On the Avatar Spirit Dot Net forums, there's a user-run Avatar Drabble contest that runs weekly. I usually post my entries in my short story thread, "The Ember Island Lighthouse," but I felt this one was long enough and deep enough to merit it's own story. More extensive Author's Notes will follow, but for now, here's the prompt and criteria:
Prompt - AU's
Requirements
1) Difference- There has to be something different from the canon verse, it can be anything from "Zuko joined the water tribe at an early age" all the way to "there is no bending, everyone pilots robots" to "the water tribe and fire Nation switch places, Aang now travels with Azula and Zuko", but the difference should tie into the drabble.
2) Show don't tell - This is the "Drabble thread" not the "plot bunnies" thread. I want a story set in the AU, not a bland description.
3) Creativity- this doesn't mean "big changes" just changes that are creative or have are interesting in some way.
Showdown in the West
High Noon.
Sleeping Boy, Chosen One of the American tribes, stood his ground as the tanks approached. Like steam trains, white breath billowed out and mixed with the dust clouds they kicked up , but they were not limited to tracks. Their rugged, wheels tore the ground but also grabbed it, propelling them faster than a galloping horse. For now, the machines moved slowly, keeping pace with the man walking ahead of them. His features were hidden by hat's shadow, but Sleeping Boy knew him. "Baron" O'Zaye's name was enough to terrorize the whole West. He first became known as his father's enforcer, a big rancher constantly enmeshed in property wars with big landowners. By the time the Baron's father had died, the family owned the equivalent of whole Eastern states.
Native tribes had been forced off their land by his mercenaries, and now the Baron was looking to extend his control into the Mexican territories. He could do that in one fell swoop, today, by disrupting the Big Cattle Drive.
It was the day of confrontation for Sleeping Boy. The sun shone down on his destined enemy, as he walked within shooting range.
The tanks ground to a halt just behind the Baron. Several gunman leapt from the nearest vehicle and began setting up some kind of small machinery. The Baron ignored them as they worked. "Who're you?"
Sleeping Boy tried to stand as tall as he could. "I'm the protector of these lands, these people. I won't let you disrupt the Big Drive."
The Baron spat on the ground. "Dang Injun kid," he muttered. "You come over here and gimme your weapons, and I'll make sure you get good food and a blanket when you get to ya reservation. You get sick there, well, that's your business."
Sleeping Boy blinked. "Was that seriously supposed to make me surrender our lands to you?"
The Baron's smirk got larger. "I was hopin' you'd turn me down. Gimme an excuse to try this out on something a lot closer to a man than those cows down there." The minions finished their work, leaving a gatling gun on a stand with a long chain of bullets loaded and ready to go. "Troublemakers been getting younger'n'younger and fewer'n'fewer. Now all's you are is a dang kid all by your lonesome. Your parents know you here?"
"No," Sleeping Boy said as the Baron reached the gun. "Your family killed my whole nation."
"So what're you? The last Fightin' Injun?"
"Maybe."
"Well, on account of your people being done, either way, I'll give ya a chance, boy- a quick draw. Your pistol," he nodded down at Sleeping Boy's gunbelt, "versus my machine gun." He smiled widely. "Fair warning... even on this monster, I'm the fastest shot in the West. No exaggeratin'."
Sleeping Boy fingered the hammer on his pistol. "Your son is pretty quick, too. He's the one who taught me how to shoot."
"Junior's already as good as disowned. Once I deal with you and this Drive, I'll see about nailing his hide to a wall. If'n his sister don't beat me to it." He nodded at Sleeping Boy. "We draw when the coin hits the ground." He held a nickel in his left hand. With a flick of his fingers, it flew.
Despite their diminishing population, the American Natives still possessed powers beyond the East's imagination. Just before his century-long nap, Sleeping Boy had learned his tribe's specialty, the control of time. He exerted his will, and everything around him slowed. The coin hung suspended, and the Baron's fingers rested against their triggers. Sleeping Boy knew O'Zaye would fire before the coin landed, but it didn't matter. With this power, he could draw and shoot in the time it would take his opponent's first bullet to reach his body. He could easily kill the Baron in revenge.
Was that what was needed? Would murdering the man here stop the conquest? Or just bring more?
In his indecision, the power faded, and the world returned to its normal flow. The coin came up and down. Sleeping Boy grasped at his pistol, felt his hand slide over the grip...
...and then the gatling gun fired and he was struck by more bullets than he had years to his name.
Sleeping Boy fell to the ground, somehow without pain. Time slowed again, but he hadn't willed it. His vision blurred, replaced by shapes and images that existed somewhere between hallucinations and ghosts.
At the Baron's estate, "Junior" O'Zaye drew his guns. He was easily recognizable by the brand burned onto his face, marking him as cattle owned by the O'Zaye family. Beside him was Sleeping Boy's love, the Blackfoot maiden Living Hope. Junior had only joined them recently, but Living Hope had guided him since the Canadian snows. Sleeping Boy's heart lurched when he saw their opponent. Adelita O'Zaye had the Hispanic looks of her mother, but dressed like one of her father's ranchers. She was holding her signature weapon, the blue-tinted pistol she called "La Madre Azul".
Junior aimed, but then he saw where his sister's gun was pointed. Somehow moving faster than the bullet she fired, Junior dived and took the shot meant for Living Hope.
Sleeping Boy's vision shifted. He watched the Big Cattle Drive from above, seeing himself lying on the ground nearby. The Baron's tanks started up again, driving towards the running cattle. Yet before they could plow into the animals with their armored fronts, one of the tanks turned and rammed into another next to it. The bludgeoned vehicle took the blow on its unshielded side and came apart. Sleeping Boy focused on the rogue tank, and his vision pulled into the cockpit, where Living Hope's brother Wars Thoughtfully and their blind friend Bandido Ciego were in control. The boy and girl disrupted the tank attack, but there were still some gunman in their own vehicle. They fought hard.
Wars Thoughtfully even sacrificed his Tomahawk and the rapier given to him by El Zorro to save their lives, but soon enough he and the younger girl were overwhelmed and surrounded by mercenaries.
Sleeping Boy drifted back into his own body. Was he dying? Was that why his soul fell so light?
Then he heard the voice. His totem coalesced into his vision, the Buffalo's head filling his view, but also blending into it. The spirit was chanting, and it was also speaking, but it was doing neither. "From Wakan-Tanka, the Great Mystery, comes all power. You are the embodiment of Wakan-Tanka, and so you are in all things. You cannot be understood, but the power is there all the same. The salvation of those with the power in them... will come from the Great Mystery. From you."
He had heard those words before, on his Spirit Journeys, but in this state beyond life, he finally felt their truth. The truth was the lie. Reality was not the nature of the world, the mystery within the reality was. Sleeping Boy woke up, and was both shocked and not at all surprised to find that he was unharmed. The bullets were in the dirt beneath him, unbloodied.
No more contradictions. Time for action.
Sleeping Boy reached back into the Great Mystery, and sent his love to Living Hope. He could feel as she lured Adelita into a trap, tied the would-be killer up with her signature lasso, and rushed back to Junior to use her Medicine Woman abilities to save his life. She would succeed. Sleeping Boy then blew his confidence towards Wars Thoughtfully and Bandido Ciego, and felt their surprise as bullets burst through the tank's windows and struck down the mercenaries about to execute them. A last tug at Wars Thoughtfully's gaze showed him his lover, Calamity Sue, aiming a rifle from a pillar of rock within sight of the Big Cattle Drive.
One last task. Baron O'Zaye was still at his gatling gun, watching with dismay as his tanks were destroyed. He didn't notice Sleeping Boy until the young Native was standing behind him, but at the sound of the boy's voice, the Baron gave a strangled cry and fell from the gatling gun in shaking terror.
"You and your forefathers have devastated the peoples and lands of America, and now you shall pay the fair price." Sleeping Boy grabbed the older man's head in both hands, and took control of the Mysterious power within. His soul could stay, but the outer form was unimportant. It shriveled and shrunk, twisting until Sleeping Boy held a writhing snake. "You are now a native of this land. Learn to crawl on the earth you sough to exploit."
This was his duty as embodiment of Wakan-Tanka, for as long as the West was in danger. Would that the spirits have mercy on their lands.
END
Notes:
Due to the word limit on this fic, I didn't have the room to show off the full backstory I developed for this alternate universe. Obviously, some things changed in the execution, but my original "treatment" is as follows:
Aang - Sleeping Boy (Apache), animal powers, is the embodiment of the Wakan-Tanka
Katara - Living Hope (Blackfoot), telepathy and telepathy and time slow, also a trained Medicine Woman.
Sokka - Wars Thoughtfully, hunter and warrior favoring a tomahawk and rapier (trained by Zorro)
Toph - Bandido Ciego (Mexican), walks without leaving footprints and can summon earthquakes
Zuko - "Junior" O'Zaye (half-hispanic Cowboy), gun fighter (leads to Aang becoming bullet proof)
Fire Lord Ozai - The Baron O'Zaye, a white land baron looking to buy all the farms from the poor local minority farmers
Azula - Adelita O'Zaye (half-hispanic Cowgirl), gun fighter for her "papá". Uses a blue-tinted gun called "La Madre Azul"
Suki - "Calamity Sue" Suelita (half-Native American Cowgirl), riflewoman and girlfriend to Wars Thoughtfully
Ba Sing Se- La Ciudad Impenetrable
Old Masters - The Old Shamans
The Baron attempts to disrupt the Big Cattle Drive on the Mexican border with his new steam ramming tanks. The tanks will spook the cattle, killing and scattering them. This will bankrupt the Mexican, Native American, and African American farmers and Cowboys/Vaqueros depending on the run. The Baron will then buy their land at cheap prices, giving him control of nearly the whole Wild West. The Old Shamans, medicince men from various Native American tribes across the west, attack to free the only place of law and order in the region, La Ciudad Impenetrable, that had been taken over by the Baron and its Sheriff driven away. "Junior" and Living Hope go to the Baron's mansion to secure his fortune and deeds, but are challenged by his daughter Adelita; "Junior" gets into a quickdraw showdown with her, and gets shot by her "La Madre Azul" pistol when he dives to take the bullet for Living Hope. Living Hope is forced to run from Adelita, but eventually succeeds in leading her attacker into a trap and lassoing her into submission, then quickly uses her Spirit and healing powers to heal "Junior". Back at the Big Cattle Drive, Wars Thoughtfully (Living Hope's brother) and Bandido Ciego attempt to stop the Baron's hired thugs from disrupting the run, and although they wreck several of the Steam Rammers and steal one of their own, they are eventually overwhelmed and about to die, when they are saved by Calamity Sue, who snipes the remaining thugs from nearby.
The bulk of this short story, though, is concerned with the confrontation between the Baron and Sleeping Boy. Sleeping Boy has learned the various aspects of Wakan-Tanka (earth, spirit, animal, machine), and is now confronting the Baron, the symbol of western expansion and exploitation. The Baron is the fastest gun in the West, and is armed with a chain gun. Sleeping Boy doesn't want to use his powers to kill the Baron, but sees no choice. The two meet when Sleeping Boy tries to stop the Baron from leading the attack on the cattle run, and the Baron engages Sleeping Boy in a gunfight. Sleeping Boy dodges and runs, and beats on the Baron, but the older man is very tough from years working the west, and does not go down. The battle seems to end when the Baron successfully shoots Sleeping Boy, but in that instant before the bullet hits, time slows and Sleeping Boy recalls the words of the Buffalo spirit, which reminds him that Wakan-Tanka exists in all things, even the white men. The bullet strikes, but it passes through Sleeping Boy, who then walks towards the Baron. None of the bullets hit, or maybe they pass through him, until the two are standing next to each other. Sleeping Boy reaches out to the Baron, and transforms him into a snake, to live as he can with nature. With the Baron gone and his true power realized, Sleeping Boy becomes the protector of the West and its oppressed people. "Junior" takes over the white men and agrees to become allies and friends to the native peoples. There will still be outlaws and criminals and evil conquerors, but these magnificent heroes will stand as heroes against them.