Back in order: The return of the Outsiders

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara had a sinking feeling a few weeks ago. She knew it was another memory loss: she could feel it, somewhere in the back of her head, that she'd forgotten the memories of people precious to her, and then it went off like a flag. Whoever that was must have spearheaded the Outsiders because now she couldn't remember the name of the leader anymore. So for the time being, until they decided who they wanted as their leader, she wanted to spearhead the campaign of making sure that The Outsiders didn't disband or fall apart without their leaders.

Besides, it was time they did some new stuff and got some members anyway.

She reached the hotel a few hours ahead of schedule for good reason: since all of the mission, it had gotten untidy, and Katara wasn't one to let that continue for too long. She'd gone floor to floor, dusting, washing and beating the dust off of anything she could find. She was straightening the frames, washing out the excess debris since the nightmare King fiasco and finally carefully cleaning the statue of Brainy Bot someone had made. She looked up at a moment, smiling, then turned her attention to the couch with that weird sign on it. She'd forgotten the details, but it had something to do with a crisis that had happened on Carol's world...she thought. She couldn't keep track of all of the things that happened in other people's worlds. It was too much information to keep up with.

She finally settled back to the front of the building, sitting down at the head of where all the tables and chairs, and stared going through the list of people she could still recall were in the Outsiders.

Shadow the Hedgehog

Shadow

Sokka

Mai

Haku

Alessa (?)

She sighed. She knew there were more people than this, but it HAD been awhile since they met In any case, now she was hoping she could get a more comprehensive list of people still in or at least willing to join the Outsiders. Courtesy of Matt, she'd gotten some refreshments, and there was now a big sign that said: OUTSIDERS: EXISTING AND NEW MEMBERS WELCOME on a banner if front of the motel.

She was also hoping, along with Toph, Sokka and Mai arriving, that a certain bald headed monk might make an appearance too.

Comments

[bears-omnitrix.livejournal.com]

"I was a kid given superpowers. It was the only option," chuckled Swampfire.

"That's pretty cool," said Swampfire as he transformed back to Ben in a blip of green light. "My cousin Gwen does about the same thing, but she combines physical attacks with what people would call magic. She bends the mana in the universe to her whim, and it manifests in a pink light."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

"I know what you mean," Katara said, "And at the same time, when I lost control as a kid, I could crack icebergs!"

Katara frowned at the idea of bending anything to her whim. "I can do that to, with the physical attacks: in fact, that's what I'm training for right now, to fight without my bending if i ever need to. Don't get me wrong though: I would never say that I bend water to MY will. In a way, we both coexist as things of nature."

[bears-omnitrix.livejournal.com]

Ben nodded, thinking of Gwen's powers. "Gwen well, our grandmother Verdona is an Anodyte, a being that is literally made out of the Energy of the Universe." And you could hear the capitalization in those words. "Gwen was born with the same spark, but even before that she earned her black belt in karate and jujitsu. She was scary as a kid, more-so as an adult."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara shook he head. That world really almost sounded too good to be true. She supposed if you studied martial arts in all that time, you could certainly get a black belt, but being made out of the energy of the universe TOO? That was almost Avatar kind of stuff, and it made her head spin.

"You guys must have had a lot to deal with in your world then," Katara said. "Hopefully, yours didn't have a war like mine did that nearly tore the world apart!"

[bears-omnitrix.livejournal.com]

"Ah heh... actually we did." said Ben, rubbing his head. Why was he finding all of these parallels? Seriously!

"Back home about a half a year ago, there was an invasion from a race known as the Highbreed, an alien race bent on exterminating mankind because they believed in racial purity, and because their own DNA was damaged after centuries of manipulation to it, they decided to wipe out the residents of the galaxy and then take themselves out. I managed to befriend one of them and he helped when we went to their home planet and confronted their leaders. It was pretty much all out war, but the war on our end was fought with 10 people vs a hundred or more."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara laughed. "Well, its not really something funny, but it is a crazy coincidence that we would have that similarity, you know? It wasn't any fun to live through, but we did, and grew stronger for that reason."

Here, the conversation took a darker turn. Katara gestured to the statue of Braniac 5. "I don't know if you heard about this, or were here for it, but in one of our missions, we lost him due to some oversights and lack of information on our parts. I'm not saying we'll ever be able to save every single person and win every skirmish or anything...but I want us to be something that remembers things like Braniac 5's sacrifice for the ship. It seems like a lifetime away, but I won't ever forget. That's why I'm training in a few different disciplines: I will always be a waterbender, but if I'm without water, I need to find a way to defend myself and my friends."

[bears-omnitrix.livejournal.com]

"I didn't think so, but it's good to know." Ben looked up at the statue and nodded. "I know how it is to lose people. I thought Max died nearly a year ago taking out a Highbreed ship. And it nearly wrecked me too. But I'm definitely planning on learning more."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara nodded. "It's been difficult to get the people on the ship to really think as a family. A lot of the time we get thrown into arguments: who's evil in one reality, who's angry about one thing over another. I'll admit that I wasn't much better when I got here, but so much has changed since then."

She grinned and clasped Ben's hand. "I'm really glad to hear that! As soon as we get a leader for the Outsiders, we can even start training sessions!"

[bears-omnitrix.livejournal.com]

Ben grinned, clasping Katara's back. "Sounds great! I've been a bit of a teacher myself so I can help in any way I can."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara returned the smile. "Oh good! I'm still learning from some people here too: I know martial arts, waterbending, and I'm learning the ways of the Bene Gesserit, but it would be great to have someone else instructing too!"

[bears-omnitrix.livejournal.com]

"Well I'm no black belt, that's my cousin. But I'll give it a shot! I usually help Max anyhow with training the rookies before we sent them off to Plumber Academy." said Ben with a grin. "And besides, they'll never be able to keep up. I can be dang scary when I wanna be."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara shook her head. "I would say it probably wouldn't be a good idea to scare them, but I've seen a lot of different training methods. Who knows? A little bit of difficulty might actually get people motivated to train more. It worked for me!"

Why did that name sound familiar? "Oh wait, you're Ben, Irma's..." Katara trailed off. "Uh...friend!"

[bears-omnitrix.livejournal.com]

Ben was about to reply that all sorts of motivation would be good for a mostly motley grew of people when the mention of Irma caught him off guard. He pinked in the cheeks just a little and rubbed his head. "Oh you've met Irma? Yeah, she and I met a while ago."

Truthfully he hadn't spoken to Irma in a while, but he figured he should. Considering Nura's attempts at hooking him and Sophia up. Things might get messy then. "Has she been talking about me?"

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara reddened a little herself. She really should know better than to go blurting things out like this, but now that she was actually talking to Ben she could do a little matchmaking of her own. AFter all, she wouldn't mind having one of her girlfriends hooking up with a nice guy.

"A little bit," Katara admitted, "But I can't get into details. It's kind of an unspoken girl talk thing, you undestand. Although..." Katara paused. "You might want to take the initiative with her. Irma is a pretty impulsive girl, and she likes a guy who keeps her interested. Show her some things she might not have seen before! I mean, you know, if you want my advice."

[bears-omnitrix.livejournal.com]

ERK! Another girl who... oh geez...

Ben fought the urge to facepalm and simply grinned. "Believe me if it was that easy... well, maybe it is but um... I could give it a try?"

"Come to think about it, I only know the basics about her for the most part. She likes water, music..."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

"You should," Katara said. "I don't mean to stick my nose where it doesn't belong or anything...it was just something she happened to mention. I don't get to talk with her as much as I wish I did, don't get me wrong. But I feel like she's definitely worth getting to know better."

Here, Katara grinned. "Yeah, you can see how the water thing is somethings he and I have in common."

[bears-omnitrix.livejournal.com]

Ben grinned and nodded. "I'll keep it in mind next time I swing by her place then. And don't worry, I get a lot of advice from people on how to handle girls."

"Definitely. It's pretty cool though. I don't have really any water based aliens, save for one or two."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara sighed. "I know it seems like I shouldn't say anything since we just met and everything, but what can I say? I'm a sucker for relationships: helping them along, anyway."

As for her own...well, that was complicated.

"Too bad Irma and I don;t count as aliens, we might help there!"

[bears-omnitrix.livejournal.com]

Ben laughed and rubbed his head. "It's alright, I'm good with the idea really!"

"Oh that's fine, I've got enough human baselines in here. I just don't want to get stuck as another person, you know?"

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara was glad. She was sure that, without realizing it, she may have gotten a little too advice-y. Where had she had this feeling before?

"Makes sense. I mean, I wouldn't mind having to look like aliens, but i don;t know if I'd want to look like someone else, you know?"

[bears-omnitrix.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. I guess it's how Albedo feels, being locked looking like me. He's an alien, made this Ultimatrix by combining Azmuth's technology with his own." Ben shrugged. "Really doesn't like me."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara did looked a little forlorn by this information. She hadn't expected it, of course. "Wait, so the person who made this technology has to look like you now? How come?"

[bears-omnitrix.livejournal.com]

"Well, this one at any rate. The real creator's Azmuth, and Albedo was one of his assistants who made a Omnitrix as well. But it sort of backfired and locked him into the default which is set to me. He tried getting mine to undo the damage, but was willing to uh, kill me for it."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara did NOT like the sound of that. "I'm glad you didn't let him then," she said. "I'm not s stranger to strengths like ours inspiring other people to try and kill to prevent it though. Sometimes people are very hard to understand."

Instinctively, her hand went to her necklace: the last heirloom of her mother.

[bears-omnitrix.livejournal.com]

"Well Albedo was never really an understanding kind of person anyhow," admitted Ben with a shrug of his shoulders. He knew that the former Galvan was hell-bent on turning himself back, and proving that he was superior. Now it seemed negligible at best.