Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
Disclaimer(s): Watchmen and Avatar: The Legend of Aang belonged to their own respective Gods… I mean creators… they do not belong to me. No infringement is intended.
Then
Cold…
Should have taken Dreiberg's snorkel parka… Antartica is the southernmost land mass on Earth, covering the South Pole. Perpetually a region of cold temperatures and almost completely covered by snow and ice, no wonder Archie the OwlShip broke down and crashed due to the unbearably cold temperatures of Antarctica.…
"Hurm." I made an annoyed grunt… ignoring the merciless bone-chilling storm, I went towards Dreiberg's hover-bike… must get out of here… tell everyone nothing but the truth… the whole truth… Doesn't matter about the consequences… doesn't matter about the whole damn utopia… This country… this nation… this WHOLE WORLD… all life is about one absolute thing: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe in, no matter the odds and/or the consequences… and right now… I believe that Veidt is EVIL… and evil must be punished and truth must be told.
I have to get back to the world… out of Karnak… out of icy hell Cocytus, to warn them… Get out of here… quickly… quietly… before…
"Where are you going, Rorschach?"
Speak of the Devil…
…Blue Devil…
I turned around and faced my would-be-Grim-Reaper…: Jon Osterman… Doctor Manhattan… the Living God…
"Why do you ask question which you already know the answer to?"
"Rorschach…" Jon began but I interjected… "Hurm… Evil must be punished; people must be told… a while ago you almost killed Veidt… but almost only really counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, Jon. I will do the latter (people must be told), you'll finish what you started (Evil/ Veidt must be punished)…" I started to turn back and head back to the hover-back, only to face Manhattan who had teleported right in front of me…
"You know I can't let you do that," Osterman had pointed his four fingertips towards me… glowing with blue light menacingly… "Huhhh." Sighing nonchalantly… I took off my face… revealing my mask… The little blue freak may kill the red-headed ugly sonnuvagun Walter Kovacs… but he will not kill me…"Of course. Must protect Veidt's new utopia. One more body amongst foundations makes little difference. Well? What are you waiting for? Do it." My body shivered, fear of death engulfed my soul… but then I realised… I died the day that little girl, Blair Roche, butchered to death…
"Rorschach…" Osterman gave me one last chance… a futile effort; nobody except Dreiberg knew how adamant I could be when I had made my decision…
"DO IT!" I roared… tears erupting from my eyes. It wasn't tears of sorrow…; it was tears of pure, undiluted anger… angry towards the Veidt, towards all unfairness and corruptions and injustice and humanities… and…
ZAP!
The glowing blue light from Osterman's fingertips had burst out like a flash bang… blinding me… I had to close my teary eyes when the blue light seemed to engulf me… making me felt powerless…
"…Powerless?" I breathed my last word… before my whole body felt nothing but pain unimaginable as my atoms disintegrated… killing me…
But it only killed me physically… it wasn't Dr Manhattan who killed me; it was my powerlessness which killed me… inside out… and that's why I had been angry…had been sad all this time… Angry towards myself…
Goodbye, O Cruel World…
Now.
"Uncle! Do you know what that pillar of light means?" Prince Zuko asked, staring at brilliant baby blue light coming from the snowy land of the Southern Pole.
"Means that I can't finish my jasmine tea?" His Uncle, General Iroh, answered dreamily… he was sipping his tea and playing a Pai Sho with one of the soldier at the same time.
"It MEANS that years of searching the Avatar is finally over… Quickly, we have to head to that light! Only an immense amount of power of the Avatar can produce that! Oh, no! It's disappeared! Quickly, men… we gotta…"
"Zuko, Zuko, please, calm down… it might just be a normal, artificial light… like that Bat-Signal. (Iroh stared at you and 'wink, wink') We've been through this before; I don't want you to get too over-excited in vain… my Grandma used to say: Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment." Iroh had made his long, pious babble that would only stop if Zuko interjected with wry remarks such as:
"And my Uncle used to say: Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst." Zuko coughed, and Iroh's expression was between exasperation and proud ('So he DOES listen to me', Iroh pondered.)
"Crew! Head to that…"
But Prince Zuko stopped when he saw ANOTHER light… but unlike the first light… which came out of the white, snowy land, this light came from the sea… and it was ominous, dark blue and Omni directional.
Zuko turned his head to look at his Uncle for any advice… even levity was welcomed. But when he saw the second light, Iroh looked serious; Zuko didn't know whether it was good news or a bad one. "Zuko, you, along with the crew, head towards the column of light and keep your eye out for the Avatar. I'll head towards this blue light." Iroh said… it was not an order… but the crew knew better not to argue with the Dragon of the West… as they had no right to do so.
Well, except the Prince…
"Uncle, what's wrong? A moment ago you're slacking like usual, now you go all commando on us… Do you know something about that flash of light?"
"No, I do not." Iroh answered sincerely.
"Oookay… so you do NOT know…"
"And that is why I have to find out."
"But… why that light? Why not the first one?? Are you hiding something from me?" Zuko pressed, crossing his hands, eyeing his uncle suspiciously.
"My nephew, when you go into battle, there are three elements to planning out the engagement."
"We are in a BATTLE?!"
"Don't take my words too literally… anyway, as I was saying, three elements (not that elements elements) to plan out battle engagement. One, you have to be sure you know what you know… that would be your mastery in fire-bending, your enemies and so on and so forth. Two, you have to know what you don't know. This second element is of course what you're going to find out at that land, Zuko."
"Right… CREW! HEAD TO THE LAND!"
When the ship is nearing to that land, Iroh is taking a small boat… heading to the now-dimming-blue-light…
"Uncle, you haven't told me what the third element of the engagement is." Zuko asked Iroh before he took off.
Silent… and then Iroh answered slowly.
"There are always things that you left out of the equation… things that are NOT supposed to be in the battle but in it nonetheless. Things that you don't know that you don't know. AND those are the things that can get you killed in the war… This is the third part… and my instinct told me I'm heading towards it…"
Interlude.
Black. I couldn't see anything. Petrified… literally… but not because my body could not move… but because I have NO body whatsoever. Only conscience.
Timelessness. Nothingness. No… not nothingness per se. There is something…: Pain. Sensation of pain throughout the whole body (which is weird because we have established that I have no body) that was unbearable and excruciatingly hellish I thought I was in Hell.
Oh, wait a minute, that's right; I was killed by naked blue man.
I AM in Hell.
The pain was so bad that even mute people would squeal… How did you describe the pain… like all the pain you suffered your life… multiplied it by the power of… oh what the heck… It's painful, that's the bottom-line. I would have screamed in agony… if I have a mouth and a vocal cord.
No sense of time (I have established that too)… drifting like a ghost, resigned my fate. Had it been a day, a week, a month, a year, a century, a millennium… ETERNITY?! I couldn't tell…
All I could tell was I was in unimaginable torment searing pain… blinding light…
Wait a second… Blinding light?!
Suddenly, I felt something else… besides pain… in fact, the pain now was gone!
I felt… I felt… wet?! My whole body seemed to be swept away by a strong wave… I was at the sea's surface… I could tell as my tongue could taste the heavily salty of the sea-water… but I welcomed the displeasure… any sensation was welcomed after the eternal pain!
But another sensation crept in: freezing sensation… My first guess was that somehow I was blasted off by Doctor Manhattan's attack and drowned at the nearby sea… I would be frozen if I didn't swim back to the shore! But it would be no easy feat as my whole body felt numb and my trench coat and thick clothing made my body even harder to be moved… I tried to look around, savouring the taste of the neck, hearing and sight… and to my dismay, no land could be seen… but suddenly I caught a glimpse of a boat coming towards me… I raised my hands and gave the crew a signal…
Now
"Rub your chest, son, your hands will take care of themselves; or else you might get hyperthermia," the chubby old man told me; I was rubbing my arms, trying to control my shivers after I had taken off most off my clothing, saved my pants, of course. After his advice, I started rubbing my torso… he was right, I was feeling better already.
"Hypothermia, by the way." I grunted.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You said hyperthermia… that's for heat stroke… hypothermia is the right term,"
"Smarter than you look," he chuckled.
"What's that about my look, old man?!" I snarled… I tried to grab his… armour (his clothing looked ridiculous)… "You looked SO outdated as if you're from the Era of Qin Shi Huang himself,"
A silent for a minute, then he said, "If that was meant to be a comeback, you did it very… quaintly. Speaking about fashion, your clothing looks, well, eccentric... I, uh… Oh, I'll be damned! Forgive me, son, I could have warmed you by a fire-bending… how foolish of me. I was so awed by your… eccentricity… I forgot about simplest thing." FYI, I have no slightest idea what the hell he was babbling about.
Before I wanted to ask him further questions, I was thunder-struck by what he was doing next: his hand was emitting flame! "There, feeling better?" he smiled.
Before I could reply, I heard a monstrous roar from behind me. "Dear Firelords! Could it be…?! A living Sky Bison!" the old man exclaimed in wonder. I turned and my eyes widened…
A white-furred, black-horned, six-armed, big ugly creature (that resembles one the Wild Things in that movie Where the Wild Things Are…) just flew right across us.
"Quickly, we must go towards it!" Iroh said.
"Are you out of your mind?! Why should we?!"
"Sky Bison's rider can only be one person: the Last Airbender… the Avatar!"
…
"The what, what, WHAT??!!"
Jonny, buddy, where the hell did you resurrect me, you blue, naked sonofabitch?!
To be continued.