How to Make Ordinary Extraordinary

(A Tale of Amon)

He loved the cheering of the crowds. He loved that they were cheering for him. Amon smirked behind his mask, throwing back his hood. The leader of the Equalists was alone now, completely alone. His doors were locked and his windows shuttered. But the sounds of his followers still echoed in his head.

Throwing on his bedroom light, he began to disrobe, unbuttoning his hooded tunic and hanging it up neatly. His armour was next, and he stacked each piece tidily on his dresser. Catching a quick glimpse of his reflection in the mirror, Amon felt smug and powerful, invincible almost. He put a hand on his mask and hesitated for a moment. When he wore the mask, he was Amon, feared by every bender in Republic City. When he took it off, he was simply Gen, a man from humble beginnings, an ordinary man with an ordinary life and an ordinary face. No one ever remembered Gen. Everyone remembered Amon.

Almost every bit of his life story was a fabrication, a tall tale designed to elicit sympathy for the cause. He had grown up on a farm. And his family had not been rich. But they were all benders except him, all of them. He was looked at almost pityingly for years, this non bending anomaly. His parents and his three brothers, all older, moved the earth, bent it to their will as though it was nothing. He struggled to do chores the way that ordinary people had to.

They were all handsome too, his brothers, and the girls clamored to be with them. Gen's face was plain, not ugly, simply dull, the kind of face that faded away into the background like so much everyday noise. Nothing about him was interesting or unique. His body was average and his brains too, it seemed.

The boy rarely spoke and when he did, he used brief, simple sentences, and kept his voice soft and low. Most times no one listened anyway. He discovered one day, after adolescence had begun, while on his own, and talking to the farm animals (they liked him better than people did) that his voice possessed a certain power. It was deep and sonorous and almost beautiful. There had to be a way to take advantage of that voice, didn't there?

He kept his discovery secret, mumbling and muttering his way through his final days at home and soon left, heading for Republic City and what he hoped would be a career on stage.

The benders there were arrogant too. They held most positions of power. People worshipped the 'pro-benders' as though they were gods and goddesses. He was that boy on the farm again, except in a big city, surrounded by more people who thought they were better than he was. It was sickening and it needed to stop. Gen decided that he would be the one to do it. But he didn't know how to accomplish his goal.

Working as an actor, never the leading man for he needed to be handsome, Gen paid his bills and eked out a meager living. He began to research martial arts and signed up for a chi blocking class. Gen worked harder than he ever had and after years of training, was as good as anyone.

The young man worked at spreading dissent. An offhand comment here, a subtle observation there, and soon he realized that others resented the benders as well.

"I need a story," he mused aloud, "something tragic, something that will gain me sympathy, something that will unite the non benders." He thought and he wrote down scenarios until he came up with a satisfactory tale.

"Poor, my family, non benders all of us, struggled to survive on an Earth Kingdom farm. The work was difficult and tiring and endless. The rewards were few. One day a firebender came to call. But his visit wasn't a social one. No, he waved his flaming fist about and threatened and terrorized until we all cowered in the corners of our own humble home. He wanted to extort us and extort us he did. For years, he paid monthly visits, taking from us what little money we possessed. It was obedience or death. There was no in between, no middle ground for this vicious firebending thug. When my brave father had had enough and finally said 'No more!" this bender struck him down where he stood. My father's body erupted into flames, and he became a charred mass, unrecognizable, right in front of our eyes. My brothers ran, and my mother too, but I could not move. I was transfixed by that black lump in the dirt. All their running did not matter. He killed them just as easily. And then, when the murderer turned back to me, still there beside my father, he put his fiery fist to my face and I screamed. 'No one defies a firebender. No one defies me. Tell everyone you meet, boy!' It was dark when I awoke. All I could feel were pain and grief. The anger, it came later, and it has never left. Now, I will defy the benders. I will defy all of them."

Gen was pleased with his fiction. But his face was not burned and the young man was unwilling to go through that torture. So he bought a mask and changed his name. Amon was born.

Once he put the mask on, Gen vanished. He stood taller and straighter, spoke with more authority and conviction. People were drawn to him and his story. When he talked now, people listened. No one recalled the dull farm boy or the actor. It was as if they had never existed.

Amon's message of bender hate, of the need for equality in Republic City and beyond, the need for non benders to share in the power, traveled through the city insidiously, and soon he had a large following of discontented people, young, old, male and female. But it wasn't enough. He needed a force to back up the message. He set up training centers where those interested learned to fight and to chi block. Soon he had a small army behind him.

But that wasn't enough either. There had to be a way to remove a bender's abilities. Amon simply hadn't discovered it yet. Everyone knew the story of Avatar Aang and Fire Lord Ozai. But that was a bender taking away another bender's power. Could a non bender do it too? Amon would find a way. He did not care what he had to give up or what he needed to sacrifice. And when the power was his, he would spread terror, spine tingling and heart thumping, through each and every bender in Republic City.

A/N: A random idea regarding Amon's true beginnings sparked this story. I like the idea of him being utterly ordinary before his transformation. I purposely left off the bit about exactly how Amon acquired his power, partly because I haven't really thought about that, and partly because I thought it was a good place to end things.