"What happened, did we get captured again?" Sokka groggily asked as he bolted upright from his sleeping bag, his boomerang and sword in either hand.
"That's your first reaction? How often did that happen? How did you beat the Fire Nation again?" Bi asked from her own pile of blankets.
"It's Azula! Something's wrong with her," Ked called out in alarm. Sokka blinked the sleep away, shaking his head and pulling himself out of the bag. He stared down at her for a moment, before turning back to his countryman.
"And she hasn't done this before? For six years?" Sokka asked. Ked shot him a death glare. "Fine. Just let me..."
"Let you what?" Ked asked. Sokka ignored that, and leaned down to press a fingertip to Azula's brow, right between her eyes. "Sokka, what are you doing?"
Sokka closed his eyes, and got a confused look to him. "Well, that's odd," he said.
"I need to get up, don't I?" Bi muttered angrily.
"She's not in there," Sokka ignored her. Ked's eyes grew wide.
"What? What are you saying!" he demanded.
"About a decade back, Heibai dragged me physically into the Spirit world. Ever since then, I've technically been a shaman," Sokka said quickly. "So trust me when I say that Azula's not in this igloo, not in spirit, anyway. Something grabbed her soul and dragged it out."
"Is she..."
"Dead? Hell, no," Sokka answered, sitting back and shaking his head. "She's just going to be like that until her spirit gets back. Trust me, I have a lot of experience with this sort of shaman/Avatar nonsense. The real question is who would have that sort of muscle and inclination," Sokka leaned back and closed his eyes, just for a few moments, before letting out a yelp and holding a hand to his head.
"Am I the only non-crazy one right now?" Bi asked.
"Remind me not to do that again," Sokka muttered. He looked up, his eyes reflecting the dying of the fire. "I've got good news and bad news, Ked. Which do you want to hear first, and please don't take too long deciding."
"Sokka..." Ked muttered, a vein bulging on his forehead.
"The good news is that it wasn't Koh who took her. If it had been, I'd have had to go after her, and that'd be messy. That and she'd have no face. But there's some bad news."
"Out with it, Sokka!" Ked shouted.
"Oh, we're under attack," Sokka said calmly. He reached outside the shelter and pulled in a heavy-seeming roll. He rolled it open along the ground to a clatter of metal. Contained within were as many weapons as Ked had ever seen in his life; knives, axes, machetes, clubs, swords, and even some more bizarre looking implements rested, gleaming in the firelight. Most were of Polar Steel, bright and silvery, and a few even had the distinct blue sheen of South Pole rogue-metal. Even Smellerbee's eyes widened at such an assortment. "You might want to grab something to defend yourself, because they're going to be here in about two minutes."
And the dancing monkeys are all lined up for the chapter-long action sequence. Maybe this one'll be better than the last time he tried to pull this crap. Ha! As if that two-bit hack could write a fight scene to save his life... Still, this should be fun.
Azula felt like a bag full of hammered hell, to use a soldier's euphemism. It made no sense as a saying, but it certainly evoked the sort of sensation that she felt right now. She felt oddly cool. Ked and the others must have left her be, as she wanted. She opened her eyes to darkness. Not even a fire. Sloppy. But there weren't any people around. In fact, even the wind had died out completely, which as she understood was extraordinarily rare in this part of Great Whales. She slowly, effortfully forced her way out of the small opening and into the light.
The forest stretched before her, but it was much more boggy than she had noticed before. Then again, there had been substantial rains last night. It made sense that things would be a bit waterlogged. But it was also far warmer than she remembered. A function of the summer in the south, perhaps? The silence continued. There was no crackling pop of a campfire which Ked at least would have created for sure. In fact, there was no sign that anybody had ever been to this place... ever. She turned, and saw that she had crawled out of, not a dome of ice which Ked had crafted, but a tree-stump, grown over with moss. She would have noticed if they moved her to something like this. She slowly panned her eyes up, and they widened as she beheld a sky as golden as they were.
"Huh." Azula opined, but her voice was odd. High pitched and youthful. She stared down at herself. She was not wearing the thick and unfashionable Tribesman's clothing she was before. These were the red and fine silks of Fire Nation royalty. They were wide sleeved, very comfortable, and extremely familiar. She looked down at herself. Her body seemed different. "Well, this doesn't feel like a dream."
The voice was as it was. Young. She walked to a puddle and stared into it. It reflected like a mirror, and she saw clear, bright golden eyes staring out past lustrous black bangs, on a face which was thirteen years old at the oldest. "And then I see something like this," Azula commented. She sighed, consigning herself to the dream. But even with that decision, nothing happened. Usually, the narrative of the dream swept her away as soon as she stopped actively fighting it. Now, she was simply standing in a forest under a golden sky. And it was starting to get on her nerves.
Something, like a bright and living light, shot past her, letting out a thin trill as it moved. Azula stared at it. It swung back around, stopping not far from Azula. The light changed, dark lines shifting across its being, until the white, glowing ball seemed to sport an impression of a face. It showed a childlike smile, and emitted another trill, before shooting away into the distance.
"Or maybe I've just gone irretrievably insane," Azula amended.
"Chapter 12: Let's Kill The Hell Out Of Azula!"
"Wait a minute. What's with the quotation marks?"
Only I get to speak without them. And it's Chapter 11, idiot.
"You've got to be kidding me."
Also: bold is for Author's Notes only. Get out.
"I refuse."
Irukandji looked up, scowling at the snub. "Asshole Canadian," he muttered. "Well, it was worth a shot," he paused, then looked down. With a scowl he asked. "And just how is that any better?"
Chapter 11: Doomsday
The Blue Spirit crept slowly through the underbrush. As it had predicted, they were not far ahead. The Yu Yan archer was taking point, his keen eyes picking out the tiny hints of trail that few others would even notice. The people in this rag-tag group were of varied skills, from fighters to criminals to assassins to some legitimate bounty-hunters, most at the top of their respective fields. The employer demanded results, and was willing to pay any price to acquire them. Of course, the Blue Spirit was something else entirely. It was not in this for the money, not exclusively anyway. And because of that, it held caution where others stumbled forward blindly.
The Yu Yan archer paused, a look which was as close to a smile as would come to that red-stained face, and motioned forward. That was when it saw the target. An igloo, despite the temperatures being reasonably above freezing and a paucity of standing ice and snow. It was like they were begging to be killed. There was a flicker in the darkness. The Blue Spirit was gone.
And about a second later, a cutting seared through the air, a blue metal boomerang slamming the archer from his feet. He was chased down with shining white steel, and merciless blue eyes glared. The time for levity, for smirking and jokes, was over. Sokka Baihu was in a fight for his life.
"What are these?" Bi asked. Sokka shrugged.
"A couple of weapons," he said dismissively.
"Did you train with all of these?" she asked.
"Train with them? I made them!" Sokka stressed. "I might prefer the sword but it's important to be proficient in a lot of things. Overspecialization is breeding in weakness. Now are you going to pick something or not?"
Bi could tell that despite his flippancy, he was deadly serious. It was a stark difference from the teenaged boy whom she'd first encountered in that forest. He had been so naïve back then, so righteous and full of mercy. But she could see that his stores of mercy had run critically low in recent years, and now, it was a privilege he now extended only to a select few. Either that, or she was projecting herself onto him, but in either case, Bi hadn't the time to dick around considering the pain of a childhood lost to combat. Not his, and not hers. She scanned the weapons briefly, and her eyes widened when she beheld a pair of hookswords, both identical of that blue metal that she had never seen the like of. She quickly grabbed the two blades, then quickly shoved a knife which seemed to be made of the jaw of a tiger-seal into her teeth. Without another word passing, she ducked out of the shelter and into the driving rain and wind. It was brutally cold, and death was coming. It might even be hers this time.
If it dared.
Bi had been fighting for a decade and more, a guerrilla and a hunter. It was in this sort of terrain where she cut her teeth with Jet, cutting apart the Fire Nation in the Western Earth Kingdoms, just colder and wetter. So when she tucked the blades into her belt, she clambered up a tree like it was a ladder, she might as well have been a squirrelcat for all the difficulty she had in navigating the boughs. She looked down, squatting on the branch, that knife still tight between her teeth. Gods, the similarity was uncanny.
She had been painted back then, trying to instill further terror into her enemies the likes of which an eight year old girl couldn't do on her own. She had thought it would give her an advantage, and Jet didn't say otherwise. So she waited in the trees, for that red armor to appear. It had been such a good day. It ended... badly. She quickly snapped herself back to the present. She couldn't afford to get sloppy. Getting sloppy got dead.
She smiled around the knife as she spotted the first of them, slinking through the underbrush with a reasonable amount of stealth, but not nearly enough to evade her, even in the very-early morning as it was. So easy. She reached behind her, grabbing those twin blades, preparing. But something felt off. And she always heeded that instinct. She swung her head around, one last glance before taking her path. To the left. Nothing. To the right. Her eyes widened as she beheld the red markings of a Yu Yan Archer, up in the boughs with her. Aiming an arrow at her. That meant there would be at least four others. They operated in fives or else not at all. And her muscle-memory saved her from the missile that he fired, deflecting it before it speared her head and killed her.
With speed born of years of practice, she bounded forward, clutching those hook-like implements and letting them dig into another branch, swinging her forward. Fast as a flash, the archer nocked and fired another arrow. Unable to deflect it, she twisted her body a bit, and the arrow slid along her stolen armor, deflecting away more or less harmlessly. The hooks caught in the tree-limb the archer had taken upon, and she swung under the branch, kipping back up. Soon, she knew, she wouldn't be nimble enough for a maneuver like that. But for now, she was still good enough. Abandoning the blades for haste, she spat her blade into her hand, and slid under another arrow, the third in that same span of two seconds, and slashed at the archer with the blade. He backpedaled, and she pressed him without mercy or cease. She was relentless, her blade never slowing, never faltering, never ceasing. It lashed out with professional accuracy, tearing his arms, his legs, his all-important hands, and always pushing him backward, toward the narrowest part of that branch. It began to bob with their combined weight, he trying to get the time to put an arrow to nock, she denying him that chance.
Then, he stopped retreating. Namely because he had no room to. He flailed his arms, trying to keep his balance. His eyes locked with hers. They always looked you in the eyes, right at the end. As though testing your mettle, demanding to know if you have the guts to do it this time, or if you're just a frightened little child. And she made the same choice she always did. Without expression, for wrath nor pity, she slammed the blade hard into his chest, tearing down and out, and letting him drop away to the ground two dozen and more paces below. She quickly returned the knife between her teeth, heedless of the blood which now seeped onto her tongue. The fight had only begun. This was going to get bloodier still before it was done.
Rather than follow the obvious plotline that the creature seemed to provide, she picked a random direction and began to walk. The forest became more and more swampy as she moved, and the trees were banyans and willows, not the pines of Great Whales. Finally, she could hear voices ahead. They spoke in no language she could understand, but there was something which tickled at the back of her mind, as though she should have. One of those voices sounded very, very familiar. Finally, she began to clear the trees, and she saw the people who had been speaking. Well, one of them, anyway, since the other was just a flash of white clothing vanishing into the trees at the far side of the clearing. The other was stationary, though. It was a monkey, albeit one wearing very fine robes, and sitting as though trying to meditate. The monkey turned to her, eyes sliding open, and its shoulders slumped. With a loud groan, seemingly of annoyance, its eyes rolled.
"Must everybody come to speak to me today!" the monkey asked in a complaining tone.
"I see. A talking monkey," Azula nodded.
"You do not speak Uou," the monkey said, aborting its complaint to look at her more closely. "You do not belong here, girl."
"Obviously. And I am not a girl."
"Do you have a uterus?"
"Well..."
"Then you are a girl," the monkey said with a dismissive wave. "So. What are you doing in my clearing?"
"Why are you talking?"
"Some spirits speak. Others do not. I am of the former," he said, closing his eyes and shifting into a more comfortable meditation pose. She glared at the creature.
"What are you doing?"
"I am attempting to gain spiritual perfection before the end of the universe," he answered. "Now, go away."
"Gladly," she answered. She shook her head, turning back whence she came, but she quickly discovered she had no idea where she was, nor where she was going. "If I could."
"You are lost?" the monkey asked. She cast him a look. He now no longer had the look like something served him garbage for dinner. "Alone and afraid, cut off from the life which you would have chosen and cast to drift amongst people you cannot bring yourself to trust."
"How do you know anything about me?" Azula asked.
"You are always possessed of the same problems, child," the monkey said, rising, to a crunch of his back. He leveled an inhuman gaze at her. "How many times have I seen this story, the lives you could have lived; it would baffle a mortal comprehension."
"You're blathering nonsense."
"Nonsense and profundity are the same man in different hats," the monkey dismissed. He stared intently at her. "How did you get here? You are not a shaman, nor the Avatar. Not this time, anyway. So how are you in my home?"
"I... I'm not sure," Azula admitted. It was odd how easily admission, even of personal failure, came to her here. Awake, she would have snapped at anybody who put her in that sort of position. Here, it just didn't seem to matter.
"You were brought here," he said slowly, looking at her. He reached over and picked up a stick which was floating lazily in the bog. He threw it at her. She caught it easily, but his eyes narrowed at it. "And yet, not bodily. I smell my brother's hand in this."
"Are you going to spout on or are you going to tell me how to wake up from this insane dream?"
"You are awake," the monkey said. "This is the Spirit world, the union of all times and places. From this axis all of existence rotates and moves. Your life has seldom touched here, daughter of the Fire Lord. And it should not have touched here. Not this time. Like last time, but worse."
She scowled. "What."
"Leave me be. I must think."
Azula stared at the preposterous monkey for a long moment, as he sat back down and slid back into meditation as easily as he had left it. When it became obvious that he was done with her for the moment, she shook her head and started to walk away, a random direction since the dream would probably find some reason to involve her whether she acted toward it or not. Unless, somehow, that monkey was right, and this wasn't a dream. If true, then she was in a great deal more trouble than she anticipated.
She walked, and the brush slid past, water sloshing over the edges of her boots, soaking her feet. At least it wasn't cold, that was the one mercy of this place. And it was bright enough, certainly. Well, except for the shadows. As she walked, the shadows seemed to grow longer, and clouds mounted in the golden sky. There was a dread which moved with that darkness, and her eyes widened as she saw that the shadows were reaching toward her, trying to caress her heels as she moved. She spun, casting out a lash of flame at the wayward shadows; nothing happened. Not so much as a spark. She tried again. Nothing. She felt inwardly to her pool of chi. It felt odd, not like it was empty, but like it wasn't even present. She couldn't firebend!
She was running again, that pressing dread giving her speed as the clouds easily overtook. They were not normal clouds, grey of various shade. These held a sickly, electric blue hue, and the shadows that reached toward her began to glow with a horrid light. Something was chasing her, and she knew in her soul that if it caught her, it would destroy her utterly. There was a peal of thunder, despite the absence of rain and wind, and lack of thunderstrike. She kept running.
"Oh Azuuuuuula..." a mocking voice came. "Still think you can run?"
"Show yourself!" Azula said, putting her back to a tree.
"Why would I do that? It's so much more fun to see you running in terror."
"You coward!"
"Of course I am. Why do you think I lasted this long? Fine. You want to see me in all my glory, then prepare to bow down, girl."
There was a blinding flash of light, and lightning smashed into the tree she was taking shelter against. A blast lifted her off her feet and threw her into the mud. She turned, and saw living lightning, heavens connected to ground in a shape roughly like a man. Then, with a harsh snap, the lightning grounded, and a red-haired man, young and unshaven, was leaning in the cleft ruin of the tree. "Like what you see? He's a lot less wrinkly here at home," the thing said. Azula felt terror in her stomach, working its way through her body. That voice was the same. Irukandji. "Ah, now you recognize me. It took you long enough."
"What do you want?" Azula asked, dropping low into a firebending stance, quite pointlessly, she considered, but what else was she going to do?
"My face on the gold coin," the man flippantly answered, a smirk on his face. "But that's a long-term thing."
"What are you?"
"I AM," he boomed. Then, he smirked, and shrugged. "What else do you need to know? My shoe size? Inseam length? When I got my first kiss? When I got my first kill? Sorry, princess. I'm not in an informative mood."
"I will give you nothing," Azula snapped, backing away as he approached.
"Y'see, that's where you're wrong," Irukandji countered, a grin on his face that showed far too many teeth to be human. "I'm already getting something out of you. And when you die – and die you shall, considering the sheer amount of firepower which J.J. is chucking at your torpid body up top – I'll be the one who gets your soul. You already managed to slip me twice. I'm not going to let it become three. Since I can't kill you up top without forfeiting the prize, I just had to wait for a time like right now. And just so you don't entertain the notion of a peaceful oblivion: no sliding into the Sea of Souls for you. Just you, me, and a Pear of Anguish makes three."
"You have no power over me," Azula said. "You can't take my soul."
He shrugged. "Once again, wrong. I wasn't considered a god by your ancestors for nothing. In a way, you were right. As long as you're in the world, your soul automatically passes into eternity, and I have to waste an afternoon dragging it out of the Pit. But I have no intention of you being in that world when you die, little girl."
"Stop calling me a..."
He laughed. "Open wide," he said. She paused, noticing that the place she was retreating toward was brighter than that around it. She glanced back, and could see one of those bulbs of light, the black lines now at random. This one was puffed up big enough to consume a Komodo Rhino, and she had almost blundered into it. It let out a frustrated trill, and Azula turned back. Irukandji was standing directly in front of her. "Oh, don't be like that. We're just heading off on a little vacation."
"I'm not..."
"Whoops," Irukandji said, and gave Azula a hard shove. She fell backward against that thing... and then through it, vanishing into oblivion.
Sokka had to use his boot on the earthbender's chest to get the blade out, stuck as it was. He sighed for a moment, looking at the condition of the blade. As much as the silvery metal was resilient, there was only so far it could be pushed before it needed reforging. Not like his Space Sword. Oh, how he missed his Space Sword. "Now how many does that leave?" he asked.
It was a game of catmouse and mousecat, with Smellerbee and Sokka leading the veritable legion of assassins wide and afield as Ked kept Azula safe. Now there was a thought he'd never thought he'd have to entertain. Working with snot-nosed, tiny-bladdered Ked to keep Azula safe? He slid the blade back into its scabbard for the time being. No need to snap the already weakened blade. He pelted along the forest floor, bounding between roots, trying to find the next soldier in the army of assassins.
His eyes moved around like a man blasted on cactus juice, flitting to all directions and positions. It was a level of paranoia that he usually didn't undertake, easygoing fellow that he was. But it was instilled by his father into him that any laxity in the hunt was a sure path to horrible premature death. So when the bush shifted just a little bit to his left, he wasn't caught completely by surprise when a gleaming, pale blue machete swung at his face.
Sokka dodged around the attack, ducking, weaving, and eventually directing the weapon into a tree, where it lodged for a moment. The man at the other end glared with bright blue eyes at him, for just an instant, before they widened in surprise. "What the hell?" he asked in their shared native tongue. "What are you doing here? I didn't know you were part of the hunt."
"Which one are you?" Sokka asked the Tribesman. He didn't recognize the man.
"I am Gatt," he said, a smirk coming to his face. "And may I say it's an honor to meet you in person, Guardian of the Avatar."
"Gatt. North Tribe?" Sokka asked. Gatt nodded. "And what's your part in this?"
"Kill the crazy bitch who tried to slaughter my people and get enough money out of it to live in luxury for the rest of my life, obviously," the young man said brazenly. Sokka sighed.
"Who's paying?" Sokka asked.
"Jeong Jeong... Wait. Why didn't you know about...?"
Sokka pulled the machete out of the tree, glancing around. "Gatt, I'm going to tell you this just once, and it will be my last warning. Go home. Head to the river and leave Gwynt this instant. Otherwise, somebody in this forest is going to kill you. And it might just be me."
"What are you saying?" Gatt asked, accepting his weapon.
"I don't just guard the Avatar, Gatt. I protect who needs protecting. And right now, that includes a crazy bitch," Gatt's look hardened. "Remember something, Gatt. I just handed you your weapon back, and I'm giving you your last warning while standing unarmed. Make of that what you will."
Gatt glared at him, then down to the hands crossed at Sokka's chest, then finally to the machete in his own hand. "Screw it. Not worth dying for."
"Smartest move you've ever made," Sokka said. He turned, but from the corner of his eye, he could see Gatt's grip tighten on the handle of the machete. He let out a scream, and swung. Sokka twisted, pulling out his club and smashing it across Gatt's jaw, breaking the mandible and sending the young man unconscious to the ground. "But obviously not smart enough."
Sokka left his insensate distant-cousin on the ground, as he looked for others trying to do he and his companions harm.
"Why does it seem like every time I turn around we're like this?" Ked asked, panting for breath. Azula's face, laying unconscious on his shoulder, offered no response. In order to move her quickly and effectively, he'd lashed her to his back like an infant, albeit a vastly overgrown one, and took to the woods trying to avoid the harm which was spiraling in on them. It wasn't that she weighed too much; she was actually quite fit, and he was possessed of impressive strength since he inherited his father's blocky build. Rather, it was that he could never rest. He was already tired, from his lack of sleep for the past few days and the amount of running he'd already done. He was almost ready to drop. But he wasn't even close to ready to give up.
A flicker of motion was all the warning he got, hurling himself to the side, twisting to land on his chest, driving the air even harder out of his lungs from Azula's added weight. The slashing dao would have cleaved his head open had he not. He grasped at the water falling through the air, and formed a blob, scarcely larger than his two fists, and slammed it into the dark-garbed man with the grinning blue oni mask. The man was pushed back, but not knocked down. A nimble fellow.
"Why the hell won't you people stay down?" Ked tried to shout, but his lungs lacked the wind to give more than an enraged mutter. He twisted his body, hurling up the water on the ground in a long spike, which the Blue Spirit easily deflected with his twin dao. Ked began to drag water into frigid, frozen shields which he used to keep the swords from slashing him to pieces. He hadn't the strength to keep this up much longer, and the killer before him was too persistent. He offered no room to think or breathe or prepare. He shoved outward, smashing the shield and the man beyond it into the darkness. If he'd had time or energy, he'd have pressed the advantage, but he was tired, he was running out of strength. He turned and started to run again. Azula could call him a coward all she wanted. As long as she was alive to do so.
Blades flashed, the two people silently parting to surround her and attack from two directions at once. They were smooth, calm, and professional. She, on the other hand, was cold, angry, and bleeding. But most tellingly in her favor, she was dead sober, and that made them as good as dead. Without a word, they converged as one, and Bi's body slipped into a state of muscle-memory, every twitch of her arms and shift of here feet as unthinking as breath or blinking. The crisp clang of two blades beating back two others was swallowed in the gale, leaving only the three people standing at its heart. To Bi, they might as well have been alone in the universe.
A twist and a slash of the hooked swords, trying to drive one back, saw the other slash down along her armor, tearing a plate off and the slender blades lancing forward like a serpent-strike to lance the flesh of her hip. It drew a roar from her, slamming her weapons back around her with remarkable force and speed. The hooks trapped the blade, still in the wound, and twisted it out of its owner's grasp. Also, opening a larger injury, but she would deal with that later if at all. She regretted losing the knife earlier, but she had a chance to one-shot another Yu Yan archer, and she refused to pass it up. The swordsman, disarmed, fell back, but Bi was merciless. She spun on her heel, hooking the two blades together at their points, and swinging it in a broad arc which the other assassin had to dive low to avoid, preventing a back-stabbing. The one before her had no such options, and the razor-like protrusions at the base of the blade dug into the lower chest, gashing open the liver and dropping the killer to the forest floor. Bi twisted the hookswords back into her hand and dropped low, spinning to the other. She could practically feel the cold wrath rolling off of the white-faced killer.
"What? Pissed because I offed your butt-buddy?" Bi asked. In truth, she had no idea what gender the two were, but it was easier – as well as more insulting – to assume male. "How about I send you to join him?"
Without a word, the other raised the blade, preparing to advance again. But Smellerbee could hear a loud, harsh popping in the air. She turned, then dove off pure instinct, and the beam of concentrated death which would have blasted her to bits instead struck a tree directly beside the killer. The tree erupted into an explosion which consumed the man almost utterly, painting the forest with his remains. Bi rolled to her feet, staring up... and up... at a grisly giant, staring impassively with one intense brown eye at her. The other eye, and half of his face, was covered in a featureless metal plate with a red, afire eyeball on it. A tattoo of a third eye blazed at the center of his head, where the plate moved around to keep it exposed. His arm and leg were also of dark, lusterless iron.
"Well, how about you and I just..." Bi began. He took in a sharp breath, then leaned forward. A death beam, snapping and popping as it detonated the droplets of rain in its path, seared toward her. Great, she thought in that brief instant the death beam seared toward her. I'm going to be killed by a cripple.
There was a ringing in her ears and a dull ache in the back of her head and her posterior. The ground she was lying on was extremely hard, dull grey and slanted slightly, but uniformly away. It was also fairly dark. Azula rubbed her head, trying to cut off the headache before it became distracting. She flared her fingers, and there was a flash of orange light before a blue flame appeared above her hands, illuminating the area around her. "Show yourself Irukandji," Azula said, pleased that she had her firebending back. "Let's see how well you fare when you don't have the rules stacked against you!"
An electric hum started up, and odd lights began to flick on, running in regular rows down this unusual cave. The lights had no flame, and did not flicker, but instead hummed and let out an unpleasant, unflattering white light. Her golden eyes flicked around. There were lines painted on the floor of this cave, as though dividing it, and within some of the divided areas were odd, metal-and-glass-and-rubber constructs she couldn't classify. "This is unusual," she muttered.
"Maybe, but it's also a very nice summer home," Irukandji's voice came from directly behind her. She spun and released a blast of fire a cubit thick, searing into the stone and spalling it. The source of the voice leaned into her line of sight, smirking maddeningly. "Oh, please, like your little flames could hurt me. Not here. Different universe, different rules."
"You are insane."
"Well, god of insanity perhaps, but I would classify myself as dangerously genre savvy if I had to. The problem for you, is that we've just changed genres," he cracked his knuckles one by one, smiling at her in that very uncomfortable way. "It's an interesting world out there. It's really a pity that when I destroy the body you have here, you're not going to be able to see it."
"You can't destroy me. You're just a trickster, an illusionist," Azula said. He had shown no aptitude for anything but trickery and deceit. It was a valid belief. He smirked again, his blue eyes darkening as he swept one hand through the air. As it passed, lightning followed it. He casually cast it aside, slamming it into one of the cultured stone walls. A klaxon sounded briefly, and words that sounded like Huojian spoken by somebody who didn't know how to speak Huojian came out of nowhere, made an utterance, and then fell silent.
"There is one other thing that I AM. Not as a god of, of course. This place already has a god of lightning. No, better to say that I AM lightning," Irukandji chuckled darkly, spanning his hands and having tracings of electric power crackle between his fingers. "Because that's all that you are, you overgrown monkeys; all that separates you from the beasts is a tiny twist in the way lightning flows through your brains. I AM the lightning, and I AM the mind," he turned away from her for a moment, widening his arms. "What a wonderful place. I would highly recommend it. Gods fighting men for dominion of the world, an almost inevitable destruction by man's own hubris. Lovely. Of course, they aren't really human beings. They might look it, but they're not. Not really."
Azula kept tracking him with her fingers, wondering if she could snap a lightning bolt at him fast enough. "Then what are they?" she entertained his ramblings.
"Orange bags of snot held together by mental trauma," Irukandji answered flippantly. "But they think they're human, and that makes them useful to me. Three billion people, six contiguous continents – one of them a blasted hellhole – and a war they can't win. A perfect feeding ground for people like me."
"You feed off of fear, do you?" Azula asked. The wheels turned in her mind, and an unsettling possibility floated to the surface. "So you cultivate fear and despair like some sort of parasite on the belly of history. Let me guess: you ignited the War of Expansion, didn't you?"
"Me? Please, like I would want to," Irukandji started to pace in a circle around her. Azula didn't take her eyes off of him for one instant. "I mean, I could – theoretically anyway – feed on that sort of scale, but if I did that, I'd cease to be who I AM. And I really like who I AM. Feeding on that scale would make me lose my individuality, my charm and wit and devastatingly good looks. It'd make me fat and bloated, turn me into more one of the gods these snot-people are fighting than a spirit of wealth and taste and terror. No, I prefer things as they are now. Cosmic power, miniscule feeding requirements. Somebody like you gives me all the food I need to last a hundred years. I intend to collect."
Azula swept her hands up, and felt the energy inside her pull itself apart. She didn't have to do a damned thing; it was almost happening automatically. Lightning crackled from her fingertips, awaiting her direction and release. "Over my dead body," she answered.
"That was kinda the intention," Irukandji said. She lashed forward, and the lightning bolt slammed into him, knocking him back. He hissed in extreme discomfort, glaring at her with those blue eyes.
"Now you cause a problem for me? Now you fight back? Now the little broken girl that daddy touched in the bad place finally grows a spine?" Irukandji got a flat expression on his face. "Daughter, I am disappoint."
"Disappointed."
"Don't correct my memes, human," Irukandji sighed. "I was hoping to draw this out and get some top-shelf terror out of you, but if you're going to be difficult, then I might as well cut to the chase."
Irukandji lashed forward with a fingertip, and a lightning bolt snapped away from it, searing toward Azula's face.
Ked lurched to a stop, just as he burst into view of the two Yu Yan archers. There was a moment of pristine silence and shock as the two pairs eyed one another. Well, half of Ked's pair did, since Azula was silently staring at nothing. The Yu Yan Archers glanced at each other, then back to Ked. "This isn't what it looks like?" Ked attempted. One of the Yu Yan archers rolled his eyes, but the other pulled his bow around just a fraction of a second faster than the other. He nocked, drew, and released an arrow in a blink of an eye, and Ked's attempts at dodging only saw it slam into his shoulder instead of through his throat.
The other was drawing back, and since Ked used up all of his unpredicted movement for the moment, the arrow would know his measure. Of course, it would have helped if a slashing through the air hadn't happened, if a blue metal boomerang hadn't slashed the bowstrings of both archers before arcing away in the darkness of the very early morning, if both bows hadn't been rendered useless. The Yu Yan archers shared another glance, but this time, it was Ked who capitalized on it. He surged forward with his one remaining useful arm, and the water covering them from the rain freezing into a sheet of ice, trapping them both inside.
"I owe you one, Sokka," Ked muttered with annoyance.
"Everybody gets one," Sokka shouted through the din. "Goddamn waterbender! Stay dead!"
How he heard that, Ked couldn't claim to know. He considered pulling out the arrow, but he hadn't the time to heal himself, and there was a chance jostling it would snip through his brachial artery, and bleeding out inside his own chest was the last thing he needed. Not right now. He could stand the pain. He'd dealt with pain before.
It didn't help that these people always knew where Azula was, and by extension, he himself. It was almost like somebody was pointing them at her time and time again, no matter where he ran or how well he'd hidden himself. He got no more than five minutes respite before he had to take off again. The fatigue was getting to him. It was getting harder to think. His legs screamed at him to stop, his lungs begged for air. It was like he was drowning in a desert.
He kept running, but he began to hear an odd sound in the woods. A pairing of splat and stomp, something yielding, then something harsh. Something soft, then something metal-hard. He didn't even try to think of what would make that sort of noise. He just kept running. He quickly wished he had spared a moment for thought. If he had, he might not have run headlong into the massively broad figure standing just past a concealing growth of shrub. The arrow twisted in Ked's shoulder as he bounced back, turning so he wouldn't land on his precious cargo. He looked up. Way up. One intense brown eye glared down at him. A fist the size of a platypus-bear's paw closed on his shirt, hauling him to eye level. The man had a metal plate covering half of his face, and burning eyes blazoned on it. He scowled at the waterbender, then smashed forward with his head. It couldn't have been more stunning if he'd used the plate instead of his skull.
Ked dropped to the ground like a mauled ostrich horse, trying desperately to keep that blackness from swallowing his vision and dumping him into useless unconsciousness. He could see that the man was holding Azula aloft in his one living hand, glaring at her. He looked her up and down, then let out a low grunt.
"Not impressed," was all he said. And Ked, screaming inside his own head for his body to obey him in vain, waited for the worst moment of his life.
Azula often wondered what it felt like to be struck by lightning. That curiosity would have to be satiated another day, because as that bolt was about to reach her, there was a flash, and the lightning began to flow backwards, being sucked into the casually outstretched finger of a monkey in fine robes. When the bolt had been absorbed to its fullness, the monkey casually flicked the bolt away, scarring it across several of the odd constructs that looked like over-sleek carriages. The ape was shaking its head slowly.
"Oh, now that's just cheating," Irukandji said petulantly.
"You know the rules. Moving people inside the same continuum of realities is one thing. Dropping them in universes like this one is quite another," the monkey said.
"You're just annoyed because you didn't think of it first, Wukong," Irukandji snapped. Sun Wukong shrugged.
"Provenance of ideas is the purview of our brother. Yours was emotion. One you've properly bungled."
"What the hell is going on?" Azula asked. The monkey and the Whaleshman/spirit turned to her.
"Sibling rivalry," Irukandji said sarcastically. "You have no place here, Wukong. I can do with her fear as I want."
"You are not entitled to it," Wukong said, a firm tone behind his serenity. "We both agreed only souls damned for the Pit of Oblivion would be to your purchase. She is not one of them."
"Really?" he asked around a laugh. "Have you met her? Have you ever heard of Azula?"
"She is a balance point of destiny," Wukong said evenly.
"Bullshit. She's a demon in human skin and that means she's mine. Azula is evil. That's just the way she is."
"Really?" Wukong asked. He waved his hand, and another Azula appeared, this one with a jagged scar running down her face. "And what of the Azula who resisted a spirit of conflict by the side of the Avatar?"
"Where am I?" that teenaged Azula asked, looking quite perplexed.
"Two can play at that game," Irukandji muttered. He waved his hand, and a second Azula appeared, this one disheveled, eyes bloodshot and mad, her nails filed to claws. "You pull an Azula from a parallel reality, well I can do that too. Like this one who killed her best friend years after she'd lost the war, just to prove a point to her brother."
"She's going to do what?" that scarred Azula asked. The mad Azula just chuckled darkly to herself.
The monkey waved his hand again. Another teenaged Azula, this one about fifteen, darkened by the sun, a look of fatigue settled into her. "Perhaps an Azula who fought against the Water Empire with her brother and the Avatar?"
Irukandji scowled, then waved his hand again. Another Azula, this one about her age, dressed in scandalous clothing which was styled off of, and clearly intended to mock, the styles of the defunct Air Nomads. "Or an Azula who inflicted a fate worse than death on the Avatar, and usurped her father to rule with an iron fist?"
Azula watched as the two spirits went back and forth, summoning various facsimiles of her in a bizarre and unsettling sort of oneupsmanship. Azulas from dozens of 'alternate realities' being brought forth, discussed, then ignored as they began to pile up in the broad chamber, gathering into two groups, one group for each of the spirit-god-things which summoned them. An Azula with roughly half a face who fought against her father. An ancient Azula who ruled the world for almost a century after the fall of Avatar Aang. An Azula who from a world where Sozin never wiped out the Air Nomads, where there was no War of Expansion. An Azula left behind by the heinous, machiavellian plots of Fire Lord Iroh. They kept mounting up, milling amongst themselves, all of them as capable of accepting the situation as it came without questioning it. Of course they would. They were all her, after all. They all knew to leave retrospection for after the oddity had ended.
Irukandji stared hard at his 'brother', who was a monkey. "You and I can do this all day. There are just about an infinite array of them. And there is far more vice than virtue in that human and you know it."
"I see quite the opposite. She is the most free of any human being I can name. She has a choice between good and evil. She can walk her own path, unlike many of the people she interacts with."
"That sounds like Avatar-nonsense," the first, scarred Azula remarked from one group.
"For once, we have something we can agree on," the salacious Azula answered.
"Please, I know Avatar-nonsense, and that isn't it," one Azula in odd clothing and bearing a staff mentioned.
"How?" a drab, disguised and mud-caked Azula demanded.
"Well, I am the Avatar, after all," she muttered.
"That's impossible," one Azula on the other side snarked. "Especially since everyone knows my traitorous brother is the Avatar."
"Zuko, the Avatar?" an adult one on Wukong's side asked. "Next, you'll tell me that you got married to Sokka."
The salacious one in the other group grinned at that. "Oh, don't knock it until you've tried it. He can be downright spectacular," she laughed. A teenaged version of herself across the gap was smiling and nodding sagely. Azula, the one who was standing next to the two dueling spirit-things, palmed her face.
"This is ridiculous," she muttered. There was a lot of agreement murmurs from both groups. Irukandji looked in particular annoyed at her interruption.
"Fine. Let's see you argue with this," he said. He waved his hand again, and in his group appeared an Azula of about fifteen, maybe sixteen years, wearing the red robes and Phoenix Flare of the Fire Lord.
"...is the last I want to hear about," she trailed off, looking at the room around her. She spotted the monkey, then glared at the Whaleshman next to it, pointing an accusing finger. "You. You son of a bitch, I told you to stay the hell out of my reality."
"Really? That's how you greet an old friend?" Irukandji said sardonically.
"I had Aang kick you out of my reality for a reason, you lying bastard," she said. She glanced around at all of her various selves, then across the gap to the others. "And I'm in the wrong group, aren't I?"
"I gave you everything you asked for," Irukandji said.
"Bullshit. I earned this, and I did it without any help from you." The teenager, who's eyes betrayed wisdom beyond her age, turned to Azula. "Well. I suppose she's the target of your little ponydog and ostrich horse chick show. So what do you want out of her? Gateway into another reality? Or is she just another snack?"
"You..."
"I'm not done talking!" Fire Lord Azula snapped. She stepped out of the group she'd been summoned into. A twisted smile came to her face. "I have to admit. You have done one favor to me. You showed me just how much worse my life could have been. And for that, I have to thank you. But I'm not letting you put another... me... through hell for your sick amusement."
"Really? So you'll stop me? In this place? I think you'll find that there are innumerable Azulae who'd love the services I could provide them," Irukandji said smugly. True to his word, most of his group were lowering into firebending stances, if not summoning lightning bolts. Fire Lord Azula moved into her own battle stance, with most of the hers brought forth by Sun Wukong forming a battle line behind her.
"Enough of this nonsense," Azula finally interrupted the madness. At least a hundred sets of her own eyes turned toward where she was kneading a headache. "This is some far-fetched plot to get me to chose which side of the line I want to stand on, isn't it?" she asked. Both spirits were mum. "Well, this is my choice. I'm neither. I'm not going to walk somebody else's path out of convenience or availability. I make my own destiny. If that means I go crazy like that group, or end up... sleeping with a Tribesman like that group," the teenaged Azula was smirking from her low stance, "then it will be because that's the path I've walked," a smirk appeared on her own face. "Besides, if I know myself at all, I know I'd be very annoyed at being uprooted. Especially if I was uprooted mid sentence. And you're going to turn your violence on each other – which would constitute an act of self-mutilation – when there's a far more deserving target standing right there?" she asked, pointing at Irukandji. He started to sweat as hundreds of golden eyes turned to him. The Fire Lord was first, twisting her arms through the air, gathering up lightning. "I thought so."
"Dirty pool, Azula. Dirty pool," Irukandji muttered. Azula's smirk almost blossomed into a cherubic grin, but not quite.
"I learned from the best," she said. Sun Wukong reached over and touched her arm.
"It is time to return home," the monkey said.
"Just one thing," Irukandji said. Azula turned to the spirit, her eyes going wide as he cast out a finger of lightning. It struck right between her eyes, and the world disappeared into blinding light and a crash of thunder. As this strange place vanished from her sight, she could feel every wall inside her mind that she had so meticulously crafted come tumbling down.
Sokka took a moment to catch his breath. He had to admit, as far as plans go, this one wasn't a bad one that they'd concocted. Instead of spacing out their assassination attempts discretely over days or weeks, they threw an army at the three-and-a-half of them in an attempt to overwhelm them with, if not power, then at least sheer numbers. How this sort of manpower could be assembled on such short notice was a cause for concern, but he would have to wait for a better time to ponder it.
Sokka was chilled to the bone, and tired to them as well. He had a fairly good notion that there weren't many left in the forest. But he could hear something, something he knew he shouldn't be hearing. A sound that haunted his wife's nightmares. Paff. Clang. Paff. Clang. Sokka hurled himself to his feet and started running, toward that noise. He erupted into a clearing, and his worst expectations were standing there, large as life which was quite large indeed. "You've got to be kidding me," Sokka snarled, as Combustion Man hauled the limp form of Azula up to his eye. Ked was on the ground, bleeding from a broken nose. A red fog began to descend, and Sokka was moving again.
Heedless of his fatigue and the few but painful injuries he had received, he vaulted himself across that distance. The giant was raising the heavy iron fist to dash the Fire Nation royal's head across the ground, but in the fog of blood, Sokka couldn't think of the appropriateness of the gesture, the irony of it. Instead, he simply thought of bringing death. His scream was mad, violent, hate-filled, and it caught the firebender's attention. Combustion Man turned, his one remaining eye widening. A flick of the wrist, and Sokka's club spun through the air. The giant didn't have a chance. The club smashed into the center of his forehead, knocking him back a step with a pained grunt and forcing him to drop Azula back onto the pine-needles and humus.
Sokka snatched up the club on the ground. When the first blow knocked him back, the second blow Sokka landed on Combustion Man's brow knocked him down. "HOW! MANY! TIMES! DO! I! HAVE! TO! KILL! YOU!" Sokka roared, punctuating every word with another full armed blow from the club. If the third blow to the head of Combustion Man could be said to have cracked his skull like an egg, then the next thirty-seven thoroughly scrambled it. On the back-swing from the thirty seventh, the head flew off of his club, leaving him holding a splintered handle. He also saw something moving out of the corner of his eye, a swirl in that red fog. He lashed out one hand, rage empowering him well beyond his usual capabilities. All of the water flowing around that blue oni mask was pushed through the eye and mouth holes, into the orifices of the person behind it, then with a clench of Sokka's fist, frozen solid. The killer, about to perform a coup-de-grace on Ked, instead began to claw at his face, finding all access of air into his head was cut off by blocks of ice. That distraction put out of mind, Sokka grabbed the closest rock he could lift, straddled Combustion Man's chest, and then erased his head completely under its mass with four stout blows. He only stopped at four because with the fourth, his arm dislocated again. The old injury which didn't really heal. Sokka glared downward, panting both of rage and exertion. The red fog started to lift. Ked was only starting now to stir.
It was just about then that Sokka noticed that he was covered in Combustion Man. The rain would carry some of it away, but he felt a distinct need for a bath. The lifting blood-drunkedness also left him spent, in severe pain, and weary. He flopped off the corpse, which he was finally sure was completely dead, and sat against a tree, his eyes pressed closed as all of the pain he'd been doing his best to ignore began to rush to the surface. "Alright. Might have overdid that," Sokka said. He hung his head for a moment.
"Sokka! He's not dead!" Ked's slurring voice dragged him back away from that close-to-unconsciousness that he'd drifted. For an instant, his mind constructed the unthinkable, that even without a head Combustion Man would keep coming back to ruin Sokka's life. The truth was actually just as grim. That Blue Spirit was advancing on Sokka, and quickly, twin dao in its hands, despite having blocks of ice clogging its trachea. The swords rose, to give Sokka, who couldn't possibly get out of the way in time, a death blow.
There was a stuttering bang, a flash of light, and a stink of ozone rose into the air. The Blue Spirit flew past Sokka, crashing to the ground with a smoking hole in his chest, which quickly began to fill with rainwater. Azula was standing, looking very disheveled but still quite focused, her stance low, two fingers leading. Ked was limping over to her.
"Are you alright?" he asked her. Was she alright?
"Fine," Azula asked. "You all look a proper mess. What happened when I was asleep?"
"Just a small army trying to kill you," Sokka said idly, lacing his fingers on his belly. "Nothing we couldn't handle."
"I see," Azula said. She turned to Ked. "We should leave this place before they... before they..." she trailed off, as her face grew very pale.
Even Sokka didn't like the look of this. Her eyes became very wide, and they stared at nothing. Ked was trying to get her attention. "What is it? What's wrong, Azula?" he asked.
"No... No! NO THAT COULDN'T HAVE..." Azula's hands went to her hair and began to pull, as though she were trying to rip it out by the roots. "OH GODS NO!"
"Azula! What's going on?" Ked shouted, his eyes just as wide as hers as she dropped to her knees. She panted for a few breaths, and there was silence, all three not really sure what had happened, what to expect.
And then Azula started screaming. It was not pain, really. It was not fear or rage. It was just screaming, loud, shrill, desperate, and barely human. She eventually threw herself onto her back, and the storm ate her screams as she thrashed in the mud. Perhaps drawn by the noise, a somewhat charred and bloody Smellerbee limped into the clearing, taking in the entire scene with a grunt and an idle wave to Sokka, before she leaned against the tree next to Sokka. "So what'd I miss?"
Sokka shook his head. "I'm not really sure."
It would be more than an hour before Azula stopped screaming.
It was a hard night, with everybody requiring some amount of treatment for injury or another. Only Azula had escaped that maelstrom more or less intact. And then, only externally. Ked moved on to Smellerbee, who looked to be in the worst condition of any of them, even if she was complaining about it the least. She was a soldier, though, and had been one for the vast majority of her short life. She probably learned early on that complaining about injuries doesn't do anything to help with them. She was laid out near the fire, which Azula had her back to. She had been silent ever since the screaming stopped. Sokka was completely asleep. Which annoyed Ked, because he'd seen what the other man did. Ked might have been a novice waterbender, but he recognized it when it happened. Sokka was hiding something from people. And now, Ked knew what it was.
Ked's momentary distraction passed, and he began to run glowing hands over the many wounds of Bi. Most of them were just lacerations and bruises, but he felt something else in there. Something he shouldn't have been sensing, not in somebody as young as her. "Bi, what is that?"
"What is what?" she asked, ignoring the usual shiver that most people had when he ran his spirit into their wounds to close them quickly.
"Your liver is severely damaged," Ked said. He looked her square in the eye. "How much do you drink?"
"As much as I need to," she answered, pulling herself away from him. "Will I survive?"
"Well, the worst of the cuts and that broken bone have been dealt with, but..."
"So I'm just peachy," Bi said with a smirk.
"Bi, listen to me. That's only going to get worse. If you have this much damage now, then you're probably not going to last another three years," Ked pointed out.
Smellerbee got an odd sort of smile on her face. "Then maybe that's for the best," she said, before walking away to poke the fire with a stick. Ked shook his head, and moved away from the camp a bit. The rain had died down, and so had the wind, but the entire place was still wet. And he felt so powerless. Nobody wanted his help, even though he knew he could do so much more if he only could get people to let him... He cut off the line of thought. It wouldn't help him to fall into despair over other people's obstinacy. Everybody would walk their own path, or not at all. That was the way destiny worked. The road was there, but it couldn't make you walk it.
Ked sat, staring up at the sliver of the half moon with a sigh. She had spoken to him. Told him he was exactly where he needed to be. Why, then, didn't that give him any comfort? He considered heading back, but was forestalled when Azula seemed to appear out of nowhere beside him. Her eyes were puffy and reddened. She stared straight ahead. "Azula? What are...?"
"I think..." she said quietly. She glanced downward. When she tried speaking again, her voice was unsteady. "I think I need to... talk to somebody."
"About what?" Ked asked. She turned to him, tears brimming in golden eyes.
"About what my... father... did to..." she trailed off as her voice dissolved into tears. He pulled her close, and she sobbed against his chest, slowly telling him everything. He held her close as she spoke, listening with horror as she finally explained all things. And as she did, she held him as tightly as he held her.
Irukandji wiped away some of the dust and soot from his clothing. That bitch thought she was so clever, using all of her against him. If anybody was going to weaponize insanity, it would be the human race. But he had the last laugh. They were only here at his pleasure and patience. And once he'd exhausted both, it was just a matter of time before they popped back into their own worlds, as the rules of reality drew them back in. Sun Wukong might think he won this one, but Irukandji would have the bitch yet. She would slip up, damn herself, and she'd be his. It was more or less inevitable.
As Irukandji walked, he began to hear the shrieking of twisting metal. He paused, and then started moving through the parking garage to the source of the sound. Eventually, he reached its source just as the twisting and shattering of glass ended. There was... well, it used to be an expensive car, but now it was just an expensive, unrecognizable ball of plastic, glass, and metal. He wondered briefly how long it would take until the people of his home existence would figure out internal combustion. The Fire Nation didn't seem too far off. He looked down on the ground, and an eight-year-old girl was playing with a squeaky mallet. Her hair was quite odd, of unnatural, bluish shade. But then, her eyes were the color of blood, so that was the least of her oddness.
"Did you do this?" Irukandji asked.
"Heee~ey," the little girl said playfully. "What'cha doin'?"
"Being a god. You know. Boring stuff," Irukandji said. He leaned to one side, looking at the plaque set in the wall of the parking space. It read Fuyutsuki, K. He looked back down to the girl. "I assume you had a reason to..."
"Oooo~oh. You're a god! Is that like an angel? If I eat you, does that mean I get big and wipe out all life on Earth? 'Cuz that'd be fun and stuff," she got a pensive look. "But I don't think Little Mommy would like that as much as Big Mommy. But we can find out together! And stuff!" the little girl said, tapping her mallet to the floor. It squeaked. "My sisters are gonna have a lot of fun with you."
"If you... what?" Irukandji asked. "This is..."
A vent cover hit the ground beside Irukandji, and he looked up. The vents in the ceiling all were hanging open, and seven sets of red, glowing eyes stared down at him. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Irukandji said.
"Heee~ey" a chorus of identical voices sounded. Then, he glanced down to the girl with the squeaky mallet. She grinned at him, showing far too many teeth to be a human being. "You're gonna be our specialest special friend ever!" the girl declared. And that was when Irukandji started screaming, as he was drawn kicking and clawing up into the vents.
Sometimes my characters get away from me. Irukandji is one such case. To answer my own question, as to whom Irukandji derives from, there are two answers for that. One source for Irukandji is a friend of mine, who is an outstanding storyteller and has been running my Scion: God tabletop RPG for the last 4 years. He's a gas to be around, but also a thoroughly horrible example of a decent human being. He might have killed a guy once in Europe. The stories conflict. The second inspiration for my own Irukandji is Gregg Landsman's Iruel, so the kismet involved in the naming was undeniable. Once I started reading Nobody Dies, I knew that I was going to have to do this little bit, but don't worry, this doesn't ever go full cross-over. Landsman's fanfictions' fanfictions have tied themselves into enough of a knot already. Hey, you said you wanted him to suffer. Trust me, in the hands of Terrifying!Rei and the Ree, he is suffering. And he will suffer for another... ooooh... eight years or so.
Much as it shames me to admit (because I hate the bastard), I find myself more and more resembling a modern Nietzsche. Everything I write has references both back to previously existing works, and forward toward works which I haven't even created yet. The biggest differences between us are I am a live, while he's dead. I'm Canadian, and he was German. He had syphilis, and I don't stick it in sexually transmitted crazy. Oh, and I don't write like I'm screaming in one's face. That's a plus. Where was I? Oh, right. This work. Yeah, I told you in Book 3 that Sun Wukong read a lot of Avatar Fanfiction? Now he shows it off. Every single one of those Azulae were references to a particular story I've read over the last year or so. Try to guess them if you like. Since it doesn't come up again, there's not much impetus, but there's nothing wrong with an intellectual challenge, right?
You were close. She had almost reached the nadir of her mental state. Now she has. But that just means she's on the way back up now. The next few chapters are much more sedate, controlled, and gentle, as people pick at scabs. Also, I might be lying about that. As for Bi, the reason she's following Ked can be summed up in a single symbol: '?'. She doesn't have anywhere else to go nor anything better to do. Her time with Jet turned her into a quintessential follower. When somebody gave her direction, she took it. That's just the way she is.
Anyway. Leave a review.
