MA- I own nothing. No, really. My cats own everything, even me. ^.^

Pandora Calls

Chapter One: Is This Seat Taken?

Jake found himself flat on his back in another alleyway. Again. He was beginning to make a habit of this, but he just couldn't understand how people seemed to WANT to be smacked around. He had gotten so used to jumping in and saving people overseas in the wars, it must have become habit. He'd been trying to stop what had looked like the beginnings of a gang rape. The woman, a pretty and curvy blonde, had been crying to the man who had her wrist in a tight, bruising, grip, as the first of the other four men had been reaching for her clothes. Jake should have known, he knocked his head back on the cement below him a couple times, when the woman really wasn't fighting, wasn't really screaming and that empty hopeless look in her eyes when she had glared at Jake- demanding why he felt he had needed to knock out her boyfriend. He had been so startled and confused by her apparent masochistic tendencies he hadn't noticed one of the guy's friends coming up behind him and knocking him out of his chair with a metal pipe. The guys aim and muscle had been laughable so other than a few bruises there wasn't a lot of damage.

Jake thanked whatever beings out there, that the worst the rest of the guys did was give his useless lump of a body a few kicks on their way out. He had stayed sprawled, looking up at the small sliver of dirty gray sky, framed by the even dirtier gray buildings, crisscrossing power-lines and the harsh neon glow of the holo-signs found everywhere throughout the city. The alley's smell wasn't really too different from the rest of the city either; unwashed masses, fumes from vehicles and exhausts from the buildings, strong eye-watering perfumes and colognes, rotten food, alcohol, and other unnamed-able, unmentionable scents. The only reason Jake could find to actually move from his spot would be the pebble digging into his shoulder blade. Even that, though, really wasn't helping his turbulent thoughts. What had happened while he'd been overseas? Had the country gotten meaner since he'd been gone? Or had it always been that way and he'd just been too unobservant to notice? His brother Tom had always told him he never paid attention; that he often stepped in things he should have obviously noticed- both literal and figural. Or had losing his legs, the use of his legs- whatever, given him such a different outlook on life as to finally notice this shit.

Jake heaved a sigh, banging his head back on the ground again. Wow, he thought, the world is messed up. It's turned into survival of the fittest… and the fittest is nowhere near the best example of our species. They're like rats, or better yet cockroaches, disgusting and hard to kill.

Jake was pulled from his thoughts by a pair of lively green eyes, framed by a pale face and black hair. He stared for a bit, he'd never seen such green eyes, they were like emeralds, or those truly real plants those of the upper crust indulged in… or… something, Jake thought rather unintelligently. They blinked. He blinked.

"Well, at least you're alive. Need a hand up?" The green eyes asked, with a bit of an accent, it was hard to place- like the owner of those eyes had lived somewhere long ago, but had now lived in the USA long enough to lose most of the original accent. Jake gave a mental shake and sat up, getting a better look at Green Eyes. It was a guy, he looked to be a bit younger than Jake and had Jake been standing, he would have been a full head shorter. He was slender and had muscle, but it was deceptive, it was lean and mostly covered by the dark slacks, un-tucked, button up long-sleeved emerald shirt and he had a messenger bag slung across his chest. His face was delicately pointed, thick black bangs framed his face while the rest of his hair was pulled into a long tail at the nape of his neck. He cocked his head to one side and the bangs shifted a bit, revealing a faint lightning bolt shaped scar.

"I suppose that might make getting up a bit of an issue." He motioned toward the wheelchair tipped on its side next to the building's wall where it been thrown early in the fight.

Jake grimaced, preparing to heave himself over to his mode of transport.

"I got it." The guy walked over and instead of being an ass like most would have been and either damaging the chair- or Jake- further or setting it even further out of reach, the guy righted the chair and wheeled it next to Jake.

Jake put an unbelieving hand on the seat, as if expecting the chair to vanish and people to pop out yelling "gotcha". It was solid. The green eyed guy looked amused and turned to leave. Jake cleared his throat, making the other man stop and look at him expectantly.

"Um, thanks. You, uh… you really didn't have to do that." It was the other's turn to look stunned. Finally he smiled and shook his head.

"Really it was no problem. I'd like to believe I'm essentially a nice guy, even if the rest of the world isn't so nice… especially if the rest of the world isn't so nice." Jake nodded and extended his hand.

"Jake Sully, fellow nice guy." The green-eyed man grinned, reaching and shaking the offered hand.

"Harry Potter, glad to see the world hasn't gone completely to shite yet." Jake laughed.

"If you'd hang out a sec I'll walk… err, roll you to wherever you're going." That prompted a laugh.

Jake decided Harry needed to laugh more often. It was a nice bright light in a dull gray world.

End Chapter One

MA- Yup, I have jumped on the Avatar bandwagon. Come on though, who doesn't love giant blue cat-people? Hopefully this is different enough from the others to be interesting.

This starts before the beginning of the movie, yes, even the bar scene and also before Tom dies. I see Jake as essentially a decent guy, so getting thrown out of a bar on his ass for trying to stand up for someone seems to be a normal thing for him. The world also seems much harsher and I know people don't like to hear it, but people- especially in crowds- are very reluctant to do the decent thing. Unless something dramatic happens I really see it just getting worse in the future. So I really can see a future were a girl expects to have to service her boyfriend's friends, is used to getting smacked around and treated as nothing better than dirt (actually that happens now, but people are loathe to admit it). Very pessimistic of me I know, but well, quite a number of people suck. Even I do on many an occasion.

On a lighter note, this isn't gonna be a dark fic, not really. I'll have another chappy up soon =)