CHAPTER 7
The Metal Tribe
While Loralle was lost, dramatic changes occurred in the Water Tribe.
They had been defeated to their last line of defence! And even though they were in their own territory, the Fire Tribe withstood against them.
What stunned them was that they had planned this for so long!
The magma bridge had only been the first stop in their plan! The second step was building a trench to lead magma towards the water village, which had already been complete before the war had begun!
The third step included the advance and the magma bridges. Before the news of Daniel’s third powerful child being born, they had already continued the magma trench beyond the bridges and onto the Water Tribe’s land!
After they advance yet again, they continued the trench again!
Now that the Water Tribe had been forced back into their own village, they were all distraught. Their leader was gone! Their protector"s were gone! The news of the Fire Tribe"s next generation being more powerful could be true!
&h.e.l.lip;Just outside, there was magma. Magma so close to them!
They had lost half of their population and most of what was left was women and children&h.e.l.lip;
Never&h.e.l.lip;Would they have thought that they would be stuck like this!
The people were scared, even knowing about the deep lakes that they could escape in&h.e.l.lip;
But, in the next few days&h.e.l.lip;Even escaping into the lakes became something that couldn’t be done!
The magma grew and grew and the Water Tribesmen watched as people even in puddles were burnt alive! The Fire Tribe were completely ruthless!
Of course, this needed a lot of magma, so the Fire Tribesmen, along the long trench line, would spend hours constantly adding into the trench to keep it hot and flowing. Sadly, for the Water Tribe, that was all they had to do now.
There were no more fights, just magma slowly swallowing up one lake at a time.
As the days went by, more and more lakes were consumed and magma reached towards the inner lakes.
One choice was made by a n.o.ble , and that was to vacate the Water Tribe.
Once one person ran, others followed&h.e.l.lip;Those who stayed behind either killed themselves or died because of the magma entering their lakes.
Several days later&h.e.l.lip;The Water Tribe&h.e.l.lip;No longer existed&h.e.l.lip;
***
One year later
The Fire Tribe relished in the Water Tribe’s defeat. They felt like the rulers of Mondal and that they had no adversary that could match them!
With their arrogance, they continued to be lazy and without a care. Some had even taken residence on were the Water Tribe used to be, but many still resided back in the Fire Tribe village, knowing that what they wanted in life was already there.
Daniel and Emily was looked upon as very important people within the Fire Tribe. It was already known that Daniel, if his child is still young in age, was to be the next leader. His brother hadn"t cared beforehand, as he had been the first born and he had thought leadership of the Fire Tribe would undoubtedly go to him. But, upon seeing this taken from him, he became quite bitter. He led those who were loyal to him, to where the Water Tribe used to be located and decided to become the leader there instead. Their father thought it was a good idea and let him do what he wanted.
With all this news, there seemed to always be some sort of thing happening within the people. Whether it be a festival or sparring, games for the children or a night full of older people drinking merrily.
Daniel was exhilarated to know that he had so much power now. What he obviously preferred, like many of his tribal members, was to have a male leader instead of female.
It had taken him quite a bit more time then Loralle, to understand why his daughter with Emily was so powerful, but once he figured it out, he spent a lot more time with Emily. And due to Emily becoming so wholly favoured by Daniel, she became the head wife of Daniel and was respected everywhere she went. When Daniel told Emily about their child being powerful was most likely because they were both accepted by the fire power, she was quite happy again about having been in relation to Loralle in the past. The pain had subsided long ago, and there was no longer regret inside her now. Daniel, not caring if others didn’t want to be accepted by fire, had his eyes set on Emily baring him the most powerful male child and barely left her alone at night!
That wasn’t their only connection, Daniel had, all this time, continued to bathe in warm water with Emily. With this, Rick had finally come out of prison, knowing he had nowhere to go, and become a servant for Daniel, to supply him with water.
It was a most agonizing task to one who used to be a protector! But, he found that he could work for Daniel, unknowingly because Daniel had been accepted by the fire power. On the rare occasion, where he would be bullied, hatred would come into his eyes when their fire powers were used. Hence, Rick only followed Daniel, as he was the only one he could tolerate.
While Daniel was in the sky, and Rick was in h.e.l.l&h.e.l.lip;Loralle had finally overcome her stay outside of the Metal Tribe.
For a very long time, she had done nothing. But as time moved on, she finally put more effort into obtaining the metal power, simply because of the fact that she was already there.
Mostly, her decision was based on food, even though she was able to expand her diet to include birds now because of learning how the Air Tribe had eaten, she was still running out of food. But, as she started to gain the metal power, she stated to feel again.
It wasn’t a good feeling, it was painful! But this pain seemed to have slowly woken her up and she searched for it hungrily, her survival instincts surfacing as it seemed to be something to get her to start living again.
Quickly after that, Loralle obtained what she could by being that far away from the tribe.
Now, she was trying to think of a way in, of course, there were things she wasn’t thinking of, but she was finally thinking of something!
The Metal Tribe was different again, their personalities also. They lived in caves overcome by light flashes and were able to have a light in those caves, that wasn’t done by fire. This is when she realizes that their population wasn"t as small as she had thought. They had all been hiding in caves!
Slowly, her curiosity grew.
But what troubles Loralle, was how they would not seem to like an outsider.
They were very tough, hard as rocks!
They could also make weapons that were big or small but seemed to be very sharp. Loralle watched them and saw them fight each other up close. She wasn’t used to seeing this type of combat, normally enemies would be further apart, but the Metal Tribe got up closer and slashed their weapons!
And with their hard as rock, solid bodies, they use their fists and feet with their weapons.
It was easy to get excited about their different techniques, but Loralle was worried about entering their territory.
The field she wanted to go into at some stage was right in the middle, but how could she get there when she has so much trouble just getting into the village!
Sighing, Loralle continued to ponder, not brave enough to just walk in on them.
Daniel would have laughed at her for a long time, hearing this news. She is the most powerful person on the continent of Mondal and she was scared. He would have called her pathetic!
But Loralle seemed unable to depend on her power like that. If she were just to kill everyone, she should have done that a long time ago, back when she became the leader of the Water Tribe.
Loralle didn"t consider herself the almighty powerful one...She did have some strange want to obtain different powers but it wasn"t to be powerful...It was more closer to obtaining it for collection. To be precise, she has the complete fire, air, water and earth powers, then half of the metal.
But...In her "collection", she thinks she has about ten...For instance, one is "The House Power" and another is "The Pretty Power".
But yes, she is going to the Metal Tribe and she"ll figure out a way!
It took a while to come up with an idea, because she had been on purposely not thinking of other things, but she remembered about her being about to fly!
Unable to go under the ground, because that was where the Metal Tribesmen were, she had the idea, then, to try going above them instead! Haha! She couldn"t help but think she was smart!
All this time, she hadn’t used much of her other powers and Loralle had to spend even more time to get back into it for it had been a whole year or so that they had been dormant.
As she finally got off the ground, using a strong force of wind below her feet, she smiled in wonder. It was the first smile in a long time and it made her look human again.
She was still currently weak, but finally, she looked like she was finally alive again!
Flying short distances for a time, Loralle happily got used to turning and spinning while off the ground. It was so amazing that she wanted to fly forever! Such an amazing power!
When she was sure that she could control her speed and not fall, Loralle flew towards the Metal Tribe village.
As she got closer, the pain from the metal power became stronger. Stopping, Loralle hovered in the air, as she took a deep breath in.
Not able to go further, she took a sitting position, making sure that she continued the air power beneath her, so she wouldn’t fall.
While she tried to obtain more metal power, a Metal Tribal member had found her and ran off to tell another.
Not long after that, that person came back with others of the tribe. Soon, ten people were looking up at her.
“Shoot er down!” One said.
A few of them got out a weapon and Loralle opened her eyes curiously.
Not only because they were going to use something against her but...Had they said "her"?
She wasn"t used to people knowing her gender, it was quite a surprise!
What she couldn"t see was, she really did look like a woman now, just that her clothes were a bit shabby...
The weapon pointed at her and she found something fly towards her. It was very quick, but now that she had been approved by the air power&h.e.l.lip;So was she!
Her new agility quickly helped her fly to the side, making the air move her, she watched as the weapon continued and went beyond were she used to be.
These people can do long distance after all, she thought.
But she wasn’t surprised to their aggressiveness. When she looked back down at the people, they were shooting more at her.
Loralle got a big angry, she wasn’t really here to kill anyone but...It was a strange feeling, being angry at them for only the reason that they shot at her, as it wasn"t something that normally made her this upset. But what she was feeling wasn’t because of these people at all. She was still upset about&h.e.l.lip;The past.
Sighing, she flew off to think of another idea.
A day pa.s.sed and Loralle flew back into the Metal Tribe. She quickly made a pit, filled it with magma, then built four pillars of earth coming out from it. On top of the pillars, she made a little hut.
Then she sat down and tried to obtain the metal power again.
This time, when several people arrived they were angry!
Their yelling and swearing at her, made others join in to do the same, and Loralle couldn’t concentrate.
“Shut up!” She yelled angrily.
But, they didn’t stop.
More so, something making clacking and clinking noises was starting to be heard.
She got up and walked a step, to the edge of the hut, to find something big coming towards the pillars beneath her.
Her first thoughts were that of awe&h.e.l.lip;But, she remembered where she was and sighed. Honestly, she could leave at any time but she wanted to see what this big metal thing will do.
Watching it stop before the magma, she saw three men pull and push something backwards, away from her, then move away after a clicking noise.
Curiosity overwhelmed her as she waited. What was going to happen? She was nearly jumping with fascination!
“Go!” Someone yelled.
Another person hit something on the device and the thing that was pushed back before, came towards one of the pillars below her hut. When it hit the pillar, it shook the hut but it didn’t collapse.
Knowing her power was doubled, she looked down to see a dint in the earth pillar.
She laughed heartily. They weren’t strong enough but their metal built thing was really good! She was sure now that they hadn’t been accepted by metal , because if they had been, it would have probably been easily ripped apart with the power this metal could have had!
With her powers as they were, she was no longer scared of them, but suddenly had to urge to play. She hadn’t interacted with people for so long and she really wanted to know more about this strange metal power.
“Ah, boss?” One of them said.
“Yeah, I know&h.e.l.lip;Again!”
Loralle stopped laughing and said, “Wait! I do.”
With that, earth came up and pushed back the thing that three of them did last time!
Silence filled the air as it quickly rattled into place.
Then Loralle nodded her head, “It ready, try again!”
They all looked at her in bewilderment&h.e.l.lip;She was helping them defeat her?
“Go!” She said impatiently, imitating the boss.
Someone hit something and the same thing happened again. When it hit her pillar, Loralle nearly lost balance and she held onto the side of the hut.
She laughed again and looked down at the pillar. A bigger dent was formed and it looked unstable. Her eyes grew wider. Metal was amazingly strong! She thought.
“Ah, Boss?” Again, someone said.
“Mmm&h.e.l.lip;” ‘Boss’ replied.
Loralle smiled and looked at the boss. She pointed at the bit metal thing and said, “I like! Very good! Strong!”
Silence filled the area yet again. Suddenly, the ‘Boss’ laughed. “Yeah, it’s great n strong!”
Floating down to the ground, with air surrounding her, Loralle’s eyes sparkled as she stared at it. “Metal, strong!”
The ‘Boss’ smiled, glancing at a few others, “Yeah, Metal is strong!”
Then, suddenly, he took out his sword and went to slash at her. Others followed, by taking out their weapons as well.
Loralle laughed, putting an earth bound on herself and building a wall of earth around the people, including the metal big thing and her hut.
The sword hit the earth bound on her but didn’t penetrate all the way through.
Loralle then released the earth bound and flew to the top of the high earth wall around them and laughed. She wanted to see how long it would take for them to get through the wall&h.e.l.lip;
“I want time.” She said, then flew outside the wall and tried to focus yet again on obtaining the metal power.
Sadly, this didn’t work. There were bangs, as the contrapment hit the earth wall, and the people who had come from elsewhere were yelling to the inside of the wall to find out what was going on.
So, Loralle build another wall, entrapping those people as well, and went a little further away.
An hour slipped by and they had been able to break down the inner wall, only to find that another had been put up, just as the people had said!
So, they had started on that wall. But, more people had showed up and there was more yelling and banging!
Another wall was created to entrap more people&h.e.l.lip;.Then, another two hours after, another wall was, again, created&h.e.l.lip;
The Metal Tribesmen were exhausted, hungry and thirsty! None of them had ever come across someone so annoying before! Getting trapped within their own village was actually quite embarra.s.sing! And one of those people was the boss of the tribe!
This person was really quite unable to get angry enough though. All this time, he had been thinking about the strange behaviour of this person, and he could see that she was very powerful. The fact that they weren’t all killed kept him calm, thinking that if they were to endure this embarra.s.sment then they should be fine. So, while many walls had been put in place, the people stayed calm because of the ‘Boss’.
They all adored their boss to ultimate means! They knew he was quite creative and thought about the village in long terms. Even though some lives had been snuffed out because of their leader, they saw the results that happened because of it. They weren’t talking about lives killed by the Air Tribe, they were talking about the knowledge learnt from obtaining some of the power by the field of big flashes.
In return to losing those lives, weapons had became stronger and ideas obtained started to become real.
But, those deaths were foretold and even asked by their boss. Knowing that their boss was someone that they could rely on to get better results, so, they followed his calmness and hoped that their boss saw that they could be of help!
It was dark when Loralle decided to stop obtaining the metal power and released the walls, that the people were stuck in.
"You!" The "Boss" yelled speechlessly, his hair in disarray and looking exhausted.
Loralle pointed to herself, "Me, hungry."
Again, she made everyone go into an astonished silence. The nerve!
Many of the people who saw her first that day, breathed out in defeat.
This girl...She"s too much!
"Boss?" Again, someone asked.
The "Boss" laughed, loud and clear and totally defeated. "Let"s eat!"
The crowd dispersed happily.
"Great! Show me food!" Loralle said, excitedly.
She knew everyone ate different everywhere, now she wanted to taste the Metal Tribe"s food!
"Right...Nathan, get the booze!"
Cheers filled the area and Loralle smiled while following them.
It was the first party she had ever gone to!
But...In the first hour of the party, Loralle sampled their food and found it very unsatisfying...
There food consisted on being cooked underground or being burnt to a crisp!
The taste didn"t seem something that she was used to at all and instead, decided to use other tribe"s methods to fill her belly.
At first, many of the Metal Tribesmen were upset and offended to her making faces and ignoring their food. But, as they tried the food she herself did, they were quite astonished.
By the end of the second hour, the spread of dishes, made from two other ways, were all eaten!
Loralle hadn"t been able to show them the raw ways of the Water Tribe, but was able to light a fire to cook meat, instead of the metal power that burnt it. She also dried meat, in which became quite popular!
Loralle found it quite funny that they liked something so much that was from what they think of as an enemy tribe!
Loralle was so happy, she hadn"t realized that she had drank too much, as she drank their hard liquor like normal water. It did taste a little strange...But, everyone was drinking it!
It was the first time she had drank alcohol, so she hadn"t any idea on how to react to the strange feeling that started to go through her.
What she still could see, were some the vicious looks that some of the Metal Tribesmen were giving her.
They had waited and waited till this moment to act on their revenge!
How dare she intrude onto our tribe!
For the other tribal members, not making those kind of faces, they had found something quite surprising. The magma underneath the hut, that she had created, had indeed, some use for their tribe. A weapon had gone in there by accident, then he watched, as the metal had gotten hot!
This person was one of the weapon makers...
The weapon became so hot that he couldn"t even touch it anymore!
He had dropped his blade on the ground, away from the magma, in haste, but it had still burnt his hand!
When the walls had gone down, he realized that his weapon had changed a bit. Dirt had gotten stuck onto it and it wasn"t straight anymore. But, looking closely, and with eyes of a maker, he knew that this magma could be a help to improve their weapons!
Another couple of people looked at Loralle with curiosity, she hadn"t killed them, just entrapped them. By the looks of it, she had the power to destroy them, but she didn"t...Maybe, she could help exterminate the Air Tribe!
The last lot of different looks were of males who fancied her or females who didn"t.
Then there was their "Boss"s" thoughts...He had heard what the magma had done to a weapon, by the weapon maker, and also watched as Loralle introduce other foods and stayed relatively pa.s.sive and silent...So his thoughts, they tended to lean towards Loralle in a favourable way. His eyes watching her very closely, liking her more and more as the time goes on.
None of that mattered though, when Loralle finally felt that she had enough...She felt really strange!
So, shakily, she flew up, not in a straight line, and tried to fly away.
People watched her, some getting out of their seats angrily, as she disappears.
Some sigh in frustration, and some in relief.
But as the party started to continue, they heard laughter in the air above them. They looked up to see Loralle and her flushed face, again!
She tried to talk, "I got lost! Haha. Left, then back again! Haha."
She laughed while leaving again.
"Boss?" Said one.
The "Boss" shock his head and laughed, not knowing what to say.
***
Loralle found herself uncomfortable and with a head ache when she woke up. Then she gasped at the view, knowing that this wasn"t her house and she couldn"t remembered how she had gotten here...
She saw it as quite a s.p.a.cious cave and a small amount of daylight entered from the entrance, from around the corner a few metres away.
Looking down, she found that she wasn"t wearing any clothes and that they were all over the floor.
Uh?
She tried to move her head further around to look, but it hurt too much.
She put a hand up to her thumbing head, and thought, how did I get here? What happened?
Picturing the strange flavoured liquid, she continued her thoughts, I"m never touching that stuff again!
Getting up slowly, she didn"t find anyone around.
Looking out towards the exit, she was worried...
Closing her eyes, she tried to focus but, as she wanted to use the earth and air to see outside of the cave, her head hurt even more!
She wasn"t able to see anything!
Sitting down, with a thump, and noticing the bed had a metal frame, Loralle felt sick.
Never again!
How can people drink that stuff!
Laying down, she closed her eyes, there was nothing she could do until she felt better.
A noise woke Loralle and she looked up to see a male. As he came closer, he turned his eyes away from her naked body but still walked towards her.
Uh?
"You"re up! You"ve been sleeping nearly a whole day! Look, it"s dark out now."
She stared at him, not saying anything. Was there a reason why he didn"t look at her?
"Oh! Haha, you were a blast last night. Everyone adores you!"
Who was this person?
Loralle scratched her head.
She still stayed silent but the male shock his head in happiness, still looking away from her. "You are invited to stay! After you and the boss left, everyone didn"t stop laughing for ages, they had a great time!"
Uh? "What?"
The male stopped, a little shocked, "You don"t remember?"
"I ate, Leave." Loralle explained.
Startled, the man couldn"t believe how blunt her words were. Suddenly, he felt sorry for the "Boss"! The male let out a small laugh, "That"s all you remember?"
"Yes." Was all she replied.
The male laughed uncomfortably, "Ok, first you kept flyin around laughin. Then people started shootin at ya. But ya never got hit! Ya just told em "More, try harder!" Haha. So, more shot at ya but ya continued ta laugh! Then ya threw somethin in the air and...It was really pretty...I"m really not sure what ya did but everyone watched as ya threw more and more...Then ya made a ball n hit people by throwin it at em. Haha. Then ya made more b.a.l.l.s n ya dodged the ones thrown at ya! Haha so funny! After that...Ya made a big hole n put warm water in it. In front of everyone, ya took ya clothes off and went in! So, other people went in too! Really! Oh...We hun seen anythin like that before aye! Then ya made water fall down, somehow continuously, from far away ta go into this hole, but then it overflowed! So, ya got rid of the water n filled in the hole and everyone was upset! But ya spurted water at em all, n said, "Clean now" Haha, so funny! We all watched ya run around chasin a fire ball, then ya surprised us by usin the metal power! Ya were like a child, playin...With powers! It was...Amazin! Good show, good show!"
Loralle, by this time had wide eyes and stared at the male in disbelief, "...Lie!"
The male put his hands up and shock his head, "No-no. Ask anyone, we all watched ya. I"m not lyin!"
"No. Lie. I not do that!" She yelled at him.
The male was stumped, why didn"t she belief him?
"Why here?" She asked.
The male took a moment before answering, "Actually, more happened last night...This is the Boss"s cave."
Loralle stared at him and waited.
The male lightly bit his lip then said, "Well, ya danced n sang with us n ya..."
Narrowing her eyes, Loralle said, "What?"
The male coughed and sighed, "Maybe ya will find out soon."
With that, the male left, in a hurry, not wanting her to ask him anymore questions. As it was, staying there while she was naked, could get him into a lot of trouble!
Loralle had no idea! How and what happened!?
Does this tribe...Make up stories? Is it...Another kind of power?
Being unable to remember any of it, she decided it didn"t happen. Even though it seemed something she might do, but how could she have acted as such? Maybe, they were all drunk...And, they all thought they saw the same thing!?
Loralle shrugged and let the matter drop.
She saw the food by the bedside and ate. Then, still feeling a bit funny, she went back to sleep...
***