruction. Once she realized it, she quickly worked her jaw back into a grim frown and splashed through the next wall.

An unfamiliar sensation caused her to flail after hitting the last barrier. It was freedom. She was in a broad street, going the right way for once. Up above her on the rooftops, the whole crew sprang deftly from surface to surface, bolstering themselves with their element when necessary.

“I see you made your own shortcut,” Kirima shouted. The water lifting her up sparkled prettily in the moonlight, making her look like a lunar fairy.

Kyoshi checked behind her to see if anyone had followed the trail of utter devastation she’d left through the town. “Where’s Rangi?”

“Still in the lead. That’s quite a companion you’ve got.”

There was another blaze of light that resembled a rocket climbing into the night. Rangi had joined the daofei on their level. She ran as nimbly as they did on the roof tiles, and when there was a leap too great

to make naturally, she stepped on jets of fire that blasted out of her feet, bounding in propulsive arcs across the sky.

The sight made Kyoshi’s breath come to a standstill at the very time she needed it flowing. Rangi was so beautiful, illuminated by moon and fire, that it hurt. She was strength and skill and determination wrapped around an unshakable heart.

Kyoshi had always admired Rangi. But right now, it felt as if she were gazing at her friend through a pane of glass freshly cleaned. Some mighty and loving spirit had reached down from the heavens and outlined the Firebender in new strokes of color and vibrance.