A/N: Yeah, yeah I started something new and haven't continued Mobzilla. I've been being screwed over a bunch with work and stuff and just haven't had the time proper, and when I finally had time, this popped out instead of the next Mobzilla chapter.
I'll detail more of what's going on here at the end.
Fun fact: turns out we aren't legally obliged to put disclaimers, because FanFiction has its OWN series of disclaimers that protects us.
Convoy
Soaring through the night sky at nearly mach one, one thousand feet above the Si Wong Desert, Zuko Ogata, aka, Fire Lord, finally spotted his target. Focusing his eyes on the convoy below, he spoke as clearly as he could, so the mic attached to his throat would pick it up, "Tailor, I need a scan."
The voice of Teo Sato, alias Tailor, responded, "…Okay, I have a fix on your position, and- lucky for you, one of your satellites has a good read on that area. Just give me a second…"
After a moment, he spoke up again, "Pretty straight forwards convoy. Two armored cars trailing the semi, and an APC leading it. The semi itself is more armored than your usual highway variety. As for people, the cars each carry only two people; a driver, and, presumably, a gunner, as both are outfitted with turrets. The armor covering both the APC and the truck is too thick to get solid readings, though we can assume they both are carrying militia, and- wait… okay, the truck is giving off some sort of exotic energy… none of the satellites scanners can discern what it is…"
"That's probably what they stole from the Bureau."
"I still don't understand why they couldn't tell us what it is."
"National security. Which means that its either something thats really dangerous, can be turned into something dangerous, or will activate something dangerous."
"Sounds just like something the Earth Empire would be drooling over. Think Black Flame is going to sell it to them?"
"I don't know, and I'd rather not risk it. I'm going in."
"Good luck, Fire Lord."
"Thanks, Tailor."
At that moment, Zuko angled himself downwards, and increased the power of the flames being emitted from his hands and feet.
Whoever was crewing the APC didn't even see it coming. One moment the vehicle was driving fine, the next minute, there was a large explosion and the carrier flipped, and, after a few moments of tumbling, became a roadblock to the other vehicles it was leading.
The semi trailer truck came to a complete stop, while the armored cars swung around it, taking defensive positions on either side of the cargo container it was hauling. The gunners looked around nervously, knowing full well just what it probably was that was stalking them.
There was a beat of silence, then all hell broke loose.
Zuko jumped from his hiding spot behind the APC with his twin single-edged broadswords drawn. He shot towards the truck and with a swing, the front end, engine black and all, was sliced into pieces. The driver panicked and got out to run, but Zuko kicked a piece of truck at the man, striking him in the head, the man fell to the ground, dead. The gunners let loose, the mounted machine gun turrets spewing dozens of rounds a second. He held up an arm, even though the bullets wouldn't hurt him any more than a rubber band would, rounds to the face tend to make seeing things a bit difficult.
He poured energy into both of the blades, and in a swift movement, swung one at each car. Arcs of fiery yellow energy left both blades an impacted the dark red vehicles, sending them onto their roofs. With this, he folded the swords away and into the sheath he wore on his back. He could hear the doors to the semi opening, as well as the overturned APC, while the swords were great at taking down vehicles and tough objects, they tended to make hand-to-hand fights literal blood baths. While he wasn't adverse to violence or killing, he wasn't a fan of being covered in blood.
Within seconds, a force of about twenty armed men and women, all dressed in the black fatigues of the Black Flame militia, surrounded him, aiming their assault rifles at his chest. He grinned at them, "Well?"
It took just that one syllable to get them shooting, and with that, Zuko tore into the modest force. Fighting was second nature to him. Between his stint in Fire Nation special forces and the last two years spent as Fire Lord, fighting packs of ordinary humans was one of the easiest things he could do. It helped being several hundred times stronger than the average man, and at least a hundred times faster.
It didn't take even a minute before all twenty men and women were laid out on the ground, all either dead or dying. Zuko brushed off his hands and walked around to the container's doors.
The doors to the cargo container were still open from when the militia had disembarked, but as he put a hand on the ledge to climb in, something shot from the darkness, latched onto his shoulders, and tossed him several dozen yards away.
He righted himself in mid air, and dug his feet into the ground, skidding to a halt. His eyes widened, "Zhao?"
"Hello, Fire Lord." The cocky grin was large on the captain's face today, as he strut forwards with his arms spread, "Surprised?" He glanced at the wrecked armored car he was walking by. With seemingly very little effort, he picked it up, and threw it at Zuko.
A blast of fire reduced the car to scrap, and he began staring at the Black Flame captain, trying to discern why the man was suddenly so strong.
Zhao grinned and tapped his cheek, and Zuko's eyes zeroed in on the patch of red scales decorating it, and then he realized Zhao's eyes were glowing gold, more similar to Zuko's than the dark amber they were the last time the two met. "What the…?"
"A little present from the higher ups from actually surviving one of your attacks. Now I'm something more similar to you."
Zuko rifled through possibilities, and the only plausible one had very unsettling implications.
Zuko assessed his situation, one on hand, a megalomaniac was now a superhuman. On the other hand, he didn't have to hold back to avoid turning his enemy into a blood stain. A slight smirk granted his lips, as he stood up and got into a fighting stance, fire igniting and surrounding his hands.
Zhao grinned, "I wonder what it'll be like, removing your head from your body."
"Well, I guess you'll just have to keep wondering that," with those words, he shot a laser-like beam of heat energy from his hands, knocking the captain onto his back. He used the time Zhao took to get back on his feet to close the distance and engage the older man in hand-to-hand combat.
Zuko was unpleasantly surprised as to the strength boost Zhao received. The captain was almost his equal.
The keyword was 'almost'.
Zhao hadn't spent most of his life training with supernatural strength and speed, and he definitely never trained with someone who was just as frighteningly strong.
The captain made him fight for it though, he could take most of what Zuko could dish out, and could fight back pretty damn well. And while Zhao couldn't produce fire of his own, he was definitely more resistant to the heat than a normal human.
It took ten minutes of punches, kicks, counters and grapples until Zuko found his moment. He got through Zhao's guard, and- seeing as he could withstand even the stronger blows Zuko could dish out- decided that more drastic, less refined measured were needed. He grabbed the man and hurled him into the sky, and quickly followed him, flames emitted from his feet and hand propelling him upwards. Within a few seconds he caught up to Zhao, and proceeded to haul back and punch the man back towards the ground.
The impact Zhao made was strong enough to made a hundred-foot wide crater, with the captain at the center. However, when Zuko landed, he was astonished to see Zhao rolling over to get back on his feet. Gabbing him again, Zuko threw Zhao into the wrecked APC, the force causing the APC to slide backwards and smack against what remained of the front of the semi trailer truck.
Zuko stalked towards the captain, as the man staggered to his feet, "You're good Zhao, but I'm just better."
Zhao's eyes flashed, and, before Zuko could react, hefted the APC like a bat and smacked Zuko away.
As Zuko got up, lights flashed and the whole area was illuminated from above as a massive aircraft descended from the clouds over the cargo container. It resembled an airplane, though, from the way it was hovering, was some kind of VTOL craft Zuko had never seen before. Four cables were shot from its underbelly and anchored to the container.
Zhao laughed, "Looks like my ride's here." He regarded the shocked expression on Zuko's face and grinned even wider, "My job was to kill you if you showed up, but, worst-case scenario, just keep you busy until a new transport got here!" He hopped onto the container and gave a jaunty wave to his enemy as the ship began to rise.
Zuko growled and got to his feet, only for the ship to shoot several grenades at him. He rolled his eyes and stepped forwards, knowing grenades would have very little effect on him. However, when they detonated against his chest and at his feet, instead of a slight warmth following the blasts, it was extreme cold.
He fell to a knee as his strength was sapped, his heat going into overdrive to prevent his body from being frostbitten, rather than into combat.
However, Zuko was not one easily beaten. He forcibly drew energy away from protecting him and into his hand, forming a glowing, rotating disc. He threw it as hard as he could and hoped for the best.
Luck was on his side, and the disc sliced through two of the cables, and the sheer weight of the container, combined with the drop caused by two of the cables snapping, broke the other two. Zhao cursed loudly and grabbed hold of a segment of cable attached to the ship, and attempted to nab one trailing off the container, however it fell too fast, and Zuko was recovering, looking madder than ever.
Knowing that he would not be able to withstand further combat with the younger man, and not willing to risk his ride out of the desert, Zhao looked up and into the ship, made a slicing motion with his free arm and the ship began to fly off. As he passed over Zuko, he shouted, "This isn't over, Fire Lord! One day, you will fall!"
Zuko followed Zhao and the ship with his eyes until they left.
"Quite a show."
"Teo, you saw all of that, right?"
"Heard it too. What the fuck could've made him so strong?"
"Dragon DNA. Somehow, Black Flame either has a living dragon, a corpse, or a descendent like myself."
"Well, that's fantastic. What I see as bad news his how high-tech that ship was. I know we knew Black Flame has some serious cash, but this… they're not just buying the best, they're making their own."
Zuko rubbed a hand over his face and pulled the tie holding his hair in a top-knot off, and regathered it into a long ponytail, "Let's see what the mystery item is."
He walked over to the cargo container, which had largely survived its drop, sans a few cracks in the steel, and had even managed to land on its underside, rather than flipping over.
Opening the door, Zuko ignited a flam in his hand and held it up for light. The only thing in the container was another, smaller container, which more resembled a steamer trunk than anything else. With a yank, he pulled it open, and stared, perplexed as to what he was looking at.
There, nestled in shaped foam, was a sheathed longsword.
"Well. That's disappointing."
"What is it?"
"A sword." He picked it up and turned it over in his hands a few times. The sheath was simple and black, and had a leather strap. He drew the sword from the sheath, his eyebrows arching as he saw the blade itself, "A black sword."
"That doesn't make sense, I'm getting a huge energy reading from inside that container… take the sword outside, I want to see if that's it."
Zuko shook his head but complied, sheathing the sword in the process, and "I'm telling you, there's probably something under the foam the sword was in, or embedded in the floor of the crate, or-"
"Sweet Kolau, that thing is the source! While I can't get a bead on just what the energy is… put it this way, if the energy was pure heat, it would be like holding thermite. Though, you'd probably be fine if that were the case."
Zuko regarded the weapon for a few more seconds, before slinging it onto his back, "Whatever. I just want to get this back to the Bureau, go home, and get to sleep. Uncle wants me to work the shop tomorrow." He threw power to his hands and feet, and took off into the sky.
Zhao took a knee, placing his right hand over his heart and keeping his eyes trained on the ground, "I failed you sir, the sword was lost. I'm sorry." He fell into a full kowtow, "I'll gladly take whatever punishments you feel-"
"Captain."
"…sir?"
"Rise, and look at me."
Zhao did so, was was surprised to see, instead of a look of chastisement or a glare of disgust, a smile of faint amusement dancing over his leader's face.
"Do not fret, Captain Zhao. While the sword would've helped, it was not vital to our plans." The man rose, and walked around his desk, placing a hand on Zhao's shoulder, "No, the real reason for stealing the blade was to test how your enhancements would hold up against the pest. It is obvious further modification is required."
"I am sor-"
"Do not be sorry, Zhao, we figured this may happen. That Fire Lord character is strong, so we will just have to make you stronger." The hand withdrew and joined the other behind the man's back, "You are dismissed, Captain, report to the laboratory tomorrow at noon for the next procedure."
"Yessir, General Ozai."
A/N: I've been planning on doing this for a while, I only just started now, though.
I'm not going to do a continuous narrative (maybe mini-arcs at most), just a series of interconnected oneshots that detail this alternate world, what the alternate world Gaang is up to, and whatnot.
I toyed with the idea of making Zuko a badass normal, akin to batman (with the Alias Blue Spirit) but I kept on just writing Batman, so I ditched it, and made him something more akin to the human torch. I kept the Batman-y elements in that he is actually trained to fight hand-to-hand and doesn't just blast shit apart, and he is more of a tactical fighter than a showboater, and prefers to think around problems than smash through them. Though, smashing is a good alternative.
As for aesthetics, what I picture and will hopefully end up getting across is a sort of halfway point between comic and reality. I couldn't find a way to put in his clothing description without it sounding ham-fisted.
The base of his outfit resembles military fatigues, though kind of tight, with a black and dark red camo pattern. Over this is black armor decorating his upper torso, and knee-high black armored boots. The sleeves stop at his elbow to make fire ending easier. In the center of his chest, bridging the armor pieces covering his pectorals, is a golden flame symbol. On his back is his sword sheath, at his belt, a knife as well as a few pouches containing tools useful for recon and infiltration missions. He keeps his identity safe with a gold trimmed, black domino mask.
(Just a bit more in this long A/N)
The Black Flame is a covert paramilitary terrorist organization, intent on making the world bow to it (think HYDRA) and are the primary antagonist organization.
And, yes, Zuko's abilities are from having a distant dragon ancestor, though, at this point, true dragons are extinct, leaving only part-human descendants (which Zuko is one of the last four) or engineered abominations like Zhao.
On national spirits:
Like most of fanon, I've made the Fire spirit Agni, and, as in canon, Tui and La are still the water spirits. Two new additions were made because I wanted an Air Nomad deity, and I didn't want to go with Oma and Shu for the Earth Kingdom (it'd be like swearing to Romeo and Juliet) so I took two of the names of mountain chains, Kolau and Patola, and made Kolau the Earth spirit, and Patola the Air spirit.
I think that about wraps this up…
NEXT TIME: We get a glimpse into the mysterious, lethal, rogue assassin: Kyoshi-4