Make a Man Out of You Chapter 20 (Reader x Desna)

Make a Man Out of You

Chapter 20: The Secret's Out

After escaping the hostage situation, you ran towards your ally group. Suddenly, another rip in reality appeared before you. A block of stone sprang up under your feet and threw you towards it. Another loud bang rung out in a failed attempt to stop the man from jumping through the portal, he was wounded but he made it through. The water bender jumped after you, followed by Iroh, but a gust of air from the other side threw the fire prince back to the side from where he came.

"That was General Iroh!" A young girl scolded.

"Sorry!" A younger boy called out.

The portal closed and you were in the spirit world. A boy and a girl who could air bend were fighting a water bender who held a sword of ice and a sword of prism light. The young air benders must be trying to stop the attack from the spirit side, preventing the light sword from being used to dispatch more members of the Black Lotus.

Your water bender ally easily called the sword away from the woman's hand, the element responding to him more readily than her. The earth bender who had held you hostage was shouting at her that they had to retreat. Another man, also an earth bender, perhaps related to the first arrived on the scene in time to hear the warning and add bigger news. "The Avatar discovered our base!"

The water that had previously answered to the female Black Lotus now wrapped around her in a ring of ice. She dropped the prism sword, kicking it toward the earth bender men. The young air benders tried to intercept the device while the two water benders fought for control of their element. The new arrival stopped him with a wall of stone that blocked their air currents and the prism sword reached him.

"Ikky! Milo!" The Avatar came running over as the earth benders ripped open another portal.

You wanted to do something to help and in the rush of the moment you jumped in after the two men. Your allied water bender jumped in after you, followed by the two young air benders who were trying to confiscate the prism sword. The Avatar was too far to reach the portal on time before it closed, but the female Black Lotus left behind was as good as captured with the Avatar on the scene.

You found yourself at a desert landscape. You were back from the Spirit World, but you weren't sure where you landed. The earth bender who had held you hostage before had two bleeding wounds, but he still refused to give the other man the credit for exterminating you. He levitated the sand, focusing the particles until they formed a boulder. Unfortunately for him, he didn't have the strength to keep the boulder up and it fell, crushing him. You yelled and jump back as you saw blood come from under the large rock.

The other man, who was also an earth bender, remained unfazed and lifted up the boulder that had killed his comrade to throw it. The two young air benders, whom the Avatar had called Ikki and Milo, simultaneously shot gusts of air at his feet to make him lose his footing. He did throw the boulder as he fell, but it didn't hit anyone.

You looked at the water bender, he was looking in every direction with unease and that worried you. You tried to shoot a fire ball at the enemy earth bender to help the air bending kids, but your fire manifested in short range. You forced yourself to focus and just as the air benders were entrapped by pillars of sand and another had started to form under your feet, you managed to hit the enemy with a fireball square in the chest. He yelled and you cringed, your hands trembling from the impression of shooting a fire ball.

The earth bender retreated, using the prism sword to open another portal. Ikki reacted and knocked the device out of his hand, though the portal had already been made. "Destroy it!" She yelled.

You realized Ikki was talking to you and reacted automatically to shot another fire ball, this time aimed at the prism sword. With his portal making machine going up in flames, the enemy earth bender jumped into the open portal just before it closed and left you and your three allies stranded in the desert.

You let out a breath and tried to calm yourself. Your heart was racing and you were trying not to look at the crushed remains nearby. You walked over to the water bender who had followed you here, who was breathing heavily.

"It's too hot!" Milo declared at the top of his lungs and began to pull down the top of his glider uniform. "You okay, man?" He addressed the uneasy water bender. "Here, this should help!" Without pausing to think about his actions any further, he pulled off the water bender's shirt to reveal a very obviously male torso. Ikki scolded Milo for his rudeness and he defended himself by saying, "the guy was choking! Actually he still kind of is."

By this point you knew who this water bender was, but that didn't make the facts any less confusing. "Desna... Did you travel with me?" You felt your voice raise in volume and become accusing, but didn't stop it. "Was it you all along? Why didn't you say anything?"

Ikki's hand on your shoulder made you go quiet. "I don't know what this is about, but now's not the time to yell at him."

"Right..." You agreed. You looked at Desna, at how out of place and stressed he seemed to be. Something was really bothering him and it was more than the obvious situation.

"A town!" Milo announced, pointing to a collection of small structures in the distance. You had a lot of walking to do and would no doubt get a lot of sunburn.

"Desna," he focused on you and you reached your hand out to him. "You can explain later, let's go."

Desna took your hand and apparently noticed for the first time that he wasn't wearing a shirt. He had been too focused on his panic to notice before, he also noticed that you called him by his name. He tried hard to stay in focus, to regain his usual calm and got at least some of it back, though he was still uncomfortable with his surroundings.

The four of you walked mostly in silence, save for Milo, who felt compelled to comment on everything, even when there wasn't much to comment on. Upon reaching the town in the distance, you went into an inn to inquire about ways of long distant communication. This was a small town in the middle of nowhere, so telephones were not common. You did hear about the mayor owning some kind of long distance radio that could communicate with another town towards the west, as you had landed on the eastern side of the earth continent. Then maybe the message could be passed on from there.

Ikki offered to go talk to the mayor, dragging his brother along, which left you and Desna to go upstairs to an inn room to try to sort out all the confusion.

To be Continued

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