trans_9 | What dreams may come [Open, bendytimed to before GTFO plot]

The dark doesn't stop something that has no eyes.

Lightning-quick movement send barbed wire whipping in her direction, trying to rend flesh from bone.

Roxie's hand with the ring flashes up. An invisible wedge—just enough of a moment's deflection for her to skip forward into the thing's range and swing the mace flowing out from her hand. As the flanges of the weapon catch the air in the swing, they let out a sharp-edged nauseating keening.

But it's still a risky move—if a single strike doesn't finish it, she's left herself wide-open for a counterattack.

It's enough. They hurt, and are fast and hard to outrun, but the dancers they die easily. This is because they were created to hurt him another way.

As the creature falls, there is a horrible keening noise, that sounds all the world like Katara's voice sobbing quietly and piteously, until the sounds die down and end as it dies for good.

"Ooh, you're new!" pipes up a voice behind Roxie, and standing behind her is a little girl with a hole in her stomach. If Roxie's wondering where the chasing shadows went, wisps of them can be seen coming out of the hole in her stomach. This is just the new tormentor taking the form of an old one.

"And a friend of his, I take it, just like little Susie Q. Shyness in her blue dress. That'll make this all the more entertaining, when I leave your flayed corpse for him to find. He's just so squeamish."

And as the forced darkness melts away into little evaporating specks, Roxie—

smiles. It's a wicked, irregular smile that wouldn't belong anywhere on a normal person. She's back in her element, now.

"But I'm not," she says, holding up the mace before her horizontally like a holy symbol, and suddenly it lets off a sharp, screaming whine. Nauseous, churning fear. Even if the push of emotional content doesn't work, it feels good to try.

The girl gives an exaggerated yawn.

"Is that really supposed to scare me, you stupid bitch? I'm dead. And I live here--for a given measure of 'live.'" She skips around in a circle. "Well, I did anyway, not that Aangy-wangy-poo remembers it. It's all locked away in his subconscious because he couldn't handle his little bunkmate Alessa spreading her nightmares all over the waking world during the hellish experimentation, even though he survived it. God, what a whiner."

Roxie turns into a smooth circle to keep her gaze on the girl, still holding her mace at the ready. The insult flows off her—or off her face, anyway—like water, as if she simply didn't notice it.

She stays silent, watching the girl's face, as the mace softly thrums between emotions. Joy. Trust. Fear. Surprise. Sadness. Disgust. Anger. Anticipation.

Nothing. No emotion touches her.

"Christabella!"

The voice is hoarse and tired, and he's a sad figure, in tattered clothes, his leg broken and healed in a way that looks horribly painful.

"Stay away from her!"

Roxie takes a step back, her mace still held up. Her face is a mess, still, but even with that short exchange, under the crusted blood, it's a little less of one than it was.

She glances between the girl and the new figure, still silent.

"What are you going to do, Aang?" says the girl, hands on her hips. "Kill me again?"

Aang's eyes narrow, and he says, simply, "It's not killing if you're not alive."

A burst of fire is sent in her direction, sending her diving back, and Aang screams at Roxie, "Hit her!"

She didn't need the words. The moment the fire started to flare up, Roxie was already charging forward, swinging the mace above her head.

She brings it down, a sharp diagonal swipe, the tines of the weapon whistling through the air like flutes. Her face is more than merciless—it's almost enjoying this, hints of pleasure creeping in around the edges.

The girl dodges the fire but is knocked back from the blow, her face now smashed and ugly, and with that space between then, there's a stamp of Aang's foot against the ground and rocks swells up between Roxie and Christabella like its bursting through dead skin, curling around the latter girl in a wave. (Though he doesn't seem to be compressing it enough to crush her with it).

"Time to run again!" For a given measure of running. Metal pipe and impromptu staff in one hand, he grabs at Roxie's arm with the other.

"Come on! We can't kill it, only slow it down. It can't die because it's not alive--it's just taking faces from my memories."

She speeds up—no. He's slower than her now.

She turns, grabs his arms, and sweeps Aang off his feet, launching back into a full run once she's got a good grip on him in her arms. "Then where are we going?" she asks, entirely businesslike, despite the distinct lack of dignity of his current situation.

His response to being unceremoniously picked up like a baby by a girl with preternatural strength that's smaller him is: "Actually, I can, um--you know what? Never mind."

Okaay, so he's getting carried. She's running much faster than he could. His leg had been hurt pretty badly during this time until it'd be repaired later when the whole ordeal had ended.

"Go right at this street up here!"

There's a mountain there, and a tunnel. There's something scraping along the ground behind them. The sound of metal, but heavier this time. Aang's eyes go wide as he sees what's following them.

"Don't look back and go right reallyreallyreallyreally fast!" He holds out a hand to lessen the wind resistance around them both so Roxie can run faster.

Roxie doesn't look. It's not because he said not to—it's because it doesn't matter if she does. Either she'll outrun or she won't... and if she won't, she can get a look at it then.

Instead, she runs. She's starting to reach the limit of what she can manage and still have some degree of traction.

They're through, into the dark, and the scraping fades behind them. There are voices around them, whispers, in the same kinds of voices as the doctors, but more pleading.

"--the ohm threat--"

"--please help us--"

"--deepest apologies for your ill treatment--"

"--desperation--"

"--cooperation--"

"--worlds dying--"

"--life ending--"

"--help us fight--"

"--please help us fight--"

Aang gets...heavier. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, and Aang says, in a somewhat deeper voice now, in the dark:

"Put me down! I can run now."

Roxie half-skids, slowing down enough that she can let her momentary passenger down. She's starting to breath hard, now. She can run, still, but that burst of speed has left her a little slower than she was.

"What next?" she hisses.

"Uh. I know there's been -- a lot of it--" Even he's a little winded and he's freaking kung fu Tibetan Jesus. "But unfortunately..."

How does he break this to you, Roxie?

"...We have to keep running."

Sorry.

"But we're almost there! When we clear the tunnel, don't stop. Don't worry about me, I'm just memories, just thoughts. I can't be hurt, so I'll hold them off! If you make it over the bridge and through the door, you'll be safe."

They're out in the sunshine again, and Aang is older now, perhaps sixteen, only slightly younger than he had been in Katara's dream. He's wearing one of the ship's plantsuits, but with some sort of light armor affixed, that looks like it could repel projectiles and maybe even plasma fire, but is light enough for him to still stay very mobile. His limp is gone, though that one leg is noticeably weaker to one who's perceptible enough to notice such things. In his hand, he carries a different staff than the others he's carried along the way--this one is made of some kind of light metal instead of wood.

They're on a dusty alien world with a sky bluer than it rightly should be. The sun is up, low in the sky, and at the same time two moons are rising. They're in the massive bowl of some sort of crater, with rocky scrags jutting up, and streams of water running between the rocks. Aang licks his finger as he runs and holds it up into the air to check the breeze, and his expression twists up into the slightest of grins.

Conditions for Bending are, shall we say, slightly on the side of good.

The ground starts to rumble, and crawling over the cliff sides into the bowl-shaped valley are foggy shadow creatures, outlines of something insectoid. The shadows are unnatural in the light of such a bright sun, but that chasing shadow is causing it, in them now, using them as yet one more vessel to follow Roxie.

Up ahead is a stone bridge across a crevasse, and across from it is a huge formless building, one that reaches far, far up into the sky, with a massive open door.

Okay. Target.

Roxie starts running. She has endurance left, but she's... pushing it. She's used to taking breathers, hiding under or behind things long enough to start recovering, getting pauses between enemies—but she doesn't have that now.

Aang is forgotten, at least for anything but the extent he can protect her. It's how she works. The unpleasant things just get shaken straight out of her mindset, and she focuses on the more important matters at hand—like her own life and death.

And she's fast, but... that might not be good enough, with the bugs starting to pour in, moving like a wave over the sides. And there are dark fields of wings starting to fill the edges of the sky...

"Keep moving and like I said, don't look back! Get through the door no matter what!"

Aang peels off to turn back around and face the stampeding bug-beasts racing towards like them in a wave of death, intending to buy Roxie time. It's the kinda thing that should probably have some kinda theme song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsppp2JGJFY) to it. Really.

Jumping up on one of the rocky pillars he takes a deep breath, centering himself, and then? Then he starts to move. Dropping into a horse stance, he starts stamping his feet and making sharp, solid gestures of his arms, and the entire canyon rumbles as walls of earth rise up, causing the bugs to slam into them.

He jumps to another pillar with the wind carrying him, and a sweep of his arms has the streams winding together in the air and then flowing towards the remaining bug-things in a massive wave, that sweeps them back and freezes them in place.

Though he's not in the Avatar State, the way the valley rumbles and shakes, and the winds sweep through, the flow of the water, and the occasional arc of fire--it's all a testament to his power, and to his control.

The first boy that Roxie had been helped by had just been a child, the second had still been one, a fearful boy that dealt with enemies--and his destiny--by running. But over time, he had changed, and Roxie got to see those changes.

This is different. Who he is now is different.

She doesn't see it. She's too focused to turn—but she hears it, the roars of the wind and the water, the way the earth shakes under her. Power. Not the power of the god, but the power of the man is incredible.

And that's a half of the problem eliminated, but there is another part: for the winged ones are sweeping in. And he can attack them, but Roxie is in the way of clearing out the most dangerous concentration, as swarms flow in like water towards the bridge she has to cross.

The pieces fall into place. If she keeps going she's going to get bogged down. And he will, too, trying to save her. The bridge is a delicate point. If she gets knocked away, she might not be able to get back.

She keeps running. But, no—why can't there be another way?

A little part of her clicks through the gears. "

" she says, softly, as she speeds towards the bridge. They're already starting to block it. If he attacks, she'll be in the line of fire. No, she can't just keep running. It's a square peg and a round hole... so shave the corners off.

"

" she says, louder—and then, almost shouting, "

"

The seams of her jacket come undone, billowing into red cloth around her. The cloak, but longer, thicker, flowing like a living thing with her movements. She runs. Almost to the bridge—

She jumps into the crevasse.

Aang's brief check over his shoulder to see if Roxie's making it turns into a double-take with his jaw dropping open.

"Aaah!"

For long, long moments, the only is the rhythmic thrum of the bugs as they swarm down into the crevasse, like a living heartbeat.

There is a rumble in the earth—one not caused by Aang.

There is–

A red-scaled dragon (http://i38.tinypic.com/15wdlrr.jpg) the size of a small train roars up past the bridge, slamming through the swarming bugs like an axe through cardboard. It swoops around the bridge once, twice, and then—

In through the massive door, all at once.

She passes through a wooden gate and finds herself in a new place. The gate is on a mountainside, made of ice, that shines in the sun. Despite the ice, the air isn't cold. The winds here are warm and light, and smell faintly of lotus blossoms, just like the air had smelled back at the temple where she'd first appeared in this place.

A trail leads up through a short pass, and from it is the sound of running water--a waterfall perhaps. The breeze pushes her towards the pass.

She had trusted him, when he said she would be safe here. She hopes, really hopes, that he was telling the truth...

She stumbles forward on two legs. Herself, again, cloak wrapped around her, though the fabric is tattered and stretched. She's drained herself more than she really should have with that little indulgence.

Roxie makes her way towards the pass, pausing every so often to try and recover her breath, though her breathing stays shallow and uneven. Though her face is healed, under the dried blood speckled across it, it's sallow and shadowed.

The pass opens up to a peaceful glade. This is the source of the water running along the sides of the trail. A high waterfall runs behind the glade, creating a calm pool that eventually opens up to two streams running off. An island with fragrant flowering plants rests in the center, with two small, wooden bridges that lead to it, and in the center of this little green island is an even smaller pool of water.

In the smaller pool on the island, two small fishes swim in gentle circles, one of them black with white markings, the other white with black markings.

And sitting behind it is Aang.

Seeing him in his present state, sitting still, makes it all that much easier to see that he clearly has been through much. His right arm, that had been bandaged when he was in that horrible foggy town, is covered in burn scars, and some parts of the tattoo there are brighter than others, where it had to be redone. The burns go all the way up to his shoulder, which is visible due to the cut of his simple saffron robes. He's somewhere around sixteen or seventeen years old now--and looks exactly as he did when he showed up in Katara's dream before.

(Roxie, you've now caught up to the present).

However, despite this, despite the snapshots of horror Roxie's seen of his recent past, despite the fact that the enemy that had chased her is apparently not new to him at all, as he sits there in a lotus position, his expression is utterly serene. He's completely at peace with his surroundings, and seemingly unaware of Roxie's presence.

The breeze that urged Roxie here sweeps through this place, a little piece of home for the young monk, grounding him in his roots. But in this place, where he feels safe, where he is centered in his own mind, water in all its forms is the element that reigns supreme, granting this place a serenity that seems to pervade all.

This is because of her, because she's protected him, healed him, broken him free from his sleep in the iceburg. Water is a whipcrack at an enemy, ice shields blocking incoming blasts of searing fire, water is the comfort of healing hands. Water is her home, and so, it's now his. Now it protects him from the enemy constantly besieging the gates of his consciousness, constantly prying into his dreams.

There's silence as Roxie approaches, and then, without opening his eyes, Aang says, "You're Katara's friend."

One eye opens, and his expression is very, very wry, as if he's laughing at some internal joke.

"Do you always ride on strange animals without thinking about the consequences?"

What dreams may come [Open, bendytimed to before GTFO plot]

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