A/N: Mucho Gracias to jumjala for the favorite and first review, big huge trophy of awesomeness to you!
Disclaimer: I don't own squat from either Avatar Last Airbender or Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, but I do own this handy dandy paddle board game.
As the pinky mist encroaches around her, Katara can hardly see beyond a few feet. The dense fog is making her progress slower than normal. Her boots seep into the red dust. The soft powder easily flies up and melds with the current pink fog. Turning to face the space cruiser, she glances up at the pilot capsule.
Sokka is waving wildly at her through the windshield. From his animated gestures, Katara is gathering he is trying to talk to her. She sighs and shakes her head negatively. Shrugging her shoulders and slicing her hand sideways several times, Katara indicates she can't hear him. Frowning, Sokka rubs his chin whiskers, and then smiles widely with insight. He excessively nods, while jabbing his finger toward the pilot console. He must have pushed a button, because a high pitch screech is followed by repeated static pops. Both noises blast into Katara's ear. She nearly leaps out of the ice shield generator suit, so startled by the sounds.
Suddenly, Sokka's loud voice is reverberating around her helmet. "Katara, can you hear me?"
"Sokka, for Yue's sake, be quiet!" The ringing in her ears isn't only bouncing around in her head but the helmet, too.
"Sorry," Sokka whispers. There is a faint indication of additional speech by him, but his words are hardly recognizable.
Katara isn't sure if Sokka managed to make her deaf or is merely being his typical clueless, brother self. "Sokka, you can talk in a normal volume."
"Oh good, I'm not good at whispering."
"Or being subtle either," Katara replies drolly.
"I'll ignore that, because the life readers have finally picked up the item's location." Sokka stares at the console. "It is straight ahead, about a thousand yards." Scratching the scruff on his chin, he leans back in his chair. "By the way, what is the deal on this item?"
Swiveling around, Katara follows the internal orienteering system on her screen visor and walks toward the indicated destination. "We're not paid to know or care. We retrieve the item, get the denarians and then pay Iroh, deal is done."
"Aren't you curious?" Sokka rotates his chair to the side, propping his feet up on the co-pilot's seat.
"Curious can get you killed. I only want to get paid."
Shifting currents lift the pink aura, a brief glimpse of a vast arid wasteland is revealed. She marvels, 'What happened to this planet?' The charts, she had stolen from the Avatarian Interstellar Alliance files, showed it had been an advanced society but one which had mysteriously disappeared. From what Katara has already gathered from her short time on the planet, life here hadn't died out but had been completely obliterated, ground into dust.
Getting the file from the tight Avatarian defenses had involved Sokka romancing Suki. While her brother kept the librarian occupied, Katara had used Suki's confiscated badge to infiltrate the file system. Luckily, Katara's ability to narrow her focus aided her in working outside of the legal lines and also helped in blocking out exact details of Sokka's flirting. As annoying as her brother could be, he was quite handsy with the ladies. She chuckled to herself, 'handsy', Sokka would like that joke.
"What's so funny?" Sokka lifts up the reclining lever on the side of his chair. Leaning back, he is able to reach the open drawer of jerky and grab a handful.
"Nothing," Katara alternates the truth about the origin of her chuckle. "I was reflecting on how the Great Avatarians, supposed peace brokers, aren't as clever as they think with their security."
The information, Katara had obtained from the Avatarian system, mainly provided the coordinates for the item. It resided on a planet in the far reaches of the Omashu Galaxy. The artifact was listed only with a corresponding symbol, which Katara hadn't been able to decipher. She had remarked to Sokka, 'I never even knew this part of the galaxy existed. Sokka, this might be...' Her voiced doubts had vanished into a tirade of proper table manners, because Sokka began picking his teeth with a ratpig bone.
The nagging feeling in her gut flutters. In the past, her instinct had averted potentially nasty outcomes. This time, she quiets her chi, suppressing any anxiety. She can't afford to dump this job. An item fetching four hundred and fifty thousand denarians would not only pay off Iroh, keeping 'Uncle' happy, but also 'Shipie's' desperately needed improvements might happen. This was, of course, after she had appeased Sokka's belly. Where her constantly nagging gut aided them, his stomach only got them into trouble.
The red dust had given way to a more sturdy rocky terrain. Drifting farther away from Sokka and the space cruiser, the outside temperature reading on her visor screen steadily drops from raging inferno to a mild flickering fire. Reaching a steep hill, Katara's steel plates encasing her hands are surprisingly flexible as she grabs a jagged protrusion to hoist herself up the rising ridge. She climbs over several boulders. Cresting the rocky outcropping, she slips down a small incline, but slides to a halt.
"Sokka, can you tell if I'm close to the…" Just as Katara is about step out, a breeze moves the blinding dust, revealing a deep ravine. "Whoa!" She clutches the boulder next to her, preventing a short trip down a long abyss.
"Katara!" Sokka's voice crackles with fear. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," Katara rests her forehead against the large red stone. She is breathing in deeply, quieting her racing pulse. "Yes, I'm fine." The ravine is too wide across. "Sokka, we've got a problem. Did you happen to build some rocket boosters into this suit?"
"Little Sis, you know your bro takes care of you." Sokka leans back in his captain seat, folding his arms behind his head. "In fact, I put a snack dispenser in the suit. If you…"
"Thanks Sokka, I may regret saying this, but you're the best." Katara pushes away from the rock and stands on sturdier feet. "Now, how do I access it?"
"The rocket boosters or the snack dispenser?"
"What do you think?"
"Since, it's you; Miss Practically Always Boring, I'm going with that you meant the rocket boosters. Perform the Dancing Dragon and on the final step, it will activate the system."
"Why would you have the Dancing Dragon activate the boosters?" Katara immediately goes into her chastising voice and stance: hands on hips, shoulders squared, and feet firmly planted. "That is the…" She drops her staunch demeanor, not wanting to validate Sokka's dumb and completely ill-suited nickname for her. Even if her brother couldn't see her, there was no need to give him a checkmark in the sibling-slam scorecard. She clears her voice and begins in a more even tone. "That is really creative, but couldn't you have made it so I speak some command or push a button?"
"Too easy and not as funny," Sokka howls with laughter. "Man, I wish I could see you do the Dancing Dragon in person." He wipes away the tears from both of his eyes, sobering. "Luckily, I anticipated a potential embarrassing episode, so I also installed video capabilities to record this very thing."
"Sokka, you wouldn't dare." Katara can feel her options of sustaining a modicum of dignity is evaporating like most things on this Yue forsaken planet.
"I would and will." Sokka rips off a chunk of jerky. He speaks between mouthfuls, adding flavor to his words with loud chewing sounds. "Now, you might be more willing to give me a little more free time during some of my more important side missions."
"Those side missions have created more irate ex-girlfriends, chasing after our tails, and…"
"Little Sis, it's only fair, since I chase after their tails first. One girl, in fact, had two tails, got really confusing."
"Double Gross!" Katara frowns, realizing Sokka had purposely provoked her about him taking the mission. "You had no intention of coming out here, did you?"
"Nah, someone has to watch Shipie, besides it's too much fun to get you riled up."
"Glad that I'm an endless source of entertainment for you."
"We all bring something to the table of this amazing thing we call a partnership." Sokka leans forward and shuffles through a random music selection on the pilot panel. "Would you like your dancing to be accompanied with some tunes? I call it my Awesome Mix, volume one."
"We're not making a soundtrack of our lives, Sokka. So no, I think I can handle the Dancing Dragon…" Music begins filtering into her helmet. "…without it." Katara ends lamely. Her mouth turns down into a resigned position.
Shaking off her irritation, Katara raises both arms. They are spread apart and bent at the elbow, facing the sky. One leg is lifted up, while she balances on the other foot. Sliding into a crouched stance, both arms are diagonally opposed. She walks forward alternating punching hands, before jabbing one arm straight out, and then bringing it down to her opposite side. Katara repeats the movements in a circle. She ends with her fists and arms arcing to the side.
Sputtering sparks and then the boots suddenly ignite. Katara is levitating above the ground. Adding a little more altitude by flicking her feet downwards, she begins the trek across the ravine. Her body angles forward to increase her flying speed. Glancing down into the crevice, she gulps down her fear. The dark void doesn't hint at a bottom. As she crosses, her visor monitor is reading that the outside temperature has fallen to normal levels. The pink fog is even dissipating into a clearer atmosphere. Upon Katara's arrival to the other side, she lands on the ground, snuffing out the boosters' flames.
"Sokka, for whatever reason, I'm at a normal Kelvin temperature reading. We're going to lose communication for a bit, while I disengage the suit."
"Be careful."
Katara taps her chest, and the helmet and visor flip back. The steel scales fold down her back and up from her feet, meeting at the center of her body. The armor slowly retracts into its original disc form on her chest. Pulling out the scanner meter from her holster, she is able to detect shadows of an ancient city. The moving pictures reveal a time capsule of a peaceful society, frolicking families and creatures, all residing within a lush landscape of vegetation. The current comparison to the planet's obvious devastation echoes with vague similarities to what occurred on Katara's home planet. The Southern Aquaquadrant's once great cities are now only lonely stretches of white tundra and limitless expanses of blue water. The mild temperatures and green lands her Gran Gran spoke about are mythic tales for Katara. Her home has become a frigid and stark climate.
The device flickers the long ago image in front of her, calling Katara back to her present mission. Static lines appear, she knocks the side of the apparatus with the palm of her hand. It brightens again, illuminating a direct pathway through the rocky terrain, up a slope and leading into a cave. Without the location tracker, Katara wouldn't be able to detect the artifact's specific position. She jogs up the indicated passage, running into the mouth of the cave.
The rock shelter's inner walls are decorated with ornate pictographs in successive long columns. The symbol, she found in the Avatarian file, is repeated in random spots around the cave. Katara walks over and tentatively reaches out to touch the carvings. She stops herself. A lot of bounty hunter blooper reels, played during seedy-bar theme nights, have repeatedly taught her to not assume anything is harmless. Reaching down to the ground, she picks up a pebble and lobs it against the wall. The pictographs flash brilliantly, instantly turning the rock into powder.
"Nice," Katara mutters, and she doesn't mean in a pleasing kind of way either.
The room is rather barren, but the tracking device pinpoints that the artifact is suppose to be at the center of the rock shelter. There is nothing in indicated space, except for a large floor maze. The intertwining labyrinth turns back onto itself in an endless cycle. The meandering pathways spiral out from a central point and return back to it.
No beginning or end. Katara repeats the thought over and over, while her eyes trace the labyrinth. She smiles and crouches down to the ground. Scooping up a handful of red dust, she tosses it out to the center. The red powder coats what was a previously invisible pedestal and the sought after artifact. Standing up, she reaches into a pocket on her holster and pulls out the magnetic retrieval apparatus.
Holding it in her hand, the triangle teeth automatically unfold onto her palm. The device vibrates, radiating out waves of magnetic attraction. The artifact moves on the pedestal, resisting at first the irresistible tug, but it eventually succumbs. The item flies over the maze and lands within the center of the device. The triangle teeth retract back over the artifact, closing around it safely.
"I'll take that from you," A raspy voice demands behind her.
Katara whirls around, "What the Drac?!"
"Like I said, I'll take that item from you." A man with a gruesome scar over his left eye has a giant fire blaster pointed at Katara's chest.
A/N: I love how the fan fiction platform gives writers and readers a chance to interact more. So drop me a review or a question, I or the character, will try to answer, if we're not too busy eating darmadillo jerky.