Chapter 4: A Day Shall Arise
John woke up with a start...again, but he felt different and he didn't think it was the darkness in front of him. He tried to lift his arm up but was unable to do so. "What in oblivion is going on?"
"What? Not used to being held captive, or are you just drowsy?" Said a firm voice. It sounder
John resisted looking for the voice. He knew he wouldn't see him, so instead he just went along with the persons plan. "Listen, I don't care what you do to me. Actually I don't even care who you are. The dragons are rising again and if I can't stop them the world is doomed. If you let me go now the-" his captor slapped him in the face.
"Now, you listen to me John, or should I call you by your real name, Kratos Dempsy? The first thing I will do is humiliate you, then I will play with what remains of your pathetic life, and finally I will kill you and then conquer this world."
(Until further notice he'll be called John if-or-until Korra finds out) John smirked, "Have fun with that idiot. Cause messin` with this world is a freight train straight to oblivion. Choo Choo." He laughed.
"Enjoy what laughs you have left, because when I reveal myself you will be well over your head in blood. Now I have more pressing matters at hand to attend to. Begone" and with that John woke up in bed covered in sweat. "Oh Talos" he murmured.
"Who's Talos?" a voice asked from the other side of the room. John looked over and saw it was Ikki. "In our world instead of spirits we have Divines..." He thought, "There are 9 Divines. Talos, Mara, Stendarr, Kynareth, Zenithar, Julianos, Dibella, Arkay, and Akatosh." he listed off. "Each one is very important, but Talos is the most well known."
Ikki started to say something, but stopped before she did. After a moment of thought she announced that breakfast was ready. John nodded his head and she ran off as he got out of bed and followed her to the kitchen. Though he had to speed walk because Ikki decided to skip down the hallways. After a moments time walking through the corridors of Air Temple Island they arrived in the kitchen. "Morning daddy! I got John up!"
Tenzin motioned for John to take a seat at the "table". Korra, Mako, Bolin, Asami, Pema, and all the kids minus Ikki were already seated. John excepted the gesture and sat down next to Korra. "Can we eat now daddy?" Ikki said as she sat down. Tenzin nodded and everyone started eating. (I'm going to go with Skyrim logic here. John eats his food without taking his helmet off.)
"So Tenzin...I understand …...that your teaching Korra...how to air bend...Correct?" he said between bites of his Vegetarian breakfast.
"Yes John I am, why? Are you looking to attempt enlightenment?" Tenzin replied in a soft tone.
"If you don't mind I'd like to watch, or maybe even attempt some of the stuff you do in training." John said as he finished off his last bites off noodles.
"You DO know I can't do a lot id airbending yet. Right John?" Korra Stuck in the conversation.
"Well, that's one of the reasons I want to watch you. I want to see what it takes to become a better airbender." he said as he pushed empty plate of noodles away from him.
Jinora put her finger up, "You can't train to be an airbender without the proper Chi. If your mother or father has the Chi of an element then the offspring has a chance off getting the chi for that element. ONLY the Avatar can have all of the elements Chi."
John got up and shrugged, "Ok, but I'll still attend if you don't mind. What time should I arrive?"
"Me, Mako, Asami, and Bolin are gonna go eat lunch after practice, so if you don't mind make the practice start kinda soon, Tenzin." Korra Blurted out.
"How is 10 minutes?" questioned the air master.
"Well, considering most of that time's gonna be used GETTING to the..."
"We'll be outside, next to the gates. Meelo will take you there once he's done eating." as if a magic button had been hit Meelo's sluggish eating pace turned into shoving as much noodles as he could down his throat. Within seconds Meelo was done with breakfast.
"Can I take him now?" Meelo asked. Tenzin only sighed as he nodded at Meelo. Meelo grabbed John by the arm and sprinted down the hallways of Air Temple Island.
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After eight minutes of waiting, Korra, Ikki, Jinora, and Tenzin showed up.
"I presume we're ready to start training Tenzin?" John asked.
"Usually we would meditate, but Meelo and Ikki insisted that we show you some air bending techniques." Meelo jumped into the air, fist pointed straight into the air to show his enthusiasm. "First, we shall watch Korra as she attempts to go through the gates...again." he said pointing at "The gates" which actually looks like a bunch of spinning wall segments. "This, John, is airbending." Tenzin did a few motions and then a gust of wind made the gates start to spin.
"I got it this time!" Korra said as she ran towards the gates at full speed. She dodged the first one and barely got past the second one before the third and fourth one came up and knocked her out of the gates and onto her butt. Korra jumped back on her feet and ran full speed through the gates again, only this time she got hit by the second one and was thrown out of the gates again. Korra was about to jump back up again, but John put a hand on her shoulder.
"Let me try." he asked. Korra only nodded as Meelo tossed a leaf into the gates. The leaf flowed gracefully through the gates and came out the other side.
"Be the leaf!" Meelo said as he waved his arms in an ungraceful way. The thing that stopped his waving was when he farted. Now's a good time to go, John thought.
He stepped towards the first gate that was spinning inches from his face. He thought back to his training with the Companions and the Thieves Guild. "When trying to pickpocket someone, you gotta be graceful and fluent. A sudden stop and they know your there" Mercer would say to him. "Imagine it like this. Your in a room full of Drauger. They don't notice you and it's too dark to see anything. If you make the wrong move and make a noise, they're upon you. Be fast, but don't be furious."
"Fast, graceful, and fluent. Got it." he murmured to himself. He backed up and did a small run. He kept up the pace till he slipped past the first gate he turned and saw the next gate coming. He turned a sharp left and almost hit another gate. Rage boiled inside him and he didn't even notice the gate coming behind him. SLAP. The next thing John knew was he was on the ground. "What did I do wrong?" He thought. "Wait...I started to get mad. Be fast, not furious."
"Would you like to try again John?" Tenzin asked.
John didn't even answer the question. He just got his pace on and ran through again. The first gate came and he went left. Second and third came at the same time so he took a left over to the 4th one. He dodged it and came upon the 5th gate. All around him there were gates, but he knew he couldn't stop to see the scenery. He dodged the two coming at him and took a right so then he could see the exit. Every part of him wanted to say "VICTORY!" but he wasn't done yet. He did a quick dodge past two more, only to get hit by another. Suddenly he was launched back into the maze of gates by force. SMACK SMACK SMACK. He was being pummeled in there. He suddenly went for his sword. "Wait, I can't stop myself from attack by chopping it down or destroying it, but I can use my sword to stop them." he was still being pummeled by the gates, but he managed to pull out his sword. He stuck it out and the two gates stopped. "Hmm...they can't know I cheated. I gotta cover this up." He did a quick aura whisper and the gates started spinning again. As soon as he thought he had a good strategy going, he was hit in the back by another gate. This time he was sent outside of the gates, and back on his butt.
"BLAST IT TO OBLIVION!" he shouted. He got up and could see Ikki, Jinora, and Meelo, and Korra laughing. Even Tenzin was trying not to laugh.
"Oh, ha ha, VERY funny, my second time in the gates and I'm already the laughing stock. I'm gonna get you back for this!"
Ikki, Meelo, and Jinora started laughing even harder. Korra held up a piece of paper to him. For a moment it looked like a drawing, but then he noticed it was a picture of him being slapped by the gates.
He turned around and started walking back to the temple, but before he could make much progress two guards ran around the corner at full speed. John could immediately feel the playful atmosphere turn into a serious one.
"What's wrong?" he asked the guards who had stopped in front of him.
The two guards were panting and were breathing heavily. One of the guards just pointed in a random direction. "Spit it out, if you ran all this way it has to be important!"
"Republic City!" one of the guards sputtered out. "Under attack!" the guard finished. "By dragons!" the other guard added in. "They want the Dragonborn!"
John looked back at Tenzin who nodded and called for Oogi, his flying Sky Bison. "Ikki, Jinora, and Meelo. Go down to the new basement. Stay in the safe room! Go now!" Tenzin commanded. On a normal crisis they would have sighed and pitched a fit, but they were terrified by the dragons. So They took off towards the Temple.
Oogi landed and Tenzin hopped on. "Korra, John! Hop on!" Korra Airbent herself up and John just jumped.
"Oogi! To Republic City!" he commanded, and they took off into the skies.
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Oogi landed in the middle of a desolate street as the dragon attacked people above.
"Tenzin! I need you to get Korra down to help those people!" he yelled to Korra and Tenzin, but both of them had already started running down the street trying to get someone out of a burning building. "Well, at least we're on the same page here." he murmured.
Suddenly his breath was knocked straight out of him and he landed on the ground. He turned his head and saw one of the biggest Blood Dragons he'd ever seen. It was about the size of the boat he took to Solstiem. A part of him wanted to cower in a corner and wait for someone to save him, but he knew that it was only his child instinct. If he wanted see something get done he'd need to do it himself.
He pulled off his ring and willed it into a Daerdic war-hammer. He examined it for a moment then ran towards the dragon. The dragon looked at John as he progressed and could already smell his dovah blood. It was this moment that the dragon made John his number one target.
John was now in range for an attack, so he jumped high into the air and came down with his hammer. The dragon put up his wing in defense making the wing bleed from the attack. The dragon reared his head back and shouted a mighty, "YOR TUL SHOR!" at John. He barrel rolled out of the way and the wave of fire passed him.
He realized that a war-hammer wouldn't be his best choice at the moment so he willed it to be a Daedric great-sword. He ran at the dragon again, but this time he didn't jump. As he moved closer the dragon attempted to swat him away with his bloody wing, but the wing was more damaged than the dragon anticipated and it snapped with a sickening CRACK. The dragon stood there a moment stunned, but that was his fatal flaw. John took the advantage that was given to him as he dashed forward and slashed the dragons eye. That snapped the dragon back into reality.
While John was so close the dragon bit at him. All of the dragons pain and agony flowed into the bite. In fact, it was so powerful that it went through the armor and into Johns shoulder. John screamed in agony.
The dragon then used his grip on John to throw him into an intersection. As John got up his vision was blurry. "I'm losing to a simple blood dragon?" he thought. He got up and then he got his first glimpse of the carnage the dragon had done before he arrived. Three buildings were demolished and smashed cars lined the streets. This carnage fueled John, for now he was ticked off.
He willed his great-sword into a Broad-sword and in his other hand he carried lightning magic. "Lets finish this big boy." he taunted the dragon. The dragon responded by running at him at full speed. He put his hand full of magic out and fired lightning from it. The stream of lightning still coming from John hit the dragon directly in the nose, but that didn't stop him. He kept going. When the dragon got about 20 feet away John stopped the magic and reared back to shout..."FUS RO DAH!" The dragon was sent back down the road and on its back. John didn't waste a second to run towards the dragon and shove his Broad-sword into the dragons chest. It was that moment that John felt his hard earned victory. He pulled his sword out of the dragon and pointed it skyward. He felt kind of silly for a moment, but was soon greeted by the police force. He put his sword down and noticed the dragon hadn't yet begun to evaporate so he could have its soul. "Huh, I must have incapacitated it. I'll kill it In a moment." he thought.
He was about to will his sword back into a ring, but was stopped by a crowed of people. The paparazzi. Before he could even think of anything to do he was showered with questions. "Hey! This is News Daily, how does it feel to kill a dragon?" and "Is it dead?" and finally, "Can you strike a pose?" He discarded all of their questions and jumped onto the ground. Suddenly the dragon began to disintegrate. "Huh, if I'm on the dragon I can't absorb its soul. Interesting." he thought.
He continued to walk away from the paparazzi but they kept following him. He wasn't gonna deal with this crap. He turned around towards the crowed and yelled at them. "LISTEN UP, IF YOU KEEP FOLLOWING ME I WILL USE MY THU`UM ON YOU. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED."
He started walking again but the paparazzi were relentless. He turned around and began to gather his breath, but was stopped when someone put a hand on his injured shoulder. He turned his head to see Officer Lin observing his shoulder. "Spirits, your hurt John we need to get you to a healer." He started to object, but suddenly stopped when his world began to spin. "Yeah...lets do that. My worlds getting all dizzy." Lin nodded and walked John over to police boundary lines. He sat down in a cop car as the healer came over. "Oh wow, this wound is deep. I'll need you to take this armor off." she stated.
John weighed his options for a moment, then decided to only break off the shoulder off his damaged armor. The healer looked down at his shoulder. "My word, are you sick? Your skin seems awful dark. Is it a side effect of whatever hit you?" John wasn't ready to tell her that he wasn't human. That he was a dark elf, so instead he just told her that it was scared tissue from a previous fight. The healer only nodded as she got some water and started using her healing powers to heal John. He felt the pain in his shoulder instantly go away as the bites were healed.
"Thank you." he stated as he got up. He picked up the shoulder piece of his armor off of the curb and started his walk home towards Wind Temple Island.
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10 Reviewers Add On To Chapter 4:
John exited the fairy and thanked the man that took him to Air Temple Island. As he walked up the road to the temple he couldn't help but feel a sense of dread as if something was going to happen. He just shook it off as he continued his walk towards the Temple. He was almost at the front door now. As he reached for the door knob he heard something snap. Maybe a twig? He knew better than to shake it off this time. he reached over to his hand to grab his ring, but before he could do that there was a white handkerchief around his mouth. He tried pulling it off, but whoever was holding it had an iron grip. At this moment all he could do was accept defeat as he let the darkness enter.
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John woke up tied to a chair...again. He checked his surroundings and noticed about 40 people in ninjas clothing all standing around him. One of the ninjas stood out. He wore a black coat and had a white mask on. The mask also had one red dot on the center of the forehead. "Don't bother trying any of your shouting stuff on me. Your gagged if you can feel it. Since you can't answer any questions I'll just answer the ones I think you would ask. Number 1: Who are you? I am Amon, leader of the equalists. Number 2: What are my plans? To rid the world of benders, and after what I've seen today I can tell that you've got some plans too. Number 3: What are you going to do to me? I'm going to tell you to tell the avatar that I am alive. That Amon lives, and this time I won't go down so easily." Amon turned around and motioned to one of the ninjas to give me more handkerchief drugs. "Tell Korra, that this time I'm the renegade who will control the city. Oh, and we've been watching these dragons and we completely understand that you're our only hope of defeating him. The main dragon leader. Alduin, so as a little help. Were gonna tell you this. Alduin is getting ready to call in a 'Boss Wave'. Whatever that is you'll find out." and with that Amon walked into the darkness. John felt stunned after what Amon told him. He knew what the boss wave was, and to make sure he just needed to think on it. So he welcomed the darkness.
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Authors notes: Well I hope you liked this chapter. It's been SO long since i've updated and I figured I'd give you guys a treat. Oh, and congratulations on the 10 Reviews :D You guys (and girls) are my insperation. Every time the reviews reach mulitpliers of 10. (10, 20, 30, 40, ect.) There will be an extra segment. Each time it goes up (20 → 30) It will increase by 400 words. (400 → 10 Reviews. 800 → 20 Reviews. 1200 → 30 Reviews.) BLESS YOUR FACE! If You Sneezed While Reading This BLESS YOU! PEACE OFF! BOOP! (bai)
Next Chapter: Returing To Dovah Soil.