Crimson Cavern [Training, Flashback]

One year prior to the present...

...It was a day in Yoko's life; she had found her prey, and finally had cornered him into a grotto with a single entrance—he would not be making it back out. So, it probably was not the smartest of decisions for Yoko's quarry, but perhaps there was more to it than the instinct of survival. Perhaps he knew his time had finally come, and as a silent death wish he chose to come to such a beautiful place in the Fire Nation: The Crimson Cavern. Yoko had walked only a dozen steps into the cavern before she had recognized it from geographical textbooks. There had been a very specific picture taken a plastered onto the page, and it had captivated her as a child. She could not recall the exact architecture of the image, but she remembered the stunning visual of the rubies. They were oh so bright and vivid, casting an eerie red light on the cave walls around them... yet everything else was so dark and nondescript. It had only been a painting depicting what one explorer had seen during his venture into the depths of this massive cave, but Yoko bet that if she could walk deeper and deeper through the catacombs, she would find the exact spot where the artist had stood and looked back; the exact viewpoint. She knew that if she stood at that point, she would know it.

Yoko's happy-go-lucky personality was switched off by will, a will that she did not just conjure up out of no where, but that the atmosphere of this breathtaking cave pulled forth from her. Without that forefront personality to buffer her more passionate dynamism, she would venture further into the cave with a tranquility about her, coloring her expression with extraordinary depth. Even with the outside light touching the rock and stone that made up this cave, Yoko could see its allure, as well as the faintest of ruby shades in the fogs deeper down the Crimson Cavern. All was silent as night. Each step brought her further away from the entrance and deeper into the darkness. It seemed for minutes she would walk, exploring the cave and keeping an ear out for her quarry just in case it tried to sneak past her; her ears would not fail her. Though, it seemed the deeper she went, the more beautiful it got. The light of the cave's mouth no longer touched this far in, yet Yoko was not blinded. The crimson lights of the crystals that lined the grounds, the walls, and the ceilings lit her way. She was surprised that they still remained in this cave for so long even though the Fire Nation had known about the place for so long. It wasn't guarded, it hoarded masses upon masses of these glowing rubies, yet no one dare touch them. It gave the place a sense of holiness; the gemstones were sacred.

...

Seconds became minutes, and minutes became hours now. The cave didn't seem to end, and the concentration of crystals began to grow strained. Yoko was being forced to make slower cautious steps, as she could hardly tell the difference between a crack in the ground compared to the dark lining of a drop dead ledge. It got to the point where she was practically walking blind, and only flecks of rec colored her peripherals. Her hand was forced, and she snapped her fingers to bring a spark to life, which flared into a vivid spectrum of colors taking the form of a flame. Hovering just above her palm the fire danced around, and Yoko would hold it out in front of her like a lantern. Shades of blue, green, red, yellow, and purple strobed around the cave, and it would seem to the redhead that the terrain of the cavern had become estranged. Pillars stretched across the stone canvas in all directions, littered with red crystals—but none of them gave off that enigmatic glow like the ones closer to the entrance. Actually, Yoko would look before her to find that she had come dangerously close to walking into the sharp tip of one of said crystal formations.

She took a quiet step forward and brought her free hand to one of the flat faces of the ruby spire, and instantly a sense of chill enveloped her hand. She withdrew it promptly, but a shiver had run up her arm and through her body, and her fingers felt electric. Yoko let out a stuttered breath, not sure what to think of the sensation. But she would continue forward as she was, being sure to avoid the formations of crystal. It appeared that she was walking across a bridge, and that this bridge was kept up by various columns and supports of stone with no meaningful pattern. Some stretched to the walls beside to give it horizontal support, while others remained below the bridge to give it vertical support... but truly pillars held the bridge up from every angle in between, thick and thin, smooth or coarse. In this silence, Yoko's footsteps became crashes while her breaths were like the comings and goings of a storm. For the dead air that pervaded this cave, Yoko was certain that it was impossible for anyone to sneak past her, especially considering her expertise in the feint arts. But there were still more chambers to explore, so this quarry of hers had to be somewhere ever deeper.

Her quarry was a male, named Lance Ryoku with a reputation for property destruction, private and public. He was average in height and weight, had black hair and light skin, and was actually quite a lanky fellow according to the witnesses and artist's depictions. He was, of course, a firebender, or else he wouldn't be able to deal out so much damage and not be caught. On her search, Yoko had figured out that he had one last member of family left—a non-nonsense sister who knew what he was doing and did not want to be a part of it, making it difficult to question her about anything, neither being a help. It was actually a petty traveler who caught sight of him that lead Yoko to this cave, and now she was completely sure of his location now that she had saw him actually flee into the mouth of the cave. Being as she knew the place had only one entrance thus exit, meant that this chase ended here and now... and Yoko would realize this as she found the prey with a dear-in-the-headlights expression peeking around a corner. Taking a sudden sharp breath, the flame in the palm of Yoko's hand would flare up as she brought it back for the wind-up, and then a thrust would cause it burst out of her hand expanding into a massive ball of fire headed straight for the man in his rag clothing, echoing its heated screams all the way down the length of this bridge.


[Word Count: 1175]