Oh look. A chapter. Fancy that.
I'd like to reiterate something-I cannot say it enough, by the way-nobody, and I mean NOBODY, will be taken seriously here. Be as serious as you like in your application-if me and my amazingly epic beta think we can milk some humor out of your character, we will do it. Don't be offended-it's happening to everybody.
On that note, I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender. My work has been betad by the wonderful Caelum Blue, for whom I thank the heavens every day. Enjoy!
Lana Kirk—aka Freeranger—was in full blown Not Amused™ mode. She was locked in a small, badly-lit room that smelled of turnips. Why turnips, she did not know. It was probably part of Karen's Evil Plan to wear her down. Who else could have inexplicably known of her passionate hatred of turnips?
In any case, Freeranger (so she preferred being called Freeranger, so what? The application form had asked for her name. Nicknames totally counted) was sitting in her cell—ahem, classroom—and waiting for someone to come in and tell her what to do. Somewhere along the line, she'd lost track of time, and now she was wondering how such a cheesy line could manage to sound so cool in her head. "Somewhere along the line, I've lost track of time," she murmured to herself. Line and time had totally different endings—they shouldn't rhyme! But somehow they did…
The door opened, and Freeranger looked up to see yet another random guard—whose name, if she asked, would almost definitely be Lee—enter her ce-classrorom. He was clearly attempting the Stereotypical Badass Guard™ look, and just as clearly failing. What could be seen of his face was pimply and pale, like he only rarely saw the sun. Just how desperate was this place for guards, that it had to take in teens like him?
"What now?" Freeranger groaned, resisting the urge to thump her head against her desk. It had been a long…however much time she'd spent in here, and she just wanted to get out. Maybe see some sunlight. Oh god, sunlight…just the thought made the room seem even smaller and darker, if that was possible.
"I have a message for you from Warden Karen," the guard-whose-name-was-likely-Lee replied. His voice was high and slightly nasal in quality, which, come to think of it, should have been expected seeing as he was scarcely past puberty. But then he let loose a Karen impersonation that would have won him an Emmy, if he lived in America and actually knew what Emmys were. "'All right, fanbrat, before we release you from your cell—uh, classroom—for the day, write an essay on everything you know about the show. Five pages minimum, and don't do that thing I used to do where I'd use really large letters to write and meet the requirement, because it's really annoying for the people reading your paper. Yeah, I think that's OH DEAR SPIRITS YOU TWO IS THAT REALLY NECESSARY? IN THE STAFF ROOM? NO, NO IT'S NOT, AND YES AANG I DO KNOW I'M ANSWERING MYSELF, BUT IT'S STILL REALLY NOT NECESSARY. NO, HAKODA, NO, SOKKA IS NOT 'ATTA BOY,' DON'T ENCOURAGE THIS! WHAT IS oh, um, no, no, it's good, just head off now, give Captain Kirk her message, I'll be fine…yeah…'"
Freeranger stared at the guard. "I don't think she wanted you to tell me all of that," she pointed out.
"Well, likely not, I agree," the guard-probably-named-Lee admitted, "but she said to repeat everything she said until she told me to stop. Since she only told me to stop at the end…well, what would you have done?"
"Um…" Freeranger thought, "I…probably would have quoted her exactly, just to annoy her. It may seem premature, but I really don't like her."
"Um. She doesn't like you, so it's probably not all that premature, miss," the guard shrugged. "Nobody here likes your kind. You mess with the Fire Nation and make perfectly decent people who've been lied to all their lives out as complete monsters. Lots of the other guards feel that teaching you all is just a huge waste of time. But we're making an effort, because we're not killers—which is the second-most popular opinion of how to deal with you all, by the way."
"Say what now?" Freeranger immediately gave him her full attention. "I just wrote one stupid story! And I only wrote it because the characters are all a bunch of goodie-goodies who need to realize they're not all that! What's so bad about having them get defeated by someone way more awesome than they are?"
"Maybe the fact that, as you put it, they really are 'all that'?" The guard rolled his eyes. "Look, that Airbender kid is the Avatar. He's supposed to be the most powerful being in this world. And you seem to be under the impression he always wins. I don't know what you've heard, but does the Fall of Ba Sing Se mean anything to you? Avatar Aang literally died then."
"Er. I…didn't watch that episode," Freeranger looked away, a blush starting on her cheeks. "I've only really seen one episode."
The guard didn't even dignify that with a response. He turned around and exited the cell—classroom, sorry, it's a classroom, swear—without another word. Freeranger watched him go, wondering if maybe he had a point.
It bears mentioning—if you haven't figured it out already—that Fanfiction Universities, especially for stories that take place in worlds not at all like Earth, tend to be extremely odd places. In fact, even Fanfiction Universities for stories that are basically just alternate versions of the Real World can have some crazy inhabitants, which are primary ingredients for crazy events. So you really shouldn't be surprised at the sight of a giant panda walking through the halls of an Official Fanfiction University, no matter who you are or where you're from.
Yes, there was indeed a giant panda walking through OFUA:TLA. It was fairly normal, as pandas went, aside from it being giant. It had the ears, the face, the cute black spots around the eyes-everything one would expect in a panda. Only it was huge. Seriously big. Like, a hundred times the size of a normal panda.
Said gigantic panda was walking through the staff hallways of OFUA:TLA, which really weren't all that different from the student hallways. The main difference was that they were a level above the student hallways to discourage glomping. The hallways were what you might call "wandering," and they occasionally terminated at the oddest places without leading anywhere. The odd layout had a very simple explanation: Karen, who claimed to have been an architecture student for a year, had single-handedly designed the remodeling required to make the Boiling Rock into a learning facility for fangirls and fanboys. When one looked at a bird's-eye view of the new sections, they bore a suspicious resemblance to a plate of cookies. There were even oddly-shaped offices scattered about that that were either the chocolate chips or the sprinkles, depending on whether you were listening to Iroh or Jet.
The giant panda was currently passing one such chocolate chip/sprinkle, and he was not alone. Accompanying him was an attractive young woman carrying a fishbowl that was too large for her to balance properly. A pair of monochromatic fish were swimming in a circle in the water, and when viewed from above, they had an eerie similarity to the yin-yang symbol. Yue isn't "somewhat" attractive—she is attractive. ^_~
Any educated fanbrat—no, wait, that's an oxymoron, isn't it? Any educated audience would recognize this group as being, in order of mention: Hei Bai, the Black and White Spirit; Yue, former Tribal Princess of the Water Tribe and current incarnation of the Moon Spirit; and the mortal forms of the Moon and Ocean Spirits, Tui and La, Push and Pull, Yin and Yang, blah blah blah, they're fish.
Now, Yue could not see very well due to the fishbowl, and thus was very lost in the staff hallways of OFUA:TLA. Hei Bai, you couldn't tell with him, it's very hard to tell when a panda's got any sort of facial expression going on, but he was turning his head from side to side in a manner that could be construed as confusion, perhaps an attempt to figure out where he was. Tui and La, in the fishbowl, were circling each other calmly and giving no indication that they noticed anything beyond the glass.
Suddenly, as Yue dutifully trekked down the hallway with her sacred burden, a very unstrategically-placed office door opened and hit the fishbowl dead-on. This didn't do much more than chip the glass of the fishbowl itself. However, in the change from mortal girl to Moon Spirit, Yue hadn't gained much in upper body strength. She fell sideways, and the glass bowl in her hands fell to the suspiciously-ginger snap-shaped metal floor tiles below. The floor was suddenly drenched with water—as well as two unfortunate fish.
"No!" Yue cried out in shock. "Tui! La!"
"Oh no, I'm so sorry!" Suki, who had opened the door in the first place, immediately got to her knees and tried to catch the black fish—the Ocean Spirit, mostly thought to be the one called La. Yue tried to pick up the white one, the Moon Spirit, commonly thought to be called Tui.
Sokka, who had remained in the office attempting to wipe off all the makeup from his face and neck, heard the thud outside as the fishbowl hit the ground. He immediately ran out to see what was happening, where he promptly tripped over Suki, hit the floor, and slid through the water into the opposite wall. "Oww…" the Water Tribe warrior moaned.
"Sokka! Are you okay?" Suki bolted to her feet and tried to run over to him, but slipped on the wet metal floor and fell backwards onto the fishbowl. Since the fishbowl was round, and the Universal Laws of Comedy are cruel, the fishbowl rolled backwards and took Suki with it. Her head hit the floor and gave her a mild concussion. "Oww…"
Yue observed all this with the stunned silence. Her jaw had dropped open, her ears were only registering noises half a minute after they occurred, and her eyes had widened to the point where an enterprising author might use the simile "as wide as dinner plates."
"S-Sokka…?" she whispered. "Is that you?"
"Huh?" Sokka picked himself up from the floor. "Yue…?"
The two stared at each other for a long moment. Sokka had thought Yue was forever untouchable, as the Moon Spirit: Yue had thought that, as the Moon Spirit, she would only see Sokka from the sky. Neither had considered the possibility that the University might bring them together again.
"Yue…"
"Sokka…"
And then they were hugging, and whispering each other's names, and all that sappy stuff that Emotional Reunions have, and yadda yadda yadda. You're not reading this for romance, are you? Seriously, this is a Fanfiction University. It's for learning about how to write good fanfiction. And attempting—and failing—to glomp one's Lust Objects. Not much romance potential in that.
While the Emotional Reunion between Sokka and Yue was going on, Suki was rubbing her head and wondering why everything was spinning. The air directly in front of her was filled with pretty fireworks, in all sorts of colors. Something nearby was making a loud ringing noise. Ooh, pretty colors…
Wait a minute. Wasn't that Sokka, behind all the lights, hugging a girl? A girl that was quite clearly not Suki, nor even remotely physically similar to Suki so he could claim he was mistaken in the bad lighting?
No girl likes to see her man with another woman, unless she knows for sure that woman is not interested in men, is related to the man in question, or is happily married. The last case does not always soothe a woman's suspicions either: in some cases, it actually makes them worse. From what Suki could see, the woman Sokka was hugging was young—about Suki's age, which did not help matters any—beautiful, and not sporting a betrothal necklace.
All of these factors, combined with the pretty lights starting to fade and leaving a rather nasty headache behind in their wake, had Suki getting to her feet and grabbing Sokka's arm. "Sokka, love, who's this?" Suki batted her eyelashes at her boyfriend—and he'd better not forget that he was her boyfriend—as fetchingly as she knew how. Since she was a teenaged girl with no lack of attractive features, that was pretty darn fetching.
"Oh, Suki…" Sokka trailed off as he remembered she was there. He smiled warmly at her on instinct, before seeing Yue's surprised face from the corner of his eye. "Oh! Oh, Suki!" The young warrior leaped back from both women as if they were about to attack.
"Um…" Yue stared at the girl who'd just startled Sokka. "Sokka, who is this?"
Sokka gulped. This was not a good situation to be in.
"Hey, we heard noises—oh sharding glaciers!" Katara exclaimed, rounding a corner down the hall. "That…is that…are those…Sokka, Suki, please tell me that's not the Moon and Ocean on the floor!"
"Oh, it's them," Karen cackled. She'd been watching the entire scene from a dramatically shadowed doorway ever since Sokka and Suki had left the office (knowing what they were likely up to, she had settled for waiting in a corner until they left before going inside to retrieve some files, but this was so much more entertaining than paperwork that she had stayed to see what would happen next. It was like a soap opera, only real life, so way cheesier). Now the Agent revealed herself, a wicked smile on her face. "These three have forgotten entirely about them. I expect some terrible disasters are going on outside right now."
Meanwhile, a blood-red moon had appeared in the late afternoon sky outside, and beaches all around the world were being hit with tsunami-sized waves. People in boats, mostly fisherman and Navy officers, were experiencing freak attacks by various sea creatures. In the Boiling Rock, Waterbender students complained of severe headaches (despite never having been touched by the life force of the Ocean or Moon Spirits) and made sure to fall into Zuko's path as he walked by. He was retaliating by stepping on them. Zhao, meanwhile, sulked in a corner, upset that someone was trying to usurp his position as Moon Slayer.
"Oh dear spirits! And you didn't do anything?" Katara shrieked. She attempted to Bend the water on the floor into a rough sphere for both fish, but the liquid had either evaporated in the Fire Nation heat or slipped through the seams of the metal floor. There wasn't much left. What remained was barely enough for one fish. "Someone get water! Water! I'm sorry, your Moonness, your Oceanness, more water will be here in a minute—where's that water?"
It wasn't coming.
"Sokka," Suki's voice reached the boy's ears. "I'm waiting."
"And so am I," Yue added. Sokka winced. Apparently they hadn't been distracted by his sister like he'd hoped.
"Well, um, you see, Yue, is, is Yue, and she's the Moon Spirit you see, and Suki is a Kyoshi Warrior, and she kissed me on the cheek once like a few days after I found Aang—well, Katara and I found Aang, and Katara's the one who saved him, and I was just really suspicious of him at first but I started to like him after a little while, and he's really a great kid, but you both know that, so, um, um—" Sokka babbled.
"Has he always been this bad at explanations?" Yue whispered to Suki, who she figured had probably known him longer.
"Oh, has he been," Suki replied with a giggle. "You should see him draw."
"I've seen his carving. It's not that good," Yue confided.
"Um…I can hear you…I am right here…" Sokka muttered plaintively.
"Will someone get me some water already?" Katara snapped.
"Water is wet," Karen observed unhelpfully.
"Sokka!"
"Oh, very well. I'll save the day," Karen said demurely, pulling what looked to be ten gallons of water in a hat out of a nearby plothole. A man's head poked out as well, gasping for breath. "Oh, hey Marshall Arts."
"Thank goodness!" he exclaimed, climbing out of the plothole. His thoroughly drenched, tye-died gi dripped water all over the floor. "I thought I was going to be stuck in there until the school year was over! I'm not even sure how I got into it in the first place…" Sounds better this way. I knew what you were saying before, it was just kinda…awkward. "He climbed out of the plothole to reveal a thoroughly drenched tye-died gi." See what I mean?
"That's usually how it is, with plotholes," Karen agreed as Katara used the water from the plothole to rescue Tui and La. "You never know what's going on. I once read a fic where there was this huge plothole, and I could never figure out where the Suethor got it from. Why she would think a Waterbender woman having a Firebender daughter while she's undercover in the Fire Nation would be a bad thing is beyond me…"
"Suethors rarely make sense," Marshall Arts agreed.
Lupe shifted in her seat, trying to find a position that didn't make her legs threaten to fall asleep. The Spirit Hall was themed in blue and white, with swirling designs that vaguely resembled clouds or wisps of mist patterned on the walls and up the pillars lining the Hall. There were no actual seats, just cushions arranged on tiers. Several students had attempted to take a nap until it became painfully obvious that there would be no seats to spare, at which point a desperate battle for pillows resulted. Isabella Rose had decided that, as the Avatar, she deserved five cushions: four deprived students had taken offense at that, and wrestled her down before taking away all of the pillows. They'd only gotten four: one cushion was maimed beyond repair and utterly useless, so Isabella Rose was left with nothing between her and the metal floor.
"I don't wanna be a monk…" Lauphen was crying next to Lupe. She'd been told in a class called "Peaceful Air Nomads" that all Air Nomads were either monks or nuns, a fact that upset her greatly. It was still news to Lupe that the Avatar World had monks and nuns. But it proved her theory that Christianity existed here as well! Ha! Take that, stupid reviewer who doesn't know what he's talking about! And of course Zuko would fall for the pious Twinkle Goldfire, Lupe's OC character.
"You'd be a nun," Lupe said, absent-mindedly patting Lauphen's shoulder. "Monks are guys. Nuns are girls."
"I don't care!" Lauphen sobbed. "I don't want to be one!"
"Imagine how I feel," Andy replied gloomily. "What if we have to take vows of celibacy or something? How will I live?" She looked around at the small group that had gathered off to one side of the Hall. "Well? How would I live?"
"Very celibate-y, I'd say," [-] observed with a voice dripping sarcasm. "Meep, don't you agree with me?"
"Meep meep?" Meep Megdaline perked up at the mention of her name. [-] took that as an agreement, and nodded sagely. Meep returned her attention to nothing, and began to sing a song under her breath while using hand puppets to mimic out what the song was about. From what Lupe saw, there was a lot of talking.
The stomachs of all five students rumbled at almost exactly the same time. Lupe blushed, but the others didn't do much. Lunch for them had been a small bowl of rice consumed hastily around noon. One of the guards that walked the halls of the school-formerly-high-security-prison had told Lupe that it was nearly four. Supper was at five.
Well, Lupe thought it was five. It was the thing listed after this class, and the time symbol was two down from the three horizontal lines that Lupe was fairly sure meant three. She knew it was dinner because of the crude cookie scribbled next to the time. From what Lupe had witnessed, that was likely Karen-ese for "food time." Although, considering it was Karen, it could have been "target practice time." None of the students could read Chinese, and the guards had apparently decided to not read schedules to the fanbrats, so not many people were quite sure of what was going on.
From the stage (set behind a very deep trench and lined with barbed wire), or rather, behind the visible stage area, the very distinctive sound of an animal in distress could be heard. Several voices, all female, were talking and yelling at each other. One phrase managed to sound around the Hall: "This is why you don't just design buildings to look like stuff you like from above!" The buzz of conversation that had previously been all one could hear in the Hall gave way to general silence, save for a few people who hadn't noticed or didn't care that an instructor was coming.
After a few minutes, there was a cry of success ("Success!" "Stop trying to sound like Richard Roxborgh. It's not amusing."), and two women walked onto the stage, one carrying a huge fishbowl with two monochrome fish in it. One of the women had white hair, and was dressed in a rather impractical strapless dress with poofy, unattached sleeves. A circle with a weird design on it seemed to be hovering a few inches in front of her, with some fabric attached to it that was itself possibly attached to the back of her dress. The other woman was Karen.
Well, she looked like Karen. Same hair color, same eye color, same skin color. But she didn't have that coat on, the cool black one. Lupe was willing to admit the coat was sorta cool. So why wasn't Karen wearing it?
"Well, that was a fun tug-of-war!" Another Karen strode on stage. This one was wearing her coat, and had a cookie in her hand. Clearly this was the real Karen. But if she was Karen, who was the other woman?
"There's TWO of them!" Lauphen screamed in horror after a moment. Someone repeated the phrase a bit louder, and panic began to descend. After just a day of class, everyone was fairly certain that one Karen was all the universe could handle.
"SILENCE!" Karen shouted, this time attempting a Dumbledore impression. It failed miserably, but the students took the hint. The Agent continued. "While I appreciate that you all love me enough to cry tears of joy at the thought of my having a clone or a twin, sadly, this is not the case." Every student in the Hall let out a breath of relief. "I'd like to introduce Agent Anjilly Ka, you can call her Agent or Miss Ka, but not Anjilly, and she'll hurt anyone but me who calls her Anj; my partner and fellow Course Coordinator. Please respect her as you would respect me, because she only just left the Department of Mary Sues and is still adjusting to the change of lifestyle."
"What's that supposed to mean?" William GP called from somewhere amongst the mass of students.
"It means," Anjilly began to tap her foot as she answered, "that I'm used to killing things that I don't like, not giving them detention." Lupe's eyes widened. She couldn't be serious. That wasn't allowed. Murder was illegal!
It should have been obvious to her by this point that at the Official Fanfiction University for Avatar: The Last Airbender, things that were illegal in the Real World were pretty commonplace.
"Don't worry, students," Karen laughed as she looked at the looks on the students' faces. Priceless. "Katara can always use the Spirit Oasis Water to bring you back to life, so you won't get to stay dead! You'll be right back to life, and classes, and homework, and the iron rule of two PPC Agents who hate your stories with a passion…"
Oddly enough, her words weren't all that reassuring.
The white-haired girl—Lupe had no idea who she was—coughed politely. Anjilly glanced at her, but Karen paid her absolutely no attention at all. "I'd also like to remind you all that you have dinner once this class is done," she continued cheerily. "Dinner will be the only time you'll be served food specific to the Nation you wrote on your registration form, because it's the most important meal of the day!"
"But we've already had lunch," a confused Somariel protested.
"Yes, I know this," Karen nodded. She paused. "It occurs to me that I should specify that when I say 'dinner,' I refer to the meal also known as 'supper.' You will never hear me calling lunch 'dinner.' I don't get why people use it for lunch and supper both, that's just confusing. My parents could never agree which it meant, and I just wound up using it for supper because it sounds right to me, but I can still never tell if my dad wants me to stop by for lunch or supper. He should be more specific…"
"Um, Karen?" The white-haired girl put a hand on the woman's shoulder. "I'd like to introduce myself now, please. May I?"
"Sure thing!" Karen grinned. "Everybody, this is the Moon Spirit Yue. In the fishbowl are Tui and La, the mortal forms of the Moon and Ocean Spirits. We're not sure which one is Tui and which one is La, because the show's got some really ambiguous wording, but never you mind!"
"Karen, she meant she wanted to do it herself," Anjilly hissed to her partner.
"Huh?" Karen's eyes widened in alarm. "Oh no! I'm so sorry, Yue! Here, have a cookie as—no, not that cookie, it sharpened nicely…here, have this cookie as an apology!" The Agent pulled a sugar cookie (unsharpened) from her coat pocket and pressed it into Yue's hand.
"Er…it's fine…" Yue squinted at the cookie in her hand. A few clumps of lint stood out from the pale yellow-white. If spirits had appetites, Yue had just lost hers.
"Well…that's these guys," Karen gestured to her companions on stage. "There's someone else too, but I'm not sure what's taking him so long—Hei Bai! Where did you get that?" There was a low animal noise from offstage left that sounded a bit like a moan. "Please, just put it back! I-I'll tell Suki you found it when I see her!"
A gigantic panda bear wandered onstage. Under normal circumstances, this would have been enough to warrant much staring and whispering and general rudeness. However, this panda had what looked like a bra on its head, although most of the Fire Nation females in the room figured it was just some girl's top. This might be a surprise, but a good deal of Firebender OCs didn't wear much clothing, the women especially.
Nobody said a word. Then Anjilly spoke, using a poker face that would have made Mai proud. "Nice hat
"Thus ends the first day of classes at OFUA:TLA," Karen sighed over-dramatically as she and Anjilly walked into the Staff Section. The lemurs guarding the doors allowed them by with only a sniff to assure them that these were, in fact, the Agents, and not students masquerading as Karen and Anjilly.
"What are they serving for supper? I'm famished," Anjilly moaned.
"For us? Steak and potatoes," Karen's mouth spread in a blissful smile. "I thank the spirits for Iroh. I thank them for him every day. He's been trying out Western recipes for when we don't feel like eating Asian food, or when we deserve a treat. The students are getting some traditional dishes native to their nation, though." The smile turned sinister.
"Um…" Anjilly hesitated. "Karen…do I want to know?"
"Want to know what?" Karen's eyes widened innocently. "That the students are being served Smoked Sea Slug and Stewed Sea Prunes? That's only the Fire Nation and Water Tribe students, though. I couldn't find anything suitably disgusting to give the Earth Kingdom and Air Nomad ones."
"Evil woman," Anjilly complimented. "Pakku and Hama are taking the Waterbenders out three hours after sunset, right?"
"Yup," Karen nodded. "They wanted to take Yue with them, but Sokka sort of promised to continue their Emotional Reunion after chow. Which reminds me, Suki is Not Pleased with that, and has decided for some reason that I'm to blame."
"You are the one who insisted Yue come and teach," Anjilly pointed out. "And weren't you muttering something about soap operas with an evil grin on your face the rest of that day?"
"…Maybe," Karen's eyes shifted back and forth across the hallway. "Anyways, mind helping me hide for a while?"
"Hide from Suki? A Kyoshi Warrior with a grudge?" Anjilly shuddered. "You're on your own."
"Hey! You know this institution wouldn't exist without months of work on my part!" Karen protested.
"You ditched for three days just before the students arrived to go visit your boyfriend at the International Academy of Hetalia Fanfiction," Anjilly reminded her. "I had to take care of all the paperwork, plus the new Misspellings. Do you know how annoying an artist in a tie-died gi can get?"
"No, and I hope I never do," Karen shrugged.
"Karen!" Suki's voice drifted down the hall.
"Ah! It's Suki! Hide me!" the PPC Agent attempted to dive behind her partner, but Anjilly neatly sidestepped and continued walking like nothing had happened. "Traitor!"
Anjilly smirked over her shoulder as she left. "I told you, you're on your own. And look on the bright side. At least it's not Azula."