New Avatar fan fic of mine. ^^ Those of you who read Chance Meeting(And Star...since you're one of the writers. ) will know what happens in the end, but that doesn't really matter. This is about Sorin's(Character in Chance Meeting) parents, Jonas and Delilah. It doesn't have too many action scenes or anything, I'm not all that good at those unless I'm killing someone/badly injuring them. ^^' Anyway...hopefully this is good! ^^'

"Hey There Delilah"

Chapter I

We were young. So young. We came from different worlds, different universes. But that didn't matter to us. We loved each other, and that's all we cared about.

---

I had recently joined the Fire Nation ranks, under my father's pressure. He told me that I was no son of his if I wasn't out there battling the Earth Nation. My brother had managed to escape from what was now my life, but I wasn't as lucky. My eigtheenth birthday rolled around, and that very day, I enrolled in the Fire Nation army. For five months, I trained rigorsly alongside other men around my age, all of them willing, unlike myself. It felt like torture, and I actually led myself into believing that once we were sent out into battle, things would get better.

I was wrong. Everything became horribly wrong, even moreso than before. I cannot count how many people I was forced to kill, how many lives I was forced to ruin. I felt as though death would be less of a punishment than the life I was living. Then I met her.

----

"Get up, Jonas," I heard one of my fellow soldiers whisper. His name was Haruto, and he was about the only man in our squad besides myself who despised being there.

I mumbled something, and kept my face buried into my small pillow. The night before, we had raided a small village, and I had taken more than enough of my share of boulders and earth pillars. My body was sore all over, and I felt as though I could lie there forever. That is, until I felt a swift kick in my side, making the soreness intensify. I heard that rough, scratchy voice that could only belong to General Kenta.

"Get up, you lazy grunt," He commanded. I slowly got up, pushing back the pieces of black hair that had shrowded my vision. Kenta yanked me up by my collar, "helping" me get up faster. I shot a quick glare at the back of his head as he grunted at me and stalked away, eyeing one of the other soldiers who was taking too long to wake up. Haruto jabbed me in the arm to get my attention.

"Do you want Kenta to kill you?" He asked, and I chuckled.

"Sure. It'd be better than being under his command," I said, and he laughed a little, too.

---

After a quick gathering of supplies, we headed for out next target: a small village, where, supposedly, a small army of Earth Nation soldiers had stopped at. Haruto and I fell in line behind the rest of our squad, and started talking.

"What do you think? I bet I could hit the back of his head from here," He said, a small rock in his hand, trying to judge how far the distance was from us to Kenta.

"Haruto, quit it," I said, trying to get him to stop.

"Fine, fine," He said, letting out a huff, then throwing the rock at one of the soldiers with a helmet on. It made a sharp "clang" on the metal, making the soldier look at the man next to him.

"Hey!" He said, shoving him.

"What?!" The other soldier said, glaring at him. They went on shoving and yelling at each other like this for a few moments, until Kenta yelled back at them to shut up.

The whole time, Haruto and I were chuckling to ourselves.

---

Two, maybe three, hours passed, and we finally came to the outskirts of the village. Most of the squad hid behind an overgrowth of bushes, while a few men got closer to see how many, if any at all, soldiers were guarding the village. We waited quietly, now unable to talk unless we wanted Kenta to yell at us for "alerting the enemy".

The three men that had scouted out the village rreturned a few minutes later.

"Well?" Kenta asked impatiently.

"They seem to have little to no defense on any sides, sir. We should be able to infiltrate easily," One of the men reported.

"Alright. You heard him, let's go, men!" Kenta said to the rest of us. We got up from our crouched positions, and started to slowly march towards the village. Suddenly, the ground shook underneath us, and before any of us could do anything, a large pillar of earth erupted undernearth us. I, along with most of the other men, flew up into the air. I landed roughly on my back, and slowly got up. My eyes widened, and I realized that we were surrounded by enemy soldiers. I sighed, as Kenta shouted.

"Attack!" He yelled, and shot a large fireball at two of the soldiers directly in front of him. I looked around for some sort of escape from battle, a crack in their barracade of men. I couldn't see one.

I sighed again, and shot a few small fireballs at one of the men in front of me. He easily brought up a wall of earth to block it, and I took this as an opportunity. I ran at the wall before he could put it down, then jumped, doing a half a handstand over the wall, and landing behind the soldier. I kneed him in the back, alerting him of my presence, then punched him in the face when he turned around. He punched me in the stomach, making me stumble a few steps. I kicked him in the stomach, then in the side once he was on the ground. He shakily got up, and glared at me. I just frowned, then punched him once more in the face. He fell to the ground, and didn't get back up.

I looked around, and realized that in the time it took me to do all of this, the rest of my squad had managed to defeat the rest of the enemy soldiers. They were already starting to head towards the village. Haruto grabbed my arm as he ran past.

"Let's go," He said, and we ran towards the village.


End of Chapter I


Alright...reply!

Cool, you shou;d keep writing it!

I ish! I'm on the third chapter currently, and have also been posting it on Nick.com. Been getting lots of good feedback there. Glad you guys like it!

Yeah, I'm hooked on what happens!

Alrighty...I'm not even gonna issue a warning, because I'm actually not sure if there's much that's bad about this chapter. It might suck, might not, that's for you guys to decide.

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Chapter II

By sunset, we had taken the village, all of the soldiers that had not been killed being sent to a prison somewhere. We forced innocent villagers to let us stay in their homes, make us food, anything to make us "comfortable" and them miserable.

Haruto and I were "assigned" by Kenta to a smaller house, where a family lived. We came to the house, and I knocked on the door. We were instantly met by an extremely unhappy-looking girl. She was seventeen, maybe eighteen, had a little past shoulder-length brown hair, and bright green eyes. She spoke.

"What do you want?" She spat out, glaring at the two of us.

"Um...we were told that we would be staying here," I said, trying to smile a little. I hated it when people thought Haruto and I were monsters like the rest of the Fire Nation.

"Fine," She said, and walked away, leaving the door open. Haruto and I exchanged glances, then stepped into the small house, looking around. We were immediatly met by a little boy, no more than four years of age.

"Hi mister!" He said, obviously too young to truly understand what exactly was going on here. I bent down to about his height and smiled.

"Hello there. What's your name?" I asked. He answered almost immediately

"Ryuu. What's yours?" He asked.

"I'm Jonas, and this is my friend Har-" I started, but was interuppted by the girl swooping in and picking Ryuu up.

"Stay away from them, Ryuu. They're bad people," I could hear her whisper to him as they walked away. A man walked up to us, looking us over. He was quite tall, and he had a loud voice.

"I take it you two are the soldiers we're supposed to be housing?" He asked.

"Yes, sir," I said, trying to sound somewhat...respectful. He stared at us for a moment longer, then waved a hand, gesturing towards a room behind him with the door closed.

"You'll sleep in there. I hope you don't mind having to sleep in such close quarters," He said, feigning actually caring whether or not we cared. I thought I heard him laugh a little to himself, then start to walk into the other room. He stopped suddenly, obviously remembering something.

"Dinner is in about thirty minutes. If you don't like our food, then you can starve," He said, then continued walking away. Haruto and I simetaneously let out sighs, then walked into the room the man had pointed to. I opened the door, and we both walked in. The room was very small, but I think that we were both grateful that it wasn't a closet or something. To the right, there was a small table with a candle on it. Directly in front of us were two small cots, a few feet away from each other. And to the left, there was a bookcase with a few books and some scrolls sitting in it.

We dropped the bags that we had with us on the ground next to our cots, each claiming one of the cots for ourselves. I sat down on the cot next to my things, well Haruto checked out the bookcase. I took off the piece of armor I had on that protected my torso, then sort of stretched out my arms, relieved to have that weight off of my shoulders. Underneath my armor I had on a red tunic, then these odd-looking black-pants that soldiers wore, and combat boots.

I glanced over at Haruto, who was now sitting down on his cot with a scroll in hand.

"Anything interesting?" I asked.

"Nah, not really. I think this is a history of this village. Not much to it," He said, then put the scroll back on the shelf. He took of his armor as well, then lied down on his cot, staring up at the ceiling. After a few moments of silence, he spoke.

"So, what do you think of that girl?" He asked, smiling.

"What do you mean?" I asked, squinting my eyes at him. He sat up, then spoke again.

"She's pretty, isn't she?" He specified.

"Yeah, I guess. But she obviously hates us," I said, letting out a sigh.

"So? She's still pretty. Her hating our guts doesn't have anything to do with her looks," He said, and I laughed, sitting against the wall that my cot was against.

"Yeah, that's true."

---

Haruto and I both stayed in our room until dinner, then decided that it had been about thirty minutes and started to leave our room. I opened our door, and was instantly met by the girl. She looked a little surprised, but she didn't let it show for long. Her face soon turned back to the glare she always seemed to wear.

"My father told me to come get you," She said, then turned to walk to the kitchen.

"Wait," I said, making her stop.

"What?"

"I never got your name," I said, smiling.

There was an awkward pause, then she finally spoke.

"Delilah," She answered, then walked away hurriedly.

"Delilah," I reapeated quietly to myself. Haruto walked from behind me, following her to the kitchen.

"C'mon, Jo. I'm starving," He said, and I followed.

---

The kitchen was almost as small as Haruto and I's room. There was a counter against one wall, and door against the other. In the middle of the room was a table set for six. At the head of the table was Delilah and Ryuu's father. Next to him on the left was Delilah, and next to him on his left was Ryuu, sitting on top of something so that he could reach the table. Haruto sat down next to Delilah, making her almost cringe. I sat down next to Ryuu.

"Hi, Jonas!" He said, smiling.

"Hello," I said quietly, then stared at the table in front of me. A few minutes later, a woman, whom I guessed to be Delilah and Ryuu's mother, came to the table. She sat down three plates with food in front of her husband and children, then came back with three more plates, putting two of them in front of Haruto and I, then sitting down opposite from her husband. I stared at my plate. It looked to be some sort of fish, with rice on the side next to it. I picked up the utensils on the table next to the plate, and tried it. It wasn't as strong or spicy as Fire Nation food, but it was still pretty good. I had taken a few bites when I heard the woman's voice.

"I take it you two like it?" She asked. I looked at Haruto, who had already finished off half of his plate.

"Yes, ma'am. It's very good," I said, nodding. She smiled slightly, then spoke again.

"We never got your names," She said, and I realized we hadn't introduced ourselves.

"Of course. I'm sorry," I apoligized. "I'm Jonas, and my apparently starving friend over there is Haruto," I said, referring to how Haruto had pretty much finished off his plate. She chuckled.

"Well, I am Aimi, and my husband is Ryouchi," She said. Ryouchi just let out a grunt, signifing some sort of agreement to this. I nodded again, then went back to eating. Before I could even get the next bite into my mouth, Aimi spoke again.

"How old are you boys, anyway?" She asked.

"Nineteen," Haruto answered, now just sitting in his chair, his plate looking as though he had licked it clean.

"That young?" She asked, seeming surprised.

"Yeah," I said, gulping down a piece of food. That ended our conversation.

---

That night, there was a supposed to be a quick briefing in the middle of the village from Kenta. Haruto and I put our armor back on, and left after dinner. Honestly, we had no idea where we were going, but we quickly decided we'd follow some of the other soldiers that were trickling out of the other houses. We got there, and I looked around. It had gotten quite dark out by the time we got there, and I could barely see any of the other soldiers. That's why I was a little frightened when I suddenly heard Kenta's booming voice over the quiet chatter of
the soldiers.

"Attention!" He shouted getting everyone's attention.

"I sent a hawk to the Fire Lord earlier today, so we will be waiting here for a few days until he sends back orders. So, get used to living with these scum; we'll be here for a while," He said, and quickly walked away without another word.

This truly came as a shock. We never stayed in an Earth Nation village for more than a day, and that was usually just because we needed time to gather supplies and such. If we were supposed to wait for orders, we usually set up camp away from a village.

As Haruto and I tried to find our way back, I voiced my surprise.

"Why do you think Kenta's letting us stay here for a few days?"

"I don't know. It's weird, though," He answered back.

Neither of us had much to say, I suppose, so we walked silently, the quiet sounds of people in their houses the only noise to keep us company.

End of Chapter II

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Alright...reply! I need some critique! I need to know if it needs work...Someone tell me this is horrible!

This is good! There were a few spelling errors, and the syntax is a bit off, but it's quality stuff, and that should be commended.

Thank you! Yeah, I keep on forgetting to spell-check...STUPID SHORT-TERM MEMORY LOSS!!! ...Anyway, I'm glad you liked it. ^^

Spell check? You're lucky! ()
Since my computer lacks the amazing program of Microsoft Word Document, I have to write everything on the whole "Word Pad" thing. And it doesn't have spelling or grammer check. So I pretty much have to guess if it's right or wrong. But I'm usually safe (not to brag, but I'm pretty good at spelling and grammar and stuff ^^').


Anyway, good job! =D

Yeah, I have Microsoft Word, but I don't use it...'cause I'm lazy, mainly. I usually just copy the chapter, post it in an e-mail, and use the spell-check feature. (Actually...I usually just wait until I'm sending something to you, spell-check it then, then copy and paste the new, shiny, spell-checked chapter back in the Note Pad thing, and send it to you. )

And thanks!

Yeah...I don't really like Microsoft Word, because it'll sometimes automatically correct stuff, which is bad, because it usually thinks most Avatar names aren't real words, and'll change them to something else. It's annoying...