So, this is an AU, of course. And it's not entirely happy. It's a western, or at least my take on it, also, I know it's referred to as "the Gaang" but I like the rhyming sound of Aang's gang better. It sounds more like what a newspaper would have name a group like that. Also, old west time people ate that stuff up. Any ways onto the story.
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The old red bandana, faded to a rosy pink now, covered his mouth and stopped most of the dust In the air from being breathed in. His old Stetson hat dropped wearily over his head, the feather on he left side was tattered and worn. He wore an old canvas duster, once lightly colored, now stained brown from the dust of the trails he rode. His five pocket blue jeans were faded and creased showing the heavy use they were given. His shirt was white at one time, but now looked more a faded yellow. The top button undone and the collar bent and frayed, with black stripes running down the front.
The horse plodded along, while his head hung down and his eyes tracked the dirt. The stories had led him this far, the people talked. He couldn't believe it at first, but as the stories grew and the evidence mounted he couldn't wait any longer, he had a job to do. He spotted a track on the dirt, a boot print outside the old town and knew he was close. The winds blew hard that morning an would have wiped out any marks older than 2 hours. He hopped down and grimaced as his muscled ached in protest after sitting In The same position for hours. He stretched, cracked his back and neck and then bent over to get a better look at the boot print. His horse snorted and stamped its foot impatiently. "I know girl, I don't like the feel of this either. He's leading me here for a reason." Aang said, as he petted his horse, trying to calm her down.
The boot print bore the unmistakable X on the heel that Sokka favored. Aang sighed, shook his head, and wondered what had happened to his friend. He drew his pistol, custom made by the mechanist, The best gunsmith in the wilds. It didn't look fancy, it didn't gleam anymore, the new sheen having long worn away. The handle wasn't an exotic wood, but it fit his hand like it was meant to be there. He took his horse by the reigns and walked her behind an outcropping, under the spreading limbs of a cottonwood tree. "Don't worry girl, I'll be back in no time." He stroked her muzzle and scratched behind his horses ears. " just be good, and be quite."
He crept back around the side of the outcropping and made his way towards the busted boom town, once bustling and full of life, now empty and abandoned and all but forgotten. Forgotten by just about everyone but a few weary lawmen. Aang sneaked up to a dusty and rotted fence held up by the twine that was supposed to be held up by the fence. The waist high fence had grayed over time, it smelled of age and dust and even the worms had given up on it long ago.
Aang peeked up and over the knotted boards, scanning the apparently empty town. He waited to see if anyone stirred, listened to hear a scuff of a boot or the steps on wood. No dust shifted, no boots made any noise. Carefully, Aang made his way over the fence. Avoiding knocking it down and alerting whomever could be waiting. After succeeding in crossing the barrier he made his way silently to the nearest building. Everything remained as still as the pile of horseshoes by the silent smithy or the old hand-pump that hadn't seen use in ten years, standing its silent vigil in the town square to his left. Aang's hands were sweaty and he shifted his pistol to dry off his right hand, and then his left, rubbing them over his worn jeans.
He began to make his way up the alley, buildings to either side and the town square in front of him. He made it to the mouth of the alley and looked around. Something tipped him off, he wasn't sure what. It could have been a faint sound, or instinct, but either way it saved him. He dove hard to his right, feet grinding red clay, as a crack split the air and the building where his head had been splintered. He hit his shoulder hard as he came down, but rolled through it and come up crouched behind a banister and scanned quickly the direction from which the shot came. He glimpsed a jacket pulling back from an open window in the old whorehouse up the street across the square.
He vaulted the railing and sprinted across the open space. He had his target and wasn't anything that could stop him from getting to it. Halfway across the square a man he didn't recognize, dressed in a denim jacket, came out from an open doorway, a shotgun trained on Aang. Quick as lightning Aang whipped his pistol over and fired a round into the man, taking him in the neck and dropping him immediately before he could pull his own trigger. Five, Aang thought to himself. Aang was only mildly surprised that Sokka had help. He always was a charismatic man, he never had a problem convincing people to follow him. Though this didn't look like the normal type of people that Sokka attracted. What had happened to his friend In The years since he last saw him?
Another shot cracked the air and the bullet whizzed by his head, throwing up dust about ten feet in front of him. Tuckin' is head and runnin' harder than before Aang smashed into the half closed door of the run down whorehouse. The interior was coated in a fine layer of dust, having not been used in years. Not even the vagrants and wanderers came out here anymore.
Aang briefly remembered when it was a busier place, and how the Madame would greet him and Sokka and Zuko with a hug and a kiss when they came through the doors, their grins wide and with gleams in their eyes. Shaking is head to loosen the old memories and knock them away Aang began to make his way up the stairs. Carefully, so as not to make too much noise. Though he knew whoever waited for him at the top knew he was in the building, he hoped they might think he was exploring the cellar first or the other rooms on the first floor.
A creaking caused Aang to spin, his eyes widening as he saw a man with a half drawn pistol looking at him. The man froze, Aang didn't. His bullet took the man in his forehead, just above his right eye. Four, Aang thought to himself. Abandoning stealth he took the stairs as fast as he could. The boot prints went to the right and he ran into the main bedroom, the old feather down bed rotted in the corner. He could see the spent cartridge on the floor where whoever had tried to shoot him had missed.
Out in the square He could see a group of men moving towards the building he was in. Pressing himself against the wall next to the window Aang paused to steady his breath. He twirled to his right and fired off four quick rounds, bang bang bang bang. Four men outside fell, thud thud thud thud. He jumped back from the window, and not too soon. Where he as standing erupted in bullets, splintering the window frame, the roof, and the floor. He turned and walked away while reloading his gun. Six again, he thought to himself.
The boot prints stopped in that room. The rest of the second floor remained undisturbed. He wasn't sure how Sokka had managed it, and right now he didn't have the time to care. He could hear men approaching. He crouched at the top of the stairs and took aim at the door. A man burst through and he was met with a bullet to the chest. The second was pushed forward when he tried to stop and he met a similar fate, the third had wised up and had stopped before going through. Four. A minute passed, and then another. Aang's legs began to cramp. The door creeped open and a lit stick of dynamite was tossed through.
Aang felt his eyes nearly jump out of his head as he sprinted down the hall. He knew he only had seconds. He smashed the door at the end of the hall open and kept running. The window was closed but he went for it anyways, busting through, feet first, hoping to knock as much glass away. It succeeded for the most part, what his boots hadn't pushed away his duster protected him from, save for the back of his right thigh where the duster had a slit. The gash wasn't deep, but it was long and it stung, he landed on the roof of the general store next door and tumbled for a bit. His bruised shoulder flaring with pain. A second later the old whorehouse exploded, throwing wood everywhere. He could hear some screaming and crawled to the front of the store and peaked up and over the parapet. One of the men in the square hadn't hidden himself well enough and had taken a chunk of wood through his shoulder. Aang sunk back down and began trying to dress his cut. Cutting a strip of fabric from his old shirt he tied it around his leg to try and staunch the bleeding. It worked well enough, though if he didn't get it properly treated it could sour and make him sick. That was a worry for tomorrow though. Aang hoped he'd be able to worry about it tomorrow.
He knew Sokka had not made the call to use the dynamite. It wasn't his style. Back when Aang had ridden with him Sokka had always wanted to talk to the men he had to put down. Try to set them right, get them to change their ways, figure out why they had done what they did.
Aang remembered that that had been awhile back. That maybe the Sokka he knew and the Sokka he now chased could be vastly different people. He cursed and shook his head, and hoped not. What had happened Sokka? He took the time to reload his gun. Six again. His pouch was feeling light. He hadn't planned on this much opposition. He probably still had 24 bullets, besides what was in his gun, but those could go fast in a fight. Crawling along the roof Aang made his way to the trapdoor at the back that lead down into the general store. He hoped the stairs were still there. Prying up the board, the hinges gave a long squeal. Nothing to be done for it, Aang thought. The stairs were still there, though they were far cleaner than the ones in the whorehouse. People had been using these. Standing up he went down the stairs, pistol at the ready. He entered into the backroom of the store, before he main lobby. A young man, bound and gagged looked up at him, fear in his eyes. Aang's heart sank, past his stomach and to his feet.
The man looked haggard, beaten, bruised. His cheeks were sallow and sunken and he had dark circles around his eyes. How could Sokka do something like this? Aang knelt down and undid the gag in the mans mouth. "Don't worry, please. I'm here to help." The man nodded. "Who are you?"
"I'm Theodore Higgisthbottom. Son of the mayor of Burns. I've been gone for weeks, I think." Aang hadn't heard of this kidnapping. From what he'd heard that wasn't what Sokka had been known for recently.
"Well, stay here. I'll take care of the men outside and bring Sokka in. Just stay out of the way. Okay?" The man nodded, seemingly too weak to say anything else. Aang pulled out his side knife and cut the bonds that held the man, just barely older than a boy, free.
Sheathing his knife again and picking up his pistols Aang made his way forward from the back of the old store. The main room still had all of the shelves up, but all of the items were long gone. Creeping between the aisles Aang made his way to the front of the door, all while keeping low.
Aang sat next to the door, waiting, he saw a shadow pass in front of the windows out front. They hadn't seen him through the grime that coated the glass. He pushed the door open as they passed by, the hinges had recently been oiled. How like Sokka, always fixing things. Aang smiled sadly. He holstered his pistol and pulled his knife free again. He snuck up on the man, who was busy scanning ahead. He didn't hear him before Aang was on him, pulling his head back and ramming his knife up through the mans jaw next to his neck. He felt the blade hit against the top of the mans skull, he slumped down, dead. Aang dragged the body back inside the general store to try and keep things hidden. He wiped his hands clean of blood on the dead mans clothes. He made his way back out into the hot sun, and the old town that had been turned into a war zone. The destroyed building now burned, and the fire was spreading to the buildings around it. Soon his old town would be nothing but ashes and memories.
He walked along the side of the store to the building next door, the one that wasn't a pile of rubble. He saw three more men with their guns drawn facing away from him. He drew his pistol and fired on them. Bangbangbang. He dropped all three. Was a time when maybe he would have hesitated, maybe wouldn't have shot them. Was a time he would have given them a chance to surrender. Was a time when all his friends were alive too. He ran forward and out into the square. A bullet struck next to his right foot and he looked to the roof to his right and shot a man trying to steady a rifle. He made it to the middle of the square and looked around. The man who had been pierced with the wood had bled out, the bodies of all the men he'd shot lay scattered around. No one left to shoot at him. No one but the man he'd come for.
Aang tore the bandana down from his mouth. "SOKKA!" His voice echoed back to him, only the crackle of a fire to answer him. "SOKKA YOU SON OF A BITCH, ANSWER ME!" His voice cracked there, the first time in twenty years. The emotions he'd been tamping down rising to the surface. The pain of tracking down a friend like this, the pain of knowing what he'd have to do. The feelings of betrayal rising up how could Sokka have done those things?
"Why?" Sokka's voice came reaching back to him. "So we can talk? Have a chat? Figure out this was all a misunderstanding? That you'd heard wrong about me?" Aang could tell from the tone. The last of his hopes were dashed, he stayed silent. A shadow moved across a rooftop and Aang spun to look. A body fell and landed hard against the ground. Dead weight. Aang thought he recognized the body, but walked over to it anyways. He turned the corpses over and looked into the sunken eyes of the young man from before. A red grin split his neck from ear to ear.
"Why..." Aang's voice was only a whisper. Sokka answered the question he knew Aang asked.
"Do you know he raped a woman not but two months past? When she tried to go to the police his father had her arrested. Shamed. Charged her with prostitution and claimed she was trying to blackmail his son. Her family was poor, and couldn't afford any legal recourse. The cops were crooked and played right along." Aang shook his head.
"This isn't how we do things Sokka! What you've done...it's disgusting. You're no better than Jet who we brought in all those years ago! You remember what he did?" Aang let the bitter feelings out in his voice. His words tasted sour in his mouth, like bile.
"No! He fought and killed solely to fight and kill. He did it simply under the guise of a bigger truth. He was a sociopath who used ideals as an excuse to kill! What I have to do destroys me!What's disgusting is this system!" Sokka's voice lashed out so loud it was like a rifle shot. "What's a poor man to do? We're not a republic or a democracy! Officials are bought by the highest bidder, if they don't just buy the spot outright! We fought for law, to bring justice to the wilds, for what? Zuko died out here, bleeding out under the hot sun as we held him. He man we saved, he went on to run a child over in a street, and say no punishment. showed no regret. Why did we do what we did? So a corrupt man can raise a corrupt son? So a poor girl can be raped and abused and then sent to jail? So a poor man can be murdered and a rich man can walk free? But if a poor man so much as bruises a rich man he's sent off to a work camp. He becomes a slave!" Sokka's voice was getting louder and louder and Aang was figuring out where he was exactly. He began to walk over to the building Sokka was on.
"We can change the system for within it! We can't murder innocents to make change, it corrupts the change we're trying to make! What good is a new system if it's bought with the blood of innocents?"
"No ones innocent, don't you see Aang? You're either for change or against it. If you don't fall in line with the system they send their best attack dog out. Even if they have to drag the old mutt out of retirement. Oligarchic overlordship backed with military might. Remember the bandits we stopped, the ones who were knocking over trains and steeling the goods of one Ming Lau? Remember how thankful he was? Do you know he controls all the crime in his city now? That he uses bandits himself to keep competitors down? He killed a man just for trying to steal some bread for his family. We made that man Aang, had we not done anything he wouldn't be where he is now!" Aang was familiar with the man. But he only knew him as a kind governor of the newly minted gold hills county. He couldn't connect the man Sokka was telling him about with the man he knew.
"We have systems in place Sokka, to prevent this!" Sokka laughed scornfully.
"You've been gone Aang. They've been stripping away power and rights more and more recently. Workers have no rights, people barely have rights. Power isn't a structure Aang. It's a flow system. If you dam it up the flow stops and begins to accumulate. If a farmer stops a creek he gains all the water and everyone below him dies of thirst. Power can either be held by a few or shared among the many. Right now we have a dam in place and it's my intent to break that dam down. Now, are you with me or against me?"
Aang looked at the carnage around him, while he stood at the bottom of the house that Sokka was on. He looked at the corpse of the young man. He thought of the corpse of a little girl he'd seen some months ago, a child, five maybe. Her arm gone, her eyes vacant. The train she was on had been bombed. It's what had brought him to finally answer the letters he'd been receiving. He'd been told Sokka had set the bomb, and from what he'd heard thus far had sadly cemented the truth in his mind.
"I aim to bring you back and see you hanged in Freetown, or I'll see you dead here Sokka." Aang hollered out, his voice hiding his emotions. He felt the last shred of his soul rip and flutter away.
He heard a slight creak on the roof behind him and spun, his pistol up he fired at the silhouette. He took the figure in the gut and the man fell the two stories down to the ground. As Aang walked over to see the face of his old friend, his knees shook. Like he'd just shot his first man all over again. The blue eyes were harder than he remembered, and there were lines now on his forehead and creases next to his eyes. He coughed blood.
"My backs broke, can't feel my legs."
"Not like you ever did much standing anyways, seems I remember you spending an awful lot of time on your back in this town any ways." Sokka hacked out a laugh.
"It was a fun town, back when. Stopped our first criminals here, you and I." Aang nodded, his throat tight.
"I'm glad it was you, ya know? I'd always hoped that it was somebody I knew who would do it in the end, if it wasn't old age I mean." He drew another shuddering breath. "Remember when we were young, and the wilds were vast and untamed and we were simply looking for adventure? You and I, Katara, Zuko and Toph, all of us running from something, and looking for something else."
"I remember you never shutting up then too." Aang smiled down at his friend, tears falling onto his cheeks. He remembered the joy he'd felt with his friends. The laughter shared around the fire, the love amongst themselves. Why'd it have to come to this?
"I didn't bomb that train you know." Sokka looked serious, the humor had left leaving only pain and anger.
"Why didn't you say so?" Aang's anguish was clear in his voice.
"I wanted to know if you'd listen to me, trust me. But you trust the system still, that's your problem Aang. You can't see when what you're working for is broken. Never have. I needed to feel you out, I just forgot how good a shot you were." Sokka began coughing more, the blood below him forming a larger pool.
"Who did it then? Why would they blame you?" Aang was confused, and a little angry.
"Who do you think? Who benefits?" Sokka's blue eyes met his grey.
"Why not just tell me? " Aang nearly pleaded with his friend.
"I've said all I'm going to say on the matter, and that's that. Just remember Aang, who's going to stand up for the poor and the weak? Who's going to fix this broken system? ho will be the strength for the weak?" And with that Sokka let out a final, rattling, breath and the life left his eyes.
Aang stood over the cooling body of his oldest friend and he couldn't give an answer. The corpse supplied none.
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So, there's a one shot AU I've had bouncing around my head. Tell me what you think. Let me know too if you want me to continue, either forward from is point or backwards to see how things turned out the way they did. What had happened to the rest of the Gaang. Why did Sokka do what he did? Was he evil or mislead? Is Aang himself wrong?
Any ways, please review and go ahead and give me criticism, flames, love, anger, annoyance. Whatever you have to say I don't care. Though personally I'd love it the most if you gave me constructive feedback. Anything to help me improve as a writer!
also, this want beta tested so any mistakes please point them out. It'll help me out immensely.