Inside a little tea shop sat a young man silently with his hands interlocking. "Did I just teleport to the fu*king Avatar world!?" he looked around and thought. "Fu*k." For Jude, who was a heavy technology lover, being teleported to a world without one was definitely one of his nightmares.
"Alright, lets not stress too much." Jude took a calm deep breath and thought. "Lets remember the Avatar plot… hmmm. I either have to find Avatar Aang and his gang to leach off, or try to join an organisation. I also have the choice of staying in this small town but that would kill me of boredom." Jude was a person who sought excitement. To him, a life without excitement wasn't a life worth living.
As Jude was wondering what the hell to do, an old man came to him and asked, "Would you like another serving?" Looking at the old man, Jude thought, I really need some energy, as he responded, "Yes, one more please."
The old man poured the drink before leaving.
Jude looked at the few coins left inside the pouch that the previous body owner carried. "What a poor fellow I was." Jude stood up before walking to the counter, which was just two tall tables attached to one another.
He took a coin with the Earth Nation design out and paid for his tea. He smiled as he said, "Thank you for the delicious tea," before leaving.
Jude took a stroll and admired the buildings and his surroundings with a weird expression. "It's been two days since I randomly woke up in this world." He looked at his familiar hands. These are my hands and this is undeniably my body, b-but… how the fuck is this my world. He was a typical 16 year old. He had friends, family and things he loved to do.
Waking up in a fictional world would blow anyone's mind, but after a long time of being absent from reality, Jude realised that he was living and breathing in a different place. So he started exploring and after knowing it was the Avatar world, he got a bit more confident about his future.
Arriving at his small cottage where he was living alone, Jude looked at the building made of earth and wood. Inside it was pretty spacious with just a few wooden chairs and a small area with a wooden bed made of animal fur.
When he transmigrated to this world he woke up in here and got the memories of his previous host who looked exactly like him, or perhaps was him.
Jude had no idea. He remembered from the memories that this body's owner had grown up with a few other orphans in a well known orphanage nearby where he lived. And according to their rules, every kid had to leave when reaching 16.
"I guess its understandable," mused Jude. "Since I'm in this world now I have to make plans on how I will live comfortably, and since there are no video games or the internet, I need to have a goal."
"This world is pretty easy to live in like every other world, if you've got the strength to fight anyone or anything that life throws at you. And here in the Avatarverse, bending is what makes might." Jude thought carefully. "The question is, can I even bend?"
Apparently the previous host couldn't bend, but since he was a new spirit in this body, he wasn't so sure about it. "Hmm, normally benders check if they can bend by relying purely on instinct. I feel something, I guess. Not sure if I'm an Earthbender or not." Looking at himself, Jude joked, "I do as hell look like one."
Jude was 6'2" or 187.96 cm. Not too tall or short, maybe a bit tall for his age group, but Jude didn't think anything of it. He had dark black hair, slightly curly, reaching his ears. He was considered pretty handsome and had emerald green eyes, wide shoulders and a broad back. Overall, Jude was considered good looking.
He walked uphill to a desolate spot with valleys all over the place. "Hmm. Since I was born in the Earth Kingdom, being an Earthbender would make the most sense, but I'm also transmigrated which isn't the norm."
Jude kept walking until he found the perfect training ground. A terrain of rocks and pebbles. He looked around for animals or humans, found nothing, and began to test himself.
"So if I remember correctly, Earthbenders were the only benders who literally force the earth to move using their will. The stronger the will, the easier the earth moves."
With that in mind he began practicing, using only his will to manipulate the earth beneath him. He got into a horse stance, focusing his mind and taking a deep breath. With strong intent, he stomped the ground, sending a ripple through the earth.
Jude spotted some small pebbles on the ground nearby. He decided to start small and focused his will on one of them, determined to move it. As he concentrated, the pebble began to rise from the ground, hovering in the air.
He was thrilled with his success and continued to manipulate the earth around him, pushing himself to do more. Each time he was able to bend the earth to his will, his confidence grew.
Jude knew that mastering Earthbending would take time and practice, but he was determined to keep at it. After cooling down, the realisation dawned upon him. "Hahaa, yesss!" Laughing, he thought. "I can Earthbend!? I can Earthbend!!"
Still stupefied and excited, he had expected that he had something special since he wasn't from this world, but he had also been a little afraid that he was in fact a non-bender. Honestly he wasn't sure how he was even bending. Was it the will that forced the earth or was it his intent? "Maybe it's both," he thought. "Now that I know for sure that I can bend earth, I need to find a good teacher. But who?"
He had a few in mind. One that came up immediately was Bumi, but he quickly ruled that out. "That old man is very unpredictable. He even seems crazy sometimes."
Jude mused for a while before making a plan. "Since I'm here, I might as well just stay. I can learn the basics from Master Kon."
Master Kon was a teacher who taught children new to bending. He was one of the town's guardians, hired by the people to fight off bandits.
"It is getting dark." Jude looked at the sky, still feeling pretty weird that he had randomly woken up in the Avatar world. "Did I die? I don't remember dying. But that makes you think do you even remember dying when you die?
Things like dying from wounds or getting straight up murdered would leave a memory behind, I reckon. I guess dying while sleeping is the way to go. But then you won't have any recollection of how you died, which is scary to think about. But then again, do you even remember dying?"
With a bunch of thoughts clouding his mind, Jude made his way back down to his temporary home and plummeted onto his bed with one last thought. Tomorrow I'll have to ask Master Kon to teach me a few techniques.
The next morning came faster than Jude expected.
He sat up on the fur-covered bed and stared at the ceiling made of packed earth and timber beams. Birds or whatever they were called in this world were chirping outside. The light coming through the small square window was that soft golden kind that only exists in the earliest hours of the day.
"Still here," he muttered.
Part of him had quietly hoped that sleep would reset things. That he'd blink his eyes open and be back in his room with his monitor glowing and a cold can of coke sitting on his desk. Instead he got a dirt ceiling and the distant sound of a market beginning to wake up.
He exhaled slowly and got up.
There was a small clay basin near the door filled with water. He washed his face, ran damp hands through his slightly curly black hair, and studied his reflection on the water's surface. Same green eyes. Same broad shoulders. Same face that absolutely belonged in the Earth Kingdom whether he liked it or not.
"Alright," Jude said to his own reflection. "Day three. Let's get it."
Master Kon's training grounds sat at the eastern edge of town, just past the grain storage houses. Jude had passed by it once before out of pure curiosity but had never stopped. Today he walked with purpose.
The grounds were a flat open yard of packed earth enclosed by a low stone wall. A few wooden training posts were planted in the ground, their surfaces worn and cracked from years of use. In the centre of the yard, an older man moved through a slow sequence of forms, his feet barely leaving the ground. Each motion was deliberate and controlled, like he was in conversation with the earth rather than fighting it.
Master Kon wasn't a large man. He was somewhere in his late fifties, medium build, with a shaved head and a short grey beard. His eyes, when they finally opened and landed on Jude, were sharp and assessing in the way only people who had lived through real danger could manage.
He stopped his form. "You need something, boy?"
Jude straightened up. "I want to learn. I found out yesterday that I can bend. I don't have any technique though. Just instinct."
Master Kon studied him for a long moment, his expression giving nothing away. Then he glanced down at Jude's feet, then back up to his eyes. "Show me."
Jude shifted into the same horse stance he had used the evening before. He focused, exhaled, and pushed his will into the ground. A chunk of earth the size of his fist rose slowly from the soil and hovered in the air.
Kon raised an eyebrow. Just barely, but Jude caught it.
"Not bad for someone with no training," the master said plainly. "But raw instinct without foundation will only take you so far before it breaks you or someone else." He turned and walked toward the centre of the yard. "Come back at sunrise tomorrow. We start from the ground up. Literally."Jude almost smiled. "Yes sir."
Walking back through town, the morning fully awake around him now, Jude turned things over in his mind. Master Kon would give him a base. Stances, forms, control. The fundamentals that every competent bender needed before they could do anything meaningful. And that was fine. He was patient enough for that.
But patience had a limit.
Jude already knew what the end goal looked like. He had seen it clearly the moment he confirmed he could bend. The basics were just the price of entry.
Because there was only one Earthbender in the entire Avatarverse who had completely rewritten what Earthbending could be.
One person who had taken the element and bent it in every direction literally and in ways no one before her had even imagined. A twelve-year-old blind girl from the Foggy Swamp no, from Gaoling who could feel a fly landing on a leaf through the ground beneath her feet.
Toph Beifong.
If he was going to be an Earthbender worth anything in this world, Toph was the goal. Not just a teacher. The teacher. The greatest one alive by a wide margin, regardless of age, rank or reputation. She had invented an entirely new branch of bending on pure stubbornness alone. That kind of ceiling was exactly what Jude needed above him.
Get the fundamentals from Kon. Then find Toph.
It wouldn't be easy. He wasn't even sure where in the timeline he had landed, or whether she would even agree to train some random kid from a small Earth Kingdom town. Toph didn't exactly have a reputation for being warm and approachable.
But that was a problem for later. Right now he had one thing to focus on.
Jude looked up at the open sky above the rooftops and let out a long breath.
Tomorrow at sunrise. Ground up.
Literally.