Avatar and the Empress of the Living
*** Day of the Blood Tears ***
The smell of death was everywhere. A burning battlefield stretched before his eyes into horizon.
- You shall die for this, and today is the day you perish!
Her words rang through this head. Defy her - how could he do it? He fell to his knees, holding the Liberator as if the sword could answer his silent cries unto heaven. A coward. That was all he was, all he could be. A rebellious youth who thought his power and idealism could change this world.
And yet, in the aftermath, he fled her. Deep into the vast belly of Mother Earth, into the underground tunnels created by his armada. There he wandered, rising up to the surface finally to find the people who fought this battle side-to-side with him lying dead... and many not lying at all.
A voice ran in his head, so terrible and yet guilty:
- I failed you.
No, thought he. It wasn't him who failed. It was Ming who failed. Ming, who resorted to the last refuge, the ultimate power so easily, so foolishly, not thinking of the danger.
- None of you are at fault!
- I am. I took over you and hid you from her eyes, far far away I brought you, for I could not crush my own child!
Ming collapsed, crying without a voice.
- But it is not over, - said the inner voice of his past incarnation.
- It is! Everything is over. It took me five years to forge this rebellion! Five years to assemble an army of one million people, the finest people in the world, in Wucheng! And now... - he looked at the battlefield. - Now they all are dead. No one in this world will support me any longer. In the greatest battle, she won and I lost. I will go and die now! - he shouted. - Perhaps the next one will be more lucky.
- She will capture your Successor and you know it, - said the voice, becoming strong as steel. - Shut up and rise, Avatar Ming. The battle is not yet over.
***
*** on the preceding day ***
She was the Ice Queen. Or so the people said. He official title was the Empress of the Living, Ruler of the Union and the Master of All Life. And She was the most unwanted foe for anyone in the Union. Her armies lay before her like a vast Ocean, a Sea of people united by a common goal, a common love and common passion.
His Army, defended by a massive shield of the Earth, approached from the depths. But She already made her first move. With each second she felt the enemies stronger and stronger. Encased in metal mole-tanks, his favorite weapon, they approached, and more came in ranks behind them.
Mostly her own kin, no doubt - all strong and powerful, to resist her power... what a terrible mind he has, forcing her to kill the best of her kin! The moon was covered up with massive smoke rising up from all around, and the field was in deep darkness. Yet she could feel every single blade of grass vibrate before the coming onslaught.
- Ming, you fool! - her voice rang over the battlefield, amplified to enormous strength. - Your time is at end! Even at the peak of your power, you will not stand before the Union Forces! Three million benders I assembled from the farthest reaches of the world. No one will threaten this world - MY world - with war! You shall die for this, and today is the day you perish!
His voice rang as a roar of thunder, as if a god were speaking. He amplified it with his power, no doubt.
- The Queen of Ice, Empress of the Living! Today the world will be free from you and your evil Empire which you call "the Union"! One million I have under my command, but each of them is worth ten slaves of yours, for they fight as Free Men!
This enraged Her.
- What do you know about Freedom, you shameless monster! The murdered men of the Citadel cry out for revenge against your band of bloodthirsty bandits! And you shall see who your "Freemen" really are!
In that moment - she felt it - the mole tanks broke out from the Earth.
The massive drills and huge blades which tipped the tanks immediately took a bloody harvest on her army. A massive battle erupted on the front line, where entrenched Earthbenders tried to stop his tanks from rising up. So far they were doing badly. Indeed His forces are strong, she thought.
Her tank brigades started firing at the moles. The Guards Lightning brigade broke through the massive line of enemy tanks rising from below - bolts of lightning incapacitated his machines and quite likely killed everyone below. But there were few who could wield such skill. The Lightning tanks could not be everywhere at once - meanwhile, the right flank was falling back.
She looked and for a moment, horror overtook her. Her faithful benders were crushed by abominations - huge metallic titans. She took herself under control. Those are just his new war machines, powered by his most capable benders. Not spirits of metal. Metal has no spirits.
- Do you fear the Golems?! - he shouted, and she heard him clearly over several leagues. - They are the finest people we have!
- Send the 2nd Elemental Platoon, - she spoke softly to a young man standing beside her. - We need to stop the breakthrough.
- The Secret City is fighting with all it's strength! - he shouted again, but apparently not for her, for his troops. - Kill the slaves, let's show the Witch of the South that we're worth much more than she thinks of! The Avatar is with you, men! I AM WITH YOU!
She sensed the anger boil in her heart, and she finally thought she were ready. A massive army of one million came from the underground - man and women alike, she felt.
- This is your last chance! - she shouted. - Surrender now, Ming, and I will spare the lives of your compatriots, although you will have to face the High Court for your crimes against humanity!
- Don't ridicule me, Witch! - he replied across the vast plains of Wu Cheng. - We know what your "justice" is worth, and what your promises are - they're like the wind or the flowing water, just elaborate lies which will blow away when you lay your hands on us!
- So be it! - She gnashed teeth.- I shall lay my hands on you! You probably thought that you could eclipse the Moon with smoke, and diminish my power in the days of the siege, or that your metal can stop the Empress of All Living Beings! Fool! You thought you killed all or most of my Royal Air Force Masters in the Citadel, but you shall now suffer for your arrogance!
A deaf silence fell on the battlefield. Her Army folded up and quickly ran off from the lines, and then the Air Masters fell from the skies.
The air pressure on the mole tanks was enormous. In smaller battles, Her Majesty's Air Masters were always few and outnumbered - that's how He tracked down some of them and killed. But not now. They were all together, and while His Earth benders tried to stop their unified assault on the central divisions of His force, they failed utterly. A moment later they turned into pools of blood under the air press. The tanks were losing their hermetic sealing. She felt it. It was time.
NOW.
She rose up in the air, a large stream of water rapidly freezing into ice propelling her from the top of the Fiery Mountain down upon the battlefield, to Her enemies. Several of his divisions were now helpless before her power, as she started to draw the full strength from the moon. She felt how the drivers and gunners of the mole tanks became nothing but tools and weapons in her hands.
And those tanks attacked their neighbors, cracking their armor, causing yet more of His rebels to fall under her control. His forces were in disarray. The center of his massive Army, which hoped to encircle Her Majesty's forces into a massive pincer, was now in disarray. Soon it will be over, She said to herself.
The puppets exhausted quickly, and then she decided it was time. She crushed the mole tanks' crews, as many as she could, draining water out of their bodies and creating a huge water ring which cut through his massive tank Army as a knife through the butter.
Her Earth benders did their job exactly as she ordered from her icy front-line command post: they tried to cut off all routes to escape for the mole tanks, stop his benders from retreating. After that, it became a slaughter. She flew on the wings of blood-drawn water across the battlefield, murdering everyone on her way.
- NO! - his voice was even more powerful now.
And then He entered the Avatar state. She awaited it. Her Lightning Casters poured all their strength to kill him, but he easily shrugged it off, flying through the air in a blazing comet of flame and a whirlwind. Her Majesty's forces trembled as he cut through them, making his way through dead bodies to kill Her.
- Aang, - she whispered in fear as she saw his eyes and a changed face. It was not Ming, but a previous incarnation, vying for terrible revenge. - You've come to kill me finally!
- You killed me and I failed my job, - his voice and burning eyes made Her feel fear - for the first time in a hundred years. - But today you shall pay for what you did to the world, and this tyranny shall end!
- Aang! - She cried, and it seemed for a moment that Her strength failed her, and she fell on the ground, powerless, since the water around her was gone, and she was cut off from it with a powerful barrier of depressurized air - "emptyness" as Her scientists called it. The Avatar towered over her, flying in the air in his fiery whirlwind.
- I'm here mother! - a young man broke through the wall into her invisible cage, breathing heavily - his mouth bled and he desperately tried to project a Water Needle to pierce the barrier from his own blood.
- Aang, NO! - She tried to stop the man, but he still drew the blood from himself as he shouted in pain and agony.
And the Avatar stopped his killing blow. The flames went out. So did the barrier. And then she thought, it was time to strike and end this once and for all...
But then He fell down into the Earth, so deep that She could no longer sense a trail.
- Your Majesty Empress Katara, - across the battlefield full of a hundred thousand burning war machines, an Air Master General approached her. - Your son is wounded! We need to leave this place!
She tried to heal her son, Aang, who fell down on the earth beside her, but it seemed his injuries were so strong... almost mortal.
- We need to get to the Northern Citadel! Our air courier will be there in mere hours, so you have to board this plane and leave your General Staff to evacuate the battlefield and finish wiping off these rebels!
- DAMN YOU! - she cried out into the now-cleared sky, where His airships and planes which created the smoke cloud were already destroyed by Her Majesty's Royal Air Force.
But no one answered. Only the noises of suffering and dying people on the battlefield, that battlefield full of the blood that ran down today...
***
*** Her Majesty's Palace - the Southern Ice Citadel, year One Hundred and Twenty since the Day of the Black Sun ***
She entered the room.
The sacrificial lamb was there. The Priests never failed her.
It wasn't long before the deed was done, and the lamb's dry body fell onto the stones.
She did not love to make such sacrifices, but such was the price of eternal life - for her and her family, the only people who mastered this highest goal of every man in the world. She mastered it at the dawn of the age, when she understood that the healer art could be reversed, and just as water could be drained from living beings, so could the life-force that was granted by the healer. Remaining forever young and sharp, ever-blooming beauty of Katara made the entire world slowly assume she was a God. Well, she knew the price of those beliefs, but if they help people to unite and work with each other as brothers, it's useful.
She was not just an Empress - she was the Eternal Empress, and under her lead, the world entered a golden age of unity and prosperity.
She knew that never again the nations will be warring against each other - not in her lifetime.
She was Katara, the all-powerful ruler of this world, the Empress of the Living. The Widow of the Avatar. The Wise, the Powerful, the Strong.
She came out of the room back into the Throne Hall.
- Katara! Empress Katara accepted our sacrifice! - the pair of people in front of a large human crowd were crying in joy. - We are but humble farmers, Your Majesty! We are so glad!
She felt the life force of those people, and reached out with a bare fraction of her strength to help them - as she did every day.
- Yes, faithful friends, - she spoke, and her spirit rejoiced at the opportunity to do good today. - And thus you are granted three more years of life each! Be blessed now, and go forth telling the good news and doing good deeds in all the Union... - she stumbled. - Now, today's audience is finished!
The crowd cheered loudly as Katara went off into her rooms.
She was meant to say "in all the Union and beyond", she thought. And it was the first time she stumbled at this traditional phrase that she spoke each day after taking the sacrifice and blessing the people. After all, why say it? It's now meaningless. The entire World joined the Union, through peace mostly... only a handful of nationalist fanatics resisted her - her, a wise and compassionate ruler, who ensured all four nations could live with each other, freely travel among each other's lands, share experience and live in one nation now! And those were brought down by force of her Royal Navy, Army and Airforce.
It was the last wish of Aang so that people live in peace, and she did her best to fulfill it. She knew she will.
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most likely will not be continued, but fellow Avatar fans can have fun with that if they want to.
In a nutshell.Pre-history wrote:- Ming is the new Avatar.
- Katara has kept all prior Avatars in her Empire as secondary gods, bolstering her power by using them.
- Aang died, but pre-maturely, not of old age but of deep grief looking at what Katara was becoming. He suffered a heart strike when he found out Katara is creating secret military units from the most skilled benders drawn from all nations.
- Katara personally oversaw the extinguishing of nationalist uprisings in all four nations. She resorted to blood-bending more and more frequently, until she understood that fear is a very useful deterrent. After that, she also started employing terror tactics - mass slaughter of rebels, etc. - rationalizing it so that others will lay down arms after hearing about this, and possibly re-educating them later.
- Katara's and Aang's child, Aang II, became a waterbender almost as skilled as his mother, if not as powerful.
- Southern Ice Citadel is Katara's enormous Ice Palace from which SHe rules the world. It was destroyed in a daring huge attack by Ming's rebel army with hermetically sealed tanks, while Katara was away.
- Northern Ice Citadel is the reign of Aang II, Katara's son. He oversees the North Pole.
- The Hidden City Wucheng is a deep underground vault populated by several million people, which was created by various rebels who wanted to flee and hide from Katara and her Empire. It is in the depth of the Fire Nation landmass, near a huge volcano. Earthbenders routinely fortify it against seismic shocks. Waterbenders which are against Katara also take refuge there, but all in all, there's very little water in Wucheng. With Ming's arrival, Wucheng became the center of the rebellion. It's modern times weapons are mole tanks and pressurized costumes to disallow Katara any contact with water.
).
That is what I first thought when I read the title.
