Zaofu Domes

[The Wild Hunt]

The Zaofu Domes completely cover all of the districts of the collective city-states. To even get to the entrance of the city, you must go in by train. Because of how closed the path really is, it's almost impossible for an intruder to enter the city of Zaofu if they're seen as a threat. The earthbenders watching the city could easily pick out enemies along the tracks and they'd have nowhere to escape. Zaofu's strategical structure is a blessing to the city and its prosperity, and has kept it safe for many years.  

[The Wild Hunt]

XXXXXXXXXXXXAVATAR HAN
The train rode from Ba Sing Se to Zaofu, carrying the Avatar - who was not yet well known to the world - along with some friends and countrymen who swore to protect him. The metal shuttle rode quick through the lands surrounding the walls of the great capital, through the dunes of the west and into the plains that rode south. Zaofu sat beneath the United Republic of Nations, and as a result rose to one of the highest positions of prominence among Earth Kingdom cities, as a trade hub that stimulated international discourse. This city also happened to be the one in which Han was born, though his family left due to the harassment of a particular malevolent spiritual entity.

Unfortunately, unexpectedly and violently, his train was blown off of its tracks by a gust of wind that toppled the metal structure and sent it plummeting to the ground below. People died on the initial impact, including some of the burly earthbenders that claimed themselves his guards. The people of the Earth Kingdom loved Avatar Han, for he was one of them - and they had suffered the most of all the people of this world, with Ozai burning their Kingdom and the Spirits invoking their wrath. Their suffering was endless since the rise of the Fire Nation, since the beginning of the Hundred Year War - since the dismantling of their monarchy and the destruction of Ba Sing Se's great aristocracy. Zaofu now stood as a model city within the Earth Kingdom, and Han could only look upon the perpetrator in fear as even the infrastructure of this beacon of hope was assaulted by the tides that wished to destroy the remaining fragments of hope.

When the train met the bottom, Han was safe, for he had protected himself in a solid stone armor - rolled himself into a sphere of earth and waited out the destruction that surrounded him. He saved as many as he could. But that wasn't many.

He crawled out of the rubble and was attacked by a white haired woman who flung tides of air - he guarded himself with the stone that surrounded him and flung boulders for each maelstrom she conjured to end his life. However, she was more powerful than he was. He had not even fully mastered Earth, yet alone the other elements that he required in order to meet his fullest potential. He was weak for an Avatar. Aang had mastered all four elements by the age of thirteen, and yet Han at the age of sixteen had mastered none. It was because that demon had taken his bending away, and he'd spent years trying to recover it from the clutches of his own human frailty. It had taken Raava's intervention to make him free.

"I won't succumb to your evil," he shouted, even as he was weakened and all but beaten. "All the things you people have done - you anarchists. All the death you've caused."

 

[A faint smile]

Every moment that passed where the rumbling of the train grew louder and louder Anika grew calmer. Her men seemed to be doing quite the opposite, though. With a quick glance of her eyes she could tell that they were becoming nervous. Odd how the hours that they had spent literally stuck to the side of this mountain overlooking the train pass had been where she had been most concerned. Their small team of four had been able to enter the countryside without being noticed. Not even a single soldier of Zaofu needed to be killed in order for their secrecy to be maintained. It was almost as if the threat the Chen Rai posed had not quite sunk in. How strange, Anika thought to herself as she went through her plan once more. Strange how defenseless the precious avatar seemed in this moment. It was not like this was the first attempt on his life. No, that had been tried and retried since before Anika had ever drawn breath. Someone shifted to her right and tumbling went a rock they had dislodged from its rightful place in the dirt. Bright eyes lit with murderous intent watched the rock bounce down and away from them. A quick blur of movement and a flick of the wrist and the rock lifted in to the air on an unseen gust. Her reaction provided an enough buffer for her earth bending compatriot to act. With a push of the man's hand a slab of earth was extended. When he pulled in a fist was created and twisted, and with that the rock was gone and therefore removed that one little rock the chance to give them away.

A lone trail of steam finally broke from around the corner just after the head of the train rounded the mountainside. Everyone tensed but Anika. The muscles in her body relaxed as she took in a deep and steadying breath through the cloth that covered her face. A few more beats of a heart and it was time to strike! The woman pushed herself off of her stomach and leaned forward, tucking in her head to enter a roll. Once she somersaulted and then immediately launched herself straight off of the cliff. Holding her legs and arms close to her body to rapidly pick up speed as she free fell. Following her lead the other Chen Rai all joined in their own style. The fire and earth bender joined each other on a slab of rock conjured with a thrust of the arms and slid down the side of the steeply angled cliff. Manipulating water from one of their numerous gourds the water bender carried he cast it to the ground and pushed it ahead of him, constantly forcing it forward. With eyes like an eagle she honed in on the passengers in the train, caring very little for those who were about to lose their lives. It would be on the avatar anyway. Underestimating the Chen Rai had been his first mistake, the second being placing himself on such a public transport. Anika spread her arms, utilizing the wing suit attachments to enter a swift glide. She twisted at the hips and threw herself in to a spiral, closing her eyes for a moment to keep from distracting herself. The wind was enveloping her, pressing so close to her body and threatening to steal the breath from her body. No, she was the master here. She was not wasting a single movement or a slice of energy. Every spiral was generating a massive amount of wind around her. Her every being felt the currents and they were at her command. A spear tip of wind had formed at the front of her. It was time!

Anika snapped closed her wings and felt her body jerk in the air. Extending her leg the woman released a powerful slicing kick, pushing forth all of the air she had built up. The slice of air would shoot forward with deadly accuracy and power. When the strike met the train a horrid screech of metal derailing and crunching in on itself sounded. A cacophony of screams were cut off in the ensuing explosions. Anika meanwhile had slowed her descent and flitted to the earth like a flower falling from a tree. The Chen Rai agents flew forth and moved to deal with anyone who would stand in between the unorthodox airbender and her target. The woman would reach up to the mask covering her face and lower it. She wanted the avatar to know who had brought about his ending, so that maybe in his next cycle she would be remembered. "Anarchist? No." There was no reason for her to speak with him at all really, but his death was near and Anika didn't mind humoring him. She cracked a smile and entered in to a special stance, arms swirling in intricate motions as she collected the air around Han Jin. As she spoke the woman would lower that super-pressured bout of air onto and around his body. With palms facing down she would lower her hands the closer her sentence got to being finished. Han would find it harder and harder to move until his body crushed under the pressure. "To pave the way for something new, that something old must be destroyed. Chaos first, then order. New order. One where the avatar will no longer meddle in the affairs of the people, nor the spirits. You've overstayed your welcome, we don't need you any longer. Good bye, Han. See you in the next life." Anika faintly smiled at the boy as she pushed her hands down towards her waist. It would be over soon.

 

[The Wild Hunt]

XXXXXXXXXXXXAVATAR HAN
He watched his comrades die around him. As skilled and ferocious as the burly earthbenders were, they did not match the elite caliber of the Chen Rai agents. He could only think in that moment - why was it that they would slay each other? They only blew gas onto the flame - the great gash within the world that withered away at the minds of spirit and man. This all began because humans killed humans, and caught spirits in the crossfire. And that was how it would end, too - Chen Rai cutting short the breath of innocents, and slaying Raava, and angering the only spirits that remained with them. Every day the vigor of the human species whittled away - great cities became abandoned ruins. Children being born was now a rarity, as the natural human fertility had been damaged by the corruption of Tui and La, and the human desire to procreate was superceded by their own despair.

Anarchy ruled this world. And so he could only smile as she claimed - no, we are not anarchists. He could only laugh in her wretched face, the face of ignorance of what proceeded around her. This wasteland of a world they lived in was the result of humanity always believing that they knew better than everything - the systems around them, spiritual or otherwise.

He would've spat in her face if he had the strength left in him. The collapse of the train had hurt him greatly, even with his earthern armor. He just wasn't strong enough yet. He wasn't ready for something like this. He had hoped that the people he was trying to save wouldn't turn against him. And of course it hurt to watch the ones on his side dying all around. The kindest of the men who escorted him, Pao Jen, had his face burned off with the thrusting of a firebender's fist. Even his own death didn't bring him as much sadness. He was the one everyone seemed to wish dead, after all.

And that would come soon. He listened to her words as the wind closed in around him. He brought about the earth that he could, protecting his sides, dampening the pain. He could feel the air breaking through the earth, though - the clench growing firmer and more empowered. With each moment he felt his consciousness fade more and more. Her apathetic gaze, he thought, would be the last thing he ever knew.

To pave the way for something new, she said. He didn't understand it - by the scale of the universe, the Avatar was something new. Before the time of the Avatar, there was only chaos and fear. Did she not know? Had she not been enlightened? "I don't accept your reasoning," He said weakly. "The Avatar saved the world. If not for Aang, Ozai would have destroyed everything. Someone needs to meddle . . . in your affairs. Otherwise, people like you destroy what's left." He said this more calmly than you might have expected, though his anger grew as his life faded. Everything had fallen into hysteria, more and more. When he was a child, people looked for the Avatar far and wide. Everyone wished to be the one to discover the Avatar - Han could even remember telling his friends at school that he'd be the one to find them. The whole world waited in anticipation. When they couldn't find the child within the realm of the Water Tribes, they began to lose hope. They grew impatient. They stopped caring. Their absolute need for the return of the Avatar evolved into a hatred of all spiritual entities, the Avatar included. And then groups like this spawned from the rubble of human civilization.

Lingering on this moment, he felt the world was impossible to save. He cursed the world for toppling itself in this endless cycle, and torturing Raava and her chosen with the burden of recovering the light.

"It is not a burden to me, Han," she spoke to his mind. From some sacred realm within his body, she would always speak to him when he was most lost. Because his past lives had fallen - one by one, they vanished or fell prey to the corruption of evil. "Restoring balance to the world is what I have always done - and what I will always do. You cannot die here. We have a mission."

His eyes that had darkened opened brightly and cast a glare upon the woman's apathetic gaze. "You do not get to decide when we live or when we die." Within a moment, the air that had gathered around her dispersed, and instead it lit and burned a golden flame. Fire streamed from all around him and washed over the field. The earth beneath Anika grew restless and the ground on which she stood launched up and toppled her footing, seeking to fling her hard against the wreckage of the train. The Avatar picked up wind around him and in a burst of speed, he flung himself across the plains and latched onto a hillside, before launching himself again - further - with a dome of Zaofu opening for his entrance, the guards noticing the commotion outside the city walls.

Perhaps the Avatar had escaped, but at the cost of innocent civilians whom the spirits would boast about in their cassus belli for the destruction of the human species.

 

[A faint smile]

The moment the avatar's eyes changed to that annoying hue of blue Anika was in motion. She felt her control of the pressure drop nigh on instantly when the bonded spirit of Han took over and exerted her power. A rapid wave of both arms and the flames shot from the boy were separated to either side. With the floor kicking up beneath her Anika did not resist the lurching, and instead jumped with it. Her momentum flung her higher over the train rather than towards it. Flipping in the air a few times she thrust her legs out briefly to create a cushion for her landing. A look coated with mild annoyance watched Han Jin fly away through the skies and towards his fortress of Zaofu. It would have been easier to find a baby avatar who was next in the cycle and kill it when the time was right rather than trying to tame and force Han in to his and slaying him. No matter now. There was little point in wistfully hoping that the ending to this duel had a different outcome. The other agents of the Chen Rai were looking to her for orders. Would they pursue the boy in to Zaofu? Anika shook her head and motioned for them to set out. Tactics would need to be changed and plans were to be set in motion. With that, the girl launched herself back up towards the mountain where her own flying bison had been stationed and waiting. The team quickly followed and before any soldiers from the metal city could be sent out they were gone.