Chapter 2: Sokka's Omnitrix
The strange burning creature yelled again as it panicked. "Katara, help!"
"Sokka?!" Katara suddenly realised. In an instant she sprang into action gathering all the nearby snow into a powerful stream of water that she pushed towards Sokka with a thrust of her arms. The water hissed and spat as it hit him in the chest while the sudden force swept Sokka of his feet, knocking him backwards.
"What just happened?" Toph asked in complete denial of what her feet where telling her.
"Sokka turned into man made out of fire!" Aang cried out in complete disbelief.
"Cool!" The earthbender replied.
Meanwhile Sokka was recovering from being knocked to the ground by his sister's waterbending. He sat up in the scorched, black dirt of the crater rubbing the back of his head. He glanced at his other hand and saw it was still burning. He let out a quick shout of panic before realizing it didn't hurt. "I'm…I'm okay." His voice was shaking.
Still sitting down, Sokka started to examine himself. Apart from the obvious fact that he was on fire, other things were different as well. His hands where larger with only four fingers on each hand and his feet had two toes each that curved to make a circular shape between the toes. Cautiously finding his feet Sokka realised he had also gotten taller.
"This is so weird." Sokka said in his new rasping, crackling voice while he continued to examine his new body. Although he had calmed down a little he was still worried and confused.
"Does it hurt?" Katara asked sincerely.
"No, it's just… strange." Sokka responded while wriggling his fingers.
"What's that on your chest?" Aang asked, pointing to something stuck to one of the red, brown rocks that made up Sokka's new body.
Looking down, Sokka could see a circular piece of black and white metal sticking out of his chest. Even if it was a little difficult to see from this angle Sokka recognised the symbol.
"That's the same symbol that was on the armband." Aang pointed out. "Maybe it has something to do with this."
"Really?" Toph asked with a voice dripping with sarcasm. "The metal armband that fell from the sky and jumped onto his arm? You think there was something odd about it?"
"See if you can use it to change back." Katara suggested.
Sokka gave the symbol a light tap. When nothing happened he tried again but harder. When that didn't work he tried turning, twisting and pulling at it but nothing happened. Finally he gave up with a huge sigh. "Nothing. There's got to be some way to turn me back. I don't want to spend the rest of my life as a walking campfire!" Sokka threw his hands up in frustration but when he did a spear of flames shoot out from his hands into the air.
Katara and Aang stepped back in surprise with Momo, the lemur, jumping down Aang's shirt for safety.
"Woah!" Sokka breathed as looked at his hands.
"You can firebend?" A surprised Katara asked in shock.
Turning away from his friends and sister, Sokka looked out at the scorched earth of the crater. He wanted to see if he could create fire again. He thrust out his open palm and blasted out a ball of fire that flew through the air before exploding onto the dirt. The meteor had churned up the earth and the fire from the crash had burned away the grass, so Sokka felt pretty safe blasting out fire considering there was nothing left to burn nearby. He did it again, firing another blast from his hand.
All the while this was going on Katara, Aang and Toph watched, or in Toph's case felt, Sokka as he continued to demonstrate his new found power.
"The armband turned Sokka into some kind of weird Firebender?" Katara questioned, asking no one in particular.
Aang, however, shook his head. "He's not a Firebender." He was watching how Sokka moved when he created the fire. Momo climbed out from his shirt and perched on his shoulder.
"Are you sure?" Toph questioned. "Cause he seems to be bending a lot of fire." The earthbender could feel the heat even standing this far away and she could feel each blast as it slammed into the soil.
"He's not moving like a Firebender, his form is different." Aang wasn't really sure that Sokka was using any form. He just seemed to be throwing fire.
Sokka fired one last blast from his palms before turning back to face the others. "Okay, I guess this isn't all bad." After realising what he could do, Sokka felt a little better about being turned into a weird fire monster. "Still, I would feel better as my usual handsome self."
"Well we're going to have to figure out the rest of this back at the camp." Katara said. "All of this." She gestured to the crater and the strange metal meteor. "Might have attracted someone's attention." The waterbender looked around at the rest of the group. The blind earthbender, disguised Avatar, her transformed brother and the giant sky bison that was waiting patiently at the far edge of the crater. She really didn't want to stay and explain any of this to anyone who came looking.
The group all agreed with Katara, deciding to head back to their camp. They all climbed onto Appa's back ready to go but as Sokka got closer, still in his new burning body, the sky bison roared edging away from him in fear.
Aang stroked Appa's head trying to calm him down. "It's okay Appa. It's just Sokka."
"Yeah, it's me." Sokka assured the animal in his rasping, crackling voice. He raised his hands as a sign of peace. "I'm not gonna hurt you." He took a step closer. That was a mistake. Appa spun around and thrashed his tail down, sending a powerful shockwave of wind at Sokka that sent him flying through the air before he crashed back down on the other side of the crater.
"I guess I'm walking." Sokka called out to the others as he lay sprawled out in the dirt.
The rest of the group decided to walk back to the camp with Sokka. Aang sat on Appa's head holding the reigns, leading the bison as it walked along. Toph and Katara, meanwhile, had gotten off of Appa's back and where walking along side Sokka, who was forced to stay away from the bison so he did not scare it.
The walk was taking longer than if they had just flown back to camp, so to pass the time the talked about what had happened to Sokka.
They talked about what might have caused it.
"Maybe it's part of a Fire Nation plan." Sokka suggested. "To turn the whole world into firebenders."
They talked about his physical changes.
"Can you see okay?" Aang asked from the front. "It's just you don't really have eyes, just sort of eye… shapes."
They talked about how this change would affect him in the future.
"How am I supposed to get into my sleeping bag tonight?" Sokka questioned.
"You worried you're gonna get cold in the night?" Toph asked.
Finally they arrived back at their camp. Aang jumped down from Appa. They were about start talking about what to do about Sokka when suddenly the symbol on Sokka's chest began to flash. It flashed with red light and let out a low beeping sound before there was another blinding flash of light, this time it was red.
"I'm me again!" Sokka cried out with joy.
The others stared at him. He looked exactly the same as he did before he had been transformed. It was like it had never happened. However he still had the metal armband clamped around his wrist but instead of the bright blue from earlier, it was a deep red.
Tugging at the armband Sokka tried to remove it again. "It still won't come off!" He growled through gritted teeth.
Noticing his sudden appearance, Appa trundled over to Sokka and sniffed him. "See Appa, I told you it was me." Sokka told the bison. Clearly happy to see Sokka again Appa licked him across the face.
High above the planet, Vilgax pulled himself from the wreckage of his command bridge with his shattered right arm. The impact from the remains of the enemy ship had torn away most of his legs and the entirety of his left arm. He had deep wounds and savage burns across what was left of his body but he would not surrender, not when victory was so close.
A large, hovering platform made of dark metal hurried down the long, empty corridors of the ship. A group of the human-like drones help to place Vilgax onto the platform which then hurries him down to the ships med-lab. Once they arrive more drones, smaller and hovering, armed with grasping pincers fasten a mask over his mouth to help him breath. The group of human-like drones set him down in the middle of a rounded, black platform that sat in the middle of the room. A circular, glass-like tank rises around him slowly filling with a pale orange, bubbling liquid. Once the tank is filled, dozens of tiny insect-like drones swarm down through the liquid. They begin to scuttle over his body, attaching tubes and wire to Vilgax's body while others begin to examine his wounds. Treating burns, pulling free shrapnel and closing wounds.
Vilgax takes deep, laboured breaths. "Have you located the pods?" He snarled, attempting to speak as if there was nothing wrong with him.
A drone lieutenant stepped forward towards the tank. It presses a button on one of the holographic screens that dot the med-lab. More screens suddenly appear along the inside of the tank, following the curve of the glass, showing information about the planet below. "Both pods have been located." It informed its master. "Sensors indicate the escape pod landed on the planets northern most continent." One of the screens inside the tank displays the image of a vast, frozen landscape as seen from high above. Zooming in closer it reveals more details of the land including a tiny speck. The escape pods landing site.
"The cargo pod landed on the planets second largest continent." The drone continues in its flat, robotic voice. Another screen shows the continent, showing signs of volcanic activity in some places. Zooming in again, the screen shows a lush, green, hilly area from above with an impact crater clearly visible. "Drones can be sent to both locations." The drone lieutenant announces.
Vilgax clenched his remaining hand. "The wretched creature that dared to defy me can be left to rot on the frozen wastes of this primitive rock!" Vilgax spat. "Retrieve the Omnitrix. Go. Bring it to me."
A large pod was launched from the hull of Vilgax's ship and is sent hurtling down to the planet below.
Down on the planet it was still night and two men from the nearby village have gone to investigate the crater. One was slightly taller than the other man. He was bald with a thin moustache and wearing a dull red vest and black trousers. The other man was a little shorter with his hair tied back and a large pointed beard. He wore a plain red shirt and dark red shorts as well as carrying a pitch fork. The shorter man thumped the wooden end against the side of the strange metal meteor.
A strange whistling noise draws their attention to the starry night sky. For a moment they thought it was another shooting star falling to the ground but then it turned in the air and began heading straight for them. It crashed into the already charred earth, not far from the original crater, kicking up clouds of dirt and fire while sending out a shockwave that sent the earth trembling and knocked the two men over.
The two men cowed in fear together. The shorter man holding up his trembling pitch fork in an attempt to protect himself.
Sitting in the newly formed crater was a giant pillar of orange and red-brown steel. That lasted only a moment before the pillar began to open up, massive arms dropped down from its sides, each ending in four clawed fingers. With a hiss of steam an insect like head rose from the top of the pillar, staring out with emotionless red eyes. Finally three large blade-like legs pushed it up from the crater.
The two men sat there shaking as this forty foot tall metal thing stared down at them. Little did they know it was staring right past them at the already open metal pod. The giant drone raised its hand and charged the weapon housed just below its palm. Sensing the incoming attack the two men fled in terror leaving the pitch fork to clatter to the ground. They escaped just in time, as the drone fired a searing blast from its weapon that crackled through the air and blew the pod into shards of molten scrap.
With the Omnitrix missing the drone began its search. Two disks that protruded from its shoulders were suddenly launched into the air before springing open to reveal that they too where drones. Each having a circular head covered with dozens of insect-like eyes rose from the tops of the drones. From beneath, circular grey pillars drop down freeing a set of six metal legs. While four of the legs ended with sharp blades, two of them where fitted with claws.
The flying drones began to quickly fly around the crash site searching for any clues to the Omnitrix's location. It studied the ground until it found something with small traces of the Omnitrixs's energy signature. Reaching down with one of its pincers it brought it closer for examination. It was a small piece of torn red fabric. Searching for further information it found signs of previous activity. Footprints leading away from the crater.
While the smaller, faster drones conducted a wider search, the larger drone would begin its search at the nearest population centre. Scanning the horizon it found a primitive town not far from the crash site. It began its march towards the town.
Back at the camp the group had settled down for the night, having made camp in a small rocky ravine. Appa slept next to a giant stone with a makeshift roof over his head to hide him from an unwanted eyes while the rest of the group slept nearby, everyone except Sokka.
Sokka couldn't sleep. He didn't usually like to go without sleep but tonight had been an exception. Firstly so he could watch the meteor shower and secondly, because of the thing currently stuck around his arm. He was lying down in his sleeping bag studying the strange device, twisting the dial back and forth. It had returned to its previous blue colouring and with every turn of the dial it made a soft beeping noise.
Although the beeping was quiet, in the silence of the night it could be heard very clearly and its constant presence was made it difficult to sleep for those around Sokka. Finally unable to take any more Katara sat up. "Sokka, will you stop messing with that thing? It could be dangerous." She told her brother.
Sokka sat up now. "It's a little difficult to ignore it when it's clamped around your wrist." He shook his arm to emphasize his point. "Besides aren't you a just a bit curious about what this thing is?" Sokka asked his sister.
"I'm curious." Aang chimed in. It seemed that the airbender hadn't been asleep either. He was lying on his belly looking at the two water tribe siblings while resting his head on his hands. Toph appeared to be the only one of the group who was actually asleep but it was hard to tell since she had created a tent out of earth to sleep in.
"You still shouldn't be messing around with it." Katara said firmly. "What if you turn back into that fire thing? You'd set all of your stuff on fire."
"Relax. I think I've figured out how this thing works." Sokka said while fiddling with the armbands dial.
"You think?" Katara questioned with worry.
"See." Sokka moved to his sister's side to show her more closely. Aang got out of his sleeping bag and sat on her other side, wanting to see as well. Sokka held his left arm out in front of Katara. "There's more than just the fire guy on this thing." He told his sister with a hint of excitement.
Katara looked at the dial. In the middle of the blue diamond was the silhouette of what looked like the thing Sokka had turned into earlier. Her brother turned the dial revealing another silhouette that seemed to have four arms, he turned it again show something that could be some kind of animal but it wasn't clear.
"There are ten of them on this thing." Sokka told them pulling his arm back. "If all of them have weird powers like that fire guy this could be my chance to really help." He exclaimed in excitement.
Katara looked at her brother in confusion. "But you already help!" She protested.
"Why would you even think that?" Aang asked sitting up.
Sokka's face sank. "It's just...all you guys can do this awesome bending stuff like putting out forest fires, and flying around, and making other stuff fly around. I can't fly around, ok." He said solemnly. "I can't do anything."
"That's not true." Katara assured him. "No one can read a map like you." The observation didn't make Sokka any happier.
"Or your sarcastic comments." Aang suggested "You keep us laughing all the time." He searched with his eyes around the camp trying to find something that proved his point. He quickly choose something. "Like Katara's hair, right?" He grabbed a lock of her hair and gestured at it. "What's up with that?"
Katara snatched her hair back, suddenly self-conscious. She blushed with embarrassment. "What? What's wrong with my hair?" She tried to cover her hair.
Aang quickly tried to apologise. "Nothing, I was just trying to..."
Sokka sighed, slightly annoyed. He stood up, turned away from them and walked a few paces. "Look, I appreciate the effort, but the fact is each of you is so amazing and so special, and I'm not." He turned back to face them. "I'm just the guy in the group who's regular but this armband is my chance to change that!" He declared, holding up his arm and pointing to the device.
Katara stood up and walked over to Sokka, putting her hands on his shoulders. "I'm sorry you're feeling so down, but you can't really think that messing around with this thing is a good idea."
Sokka sighed. "It doesn't matter anyway. It's not like I can take it off." He tugged at the armband again, which didn't even move. Katara looked at Sokka with a pleading look. "Okay." Sokka relented. "I'll leave it allow for tonight." He gave a massive yawn. "I'm tired anyway."
They all returned to their sleeping bags, shuffling into them and laying their heads down. They were all about to finally drift off to sleep when a soft humming noise appeared, echoing of the ravine walls from somewhere in the distance.
The Avatar and the two water tribe siblings all sat up. "What is that?" Katara asked.
Further along the ravine the two flying drones appeared, following the faint tracks left by the group as they had walked back to camp.
"Great!" Sokka said as he saw the two flying disk shapes approach. "More weirdness."
As they sped closer the drones caught sight of the group of primitives that had made their camp in the ravine and more importantly, what one of them had stuck around his wrist. The drones rushed forward, raising their pincers and opening fire on the group with burning, red lasers shoot from their pincers.
Sokka yelled, jumping out of his sleeping bag just in time before it was torn apart by the volley of laser fire.
All the commotion woke Toph as she emerged from her stone tent in an earthbending stance. "What's going on?" She yelled before Sokka leapt at her knocking back into the tent just in time before another hail of laser fire rained down. Toph pushed Sokka off her. "Get off!"
"We're under attack by flying, metal crabs!" Sokka had seen the legs and pincers from a distance and it was the only thing he could think of in the moment.
The drones had gotten closer now. Aang and Katara took a bending stance, deciding together that these strange things where too dangerous to keep hiding their bending. Katara drew her bending water from her water skin and quickly formed it into a spear that she thrust towards the drone. The drone ducked below the attack, swooping around to open fire on Katara from the side. The waterbender formed a shield to block the attack. It worked but the scorching blasts evaporated her precious water with every hit.
Aang meanwhile was dodging the attacks from the second drone. The airbender spun and leapt around the blasts while bending stones and air back at the drone. The drone weaved back and forth dodging the attacks with relative ease, only occasionally having to blast apart a stone or stumble from Aang's airbending.
Both Toph and Sokka emerged from the earth tent ready to fight, Sokka snatching up his boomerang from the ground. Toph could sense the metal moving through the air around her but like the armband it was too refined for her to bend. Instead she formed pillars of earth from the ground to try and knock them from the air while restricting their movement.
All of this commotion had also woken Appa. The huge sky bison roared at the strange intruders before charging at them to defend the others. He crashed through some of the pillars but the drones where fast enough to evade him, one of which flew along the bison's side and fired three rounds into him. The animal groaned in pain before collapsing onto the dirt.
"Appa!" Aang cried out.
While the others were distracted by the drone that had attacked Appa, the second drone had circled around to the other side. There, separated from the others on the other side of the fallen animal, was its target. The creature wearing the Omnitrix. The drone swooped down towards it with its pincers ready.
Sokka watched as the others fought the drone that had shot Appa, preparing to join the fight himself until he heard a noise to his left. Turning, he saw the second drone flying towards him. He quickly threw his boomerang at his attacker but it did nothing but ding against the metal. Catching his weapon as it returned to him he tried to dive out of the drones way only for it to snatch his ankle in its strong, metal claw. Lifting him off the ground by his leg it began to fly down the ravine taking Sokka with it.
"Guys, help!" He shouted, but they were still dealing with the other drone. Sokka desperately tried to free himself, straining to strike at the drone from his awkward position of hanging by his leg. He managed only a few glancing blows with his boomerang that did nothing but ding of the metal. All the while he was being carried further away. With no other option he decided to use the armband. He pressed the button, the dial popped up and he brought his hand down on it, having no time to choose. "Please be something good!" Sokka pleaded before there was another flash of blue light and the drone was dragged down by sudden extra weight.
The rest of the Gaang was still fighting the first drone. The metal attacker prepared to fire again until Katara sent blade of water slicing through its arms, leaving it defenceless. Quickly following Katara's attack, Aang sent a powerful blast of wind that hurled the drone into the ravine's hard walls. Its metal shell cracked from the force, leaving it sparking on the ground. Toph raised a thick, slab of stone and sent it charging towards the downed drone, crushing it between the stone slab and the ravine wall. Only when they heard the sound of snapping metal and saw a burst of black smoke where they satisfied that it was destroyed.
Without taking a moment to rest, despite their exhausting fight and lack of sleep, the raced into action. "We have to rescue Sokka!" Katara declared only to be interrupted by the humming of the second drone mixed with the growls and roars of some kind of animal.
Heading back towards them was the second drone but Sokka wasn't anywhere in sight. Instead a large, orange furred animal was clinging to the top of the drone. It tore through the drone's metal armour with ease using it strong claws. All the while the drone tried and failed to snap at the animal with its pincers as it flew back towards the camp. Just before reaching the camp, the animal clamped its jaws around the drones head, ripping it away in one swift motion. What was left of the drone began to spin wildly out of control, heading straight for a crash landing. The unknown animal leapt away at the last moment with a huge jump, the kind that only Aang could match while using his airbending, just before the drone smashed into the ground scattering shards of metal everywhere.
Satisfied that the second drone was also destroyed, the group turned their attention to the animal, which at this moment was clinging to the side of one of Toph's earth pillars. It was clinging on near the very top of the pillar, the drone's head still in its mouth. Suddenly the animal leapt down, performing a flip while in the air. It landed right in front of them, they all took a step back out of caution while remaining in their bending stance. The animal let the drone head fall from its mouth, it hit the floor with a mix of a clatter and a splat since it was drenched in the animal's saliva. "Eew." They all said at once.
The animal was the strangest things Katara had ever seen. It was large with orange fur and seemed to be a mix of a dog and an ape. It had no visible eyes, ears or nose. All it had was a large mouth with black lips and a dark purple tongue. The front row of teeth along its bottom jaw also stuck out when its mouth was closed. Along the side of its head where a set of gills and on its left shoulder was a black and white shoulder pad that… had the same symbol as the armband.
"Sokka?" Katara asked for the second time tonight. Far too many times to wonder if your brother had been turned into a strange monster.
In response Katara got a friendly growl and a nod. It was Sokka.
"You used that armband again?" Katara asked already knowing the answer.
"So there's more than just the fire guy?" Toph asked.
"There's at least ten of them." Aang explained. "We've only seen the fire guy and this… orange-monkey-dog-thing." He said in utter confusion of what to call Sokka's new form. "So what's it like being this guy Sokka?"
In response Aang got a low growl.
"Can't you talk?" Toph asked.
Sokka gave another growl and shook his head, causing drops of drool fall from his mouth.
Katara stepped back, not wanting to get drool on her feet, before asking her own question. "How can you see? You don't have any eyes." Waving her arm in front of Sokka's new face.
"Eyes aren't the only way you can see things." Toph replied for Sokka.
Toph was right. Although Sokka couldn't 'see' he could sense the world around him through different senses. Heightened hearing, sense of smell, detecting slight differences in heat and movement of the air around him where all put together to form an image of the world. It let Sokka 'see' further than would be able to with his normal eyes and it wasn't just in one direction, he could see all around at once. It was with these heightened senses that Sokka caught the scent of fire on the air.
The others were still talking when Sokka raised his head, sniffing at the air. He followed the scent trying to find where it was coming from. "What's wrong?" Aang asked as Sokka walked away from them. He walked a little further before stopping and pointing into the distance with one of his clawed fingers, where he knew the smell was coming from. Off in the distance, beyond the tree line, was a faint red glow on the horizon. Sokka could smell the faint traces of smoke in the wind.
"Something's wrong." Aang said looking out at the eerie red glow against the horizon. Sokka gave a roar of agreement.
Sorry for taking such a long time, had a lot of college work to finish.
About having upgrade as part of the original ten, I think he would be able to effect Fire Nation machinery because in one episode of the original series, The Alliance, he merged with a piece of gym equipment.
Another thing I have considered is that Heatblast is capable of small scale terrakinesis by channelling heat through the stone. He uses it in omniverse to fly sometimes. So I thought he might be able to lavabend to a small degree.
Let me know if there are any problems with the story. I'm also open to suggestions and ides.
Thanks for reading.