Unrest

[cyclicalitymods]

A medium-sized group of people have decided to take matters into their own hands. In the middle of the night, they split apart and casually make their way through different parts of the city. And then suddenly, all across the city, homes and apartments catch fire; some buildings, specifically businesses, collapse due to suddenly unstable ground; other areas near water are completely flooded.

It's not long before most, if not all of the suspects are apprehended, but quite a bit of damage has been done. Boroughs 3, 4 and 5 were hit the hardest for what seems to be due to the fact most of the refugees live in those areas. Some parts of the Spirit Wilds also have some damage, but the spirits were quick to chase away the vandals from their home.

For anyone awake at this late hour, word is quickly spreading and the blame is being squarely placed on the shoulders of the refugees. At least, that's why the the vandals claim to have done it. They're taking all the resources...! That... the group just destroyed. Apparently if they can't have them, neither can the refugees. Most of the members of the group seem to be members of the Triads. Apparently they felt the need to be "heroic."

For those not awake, well, they probably will wake up soon. The earth begins to rumble and shake violently all throughout Republic City, much too strong for even a large group of earthbenders. A few more buildings fall victim to damages from debris.

The shaking stops after a solid three minutes or so, but throughout the night, strong aftershocks will shake the city. What's of interest is what happened during the earthquake. On Air Temple Island, a bunch of spiritual energy has gathered. The result of the gathered spirits is a ball of energy that fiercely glows a red color. Sparks of red leap away from the gathered energy and apparently draw in quite the impressive strike of lightning! Hopefully the airbenders won't mind a giant red glowing thing of doom right where the symbol for Tui and La used to be.

Someone could investigate. It's dark and the glow from the ball of energy can be seen for a few miles, although as time goes on the glow will subside a bit, but not completely.

[ Tags from this account will probably come tomorrow. We'll comment back about the red thing of doom, but otherwise let us know if you want us for stuff. Otherwise, feel free to NPC some things. Catch a runaway or two, etc. ]

Comments

about an hour after the ball appears~

[raavashing]

Wan was woken up by the spirits of the wilds when the triads tried to cause problems. Despite no longer having his bending, he was still the Avatar and they knew it. They trusted him to help them scare the troublesome humans away. Of course, once the triads were gone, Wan wasn't exactly able to get back to sleep and he worried about what other damage the gang members had done.

That was what had drawn him out during the middle of the night to try and follow the path of destruction so he could help anyone caught in the middle. So when the earthquake hit and the red light from Air Temple Island started to shine, he headed that way as soon as he could.

Unfortunately, without his bending, the commute through the city and across the bay took him an hour.

When he finally arrived, he only bothered to speak to anyone long enough to make sure the Acolytes were safe. His goal was the giant ball of energy and he didn't hesitate to walk right into it.

[cyclicalitymods]

Wan was one lucky man. Most people would think twice before boldly walking through a glowing red vortex. It could have been instant death; at the very least, it could have left him burnt to a crisp.

The other side of the portal was surprisingly safe. Perhaps even more surprising was the silence and warmth here, particularly for this time of year. The portal had led Wan to the caldera of a volcano that was either dormant or extinct. If it wasn't, people were stupid to build anything here at all.

The buildings appeared to be sturdy, mostly white with red accents, but for such a fancy looking place, it looked like no one lived there. Not anymore. Not even guards were posted to protect this place, even near what appeared to be a palace. Yet if Wan were to follow the pathway out of the caldera and down the volcano, he would find people. People who were unaware that an hour ago, the entire population of a royal plaza just up and disappeared.

Behind Wan, the portal glowed, but it wasn't the fiery red that it was at Air Temple Island. On this side, the portal was white. Perhaps it was a more convenient method of transportation. It probably wasn't that easy, though. Things were never easy.

[raavashing]

Wan did in fact follow the path out of the caldera!

...after first detouring around the edges of the plaza to take a look around at the buildings. They weren't entirely familiar construction, but they seemed closer to those built in his time than what was found in Republic City. He jogs along calling out for humans for about five-ten minutes before deciding it was, indeed, empty. Given his track record with palaces, however, he decided to head away from it to try and find more humans before going to it. And down and out of the area he goes!

About twenty minutes after heading through the portal, Wan is back! - OTA

[raavashing]

That did not go as well as Wan had hoped. After discovering the empty plaza of what he could only now assume was somewhere in the Fire Nation, he had headed out of the caldera and down the paved path. Right into the line of fire of some very confused guards. They stopped him first with swords and spears, asked him who he was, how he had got there, and his answers did not satisfy. When he'd said there was no one up in the plaza, just the big ball of white energy and light, they sent one of their own to investigate. When she got back and confirmed everything Wan had said, the guards tried to arrest him for the disappearance of everyone in the plaza.

At which point, Wan ran.

He ran fast.

He had to. The guards had stopped using swords and spears and, instead, started tossing fire at him. Without his own bending, Wan had only his own ability to run and dodge and jump his ass off back to the portal and duck through it.

He was so lucky he could duck through it. He was also lucky none of the guards tried to follow him through. Anyone going through the portal after he came out, though? Not quite as lucky.

Dun dee dun dun

[abitofawildman]

Bumi sees Wan burst forth from the glowing sphere and breaks into a run towards him.
He didn't see the first Avatar go on, only that he'd just now come running out, and Bumi...well he has some questions.

"Wan! Stop!" he yells as he gives chase.

[raavashing]

Wan slows down at the shout, more out of surprise than realization he was safe. He expected to be followed and wanted to be the heck away from there if he was. The fact that he wasn't caught him off guard and it was only Bumi calling out for him that drew his attention to it at all.

So he slowed down and waited for Bumi to catch up, breathing only a little heavier than usual.

[abitofawildman]

Bumi, who doesn't run nearly as well as he used to, is finding it a tad big difficult to catch his breath enough to speak.

"Where...where did you come from?! And why are you running? And more important than both of those...what is that thing?"

[raavashing]

"I think I was just in the Fire Nation," he answered, uncertain, but unable to think of anywhere else with that many firebenders that were not in Republic City. And Republic City tended to have a mix of Earth-, Water-, and Fire-benders as police. "I jumped into the ball of light a little while ago and when I got through it, I was in this big, empty plaza that looked more like it had been built closer to my time than what's in Republic City. It was entirely empty and I had to leave the volcano bowl to find any humans. They asked me questions and tried to arrest me. So I ran back here. The ball of energy is white on their side."

[abitofawildman]

Bumi's hands go up in an attempt to get Wan to stop talking shortly after he admits to having jumped into the light in the first place.

"Wait wait waitwaitwait. You just...you just jumped into the ball of light. This ball of light. You just jumped into it. Why would you do that?!"

[raavashing]

Wan raised an eyebrow at the question and paused to give it some thought. The pause ended with a shrug, "What else was there to do with it?"

[abitofawildman]

Anything else! What if it had been dangerous? What if it had exploded? My family lives here.

[raavashing]

"But it's a big ball of glowing energy," he said slowly. "Why would it explode from walking into it? If it was going to explode, it would have exploded already."

[abitofawildman]

"Because it could have been a trap."

[raavashing]

Wan raised an eyebrow at that, "I don't think that's how traps work. If it was a trap, I wouldn't have been able to come back through it. I would have been stuck on the other side."

[abitofawildman]

Bumi pinches the bridge of his nose.

"You're missing my point: You saw something strange and ran into it without telling anyone what you were doing. If it had been a trap you could have killed not only yourself, but anyone in the blast radius."

Like say...the entire population of Air Temple Island, which at the moment is most of the Air Nation.

[raavashing]

"But it wasn't a trap and it wasn't going to explode," he argued back. "And if I see something strange I should go to it. Even if I've lost my bending, I'm still the Avatar. A Avatar. I know more about spirit energy than most of the humans alive."

He'd had the cosmic energies of the universe practically fry him from the inside out without killing him. He felt he could handle whatever spiritual energy was concentrated there. Raava was still within him and a part of him, after all.

[abitofawildman]

"It wasn't, but it could have been. Being the Avatar doesn't make you right about all things all the time. It was dangerous and reckless, what you did."

[raavashing]

"I never said being the Avatar made me right about everything all the time!" he snapped, hands balling into fists at his side. "But it does mean that if anyone is going to risk their life to investigate something that involves concentrated spirit energy, it should be the person who's used to channeling it! If it had tried to explode, then I had the best chance of containing that!"

[abitofawildman]

Bumi doesn't stand down, if anything he only stands taller.

"At what point during that Best Chance of Containment were you going to wake everyone up and get us off the island?"

Even Roku knew better than this.

[raavashing]

"Everyone was already up! If you wanted off the island you had an hour to do it before I got here!" His hands went to his hips and he straightened his shoulders so he was only having to look up to Bumi from a few inches down. "Why wouldn't you try to get people to leave if you really thought it would blow up? Because you didn't think it would."

[abitofawildman]

"Because I had no way of knowing the city was any safer, and no one I saw was crazy enough to touch the blasted thing."

[raavashing]

"It's not crazy to touch it!" Wan's voice started to rise. "It's perfectly safe! Which I proved when I walked into it. The humans on the other side are the dangerous ones!"

[abitofawildman]

"It was before you knew that!"

Then there's a beat, where Bumi just...gapes.

"...on the other side?! That's why you were running?"
His head whips around.

[raavashing]

"That's what I told you already!" Wan threw his hands up. "There are people who can throw fire on the other side and they were really mad at me when I showed up and they found out all the humans that should have been in the buildings near the spirit portal were gone. They tried to arrest me, so I ran."

He grumped for a moment more, but then let go of his frustration with a sigh and looked back at the portal, "They haven't followed me through it, though. I'm not sure, but I think I was somewhere in the Fire Nation. Most things were decorated in red and they were using the power of fire."

[abitofawildman]

Bumi pinches the bridge of his nose again, in an effort to focus his breathing.
It's been a long time since he's wanted to shake someone as hard as he'd like to shake Wan right now.

"Come with me," he says before he turns and heads back towards the Glowing Ball...er...Portal.

"And tell me exactly what you saw. Because if you're telling me that there's now a door on Air Temple Island that goes to the Fire Nation, and that you some how managed to tick off the people on the other side to the point where they come barging through and attack? We are going to have a problem.

A serious problem."