Bending Reality

Entry and Loss

A/N: For anyone reading this, Bending Reality is your standard author self-insert. I'll be there (sort of) and have knowledge of the world. But here's the twist- I'll be doing Legend of Korra, which has only had two episodes out in the past few days. So I'll sort of be making it up as I go along.

Oh, and to make the name sensible, I kinda won't be inserting myself per say. Instead, I'll be portrayed as my male alter ego, Leviticus "Levi" Wilkes. He'll be a stand-in for me, so if anything I say may come off as a little sexist, blame my dismal naming ability. Regardless, this story will be starting now.

Right now.

Now.

…

Right about now.

Just, right, now.

Ere.

Leviticus Wilkes glared at the word document. The page remained largely blank though, with the exception of the title Bending Reality at the top of the page. He placed his fingers on the keyboard, removed them, rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and finally giving up, banged his head on the keyboard. Only a string of gibberish congratulated him for his effort.

'Come on, it's just a self-insert! You've penned harder stories then this.' But Leviticus's attempts to write hadn't been terrifically fruitful as of late. The last two chapters of his harry potter crossover were woefully less than three thousand words, a feat that had popped the thoughtless, careless nature of fan-fiction writing. It seriously couldn't have been worse.

Leviticus glared at the page again, and then decided that maybe the best way to get himself inspired for his story was to reference the source material. With that assumption Levi stood from the desk and walked into the family study. A copious quantity of bookshelves choked the walls, as though threatening to strangle the house's heart. A sitting nearly center in southwestern corner of the room, almost at precisely ninety degrees to the setting sun, hunkered an old fashioned plasma TV, practically a relic in the day and age of V-goggles. Of course, it being 2012, the plasma TV was rather advanced and expensive.

After thirty minutes of searching, Leviticus found what he was looking for, an old fashioned video cassette tape. Popping the tape into the equally old VHS drive, Leviticus sat back, and watched the fireworks, all as Tenzin's voice boomed through the intro.

"Earth, Fire, Air, Water. When I was a boy, my father, Avatar Aang- ",

Not "Aahng" Levi mentally pointed out with only slight annoyance at he-who-must-not-be-named, who had had the gall to mispronounce a name throughout an entire movie he had directed.

"Told me of how he and his friends heroically ended the hundred year war."

Levi quietly allowed himself to be regaled with both the high quality of voice acting, and the exceedingly interesting update to canon. The video soon arrived to the point of Korra's parents greeting the white lotus envoys.

"We have examined many false claims of this both here and in the northern water tribe."

"Then you can know that your search in over."

"What makes you so sure that your child is 'the One'."

Why 'the One'? Why not just the Avatar? Levi shunted this to the side as Korra came in, brashly declaring herself the Avatar, and telling the white Lotus to 'deal with it.'

'She's kind of cute.' Hethought. But wasn't that the point of television, and to an extent, all of art, the perfection of the human form. Though granted, Levi reminded himself as the scene transitioned to Korra bending fire and taking names, she'd need to be cute to balance out the fact that she's built like a brick house. Her arms were as big as her legs, practically.

Leviticus huffed to himself when the clock struck ten suddenly. There went the night. Stopping the video just as Korra raced off to tell Naga, her pet polar bear-dog, Levi slipped out of the room and through the house. After bidding good night to his sisters and parents, Levi stepped into his room, stripped off his shirt and socks and, still wearing jeans, collapsed onto his bed.

The darkness of sleep was a gift that came fast, but not alone.

The dream started off fairly normally enough (for a dream anyway). Levi quiet came into awareness of his dream, just as he was greeting a cat with the face of Naruto Uzumaki. "Neko-san, you're doing it wrong." Levi turned around, walked through a door, and promptly out onto a speeding boat.

The speed boat careened along, nearing an enormous stone barrier. Leviticus turned and made to step off, but his arms and legs suddenly weighed down, paralyzing movement, but not quite right.

The boat hit the wall, and Leviticus went flying.

'Well, that was a nice dream.' Leviticus watched as the water rapidly rose to meet him… and was suddenly smacking off the water, flying out of control. 'Wait, what?' The water hurtled up to him again, but only an astonishing amount of pain was left from that experience. Sinking into the water, Leviticus wondered if he had simply ended up in a very lucid dream. Dreams weren't supposed to be this wet, weren't they?

'Well, this is a nice hallucination but can I wake up?' Levi stretched an arm forward as he sank, unconsciously inhaling. Unfortunately, water was not meant to be inhaled by men, and so he began to drown.

"Glub blub." Levi worked his legs furiously, shooting for the surface. The sun seemed to shrink away, dragged away from him. Leviticus swung his legs harder, desperately trying to swim. The sun rapidly began to sink away, the darkness beginning to envelop him. Levi swept his arms in wide and wild arcs, praying for the precious air to close in on him.

But only darkness took him.

"Gasp!"

Leviticus somehow broke the surface, gagging out the water in his lungs. Large waves crested around him, one very nearly putting him under again. Levi swung himself around, but the enormous waves only served to block his view. He was stranded in the middle of the ocean.

Levi tried to pinpoint exactly when he had ended up underwater, trying urgently to remember what incident had led to his horrendous conundrum. He had been in bed, then there was a cat, then he was drowning. Wait… he was in bed! That meant he was dreaming. And if he was dreaming… then… he would have woken up when he had hit the water. Levi blinked at this sudden odd thought. He wasn't dreaming? Then how would you explain how he had been thinking with cats.

Levi blinked again, then decided to try and see if he could find land.

He would have been in for a long swim if it hadn't been for that boat. A large, blue and red boat had been sailing through the area, and Levi just so happened to be in the right place. One quick rescue with a life preserver, and Leviticus was on the deck of the… well, he didn't know the name of the ship. The blue-maiden? Levi tried not to shiver in the cold of the air, even though the sun was high in the sky, hovering around noon time. So naturally, the first words out of his mouth were "Does anyone have a shirt?"

One of the men started to pull off a cotton-looking shirt, his superior turning to face Levi. "How'd you come to be out in the bay?" He was a jovial sort, so Leviticus had no problem answering him.

"I fell out of the sky." Levi tried to make that sound not as conspicuous as it sounded, but the captain took it in stride. Then he said something that shocked Leviticus

"So, were you flying? You must be a student from air-temple Island. It's always good to have air benders on a ship, its old good luck." The captain chuckled, slapping Levi on the back. The other men joined in, so much so that they didn't notice how pale Leviticus had become.

'Air-temple Island? An air bender? What the-?'

"We're now entering the edge of the bay captain," a crew-member called from on high. The sailors collectively turned bow-ward, but Levi remained facing the opposite direction.

'If I turn around, I'll be forced to acknowledge that this isn't a dream. I'll have to realize that everything is either real, or completely made up. I must either face forward and go mad, or deny everything that is right-'

Leviticus turned around.

Republic city rose above the water line, looking for the entire world to see like a fusion between 1920's Boston, 1930's Tokyo, and a generic steam-punk fantasy world. Bridges spanned the three rivers that met at the edge of Republic city, creating a lattice work of infrastructure. Pencils of smoke rose from the innumerable vessels berthed at the docks. The blue-maiden slipped into one of the many ports, but as Levi made to find a set of stairs and leave, he felt a firm grasp on his shoulder.

"Now then, there is the matter of our fee, boy." The captain maintained his air of calmness, but Levi was shocked.

"What do you mean, your fee? You pulled out of the water!"

"But we also brought to the port, boy." The captain was good. Very good. "Now then, it would be best if we just took some of your money, and we all part ways happy."

Leviticus gulped. "And if I don't have any money?," Cautiously testing the captain.

"Well then, we'll just act like this tripped never happened…"

'Thank god.' Levi didn't quite get what this meant.

"…and just out you back where we found you."

That got through to him.

"What!" Leviticus ignored the fact that his voice was several octaves higher than normal. If they put him back out there… Levi decided that he rather would prefer the water here in the bay, then the water out in the open ocean. And with that, he detached himself from the captains hand, turned, sprinted across the deck, jumped over the railing…

…And only then realized that he had jumped off over the cargo gangplank.

'Perfect.'

Falling over the gangplank, Levi decided that it wasn't all that high. Maybe what, twenty feet? That was nothing. He might get out of it with only a few broken bones and scrapes and bruises. He'd be alive at least.

'Must say something about me when "alive at least", is a good thing.' Levi was perfect prepared for a very hard landing when a big white thing streaked out of the hold and directly under him. Levi hit the back, fell backwards, and only just manage to seize handfuls of some very supple fir to keep himself from falling off.

The furry creature that Leviticus was hanging onto dear life for took a sudden hard right turn, the blue-maiden shrinking fast into the distance. Levi cocked an eyebrow at the sight of the ship from the current angle. It looked frightening like the very same ship that Korra had ridden on her way to Republic city, right down to the guy that had been knocked over by Korra when she and Naga had charged… off... 'I'm on Naga right now aren't I?'

This suspicion was confirmed when a hand seized the collar of the now stolen shirt and brought Leviticus to face the rather discerning gaze/glare of Avatar Korra. "Can I help you?"

Levi rubbed the back of his head, less because he was nervous, more because he was trying to dislodge whatever fur remained in his hair. "You could say that. I'm Leviticus." He stuck his hand out.

Korra looked at it, back at him, and took his hand. "Korra. Nice to meet you Leviticus."

A/N: Not too shabby if I do say so myself. A nice and long story. I'll continue it if you ask for it, but I really might not have the time, so to get me to continue this, you'll need to ask me real nicely.

Oh, and Leviticus will not have knowledge of future episodes. So far, he has only watched two episodes, the pilot and "A Leaf in the Wind."

And I'm am undecided if this will connect with my other stories. Who knows, maybe I'll like the story enough to toss this in two?

See yeah.