Chapter Text
It wasn't very long into my journey up the Plateau that I had already climbed before that I found my first foe. It was a snake as big as my arm with poison spitting tail. At first I thought it was a stinger, but then it split down the middle and shot 3 orbs of purple gunk my way.
I twisted and ducked around each of them before i got close enough to double stomp on its head. Spirits were sapient energy, energy couldn't be destroyed and if you couldn't destroy it you didn't kill it.
Loophole!
Once my attack ended, the snake fell still before its body broke down into hundreds of glowing silver worms that scattered into the ground and wall.
Continuing my ascent, that perplexing event continued. Everything led back to Worm. Lion creature? Nope, that was a million worms in a trench coat. Bears? no, I didn't curbstomp Bosco's ancestors, it was just more worms. By the time I had gotten to the Plateau top itself, I truly started believing that if I hit it hard enough it would collapse into worms too.
Atop the Plateau was a field of Silver grass, a small village made of white wood, and a lake. Suspended above the lake in the Plateau's center was a Silver orb of light containing the trapped form of Renzo.
It smelled like a trap, looked like a trap, and was most definitely another trap.
I took one step into the village and felt my mood shift as a muddy brown fog rolled through. I wanted to just curl up and cry tears that I knew weren't mine. Closing my eyes, I took some deep breaths, not quite being able to expel the mood altering haze but refusing to let it settle in my tiny chest where I keep my heart.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I walked through the village to reach the lake before letting out a loud, aggravated sigh at the fact that I would have to keep playing along.
“Oh, my friend, I'm so glad I found you safe and unharmed!” I cheered dryly, I just wasn't in the mood anymore. She bored me, “let me just reach into the light sphere and pull you out. Then we will go home and- you know what? I'm done, get out here Geodra!”
I reached my hand out and the lake started bubbling, what a surprise.
A winged serpent long enough to wrap around the walls of Ba Sing Se twice shot out of the water, her scales were a beautiful crimson red on her back, and moonlight silver on the bottom. Black and purple lightning casting a glow upon it and the dripping water from below.
“A human comes to my home and dares to order me around?” Geodra screeched, her voice shaking the ground.
“A spirit rips a human out of his own plane of reality then dares to get all uppity,” I retorted, “give me a break and I might find enough fucks to cry a River for you to connect your lake to.”
I pat my pockets, “never mind, they're gone.”
“Your kind doesn't deserve to use my waters, not after using it for slaughter,” Geodra replied.
“Did I ask for your motives? Put the guy back in his reality, let him get some water, and you get to walk away without the shame of being beaten by someone you can swallow. Final offer.”
“Such insolence,” Geodra hissed before diving towards me.
Wait.
Wait for it.
Now!
Seconds before the jaw snapped shut, I dived to the side and slammed the heel of my foot into her head with a rising spin kick. I knocked a few glow worms out of her.
“You think that was so clever,” Geodra hissed before letting out a slow, sinister chuckle.
Geodra's massive frame burst apart into a tidal wave of glowing worms. Each and every one of them digs down into the mountain upon landing.
While taking cover, the ground began to shake and crumble beneath my feet as pillars of light shot out of the cracks.
Cheating bastard that cheats! One injury and that immediately meant ‘bring down the house?’
“Honorless cur, a plague upon your home!” I yelled as the ground beneath me vanished. With no ground beneath me, gravity chose to assert its authority and pull me through the storm cloud.
Seeing the build up of electricity above me, I threw myself to the right.
Boom!
I just barely avoided taking the fast way back to the ground.
“I don't know if that was supposed to work, but I'm very damn grateful,” I said as more electricity built up around me, “chase the pretty fans!”
I threw the fans right and spun left.
Boom!
“I'm the best around, nothings gonna keep me dow-ow!” I was interrupted by a very powerful disagreement between my body and the floor. My body wanted to keep going, and the floor didn't want to move.
The floor won.
Okay, I took a little nap. Good news: I didn't feel like i just fought the ground anymore. Bad news…
“Let's see you do that again 100 times,” Geodra said from above.
While I was out, Geodra was able to turn into a giant red and silver dragon with 100 writhing heads, 4 legs and some dangerous looking stalagmite/stalactite armor. Meanwhile all I had was misplaced village rubble, and a Plateau that looked like a giant took an ice cream scoop to it.
I stretched out a little, felt everything pop, and proceeded to muffle a scream with the palms of my bleeding hands. With a quick look around, I saw Renzo suspended above Geodra's back.
“You know what? Don't mind if I do,” was my retort before Geodra landed. Just doing that created a Shockwave that sent me sliding back a few inches.
Okay, I might have needed help for this. Fortunately, I had an idea. Human Emotion twisted The Spirit World, so if I used the right emotion to send a blatant cry for help I could do something. Now, what words did I have that not even I had the capacity to strip the emotion from by accident?
I started pacing.
“You want to know a funny thing, my best friend is the current Air Avatar. All the Avatars end up with a fragment of who they are remaining inside of Raava. At least, I think that’s how that works, but it was never explained where their animal guides ended up. I have a guess based on Aang being picked up by Roku’s Dragon though,” I said before I had to hold my ground against a roar that could have blasted me off of this Broken Plateau.
“Your meaningless prattle annoys me, die in silence, corpses don't talk at their own funeral” The Dragon hissed, applying more pressure to our conflict and deepening the crater by swiping her tail at me.
It was slow enough for me to leap over, but now the landscape looked like a cliff leading into a crater.
My smile was all teeth now, “They're all here somewhere. Now try to follow along with my logic. The Avatar is a bridge, we see spirits use him as one to interact with mortals. But, the one thing nobody ever talks about is doing the reverse. No bridge is a one way street, so let’s see if I can use my bond to him as a path to interact with a spirit myself!”
I used the ultimate cry for help, the one word nobody could resist giving a heartfelt scream at least once in their lives, “Expecto Patronum!”
Screaming to the spirit world what approximately meant, “I await a guardian,” should do something. Spiritual connections were a thing, after all, and I had a connection to the Avatar as his friend and an Airbender. Even if Aang himself couldn’t hear me to send aid, maybe an Air Nomad Avatar would.
What I did not expect was for a series of white and golden portals to open up above me a minute later. I could never have expected them to release a dragon, 2 Sky Bison, a fox and a panda. Wait, that's Hei Bai! Good to see him.
“Bravo, your pallbearers have finally arrived. This funeral can now end properly.” She commented, disdain dripping from each word.
“I'm not dying today,” I was feeling hella confident now, “but since you went through all this trouble of digging that grave. Why don’t I roll you down into it?”
Fang roared, unleashing a blast of rainbow flame that turned 20 heads into silver dust floating on the breeze, alongside Ashing a chunk of forest nearby. He quickly looped around, traveling back through the portal that brought him.
The green fox grew in size, and its tail whipped down hard enough for 5 heads to be severed at once.
Meanwhile, Hei Bai had taken his monster form and was going absolutely apeshit. on her back. Spirit beams, and combos that looked like they belonged in Asura’s Wrath.
Oh shit, Hei Bai just tossed Geodra!
I took my eyes off them to see what the Sky Bison were doing.
Right then, both of the Sky Bison landed in front of me, and I could immediately tell in my gut that the right one was my Companion.
She was an absolute beauty. Soft bright white fur, with a brown arrow down the middle of her back. I couldn’t wait to meet her for real.
I put my head against hers and closed my eyes, “Sweet girl, how does the name, ‘Xena’ sound to you?”
I thought about naming her Sarabi or Zira just so we kind of matched, but that felt cheesy.
I felt her grumble of approval before she started glowing bright enough for me to see it through my eyelids.
A new weight had settled on my body, making my eyes snap open.
Floating in front of me was a white tower shield with a thick brown line down the center, and a yellow staff as long as I was tall. I grabbed both and tested their weight, neither were unwieldy.
Examining my arms, it seemed like I was covered in some type of white spandex that had been overlaid with white gauntlets and vambraces with brown accents. My greaves matched the Sky Bison theme as well.
I planted my shield and staff into the ground so that i could take off my helmet.
Like I had come to expect, it was white. The brown Sky Bison horns on top were a very nice touch.
Wait, a minute. Oh Geodra was Geo-drawn and quartered!
I felt a familiar rumble of approval and my excitement skyrocketed.
“Nice to know you're still here, Sweet Girl,” I said while picking up my weapons again.
Yangchen's Sky Bison grumbled, drawing my attention. I could almost feel his impatience before I felt something on my back being pulled up.
He was lifting me by my cape, wait, i had a white fur cape on this entire time?
It wasn't the most stylish ascent ever, but i was way too happy to care.
“You’re not dealing with the average human anymore,” I giggled as I pat my white chestplate, “I’m a goddamn Power Ranger now. Wait, I’m in spirit form. I’m the Bison Spirit Ranger!”
Today was officially the best day ever. I was living the Jungle Fury dream!
I poked my chestplate, “Hey Xena, can you feel any of this?”
Xena gave what felt like a negative response.
“Good, that’s good,” I said quietly.
Geodra was too busy getting the work from Hei Bai and losing… a lot of heads. I was too happy to do boring subtraction.
Above Geodra for the first time, Yangchen's Bison let me go, then flew further away to enter a free fall of his own.
With a shout, I crashed into her armor shield first, cracking it and shattering the stalagmite protection. The other Bison soon landed, shattering her protection and revealing a writhing mass of red worms instead of scales.
Geodra roared as she twisted her head around to look at us, “Begone!”
That head spat a stream of poison at me, but i slammed my shield down and braced for impact. Defending while attacking.
Geodra shrieked in pain.
“Didn't like that did you?” I asked as I slammed my staff into the ground.
Several worms turned silver and flaked off.
It was like music to my ears, the sound of someone else dealing with the consequences of being a jerk and not getting away with it.
Xena rumbled.
“What do you mean, ‘pull my horn?’” I questioned while reaching up to grab the left one. “Sure, I guess we can stab her with them, but I have a stick for that.”
As soon as my hand wrapped around it, it vanished in a flash of green light and so did my staff.
From another flash, I found myself holding a Yellow Javelin with a brown tip.
“Oh, a throwing spear!” I was smiling from ear to ear as I threw it towards the other side of her back.
As soon as it left my hand, its speed multiplied and it was digging deep into the worm mass. Not even five seconds later, I felt a sonic boom as the Javelin exploded in green light.
Bracing myself, I held my ground decently well until I could make sense of what happened. Sure, my feet flew out from under me, but at least I didn't blow myself off her.
Except for the screaming, things calmed down in a few moments.
In the aftermath, I saw Hei Bai lunging away in the distance before leaping through a portal. I also saw the rain of silver worm dust falling over the forest; my attack had gouged out a chunk of Geodra and sent her tail flying away.
The Javelin that did the damage reappearing in my hand had me outright cackling as I held it aloft, “I name thee: Sky Thunder Jungle Javelin!”
Fear the Explosive Poke Technology!
“You think a fancy light and an explosion will be enough… to beat me?” Geodra questioned, causing me to turn around.
10 heads remained, each one was dripping silver worms. She started flapping her wings, “Let’s see you survive my poison flood while we're airborne!”
9 of her heads twisted around me, aiming straight down.
“Bison friend, catch me!” I yelled as I threw myself off her and held the Tower Shield Up like an umbrella.
Falling farther than I'd have liked, but appreciating being caught at all, I pat his head, “Alright, thanks for the help. You can go rest wherever you were before.”
He flew off, leaving me and my partner to face Geodra together.
“I make you the offer once more, let my new friend go, let him take the water, and I won't shove this back into your spine!” I shouted at my flying foe.
“I will never sssubmit,” she replied, shooting an orb of poison at me.
“Just one orb?” I questioned as I launched my Javelin straight through it, “So pointless!”
Boom!
2 heads scattering in the dust.
“You were so confident not that long ago!”
Boom!
5 heads hanging limp, slowly dissolving.
Geodra could no longer sustain her flight, her crashing body was aimed directly at me, her usable heads spewing poison to keep me from dodging away in any direction.
“Well played, but I'm way too prideful to let my enemy crush me. I'm not Vegeta,” I said as I spun my Javelin around, then slammed it down into the dirt behind me.
Boom!
I even felt it in my teeth as I was blown up and over Geodra's crashing body.
Maybe one day, but today wasn't that day.
“Not the first time I blew myself up, but it was the first time I had protection on,” I mumbled to myself as I checked my armor for damages. Everything was just a little cracked.
The weapon that appeared in my hand was the original Jungle Staff. I didn't get to be disappointed for long, as Xena sent a feeling of excitement my way, and my shield vanished.
Her happiness and anticipation was infectious.
“It looks like my new friend and I are going all out!” I roared as our Jungle Staff vanished in a brilliant flash green light alongside my shield.
Soon, a brand new weapon appeared in my hands.
I was now holding a gunbai, a non folding war fan, that had a yellow pole half as tall as I was. The top portion was a heavy metal, oval-shaped fan with a brown center and a white outline. It was still shield sized, so I could take cover if I really needed to.
It was so cool!
“GUNBAISON MODE!”
“Cut it out with all the puns!” The former 100-headed dragon shouted in exhaustion. Reduced to crawling and twisting on mangled limbs, it was almost pitiable.
“The only thing being cut out is your place in this picture,” I retorted as I prepared my final strike.
Spinning the gunbai in circles over my head, a green tornado with purple electricity formed before compressing itself down into a multilayered disk.
I swung the gunbai at Geodra with all my might, “LAST TEMPEST!”
The final strike flew forward, shredding its way through the rest of the worm mass and creating a silver dust storm.
Yes! Man beat spirit, scored one for The Home Team!
I would never confirm or deny picturing La in her place during those final moments.
Renzo’s body vanished from the silver light orb prison as soon as the battle finished.
Xena separated from me, and I felt drained, like I could sleep away a century of my own if I really tried.
“Thanks pretty buddy,” I said while leaning against/rubbing her head, “do you think you could help me? I need to get back to my body.”
Just to clarify, I did go back to find all 300 seeds first.
I wasn’t coming back here months from now just to do that.
“That spirit showed me things, while it had me trapped,” Renzo shook his head while we were flying away, “there used to be a huge village here centuries ago, most of the men went off to war and the women couldn't handle it. When they returned, they drowned the unfaithful ones in that lake. The pain and regrets of those women soaked into the water and turned it into a slow poison. A century later, 10 women sacrificed themselves in a purification ceremony and expelled all of it.”
“I'm guessing that all those negative emotions merged together with the soil and became a spirit,” I replied, stretching after such a long time sitting.
He nodded, “It became Geodra.”
I flew Renzo back to his home and watched him make the tea. Just to make sure he didn't spill it and waste my time, no other reason.
His home was nice, I guess. If you liked a warm loving atmosphere with enough forest green furniture for five people.
“Nonbenders may be weaker overall, but wow do you have the better time with illnesses,” I said while watching Renzo help Senny drink her tea. “Whether I’m sick and struggling to breathe, or sneezy, or just weirdly temperatured, Airbending tries to make that everyone else’s problem. I probably would have froze it trying to cool it down with my breath.”
“Don’t underestimate a nonbender, you might be surprised someday,” Renzo said without turning around.
“I said weaker, not incapable,” I replied, “I can think of a few dangerous people without any fancy powers.”
Now that I wasn’t needed, I made my way to the door. I still needed to go get the gaang out of jail.
“You have to come back when I feel better, I want to fly too,” Senny declared with closed eyes and a bright smile. She was decent looking, she wasn’t an Azula or Ty Lee, but she was objectively pretty with dark hair and blue eyes.
“Sure, I'd like that.” I said before closing the door behind me.
Someday.