At the River Basin [Training]

Several days before arrival in Ba Sing Se…

Jin-Sang woke with a mission to do. Before he arrived in Ba Sing Se, he needed to train some new techniques he thought of in his sleep. Hiro and Jin-Sang stopped at a river bed, not far from Ba Sing Se, with a beautiful water fall and many trees surround by a large chain of mountains surrounding them. Jin-Sang started off the training he was going to do with some meditating. He hasn’t meditated in about a day so he really needed to do this. He sat for almost two hours straight of meditation before he was ready to move onto the training. After he did train though, he was going to start off with some sound bending. To start with this first one he thought of, Jin-Sang flew over to a small village nearby and asked a man by the name of Huro if he would assist Jin-Sang in training. This man took up the offer since he was a big fan of the avatars from all nations. They both went back to the river basin so Jin-Sang could begin his training. They both sat down in the saddle on Hiro’s back. Jin-Sang began with, “Now basically, what I thought of, is that after a minute or so of listening to the sound of your voice, I can copy it and I can talk just like you. Understand?” Huro replied with a, “Yes, Jin-Sang. I am ready to help you out.” Huro began to speak to Jin-Sang about his wife and kids. Huro told Jin-Sang of how they owned a flourishing farm and a store they sold all of their goods at. His son was also thinking about joining into the Earth Kingdom army soon. He had been training for a while so the boy thought it would be a wise thing to do. He sat and listened and this lasted about a minute or so. Jin-Sang began to attempt at bending the air and sound in his wind pipe and try sounding like Huro. At first this failed, but Jin-Sang kept trying it. He sat and listened to Huro more and more for about 5 minutes. After listening to him, he began to attempt at bending the air and sound in his throat. He began to speak, and it worked. Jin-Sang began to speak like Huro for about half of a sentence. Then it went away and he needed to start over and try it out again. After about ten tries at speaking more than a sentence sounding like Huro, Jin-Sang finally got it. They both decided to have a little fun with this new found technique and decided to go back into town and prank some people. Jin-Sang and Huro went into town and began to listen to the wife of Huro’s annoying brother. She had a high pitched nasaly voice and was annoying to listen to. However, she talked a lot, so it didn’t take but five minutes of listening to her for Jin-Sang to be able to sound like her. Then, Jin-Sang and Huro went to go find Huro’s brother and prepare a small prank for him. They decided that they would start screaming at him from a secret place and start saying embarrassing things about him that only Huro probably knew. They began, from their hiding place while Huro’s brother was walking through town, with a simple shout at him. Apparently his brother’s name was Kuzon. “KUZON, MISTER YOU BETTER LISTEN TO ME WHEN I SPEAK TO YOU! I have told you hundreds of time how I do not like it when you wet the bed! You have been doing it since you were four years old! Now it is about time you grew up and became the man I married!” At this point Kuzon was starting to tear up and freak out. “Now you better cry! You have yet to take out the garbage or even shower in weeks! You are a smelly old man and we all can see that your hair line is thinning so stop trying to make it look as if it was not! I expect to see you at home before I get there, so RUN!” Kuzon ran home crying like a baby, and Jin-Sang and Huro laughed their way back to Hiro before Jin-Sang left. They both had a wonderful time, but Huro had to get home and Jin-Sang had to go back to the river basin for more training, alone. They said their goodbyes and Hiro even gave Huro a giant lick with his tongue. Huro fell over to the ground and Jin-Sang laughed at the comical event. Jin-Sang then leaped onto Hiro and said, “Goodbye for now, Huro. Hiro, yip yip.” Then Hiro slapped his tail onto the ground and took off back to the river basin.

Jin-Sang slept that night and woke up bright and early and ready for more training. He slept well, not a lot of wind though, but that was probably because he was in a basin and the mountains around him blocked a lot of wind getting to where he was at. He digressed though and began to train in his next technique. This one was going to be the most difficult to perfect. It was all four elements in the same type of format, but they were all kind of their own separate techniques. Essentially, it was condensed versions of all four elements and they would spin and attack a single enemy. To start, Jin-Sang was going to use his best element, Air. He decided that he would stand directly next to a tall thick tree and then hold his hand out ready to begin an attack in the palm of his hand heading for the tree’s trunk. The air in the palm of his hand would begin to spin faster and faster in the palm of his hand and he felt it become more and more condensed as he caused it to spin. Then Jin-Sang struck the tree with the ball of air, and then it failed to do anything. Actually it did something. Jin-Sang was pushed back almost ten meters from the attack. The tree seemed to be unharmed but Jin-Sang was flung backwards. He must not have condensed the air enough. Jin-Sang prepared himself one more time and then he got the air, to what he could guess, about 35 MPH, and he struck the tree directly in its trunk. The air would push directly onto the tree and cause a large indentation to appear in a circular motion on the tree. Jin-Sang stared in awe of what the technique could do. He thought of ways to enhance the Air side of this ability, and he thought of just condensing the air more and spinning it faster. He decided that it would be worth the try. Jin-Sang moved Hiro beforehand to where if it backfired that he would simply be pushed into his large body instead of onto the ground or in the water. Then he walked up to a fresh new tree and began to prepare his body for such power to be resting in the palm of his hand. He kept the ball of condensed air spinning and spinning for about a minute or two until it was spinning faster than anything he could ever imagine. For some reason, Jin-Sang then yelled at the top of his lungs then struck the tree with his hand. He blinked only once and it was a normal blink, and when he opened his eyes, he saw that the entire tree had been split in half and the other half of the tree was lying on the ground. Jin-Sang stared in awe from what immense power he had just learned of. Now he just had to train it with the other three elements. Next he decided that he would try out water. He was a good water bender so it seemed that it would be easy. He was kind of wrong. He had his water satchel on his back, so he simply grabbed a small ball of water from that and began to do the same process he did with air. The ball of water was spinning faster and faster yet it didn’t seem to condense. He tried it anyway on the tree and it simply splashed the tree and did nothing at all. Heck, it did not even push him backwards any. He wondered what could possibly help him out any. But he tried it out once more. He got some water from satchel and formed it back into a small ball. Jin-Sang began to spin it and condense it more and more and Jin-Sang began to feel it getting colder and colder. It was starting to form ice crystals around the outside of it. Jin-Sang realized that must be how it could work efficiently and the way it would work well and deal damage. Then Jin-Sang struck the tree with all of his might and it left a large indentation covered with smaller lacerations and pieces of ice were stuck inside of the large tree. Jin-Sang was once again just baffled by the immense power he held in his hands when doing this technique. He was at the same time, not. He knew he was the Avatar and that he was a powerful bending, but still, this power was immense and he feared how it would be dealt on a person. He knew that he would only train this technique to another bender such as Saito, his best friend. Jin-Sang then began a couple more times to try out using it with water and then moving onto Earth, and Fire. He was most anxious about Earth, since that is the most difficult element for him to bend. The Avatar shrugged it off his shoulder for later though. Now was time to use water and master this version of the technique. So he continued onward. Jin-Sang got more water from his satchel and began to spin it faster and faster, condensing the water more and more till it was almost a solid ball of ice. His hand started getting colder and colder as it spun with greater speed. Then Jin-Sang struck the tree with all of his might. He felt the collision this time with his hand against the tree. Also this time, he saw the tree break and fall to the ground. He was just so amazing by this technique. Once again he saw its power. Ice was separated in shards of ice were stuck in miscellaneous places in the split trunk of the tree. Jin-Sang’s arm felt tired from all of the work he did this day. He decided that he would rest and do the other two elements the next day. It was time for sleep. The next day had arrived and Jin-Sang was ready to move onto the next two elements, but first he had to meditate like he always does. He sat alone at the top of the waterfall and mediated for a while. After a few hours of meditation he jumped flew down with his glider and landed in the small group of trees and began to gather all of his chi in preparation for using fire for this next part of the technique. He held out his hand and began to focus much strength and power into his hand. He kept breathing though. As Master Kasai would say, “The power of a Fire Bender comes not from the power in his fists, but in his breath.” As he thought of Master Kasai, a large ball of fire appeared in his hand. Jin-Sang closed his eyes and began breathing more and more, slowly and calm, as if he were still meditating. The ball began to get hotter and small as he breathed and focused his energy in one place. After a minute of breathing and focusing his chi, Jin-Sang struck the tree with the, now small, ball of fire and watched as it erupted in a bright plume of flames and then is dissipated into a small amount in the main affected area. The marks on the tree though, were only burns, no indentation or sign of any serious damage was inflicted. He must try again, for Master Kasai. He just breathed in and out. Slowly, like Kasai would tell him to do. A ball of fire appeared and it began to spin faster than before, and it got smaller. He was going to do it this time; Jin-Sang could feel it in his bones. He called this form half power since there was a stronger version to it that required more strength. Then as he readied his ball of fire, he struck the tree straight forward with the attack. This time, it dealt some serious damage. The trunk of the tree was scorched and burnt to a crisp, and there was a large whole in the wood from when the force of the attack went through the wood. He was just baffled by this version. Everything was getting more and more powerful. He realized more and more, that as the Avatar, he was stronger than a lot of people in the world. He needed to understand that. Jin-Sang began to miss his home now. He missed Master Kwan and the other monks. And all of the young air benders trying to learn air bending, this made him want to go home. But no, Saito gave him a mission and he needed to fulfill it for him. He would soon go to Ba Sing Se and meet the Earth King. One last time, Jin-Sang used the fire version of this technique at full potential, and this time, like all other times, he split the tree in half with the immense flames. Then he moved onto Earth for the last time to use this technique for now. Jin-Sang stepped down and a ball of earth popped out of the ground and he caught it in his right hand. Then he walked down to the edge of the river and grabbed some sand also in his right hand. Then he walked over to the trees he was practicing the technique on. He was so glad to almost be done with these long two days of training. He was getting tired and it was almost nightfall, and he knew Hiro must be getting tiresome of just sitting around all day. He loved to fly and he wasn’t really letting him get out into the skies. Hiro was also too afraid to leave Jin-Sang behind for a moment’s notice. Jin-Sang was going to get this last part done with quick then. He started by spinning the ball of earth and condensing it down so it would be more dense and stronger, then he began to counter spin the sand in his hand so it would be added damage and strength. The spin and earth were both spinning so fast and with such strength. Then Jin-Sang struck the tree with great force. Apparently, he went full strength without even noticing it. This was good enough for him though. He was finally done with training this technique. He felt bad that he destroyed so many trees, so Jin-Sang took the time to get their seeds and replant as many as he destroyed. He didn’t want the whole forest dying out. To end their day, Jin-Sang grabbed all of his gear, and hopped onto Hiro’s back. “Hiro, yip yip.” And Hiro leaped off of the ground and they began to fly. Before they left for Ba Sing Se, Jin-Sang stopped by Huro’s house and they said good bye one last time. Huro even let Hiro have some large bales of hay and served Jin-Sang a meal for being so kind to him. He served him some noodles, dumplings, duck, and some Jasmine tea. It was his favorite kind of tea. Jin-Sang thought if he told him that, or was it just a guess? It didn’t matter though, he gulped it down. They talked for about an hour or so and had a lovely meal together. Hiro loved eating all of the hay also. Before he left, Jin-Sang told him that if Huro ever needed anything that he was always there for him. Huro thanked Jin-Sang and then Jin-Sang left on Hiro just as he first came in on him. Jin-Sang and Hiro were moving west more, towards Ba Sing Se. It was only about a half of a days journey from where they were and they probably would not stop along the way with the couple of days they had spent there with Huro. Jin-Sang climbed into Hiro’s saddle and said, “Wake me when we get there Hiro.” Jin-Sang then began to drift off into his sleep and wouldn’t wake until they got to Ba Sing Se.