Duels (296 - 295 BG)

Duels are battles fought by at least two individuals, and they can be considered a form of recreation, a way of settling disputes, or a training tool for students who are developing skills in a particular art.
Duels may be fought to the death in the most extreme cases, or may simply be friendly spars fought to pass time. Duels are practiced by a variety of cultures, but they are most notably seen in the Fire Nation in the form of an Agni Kai.
The following is a list of known duels that occurred in 296 and 295 BG.
== Known duels ==
=== Duel between Yun and Tagaka ===
Combatants: Yun and Tagaka
Victor: Tagaka
Yun, his masters, and his friends traveled to the Eastern Sea to sign a new treaty with Tagaka and the Fifth Nation, and the two parties met at an iceberg that the pirate queen had chosen for the negotiations. However, before signing the document, the Avatar demanded Tagaka to release all her Earth Kingdom captives, to which she surprisingly agreed, revealing that the whole treaty signing was a ruse to lure Yun away from Yokoya so the Fifth Nation could invade and take the carpenters and timber needed to expand their fleet. In response, Tagaka killed Amak, having seen through his disguise, and her waterbenders pulled Rangi, Hei-Ran, and Jianzhu under the ice. Tagaka drew her jian and swung it on the downstroke at Yun's neck, but the Avatar did not flinch. Instead, he managed to create an earth glove out of the stone ink slab on the negotiating table and caught Tagaka's blade as it made contact with his skin. The two benders began to duel in front of his allies' eyes. Tagaka, revealing that she pretended to be a weaker waterbender than she really was, suddenly unveiled her hidden fleet within the iceberg about to set sail for Yokoya. Yun lost his balance at the sight and fell to the ground onto his back. Tagaka quickly blanketed him in ice, taking care to cover his stone-gloved hand, and wiped his blood off her sword. In desperation, Yun urged Kelsang to stop the ships instead of aiding him before the ice completely covered his head, but Tagaka managed to damage his glider, causing him to fall in the sea. Then she levitated the chunk of ice Yun was buried in, threw it over the side of the iceberg toward her camp, and leaped down after him.
=== Duel between Kyoshi and Tagaka ===
Combatants: Kyoshi and Tagaka
Victor: None; interrupted by Rangi
Following Yun and Tagaka's duel, Kyoshi managed to free herself from the ice and began to pursue them, sliding down the iceberg to the pirate camp. Kyoshi demanded that the pirate queen return Yun to her, but the waterbender instead admitted that she liked Kyoshi's potential as a fighter and asked her to join them. Kyoshi claimed that she would never become a daofei and realized that she will have to take Yun back by force. When the pirate pointed out that Kyoshi had no earth to bend around her, she suddenly felt that, in her time of desperate need, her voice would not be alone. Even though Kyoshi did not fully understand nor felt completely in control, she adopted a Crowding Bridge stance, feeling that she was "both leading and being led by an army of benders". She then pulled a column of gray-stone seafloor up from the surface of the ocean, which caught the hull of Tagaka's ship, destroyed several others in the process, and knocked pirates off their feet. Kyoshi then attacked Tagaka, but she dropped to her knees in exhaustion before bringing the earth close enough to defend herself, leaving her vulnerable for the pirate queen to attack with her jian. However, Rangi suddenly came to Kyoshi's aid and began shooting fire at Tagaka, knocking her away.
=== Duel at the Xishaan Mountains ===
Combatants: Kyoshi and Jianzhu
Victor: None; interrupted by Kelsang
After Jianzhu took Yun and Kyoshi to the Xishaan Mountains in order to find out which of them was the true Avatar, and sacrificed the former to a spirit named Father Glowworm, Kyoshi attacked the Earth Sage in her rage and grief, tackling him off the mountainside. While Kyoshi fell down the slope, Jianzhu effortlessly used his earthbending to create a staircase down to her, easily breaking apart a large boulder the Avatar sent at him, and negating her attempts to break his earthbent foundation. Though the sage tried to convince Kyoshi to accept him as her master, telling her not to let Yun's "sacrifice" be in vain, she once again tried to attack him with a futile act of firebending; though the attack failed, her move not even producing any flames, her defiance angered Jianzhu, with his response being to bind her limbs in earthen shackles, and decrying that if she had had proper training, she would have been able to break free from such restraints. The sage's reference to his training of Yun as wasted time only furthered Kyoshi anguish, with her outburst condemning Jianzhu's cruelty causing him to muzzle her with dirt, to the point of nearly asphyxiating her. Only being released after Jianzhu explained his self-appointed responsibility to her and her Avatarhood, Kyoshi spent several minutes recovering from the sage's "lesson", despising her own powerlessness with each breath she took. By the time she was able to get up, however, Kelsang had arrived on his glider, forcing Jianzhu to back away from Kyoshi.
=== Duel between Kelsang and Jianzhu ===
Combatants: Kelsang and Jianzhu
Victor: Jianzhu
Casualties: Kelsang dies
Having discovered a map of where Jianzhu was taking Kyoshi and Yun, Kelsang flew all the way from Yokoya to the Xishaan Mountains, despite still being in recovery from the injuries he sustained during the battle against the Fifth Nation. Arriving at the mountain slope where Kyoshi and Jianzhu were standing on, Kelsang, after seeing the state his adoptive daughter was in, got in between her and his best friend, leveling his staff at the Earth Sage, and demanding to know what had happened. Though Jianzhu attempted to distract Kelsang by revealing that Kyoshi was indeed the Avatar, while also lying about the circumstances of Yun's supposed death, Kyoshi told him the truth of what had happened, to which Jianzhu insisted that she was merely confused, and that Yun's demise was an accident. The monk believed his adoptive daughter, however, and ordered her to get behind him. The two friends were not on good terms for a while now and this was the last straw; Jianzhu had gone too far. Kelsang brought his staff down to create a gale of wind so he could blast him away with the least amount of harm. Jianzhu responded by bringing earth up to block the wind and shaved off a sharp razor of flint, no longer than an inch, which he sent through the wind and through his opponent's neck. Jianzhu had a sad expression as he watched his friend fall to the ground.
=== Lei tai between Rangi and "Four Shadows" Guan ===
Combatants: Rangi and "Four Shadows" Guan
Victor: Rangi
Rangi decided to compete in a lei tai while the Flying Opera Company was in the daofei town of Hujiang, to both endear the group to Autumn Bloom Society leader, Mok, and to show Kyoshi what it was like to watch a dear friend intentionally put themselves in peril. Rangi initially outmatched her opponent, "Four Shadows" Guan, easily dodging his moves and then attacking him, but a hit she took intentionally while looking at Kyoshi's eyes caused her to fall unconscious. However, just as Guan, angered and humiliated by Rangi, was about to kill her, she recovered and broke his leg, becoming the new champion. "Four Shadows" Guan was left so badly hurt by the duel that his companions had to leave him behind when evacuating Hujiang. He was subsequently captured and tortured to death by Jianzhu.
=== Duel between the Flying Opera Company and a shirshu ===
Combatants: Flying Opera Company and a shirshu
Victor: None; interrupted by daofei
While the Flying Opera Company was in the secret daofei town of Hujiang, Jianzhu sent a shirshu to track down Kyoshi. When the beast started to raid the town's longhouses, the screaming men and the building's destruction alerted the group. Terrified and frozen, Kyoshi stood there while staring at the creature before Wong shot up a wall of earth between the Avatar and the shirshu, telling her to either fight or run. The animal clambered over the wall Wong made with ease before Kirima puled water from a nearby trough and smashed at the beast's shoulders, trying to knock it off-balance. Rangi kicked low sheets of flame at the places it tried to land its forepaws, reasoning that it was as effective to break an animal's root as it was a normal opponent.
Kyoshi then knifed at the air in front of her, and the entire surface of the road began to grind and shift. A fissure opened, and one of the animal's paws fell in. The shirshu, rather than avoid the jaws of her trap, dove headfirst into the rift. Its entire body disappered belowground, leaving a pile of castings behind. While Kyoshi was able to feel the vibrations beneath her, they were indistinct and directionless. Rangi suggested the group to spread out, after which Wong and Kirima leaped onto the roof of the nearest house using dust-stepping, leaving the Avatar and her bodyguard down below. The soil loosened around them, and Rangi tackled Kyoshi out of the center of the formation, boosting herself sideways with flame jets from her feet. They landed hard on their sides and the creature burst through the surface, rearing toward the sky. It screamed and its claws almost reach Kyoshi and Rangi's bodies, but Lek suddenly shoots a fist-sized stone that strikes the beast hard on the tip of it sensitive nose, sending it reeling. A hail of perfectly aimed stones gave the couple cover, forcing the shirshu to back away and try to hide its nose, and time to flee toward Lek.
Some daofei started to shoot arrows at the creature's hindquarters, making it turn to face its new threat, which then proceeded to attack with spears and shortbows. Kyoshi and the rest of the group took advantage of the shirshu's new distraction to flee.
=== Duel between Kyoshi and Xu Ping An ===
Combatants: Kyoshi and Xu Ping An
Victor: Kyoshi
Casualties: Xu Ping An dies
When a prisoner she rescued turned out to be Yellow Neck leader Xu Ping An, Kyoshi realized that she could not let him go free and challenged Xu to a lei tai duel. Kyoshi believed she could beat Xu, who she assumed to be a regular earthbender. To her shock, however, Xu turned out to be a firebender and struck her with lightning at the start of their fight, incapacitating her in seconds. The young Avatar fell unconscious for a short moment, and Xu continued to fire several more blasts of lightning at her seemingly lifeless body while accusing her of ungratefulness. In truth, Kyoshi awoke, and though in immense pain, was grounding the lightning thanks to the armor under her clothing. After waiting for a few moments, Kyoshi entered the Avatar State. Her glowing eyes and the bending of multiple elements terrified Xu Ping An while Kyoshi lifted him high into the air. She thought for a short moment about what to do with him and when she realized that his shock had changed into hateful dismay without regret, she realized that he would never change his ways. In response, Kyoshi let him fall to his death, and then returned to the ground.
=== Duel between Yun and Father Glowworm ===
Combatants: Yun and Father Glowworm
Victor: Yun
Causalties: Father Glowworm is absorbed and seemingly destroyed
After Father Glowworm announced Kyoshi as the true Avatar, Jianzhu left Yun in the clutches of the spirit. The young earthbender was pulled into the Spirit World, where they locked in a fierce battle that lasted for days. Yun used his training from Amak to his advantage, sacrificing certain body parts that were expendable while keeping his vital organs. Although on the brink of collapse, Yun eventually overpowered the spirit and ate him.
=== Duel at the Fire Nation Royal Palace ===
Combatants: Yun, Kyoshi, Rangi, and Fire Nation royal guards
Victor: None
Causalties: Lu Beifong, Dairin, and several guardsmen die
In 295 BG, after Yun had taken the majority of the nobles visiting Fire Lord Zoryu's garden party hostage at the Fire Nation Royal Palace, and Kyoshi and Rangi failed to get him to surrender, the couple began to fight Yun, running after him after he leaped into the crowd. As the Avatar approached Yun with her war fans, he used a Fire Nation minister as cover, surprised that Kyoshi tried to hurt him. As she alternated stabs at his head and body, he sarcastically asked for thanks in defeating Jianzhu, reminiscing about his death. Kyoshi asked what he wanted from her, and he responded that he wanted justice from everyone who lied to him about being the Avatar. At that moment, he tunneled beneath the floor, determined to find the masters that had deceived him.
Although Kyoshi and Rangi rushed to Hei-Ran's chamber before Yun, he had managed to kill Lu Beifong in the interim, dropping his body to the floor of the portrait gallery. Dairin's men surrounded Yun, believing he was without material to earthbend, but he made use of the earth-based pigment in the portraits of the Fire Avatars, holding the blob of paint above his head before he shattered it into sharp pellets that knocked back both Kyoshi and the guards, injuring and killing many of them, including Dairin, and using the opportunity to disappear.
=== Duel in North Chung-Ling ===
Combatants: Kyoshi, Saowon clan, Keohso clan, Rangi, and Hei-Ran
Victor: None
After Koulin insulted Rangi's mother, an enraged Rangi punched Koulin across the jaw, truly starting a fight the Saowon and Keohso clans. Koulin and Rangi fell into an exchange of brutal, vicious strikes with only their knees and elbows in light of the prohibition of Agni Kais during the holiday. Koulin attempted to smash her forehead into Rangi's eye, just missing, and cutting a cash along the cheekbone. Rangi staggered away, and with the empty space, used fire to propel herself into a backflip, her knee coming down on Koulin's head and knocking her unconscious. While Rangi attempted to attack further, a shocked Kyoshi ordered her to stop and bring her to Atuat.
=== Duel in the Avatar mansion ===
Combatants: Yun and the Flying Opera Company
Victor: Flying Opera Company
Casualties: Yun dies
After Kyoshi and Yun had a conversation, in which Yun stated that he did not care about the world, only those who had sought his favor when he was believed to be the Avatar, Yun bent up a stone pillar between him and Kyoshi, providing ample bendable earth for the two of them. Both started punching bullets and fist-sized rocks at each other from the monolith, both sides managing to avoid attack until Kyoshi shoved the entire pillar at Yun, ripping up the dining room. Yun escaped from the area, earthbending spikes at Kyoshi from the central part of the estate while not letting himself be seen. As Yun emerged from an alcove, Kyoshi asked him to let go of his pain, which he refused.
He liquefied the stone floor of the main hall without heat, bringing it up to trap and encase Kyoshi. He explained that he never intended to hurt her, as she was the only one innocent in the entire affair. Pointing out her heavy armor, he believed that she had been cursed by her newfound Avatar duties. Kyoshi proudly responded that she wore her makeup and armor because she chose to, and she had much truer friends than Yun. At that moment, Kirima's water whiplashed down, allowing enough time for Wong to successfully earthbend Kyoshi out of Yun's trap. As Kirima rained water down, he protected himself with a slab and sent it flying at her, while moving away by bending the ground beneath him. Caught off-guard by Kyoshi's friends, he asked if Rangi was here, to which the firebender confirmed, as Jinpa circled above the mansion on Yingyong.
Kirima sent a fresh torrent at Yun, who bent a new shield, which was deflected by Wong. Kyoshi tried to drag him down with earthbending, but he easily escaped from the ground and managed to shatter a great mass of stone tiles with a flick of his shoulders when Wong brought the flooring down upon him. Rangi stepped forward, breathing forth a great blast of fire, Yun sliding off to the side riding a swell of earth. Rangi ran the fire after Yun as he escaped, the earthbender caught off guard by the ferocity of her attack. In response, Yun violently shook the earth, sending Kyoshi and Rangi flying. As he liquefied the very foundations of the mansion, Wong and Kirima were forced from the roof, while Jinpa finally came in from above to rescue the combatants. Yun launched a hedge of stone spears, launching them at the airbender and managing to run him through the shoulder, pinning him to his bison's saddle horn.
Kirima and Wong rushed to Yun, trying to attack him from a blind spot, but he created large pitfalls that broke their legs. Yun hurled broken earth discs at Kyoshi and Rangi, now attempting to chastise them instead of truly wound them. The pair then crudely put on a substitution of their signature makeup with blood, and began to jet-step with firebending, propelling themselves forward to Yun without touching the earth. Kyoshi shot a huge fireball in Yun's direction but managed to miss, yet Rangi managed to redirect the flame's course and hurled it back around, causing Yun's earthen barrier to explode. Yun tunneled down and made his way up to Rangi, stabbing her through the back with an earthen spike.
As Kyoshi cradled her girlfriend in her arms, Yun warned Kyoshi that situations would keep occurring if she tried to stop him. Kyoshi began to apologize for stealing Yun's Avatarhood, bringing a hand to his chest to comfort him. Finally, she used an advanced healing technique to drastically lower his body temperature, freezing his heart and lungs solid, and killing him.
== Notes ==
== References ==
== See also ==
* Duels
* Duels (Spring 270 BG - Winter 100 AG)
* Duels (Spring 100 AG)
* Duels (Summer 100 AG)	
* Duels (170 AG)
* Duels (171 AG - Harmonic Convergence)
* Duels (late 171 AG)
* Duels (174 AG)
Category:A to Z
Category:Duels
Category:Events