cabbagesforall | LoK AU: Hero-Verse [Open to All! Let's build this verse!]

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korra[au]

LoK AU: Hero-Verse [Open to All! Let's build this verse!]

Legend of Korra: Hero-Verse

The Setting: Republic City, in another place, and a few years ahead of where it normally is...

Once, a long time ago, a normal world gifted the world with something known as Bending - a very rare power to use one's own energy to manipulate the elements. There were many who feared these powers, which came together in him - so he took on a mask and the name of Avatar, becoming a masked hero.

As centuries, and then millennia passed, the mysterious hero's mantle was passed on from generation to generation through reincarnation, someone chosen from each of the Four Nations in turn and from among the very rare ranks of those with the ability to bend the elements.

Flash forward to Republic City, circa the 1930s. For the first time, those who distrust the powers of the benders believe that technology will come to replace them. As the city towers higher and higher, and technological achievement rises even further, it looks like the hero known as Avatar may become obsolete; and there are many sinister forces who are eager to make that tomorrow into today.

Meanwhile, some Benders have taken up mantles of their own - both for good and for ill, while others seek to hide their powers, existing every day with perfectly normal jobs. In the increasingly Art Deco city, there is room for absolutely everyone - and challenges around every corner.

As President Raiko takes an increasingly anti-bending stance, the stage is set for conflicts, challenges, and opportunities to simply erupt...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Iroh wasn't sure why Korra was uncomfortable. "It must be a good job to have if you like to read," he said. "So much to learn." He left it at that, and, since the paper he'd been drying out was now dry enough not to damage the others, he tucked it away along with them.

He drew a deep breath, ready to wax loquacious on the subject of his tea shop. Even the minor events there were of endless interest to him, and he'd been going over this particular incident in his mind ever since it happened, and after his research, he had a few extra things to fit in.

"It was a bright sunny day, you probably remember how blue the sky was two days ago--" He checked Korra to see if she made any indication that she did. "And the tea shop was just about as busy as it ever gets. So when two men asked me for a table by the window --"

He paused and pulled out with a flourish a page on which he'd traced the outline of two featureless faces, one broad and topped with the hat of a gentleman, one narrow and shifty, even just in outline. Lower on the page there was a street map with several locations marked and one circled and labeled "the house".

"I had to tell them, quite truthfully--"

A woman pushed through the door they were standing by, letting in a gust of wind and damp air. It appeared, however, that the rain had ended. She gave the two of them a harried look and headed for the staircase. Iroh paused again, thrown out of the story by the sight of the outdoors. "To make a long story short, I now believe that I was talking to the men the newspaper calls 'the delicate earthbender' and 'the shabby gentleman'. Quite an event for my little tea shop, I hope no one ever finds out the kind of clientele I serve there."

She nodded, enthusiastically, with an "mm-hmm," when he looked to her, hands folded in front of her abdomen.

She gives the woman a little wave. Someone in the typing pool, she thinks? Must be some mistakes to fix, tonight. Seems like it's going around, really.

"I don't think anybody would hold it against you!" she replied, with a slight smile. "I mean, it's a tea shop, not a den of...scheming, or whatever."

She paused, tilting her head.

"Which tea shop?"

"These days, it's hard to be sure," Iroh said darkly with a little shake of his head.

He'd been reminded of time passing by the sight of the outdoors.

"Are you done with that?" he asked Korra politely; she was still holding the paper she'd rescued. "I'm afraid I've just remembered that I have something to do on the way home, that needs to be done before it gets too late." He planned to check out the scenes of a few crimes, if only from the outside. "But if you ever want some tea, you should come by the tea shop. The Jasmine Dragon. You can try the new variety that just came in, on the house."

He mentioned an address in a neighborhood near the city center, known for a maze of winding streets and varied inhabitants, rich and poor of all nations. "Ask anyone in the neighborhood, they'll tell you how to get there," he said proudly. His tea shop had quickly become well known.

"Oh, right! Sorry!" she said, handing it back over.

The offer, though, made her smile. "Jasmine Dragon. I'll definitely stop by. I could never say no to a good cup of tea."

Though she had...a feeling about this one. Maybe it was one of those instincts the Avatar had, finally kicking in. The ones Tenzin always told her about. She determined to follow him, out of sight, once he left. Quick change into her costume, then onto the rooftops...something was tingling in her mind, and she wasn't going to let him do this alone.

"I won't detain you, then," she said, waving. "It was nice meeting you."

"And you!" Iroh said, giving Korra a solemn half-bow, an old-fashioned gesture. "Thank you for your help."

He left the newspaper building, and moving at a steady pace, soon arrived in an area of the city that was filled with smaller businesses and a little light industry, with some housing on the higher floors. From there, he wandered, easy enough to follow because his pace was always measured, but hard to predict because his path seemed, at least at first, completely random, and he seemed interested in everything he passed.

Although he'd walked across the city without pausing, he stopped to catch his breath in front of a warehouse, waiting until no one was nearby -- though he didn't think to examine the rooftops -- before climbing up a fire escape, more nimble than one might expect from a man of his girth. A few seconds later, a bright stream of fire, sent in through an open window, temporarily lit up the inside of the warehouse. Whatever was illuminated inside by the brief flash caused him some consternation; he returned to the street muttering to himself.

After entering some alleys that had been encroached upon by the people in the buildings to either side so much that they were impassible, and several times having to turn around and go a different way, Iroh seemed to hit a streak of luck and worked his way through to a main street. He stopped in front of a clothing establishment: a large business selling a variety of clothing and tailoring services, now closed. Across the street, where Iroh directed his attention, there were two large houses with a large wall between them. Lower walls separated the houses from the surrounding streets.

Iroh stood fiddling with his shoe and adjusting his clothing and looking at the information posted on the outside of the clothing establishment for a long time, then circled the pair of houses a couple of times without incident or revelation. One of the houses was brightly lit, the other dark. Iroh seemed more tempted by the brightly lit house, but in the end went away without doing anything. At least, without doing anything this night.

[If you will indulge me in a little choose your own adventure, to my mind there are a few places this could go from here which I'd enjoy writing. Visit the tea shop (and probably talk to Zuko), come by the houses Iroh showed interest in (this is where Iroh will be tomorrow), or investigate the warehouse for a run-in with a crook. Or decide Iroh's just an old man with an overactive imagination and a penchant for random walks and move on, I suppose, in which case this has been lovely and thank you.]

She practically skidded around the corner, she was running so fast. Down into her little apartment under the newspaper offices, already throwing off clothing before the door even clicked shut. Her blue costume as Avatar was far more freeing than the janitorial clothing she wore, or even the deliberately dowdy dresses she tended to choose when out of them. Ugh, awful.

But once in costume, well - she felt so much more free - even as she used the old forgotten dumbwaiter shaft to ascend up to the roof, pulling the blue mask over her face as she exited at a run.

Now to follow the kind old man - who did not strike her as the sort to let something go. Either he had a strong sense of morality, or was a busybody...and she very much suspected the former. The latter sort generally just went with assumptions. And were terrible.

Which was how she discovered that the man was a firebender - and by the looks of it one of considerable skill. Interesting indeed. She made a few notes to herself at each stop, and shadowed him all the way to the houses. It looked to her like he was on the trail of the criminals that had escaped her - and she was thrilled to get another chance at them.

After Iroh left, the lights went out in two different shifts, all of the downstairs lights in the first go, and about a hour later the two lit upstairs windows went dark, about ten minutes apart. Nothing further happened until morning, when there was some activity in the back of the house, a couple of servants getting ready for the day. There was no visible activity in the second house.

Iroh arrived back on the scene fairly early, while the streets were still filled with early morning deliveries, before any but the most dedicated of the small business owners or employees had stepped out of their homes.

He was feeling cheerful, because he'd left his tea shop in the hands of his nephew, and he had an optimistic feeling that his nephew was up to the task, leaving him free to spend the day on this affair without worry.

Without too much worry. And in any case, no matter what happened he was confident in his ability to handle it once he got back. The tea shop was resilient, that's what was important, not the events of a single day.

He'd dressed in clothing that was much shabbier than what he'd been wearing the night before, and had a straw hat to shade his head, and he carried a horn in a soft case. He set himself up on the street corner, arranged the case in front of him, and started busking as the streets got busier in the morning rush.

From where he was, he could keep an eye on any activity in either of the houses, though he had a better view of the occupied house.

By the time morning came around? She was getting tired of the stake-out portion of the show, as it were? She kept an eye on him still, resting on a rooftop, head in her hand. She'd been hoping for some sudden action before now, and this much patience was still not exactly her strongest suit.

But it had been instructive - showing how a distinctive and distinguished older man could become someone completely different - she wished she could pick his brain about that sort of thing, which she was very bad at outside of her secret identity. She also had to admire how well he'd picked his spot. He blended into the rising background noise of the city, but was perfectly situated to keep an eye on things.

She was definitely learning a lot from this - though she rather hoped she'd get to employ her other skills soon.

After the morning rush passed, Iroh reseeded the case with a few coins while making the rest disappear. He continued playing a little longer, a few lively tunes for the passersby and then to finish off, a slow, melancholy piece. Not the sort of thing to get attention; he let his eyes drift downward, caught up in the music for the few minutes he played.

When he looked up, he was startled to see that a car had pulled up in front of the occupied house. He hadn't expected anything nearly so soon. Working quickly, he packed up his horn and crossed the street just in time to see "the shabby gentleman" exiting the car and entering through the gate.

He went around to the back, and knocked on the door to ask for a glass of water, and made it inside almost as quickly as the shabby gentleman did, him in the kitchen and the "gentleman" in the parlor.

A few minutes later, part of the wall between the two houses collapsed, shaking the house enough that Iroh paused in the story he was telling the cook. Another few seconds, and the house shook again, even harder. "Not again!" the cook said, setting down her bowl and rushing toward a door that proved to open into the cellar.

Iroh, left alone, headed for the parlor, where he could hear someone speaking in a threatening tone.

Ooh boy. That's not a great sign. That much is just to him heading inside - it's more for a 'civilian' - even an accomplished one - to be involved with than she'd like.

But then there's the noises and she's up and moving, using Airbending to leap the street, landing on a roof on the right side of the street. Maybe there will be a window for her to peer into, or a cellar door - she can't leave him in there on his own.

In part because her instincts are screaming at her that she needs to get inside there, and now.

What Iroh really wanted from this situation was to track down the rest of the gang and figure out what they were up to and then, being fully informed, use the minimum of force to stop them. He'd also like enough evidence to get them imprisoned for their crimes.

None of those goals would be served by rushing in to the parlor. But whatever was happening here seemed serious, and Iroh was not going to let anyone get hurt either.

He stopped in the hallway just outside the parlor to try to get a better idea of what the situation called for.

"Where are the paintings?" A man's voice, probably the shabby gentleman, since Iroh had found out from the cook that the two people who lived in this house were women, a grandmother and her granddaughter.

Peeking around the doorjam, Iroh saw that the grandmother, a large woman with big bones and pure white hair gathered in a neat bun, was facing off with the shabby gentleman, who held what looked like an expensive portable radio in one hand. They seemed fairly evenly matched, except perhaps for the radio.

"Shake all you want," the grandmother said. "The painting you asked about is off visiting friends, and there is no secret underground storage. I would know about it. You're barking up the wrong tree."

[Here's what I'm thinking:

The granddaughter is upstairs in a bedroom, and the other servant is out running errands. There is an underground machine making its way from the house next door toward this house, causing the shaking and collapse of the wall. There's a radio link allowing the two crooks to communicate (so far, mostly just allowing the shabby gentleman to prove that he's in charge by issuing orders, but it's two way).

The cook, who is an earthbender, is down in the cellar trying to stop it, or at least shore up the foundations of the house. (And there may be a forgotten underground storage chamber. Probably very deep under the house, deep enough that it's not immediately obvious to any earthbender that comes along.)

I'm thinking that the underground machine does something with storing bending, which is allowing the not very powerful earthbender known as "the delicate earthbender" to perform above his usual strength by storing up a lot of earthbending and then releasing it in one fell swoop. But really it just needs to be intimidating now and potentially useful in a bigger job further on, so if you have a better idea, feel free to go with it.

I'd prefer for at least one of the grandmother or granddaughter to be present and in shape to tell a little tale when this is over, other than that, do as you will with all of this, and feel free to add in whatever makes sense to you!]

[OOC: A better idea? After you basically came up with a 1930s The Shadow-esque pulp plot and translated it perfectly to an Avatar-universe context? :P I'm so in, I might buy property on this idea.]

The moment she looks in the downstairs window, she's stuck on the horns of a dilemma. She can see what looks like a cook, earthbending - and holding off something or someone doing it from the other side. And they're losing, slowly, being pushed back towards the wall.

She wants to go after Iroh, make sure the old stranger isn't getting into harm's way, but this - this takes precedence.

"Ok, here we go," she says, taking a deep breath. She kicks open the window, taking a few steps back then a running start to slide herself in, tumbling onto the floor below and coming up, hands held out in a classic earthbender stance - adding her own force to the cook's.

"Don't worry, I'm here to help, citizen!" she says. And then, inwardly, groans. She'll berate herself for that one later.

Edited 2021-05-13 23:04 (UTC)

When the house stopped shaking entirely, the shabby gentleman spoke irately into the radio and received a terse answer. It appeared that the delicate earthbender was too busy to deal with asinine interruptions. Something about earthbenders and the [burst of static] machine was acting up.

Which didn't make the shabby gentleman any happier, though it did energize the grandmother of the house. As the argument between the two continued, it began to sound more like bickering between people who knew each other rather than extortion.

Iroh, meanwhile, was thinking about the car that was parked on the street outside the gate, and about whether it had a trunk, and whether he really wanted to see if he would fit into that trunk. The situation here seemed under control (though he didn't know it was due to Korra's intervention), so the answer was yes, though it was a sacrifice. Who would have thought he would spend his day off voluntarily submitting to such discomfort?

Iroh had reached the front door and was easing it open when he glanced back and saw the granddaughter descending the central staircase. At least, Iroh quickly decided that it must be the granddaughter, based on her hair and dress. The dress was quite fine, in the latest style, and the hair was elaborately arranged in a fire nation style -- not a court style, something from one of the further islands.

But from what the cook had said in the few minutes Iroh talked to her -- "She's so elegant" and "All the boys are intimidated by her" -- Iroh had imagined a somewhat older girl. This girl was twelve or thirteen, carrying a mud pie, and headed for the parlor.

Iroh had already noticed that the parlor windows were open to let in the morning breeze, so he went out the door and around the side of the house to keep watch over the parlor through the window.

She, on the other hand, got what information she could out of the cook, which wasn't terribly much. Strangely enough, thinking you were about to be squashed by some unknown force didn't do much for recollection, perception, or even decent sentence structure.

But she did get 'shabby gentleman', 'something wrong', and 'upstairs.'

She told the cook to climb out the window to safety before turning her attention to where the machine had been - to find nothing. Had it retreated, or...fallen, somehow? A mystery that could best be solved by finding its controller.

She quietly worked her way up the stairs from the cellar, wincing at the creak of the door opening as she gently pushed it.

When the grandmother saw what her granddaughter was carrying, she turned pale. "No, don't, he's not worth it," she said, moving to intercept her granddaughter. "Your father should never have taught you the old ways."

The shabby gentleman only had time for a widening of the eyes, a quick glance at the old woman, "Is she--" Then the grandmother had the girl locked in her arms, preventing her from whatever action she had in mind.

"Don't," she said.

And the shabby gentleman laughed. "This is perfect," he said. "Per--"

That was the moment when something big underneath the house gave way.

Iroh found himself stumbling across the porch like a drunkard on the high seas, like a sailor without his land legs, like a newborn deergiraffe trying to learn the use of legs. Nothing he could do but try to keep on his feet, try not to fall into one of the sudden cracks in the floor. A column supporting the roof of the porch cracked and fell toward him. He used fire to incinerate a large chunk of it before it could knock him out; the rest fell in front of him as he pulled the fire back before anything actually caught. Then he had to move fast to escape the collapse of the roof of the porch.

Breathing hard, he looked around and saw the cook had made it out. "Was that earthbending?" he asked her, though she didn't seem in a state to respond. With a sense of dread, Iroh turned back to the house to see -- well, to see what he would see.

There's no time to think, only time for instinct; part of the house is collapsing, and if she doesn't act immediately...

So she moved. Her arms worked in a circle, and a massive funnel of air began to fountain up, catching and lifting debris in a tornado of airbending, sending it up and outwards, to land harmlessly in the street.

Her presence was well and truly announced, now, so it didn't matter if she was subtle, now. With a jolt of fire behind her, she rocketed up out of the basement. She saw the grandmother in the chaos, and wrapped her arms around her, launching herself out through an opening gap in the nearest wall...

At the sight of air and fire working together under the direction of one person, Iroh just stared. He knew that he was looking at the Avatar, and as a bender from a long lineage of benders who hadn't exactly used their powers for good, Iroh had only respect for a tradition with such a stellar reputation. But what was the Avatar doing here?

But he and the Avatar were not the only ones who came from a long lineage. From his travels, Iroh knew that there were many benders scattered across the world, some more secret than others, some more integrated into their communities than others, but all linked together in some way to other benders by the need to learn their craft. There were bullies and isolated mystics, selfless helpers, community defenders, and some very deep secrets.

He had a feeling that the granddaughter might be the result of a very isolated bending lineage. His suspicions were confirmed when the granddaughter emerged in Korra's wake, riding what appeared to be a stone pantherlizard. Iroh had seen that statue in a corner of the parlor and thought it nothing but decoration.

The stone was very dark, some kind of volcanic stone, and the girl appeared to be using bending in a very non-standard way to control the statue, pressed against its back, partially embedded in the stone, twitching and reaching as it clawed its way through the debris.

"No, don't do that, I'm still here, right on top of you!" The shabby gentleman shouted into his radio from a part of the house that had sunk into the earth. The response was impossible to make out, but when the girl saw that her grandmother was safe, she turned right around and went back after him.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Iroh said. It took a lot to force him to run, but for this situation, he ran. And when he came to the remains of the porch jammed in great zigzags into the giant sinkhole, he climbed down and kept running, thundering across the shingles of a section of the roof.

It was more stable than it looked, two great beams jammed into walls of earth to either side. He reached the end and found there was no easy way down, but if there's one thing a firebender can always do when surrounded by wood, it's make a way. He looked around, estimated how things would fall, and set two precisely calibrated fires. As the structure began to shift under him, he certainly hoped he'd gotten it right.

[My thought is that the composition of the rock used to make the pantherlizard statue makes it very difficult to bend by normal means, and the granddaughter is not a general earthbender, her technique is just for this specific rock.]

She didn't have time to think, or assess, which...well, which is what Tenzin had always told her to try and do. There was too much going on in the moment.

The grandmother's safety comes first, and she peers from behind the mask as she gestures the gook over to take care of the old lady. She seems fine, but it's careful not to assume - and then she's off after...whatever that was, and its rider.

She screeches to a halt when she sees Iroh, and is caught on the horns of a dilemma. Information, or action. She's chosen action so far, ok, so, this time it'll be different. She moves closer to Iroh, shouting at him.

"What's your plan?" she called out, doing her best to disguise her voice.

Iroh would like to have a plan, but right now he was just reacting, to having seen the way the grandmother embraced her granddaughter, stopping her from ... something. And to the way the gentleman said "Perfect", and to the knowledge that there was something else down there, something he hadn't seen yet, though he'd heard its voice through the radio.

He'd much prefer to have a plan, not just an inchoate sense of urgency, but what he had, he was willing to share.

"Get down there!" he shouted back, just as his fires burned through, almost exactly synchronized, launching him into a controlled descent, as the roof fell several feet and hit a crumpled wall, tilted and then, instead of continuing, broke in two, leaving him not exactly where he expected but nevertheless able to clamber down through a tilted window into what remained of part of the house.

Light streaked in from above, creating a space of brightness and deep shadows. It took Iroh several seconds to be sure, but it was an empty space, with a large jagged crevice in the middle.

She needed no other prompting, diving straight in and using a gust of air to turn it into a handspring, landing on her feet and coming up in a defensive stance. She frowned at that space - it did not seem right at all. But it looked...

"It's a tunnel!" she called, lighting a fire around one of her hands. "I think they're down it!"

She was off, immediately, trusting Iroh to keep up - so far, he'd been full of surprises. She was certain he could manage at least one more.

Iroh followed more slowly, taking the time to check the tunnel for stability. Without any earthbending, he ran a risk in entering such an ad hoc passage, and he kept himself fully ready -- the right degree of fire could harden the earth, or defend him against whatever he might find, though with the Avatar ahead, he expected to at least have some warning.

Beyond the first few jagged turnings, places where the earth seemed to have ripped itself apart from the stresses to either side, the tunnel widened, into a uniform, though crooked, dimension. It seemed to have been bored through the earth in erratic stages. Occasionally, there were cracks to all sides, which increased Iroh's sense of urgency. He increased his pace to his fastest sustainable pace. The sooner he was out of this, the better.

But even as he sped up, he was aware that he was much slower than Korra, and probably wouldn't catch up with her until she had reason to stop.

He'd get that momentarily as she came to a sharp turn in the tunnel, and had to jump back as a hail of sharp stone pieces came hurling back along the passageway - far too many for her to deflect, and clearly a prepared trap.

She flattened herself back against the wall of the tunnel, waiting for it to abate.

Soon after, Iroh rounded a corner and saw that the way was blocked. Shards of stone hit the earth near him, digging in and embedding themselves, raising clouds of dust and making him cough. It might be temporary, but he'd been keeping track of the twists and the general orientation the tunnel always returned to, and he had an idea.

"Can you try that direction?" he asked the Avatar, pointing at one of the walls where there was already a crack in the direction he thought they should go. Now that he'd caught up to the Avatar and her earthbending ability, he was more bold. "It's a short cut."

"How do you..."

She stopped herself, just nodding. He'd been right so far, after all, hadn't he? Maybe it was instinct, or he knew more than she did - but wisdom was wisdom. She turned to face that wall, taking a deep breath, foot hammering down to the ground as she fell into a strong earthbending stance.

Then thrust her arms forward, fists closed, to widen that crack into an entry way, burrowing forward into the earth.

The trap must have been set near the end of the tunnel, because Korra only had to burrow for a little while before she broke into an open space. Iroh extended his light to reveal a cellar. The area they entered first was filled with dusty wine bottles and ancient, withered root vegetables, but there was an archway to another room, which turned out to be the room where the tunnel entered the cellar.

The first thing Iroh noticed was the stone statue the granddaughter had been riding -- only a statue again -- near the entrance to the tunnel, half buried in earth, and looking a little worse for wear. He hurried over to examine it.

There was also a workshop space, filled with various mechanisms which looked like they'd been flung about in a fight. The laboratory space was further on, near a set of stairs, and mostly undisturbed. There was a bottle of chloroform sitting out on the table, although all the other chemicals were neatly stored on the shelves.

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I love that you even referenced choose your own adventure, let alone the choices.

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Welcome back, btw. :) Hope all is well!

Thanks!