• –Chapter 1–

    “Lizzie,” called the nurse. “It’s time to…Lizzie?” She looked around the empty room. The bright red curtains swayed in the breeze at the open window. “Aah! Don’t tell me—“
    The elderly nurse hurried over to the window and looked out, picking up the knotted bed sheets tied to the window sill as a make-shift rope. “Not again!”

    – The red-haired girl hummed happily to herself as she walked bouncily down the street. The fabric of her long red kimono swished around her legs as she skipped. She sang to herself, “Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to—huah?” She stopped abruptly and ducked behind the wall of a nearby shop.
    “I’m so sorry,” her nurse bowed to the young, formidable looking group in front of her. “We’ll find Lizzie soon, I’m sure.”
    “So these are the people who are going to take Lizard away,” the girl whispered to herself, peering intently around the corner.
    Suddenly, the blue-haird boy turned and looked directly at her hiding spot. “Ah!” she gasped and threw her back against the wall in a flurry of panick. The boy frowned and turned away again.
    The girl sighed, heart thumping wildly in her chest. She sighed again, then giggled as she hurried away, excitement fresh in her steps.

    – “Damn!” Hotaru growled, her charcoal black eyes flashing angrily. “We came all this way just to be told that Lizzie is missing! That brat!”
    “You had to come all this way?” Haro asked, eyebrows raised. “You’re already from this nation. I’m from the Water Nation; it took me three weeks to get to the meeting place.” He flicked his head, blue hair catching the light.
    “Shut up!” Hotaru snapped. “Who asked you?”
    Haro shrugged indifferently and turned away from the angry Fire Nation girl.
    “Hotaru-sama,” sighed Eita, “they said they would find her. Once they do, we can continue to our destination and carry out our mission.”
    “Yeah,” agreed Yuri excitedly. “I am so excited! This is going to be so much fun, right!”
    Everyone glanced at her nonchalantly. Nendo, the oldest and tallest of the group, said, “I think it’s a little too early to tell, Yuri-sama…”
    Yuri sank a little and began to pout. “Oh, fiddlesticks. You guys are no fun.”
    “Fiddlesticks?” Sora snickered. “What era is this again?”
    “Why don’t we head back to the village?” Eita suggested. “They must have found her by now.”
    The group began to walk down the path back to into the village.
    “Hey,” Yuri frowned, squinting into the distance. “What’s that?”
    A figure lay on the side of the road a ways ahead of them.
    “Awe-some!” laughed Sora, running ahead. “Road kill!” The wide grin on his face disappeared when he got closer. “Hey…This isn’t road kill!”
    “Ah!” gasped Yuri. “It’s a girl!”
    Eita looked down at the unconscious girl. She was dressed in a long red kimono that splayed out under her. It was just a little darker than her shoulder-length red hair. “I think she’s sleeping,” Eita stated.
    “I’ll wake her up,” Hotaru announced. She picked up the girl by her shoulders and began to violently shake her. She remained limp.
    Everyone hesitated, then Sora spoke. “Well, if she wasn’t already dead, I think you just killed her.”
    Hotaru exhaled angrily and dropped the girl back into the dirt. She suddenly sat up, eyes wide, startling everyone.
    “Where’s my Slurpee?” she asked.
    “Huh?” everyone frowned.
    The red-haired girl looked around. “Someone stole my Slurpee,” she said.
    “Are you—“ Eita began.
    “SLURPEEEE!!!” shrieked the girl. Everyone shrank back, bewildered at her behavior.

    – The girl contentedly slurped her slurpee, swinging her legs that couldn’t quite reach the ground from her seat. “Grape is awesome grape is my favorite flavor and it’s purple,” she paused for another long slurp through the twisting bendy straw. “Did you know purple is my favorite color and it makes my tongue turn purple which is funny because tongues are supposed to be pink no purple by I really like my tongue when it’s purple because it makes me look like a lizard.”
    Everyone stared at her strangely. “Who are you?” Sora asked.
    Slurrrrrrrrrp… “Hi! My name is Lizzie but you can call me ‘Lizard’ hissssssss…So where are we going? Are we going to stop for a snack soon?” She pointed at the scar on Nendo’s chest, “What happened to your chest? What’s in this bag? When are we leaving? Why are you guys going this way? Are we going to the Dark Nation? I’ve been there before. There were these people up there but they left because they couldn’t find what they were looking for. One of them had a HUGE mole on his forehead that—HEY! Wait for me!” she cried, running after them.
    Haro stopped and turned to wait while the others went on. Lizard blushed slightly at Haro’s smile. “I’ll wait for you,” he said.

    – “Fools,” chuckled Kira, watching the teens from a distance. “They cannot escape from us.”
    “In their defense,” sighed Kaage, “they don’t know that we’re watching.”
    “Shut up,” Kira snapped after a moment of considering that. “We just have to do our job swiftly and silently, like all the rest.”
    “We wait for the perfect moment ot strike,” Kaage agreed. “They will never reach our nation…at least, no alive…”
    The two disappeared in the shadows.