DON'T FORGET TO CHECK OUT THE PREQUEL, GOOD MORNING CALIFORNIA. IM BASICALLY WRITING IT FOR (SPOILERS) FUTURE CHARACTERS.
DISCLAIMER: I AM GOING TO BE INCLUDING REAL WORLD EVENTS INTO THIS SO SORRY IF THIS OFFENDS YOU FOR WHATEVER REASON. AND PLUS I SUCK AT WRITING TRAUMA SO THIS IS THE BEST I CAN DO.
Wei laid motionless inside the cold confinement of the Fire Nation dungeon. Sentenced for life as punishment for slaughtering multiple soldiers in cold blood. From a perspective of his side of the war this was justified, a cruel repayment for the ones that harmed so much.
The other prisoners slumbered, not daring to say a word once awake each day. Meanwhile, the serial killer only sat with his thoughts of hatred, he wasn't afraid of what the bastards would do to him. He was, however, mentally tortured ever since they dragged that resistance girl down here. Almost each night he could hear her being tortured, it was nothing sexual though, spirits forbid. Seemed to have been cutting her up for information, somehow she kept her mouth shut. Instead blurting out an unintelligible dialect nobody understood.
For one night he just wanted it all to stay quiet, sitting inside the shell of captivity where he was accompanied by nothing but his thoughts. It wasn't until two kids and some floating metal ball, probably a spirit, freed him from the gateway to hell.
His killing spree continued once he was armed with an axe as red as blood, soon to be darkened by the ones of firebenders. He rushed outside, thanking those who set him free. Before turning a corner and outright jabbing a guard with the blade of his weapon.
Stepping through the catacombs just increased both his and their death sentence. It was a barrage of bloodshed across the entirety of the prison. He didn't care for the others locked away, despite waking them up, he just left them to rot.
Each one who's neck was jammed with an axe left a burn on Wei. But the fire inside him burned much brighter despite when he was almost incinerated.
Alas he never reached the exit doors, as once his path to freedom was cleared his injuries were not, he fell to the side, the hard rock ground becoming his death bed. Dying what he did best, killing soldiers.
One man's death became another's bad luck. The ones who set the killer free were stuck in a dilemma, they consisted of a tribal girl traumatised from abuse and torture, a young wounded boy with an arrow entrenched into his body, a 200 year old toaster somehow obsessed with its weaponised robot genitals and some scavenger from a mining town just trying to keep everything together.
The toaster and Ryan were busy trying to keep Akira alive whilst they were all attacked by an archer. Usually the group'd have the upper hand with their guns and numbers, yet with half of them mentally and physically damaged it was sort of 50-50.
East pulled the trigger of Ryan's shotgun. A flaming shell was released as mechanisms inside awakened from their frozen status. Thankfully taking down their final attacker as half their face blew off into little pieces of flesh.
What followed next was her own anger and trauma pulled out onto the archer as 5 more rounds were bashed into their already decaying corpse. What she did next was overkill, way too brutal to explain as she committed multiple hits into the body out of anger, it was fair. Vengeance for the living hell they put her through.
Ryan stopped her after she revolted their attacker to resemble red mashed potatoes. "That's enough," he said. She looked at Akira who looked slightly better, but his life continued to fade. She stopped for a moment, realising what a monster she believed she had become. East dropped to her knees in tears.
Her friend crouched down and placed a hand on her shoulder, "It's going to be alright." The tears stopped flowing once she looked at Ryan.
"What took you so long?" She stammered yet unusually smiling, her mind retreated back towards the trauma she faced. The Californian felt guilty as he wished he got to her sooner, he too once went through pain like her, the scars of the past still remained.
He sighed, "Listen. We'll handle this later, right now I need you to carry Akira until we get back to the base. Is that alright?" The tribal nodded, she got up and swept away the liquid of suffering as Akira had his arm rapped over East's shoulder.
"Akira, do you know the way back?" The Californian calmly asked.
"There's a sewer entrance... just a few blocks away," he weakly released as his abdomen continued to burn.
Ryan picked up his shotgun and loaded his limited shells inside. "It's now or never!" He kicked open the exit, only to find entire platoons of firebenders preventing their escape. "It's never... back inside!" He did the exact opposite of earlier amd smacked the doors closed.
"Wait, why didn't we just go back the way we came in?" DAVE suggested.
"We're making everything up as we go along, now that you mention it..."
Akira looked at the two, "You pricks, we could've... avoided this entire... mess!"
There was nothing but silence for a couple seconds. Almost immediately they rushed passed the dead bodies, ignoring the prisoners pleading their help and back into the nostril burning sewers, thankfully safe from danger.
The boy helped navigate their way back, but still keeping a grudge from earlier. By the next 20 minutes they decided to take a rest. The tribal's upper body ached like hell from holding the Earth Kingdom boy for too long. Akira's wounds almost fused with the arrow itself.
The intelligent members of the group went back to treating the arrow. "I've come up with a solution," said DAVE.
"Thank the spirits," Akira uttered under his breath.
"Ryan can I talk to you for a second?" The eyebot and the Californian went to the corner of the tunnel discussing the medical procedure of removing the arrow.
Meanwhile, East and Akira finally had a chance of speaking to each other in days.
"How you holding up?" The boy asked gaining a bit of his strength. "Can't imagine what it feels like seeing a familiar face after a while."
East kept her mouth shut. Multiple thoughts ran straight across her mind like a barrage of bullets. Each word of them a thousand years of torture. She believed her friend wasn't going to make it, she had something drastic to confess about his mother.
"You know, Banko and I kept begging the Captain for a rescue mission to get you out of here. It wasn't until your friend came along we had hope of getting you back."
The burden forced her to the edge, just a little push made her mind fall to suffer in the depths of the underworld. One push could've broken her further. The guilt was just too much now after everything Akira had done for her.
Instead it took her own will to confess, sparing her mind from the cruel burdens that awaited her, "I killed your mom."
"What?" The boy's mind went bewildered. She had got to be kidding right? But why would she joke about such a topic at such a time? "What are you saying?"
"Il sen Sorri (I'm so sorry)," she whispered. The heavy burden she carried for over a week finally dropped, soothing her guilty back. But for her young friend, his day of pain just got worse.
Ryan overheard what they said. Remembering what the eyebot said about brain waves. "Umm, DAVE?"
"What?"
"Can Akira's brain handle news like his Mom's true death?"
"Why yes. All brains can handle that unless your mentally damaged from things like abuse."
"So he can handle East killing his Mom but he can't handle knowing that we're from another world?" Ryan, as much as he handled the toaster's brahmin sh*t, was this close to literally turning him into a literal toaster.
"The human brain is quite unusual. Your tribal friend's mind is much more peculiar. Seems she's taken in a lot of trauma in the past 4 years."
"When did you get... more mature? Can robots mature?"
"Some idiot hit me with a rock earlier thinking I was a spirit, got mostly everything into place. Still the same AI you know and love," love was definitely not the right word, "I just know how to properly behave. Anyways, you ready to do it?"
"You sure you know what you're doing?"
"I've studied many expert methods from bing I'm 100% sure." In reality there was half chance of success, only other option was to let him slowly die.
"What about infections?"
"Look where we are. The average life expectancy of this world is at least 50 years, and the boy if his health stays as it is without the arrow he'll be dead by his 20s." It was a bummer really, knowing that a boy his age only has about a decade to live. Reminded him of an old ghoul he knew, she only has a few decades left before her brain finally succumbed to radiation. Didn't know if she became feral, he hadn't seen her in almost 10 years.
They both went in front of Akira, his betrayed eyes stared at them as they were about to do the medical procedure. "Bite on this," said Ryan holding a book. The boy stayed silent, like East words couldn't describe how bad he felt. On one hand his abdomen burned as harsh as a whip, on the other he suffered from betrayal as the one he thought was his friend turned out to be a filthy liar.
Akira bit on the book. "Listen, this is going to hurt like hell. I'm going to start pulling. 3. 2. 1."
The Californian wrenched tightly on the arrow, yanking it hard at the boy screamed in pain behind the book. Tears burst out as much as more blood was lost. Once it finally came out, the wastelander injected him with a super stimpak, regenerating his skin and stopping the bleeding. The trauma still unfortunately remained, but what mattered most is he was alright, physically that was. He was almost about as mentally damaged as East.
What exactly was the girl doing during all that chaos? Well she was now on the edge of turning mentally insane. Her mind, as DAVE speculated, was an inexplicable chaotic mess. The burden of what she had done may have been relieved but the guilt still remained. God knows how the hell she's kept her sanity after all this time, and it definitely was not a miracle. No being can go through what the tribal went through.
"Next time we have a situation like this, we actually think these things through before we act. Come on, let's get back."
They continued to move through the tunnels ignoring the smell the plagued the underground. The tribal looked at her friend, not saying a single word to her, "I'm sorry. It was an accident."
"You deserved every torturing second in that cell. We should've left you to rot," he scowled back forbidding their eyes to meet.
The wastelander looked back at her, taking pity on everything she's been through. He was the only one she could turn to now, maybe DAVE too but he wasn't human. Making friends, even in this world was pretty rough for her.
"Akira, how much further?" He questioned.
"Just around the corner. After all this I don't want to see her bastard face again. And, Ryan? I advise you keep her ass on a leash."
The Californian wasn't bothered a bit about East killing his mom, of course he felt a bit bad but the only thing he'd worry about would probably be East's bad aim and her current mental state.
Turning a corner they arrived at a sewer entrance, which also was the entrance to the resistance base. The sounds of voices got closer with every step they took. Pushing it open they jumped into the main area. Everybody had already been infected with the fake 'pentapox' virus planned to leave the city by morning.
Akira went off to search for his brother, Banko. Not saying a word to them once he left. An entire week of friendship had already ended in one night. That was the last time they ever saw each other.
"Hey, I'm sorry," said Ryan.
"Don't be. This was my fault." When she first saw Ryan, her mind weeped with anger as he didn't arrive sooner to keep her from the week long hell. Now all the anger was forced onto herself.
"East, take my advice. Nothing lasts forever, everything always ends badly, doesn't matter what it is. You just have to expect it, enjoy the little things while they last."
"I guess you're right," the tribal's trauma seemed to have calmed down, but the scars of the seven levels of hell would stay with her for life.
The rest of the gang came running up to them. "Where the heck have you been these past few hours?!" Katara asked.
"Who's she?!" Sokka added.
"Is that-"
Ryan cut Aang off, "Guys, this is East. We found her in the city's prison. East, this is Aang, Katara and Sokka."
The girl just gently waved her hand, her instincts were stuck under all her mental damage to even do anything rash, it was for the best.
"She doesn't look too good," said Aang obviously noticing her damaged face.
"She's just been through a lot, please don't bring it up."
"Does she need any medical care?" the waterbender asked worriedly, "Are you hurt?"
"No," she lied, "I'm fine." The tribal's physical pains have kind of mended, but her mental pains were soon to be amended.
"What happened to her?" Sokka asked.
"They tortured her for information," stated DAVE, "Every night for the past week. It was absolute-"
"DAVE! SHUT!" Ryan exclaimed at him.
"Oh you poor thing!"
"I just want to be left alone," The tribal said quietly, but just audible enough to make it clear for them. Everyone decided to give her some space, letting her rest by one of the pillars, contemplating about everything that's happened to her.
DAVE and Ryan met with the others just a short walk away. "Is she going to be alright?" The waterbender asked.
"I'm sure she will. She's been through trauma like this before she'll be fine," Ryan said calmly.
"Why are you talking so calmly?"
"Living 200 years after the end of civilisation, you're used to everything. This has happened to people way too many times in my travels, half the time way worse than this. Yes, what happened to East was horrific but as much as it's wrong to say, I'm used to it; this isn't anything new."
"So, what are you going to do now that you've found your friend?" Aang asked.
"Once we leave the city, it's where we part ways. You guys go off to somehow end this war whilst we try to find a way to get back."
"So after this we won't see you guys again?" Aang sadly asked.
"We may cross paths again, you children travel the world an awful lot. Who's to say our faces won't ever meet again," said the toaster, "To be clear I was referring to the fact that we may meet again not... well... I'll just shut up now."
"How will you get home though?"
"You're a biologically 12 year old boy who turned into Goddamn Godzilla, I'm sure we can easily find a way back." What Ryan did not know however, is that he was going to eat those words.
Morning had arrived as the day of evacuation had begun. The girl hardly slept, her chaotic mind plagued with night terrors. Ryan drugged her just so she would shut up, it was mean yes but better drug her than have her wake up the entire tunnel.
Everybody, except the wastelanders formed up outside in a hoard of infected. Ryan, East and DAVE only stayed nearby in case the Fire Nation decides to commit like an Omashu Square Massacre or something like that.
The tribal refused to arm herself with her hunting rifle. Only reason she decided to stay with her only friend was he was the only one right now she could trust. Clinging onto him like a child with its parent.
"Hey, can I ask you something?" Said the Californian.
"What?" East responded holding her arms as if they were in Siberia.
"Where do you think we are?"
She looked at him, bewildered, "Can I ask you something first?"
"Fine."
"How did you find me? We're like on a different... was the word continent?"
"Wait, you don't know?"
"Don't know what?"
What he said next almost made her shetze herself, "We're in another world."
Once again her mind continued a chaotic mess. The thought of her travelling beyond Nevada was baffling let alone the continent. But actually on another breathing world? It sounded like an old tribal stories her grandmother told her, but for what sounded like an old coot's mislead beliefs turned out to be real was mind boggling indeed.
"If we're in another world. Shouldn't people here be speaking weirdly or... look different?"
"Language cannot be explained. Best guess is some sort of telepathic translations, if they have bloody superpowers why can't they have telepathy? And looking different, these people have all the same genetics of a human being minus the radiation," said the eyebot.
For the next few minutes, nothing happened. The hoard continued to groan like the walking dead and the soldiers feared away. As the stone gate grunted open, those of the resistance and other civilians were finally free with the others following on.
Outside the gates, everyone finally relaxed. No longer under the boot of the Fire Nation. The captain was doing a head count, thankfully all were accounted for, besides Aang, who was off searching for his friend.
"Why are we still here?" The tribal asked as the trio sat on the stone ground.
"We're going to be saying our goodbyes to the others, it wouldn't be nice if we just got up and left without even saying goodbye. Plus these people know the way out of the mountains, better we go with 'em," her friend explained. "Hey, why did you touch that vase back in the vault?"
"I... I don't know. It was like something was calling to me, I just got curious. Il Sorri (I'm sorry)."
"East, what you did could've f*cked up our lives. I had to travel the world to look for you, I almost froze to death up north and gained this scar," he pointed to the large burn on his cheek. "But other than that, I forgive you."
"You'd just forgive me like that?" A tear slowly ran down her face, they may have been friends for less than a year, but to hear someone who'd go through such events for jer made the girl think about everything that had just happened before she was thrown into prison. 4 years since she arrived in the Mojave and since then she hadn't really gotten any true friends, some companions got killed and others tried to groom her for their own pleasure in their perverted outcome. Akira and Banko came and went, the Earth kingdom soldiers she befriended in Omashu were massacred in the occupation. But Ryan was different, capable of surviving the wastes and any other horrors he faced alone. He was there to last. That moment, she felt like she had the closest thing to a family ever since her tribe fell.
It was also at that moment, the gang's flying lemur was sighted nearby under harsh attack by... a baby? If people can control the freaking weather then Ryan's already seen everything.
"Oh God. Is this anyone's baby?!" The Californian widely asked.
"That's the governor's son," said East softly, "I think his name was Tom Tom."
"I'm surprised in a world where it's all East Asian based there are still people with a western name."
"What the hell just happened?" The Captain asked already confused at the child, "Why is the governor's son here?"
"Well well well," said DAVE, "Seems you lot have a bargaining chip."
"A what?"
"Right, you don't have that term yet. What I'm saying is you could bargain this kid for whatever you want from the Fire Nation. If they refuse, just kill the brat!" The eye ot cruelly suggested.
"DAVE! I don't think it would be moral to kill this kid!" Cried the teenager who lives 200 bloody years after the fires of mankind which killed off morals. Also the person who killed their own girlfriend at 15, you get the point.
"Alright, still I think using him as a bargaining chip is good enough. So go do some negotiations when your messiah arrives."
"Who's the robot?" The tribal asked, finally asking.
"Remember when we met that guy in the vault?"
"The 'British'? Yeah... wait him?" Ryan then explained that DAVE was an AI uploaded into a toaster. On the surface he acts like a complete intelligent lunatic but in combat, the toaster was a war machine, as already presented while Ryan was picking her hard lock earlier.
"I see," said Yung stroking his bushy beard, "Well bargaining a child for our city sounds like an awful lot. They'd obviously wouldn't allow our captured comrades back, too much work. Bumi is a big no no, they probably executed him and are awaiting to show his head to the whole city jabbed onto a pike. We'll await their offer, the governor is an intelligent man. He'll know what to do."
"Intelligent sends the wrong signals here. For all we know he could decide to kill every man, woman and child here just to get his son back. I recall a certain woman in the 80s, Margaret Thatcher, who had one of her country's embassies under occupation of another country's people. 5 men took 20 hostage, much like us with this baby. After 6 days she sends in entire military squads of the country's best to take the embassy back, immediately exterminating 4/5 of them with no mercy at all. So don't underestimate your opponent, something like that could happen to us," the eyebot explained.
"Let us await the future. Only time will tell."
After minutes of sitting around and gaining entertainment from Momo's suffering, Aang came back. Mounting a horned beastly creature. Katara and Sokka, who somehow were not noticed by the wastelanders drinking warm centuries old sunset sarsaparilla.
Turned out Aang was searching for his friend, unfortunately no luck. Only confirmation was that the king was dead. Ryan, as sorry as he was, honestly didn't care a bit. His focus was with East, DAVE and the objective of getting back home. You could say he was only using the gang for his own benefit, you'd be right if he was a selfish prick like every other wastelander, which he wasn't.
Yung explained everything about the bargain with Tom Tom, it was good news indeed to him but the Avatar's mood stayed the same. For another couple minutes the toddler continued to be both scowled at yet also loved as a cutie. He may have been young then but when he grows up he'll probably be this world's next Hitler, that's if he got kicked out of art school as the eyebot said.
A red hawk looking creature swooped down to the gang carrying a scroll by its legs. The case seemed to have been engraved with the golden writing native to this world. It seemed to have gotten the wastelanders' attention.
"That's the governor's mark," said East.
"Seems like negotiations have already begun," said DAVE.
They all only watched as they read it, something about trading the boy for... the king? So it turned out they kept the guy alive. It was stupid though, as much of good news it was it only proved the Fire Nation didn't bother at all to kill him, doing so would annihilate the moral of their enemies. Guess the resistance and the others just got lucky.
Yung was relieved, believing that if the king was alive then they would eventually win this war. Ryan doubted that, the Fire Nation has equipped themselves with tanks and artillery, with their only opponents being some people who can throw rocks and swords. But he no longer wished to be apart of this world's politics, neither of the wastelanders did.
However, as much as the captain wanted to be apart of this his skills were most needed with his people waiting outside the walls. He ordered everyone that it was time to leave, at last they were free from the red menace for now.
Ryan and DAVE got up and went to bade farewell to the group. "So, I guess this is goodbye," he said.
"Why don't you travel with us?" Aang asked.
"No, we don't want to further get involved with this war. Only fights I want to get involved with are the ones back home, a desert in the middle of nowhere trying to get controlled by my nation and some Neo-Romans. You wouldn't happen to know where we could start on travelling world could you?"
"Sorry, we can't help out. Haven't really heard of anything that could get you guys back home."
"Well, thanks for helping me find East. We owe you a lot. But we've gotta go now," the Californian glared at DAVE, "You want to say anything?"
"Not really," the toaster responded.
"After an entire week of cooperating with this group you have nothing to say goodbye?"
"No, the way I see things is that we used them for our own benefit. That's what you post-apocalyptic people do right? Or have I been looking at too much human fiction?"
"You know what? I'm not going to bother with this," the scavenger was clearly tired of his comrade's bullsh*t. "See you when I see you," he farewelled, "Good luck on getting your friend back, I guess."
As they moved away to go with the people the gang waved and shouted goodbye. Now everything was just down to them getting home, no clues or any advice just to get back, but it was like he story of the Vault Dweller. He had his objective to find a water chip for his vault, when his destination didn't have one he had to rely on the wasteland around him to provide. In the end he saved his people, if some guy who lived in a hole in the ground for most of his life then a teenager, a young tribal and a 200 year old robot could find a way to get back to Nevada.
SO THIS PART OF THE STORY IS FINALLY OVER AFTER 11 CHAPTERS YAY! WEIRD TO STRETCH WRITING A WHOLE WEEK IN OVER 7 MONTHS. ANYWAYS I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS CHAPTER! HAVE A NICE DAY!