trans_9 | The Battle That Ended The Century

Sofia walked as well, keeping on Katara's other side. "What mission?" She wanted to look for Nori as well, but Katara had helped ~~Julian~~ them and she was curious.

"Finding her boyfriend," Julian assumed. "Bald kid with tattoos."

Yes, he knew what Aang looked like.

Julian wanted to get a better look at the city, and made a noise of frustration when he once again tried-- and failed-- to access his powers. That was only made all the more annoying because Katara still had hers. Maybe it was just him and Kon, then?

He looked over at Sofia. "Do you still have your powers, or did you get flatscanned again?"

"Oh. Do not worry we-" Sofia stopped talking when Julian asked that. She glared at him in response until finally she unstuck her tongue from the roof of her mouth. "No. I do not have my powers." She couldn't have sound more venomous if she tried.

"Julian?" Oh, girls, look who joined the party. She's pretty, blonde, and powerful.

~~Move over, Sofia, Supergirl's in the meathouse.~~

She'd been walking around (http://community.livejournal.com/trans_9/306644.html?thread=23463124#t23463124), not knowing where to go, when she heard a familiar voice.

"Katara?"

It sounded like it was coming from somewhere behind a pile of blurry she-didn't-know-whats, and so she took off running.

"Katara, are you there?"

Please don't let it be a dream. Not right now.

Sheeana noticed the acrimony. It is a good thing then that a Bene Gesserit's abilities are the result of training and not accident of birth.

"He was interred fighting the Nightmare King, yes? The closer we head towards Escherville, the more likely we are to see traces of his passage." And the farther they would get from her Worm, but she would deal with that problem when it came its time. Circumstances would shift.

She noted the Aryan Uberwoman's arrival, and that of another friend of Katara's. Who is she? Tauph? Zhukau?

Katara was about to reply to the new girl (and glare at Julian because he was not just some bald kid with tattoos,he was the AVATAR) when she heard the familiar voice. Katara's no nonsense face burst with a look of momentary happy, and seeing the smaller girl trying to approach, she moved the water away from Toph so that the girl could find them more easily.

"Toph!" She cried, and brought her into the group, her hand shielding the girl from the rain. "I'm so glad you're here! I was worried something might have happened to you. Are you okay? Did the Nightmares attack you too?"

Katara motioned to the others. "Guys, this is my friend Toph from my world. She's an earthbender, so its a bit harder for her to move through all of this: it'll be easier when it turns to mud." She then nodded in the new girl's direction. "I'm Katara of the Southern Water Tribe. Who might you be?"

"Kara...," Julian answered on her behalf. Under different circumstances, he'd be thrilled to see her. He was relieved that she was alive, but part of him was wondering how he could possibly tell her that her cousin was dead.

"Kara, everyone. Everyone? Kara, Kon's cousin."

If there was any hope at all that Kon's death was just some messed up illusion...

"Do either of you two still have your powers?" he asked the new arrivals.

...Oh.

Sofia didn't quite know what she was feeling just now, but whatever it was, she didn't like it.

"I am Sofia." She tried to sound friendly but her heart wasn't in it.

"Hi," Toph said to everyone. "So, what is this? More nightmare stuff?"

"Sofia," Kara nodded at her. She walked up to Julian and hugged him, holding on maybe a second longer than she needed to. Staking her claim? Maybe. Or maybe she was just frightened. "I'm all powered out. A walk under the yellow sun would be amazing right now." She looked around. "Have you guys seen Kon?"

He hugged her back, though his heart sank at her answer and her question.

"Kon..." How could her tell her this? He decided to take it from the top. "Kon lost his powers to, we both did." So, no, Sofia, you aren't the only powerless mutant in the group.

"We ended up landing right in the middle of a hotzone when the City turned into World War II and we... we tried to get out of there," and they almost made it, despite Kon getting injured, but... "But there was an explosion, a mortal shell that landed practically on top of us. And..."

And he couldn't look her in the eyes right now, his gaze downcast.

"It landed closer to him than it did to me. He...

"He didn't make it. I'm sorry."

"We do not know that." Even if she felt an inexplicable pang of jealousy, she didn't want Kara to worry. "I dreamed that Julian, Nori, and other friends of mine were killed and Julian is still alive. It may be another trick."

Kara stared at Julian. She didn't believe the words he'd said. She didn't want to believe the words he'd said.

Kon...dead?

Kon was...No.

Kon wasn't supposed to die. Not here. Not like this. There was...there was the Crisis back home, but that wasn't supposed to happen anymore because their world was destroyed, so there was no Crisis anymore, which meant that Kon was supposed to still be alive and not dead, not dead at all, because that wasn't the way that this was supposed to work!

She fell to her knees, stunned, finding difficulty catching her breath. A string of Kryptonese words left her mouth, but it wasn't clear if she was cursing, praying, or if she'd snapped and was speaking Kryptonese gibberish. But her eyes were watering.

"Tauf, it is a pleasure to meet you. Katara has told me quite a bit about you. This is indeed more 'nightmare stuff'." Sheeana said, bowing which put her nearer the little earthbender's height.

She held her tongue at the rest. This rain was making her irritable, having to step on her instincts all the time. Speak too soon and she would be disliked.

"I am going to Escherville. The Avatar is the only one who knows very much about this threat and that was where he was last known to be. It is your choice to join me or to stay here and shed water for what you presume to be your dead." Presume because what had truly happened, she was sure, wouldn't be sorted out until well after this. It wasn't that she felt anything but indifferent towards Kon-El but news here was very unreliable.

She turned and began walking in that direction, hoping at least Katara would follow.

Katara was about to reply when she heard an all too familiar noise: it was a gun shot, and though she knew her teacher was fast enough to avoid it, that didn't stop her instinct from making her charge into Sheeana so the bullets wouldn't hit her. This was followed by several shots in their direction, and the yell of "CHARGE," which they knew wasn't good.

"New plan!" Katara yelled, keeping her head down. "Let's get to a decent shelter before we start getting sh-" A stray bullet glance at her arm and she hissed, her eyes now showing smatterings of rage. "Why you!"

She threw her hands in the air, and the water gathered, turning to frozen projectiles which she launched in the directions of the bullets. From the screams of some of the men, she knew she hit her mark. She then gathered the water and erected a shield, which was immediately starting to get riddled with bullets.

"Let's go!" She said. "I'll keep it up a moment longer so we have some cover, but we need to get to a better vantage point!"

Sheeana flattened herself to the muddy earth in a blur, thankful for Katara's waterbending. Death in cold mud would be an ignominous one for a Fremen. Pieces of grit rubbed the cuts she'd gotten earlier.

She addressed the group as well as she could from that position. "I have a shelter nearby. Everyone cover your ears and follow me!" And then she slithered on her belly to turn in the direction of the fire. "Stop! Halte! Kill yourselves! Tötung sich!" There were a couple answering pops, a bit more time, but not all of them had obeyed the Voice and there were sure to be reinforcements arriving.

And then started running in the direction of the warehouse.

Sofia had been about to yell at Sheeana for being so cold, but then they were under attack. She took Kara by the arms and gently pulled her up.

"It's all right, Kara. Your cousin may still be alive but we have to get out of here before we find out. You're strong, you can do this."

"..." Kara nodded at Sofia's words and followed Katara's instructions. Artemis had once told her that it was alright to run from a fight, to keep on running until she reached a point where she could make it hers, and from there, she could stop and take over the fight.

Right now, Kara had none of her powers. No weapons.

So she ran.

Fighting for his mere survival. They story of his life. He didn't have time to really worry about that, though. He never really did.

"Let's go!" He grabbed Toph and yanked her along. He didn't have his powers or any weapons anymore either, but his entire day so far had been a continuous running gun battle.

"Hey - whoa - wait!"

She didn't like the fact that this guy had her by the hand, but at least she could figure out which way to go thanks to him. Keeping up wasn't a problem. Seeing anything clearly was.

"Katara," she said while she ran, "you know where Aang is? Are we going to get him?"

Katara was grateful for Sheeana's voice command, so much so in fact that she was going to overlook the whole "kill yourselves" thing. As far as she knew, they were both figments and working for the Nightmare King, not to mention shooting at them with guns. It would be very hard for her to feel sympathy.

Katara and Sheeana were the first to reach the shelter, and Katara started to gather the water in her hands again. It was still raining, which was good: it would give her a chance to level things for her team. She gathered the water until it became something to be reckoned with: it was starting to get very, very big, and so she waited until she heard more of the man gathering, waiting to try and take them. With a grunt of effort, she pushed the tidal wave forward: the screams of surprise and fear let her know that she'd gotten a few of them, and that was good: that shock was going to give them just enough time.

She drew a large breath and created a cloud of for for them: it wasn't going to last because the rain kept coming, but it WOULD give them just enough time to take the others by surprise. She motioned to Sofia, Julian, Sheeana and Kara.

"The cover will confuse them for a little while, and they're still recovering. You guys start taking them down quickly, while we have them unaware. Toph and I are about to make their terrain slicker, and start hitting them with mud balls. Try to stay together so no one gets injured by any of their guns. After that...well, we'll deal with after as it comes. Toph? Help me start gathering our earth. We're going to go after them catapult style."

They could talk about Aang later. Living was the important thing at the moment. Besides, she was sure Sokka and Zuko were looking for him right now.

Kara nodded at Katara's commands. The girl seemed like she knew what she was talking about, and she wasn't going to argue with logic.

They were taking the stance now - they were making the fight their own.

They could do this.

Kara moved into an offensive stance shown to her by Artemis. "Let's do this, then," she nodded.

Unpowered, no weapons, vastly outnumbered.

"This is familiar." Sofia muttered to herself.

Sheeana's shelter was a dying fire and some crude barriers built under the overhanging awning of a great warehouse next to a bombed out airfield. Inside the corrugated steel warehouse, her worm paced, uneasy from the moisture. Perhaps Toph could sense the seismic disturbance.

The fog meant Sheeana could not bring her worm into play now, but there was no time to explain that to Katara. So close too...

She had to flatten herself to the ground again as a spray of bullets whizzed over the spot she was just at. One had grazed her ribs, opening a cut there, an otherwise superficial wound. The fog made for spastic, inaccurate fire.

She crawled into the warehouse, reaching up to pull the door open. She felt as if she were much smaller again, being hustled away from the Honored Matres' attack. Darwi was not here to save her though, save in Other Memory.

The sound of boots came after her. They will come for me... She thought and they did, opening bursts of fire clearing the space. Sheeana had hidden herself though, behind the great shadow...

...Which resolved itself into the Worm, and crushed the three men, rolling over them until they were mushy pulp beneath their grey longcoats and oddly shaped helmets.

"Over here! Weapons!" She called from the doorway to her erstwhile comrades and began calming the worm with whispered words and strokes of its leathery hide. The blood and moisture it disliked immensely.

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