Water 1.1
This is a Worm/Avatar: The Last Airbender crossover.
This has been sitting in my google docs for maybe a year, and I'm thinking about trying to write it again. Full disclosure: I almost never post in these threads, so I know nothing of formatting or any of that stuff, so any help would be appreciated. Also for beta readers. Also for motivation to keep writing this. Anyway.
Visions flooded past me faster than I could process them. Bits and pieces flashed in front of me, fragments of a world I’d never seen and could hardly imagine. Entire societies rose and fell, an indiscernible amount of unity, with war bleeding into the edges of a simple people. A series of figures, all powerful, almost divine and regal, floated to the forefront of my mind. A woman in green wearing blurry, white make up. An old man in a red cloak. A smiling bald man in a red and pale yellow outfit with a tattoo on his head. Finally, a dark skinned woman with dark hair wearing a traditional outfit in blue. They stared with varying amounts of severity before several different iterations of them appeared behind them. Same outfits, different people. Similar people, different outfits. So many of them, tens or hundreds of thousands stood within the fog that I could see. They reached towards me.
I woke up in a hospital bed.
It wasn’t the usual sort of waking up, either. No bleary hesitation from my eyes, no need for light adjustment in the dimly lit ICU, no cold sweat from the usual bullying nightmare or reliving the news of my mother’s death. Just a calm opening of the eyelids. While I would usually find this unusual, I instead tried to remember what had happened. What had happened? I was at school, then... oh. I closed my eyes while revisiting the locker in my memory. I’d been pushed in there by Sophia. Bloody tampons. Vomit everywhere. And then... nothing. Now I was in this room.
I sat up slightly, attempting to recall the dream I’d had. No, not a dream. It had felt significantly clearer than any dream I’d had in my entire life. Now, though, I couldn’t remember any part of it, no matter how much I racked my brain. While that was a slight irritation, it didn’t bother me nearly as much as I felt like it usually would. If I thought about it, a lot of things weren’t worrying me terribly, although I felt that they probably should. The embarrassment of the whole locker situation, of being sent to the hospital, of having to explain to my dad why I was here, how much the hospital was going to charge. I got the sense that normally, I’d be freaking out from these incredibly immediate stressors, but I felt an unnatural calm. My mind’s thoughts flowed easily from one thought to another, as though they were drifting across a calm river. I blinked. That had been a strange metaphor.
Beeps from the ECG reminded me where I was. There was an IV plugged into my arm. the liquid in the pouch fed into me, making me feel strange. I couldn’t describe it, but even without looking at it, I could tell that it was there. It felt connected to me, somehow, as if it were waiting for me to look at it, to touch it. I raised a hand hesitantly just before a nurse walked into the room. She looked young and pretty, with wavy brunette hair. Probably just out of med school. Somehow, I had the presence of mind to put my hand down.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re awake.” she breathed. She really did look relieved, to be fair. Was there some risk of me not waking up? “I’ll wake up your father, he’s been at your side this entire time.”
I opened my mouth only to find out it was dry. Parched. “How long have I been here?” I rasped, making a concerted effort to not cough.
Her face fell. “It’s... been a couple days, honey. I’ll... I'll get your dad, okay?” she replied, a little too sweetly. Probably wanted to be out of the room as soon as possible. To be honest, so did I.
“Okay. Could you also get me a cup of water?” I requested, as gently as I could manage. I didn’t want to be rude, but I needed it for more than one reason.
“Of course.” And as swiftly as she entered, she left. Before she could return, I raised my hand again in the direction of the water in the IV. Nothing happened. I furrowed my brow, tried to concentrate. Still nothing. As I waved my hand from side to side, the water in the pouch swayed slightly, although it was hard to tell whether or not that was because the arm I wasn’t using was directly connected to the pouch. I turned my palm face up and tried to raise the water with my hand. Didn’t budge. I chewed the inside of my cheek before raising my hand again, this time with my fingers down and my wrist loose. A glob of water began to rise and separate itself from the rest of the water in the pouch, although it didn’t exit the pouch. I raised my eyebrows. This was new.
I looked to the open door. Somehow, I could sense that someone was bringing me water in a small cup. I looked away from the pouch of water and tried to point at it. I looked again, finger still pointing, and saw that I was pointing directly at the pouch. Like touching my nose. I glanced at the door, feeling the water come closer as voices began to become clearer from the doorway. I couldn’t sense it from very far away, apparently. Maybe a few yards. But it was something. One test down, at least.
I put away thoughts of experiments I’d have to run in order to compose myself for my father. He entered in a rush, the nurse trailing behind him like a kicked puppy, and froze as he saw me, took me in.
“Taylor.” he said quietly, looking as if he were about to cry. Whether it was in happiness or dismay, I wasn’t sure.
I cleared my throat. “Hey, dad.” I attempted a smile, but I could feel how weak it was. How weak I felt. He crossed the room in few strides and hugged me. Close, but not too tightly, as if he were afraid of breaking something. I hugged him back as hard as I could, which probably didn't amount to much. “Sorry for not…” I blinked. What was I sorry for?
For not talking to him, maybe. For drifting away like I had. For hiding all of this from him. For not being the person he wanted me to be, the person my mom would've wanted me to be. I guessed all of that would have to be said in those three words.
When he did pull away, he had tears in his eyes. They were bloodshot, his eyelids a mixture of red and darkness. The lack of sleep could not be more apparent. “Don’t apologize.” He stated, firmly. “I should have…” He paused for a moment, as if he were trying to find the right words. “I should have paid more attention to you. What you were going through.” he said, finally. “Are you all right?”
Other than an extreme amount of guilt? I looked towards the nurse, who was inching slowly towards the door. Sadly, she wouldn’t escape so easily. “I just need a bit of water.” I said, loud enough for her to hear. She hurried forward now, to give me a dixie cup of water. I drank it greedily, feeling it go down my throat and hit my stomach, which was unsurprisingly empty. “Thank you.” I told the nurse as genuinely as I could. She nodded before taking that as her cue to retrieve the cup and flee from the room. She must not enjoy scenes such as these, or maybe she'd seen the bad side of my father’s infamous temper.
My father glanced at her with slight irritation before training his attention on me once more. The latter, then. “Do you know who did this to you?”
I looked down at myself, at the uncomfortable hospital bed. I couldn’t tell him. Not only would it infuriate him, to know it was Emma Barnes, my former best friend and her clique that had done this to me, it would break him to know I’d let it get this far without telling him. I shook my head. “I know, but I don’t think I can tell you.” He opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off. “I know you want to help. But the teachers and faculty are going to want proof, and for whatever reason, the bullies have more pull than I do. They might get in a little trouble, but it’d only make it worse for me in the end.”
It wasn’t fair to him, and I knew it. But it was the truth, and that was better than lying. I was tired of lying to him. He was the one person I had in my life that was anywhere near close to me, after Emma and... my mom. I didn’t want to push him away, but if my power was anything like I thought it was, I’d have to lie to him again. I couldn’t see any way of becoming a cape that wouldn’t require me to be dishonest to him, and I didn’t think he’d like the idea of me putting myself in more danger when I hadn’t proven myself capable of defending myself. And to be fair, I wasn’t capable of it. Not yet.
His face screwed up in frustration. He took a deep breath. He did this a few more times, before speaking again. “Okay. I’m going to respect your decision on this. What do you need?”
Words could not express how much I appreciated my dad in this moment. “I... think I need time to myself. To think things over.” I said, slowly. It was true, actually. While gaining powers had completely reprioritized my life, I also had a lot of testing to do. A lot of training. Controlling water was good, but it seemed finicky in a fashion that suggested I would need an enormous amount of time to get it down. I was going to be a hero for sure, but what kind of hero? How strong could I be? I needed to answer these questions for myself, and I didn’t need him badgering me while I was trying to figure it out. “Is that okay? I know it doesn’t seem like a good idea to leave me alone after what happened, but-”
He raised a hand. “I’ll leave you to your own devices. You can be excused from school for about a week or so…” He sighed deeply. “Whatever you need. So long as you talk to me later, okay?” He stared at me intently, determined to pry an affirmative from me.
I swallowed and nodded. It was relieving to know that “later” wouldn’t necessarily mean “soon”, and depending on how things go, it might also mean “never”. I had several things to worry about before meandering through the treacherous waters of having a heart to heart with my dad.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The very next day, I hurried onto a computer in the library. I’d spent the previous night in the basement, trying to properly control and bend water. To my disappointment, I hadn’t gotten very far, but I had a sneaking suspicion as to why. I surreptitiously took a computer in the far corner of the room so no one would have a clear line of sight to what I was doing under the table. I’d brought a small bowl and a few bottles of water to practice on as I did some research. I had come at the perfect time, too, just after the lunch rush but before people were getting out of school and work. No one I knew would find me doing weird water tricks here, anyway.
I anxiously bounced in my seat as I started looking into martial arts. I was finding that the movement of my arms and motions of my hands, even the shifting of weight within my body affected where and how the water flowed. As I tried to awkwardly match up different hand motions under the table with what I saw of screenshots and videos depicting different martial arts, I was reminded of that Earth Aleph movie with the guy who had spider powers. Most things didn’t work at all, and the things that did work were ineffectual. That is, until I got to tai chi. Suddenly, everything clicked. Following the forms with my arms only under the table, I got the water out of the bowl, in between my hands, to the left or right, and back in the bowl without splashing it everywhere (again). Moreover, I suddenly felt a lot less unbalanced, like I’d met some requirement needed to calm my body down.
I allowed myself a huge grin. There was always a special sense of satisfaction when you found exactly what you’re looking for. I looked at the pictures, then reamed over several websites explaining basic forms and techniques. I checked how much money I had on me: about twenty two dollars. At ten cents a page, that’d give me more than enough information to take home with me. I printed any written explanations and pictures that seemed useful without being repetitive for me to take home. While this would keep me busy for a while, I knit my forehead in concern. Looking at all the papers in my hand physically, I noted the weight of the stack. I realized it was a lot to memorize. Furthermore, it probably wasn’t as good as taking tai chi classes. Taking public classes would have it’s own detriments, though. When training on my own, I could train with water and for an almost arbitrarily long amount of time, my body willing. The class would help me with the forms, but it couldn’t help me with controlling the water itself.
I looked up the location and cost of martial arts schools in the city as an afterthought. For the next week, I planned to be here at the library or in the basement. Doing research on capes or practicing with my power. Sleeping and eating would be an inconvenience, an afterthought. I had a lot of work to do before I could be mentally prepared to go to school, and even more before I was actually prepared to go out in costume. I figured if I told my dad that tai chi classes would help me with my mental/emotional state and martial arts would help me feel safe, he would almost have no choice but to let me go. I felt bad taking advantage of his guilt that way, as well as the meager amount of money we might get out of a settlement, but it was definitely for a good cause, and those things weren’t necessarily untrue.
I packed up my things, water and all, and began to jog home. It took forever to get anywhere this way, but saying I was out of shape was probably generous. With the range of my power being a little smaller than I would’ve liked, it meant I was going to have to trust my body to keep up with what I wanted it to do. I didn’t feel that way about it now, but like with everything else, I could get there. With hard work and time, I would get there.
A/N: There won't be any other benders in this story.
Also, I always appreciate questions, all kinds of corrections, and general commentary. But, if it isn't about the last two or three chapters I've posted, please send me a message instead of making a comment. I will address it, I mostly just don't want to be talking about arc 1 or 2 things in the thread while I'm posting arc 4. Thank you.
This has been sitting in my google docs for maybe a year, and I'm thinking about trying to write it again. Full disclosure: I almost never post in these threads, so I know nothing of formatting or any of that stuff, so any help would be appreciated. Also for beta readers. Also for motivation to keep writing this. Anyway.
Harmony
Water 1.1
Water 1.1
Visions flooded past me faster than I could process them. Bits and pieces flashed in front of me, fragments of a world I’d never seen and could hardly imagine. Entire societies rose and fell, an indiscernible amount of unity, with war bleeding into the edges of a simple people. A series of figures, all powerful, almost divine and regal, floated to the forefront of my mind. A woman in green wearing blurry, white make up. An old man in a red cloak. A smiling bald man in a red and pale yellow outfit with a tattoo on his head. Finally, a dark skinned woman with dark hair wearing a traditional outfit in blue. They stared with varying amounts of severity before several different iterations of them appeared behind them. Same outfits, different people. Similar people, different outfits. So many of them, tens or hundreds of thousands stood within the fog that I could see. They reached towards me.
I woke up in a hospital bed.
It wasn’t the usual sort of waking up, either. No bleary hesitation from my eyes, no need for light adjustment in the dimly lit ICU, no cold sweat from the usual bullying nightmare or reliving the news of my mother’s death. Just a calm opening of the eyelids. While I would usually find this unusual, I instead tried to remember what had happened. What had happened? I was at school, then... oh. I closed my eyes while revisiting the locker in my memory. I’d been pushed in there by Sophia. Bloody tampons. Vomit everywhere. And then... nothing. Now I was in this room.
I sat up slightly, attempting to recall the dream I’d had. No, not a dream. It had felt significantly clearer than any dream I’d had in my entire life. Now, though, I couldn’t remember any part of it, no matter how much I racked my brain. While that was a slight irritation, it didn’t bother me nearly as much as I felt like it usually would. If I thought about it, a lot of things weren’t worrying me terribly, although I felt that they probably should. The embarrassment of the whole locker situation, of being sent to the hospital, of having to explain to my dad why I was here, how much the hospital was going to charge. I got the sense that normally, I’d be freaking out from these incredibly immediate stressors, but I felt an unnatural calm. My mind’s thoughts flowed easily from one thought to another, as though they were drifting across a calm river. I blinked. That had been a strange metaphor.
Beeps from the ECG reminded me where I was. There was an IV plugged into my arm. the liquid in the pouch fed into me, making me feel strange. I couldn’t describe it, but even without looking at it, I could tell that it was there. It felt connected to me, somehow, as if it were waiting for me to look at it, to touch it. I raised a hand hesitantly just before a nurse walked into the room. She looked young and pretty, with wavy brunette hair. Probably just out of med school. Somehow, I had the presence of mind to put my hand down.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re awake.” she breathed. She really did look relieved, to be fair. Was there some risk of me not waking up? “I’ll wake up your father, he’s been at your side this entire time.”
I opened my mouth only to find out it was dry. Parched. “How long have I been here?” I rasped, making a concerted effort to not cough.
Her face fell. “It’s... been a couple days, honey. I’ll... I'll get your dad, okay?” she replied, a little too sweetly. Probably wanted to be out of the room as soon as possible. To be honest, so did I.
“Okay. Could you also get me a cup of water?” I requested, as gently as I could manage. I didn’t want to be rude, but I needed it for more than one reason.
“Of course.” And as swiftly as she entered, she left. Before she could return, I raised my hand again in the direction of the water in the IV. Nothing happened. I furrowed my brow, tried to concentrate. Still nothing. As I waved my hand from side to side, the water in the pouch swayed slightly, although it was hard to tell whether or not that was because the arm I wasn’t using was directly connected to the pouch. I turned my palm face up and tried to raise the water with my hand. Didn’t budge. I chewed the inside of my cheek before raising my hand again, this time with my fingers down and my wrist loose. A glob of water began to rise and separate itself from the rest of the water in the pouch, although it didn’t exit the pouch. I raised my eyebrows. This was new.
I looked to the open door. Somehow, I could sense that someone was bringing me water in a small cup. I looked away from the pouch of water and tried to point at it. I looked again, finger still pointing, and saw that I was pointing directly at the pouch. Like touching my nose. I glanced at the door, feeling the water come closer as voices began to become clearer from the doorway. I couldn’t sense it from very far away, apparently. Maybe a few yards. But it was something. One test down, at least.
I put away thoughts of experiments I’d have to run in order to compose myself for my father. He entered in a rush, the nurse trailing behind him like a kicked puppy, and froze as he saw me, took me in.
“Taylor.” he said quietly, looking as if he were about to cry. Whether it was in happiness or dismay, I wasn’t sure.
I cleared my throat. “Hey, dad.” I attempted a smile, but I could feel how weak it was. How weak I felt. He crossed the room in few strides and hugged me. Close, but not too tightly, as if he were afraid of breaking something. I hugged him back as hard as I could, which probably didn't amount to much. “Sorry for not…” I blinked. What was I sorry for?
For not talking to him, maybe. For drifting away like I had. For hiding all of this from him. For not being the person he wanted me to be, the person my mom would've wanted me to be. I guessed all of that would have to be said in those three words.
When he did pull away, he had tears in his eyes. They were bloodshot, his eyelids a mixture of red and darkness. The lack of sleep could not be more apparent. “Don’t apologize.” He stated, firmly. “I should have…” He paused for a moment, as if he were trying to find the right words. “I should have paid more attention to you. What you were going through.” he said, finally. “Are you all right?”
Other than an extreme amount of guilt? I looked towards the nurse, who was inching slowly towards the door. Sadly, she wouldn’t escape so easily. “I just need a bit of water.” I said, loud enough for her to hear. She hurried forward now, to give me a dixie cup of water. I drank it greedily, feeling it go down my throat and hit my stomach, which was unsurprisingly empty. “Thank you.” I told the nurse as genuinely as I could. She nodded before taking that as her cue to retrieve the cup and flee from the room. She must not enjoy scenes such as these, or maybe she'd seen the bad side of my father’s infamous temper.
My father glanced at her with slight irritation before training his attention on me once more. The latter, then. “Do you know who did this to you?”
I looked down at myself, at the uncomfortable hospital bed. I couldn’t tell him. Not only would it infuriate him, to know it was Emma Barnes, my former best friend and her clique that had done this to me, it would break him to know I’d let it get this far without telling him. I shook my head. “I know, but I don’t think I can tell you.” He opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off. “I know you want to help. But the teachers and faculty are going to want proof, and for whatever reason, the bullies have more pull than I do. They might get in a little trouble, but it’d only make it worse for me in the end.”
It wasn’t fair to him, and I knew it. But it was the truth, and that was better than lying. I was tired of lying to him. He was the one person I had in my life that was anywhere near close to me, after Emma and... my mom. I didn’t want to push him away, but if my power was anything like I thought it was, I’d have to lie to him again. I couldn’t see any way of becoming a cape that wouldn’t require me to be dishonest to him, and I didn’t think he’d like the idea of me putting myself in more danger when I hadn’t proven myself capable of defending myself. And to be fair, I wasn’t capable of it. Not yet.
His face screwed up in frustration. He took a deep breath. He did this a few more times, before speaking again. “Okay. I’m going to respect your decision on this. What do you need?”
Words could not express how much I appreciated my dad in this moment. “I... think I need time to myself. To think things over.” I said, slowly. It was true, actually. While gaining powers had completely reprioritized my life, I also had a lot of testing to do. A lot of training. Controlling water was good, but it seemed finicky in a fashion that suggested I would need an enormous amount of time to get it down. I was going to be a hero for sure, but what kind of hero? How strong could I be? I needed to answer these questions for myself, and I didn’t need him badgering me while I was trying to figure it out. “Is that okay? I know it doesn’t seem like a good idea to leave me alone after what happened, but-”
He raised a hand. “I’ll leave you to your own devices. You can be excused from school for about a week or so…” He sighed deeply. “Whatever you need. So long as you talk to me later, okay?” He stared at me intently, determined to pry an affirmative from me.
I swallowed and nodded. It was relieving to know that “later” wouldn’t necessarily mean “soon”, and depending on how things go, it might also mean “never”. I had several things to worry about before meandering through the treacherous waters of having a heart to heart with my dad.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The very next day, I hurried onto a computer in the library. I’d spent the previous night in the basement, trying to properly control and bend water. To my disappointment, I hadn’t gotten very far, but I had a sneaking suspicion as to why. I surreptitiously took a computer in the far corner of the room so no one would have a clear line of sight to what I was doing under the table. I’d brought a small bowl and a few bottles of water to practice on as I did some research. I had come at the perfect time, too, just after the lunch rush but before people were getting out of school and work. No one I knew would find me doing weird water tricks here, anyway.
I anxiously bounced in my seat as I started looking into martial arts. I was finding that the movement of my arms and motions of my hands, even the shifting of weight within my body affected where and how the water flowed. As I tried to awkwardly match up different hand motions under the table with what I saw of screenshots and videos depicting different martial arts, I was reminded of that Earth Aleph movie with the guy who had spider powers. Most things didn’t work at all, and the things that did work were ineffectual. That is, until I got to tai chi. Suddenly, everything clicked. Following the forms with my arms only under the table, I got the water out of the bowl, in between my hands, to the left or right, and back in the bowl without splashing it everywhere (again). Moreover, I suddenly felt a lot less unbalanced, like I’d met some requirement needed to calm my body down.
I allowed myself a huge grin. There was always a special sense of satisfaction when you found exactly what you’re looking for. I looked at the pictures, then reamed over several websites explaining basic forms and techniques. I checked how much money I had on me: about twenty two dollars. At ten cents a page, that’d give me more than enough information to take home with me. I printed any written explanations and pictures that seemed useful without being repetitive for me to take home. While this would keep me busy for a while, I knit my forehead in concern. Looking at all the papers in my hand physically, I noted the weight of the stack. I realized it was a lot to memorize. Furthermore, it probably wasn’t as good as taking tai chi classes. Taking public classes would have it’s own detriments, though. When training on my own, I could train with water and for an almost arbitrarily long amount of time, my body willing. The class would help me with the forms, but it couldn’t help me with controlling the water itself.
I looked up the location and cost of martial arts schools in the city as an afterthought. For the next week, I planned to be here at the library or in the basement. Doing research on capes or practicing with my power. Sleeping and eating would be an inconvenience, an afterthought. I had a lot of work to do before I could be mentally prepared to go to school, and even more before I was actually prepared to go out in costume. I figured if I told my dad that tai chi classes would help me with my mental/emotional state and martial arts would help me feel safe, he would almost have no choice but to let me go. I felt bad taking advantage of his guilt that way, as well as the meager amount of money we might get out of a settlement, but it was definitely for a good cause, and those things weren’t necessarily untrue.
I packed up my things, water and all, and began to jog home. It took forever to get anywhere this way, but saying I was out of shape was probably generous. With the range of my power being a little smaller than I would’ve liked, it meant I was going to have to trust my body to keep up with what I wanted it to do. I didn’t feel that way about it now, but like with everything else, I could get there. With hard work and time, I would get there.
A/N: There won't be any other benders in this story.
Also, I always appreciate questions, all kinds of corrections, and general commentary. But, if it isn't about the last two or three chapters I've posted, please send me a message instead of making a comment. I will address it, I mostly just don't want to be talking about arc 1 or 2 things in the thread while I'm posting arc 4. Thank you.
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