12 Learning to run(5)

With my hands bandaged I went back to my friends but didn't continue the punching. Although I didn't break any of my bones, the injury was pretty bad, so I would need a few days to recover, even with the special lotion Wu gave me.

"Kid next time try to use less anger in your punches when hitting the wooden mannequins. Now go do pushups and arm exercises for the rest of the session."

"I understand master."

And so we stayed another hour after that Master Wu told us we can leave.

'How did I enter 'limbo state' without trying?' While I was thinking hard about how that happened Nya came to me and asked.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, I am thanks for asking, I just got too excited when hitting and didn't feel my hand getting hurt."

"You scared us, man. We are just worried about you."

"I'm fine Kai really I am."

"We are just saying we are here for you if you need us."

"Thanks, Zane. Thanks, everyone it means a lot to me, but honestly, I'm fine just a little tired, let's go home."

I went home and took a shower, after that, I look at myself in the mirror. I was more or less the spitting image of my past self, well more or less, I was a lot more ripped than in my past life. I had an eight-pack which was a completely new look for me. Although I was eight I was 1,50 m tall and looked older. After a couple of minutes admiring myself in the mirror I went to bed thinking about a way to prevent what happened tonight from repeating.

The next morning I went to breakfast and grandma saw my bandaged hands she became worried but I told her that I fell and scraped my skin but didn't break any bones and that I would be better in a few days, she calmed down asking if we should go see a water bender that knows healing arts but I refused firstly because it was expensive and secondly the water bender might figure out that those injuries were not from falling, the rest of the day I helped grandma with the shop and went to mister Li to learn.

At the end of the lesson I had an idea about a design for my weapons but I needed some more information and had to look at some schematics. When I asked Li about it he said he didn't have them at his library, the only place that they might have what I was looking for was Republic City's Central Library and if I wanted to go there he had a friend working there that could help me look for the things I needed.

Before I left Li gave me a letter from his friend so he knows how sent me. While I was making my way there something interesting happened. I saw two boys scamming somebody, that in it, it isn't that big of a deal, but the people who were doing the scam got my attention. There were Bolin and Mako. How did I know that? Well because I knew how they look younger, while the first time I meet Pema I didn't recognize her the opposite happened to the two brothers.

'Well now, that's an opportunity if I ever saw one.'

The moment I saw them a plan formed in my mind. They were the future comrades of the avatar, hopefully, mine, so why shouldn't I help them a little now so that they are grateful in the future.

I went to buy some bread and some pastries and went looking for them, I knew they were in the neighborhood so it wasn't that hard to find them. I found them in a dark alley eating the most pathetic piece of bread I have ever seen in my two lives if that thing could be called bread that is.

"Hey there I'm Ethan, do you want to eat with me."

I know what you are probably thinking. What the hell is with this introduction. Well, it's simple, while this might sound dumb and cringy is the best approach I could come up with. Firstly you need to take into consideration our age, we are children, so if I start by saying something more complicated it might either seem that I look down on them especially in this case and the second reason is that dump introduction stick with people.

"Mako, should we go with the strange-looking kid."

'Well looks like my guess is right.

They look at my hand holding the pastries and their stomachs growled.

"We don't need to go anywhere if you don't want to but I would prefer to eat in a better-lit place."

In the end, we went to a bench on the main boulevard and started to eat. They ate like a hungry wolf, but that's to be expected. After they finished Mako asked me.

"What's your name?"

"I'm Ethan and you are Mako right?"

"Yes and this is my brother Bolin, we don't want to sound ungrateful but why did you give us food?"

"Because you looked hungry."

"That's it?"

"More or less, to be completely honest I didn't think too much about it. I just saw you guys hustle that guy and thought you might be very hungry so here we are now."

"You are weird, most people would go to the police to report us but you bought us food."

"Well, I'm pretty different from other people, by the way how old are you guys?"

"I'm ten while Bolin over here is eight, you?"

"I'm eight as well, now that we know each other better want to be friends?"

"Sure... why not..."

"Great! Now see you later I got to go I need to head to the library to look for something."

"Wait you are going to leave just like that?!"

"Yes, well I'm in a hurry and I was supposed to already be there but I got sidetracked see you guys around."

I quicken my pace and leave.