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goatswithtoast · 3 days ago

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Part 4.5, Pixal :DD

As the group flew off from the town, Nya joked that they should throw a party to celebrate Cole joining the group, which Lloyd decided to make a reality, quickly steering Ultra down to the next town.

As the group made a list of party supplies they would need, They bump into a group of kids whispering at the corner of a shop. They're just in time to hear an accusatory "You went up the weird-house-hill?!"

"What's weird house hill?" Lloyd asked, the three kids jumping at the intrusion.

"Well... legend states that if you hike up this mountain in the dead of night, and-!"

"It's a hill with a house."

The other two kids looked at the third with disappointed looks.

"It's not that scary guys. Calm down."

With their interest peaked, the gang decided to pay this house a visit.

As they flew closer, they were able to make out this scary house-on-a-hill.

The house has a strange amalgamation of parts attached to it, including, but not limited to, a long cylinder on the roof pointed at the sky, a large brass horn pointed towards the valley the house looked over and several hundred pipes and tubes running circles around the building. The main two, however, were the two protrusions that looked suspiciously like a pair of squatted legs, with 'feet' and all.

"Look, there's a clearing." Nya pointed down below, where there was a patch absent of trees.

"Wait no, don't land there." Cole countered. "Look how rocky it is."

"Yeah, Ultra could kick a few around while we check out the house!" Lloyd suggested

Cole shook his head. "It's too unstable, they're loose rocks. We'd just tumble off the mountain."

Nya crossed her arms and looked for another spot. "Well, looks like we won't have any cover. They'll see us coming." She turned to look to Lloyd.

"Well, we're just going down to look at the house. How much trouble could we get into for looking?" Lloyd wondered with a shrug.

Once they had landed not too far from the house, Lloyd immediately ran up to the 'legs' to see exactly how they worked, with Nya quickly following him out of curiosity.

Zane and Cole, meanwhile, simply observed from where they landed.

"I do wonder who lives in such a building." Zane pondered aloud with a hand scratching his chin.

Cole shrugged. "Then why not ask?"

Zane looked to him quizzically before Cole elaborated.

"I mean we could just knock. Nothing's stopping us."

"Oh no, no. I wouldn't want to disturb them." Zane explained right before Lloyd gave a yelp as he lost his balance. He caught himself with his bending and shouted a quick "I'm ok!" back to them.

Zane sighed and walked up to the door.

"I suppose it would be better to apologize for the noise at this point."

After giving the door a few knocks, it's answered by a young woman who, strangely enough, sported a bun of grey hair. She slowly opened the door just enough that she could fit her head in the gap, essentially blocking their entrance.

"Good afternoon, how may we help you?"

Any notions Zane had of answering disappeared the second he laid eyes on her. His voice rendered useless under her bright green gaze.

At Zane's extended silence, Cole stepped in. "Hi, sorry to bother. We just came up to look at the house." He said with a smile, that turned strained when more shouts and thumps came from outside. "And to apologize for the noise."

The girl gave them a long look up and down before slowly opening the door to them. "You're earlier than we expected, but I can assure you the house is working as per your standards."

Cole was quite confused, Zane too, once he had processed what was happening.

As they went to follow this woman into the house they were pushed from behind by Lloyd. "I saw the door open. I wanna see what's inside!"

Nya walked in behind him and rolled her eyes.

Following this woman inside, they spotted all kinds of knickknacks and doohickeys scattered over every surface. Small balls would burst open to become a bigger one at the slightest touch, Cone shapes topped with propellers would spin back down when thrown up and tubes that each made a different noise.

"Hey, Nya!" Lloyd called. "Look at this for water bending!" He turned one of the tubes over. It did sound very much like rain hitting the roof. This earned him a playful punch on the shoulder.

Their exploring was interrupted by the woman ringing a bell. "My father will be down with you shortly."

After a few moments of silence, Zane blurted, "You have a lovely home!" Everyone turned to give him various looks of confusion. Zane even seemed to make one himself.

"...Thank you." replied the woman, fidgeting with her sleeve.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, a series of bangs and creaks became noticeable from the ceiling. After several concerning noises, a man in a chair wheeled himself into the room.

"Apologies! Deepest apologies! I had no idea you'd be back so soon!" He rushed to clarify. As he slowed down he gave the group a long look, as if analyzing them. "They're sending you lot very young." He barrelled past them towards a table with some mechanism. "No matter, I'm sure you're qualified to inspect our progress."

He held it up like he was about to give a lecture on it before being interrupted by Nya. "You two keep saying we're inspecting. You know we just showed up to check out your weird house, right?"

The man sat with his mouth open for a second. "You- you mean you aren't here for my weapons?" He shared a quick look with his daughter. "You aren't Fire Nation inspectors?"

Cole scoffed. "Spirits no. We just got done destroying one of their dams- he's the Avatar for crying out loud!" He gestured to Lloyd, who gave a small wave from behind Zane.

"The Avatar-?" The man gasped before giving a hearty laugh. "Well! My, isn't this a pleasant surprise!" He pushed himself back to the group to offer them his hand. "I must introduce myself! Cyrus Borg, inventor under duress. And this is my daughter, Pixal." He shook each of their hands as they introduced themselves.

Pixal nodded her head in greeting.

Zane turned to Pixal and held out his hand. "Zane." He introduced himself with a smile.

She took it, her own smile a small, shy thing. "Pixal."

"You have a lovely name." He said, a bit quieter now, as he looked down slightly while a blush began to creep onto his face.

After a few moments she replied "Thank you, yours is nice too." Focusing on the hem of her top in an effort to hide her own face.

"Aww, look at those two in the corner!" Cole nudged Lloyd, who had been picking at the various knickknacks on the tables, with a mock whisper.

"Blegh! Why would you make me see that Cole? You weirdo." Cole just laughed and turned back to Cyrus and Nya, who was asking the man several questions about the mechanism he would've presented.

"And it would just keep going, no effort needed?"

"Yes, well see that's the idea." He replied, spinning a gear as he spoke. "This is only a prototype, it's had success on flat terrain, but it appears to be as stubborn as I am when faced with hill climbing!"

Nya waved the thought away. "A few more tries and that'll be sorted out. It's so cool!"

After a while of talking they eventually figured out why Cyrus worked for the Fire Nation when it was so obvious he didn't want to. "They locked us down." Was the simple answer given by Borg. "We had stopped on this hill for the night and when we woke up, we couldn't move. They had clamped us with locks too thick for anything I made to break, can't even pick the darned things." He lamented.

"I had wanted to see the stars." Pixal added remorsefully. "I insisted the hill was the best place to stop in this area, all because I wanted to see some lights in the sky."

"Pixal, that's not-"

"It is! If we had stayed by the trees like you had said, they never would've spotted us in the middle of the night."

Before Cyrus could reassure her, Cole piped up. "We could break them for you, smash them with a few boulders."

The Borgs shared a look of cautious hope. "We'd love if you could, however, the legs couldn't take a battering like that."

Zane smiled "We can try it with a bit more... Finesse." He looked to Nya and she understood.

"Let's break these locks!"

The group made their way outside to examine the locks holding the house down and were dumbfounded by the amount and size of all the locks, not to mention the variety of keyholes each one had.

"That would drive me mad trying to pick all of those." Nya said, shaking her head in disbelief.

"And you would have to do it twice over, remember." Zane pointed out, gesturing to the other leg.

"Well then, isn't it a good thing you won't have to?" Cyrus Borg clapped them on the back, directing them back to their task.

Nya and Zane nodded before getting to work. They each borrowed a portion of water out of the bucket Pixal had brought them. They chose a leg each and got started.

Nya chose a lock and began slicing the shackle with her bending, shooting the water back and forth like a hacksaw. All these locks wouldn't stop her. She'd break them down.

Zane guided the water as steadily as he could into the keyholes of his lock before freezing it. As the ice expanded, it pushed the metal to it's breaking point. He had to repeat the process a few times but soon, the lock fell apart.

The Borg's excitement grew with each lock that fell, and it was certainly contagious. Lloyd started to try and help Nya, she would start cutting and make a slash for Lloyd to follow. Cole kept a careful eye on the bucket, refilling it whenever it got too low for his liking.

Cyrus and Pixal knew how many locks held down their home, and with each one that fell, they counted down to their long awaited freedom.

Nya had sawed through almost all of the locks with Lloyd tackling a few behind her. Zane was in a similar situation on his side. A couple more minutes of sawing and bursting locks, and finally, the last one clanged to the ground, letting the Borg house free for the first time in years.

The group took a second to react after all of that. A shriek of delight erupted from Pixal as she rushed to hug her father, who himself, began to laugh in disbelief.

Zane and Nya wiped their brows with smiles and shared high fives with Lloyd.

"That was so amazing guys!" Cole congratulated, slinging his arms around their shoulders.

"Yes, we simply cannot thank you enough!" Cyrus piped up, making his way over to them. "I- I thought we might never be free again."

Pixal moved forward and shook their hands one by one. "If there's anything you might need, don't hesitate to ask."

When she reached Zane, he froze for a moment when he met her eyes. He quickly shook himself out of it and took her hand in both of his. "Helping you was all that I- we needed."

Pixal stopped for a second before wrapping her arms around him in a genuine hug. When she pulled away, she bumped him on the shoulder. "You know, the Birds always managed to find our house, wherever we went."

Zane could only blush in response.

And so, with a few playful jabs at Zane, and a promise for anything they may want from the Borg invention team in the future, the gang continued on to the rest of the kingdom to find others that may need the Avatar's help.

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