This piece was written for the latest round of the Avatar Spirit Drabble Contest, and had to feature as the "cornerstone" of the piece the character of Lian from the first A:TLA video game. Search for her on the A:TLA wiki if you want more info, but as is usual with that wiki, beware unsourced information.
Beta Testing
It was supposed to be just another appearance in the one-time colonies. Zuko would give a speech trying to reassure everyone that breaking off from both the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation would be a good thing for the people, and then he would make a show of having the Local Experience, visiting a few vendors or getting something to eat while the whole village watched. It was hopefully a nice reflection on his reign as Fire Lord that Zuko had gotten good at this type of thing.
Occasionally, some people would take offense to his speech, or ideas, or existence, and try to cause a scene. Toph's students were pretty good at rooting out any potential assassins ahead of time, so the worst Zuko usually had to deal with were some jeers and thrown cabbages. (Pelting a Firebender with rocks, no matter how small, could cause a major incident. The Avatar had officially declared it a Hate Crime, although not everyone got the idea behind it.) The Crimson Guards could handle that kind of thing, and they had long ago gotten used to not hurting anyone even as they dragged them away.
Zuko should have known that the real enemy would evolve.
He should have known that he still had real enemies out there.
It was in the city of Sae Lo Oon. Mai had accompanied him on this trip, and they were standing on a wooden platform that had been built expressly for Zuko's appearance here in the middle of the central square "...keeping your local leaders if you desire, but instead of looking to the Fire Nation or Ba Sing Se, they will look to the council in Republic Center," he was saying. Many in the audience were looking at him with skepticism plain in their faces, but Zuko was okay with that. It meant they were thinking about what he was saying, instead of just rejecting it outright. "You will still pay taxes, but only directly to your local leadership, and they in turn will-"
"YOU'RE NOT ABOVE US ANYMORE!"
It was a full scream. Zuko was startled out of his recitation, and the crowd began murmuring and looking around for the source. It didn't take them long. The man was shoving his way to the front of the gathering, and he didn't exactly blend in with everyone else. His hair and beard were long and looked unwashed, his face was flushed as red as Zuko's best summer robes, and his skinned glistened with sweat. The man was wearing a robe of his own that was oversized on him, the sleeves so long that they covered his hands, but it was left untied and open to reveal the completely ragged one-piece tunic underneath. Zuko thought he could even smell the guy, despite the distance between them.
And he didn't stop shouting. "YOU CAN'T OPPRESS ME ANYMORE! IT'S WITHIN ME NOW! AND YOU CAN'T TAKE IT OUT!"
Out of the corner of his eye, Zuko caught Mai making a discreet motion to the guards. She never liked it when someone in the crowd was hiding their hands. For good reason, Zuko knew.
"YOU THINK I'M NOTHING, BUT SHE MADE ME INTO ONE OF YOU! YOU CAN'T STOP US! WHAT KILLS ME WILL KILL YOU FIRST! THE AIR CALLS FOR REVENGE!"
Foaming was bubbling around the man's mouth. The guards were on either side of him now, reaching to restrain him, but he ignored them, keeping his eyes focused on Zuko.
"KILL ALL THE BENDERS!"
The guards grabbed him, as the crowd's murmuring grew angry; there were both Firebenders and Earthbenders amongst them. Zuko's unease was only growing, and he took a defensive stance without even thinking about it. Mai stepped forward, and Zuko heard the quiet scrape of thin metal against leather.
Then a high-pitched chime sounded.
"NOW I HAVE THE POWER TO KILL YOU ALL!"
"Did his stomach," Mai whispered as she brought her knives up, "just ding?"
A moment later, the man exploded.
At least, that's what it looked liked to Zuko. Something caused his bulky robe to flair out like the wind caught it, and the two guards were pushed away by something a little stronger than a desperate shove. Also, there was the matter of the robe's sleeves shredding somewhere in the blur of motion centered on the man, and when everything went still again, his arms were gone.
Then Zuko realized what he was truly seeing. The man's arms weren't gone. They had been replaced. By metal blades. As Zuko felt his jaw drop, the blades clicked and angled all by themselves. They split and slid, forming a four-bladed propeller fan just forward of each of the man's elbows.
Then the fans began whirring to life.
Mai threw a knife at his head.
The man twitched reflexively, and even though the fans weren't going very fast yet, he brought them up as though to block the projectile. Zuko didn't even realize it had worked until after he heard the clang of metal against metal, but Mai's knife had not only impacted against the nub at the center of one of the fans, but it was sticking there.
A lodestone?
Either way, Mai didn't care. She was tossing blades into the air like there was no tomorrow. (She might be right.) Her movements were answered by continued clanking, like raindrops on a metal roof, as the man- the assassin- continued to catch the projectiles with his seeking-stone metal fans. Zuko took a deep breath, and prepared to bring his Firebending into play.
Fire didn't stick to anything without burning it.
The time from the assassin's initial 'explosion' to Zuko throwing his first fireball was about five seconds, total. In that time, the fans had sped up enough to create a notable wind. Faster than he had any right to be, the assassin angled the fans and screamed. The wind flared, yanking at Zuko's robes, and he had a flashback to his teenager years as the burst of air stopped and dissipated his flying flames.
Okay, this might be a problem.
Well, there were other ways to survive an assassination attempt. Zuko grabbed Mai's hand and yanked her along as he ran away like Koh himself was after them. Except the whirring sound flared, and Zuko found himself bowled over by a blast of wind that felt as hard as a rock.
Oh, yeah, that's what it was like.
"THE BENDERS ARE DEAD! LONG LIVE THE NEW BENDERS!"
Zuko stirred himself off the ground and looked up to find the assassin looming over him. The fans were still going, and the man raised one as though to bring it down on Zuko's head, but Mai was back in the game, and she threw herself at the assassin's waist. She didn't mass much without her knives weighing her down, but she was strong, and the assassin tottered with ebbing balance as she tangled herself around his legs. Zuko scrambled back to his feet, but maintained his position, and took a very specific stance. He searched for the Qi with himself, and then took it in a firm mental grip and ripped the positive energy from the negative energy. He felt a sucking imbalance within, but held the energies apart for a long moment.
The assassin flicked an arm downward, and the space where the blades of one of the fans were spinning suddenly flared red. Mai cried out and went limp. The man kicked at her, and his manic strength sent her rolling across the ground away from confrontation.
Good.
Zuko let the two halves of his Qi come crashing back together.
Die, jerk.
The assassin was quick, Zuko had to give him that. He brought both of his arm-fans up in defense just before the blinding flash. At this distance, the crack of thunder sounded immediately. The man didn't even have time to scream. The force of the lightning strike threw Zuko back, but over the smell of ozone, he thought he caught the scent of cooking meat.
The cleanup that came next was no fun. Additional Royal Firebender Guards arrived, and immediately sequestered both Zuko and Mai and put them in the hands of a military medic. (Zuko made a point to concede to Sokka that bringing one along was a good idea, after all.) The townspeople had scattered early, and Zuko couldn't bring himself to blame them for not risking their lives against a living monster to save the Fire Lord.
Two guards were tasked with recovering the pieces of the assassin. Whatever had been put into his body to power those fans, it didn't like lightning. The metal parts were the only recognizable remnants. Looking over a pair of charred metal fans much later, Mai had only one thing to say. "What the flambé was that?" She didn't normally curse, but then, she didn't normally have stitches in her back.
Zuko could only shake his head. "The first, I guess."
From the balcony of her rented suite, she saw it all. No sooner had the fight ended than she had wheeled over to her desk to make notes. "HUGE SUCCESS," she had written at the top. Of course, this early in the testing process, there were still some bugs to work out. She made sure to record that additional pain management would be needed, if just for the sake of future subjects' sanity. The human mind was weak, and could only take so much trauma before it became unhinged. Had the test subject been thinking clearly, he might have at least taken out the Royal Consort.
No matter. That's what tests were for.
And though her own body might be broken, a legacy of her brief conflict with the Avatar, Lian had plenty of willing and healthy test subject candidates.
Completing her notes, she pushed her wooden wheelchair across the rented room to the small closet, and began tossing clothes into a travel sack. Field tests were always fun, but she couldn't wait to get back home.
The future awaited her.
END
