The man with all the power have more to lose

"DUCK!" Mrs Dondo yelled after a rock was about to smash Adair in the head. Adair reacted quickly and ducked his head as the solid matter graced his hair. They've spent the past three hours on teaching Adair but their filosofi wasn't  the "teach 'em to bend before developing" like master Geta's, it was " learn avoiding it before using it". They were in the their backyard where it was a whole training field. Training equipment stood on the sides and it stood rocks in different seizes. The equipment mostly matched mine trainings. They were told that their children used these tools before they got taken.

Tesfay felt as life got reversed and honestly it didn't feel right. Call him selfish but he grew up with Adair sitting in the side and cheering him on. Now he sat on the side while his best friend trained. Adair learned new bending techniques yet he couldn't even dent a rock. Tesfay felt jealous, it was a whole new style of what he spent almost 9 years on learning.
Tesfay knew he couldn't feel like this, feel jealous at the attention and the teaching Adair got but he couldn't help it.
The old pair continued shooting rocks at Adair while he was meant to avoid it, keyword: meant. Adair easily avoided the big ones but the small- almost palm sized rocks would always hit him.
Asaph sat their, only listening to the frequent grunts, pants, whooshes and hits. Only using one sense he already figured out that the Adair wasn't improving. Continuing to listen while beginning to zone out he suddenly felt the ground vibrate.
The vibrations matched the ones earlier that day and Asaph got really suspicious. He focused on his feet, trying to decipher where the vibrations came from. Feeling stronger vibrations south from where he stood Asaph turned his head trying to catch any sound. Not hearing anything he went with a plan B and blew a small puff of air. The air never came in contact with something nor slowed down because of something so Asaph came with the conclusion that nothing was there.
Still not feeling satisfied he stood up from his seat and walked away. Chichi who was previously laying down saw that his owner started to leave and quickly stood up to follow him.

Neither Tesfay nor Adair noticed the collectors leaving, both just focused on the training. One watching and planing and the other experiencing. Adair felt drops of sweat going down from his temple to his jaw as he was trying to dodge the attacks. He started running out of breath, his heart feeling like something was chocking it making him struggle to breath nor stand up straight. Before Adair knew it he fell down in exhaustion trying to regain his breath and without him noticing a big boulder was thrown towards him in a impressively fast speed. Tesfay quickly stood up from his seat in the corner and shot a rock to hit the Boulder and redirect it.

"Are you crazy!? Didn't you see that he is tired out!?" Tesfay yelled in frustration. His eyes shot wide and his arms clenched making barely visible vines pop out. Mr Dondo looked worried as his new student but Mrs Dondo just looked disappointed and mostly displeased.

"When i was his age i did it for 6 hours straight" Mrs Dondo replied. "But if he can't even handle half the time then why should he try earth bending at all?" Tesfay growled slightly as he felt anger bubble up his throat. As for his best friend, Adair only looked down surprised and ashamed. Surprised because the nice lady who welcomed them a few hours before with opened arms became this strict. He felt ashamed because it was true, he knows that he have only tried earth bending for less then 24 hours but in that period shouldn't he be able to atleast move a rock?
Adair never really trained, only jogged a few times with Tesfay but it was always within his boundaries, he never pushed himself. And this? It pushed way past his boundaries
Tesfay stomped his feet, shooting a boulder up in the air and kicked it towards Mrs Dondo with his full strength. Mrs Dondo made quickly made a rock glove around her hand and hit the boulder into bits. She shot her rock glove directly at Tesfay, trapping his foot in a stone hold. He quickly bent down to tug the previous rock glove that held him down, trying to set himself free.
"Apologize for you foolish attempt to attack me!" Mrs. Dondo's voice boomed that area, scaring her husband and the epitome. Tesfay- feeling a bit taken aback by her sudden voice change but refused to show it- only glared at the woman.
"For what!? Hurting my best friend!?" Tesfay screamed in frustration and slammed his hand onto the ground, sending a rock wave that made the "only" woman stumble and fall. "Woah, that's new" Tesfay whispered, amazed by the new found method. Mrs Dondo sat up and growled. Tesfay's amazement got cut short by a sharp pain that shot threw his body by the rock hold that started to tighten around his ankle and shin.
"Honey, please stop! You're hurting him!" Mrs Dondo barley heard the desperate screams of her student because of the agonizing screams of pain that came from the boy before her. Mr Dondo approached his wife and placed his hand on her shoulder in attempt to calm her down only to get it shrugged off. He tried again and this time his wife turned around with flames in her eyes to see who to attack next. She calmed down a bit as she saw the eyes of her husband. He said to her to calm down and before She was even able to respond, the ground started to violently shake and out from the ground came a-

{-}

It's been around more then an hour since Asaph walked out of the grounds, only following the weak vibrations with ChiChi behind him. Asaph was more the four kilometers away from the small household and now walking around a big field with barley any trees nor grass. It was only dirt and stone that Asaph could point out.
"ChiChi, I need a pair of eyes. Might tell me if there is something in front of us that could cause the vibrations?" Asaph asked, earning only a barking like noise. Asaph signed and continued to walk.

Suddenly he felt the vibrations getting much stronger and heard stones rumble, putting him on alert. Asaph heard his sugar glider start crabbing and quickly made the assumption that something was wrong. Asaph suddenly lost his balance and feel down by much stronger vibrations making the whole ground shake.
"ChiChi! Tsk tsk!" Asaph clicked his tongue, making the sugar glider shot towards him and pick him up on his back. As he settled on his back they a few meters away from the ground as a huge creature shot up and let out a big screech like sound. Asaph concluded that, that was a earth blue- worm also known as one of the biggest animal. It's crawled through the ground , destroyed houses and ate both animals and humans.
Asaph let out a curse and took the leash, telling ChiChi to get it.

ChiChi flew with full speed with the worm following them, diving up and down from the ground. Asaph continued to yell, clearly stressed, hoping that ChiChi would go faster so they wouldn't get eaten by a full grown earth worm. Suddenly Asaph felt his head hurt and then everything turned black.

A tall man rode his pig -bear trying to run away from a big worm. He didn't know how to lose it so he improvised and ran around in circles and Zick zacks trying to lose the worm. "Come one, Nini!" The worm came closer and closer, slithering though the ground and occasionally diving down the ground and up. The man came up with a plan, when the worm jumped he would change directions and run the other side.

Asaph woke up again and concluded that he just went through an old memory. He tried their plan to lose the worm by flying in full speed around in zick-zack, circles and up, higher and higher every time. When the worm jumped they quickly went the other way and flew in full speed.
Feeling ChiChi calm down and the lack of ear piercing screeching, Asaph assumed that they lose the worm. So he redirected his sugar glider and went back to the small house.
Asaph landed in front of the house -thinking that they've taking a pause inside the house but when he jumped down from his sugar glider, he felt the ground shake and screaming coming from the other side of the house.
Asaph hurried run to the back with the animal right on his tracks.

{-}

Out from the ground came a big, grey-ish blue worm out. The ground violently shaking making everybody lose their balance except Tesfay who was already on his knees from before. The worm grunted and screeched as he was about to dive down to attack the closest meal to them, which was Adair. But before they could even touch him blast of wind shot them back. The creature screeched and dived back to the ground. The earth benders looked back to see the only air bender standing besides the training field, closest to the house. They finally realized that Asaph haven't been present and decided to question it after they weren't in a death situation. If they would come out alive.

Before somebody could utter a word out, the worm came back and this time aimed for the oldest male. Mr Dondo felt his life flash before his eyes,memories of the first cloth he made, when he met his wife, when they got married, built their house, watched their children grow. Every lesson they taught them and every accident that have happened in his life. His most happiest moments and the saddest came back and Mr Dondo realized that he have lived his life to the fullest, and accept that this may be the final destination....

"Oh no, you don't!" Mrs Dondo screamed and attacked the worm, sending it flying back. Mr Dondo's legs felt weak of the sudden attack and almost fainted. He accepted his death, but he still didn't want to experience it now.
"Everybody! Get on ChiChi now!" Asaph demanded and jumped on the creatures back. Mrs Dondo helped her startled and weak husband and went towards ChiChi. Adair running towards the creature but quickly stopped when he heard a scream from his best friend. Tesfay stood up to also get to the animal he feared but as he tried to take his first step, he's leg got tugged back making him fall with a small noice coming out. As if on que, the creature came back and this time, only a few feet away from Tesfay. Adair made eye contact with Adair and saw the fear in his eyes. All though you could see how scared he was, Tesfay still sent a smile towards Adair.
"I-I-it w-will be o-okey" Tesfay softly whispered while tears streamed down his face. Adair felt tears start to fall down his cheek.
"NO!" Adair stretched out his hand and a rock shot on him. Tesfay stared amazed and smiled at his best friend but the creature still wasn't gone. Before they knew it, the creature came straight up from the ground and swallowed Tesfay making a hole in the ground where he once stood.
"NOOOO" Adair screamed and he went to attack the creature but got pulled back by someone. As much as Adair fought against it, he still got pulled back till he sat on the back of ChiChi.

{-}

It's been over an hour, the creature had attacked and destroyed the Dondo house after they've tried to attack ChiChi. Adair haven't spoken since then. He just sat there quiet, thinking bout the fear in his best friends eyes as he got eaten by the creature. They landed again, after they made sure the creature was actually gone. The old pair went towards the house to look if anything wasn't destroyed. Adair however, he went towards the training field where multiple holes stood marking where the worm shot up from and attacked. He sat besides one in perticular, and that was the whole where his best friend ones stood. Where his best friend had attacked the woman that almost hurt him. Where his best friend smiled at him because he finally learned how to earthbend in attempt to save him. His best friend that was on gone. Forever.
Adair just sat there quietly, just looking at the hole. He felt numb.

Mrs Dondo looked at him, she knew the feeling. She had also lost her friends about the pain she felt when her children got forced out of their home. She knew it was her fault, if she hadn't shot a stone hold on Tesfay and tightened it around his ankle, he would've survived. But that didn't happen, she was the cause of the death of a young mans life.

Adair though back to when Tesfay told him stories about the collector, he tried while Adair just sat on the sidelines, when he would write his progress on the book of his every night to get better, when he would be excited to represent the sten nation, when Tesfay would tell Adair that they would go through this together. Adair's feeling soon came back, he started to shake and tears started to stream out of his eyes. He leaned down so his head was on the ground besides the hole. "W-we would go through this together. O-one step at the time, right?? I could've saved you! this is all my fault!" Adair sobbed. Asaph walked up to him and petted his back.
"We gotta go" he mumbled. Adair shakily looked at him.
"I don't deserve to be the epitome... Because of me my best friend died" Asaph only nodded.
"That's what comes with the job. You'll lose people but remember that it's still life you have to save. Come now,we can't stay in the past. We can only continue towards the future." Adair nodded and asked to be left alone for a moment. Asaph went back towards ChiChi and the old pair that had collected everything that wasn't destroyed or torn apart.
"Tesfay... I-I will make you proud. I will tell the people about you. Your dream will come true." Adair wiped his tears and stood up and approached the creature. He got on the back and sat there as they flew back home.

The flight was quiet, no one dared to say a thing. Asaph felt sorry for the epitome. The first day of training and he had to experience the loss of his friend.
The got to the Goling household and landed by the entrance. When they entered they got greeted by Adair's family that ran full speed to greet them. When they saw two new faces and one familiar face that was missing turned their faces instantly into a question mark. They went to ask what happens but Adair started crying making all of them understand except the young twins. Adair's mother immediately went in to hug her son and after her joined everybody in. Asaph only stood there as he heard multiple sobs and knew what was going one. Mr Dondo held Mrs Dondo because he understood that she was blaming herself. They all stood there, in the middle of the field, in the house where Tesfay grew up, learned and trained. Was anything ever going to go back to normal? No, they won't....