To the Sixes

**...and That Father Lost...

"When the villagers exiled me from the South Pole," Aang confesses, "I thought they were overreacting. That wrecked ship was too strange, and I guessed there was some kind of war going on even if I didn't realize how bad yet -- because why would they lie?"

"Lots of reasons." Azula says, kicking open the door to another work room. Together they splash the scattered tools and half-assembled machines with oil. "Everyone has an agenda. You think that inventor needed all this just to keep his son safe?" She waves a hand at the ceiling, where dirty pipes ran through crudely cut whole in the stonework. "No one held a knife to his jugular to accept all this cheap steel. Qin wanted blueprints and prototypes, not communal bathhouses."

On their way out, Aang drops an unlit blasting jelly pouch onto a workbench.

**Zuko 1/2

"What? I'm taller as a girl?! This is bullshit!"

"Now, now, my nephew... or should I say niece?"

"Uncle..."

"I'm only teasing. However, your height is easily explainable. Girls do mature at an earlier age. I'm sure you will surpass your cursed form in a few years time and blossom into the full flower of manhood."

**fem!Zukaang -- Both are girls

Zuan tossed her bedroom, sparse furnished as it was, before turning in for an unrestful night's sleep. The slightest of sounds seemed thunderous in the princess's ears. Recalling her uncle's advice, she had set a bowl down on the stone floor and filled it up to its brim with water. An earthbender coming up through the floor would give themselves away when their vibrations caused the water to spill. A hairpin balanced precariously on the room's door-handle fulfilled a similar function. Dao resting at her sides, she waited.

No one came.

Thankfully the next morning was a cloudless day, so the brilliant sunlight helped sustain Zuan. When she arrived at the temple landing cleared for firebending practice, however, Princess Zuan found two surprises waiting for her: the Avatar wearing a dress, armed with two bowls of cubed purple fruit.

"Good morning!" Aanjing said, her expression sunny enough to fuel Zuan's firebending. "The black moon peaches here are a little sweeter than I remember, but you said firebenders need lots of energy, right?"

** Avatar Hama

Hama's nose is bleeding again.

She can't pinch it or tilt her head back. The chains on her wrists and ankles won't allow such generous movement. Hama sniffs desperately at the trickle of blood but that only delays it.

Down the line, the guards slide a long pole between the bars of Corazon's cage. Hama's old classmate greedily drinks her morning water ration. When she's done, the guards make Corazon open her mouth for them to show she has swallowed it all.

When they reach Hama blood streaks her lip and chin. It drips onto the dirty metal floor of her cell. It spills into the pole-mounted cup's water. Every gulp she takes is copper flavored.

The next prisoner down the line taste it too.

** Kintara

That was before she learned that not only didn't the Northern Water Tribe not allow its women to learn combat waterbending -- "men's waterbending" as Kinto insisted on calling it -- but that only those talented few with the ability to heal were allowed to learn at all.

** World of Broken Glass

Wan Shi Tong piped up, "Now you'll need to clean up the afterbirth."

Bumi blinked. "The afterWHAAAAT THE HELL?! Stop it already, Malu! The baby's out!"

** Remember Jacob Grasped Easu's Heel

Ty Lee, in full Kyoshi Warrior garb, summersaulted off the sky-bison and cartwheeled over to the group. "Hi, Mai! Hi, Azula! Hi, Suki! Hi, Rei! Hi, Minako! Hi, Ami! H--"

Before the acrobat revealed whether she would exhaust the names of everyone there before she passed out from lack of breath, Princess Azula cut her off. "It's good to see you too, Ty Lee." The firebender glanced over her friend's shoulder. "You're late."

Behind Ty Lee, the Avatar folded his hands and bowed. "Sorry, Sifu Hotwoman."

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** Avatar Azulon -- This is actually that sequel to your "Aang raised by Sozin" DDD entry from way back when that I asked permission to do.

Deliberately killing an enemy would be hard for the boy. Kanna was no warrior, but she had raised one and was now raising two more. Her grandchildren wouldn't flinch from a fight, even if they were woefully undertrained, but executing a prisoner outside the heat of battle? Grown men would hesitate, never mind a fifteen year old boy.

Kanna would settle the matter if need required, but then and only then. Sokka might silently thank her for taking the burden from him, but in time it would eat at his pride, hollow him out. Kanna would not undermine her grandson's manhood for the sake of gentleness.

** Natural Beneficiaries Fund

The ancient chamberlain sits across from him, bony fingers shakily holding his tea cup. "Lord Zuko, I apologize for the necessity of this meeting. The issues involved with the Natural Beneficiaries Fund require the utmost discretion, yet the upheavals brought about by the end of the war present special circumstances. To properly provide for my charges, I need your Lordship to authorize certain funds and order suitable appointments, particularly with those whose careers are in the military."

"I see." Zuko sips his tea. "What exactly is the Natural Beneficiaries Fund?"

"It services descendants of the royal family whose lineage might otherwise prove problematic should they, how shall we say, 'kick up a fuss'."

Zuko stares back, not understanding.

The old man clarifies, "The royal family's natural children."

"Our... what?"

The chamberlain coughs politely. "Your bastards."

** Naru as Beryl

For some reason, Beryl was now apparently twelve...

"Mars! You got nurve, tawkin' to me about honah!"

...and spoke with an obnoxious accent.

** Fifth Nation

The golden-haired man stood atop the long conference table, seemingly oblivious to the royal guardsmen ringing him. “The Northern Water Tribe’s ocean god was victorious. As we departed, it was sweeping through the city destroying every Fire Nation soul in sight. Your fleet must be on the bottom of the polar sea by now -- along with your erstwhile son, Zuko.”

Ozai let no emotion betray him at this disastrous news. If it was true. Judging by the furious yet cowed expression on Admiral Zhao's face, it just might be. "And how did you come to travel so swiftly from the North Pole to our palace? Are you a spirit?"

The intruder smiled upon the suggestion. "I am no mere spirit, your highness. Allow me to introduce myself.” He bowed smoothly at the waist. “My name is General Jadeite of the Dark Kingdom, leader of the Shitennou, loyal servant of Queen Beryl and faithful worshiper of my goddess, Metalia.”

** Man Among Men

If Katara was good enough to train with the men, she was good enough to be treated like a man.

Pakku cleared his throat to regain the class's attention. "Before we commence with the demonstration, a word of warning: we are not earthbenders who can exploit our talents to deviant ends. Water is not a lubricant. So if any of you idiots is thinking about showing off the Octopus Form to your girlfriends or fiancees, please understand that they will not be your girlfriend or fiancee for long, nor will you be welcomed warmly at the Healing Huts when you have to carry her in for emergency treatment."

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clockwerkchaos.livejournal.com

**...and That Father Lost... - Right, this is the Azula-Aang one.

Zuko 1/2 - Poor Zuko

Bender Royale

fem!Zukaang -

Avatar Hama - I do not predict this ending well.

Kintara - So OC NWT female?
World of Broken Glass - Now I recognize this, the 10 years aged later one, that looked fun. Poor Bumi.

Shake a Poor Sinner's Hand

Remember Jacob Grasped Easu's Heel- The sailor warriors amuse me.

Avatar Azulon - Oh.

Natural Beneficiaries Fund - He, bunch of royal bastards.

ND: Distaff World

Naru as Beryl - The accent is what makes it awesome.

Aang's Posse

Fifth Nation - You know, if I remember the endgame power levels of sailor moon, this could turn out bad if the scouts arn't here...... You know, both Mai and Azula would be hilarious as scouts.

Recreational Potion Use

Man Among Men - ..... you just ruined half the Katara lemons that involve her in a dominate position. You do know that right?

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>Avatar Hama - I do not predict this ending well.

Wait until she starts freaking out about the dead Air Nomad children she's hallucinating.

>Kintara - So OC NWT female?

Kinto is a Trading Card Game character. He's like Sokka, if Sokka was both a waterbender and an asshole.

>Avatar Azulon - Oh.

It ends happier than that, don't worry.

>Naru as Beryl - The accent is what makes it awesome.

The accent is also what makes it a pain in the ass to write. For the sake of my sanity, I'm having it in-story that Naru intentionally suppresses her Osaka accent unless she's 1) pissed off, or 2) around trusted friends.

Fifth Nation - You know, if I remember the endgame power levels of sailor moon, this could turn out bad if the scouts arn't here......

Oh, it'll get gloriously bad. "Outside Context Problem" level bad. The scouts won't get involved either. It's just the villains crossing over, and the only reason they won't curbstomp the AtLA universe is that AtLA is an Outside Context Problem for them too.

>Man Among Men - ..... you just ruined half the Katara lemons that involve her in a dominate position. You do know that right?

Yup.

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clockwerkchaos.livejournal.com

>dead Air Nomad children

You mean child, right?

>Kinto is a Trading Card Game character. He's like Sokka, if Sokka was both a waterbender and an asshole.

Oh right, now I remember him.

>It ends happier than that, don't worry.

That was an "oh, now I recognize it" not a "oh, well that sucks".

>Oh, it'll get gloriously bad. "Outside Context Problem" level bad. The scouts won't get involved either. It's just the villains crossing over, and the only reason they won't curbstomp the AtLA universe is that AtLA is an Outside Context Problem for them too.

Hero's who attack without making speeches first?

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loopy777.livejournal.com

Ty Suki + Maikka fic

(As if there would be any doubt about my choice.)

I'd do this meme, but I only have three WIPs. Well, eleven if my list is allowed to read Chapter 01, Chapter 02, Chapter 03, etc. I'm too focused for my own good.

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(Focused is better. I tend to grind up my sicklier fics for drabbles. Which is most of them.)

"Suki asked me to come in early."

Mai stopped polishing.

"For... private lessons."

The hand that gripped the knife now held it with new purpose.

"It's all right," said Ty Lee.

The acrobat looked around their room, divided straight down the middle. A bucket caught raindrops leaking in from the roof. Servants had slept in better conditions back home, but it was theirs and it was safe.

"I'll be fine. Okay?"

Head bowed, Mai resumed polishing her knives.

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loopy777.livejournal.com

Ooh, AU. Hiding out on Kyoshi Island, eh? Good choice for the two of them; it seems to work out in most fics. And Mai as the suspicious protector has lots of hilarious Maikka possibilities.

I'll hope for this one to turn out nice and healthy.

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Well...most of the ones I wanted were already requested, so that rocks for me! XD

But I would like to see any one of these Sokkla_BigBang, Remaining Avatar 500 ideas, Bender Royale and (giant surprise here) Reconstructed in Grey.

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"Bender Royale" only exists in outline format, so I don't have anything to sample here. The other three however...

** Remaining Avatar 500 ideas

Piandao said, "The secret to sword-fighting is knowing when to press the A button."

** Sokkla_BigBang

Sokka smoothed out the blueprint, which showed a cross-section of a bizarre machine the like of which Azula had never seen. The machine's boiler was standard enough, but it had been nested inside a mishmash of wheels, valves, and cylinders that seemed hopelessly tangled to the princess's discerning eye.

"It's based on those new landships the War Ministry is field testing in the Great Divide," Sokka said, "but focused on engine power instead of speed. Its designed to haul these." He laid out a second blueprint.

"That looks like one of the old monorail they used to operate here." Azula glanced up at him. The Water Tribe boy couldn't help but grin at the new measure she seemed to be taking of him. "You designed a steam-powered monorail."

"Yes! Well, no. We're calling it a bi-rail."

"That's a terrible name."

** Reconstructed in Grey

(Here's an excerpt from the failed first draft. Originally I was going to write about Aang being recruited by Azula, but instead I'm going to do something a bit different that doesn't involve an appearance by Azula. This excerpt will still give you a general sense of where I'll be going with alt!Aang's personality in the real thing.)

At the start of his spring rounds, Aang arrives in Silla Village to find his ostrich-horse won't being sharing a stall with the local healer's.

"He stole Oss-Oss?"

Song nods, and the hurt shining in her eyes piques Aang's sense of honor. He has seen injustices aplenty since he took up his calling as a wandering healer, plying his ability to manipulate chi while couriering medicines between villages, but to steal a healer's ostrich-horse?

Unforgiveable!

Bad enough to abuse a host's hospitality, but that bastard Li hurt all the people Song and her mother might need to tend to in an emergency. It's enough to make Aang want to challenge the thief to a duel, but he says nothing of that to Song. Matters of honor are a Fire Nation practice and revealing his heritage would do him no favor in the borderlands. Better for all involved if he is merely an ethnically ambiguous healer.

So instead of railing against the dishonorable act committed against her home and hearth, Aang offers Song the Earth Kingdom's folk blander condolences before moving onto the business of her village. They discuss their patients long into the night over a pot of omija cha tea.

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Avatar 500: So either Piandao is removed from reality...or he's an arcade master. Either way, awesome!

Sokkla: I love Sokka/Azula interactions. You can tell she's both impressed by his genius and exasperated by his...Sokkaness. I like how this could take place in so many stories. AU where the FN won, AU where Sokka was born FN. Post-canon where the war is over and everyone lives in peace...ok the 'War Ministry' kills that thought, but you get the idea.

Reconstructed: What I like most here is just how furious Aang is, but that he's unwilling to let it show and blow his cover. I'd like to see this Aang, who has fled the FN, meet up with Avatar Ty Lee and the WT siblings with her. Not to mention Azula, Mai & anyone else in that group. Oh! And he was probably friends with Zuko as kids, so how will he react if he learns Zuko is the one who stole?

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The Sokkla story's setting is actually something Loopy suggested a while back in the shipping thread on the Avatar Spirit forum. Basically, the FN and WT ally during Sozin's Era and kick off the world war against the EK and AN. By the time the story starts with Sokka and Azula in Ba Sing Se, the war's been over for a generation. The Earth Kingdom is almost totally under the Water-Fire yoke, minus some mountain and desert hold-outs that don't pose any sort of existential threat.

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...That...That is just too fantastic for words.

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I'm planning on it being my Big Bang fic this year.

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Ok, I stand corrected. THAT is too awesome for words! XD

(Sorry, I get silly when it's this late.)

My Big Bang fic is going to be a crossover between Avatar (duh) and John Carpenter's "The Thing"

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Awesome!

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Cold-Bloodied Fire (Maiko 100)

Misato/Shinji

Chariot of the Gods

Zuko 1/2

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** Cold-Bloodied Fire (Maiko 100)

Staying still helped beat the heat. No one expected her to speak during court. She was meant to be like one of the tapestries on the wall, unremarkable but pretty if noticed. Mai had long ago made a game of stillness. She kept her arms and legs and face motionless, let creakiness settle into her bones and muscles. If she won that round, Mai tried to slow her breathing, saw how shallow she could go, feel her heart slow.

It passed the time.

Mai wondered how she looked to her friends. They'd never been in a formal court before. Ty Lee was nowhere to be seen now although Mai had seen her come in. Probably somewhere in the back, they were mid-ranking nobility after all, and a friendship with a failure of a princess wasn't worth much status. Azula and Zuko were unmistakable. Everyone was edging away from them and their parents; probably afraid that treason was catching.

** Misato/Shinji

Shinji Ikari stood at a public payphone, clenched hand empty. A receiver swinging on its cord at his knees explained in a tinny voice about a special state of emergency. Shinji didn't hear the automated apology. Instead he stared, jaw gapping, at the figure that had just quite literally appeared from nowhere.

She was a teenage girl about his age, hair dyed a garish purple, dressed in what looked like a parka on one of the warmest days of the year, clenching her face with thickly-gloved hands. However ridiculous that was, it fell by the wayside because that same ludicrous parka was soaked with blood. There was a crimson stain blooming on her chest.

The girl screamed.

** Chariot of the Gods

Bootlegged Tau'ri music trickled out from the military, spreading through the Colonies like VD. Tyrol found himself drawn to the raw harshness of it. Frak if he knew what any of the lyrics meant -- he didn't speak Tau'ri -- but the sound was addictive. During his daily commute, he found himself listening repeatedly to the disc Sharon had gotten him for his last birthday; all songs by some Tau'ri named Jimi Hendrix.

** Zuko 1/2

"T-that's... all very true," Song conceded, voice wavering, "but I only need to one thing about you."

"And what is that?"

"You can bleed."

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** Cold-Bloodied Fire (Maiko 100)

A normal day in the life of Mai, then...

"Azula and Zuko were unmistakable. Everyone was edging away from them and their parents; probably afraid that treason was catching."

Treason!? Why? By who? Darn it, I want to know more.

** Misato/Shinji

hej, is this not the idea you mentioned in the Shipping meme? It is a good start

** Chariot of the Gods

I have no idea what is going on, and I want to know!

** Zuko 1/2

Wait, what? what is going on?

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<** Chariot of the Gods

I have no idea what is going on, and I want to know!

It's a nBSG/SG1 crossover I've been toying with. It's very much in the early "come up with random scenes" stage. I've got too much going on at the moment to put the project on the front burner -- I'd need to do a *lot* of refreshing on both series first, plus watch Caprica to get a better feel for the pre-Holocaust vibe of the Colonies.

Basically, it's an anti-RAAB crossover: the Colonies and Cylons each find their own stargate, the destruction of the 12 Colonies gets averted, and the Colonies and Earth end up as rivals/allies that are competing to spread their influence throughout the galaxy. Not in a Cold War way or anything like that; more in a 19th Century "Great Powers" carving up Africa and China for their own aggrandizement.

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thanks, but what is RAAB?

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/ReunionsAreABitch

It's a trend-setting nBSG/SG1 crossover when Earth and the Colonies go to war against each other.

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A humble suggestion, I think that using the "19th Century "Great Powers" carving up Africa and China for their own aggrandizement." as an analog is not the best (do either of the 'powers' have enough with people and technology for that to really work?), instead I suggest the trade races/wars of the 18th century

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