Chapter 271: Kyoshi Pirates
Dumpling Weeds are legume-like plants capable of growing in the harshest conditions with apparent ease, earning the monicker of 'Weed.' The seeds can be dried, powdered, and used as flour or many different ways. Coupled with their nutrient-rich content, the plant quickly became a staple for the Island alongside rice, fish, seaweeds, and other food. The plant is easy to store, becoming one of the choicest food during the shortage of other aquatic animals. But the key point for the Old and New Kyoshi Warriors is the plant grows in a harsh environment effortlessly, letting the inhabitants develop other locations with other farms instead.
"Huff," Jin exhales sharply, plucking a pod of legumes from a plant growing from a crevice in a large boulder, "I hate you, Poppy." She pouts at the mature woman not far from her.
Other girls smile as a giggle echoes, "Hey, Bitch! Stop with the snowballs!" Ty Woo's(6) laughter spreads out as other Kyoshi Warriors collectively look at the Ty Siblings hiding in different spots, forming snowballs and aiming at each other—their baskets empty.
"What's with those girls?" A sour voice resounds within the group. "Did Suki really teach you guys anything?"
"Don't start again, Jie," another Kyoshi Warrior sighs softly, earning New Group's curiosity. "Is something wrong?" Michi inquires with a soft smile. A maroon choker around her neck is distinctly different from the rest of her attire, with a silver pendant carved with a brush.
"Nothing—"
Jie interjects before the other girl can complete, "Suki left us like Mingxia. I had to pick her slack against those pirates!"
"Pirates?"
"Whaa!"
Jie jumps in surprise when Ty Lee appears beside her silently with a curious look.
"Sounds fun! I have experience with Sailors and their salty asses," Ty Woo snickers, appearing with the rest of her sisters as they dust the snow off their uniforms.
"They aren't pirates," complains another Kyoshi Warrior.
"They are no different now!" Jie retorts angrily, "And had Suki been here, they wouldn't have gotten a chance to raid the Harbor even once!"
"Should we call Nik?" Questions Kya.
"We can deal with them!" Jie looks at the woman. "I told Suki things would become worse when Mingxia left us! And they are worse!"
"Not this again," another one sighs as Jie grits her teeth. "I'm sure of it! I remember Mingxia's handwriting! It's her! She is the one behind all this. Oyaji and others may believe I'm wrong, but Mingxia is leading the Kyoshi Pirates!"
"Kyoshi Pirates?" Ursa hums, plucking another pod of legumes. "Sounds like another troublesome trip to an island. I'm kind of happy we never visited Ember Isle. Who knows what we would have encountered there."
Kya smiles at the woman, peacefully plucking pods of legumes beside her, voicing, "I hope this kind of luck doesn't stay our entire life."
"Hah!" Michi shakes her head, massaging her temples as she looks at the woman named Jie, "Can you tell us what's going on?"
"I can," Jie looks at her old teammates, "Or do you truly believe someone else can lead that kind of group?"
They grow silent as Jie begins, "Our Island has always remained relatively isolated for a reason."
---
"Well, of course, I remember the history of this island," Nik leans against a soft bed of sand in a lounge chair's shape. "I read a few things from the Library here," he points at his head while looking at the group staring at him attentively. Feeling like an old man retelling a popular story to a group of children, Nik clears his throat and begins, "A long time ago—"
"When do I get to ride those Giant Elephant Koi?" Toph interjects with a knowing grin, becoming the head front of the chaotic group around Nik as he huffs. "You're blind, dear. You won't do well in an open sea."
"Tch," Toph clicks her tongue, her words used against her as Nik clears his throat again, "A long time ago, there was a tall and powerful Avatar."
"It's weird you're pointing out her height and power as two noteworthy things when we know the Avatars are often strong," Azula speaks this time lazily, barely affected by the cold temperature of the thin fabric of her red outfit.
Nik turns his gaze at June, inquiring, "You're the next one who'll interrupt me, right?"
"I may be," June's plump lips tug into a smirk as she leans into the resting Nyla's curled abdomen.
"Well. To keep things short, Kyoshi created this island by cutting off a part of the mainland from the Earth Kingdom during the time of Chin the Conqueror, choosing to avoid a conflict and saving her people using a masterful use of elemental bending."
"Wait, she tore this massive land off of the Earth Kingdom?" Toph perks up. "That's badass!"
"And Sokka held her sword," Nik curls his lips as he stares at the annoyed Sokka.
"I didn't know, alright?!" He scoffs, crossing his arms while looking at the distant sea. "So, what do we do about it?"
His words bring everyone's attention to the distant ship on the open sea, some of them making out 'dots' of people tossing something in the water from the bucket. A pitch-black flag with Kyoshi's face painted on it flutters above the ship's crow nest.
"Pirates, huh?" Nik mutters.
"It's as if we can never enjoy ourselves," Katara's lips twitch as she glances at Nik.
"Don't look at me like that. It's only bad luck if you cannot deal with things." He shrugs. "But I still don't see why we shouldn't leave it to the Unagi to deal with them."
Nik stands up, tapping his foot firmly and closing his eyes as he maps his surroundings further than Toph can, finding Unagi coiled over the seabed. He frowns, walking further ahead and pushing his hand into the water. By now, he can use all the elemental variants of Toph's Seismic Sense, allowing him to 'hazily' feel the water's flow over a school of stationary Elephant Koi floating unconsciously inside the water.
"It looks like some sleeping medications," Nik reveals to the group as he closes his eyes. His mind tries finding whatever he has stored on the Elephant Koi, reading on it in an instant as if unraveling a long-awaited memory.
"The Elephant Koi need to resurface every 12 hours for air. Chances are the Elephant Koi may die if this continues."
"More food to eat?" Azula yawns, finding the colder temperature so much more comfortable as she sinks into Nik's spot. Her words make others roll their eyes as Zuko questions. "How do we deal with them? Do we enter your space and let you take us there?"
"What if they are Kyoshi Warriors?" Yue questions. "That flag has Kyoshi's Face, right?"
"Kyoshi forbade the Islanders from repetitively hunting the Elephant Koi," Katara reveals with a narrow-eyed look. "Things aren't normal on this island."
"We lost our right to blame anomalies," Mai stares at Nik. "Right?"
"Right," Nik smiles back, stretching his arms slightly as he points out. "We don't have to move to their location. I have a way to bring them here."
He extends his arms before whipping them powerfully. His legs kick forward before he tugs his arm closer with a swirl as the Sea starts responding to his movements. Waterbending can be as gentle as a stream of water flowing from a creak or as disastrous as the raging sea!
"What's going on?" Toph questions, looking around curiously. "Can someone describe what is going on?"
"Nik," Yue stares at the scene ahead. Only the Spirits know how much energy Nik exhausted to birth the massive tide near the pirate ship. Everyone watches with thinly-veiled awe as the tide doesn't swallow the ship but rather crashes next to it, creating a wave of momentum dragging the ship toward the coast.
"Can you do that?" Rena questions Katara in a whisper. Rena is a capable waterbender, too. But she cannot imagine pulling moves like that.
Katara cannot either, or so she feels at the moment, answering, "Not yet, anyway. But I won't stop until I can."
---
"Kyoshi Pirates?" Ty Lee punctuates the words with a strange expression, looking at Jie. "Really?"
Others surround Jie as she recounts, their half-filled baskets momentarily set aside.
"It was late at night a week ago. I took on patrolling duty near Koi Harbor. Ah! You guys are new, so you don't know the Island's main export happens in Koi Harbor. Near the entrance of the Harbor is a bridge connecting past a waterfall. That night, I saw a group of Kyoshi Warriors, I think the Harbor's group, entering a cave behind the waterfall. I'm sure it was never there previously. Someone must have carved it out."
Jie notes seriously.
"I followed them inside and found the cave leading to an open cliff with stairs carved on the side for the Kyoshi Warriors to descend on a pirate ship. I couldn't believe my eyes! But I couldn't attack them alone either! I watched until the Harbor's group got out of the ship and left the area. I reported things to Oyaji that night, and others, too!"
"But you girls don't believe Jie." Michi looks at the girls as one of them shrugs.
"Oyaji went to the Harbor the next morning but didn't find the cave. He even talked with the Chief of the Harbor, but they found nothing out of the ordinary. Jie was with him! The Kyoshi Warriors of the Harbor were nothing like the group she saw!"
Jie lowers her head, muttering, "I know what I saw."
"We believe you!" Ty Lee(7) leans forward, holding Jie's hand with a bright grin.
"We do/Bitch?" Ty Woo(6) and Jin speak at the same time. "It could be an Earthbender, right?" Poppy hums curiously, returning to pick up her basket.
"What are you doing?" Ty Lao(3) questions.
"The only reason Suki sent us to this chore with our heavy uniforms is that we were too excited and didn't listen to her," Poppy smiles. "I'm going to fill my basket and return. Pirates or not, I don't want more work when I can avoid it."
Her words resound with Jin to the point she picks up her basket quickly and starts plucking Dumpling Weed's Legume pods.
The Ty Sisters look at their empty baskets before looking at each other.
"Fuck." Ty Woo(6) cusses, summing their current emotions at once.
As they get to work, Jie approaches Ty Lee(7), or she hopes she did. "Thank you for believing in me."
The woman looks up, grinning, "I'm Ty Lin(1), the eldest."
As if they weren't hard to differentiate already, they have the same attire at this point!
"Ah!" Jie flinches as Ty Lin giggles, "It's alright, silly. All of us sisters believed you. We can see your aura becoming amber-like."
"Aura?" Jie questions curiously.
"Yeah, it's above your head. I'm Ty Liu (4), the fourth eldest," introduces another Ty Sister with a grin. "You girls have a pretty comfortable Aura. It's so collective! Nothing like Nik's."
"The Plunderer?" Jie inquires. "How is his different?"
Ty Lin and Liu look at each other when a loud voice snickers, "It's large and thick! What else, bitch!" Ty Woo(6) grins from a distance, "Am I right, Poppy, Michi, Ursa, and Kya?"
"Hey!" Ty Lee's(7) makeup hides the dusting of crimson as Jin nudges the girl. "Come on, you saw more than just his Aura, remember?"
"What?!" Ty Lat(2) gasps. "How come you never told us about it?"
"I didn't do anything," Ty Lee pouts, crouching to pluck a pod as Ty Lao(3) shrugs. "Oh, we know you didn't do anything. Or you'd have a choker for yourself, too."
"Hehe~!" Jin touches the surface of her tulip-carved brown pendant on the viridian choker.
"Well," Ty Lee looks up, curious. "What do you think will be carved on my pendant?"
"Hmm? I was under the imagination you couldn't do it," Kya smiles, recalling Ty Lee's previous fears until Nik revealed how he could 'unfortunately' tell the girls apart easily.
Feeling everyone's stares, most scorching of them belonging to her identical siblings, Ty Lee works her jaws before regaining her usual drive and motivation, "I can! He is cute, rich, and likes taking care of me."
They all roll their eyes, not expecting such a response.
---
The path ahead of Oyaji's house is known as the 'Sacred Stairway.' This path leads to a small forested region on the peak of a hill, the slope of which sees her village's construction. Suki travels to the site with Ignit. Overlooking the distant sea from this peak is a small, well-kept shrine surrounded by a circular pavement of stones and two yew trees growing near the entrance—The Kyoshi Shrine.
*Gnnf*
Ignit snorts softly, looking around with her golden eyes as she smacks her heavy tail on the ground.
"Is something wrong?" Suki looks at the Dragon, understanding she is as intelligent, if not more, compared to other humans. Ignit shakes her head in response before scoffing a small peal of fire. She soon trots around and settles near one of the two trees of the entrance, sniffing and lying on the pavement with her claws folding on top of each other for her head to rest.
'There is something strange going on, but it must not be spiritual,' notes Suki, a little familiar with the Dragon.
'So, how did Kyoshi come to life to leave a message?' Suki narrows her eyes, stepping forward toward the shrine as she notes, 'And why do I remember that handwriting?'
Suki places her hands on the doors, slowly opening them as the old hinges moan softly, revealing the clean interior of the shrine holding all of Kyoshi's relics—and a woman.
Suki stares at the individual, recalling her from somewhere. She has short brown hair, deep amber eyes, and a straight-jawed face. A cut-sleeved kimono tunic covers her top, and washed-up grey trousers extend from her waist. The moment she looks at Suki, her innocent smile widens, "Ah! You came! I almost thought you wouldn't. It is kind of nice to know someone on this Island still remembers Mingxia. I'm sorry I couldn't introduce myself when you guys saved me and took me in. By the way, you do remember me, right?"
Suki keeps on staring at the woman a few years younger than her. But there is something odd and hollow about her eyes.
'Eyes,' Suki recalls. 'There were many eyes like that from 'that' time.'
"You're one of Reaper's victims," Suki realizes, nodding. "I met you in Nik's settlement before you chose to leave after a few days."
The woman smiles delightfully.
"Mingxia was right!" she chuckles. "Thoughtful and smart. It is so great to finally meet you. Mingxia loved talking about you. You were her best friend!"
Suki frowns, noting a flicker of complex emotion on the woman's face.
"I'm Meilin," she smiles sadly. "Mingxia was my girlfriend."
"Where is she?" Suki questions. "What happened to Mingxia after she left the island?"
Meilin's smile turns slightly wooden. She replies in a monotone. "A little bit of this and that before she got herself killed trying to help an orphaned villager in the Earth Kingdom. As you can expect, she was the lucky one. I got the Reaper."
Suki stills as momentary sadness overtake her. "Oh," she whispers. "I'm sorry. Could you tell me more? Why don't you come down with me and talk with Chief Oyaji?"
"Him?" Meilin smiles coldly. "What would I talk about with that old fool? He let Mingxia go. He condemned her! She stopped wearing the Kyoshi Warrior's colors because of him! Her actions always lived to the Group's code!"
Suki stares at Meilin, questioning, "Did you bury Mingxia?"
"I did," Meilin snorts as her shoulders soon slump. "Why isn't it bothering you more? You saw the world outside of this island, right? You know Mingxia was right in leaving the island. Why doesn't her death bother you more."
"It would have bothered me more," Suki sighs softly. "But we shouldn't mourn the dead forever. I don't even know when she died, so what right do I have to mourn her? Besides that, I know Mingxia. She wouldn't want us to feel sad," the Kyoshi Warrior looks at the Meilin. "And she wouldn't want you doing whatever it is you think you are doing for her name."
"Why did you send the letter to Oyaji in Mingxia's handwriting?" Suki questions.
"To see if he would even remember her," Meilin scoffs. "But no! What did he tell you? He probably said it was Kyoshi, right? Just because I left him the Headdress from this shrine?" The woman looks sideways, picking up the old sword as her face reflects on the blade. "Mingxia used to say the Kyoshi Warriors are the helper of the needy, poor and rich, old and young, man or a woman! But, no. Mingxia was a Kyoshi Warrior. You are, too. But the rest?"
Meilin sets the sword aside, standing straight. "Cowards!" she utters in a hiss.
"Mingxia did not even receive a proper farewell from this island, and now she's dead, doing the things she learned from this Island! Suki, the truth is, I decided to wait for you when I heard of your departure from Ba Sing Se."
"Wait to do what?" Suki slowly unfurls her war fan, not liking the direction of this conversation.
"Oh, you know," Meilin gives a sick smile. "Even Kyoshi cannot save the island of isolated fools who think hiding is the best option instead of facing your problems. Why is this Island important to others? The Elephant Koi! Without these products to offer, the Island will fall off the map, allowing more pirates to haunt them until they decide to move! I will destroy this Island's current system!"
Suki's gaze flickers as she shakes her head, "Mingxia would not want this."
"She isn't here to stop me. Neither is Kyoshi."
The Kyoshi Warrior takes her stance, vowing solemnly, "We are one. They don't need to be here, for I am present."
Meilin smiles, "Mingxia's stories don't do you justice." She flexes her arms as the shrine trembles for a second. "I won't hurt Mingxia's best friend. I'm not going to fight you."
Her posture relaxes as she leans back on the wooden counter hosting Kyoshi's sword. "I couldn't find barrels of poison large enough to poison the schools of Koi Fish, but I did lace tonnes of bread made from Dumpling Weeds with sleeping relaxants."
Suki's eyes widen as she turns around.
"If you leave, my Earthbender friend will level your village."
Her body stops, and Suki turns around to face Meilin again.
"I'm sorry, but you lost," Meilin sighs softly. "I would have done this three days ago, but I wanted you to witness all this to let you know I don't hate the people. I merely reject your culture of isolationism."
Suki works her jaw as she stares at the sword. There is a moment of hesitation in her eyes before she firms her heart and sits down, surprising Meilin.
"It's fine," Suki utters, closing her eyes. "I suppose I should be true to my words and stay. I don't need to be present because someone else will stop you."
"Oh? The Hero? I don't think he knows what's going on."
"He doesn't have to. My teammates and other Kyoshi Warriors don't need to know what's going on, either. She helped us once. She will find a way to help us again."
Meilin narrows her eyes, questioning, "Who?"
Suki calmly looks back.
"Whose shrine do you think you are standing in?"
***
Alternate Title: The Interrupting Group; Pirates Ahoy; The Threat To an Ecosystem; The Story of Kyoshi Island; Kyoshi Didn's Run Away, She Packed Up and Left; Now That's Badass; Toph's New Hero; Jie's Recollection; Toph Is the Wanted Gold Digger; Big and Hard Aura... Toph Saw It!; Mystery Girl; The Task; Ty Siblings May Fail Their First Mission; Snowball Fight!; Not Kyoshi; The Call From Past; Reaper's Victims; Everyone With Their Own Story; The Lack of Farewell in the Past; Suki's Debut As Allmight!; Suki's Faith; The Shrine Owner Babe Watches Everything; Unknowingly Messing Plans—A Brilliant Kyoshi Move!; A Full Stomach Ignit is a Sleepy Ignit!; Ignit Lies Under the 'Compassionate' Presence of Kyoshi; Getting Ready to Pack Things Again
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Edit Update: Ch ~35
Added additional titles and fixed major typos and errors that I could perceive.
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