trans_9 | Last Straw

Entry tags:

Last Straw

She went straight to the Sensoriums. Her feelings were all over the place, and she had to get away from people right now. She remembered all too well what happened to Alex when he lost Luna: she knew she had to find a way to take her aggression out. There was pain and self loathing and unspeakable things she was sorting through, but right now it was nothing but anger she was feeding on. She closed her eyes when she entered, concentrating on the enemies she;s fought while she'd been on the ship.

The Terminators. The T-Rex. The Nightmare King's monster minions. The traps Hal had laid for them. They came one at a time but Katara was ready, steeling herself to calmly maneuver out of the traps, to find a way to take down the terminator most efficiently, and those alone took more than a few hours. It was when she got to the nightmare King's minions, however, that Katara stopped being cautious. Now she ripped into them, stabbing at them with ice shards and freezing them on the spot before blowing through them, and slowly her determined face gave away to that of rage. As she started to remember their fights, their hugs, their talks, she switched to the Bene Gesserit fighting style, her hits were starting to get more serious, leaving many injured in her wake, though she received a few cuts herself. When she was done an hour later, it faded, all of it, and she was left in water, where she had heard Sokka once talk to Toph about how she'd been like a mother to her, and she couldn't stand it anymore. She let out a scream, primal and pained.

"WHY?! WHY BRING HIM HERE JUST TO TAKE HIM AWAY?! ALL THIS TIME, JUST TO TAKE HIM AND NOT HAVE AANG HERE AND MAKE ZUKO FORGET WHAT WE ALL DID?? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!?"

And she dissolved into tears here, the sun sinking into the clouds and leaving a dark, lonely pond.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Good," the Overlord said, with an odd motion that approximated a nod and looked very strange. He seemed pleased.

"Wasn't much of a fight, though. You kept winning."

Katara grinned. "It wasn't that way the first time, but I learn. With the Ohm it won't be as clean, but I'll do what I can. Its why I train."

She smiled. "If you can still bring up those simulations, it would help."

"What, mine?" He frowned, thinking quickly. "You are SO not suited to be an apprentice, but I could put you through some of the ones I hit Ruffnut with. Crank it up a little, make some adjustments for all that wacky stuff you do..."

Katara gave him a piercing look. "I would so BE an awesome apprentice, but I'm not going for that, thank you! I was just asking for simulations. We need to be prepared for the Ohm, and that won't happen by playing things safe."

Even grieved, Katara still had her eyes on the things that were necessary for the Outsiders.

"You would not." Zetta wasn't being harsh at all, simply matter-of-fact. "You've got entirely the wrong attitude. All this caring and worrying and being a good person. How could I make an Overlord out of THAT? You'd probably hesitate to conquer a Netherworld and rule it tyrannically, so...."

Actually, he was having a hard time not snickering at the thought, if truth be known.

"But what I was thinking was, it might help you take your mind off it to have a more... you know, structured sort of fight. Instead of just rage smash rage smash ice water thing dies."

Katara snorted. "Well of course I wouldn't do any of that. I had enough people in my world running around conquering everything and making chaos. If that's what you do, its now wonder we disagree on everything!"

She thought a minute. "That would be a good idea, yes. I don't usually fight like this, I was just really upset anyway. A real fight would be a lot more intense, with risk and stealth and narrow avoiding of death. The last time I fought the Oh, it was a lot like that. I was lucky there was a full moon out, or I wouldn't have been able to bloodbend."

"I'm a demon," Zetta said, not the least bit put out by her criticism. "That's how we do things. But it's not chaos. I haven't had a challenge from my own personal Netherworld in twenty-five thousand years. I bet your world doesn't even have just one ruler, and how often does THAT job turn over and mess everything up while the new ones are getting settled?"

Zetta: Force of order and stability in the cosmos. If lightning doesn't strike him right now, it's only because he ranks above the

"Wait... bloodbend?"

Here, Katara didn't really look too happy. It wasn't because of the demon part: she didn't know a whole lot about demons anyway. But one ruler presiding over everything she knew about, all right: it had been the whole reason for the war in her world.

"They tried to make it under one ruler," Katara said, taking another swig. "The Firelord. But doing that meant he killed off the airbender, imprisoned all of the Southern waterbenders and tried to decimate the Earth kingdom. I don't know how you go about managing your world, you might even be a good overlord. But in my world, all that ever did was destroy families and ruin lives."

And for the NEXT explanation, she took along breath.

"Blood bend. It only happens during a full moon. I'm a waterbending master...so I can actually manipulate the water in anyone that is made of water, and most people, as you know are. Well, that day with the Ohm, I found out they were mostly made of water too."

Edited 2010-10-26 13:48 (UTC)

"Coward!" Zetta looked and sounded exactly as disgusted as he felt. "How the hell did someone with no spine at all ever get up to that level? No, Katara, that's not how you do it if you want to do it right," he growled. "You don't kill people. That shows you fear them. Or that you fear losing someday, one or the other. And besides, it's better to leave the guy who lost alive, so he has to live knowing he lost."

It's a strange code the Overlord lives by.

"Why only a full moon? I mean... they're not MORE blood then than at any other time, are they?"

"Three generations of putting people down is how," Katara said, not fully able to contain the bitterness in her voice. "The military of the Fire Nation spent a hundred years waging war all over the other nations, causing destruction and subjugating others. It was because of them I lost my mother."

She turned her head a moment, unwilling to let anyone see that look on her face: a mixture of pain and resentment still.

"But we did win, and Aang, the person who headed our rebellion, DID beat the Firelord without killing him too. Everyone thought he should, but he didn't want to have blood on his hands. So he found a way to remove his bending permanently."

She shook her head. "Waterbenders are at their peak during the full moon: it was the moon's control of the tides that is the origin of waterbending. The way it pushed and pulled, that was the basis of how we learned to do it."

"Hyaaa ha ha ha! I like that! Leave him forever aware of just how badly he blew it and got schooled. That's a good win in my book. See, pissing people off like he did to everybody is just asking for someone to come up and drop you. Bad strategy."

To conclude that Zetta has succeeded, at least a little, in distracting Katara is to imply the Overlord has a level of cunning that just doesn't quite mesh with his hopelessly staightforward nature.

"The moon doesn't turn water to ice though... how's that fit in?"

"Doing something like that is what makes people want to kill you in the first place," Katara said, remembering the craziness in Azula's eyes. "The better heroes don't kill unless they have absolutely no choice, and I MEAN no choice. You don't get stronger and better by resorting to the same methods as the person that did it in the first place."

Oh, she got it all right: it wasn't like the Overlord was just talking to make conversation, but she wouldn't mention it.

"I said they were the basis," Katara said, "but as we learned to control the water, naturally we would learn to make it freeze over too, not to mention make it architecture, shielding, weapons...there is a lot to do with water."

Edited 2010-10-26 16:19 (UTC)

Katara underestimated what a total chatterbox Zetta was. Seriously, for a badass freakin' Overlord, he sure seemed to love to yak.

"So... you kicked the moon's ass at its own job," Zetta said. Appreciatively, at that. "That actually sounds pretty neat." Not that he had a use for the non-war implementations of the technique.

Katara laughed a little at that. "We don't quite think of it in that way. The moon played an important part in what we are, and without it we wouldn't be where we are. But like any student, we try to surpass the teacher with what we learn. That's why its always important to keep training and bettering yourself. I'm glad Ruffnut is training with you, you know. She has a lot of energy."

God help whoever trained that little girl.

"Hyaaa ha ha ha! I love that kid!" Ruffnut was... an oddly good match for Zetta. "Soul of a demon! She'll never surpass me, but if she doesn't surpass everyone ELSE, I'll be surprised." He looked a bit smug and satisfied for a moment.

"So... this bending-water thing... if you guys learned it, how come it's a tribe? I mean, if you figured it out, why can't anyone?" Not that he's being critical, just curious. All new forms of power fascinate Zetta, inasmuch as he wants to know what might appear on the scene someday when things are back to normal. He may be dumb as a post, but it's a reasonably capable post in terms of tactical matters.

Katara nodded. "Ruffnut is really amazing from what I saw. But you know I think it would also be good to have someone train the little girl too. She seemed really violent and I thought it was crazy to even be there with her, but I feel like there was some untapped potential there too. When I saw her refuse help, it was like...she had something to prove, I don't know. Do you know anyone who would be able to help her train too?"

It wasn't a big thing, it just reminded her a little of Toph when she first saw her.

She put up her hand. "Only some of us have the ability. Largely we're a tribe because of where we live, the South Pole. The rest of the tribe are still training to just fight against the fire nation, but all of us as a whole are a family, protecting each other and looking out. With the Southern Tribe, all of our benders were taken, except for one. So the men of our tribe journeyed to join the earth kingdom in fighting the fire nation."

He could make a guess at the last "one" of the waterbenders.

"Eh," Zetta said with a shrug in his voice. "She wants to be a hero. I can't train that. I mean... specifically. I could probably pull off some generalities, I like her style. Did she actually ever join the Outsiders? Since I seem to be meeting most of you lately, I swear." Zetta trailed off into muttering to himself, something about minions and Overlording, before Katara's next words drew him back.

"And that fire guy was fought and beaten. I'm guessing with your help somewhere along the line."

Did she want to be a hero? Katara wasn't sure, though she definitely had been dressed like one. "I didn't hear, actually. I feel like she's looking for something though, and whatever that is, it involves fighting. I can ask her next time I see her, but I think Beastboy might do that first."

She shook her head. "No, Aang faced him alone. I had to fight the Fire Lord's daughter. She was just as dangerous though."

She had; Zetta remembered that clearly. Brutality like she'd shown marked the difference between a hero, who wanted to protect, defend, or end, and a villain, who wanted strength and power. Also... "With a costume like that, yeah. Hero." He seemed so damn amused by that.

"That sounds like helping in my book. Even if it wasn't directly against the fire guy."

After a moment, Zetta realized what he'd just said, and made a noise midway between a groan and a grumble. "Uh, let's forget I ever used that phrase, 'kay?"

Katara shrugged. She still didn't get the whole hero/superhero thing anyway. "That was a pretty funky costume. I didn't think anyone could have purple hair, to be honest. It was kind of awesome. She even had a skirt that matched the color of Jamie's kilt!"

She nodded. "Well yeah. She was just as strong as he was, and maybe twice as vicious. Grown adults were pretty afraid of her. Fighting her, especially during the comet where she was ten times more powerful? Really, REALLY scary."

She giggled. "Gotcha. That pun's between us."

"Hmph. You should see the average Netherworld. She's downright bland." Considering his minion had green hair -- naturally, as much as that word implied -- he wasn't understating matters. (Considering Zetta himself had flaming hair that flickered off into bats made of that flame before fizzling... yeah.)

"So... we're in the sensorium," he said. "Show me. As much as you're willing to anyway."

"Wow. I think I'd like to see that sometime. It sounds pretty hard to believe, especially when I've never seen a costume quite like that."

Ugh. That was definitely not something she wanted to bring forth, but it was memories after all. The scenery changed, and they were at the heart of the Fire Nation capital, right where Azula was being crowned the new Fire Lord. Here Katara watched as her other part engaged Azula (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFyaiWYAL3E&feature=fvsr) (1:37, ignore the music). Katara could still feel the heat on her skin, still see the crazed look in Azula's eyes.

"She looks crazy now, and she was, but something happened back then, I'm not sure what. Before this she was one of the most competent, cruel people you'd ever meet: you can see it in her bending. She was the only firebender I ever knew that had blue fire."

Azula herself didn't impress him; he knew Seedle, after all. Her ferocity and power, though, earned a bit of a raised eyebrow. "She wasn't bad," he said. "Not much to say for absolute levels of power, but the style was there. Decent opponent."

From Zetta, was this high praise?

"Well," Katara closed her mouth, looking more than a little tense when it came to Azula. "She was definitely very strong and capable, for someone that was insane and a killer. Definitely was one of the most dangerous benders I ever face in battle."

She grinned. "Your turn."

"Uh, 'kay," Zetta said, briefly at a loss. "Whaddya wanna see?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

I miss having a video card; getting a character creation screencap would have been so easy

Re: I miss having a video card; getting a character creation screencap would have been so easy

no subject