Disclaimer: This is a fanfiction about the upcoming 2012 Nick Cartoon "Avatar Korra: The Last Airbender. I don't own any of these characters, but they will most likely be very un-canon. Mainly because no one knows anything about any of them.
Author's Note: This is my first Avatar fanfiction and I'm really excited for you all to read it. I created it because I was excited about the new Avatar and wanted it so badly. I hope you like what I have!
A young girl stood before a growing metropolis. Smoke and steam were billowing from the tall metal buildings. The swirls of smoke and mist drifted about the horizon, with the fire of the setting sun shining through it. She wiggled her toes in her warm polar- pigskin boots, feeling the metal underneath her. She knew every compound, every piece of earth that went into making it. She had to if she wanted to bend it properly. Things would be different in a place like this. A place like this wasn't home to her, not someone like her. And that's why she was uneasy about finding someone like him in a place like this. She gritted her teeth, and she could feel sparks developing on her fingertips.
The world always prized a good bender. Someone with power, someone who could help others when regular human abilities failed. Spirituality and bending were the center of all four nations' culture, even when they felt so different otherwise. But science is progressing, and there are now answers to the questions that seemed too big to answer before. The answers that only the spirits could ever know were in the hands of mortal people. Logic was now overpowering faith, and the culture of this new expanding world was changing.
So many thoughts were whirling through this young girl's head. But she soon settled on one concrete conclusion as she stared at the sun swimming in smoke above the horizon, "I'm needed, and regardless of if they want me, I will give them what they need." This girl had so many responsibilities, so many pressures, but she was equipped. She was going to finish her training, and do what she's destined to do because the young girl standing on small railroad bridge was the Avatar.
Korra coughed violently and then her gaze at the developing city began to deepen. She furrowed her eyebrows and grimaced at the metal beams and concrete floors of this new place.
Where would the son of Avatar Aang live?
She grumbled under her breath and took out a tiny white notebook out of her pocket. In a fumbled scrawl read the words, "Tenzin lives in Republic City".
"Aren't monks supposed to love nature and are most at home floating in an air temple in the middle of nowhere? Why would he be here?" she whispered to herself. Suddenly she heard a man's laugh in the distance. She looked around but she could see no one. She rolled her dark green-blue eyes and started to sit down when a blast of air and blur knocked her off her perch.
"What the-?" she screamed in confusion as her legs were dangling over the rushing murky water beneath her. An idea quickly popped in her head, and a mischievous gleam was now in her eyes. The brown brackish water came shooting up to her and she began to ride its wave to find the man that would dare knock her down. There were screams and shouts from the small shops below her from the water, but she couldn't hear them. All she could hear or see was the orange blob in the far distance. After a few minutes she couldn't even see neither a whisp of the blob nor a twinkle of the man's laughter. She sighed and let the water fall down and she landed on a side street.
"MY CAAABBAGES!" an old man screamed in despair as the murky water crushed his cabbage stand. His beady eyes focused on Korra and a comical glare began to start.
"You!" he spat out in disgust. "You destroyed my cabbage stand! You'll pay for this you nasty bender!" suddenly tears started to well up in his eyes and he began to pat his cabbages.
"Err… sorry about that… hehehe?" Korra mumbled scratching the back of her head. "Well…. I gotta go. So uhh… here's some money." She tossed a bag of gold coins at him that definitely were too much for all of the cabbages. "Bye!" she screeched as she ran away. A bald man around thirty five, though he looked much younger, was watching from a corner. He suppressed his giggle and buried his hands into his orange baggy pants.
"This is going to be fun," he exclaimed to himself as he fiddled with the bison whistle he retrieved from his pocket.
The thriving metropolis of Republic City surrounded Korra. Metal pipes filled with steam were never more than a couple feet away from any given point in the city. Everything was a little warmer when you were in the city because of all the steam. Korra inhaled the wet metallic scent of the city and sighed. She had just come from a small isolated island in the Fire Nation. Though there definitely was enough for her to bend in this environment, she felt cornered by the foreign ways that were all around her. She was used to the smoking volcanoes of her island, not the smoking chimneys of the concrete buildings. She had come to love the heat of the tropical island, but now this artificial heat seemed unbearable. She scowled and kicked some of the murky water that had accumulated in the gutter of the street. Not only were there foreign objects around her, there were foreign people. Normally this wouldn't be a strange thing for Korra, since meeting new people is part of learning the elements and ultimately being the avatar. But this was all a matter of quantity. There were more people on this street she was standing on, then any village she had ever been in before. They were all walking in different directions, different paces, and with different intentions. Some were angry, and some were excited. Hundreds of people of all different backgrounds were all around her, and they didn't even realize who she was.
She stood impatiently, completely believing that someone would recognize her and offer a place to stay. But after a few more minutes, she realized that no one would. She was startled by the realization, outraged in fact. She was used to rural hospitality and an almost religious fawning over the fact that she was the avatar. She glared at the seemingly uncaring people around her. 'Who do they think they are?' she thought angrily. Sparks were dancing across her fingertips once again. Her newest ability of fire bending was still in her subconscious and her anger and ill-tempered moods were now being amplified by it. She leaned against a small part of a wall free of the hot metal piping and let out a huge angry sigh. She took out a light blue decorated pouch from her pocket and untied its string. She analyzed how much money she had. She was never exactly lacking in that department, mostly because of the goodness of her hosts in most villages, but this was going to be a stretch. City hotels were very expensive and it looked like she only had just enough. As she started to tie the string around the pouch again, angrily wishing doom on all of the rude people surrounding her in this filthy city, the pouch was taken. She was caught off guard and as she looked around she only saw a glimpse of red hair sprinting away from her. She paused and felt the earth and detected where the boy was. She stomped her foot and the earth gave a groan and the boy was thrown into the air and landed at her feet in a crumpled pile. Her pouch fell as well, spilling all of her coins.
"Flame it!" she muttered angrily and was about to start picking them before anyone else could, but then she realized she had thief on her hands.
Korra turned her eyes towards the grungy red-haired boy in front of her. She was absolutely seething. This was a rather bad day and bad days never entirely cooperated with her. Without any secondary thoughts, she bended some concrete and the boy's hands seemed to melt into the ground.
"What are you doing to me? I didn't do anything! You can't do this to me…" the boy yelled defiantly, "Help! Help!"
Korra clenched her jaw in anger. She had plenty of training in the many different arts of hiding your emotions, but they were never really her forte. She breathed out heavily through her nose and steam burst out.
"Why did you take my money, boy?" she asked in a quiet, yet incredibly horrifying tone. She quickly bended some water and the coins floated toward her slowly. They stacked themselves in a nice little pile.
"I didn't take anybody's money, you've got the wrong guy! You're insane!" he grumbled, his eyes darting from side to side.
Everything was turning out bad for Korra in this city. The people were rude, she already upset many of them, it was smelly and dirty, and she still couldn't find Avatar Aang's son. She was beyond her frustration point. She breathed in, and her eyes flashed white for a second.
"Do you know who I am?" she whispered with the voices of thousands of former avatars. She wanted to make him feel sorry for what he had done, to scare him. She was almost shaking with rage. Korra was blaming the entire events of both that day and the day before, which was the journey to the city, on this poor thief.
"No…" the boy said in a questioning tone.
"Why would I? I just met you!" he scoffed. She was visibly shaken by this statement. Even after showing him a glimpse of her Avatar State, he still didn't recognize who she was.
"I'M THE AVATAR!" she screamed in his face. She was so angry she could barely control herself.
"See? Fire?" she conjured fire in her hands and waved it in the boy's face.
"Oh look at what we have here! Earth!" She stomped the ground and rested her hands on it and seemed to pull a solid block of rock out of the street.
"And," she whispered through clenched teeth, "Water." She crouched down a little bit and raised her arms high. All the excess water on the block rose into the air. Droplets of dirty grey water were floating, suspended in the air.
People had begun to circle around the boy and the teenage girl in a mixture of curiosity and entertainment. Who was this mysterious girl who was taking out so much energy on a measly pickpocket? Some were even bold enough to touch the floating water around them.
The boy was sobbing in fear but he managed to coherently get the words out, "What is the avatar?" Korra's jaw completely dropped.
She had calmed down a great deal by the act of bending, because she had to concentrate her mind on something else completely. And when she actually bended, she remembered the lessons she learned from each of her masters. The lessons she had completely disregarded in the present situations she was in. She looked around quickly and saw the mob of people watching the ordeal. 'This is bad' she thought. She stomped the earth quickly and the boys hands popped up from the earth's hungry mouth. His hands had makeshift rock handcuffs confining them. His wide dark eyes looked in every direction trying to look for a way to escape. Korra noticed that and without haste she grabbed him by his collar and started to push her way out of the gathering of people.
"Um… Nothing to see here people! Just going to take this boy to jail or whatever. So, have a nice day!" she announced clumsily, "And don't forget to clean in between your toes!"
She fast walked away from the crowd with the little thief dragging behind her. She had to find someplace to go with this boy because she didn't need to deal with anyone questioning her when she's questioning someone.
"Where is your house?" she asked violently.
"I don't have a home…" he wimpered. Korra tightened her hold on the boy and swung him in front of her.
"What do you mean you don't have a home? Stop lying!" she growled in his face. She had enough with everything and more inconveniences weren't helping her temper. Korra was just so frustrated with everything. She had the burdens of mastering all the elements and keeping balance in the universe, she should at least be given commonplace respect. Tears started to slide down the grime covered face of the boy. Korra sighed in response.
"Please don't hurt me, I have to get back to my little sister. She needs me. We're the only ones we have left" he pleaded. The grip Korra had on the boy's collar loosened a little. His dark brown eyes looked up to her in a terrified pleading stare. She sighed softly and let the boy drop to the ground. She leaned against the wall of the alleyway and ran her shaking hands through her dark brown hair. She felt like a monster, an evil being that controlled her in even the smallest of disappointments and angers. This wasn't the first time, and she feared it definitely wouldn't be the last.
"I'm sorry…" she muttered under her breath. The boy quickly recognized her remorse and instantly felt a little sorry for her. He brushed himself off and stood up from the spot she dropped him.
"It's okay! Truce? It's no big deal! You can show me your magic powers or something. " he said with a big grin. He looked away, a little embarrassed by his forgiving and almost nice ways, and scratched the back of his dirty red head.
The side of Korra's lips quivered in an almost smile. She wondered how anyone could possibly react the way this little boy did. At that moment she knew he was a good person that she could eventually trust.
"Well, you did steal my money…" she said with a smirk. The red-headed boy snorted in response.
"I had perfect reason to. I mean you had 30 gold coins right out in public, what did you expect me to do?" he explained.
"Well, it's no big deal now, I got it ba-" She felt around for her blue pouch and noticed it was empty.
"Oh no… Where is it?" she whispered. Then she remembered the little stack of coins that she made with her water bending, and how she left the street in a hurry. She hung her head in shame and started thinking the mantra "stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid".
"You left it on the street, didn't you?" the boy guessed. Korra closed her eyes slowly and nodded.
"I needed that money to get a hotel room, or something. Some place to stay for awhile. I have a mission to complete here, and I don't know anybody that lives here." Korra had a lump in her throat as she said this. She felt helpless.
"Well… would you want to hang out at the hideout my sister and I stay at?" The little boy asked. She looked up at him in surprise, astonished by his kindness.
"Wow… Yes, that would be amazing. What's your name?" she asked, incredibly grateful to him.
"Meelo! And yours?" he squeaked.
"Korra, so where is this dwelling of yours?" she asked, slightly suspicious of this chipper little boy. He grinned in response.
"Oh… You'll see," Meelo said as he took Korra's hand and dragged her into another alleyway.