AN: Okay, before going into this fic you should know that this thing really walks the line between T and M. There's a lot of death and violence, even though most of it is implied, and there's World War Three and a heavily implied suicide on top of that. This is pretty much the darkest thing I've ever really done for a kid's show, so you should probably consider yourself warned for a pessimistic, dystopic, dictator-ruled society.

And yes, there will be LinkaWheeler, but only between each universe's respective Linkas and Wheelers. Otherwise it'd be very creepy and disturbing. (Well, more so than this thing already is.) I'd like to think that the way I deal with the pairing given the premise of the fic is different than the standard Slap Slap Kiss thing a lot of authors do. It should also be noted this chapter is more of an introduction than anything else, and future chapters will be a lot better.

I own nothing, except the concept of ES, which I'm not too proud of owning, actually.

There was blood soaking into her boots, but Linka Avifort did not even begin to register that fact.

The soft squishing sound that came with each step did not sound in her ears. The broken and bloodied bodies lying around her did not dawn on her, nor did the expected feeling of horror come. The greetings of several soldiers that walked by barely warranted a nod. Her navy blue eyes were seeking out the one body she needed to see here, searching for a Negro body among Caucasians. White men and women littered the streets; now that this part of Africa was under USSR rule, everyone was expendable, not just blacks. She saw the gambit from poor to rich in those that lay around her, child to adult, but not the one she needed to see.

He was actually alive, something that startled her. They hadn't had the same take on it when they'd taken over Korea; the girl with the water ring had been shot in the ensuing chaos on accident. Here, however, it had been organized enough that only those close to him was killed, leaving the bearing of the earth ring alive if shell-shocked and mind blown. The soldiers had him at gunpoint, where he sat shaking violently with barely contained sobs. They had broken him when they had destroyed his home, and she knew from a mere glance that they'd gone too far. But after the disaster with the American, she was in no mood for stealth missions and covert interrogations. At least this way, nothing could backfire because the plan of capturing him had been as simply as Destroy, Pillage, Repeat.

His eyes flickered in recognition. They had met before, last year, when they had formed the Planeteers and summoned Captain Planet. But in under a month, their respective countries pulled them back home. Political tensions were simply too high during World War Three; the world itself had protested them. Nowadays, of course, her country was stronger than any other. That was why she was here, why his town had just been slaughtered before his eyes. He eyed the rings on her fingers warily.

Wind. Water. Fire.

She stood before him rigidly, and dismissed the soldiers with a stiff nod. He would never kill anyone, even when he really should have. She was safer in her enemy's presence right now than she had ever been in the company of the hundreds of soldiers that stood outside. He was dressed in a too large shirt and baggy pants, without shoes. Dirt coated him, as if he'd been out and about in the African brush for a long time after seeing her last. His skin, blacker than it had ever been in his life, supported this theory as well. His charcoal colored eyes flickered over her body, taking in the black uniform trimmed in red, the muscles that lay beneath the fabric that she'd developed lately. The USSR's victory in World War Three had been kind to her.

"Kwame," she spoke stiffly, to break the silence. "I-"

"Do you care?" he asked her abruptly. "Do you even care when you order this kind of massacre, this destruction? Do you even know how angry I am right now? There are not words, Avifort."

"My name is Linka."

"No," Kwame snapped, still shaking, "Linka was an eleven year old girl who taught me how to swim and held Ma-Ti during a thunderstorm. Avifort – you are a twelve-year-old drunk on power, nothing more. You are a monster."

She could have let herself feel annoyance, anger, indignation or even hurt at that statement. But there was a sharp sting in her neck, and the moment passed. She stared at him coldly. In that moment he must surely have sensed he was not getting through to her, for in her eyes there was no soul or thought, merely emptiness. It repulsed him, and he shuddered all over, comforting himself with the knowledge that this wasn't her. She was not all there, or even there remotely now. Briefly, his eyes closed, knowing what was coming. When her next statement came, it was delivered robotically, the words of a machine atop the world to a mere disposable human, because Linka was long gone.

"Will you join us, Kwame?"

The fifthteen-year-old opened his eyes and stared at her in disbelief. She'd offered him this before, and his refusal had resulted in this massacre, among many others in the search for him. He could flee from her, and overpower her with earth, but she would merely send others after him. The USSR had half of Africa, all of former India and all of China, Korea and Japan under their control. He could run as far as he could and never get far enough away. He could fight as hard as he could and lose to their sheer numbers. And all the while they would do this, this embodiment of hell on Earth, to everyone who dared to even be near him. He could not refuse. But he would never join. He would not become Avifort. He slid the ring off his finger and held out to her, hands shaking. He was offering her more power, making the USSR's human superweapon that much more deadly. He shook, as he had never shook before, and he fought down the urge to cry.

She took it, sliding it onto her left hand where the wind ring lay. As she turned to go, however, she did not leave fast enough to miss him swipe the gun from her pocket, and in one swift moment put in an end to the lose-lose-lose situation he had found himself in.

The emotional suppressor on her brain stem fought it down, or tried to, but Linka's eyes still went wide in horror and she still felt sick. Suddenly it all came crashing down on her. The bodies. The blood she was now kneeling in. Her friend. He was – he had been – now he was gone? A blinding wave of pain slammed through her, knocking her to her knees as she held herself tightly. Eventually the ES worked its way through it, as soldiers rushed over to her. Even as they asked her if she was fine, it all flowed away from her conscious mind. Boy. Did not comply. Dead. She stood, not noticing the blood smeared all over her, and waved off their concerns, moving forward coldly.

Now to go train in her latest element in St. Petersburg for a bit, and hit her last target...

Ma-Ti.