[ Action, Voice ] .028

[markofthebrave]

[So today? Katara cuts short her usual routine with a cheerful wave and ducks out on her housemates. Aang showing up pushed so many things out of her mind, and now they were all crowding back in, along with the strangeness of Zuko's return.

She misses the Straw Hats. Going camping right now sounds wonderful. And she really wants Aang to meet them! She thought about trying to contact them over the journals, but... didn't really want to interrupt. Besides, it was better... to get used to people being gone.

She can handle this by herself. Katara is not given to introspection, but at her favorite spot by the South bridge, Katara has gathered a fair amount of smooth stones, and is alternating between stone-skipping and staring at her conversation with Nephry. She only knows one way to deal with this, and that's facing it straight on and adapting.

Water is the element of change. Water adapts.

And so, to find some way to remind herself of this and gather up the courage and mental clarity to sort things out, Katara will eventually step off the bridge and walk a ways beside the river. Once there, she closes her eyes and very slowly begins to practice basic forms, the water streaming about her in constant change and accompaniment to her thoughts, until she can almost see it in her mind's eye, overwhelming the flames.

Much, much later, she takes a seat, and makes a filter. She only hopes that she truly means what she says.]


Nephry, it's Katara. If you'd like to meet sometime today, or later this week... I'm ready now.

Comments

[bamfing]

[Well, she doesn't get what he meant by accident. He should probably explain it better.]

Yeah, like I said. It's an accident. When a person is first conceived, everything about how they will grow is in their genetic code. Whether you would have brown hair, blue eyes, dark skin, or even be a girl, right? That's how it's supposed to be. But for mutants... when all that happens, something else happens. So we end up... different. But it only happens to very, very few people.

[markofthebrave]

[Blah blah blah, science, blah blah blah. She latches on to what the important part is there.]

...So just because it doesn't happen to a lot of people, you think it's not supposed to happen at all?

[bamfing]

It's not what I believe, no.

[markofthebrave]

But it's what everyone else believes?

[bamfing]

A lot of people, yeah.

[markofthebrave]

That must be hard... but when you look around Luceti, and you see so many different people from different worlds with different kinds of abilities... it's like maybe that X-Gene is your world's way to catching up to all the other kinds of worlds.

[bamfing]

Well... it could be. [He's not sure how he feels about that.] Does everyone have powers in your world?

[markofthebrave]

[She shakes her head.] No, not everyone. And we don't have powers like teleportation or magic or anything like that. Just bending.

[bamfing]

... bending? But you were using some kind of power to control the water.

[markofthebrave]

[She nods.] I'm a waterbender.

[bamfing]

Very cool name for it, no pun intended. My friend Bobby just has 'ice manipulation' powers.

[markofthebrave]

[She smiles.] I know someone who works with just ice too, but his powers are connected to his sword.

So people have all different kinds of powers, in your world?

[bamfing]

Oh, all kinds. My friend Scott can shoot lasers from his eyes, Jean has telekinesis, Professor Xavier is telepathic, Mister Logan heals super fast, Miss Ororo controls the weather... I could go on, really.

[markofthebrave]

Telekawhatnow?

[bamfing]

Ahh... right. Telekinesis. You can move stuff with your mind, yeah? USually Jean can only move about one person in the air at the time. And the professor, he can read people's minds. See their thoughts, memories, and such. Very powerful.

[markofthebrave]

I can't really move stuff with my mind... [This is said automatically as she's processing Kurt's information - eye lasers? Mind reading? Manipulating things just with the mind? It sounds like he and his friends are very dangerous. She wonders if they have a war too, and how they put their powers to use for their world, but she's too busy processing and thinking of how she'd go against those things to start asking her questions.]

[bamfing]

Yeah, well neither can I. All I can do is this. [He teleports a few feet away.] Which is very useful for awkward conversations.

[markofthebrave]

[She laughs.] Starting them or ending them?

[bamfing]

[Grinning now.] I think it works both ways.

[markofthebrave]

You're probably right. [Pause. Well. Might as well go for it, she'll never have the chance to ask YUBER this, after all.

...okay, groundwork first.] So do you and your friends get training in how to use your powers, or do you just sort of... know?

[bamfing]

Well, when my powers first showed up, I would teleport without warning, ending up in all kinds of places I was thinking about, but didn't actually want to go to. It made for some very embarrassing situations. [And even worse, him scaring off townspeople with his demonic appearance. It had been so much easier to avoid people before his powers manifested.]

It took a while before I learned to only use my power when I wanted to, or figure out what my own limits were. The Professor really helped too. Especially with my friends. I had to figure out my powers on my own, but he found everyone else just when their powers first showed up. [Something he was somewhat envious of, though he could hardly hold it against them.]

1/2

[markofthebrave]

I see... [A pause as she processes.] I wasn't very good with my bending for a long time. Every time I tried to practice it would always... end wrong. It was only after I met Aang that I started feeling like I had any sort of grip on it, and I only got really good after studying under Master Paku.

[markofthebrave]

When the Professor helped you with your powers... were you guys trained for combat too?

[Because, powers or not, she's not sure she wants to ask a civilian to spar with her.]

[bamfing]

[How she learned to control her powers was interesting and had his attention. But asking about combat... he couldn't help but regard her suspiciously. Why would she ask that? Did she know?

... should he even tell?]

Well, actually... [He hesitates a little longer before deciding to go with the truth.] Mr. Logan definitely put us through our paces. After all, some mutants were willing to use their powers to try and attack others. So... we were trained to stop them.

[markofthebrave]

[...so not a war, exactly, but...] Kind of like the Justice League?