A/N: Raava, Vaatu and the original characters of Avatar belong to DiMartino and Konietzko. The OC's are all mine.
Avatar: The Legend of Four
Book I: Gathering
01: Yahiko
A man stood close to the Spirit Portal in Republic City, his eyes shining in light-blue, the four elements reaching and surrounding him at his command, a large group of men and women between the Spirit Portal and him. Behind this army, a group of men and women who wore black clothing and handled a large machine which seemed to be sucking a lot of spiritual energy from the portal, looked at him and spat at him with hatred. One of those men, who had an Air Nomad arrow tattoo, looked at the lonely man dressed in Earth Republics clothing and said:
"Your friends and family are gone for good, Avatar Sheng, and son you'll die too!"
Avatar Sheng was wrathful and sad. He had just seen how his only daughter was murdered by a firebender young woman whose flames were pitch-black and rotting, and he had just learned that his friends died, the first one after facing airbenders who would kill with no hesitation or remorse, the second one in a battle against waterbenders who had developed extremely sadistic bloodbending skills, and the third one against earthbenders who could bend metal, lava and tres. He didn't say a word, seeing that he had nothing left anymore to hold on to, and he just focused, his eyes emitting light-blue light and making the earth under his feet shake hard.
Immediately, a blue-eyed man who had the control of the spiritual energy accumulator, the device used to suck the energy of the Spirit World through the Spirit Portal, yelled:
"Everyone! Kill the Avatar! Don't let him attack our machines!"
The large army of benders nodded and charged all of their power in the forms of the four elements and as many of their variations as possible: air, vacuum, earth, fire, water, ice, lightning, metal, lava, black fire, blood, and even sand and plants. All of these attacks stormed all around Avatar Sheng, but they weren't even capable of making him flinch. He spoke with Raava's voice:
"You Acolytes of Fu Tong have destroyed the dream of union of the past Avatars when you took control over Republic City and began searching for a way to emulate the power of that evil man, Fu Tong!"
The Acolytes of Fu Tong, who were all dressed in black, didn't seem to be paying any attention to Sheng. The Acolyte who talked first, the tall man with the airbender tattoos, said:
"For how long should we need to wait in order to get enough power for a clear shot?!"
An Acolyte with black eyes and white skin said:
"We need still a couple of minutes!" He then asked: "Are you sure this can replicate the kind of power that our Eternal Master used to crack the wicked Spirit of Raava?!"
The airbender Acolyte replied:
"It will be even stronger than the one he used to have! We'll be able to destroy Raava forever!"
Avatar Sheng's voice replied, turning even louder and more reverberating, which made a small group of Acolytes sneak out and abandon the combat zone, heading to the docks:
"You must pay for all the crimes that both you and your so alleged master have committed against the Four Nations, the Material World, the Spirit World and the past Avatars!"
The earth cracked and crumbled under the feet of the soldiers, sinking and burying them, and also the spiritual energy accumulator began crumbling. Desperately, a couple of Acolytes used earthbending in an attempt of solidifying the ground around and under the cannon-battery device, but then, out of the unrepaired cracks, fire and water columns shot up to the skies, attacking both the Acolytes and the warfare artifact. As the Acolytes dodged as best as they could, the blue-eyed one saw that the accumulator was completely charged, and yelled:
"It's ready! Fire the Cannon! Destroy Raava!"
The two Acolytes who attempted keeping the cannon in solid ground jumped to the cannon, dodging as best as they could the fire, water and air attacks, and when they got close enough, they used metalbending to aim and fire the cannon loaded with spiritual energy. Avatar Sheng turned full light-blue and raised his hands, making the cannon and the accumulator overload, using the four elements to block the cannon, and finally made it explode. Seeing that this would happen, the rest of the Acolytes tried to make the run for their lives, but the explosion of all that accumulated Spirit Energy was massive enough to wipe out the entire United Republic off the map, so as its people and its structures.
The four Acolytes who fled the battle saw the massive explosion from the boat they had taken, luckily getting far enough from the explosion's expansive wave. They realized then that the future of the world, so as the future of their Order, was on their hands, and their base in Republic City was gone for good, so as all of their technology, resources and armies. These four survivors' names were: Haku of the Fire Nation, Tan Yang of the Air Nomads, Heska of the Water Tribes and Wei Jiao from the Earth Republics. Haku, after seeing the massive magenta explosion, asked:
"Do you really think that the Avatar may have survived?"
Wei Jiao replied:
"Not at all, partner. But now that our base and our Empire is gone, we'll have to take over the Four Nations in order to recover our full strength, and it's your responsibility to find and destroy the new Avatar, which will be born in your nation, Haku."
Tan Yang replied:
"Yet, something tells me that it will be different this time…"
Heska, the only woman in this small group, asked:
"Is it another massive change in this cycle of changes?"
Tan Yang nodded:
"I'm afraid so. We have unsettled the balance of the world, and if it's going to be set again, then I fear the next Avatar will be strong enough to do it on its own, and it will take all of our combined power, resources and influence just to stall it."
Wei Jiao said:
"Our spiritual cannon was destroyed, so as all of the prototypes of our high-tech spiritual weapons, and I don't think we'll be able to have any access to any of the Spirit Portals anytime soon."
Haku replied:
"We shall need to reassemble our ranks, strengthen our technology and maintain the world as controlled as possible in order to prepare for the next Harmonic Convergence, as it'll happen in twenty years from now."
Heska nodded:
"In the end it was your plan the one we'll end up taking, Haku. Well, it is time for each of us to take our leave and reestablish our Order's power."
The group reached a major vessel, and each one of them took small boats in that vessel to head to their lands.
Meanwhile, Sheng lied down on the floor, seeing the broken spirit of Raava, shattered in four pieces. He took the pieces and dragged himself to the Spirit Portal, getting Raava to be touched by the spiritual energy. As Raava's pieces took the shape of four small yet tremendously powerful Raavas (each being even more powerful than the original Raava), he said, with his last strength:
"May Raava's pieces be spread around the world in the shape of four Avatars, and may them gather and bring a new balance to this world…"
Raava's pieces vanished, and Avatar Sheng died.
As the entire story unfolded, finishing with the death of Avatar Sheng, a young man woke up, feeling deep pain on his insides. He stood up and went to his bathroom, looking at his own face in the sink's mirror.
He was twenty-years old, his brown hair was long enough to reach under his shoulders, his amber eyes burned like fire, his skin was slightly tanned, his beard started coming out of his skin, and he had dark eyecups. His mother opened the door and saw him, concerned:
"Yahiko, this is the third night you get up in the middle of the night; are you feeling bad?"
Yahiko detailed his mother. She had a great physical condition for being forty-three-years old, her body shape was quite attractive, her curly red hair fell to her mid-back, her emerald-green eyes showed concern, her white skin was flawless. Suddenly, Yahiko's mind was flooded with a series of images: a young version of his own mother murdering Avatar Sheng's only daughter.
Suddenly, she could see how Yahiko's body sported, for a very brief moment, the shining marks of Raava's spirit. Shocked, not exactly knowing what to do, she could only hear her own son tell her, scared:
"You… you were the one who murdered the last Avatar's only daughter…"
She could only whisper, concerned:
"You're the… the new Avatar…"
She tried to get close to Yahiko, but he evaded her, terrified:
"You betrayed me! You even lied to me about your name! You're Kasumi, the heroine of Fu Tong's Acolytes! You're the murderer!"
Kasumi, discovered, lowered her head in deep shame:
"Yes… you're right, Yahiko, I was that person…" Kasumi started crying: "But, please, listen to me, my son, I-"
"Shut up, you black flamethrower, you soul-rotter! You will deliver me to your Acolytes and let them murder me!"
Yahiko ran away, trying to head to the house's exit, and Kasumi followed him, crying sour tears:
"Yahiko! Son! Wait, please!"
Kasumi ran towards the exit and saw how Yahiko was paralyzed, shocked, and surrounded by four black-clad and masked men and women. One of the women cast a black fireball on his hand and said:
"Well, well, well, who would ever think that our greatest heroine would be the mother of the new Avatar…"
Kasumi, sad, upset, could only see how the four agents attacked her son. She saw herself twenty years ago, being as cold-blooded as those were when she murdered the last Avatar's only daughter, savoring the triumph of ending Sheng's legacy, and felt a pain so deep that she could compare it to what Avatar Sheng felt after his daughter's death. This pain was mixed with guilt, a guilt so heavy that made her repent from her murder every single day and run away from the Acolytes of Fu Tong, even changing her name; and it was all mixed with all the love she felt for her own son, so as with a deep sense of justice that awakened something inside her heart, cleansing and healing her body, rotten due to her constant use of the black flames during four consecutive years in her youth, and then her eyes turned bright gold.
A scared Yahiko could only see, paralyzed due to the fear, how four black-clad persons aimed black fireballs towards him, but then he could see how they retorted, as if having a seizure, and one by one they let go of a golden and shiny flame out of their mouths, burning their masks in fraction of seconds and revealing the aggressors' faces. Yahiko turned to see how his mother, visibly changed, took these four golden flames, reciting some prayers, and then he saw how these golden flames slowly turned pitch-black. Kasumi said:
"You're all rotten on the inside! Watch how your rotten souls turn as dark as your favorite flames, the ones you use to destroy others, and feel the rotting deep inside!" As the four Acolytes felt their bodies rotting from inside out, she turned the four black fireballs off: "You won't touch my son! You'll have to get through me if you want him, Acolytes!"
End of Episode 01.