fic: Solar Winds (49/?), Part 1/4
Media: Fic
Title: Solar Winds (Avatar: The Last Airbender Fusion, 49/?)
Rating: PG-13 for innuendo, swearing, violence.
Spoilers: None for either series that I am aware of.
Warnings: None for this chapter.
Word Count: ~17500
Summary: When a usurper sets eyes on the Fire Nation throne, Avatar Kurt and friends find themselves on the run with the deposed Prince Blaine in a country gone mad. Can they escape Lady Sylvester’s wrath? Or will her minions snuff them out for good? Fusion fic!
Author’s Note: So, I did some research on real-world trains, and I’m quite aware that some of the things in this chapter aren’t possible with real trains. But these aren’t real trains. They’re Avatar!Verse trains, so we can forgive them for being a little less advanced than ours. :P In this chapter: a glorious movie cliché, the traintop battle! Oh, and incredibly important plot developments that I’ve been building towards for months. Those too. ;D
Master Post
~~~
CHAPTER 49 - Trainwreck Extravaganza, Part 2: Battle of the Eastern Line
Freddy and his buddy Don drive trains for a living.
Freddy keeps his eye on the gauges and doohickeys and watchamabobbits and flips switches and turns dials that keep them from exploding. It’s important work.
Don mostly just shovels coal, takes care of water refills and other manual labor, and pretty much just does what Freddy tells him to.
It’s a decent living, but it’s not their dream.
See, Freddy and Don are also in a band. They and their two mechanics, Charlie and Lou, form The Chuggas on their off days. They dream of a life where they can forget the trains and just get by on the music. And like all good musicians, they know the key to greatness is practice, practice, practice.
And what better time to practice than on a long train ride (you know, in between doing their actual jobs and whatnot)?
“I’M A ROLLIN’ ON DOWN THE LINE,
GONNA LEAVE MY WORRIES BEHIND,” Freddy sings.
“HIS WORRIES BEHIND!” Don echoes, playing his shovel like a guitar (no freakin’ way he’d bring his real guitar onto the filthy cab of a Fire Nation Steam Engine).
The thing is, trains, by default, are loud. So in order to hear yourself sing over the sound of a chugging engine, you have to be even louder. You’ve gotta give it all you got, let the passion flow up out of your mouth in its raw form. That’s real music. It’s a trip, man.
So, you know, just in case you were wondering why the guys in charge didn’t notice their train being blasted into scrap metal… this would be the reason.
“…CAUSE YOU GOT NO TIME,
WHEN YOU MAKE YOUR LIVING ON THE LINE!”
“ON THE LIIIIIIINE! Shovel solo!”
~~~
“…inn! Finn, can you hear me?”
What the… what? What’s going on? Who stuffed his head full of cotton candy? Why? Can he eat it?
If he eats cotton candy that’s already inside of him, will he still be hungry?
Whoa. Mind blown.
“FINN!”
Someone is being loud. And insistent. Loud and insistent… equals… Rachel! Finn shakes his head, eats some cotton candy, and looks up at the concerned face of the girl in front of him.
“Finn!” Rachel says, wrapping him in a slightly painful death-hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“Huh…?” Finn tries another headshake, hoping to jostle some memories loose. It doesn’t work.
So instead, he tries to look at where he is now. He is… on the ground. On the shaky, move-y ground, with lots of noise and wind around. The ground is moving. He is moving… they are moving.
They’re on a train! A train that, from the looks of the shredded walls and flames all around them, exploded.
HOLY SHIT. The train exploded!
“Kurt!” he says, sitting up. “Blaine! Where are you? Are you okay?”
His eyes and ears are still a little iffy. Everything is hazy, and there’s a whoosh in his ears, like somebody is sitting beside him and blowing in them to annoy him and he can’t smack them away. He has to squint to see anything. When he does squint, he kind of wishes he hadn’t.
A short ways in front of him, Kurt is cradling Blaine in his lap, trying so hard not to cry, just rocking back and forth.
“I can’t,” he says. “I can’t keep doing this. I can’t.”
Finn crawls over, completely forgetting the fuzz in his brain and ignoring the little spikes of pain from all the bruises he forgot to heal. (Oh, and now he remembers Santana beating the crap out of him. He could have done without that one, thanks).
“Let me see him,” Finn says softly.
Kurt really doesn’t want to let go, but he does it anyway. Soon, Finn has an armful of Blaine, and another important job to do.
“Boys, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but they’re gaining on us. They’re gonna start shooting again,” Mercedes says.
Oh. That’s why the train exploded. “Who hit us?” Finn asks.
“Who do you think?” Kurt spits, standing up with a clenched fist. If he is hurt at all, he doesn’t show it-he just steps over to open-air end of the car and starts letting loose with the biggest fireballs Finn has ever seen from him. A few fireballs fly back at him, but he takes them apart with ease, and they’re piddly in comparison to the monsters Kurt is tossing out.
“Finn!” Artie says. “Hey, focus, dude.”
The weight in his arms comes back to him, and Finn looks down at Blaine. Suddenly, his own chest is clenching super tight. It’s just like before-they were all at the Palace and Blaine was hurt and Kurt was pissed and nobody knew what was going to happen, if he would live or die. It’s the same damn thing only… not at all. Because back then, Blaine was just Kurt’s. Kurt’s teacher, Kurt’s friend, Kurt’s potential de-virtue-izer. But now… now he’s everybody’s. He belongs to all of them, and it shows. Mercedes is trying to glare him into waking up while trying not to cry at the same time. Artie can’t keep his eyes on Blaine for more than a second, but he can’t completely look away, either, so he just looks back and forth a lot. Rachel hasn’t even known him for that long and she looks like she’s about to melt into a puddle of tears.
“Is he going to be okay?” she asks.
Finn pulls out his water and starts putting his glow-fingers to good use, running through Blaine’s hair, rinsing away the gel whether he means to or not. He can feel the way Blaine’s energy is moving inside of him, and it spikes in a big way around the wound. He lends some of his own energy to give it a hand.
“It’s not as bad as it could be,” Finn says. “He won’t die. I can definitely fix it, it’s just…”
A fireball slams into the wall over their heads, blowing debris all over them.
“…I need a less death-threatening place to heal him in,” Finn finishes.
“Kurt, they’re still gaining on us!” Artie says.
“I noticed!” Kurt shouts back at them. “Would you be a dear and run up to the front of the train and kindly ask the driver to pick up the fucking pace?”
Artie has a pretty good bitchface when he needs it. “Funny.”
“Ooh!” Rachel says, raising her hand. “I’ll go!”
“I was being sarcastic, Rachel!” Kurt sighs, hopping on one foot as a fireball explodes on the ground near him. He tosses back another blast, but it’s smaller than it was earlier, while the bad guys’ looks like they’re getting bigger.
“Wait…” Artie says. “That’s actually not a bad idea.”
“Say what now?” Mercedes asks.
“We can’t stay here,” Artie elaborates. “If we do, they’ll either blow us up or capture us. So why not go further up?”
Mercedes gets the picture. “Oh… good point.”
“If we’re going to go, we should probably do it soon!” Kurt says. His face is all shiny and his hair is all stringy and wet. He’s super sweaty and tired and Finn knows he can’t keep this up for much longer.
“Okay, I’ve got Blaine. Who’s got Artie?” Finn asks.
A bunch more fireballs suddenly slam into the walls, raining rubble and blasting more holes in their already hole-y car.
“I do!” Mercedes says. “No more talking. Let’s go!”
With that, Mercedes heaves a surprised Artie over her shoulders, while Finn stands up, cradling Blaine like a baby. Rachel looks ready to split when she suddenly remembers something. She dashes over to a corner and picks up the Sun Warrior tablet again, and Finn is super glad they trusted her with it, because he’s pretty sure the rest of them would’ve left it behind.
“Come on, Kurt!” Finn shouts.
Kurt nods. He doesn’t have the breath for words. Instead, he just runs to them as fast as he can while fire slams into the floor behind him.
The door to the caboose pretty much collapses when they try to open it. The next car in line is a big metal box car. Finn can’t see a way around or through it, but there is a ladder for them to climb up top.
“Guess we’re going over,” he says.
Rachel scrambles up the ladder and starts to stand up when a fireball whizzes past her head, putting her on her stomach with a frightened squeak.
Mercedes outright hurls Artie on top of the car and jumps up the ladder after him. When she’s in place, she reaches down, and Finn hands her Blaine so he can climb up himself.
Kurt comes last, but his brain gets hung on something. He pauses halfway up the ladder, staring down.
“Kurt, what is it?” Finn says.
“Either a great or terrible idea!” Kurt shouts back. He pulls his hand up, and the water from his pouch jumps out like a beardog ready to do tricks for a treat. With one clean slice of his hand, the water arcs below him, and Finn hears something snap.
Suddenly, the destroyed caboose is drifting away from them, no longer attached to the train.
“Dude!” Artie says, watching the caboose slowly roll to a stop. “You’re a genius!”
“I know,” Kurt says, smiling as finishes climbing up.
“I don’t get it,” Finn says.
A fireball soars past his ear, and Kurt turns around to start bending them apart again. This time, he doesn’t throw any back. “It’s dropping dead weight, Finn,” he says, still a little out-of-breath. “If we lighten the load by cutting loose the cars, our train goes faster.”
“Plus,” Artie adds, “if we cut the cars as we go, it’s harder for them to jump onboard.”
“But how do we know which cars are dead weight?” Finn asks.
“They all are, as far as I’m concerned!” Artie says.
“Wait!” Rachel says. “What if there are important things in there?”
“Like what?” Artie asks.
“Like bendables,” Mercedes says.
Artie raises his eyebrows. “That’s… a pretty good point.”
“Okay,” Kurt says. “Here’s the plan, people. Rachel, you’re in front. Keep your eyes ahead and warn us if anything dangerous is coming. Finn, you’re behind Rachel on Blaine duty. Artie, Mercedes, you guys check every car for bendables. I’m on defense-firebending is exhausting to do, but relatively easy to undo, if that makes any sense. Everybody got it?”
“Got it!” replies everybody. Well, you know, except Blaine.
“Then let’s go!”
~~~
The enemy train is composed of a mere three cars. Two passenger cars full of guards, and a caboose with… shall we say… other supplies.
“Keep up that suppressing fire!” Quinn shouts down to her Chi-Ryus the guards tagging along. She stands on the roof of the frontmost passenger car, watching the Avatar and friends through a spyglass.
“What are they doing?” she asks, shaking her head.
Santana snatches the scope, watching as the big black one lowers Mr. Duck by his legs. The cripple smashes the lock on the boxcar and slides the door open, peering inside. “Looking for loot?” she says with a shrug. “Fucked if I know.”
Quinn snatches the spyglass back from Santana. “And you continue to be useless. How about you do something productive and tell the driver to speed up?
Santana glares at her with her head cocked, but she complies anyway. A quick jump carries her onto the edge of the tender. “HEY!” she shouts at the driver. “Move this hunk of junk! Put some juice into it!”
The nervous man sputters his acquiescence, and starts fiddling with his instruments.
“You’re welcome,” Santana says snottily as she jumps back up.
“Shut up,” Quinn grinds out. “If you two and the other idiot weren’t such… idiots, we wouldn’t even be here.”
“Hey!” Santana shouts. “I don’t recall you doing much better.”
“Well, I did,” Quinn says flatly. “Because you were too worried about your stupid rhino,” she says, jamming a finger at Puck, “and you were more concerned with venting your anger on the big dumb one than actually capturing him,” she adds, accusing Santana, “my Chi-Ryus and I had to face his entire team. And we still held out better than you.”
“Yeah, well we would’ve done a lot better if your dumb Chi-Ryu’s hadn’t bailed on us!” Puck grunts.
“Yeah,” Santana says. “You forgot to mention the little part about them turning tail whenever you call. What the fuck did you even need them for, anyway?”
The Chi-Ryu Captain stiffens, bristling at the question. “It’s none of your concern,” she says quietly, pulling out her spyglass again.
Up ahead, Kurt detaches another car, and it slowly rolls away.
“Now I get it,” she says quietly. “Smart. Tell the engineer to keep ramping up the speed!”
Santana gives her another challenging glare, but does as she is told.
“How many more shells do we have?” Quinn asks Puck.
“Enough,” Puck says, crossing his arms.
“How many is enough? Did you get the tank’s entire supply?” Quinn asks.
“There wasn’t time to get ‘em all before you made us pull out, but we got a couple boxes,” Puck says.
“Good,” Quinn says. “I think it’s time we gave them another shot.”
Puck grins. “Hey,” he calls back. “Get me another shell up here! The human cannon’s ready to fire!”
~~~
“How are they still firebending?” Kurt asks as he shreds a few more fireballs in mid-air. “They should be passed out by now!”
And yet, the Chi-Ryus and the City Guards continue to toss out a steady stream of combustive fury.
“They’re probably just better than you,” Mercedes says casually.
Kurt pauses for a second to glare at her.
“At firebending,” she clarifies testily. “Don’t be gettin’ all sensitive on me.
“Whatever,” Kurt says, putting himself back on defense. “What’s in this car? More antique furniture?”
Mercedes dangles Artie like a fishhook down to the door of the next boxcar. Just like before, he punches the lock off and slides the door open, peering inside.
“Barrels!” he shouts.
“Of what?” Kurt asks, flinching back from a fireball that buzzed just a little too close to his face.
Artie’s rock gloves punch a hole in a few barrels. “Seeds!”
“Friggin’ useless,” Kurt sighs. “Alright, move on!”
Mercedes hauls Artie back up and tosses him over her shoulder again.
“You know,” Artie says from behind her. “I could put my arms around your shoulders...”
“After what happened last time?” Mercedes laughs as she jumps to the next cart. “I don’t think so, Mr. Grabby Hands.”
“That was an accident!” Artie cries.
“Mmmmhmmm,” Mercedes hums. “I bet.”
“Hey,” Artie says testily. “If I really wanted to, I could get a couple of juicy handfuls back here too, if you know what I-MMMF!”
As Mercedes jumps to the next car, she accidentally sticks the landing so that Artie winds up smacking face first into her back.
When everybody is clear of the car, Kurt waits for a pause in the firestream to pull out his water, and cuts another car loose.
“Curve!” Rachel shouts.
“Everybody down!” Kurt orders.
The gang crouches to steady themselves and keep from sliding off the roof as the train rounds a curve. Centrifugal force is kind of a bitch.
From this position, Kurt notices that the Chi-Ryus have stopped firing, which instantly makes him wary. On the roof of the enemy train, Quinn and Santana step back, while Puck steps forward with something in his super-hand. Kurt can’t quite make out what it is before Puck rears back and hurls it at them.
He hears a strange whistle.
And suddenly, the seed boxcar is blown apart in a violent, flaming cloud of shrapnel. The so-called seed scatters through the air, much of it popping from the heat as it flies.
“What was that?” Finn shouts. He’s healing Blaine as he does it, taking every opportunity to work the water over the Prince’s abused scalp.
“Popcorn!” Artie says excitedly.
“No, I mean… the big explosion!” Finn clarifies.
“That was Puck!” Kurt shouts. “They’ve got heavy artillery!”
“Damn!” Mercedes curses. “We’ll be smithereens if we don’t do something quick!”
“The only thing I can throw back at them is fire,” Kurt says. “So I guess I’m back on offense until we find some decent bendables.” He sighs. “What I wouldn’t give for a car full of rocks, or sand, or-”
“Coal!” Rachel shouts suddenly. “Coal and water!”
“Yes, Rachel, those are excellent examples of things we can bend,” Kurt says.
“No,” Rachel says. “Well, I mean, yes, but also-both of those are things that Fire Nation trains run on! Coal is used everywhere in the Fire Nation; I bet there are cars full of it!”
Kurt snaps. “And I can draw the water from the train!” he says with a grin.
“Oh, no, silly,” Rachel says. “That might cause an explosion.”
“…oh,” Kurt says.
“But you can get some from the refill towers! There are some on the sides of the tracks, just in case a train needs an emergency refill,” Rachel says brightly. “I’ll keep my eyes open.”
“Great!” Kurt says. “And we’ll be looking for coal.”
The curve finally evens out, enabling them to stand up again. “Alright, let’s go!”
He stands up and takes aim. Puck is in the process of being handed another shell, but Kurt sends some fierce flames his way. The shots come close enough to his face to send him flailing back, accidentally tossing the shell into the air behind them, where it demolishes a sizeable section of track.
Kurt smirks in satisfaction. “Okay, so,” he says, keeping the heat on as best he can. “What’s inside car number three?”
Once again, Artie is lowered to examine their latest foray into the wide world of train robbing.
The lock on this car is already broken, so Artie is immediately leery of the contents. He slides the door open, only to find…
“Barrels and bums!” he shouts up at Kurt.
“Barrels of buns?” Kurt shouts back.
“No!” Artie yells again. “BARRELS, AND-”
“We prefer the term ‘hobos,’” says a rather helpful dirt-crusted man in tatters.
“Oh, cool,” Artie says. “BARRELS AND HOBOS!”
“That is a highly derogatory term!” Rachel says. “How can you be so insensitive?”
“Their word, not mine!” Artie counters.
Kurt rolls his eyes. “Okay; barrels of what?”
“What y’all shippin’, my brothers?” Artie asks.
“The good stuff,” one of the hobos winks, raising a dirty mug and taking a swig. “It’ll cure what ales ya.”
“Score!” Artie shouts. “Hummel, we have bendables! Alcohol on deck!”
“Fantastic,” Kurt cries. “Open one for me!”
“Blazes yeah!” a hobo shouts. “Drinks all around! We’ll make it a party!”
“Can’t,” Artie says sadly. “No drinking on the job. I’m glad you guys are willing to share though, because we have something else in mind for this brew…”
With that, he glove-smashes a hole in one of the thick barrels, and Kurt’s grin widens.
~~~
“They’re talking about… something, I have no idea. I can’t lip-read,” Quinn says, shaking her head. “Puck! What is taking you so long?”
“Look, I can’t just use this thing non-stop, okay?” Puck says, holding up his hand. “It’s like sex. I have to chill for a little bit, give the juice time to build up again-”
“Do not finish that sentence,” Quinn seethes. “Just… hurry up. And try not to drop it this time.”
“He shot fire at my face!” Puck sighs. “I’m not just gonna stand there and take it! I like this face.”
“HEY!” Santana says, pointing ahead. “Hate to interrupt your little squabble, but we gots issues.”
Up ahead, Kurt is drawing a massive amount of really murky-looking liquid from inside the train. A look through the spyglass reveals a bunch of dirty bums inside the car, shaking their fists and yelling at him.
“Damn it,” Quinn says without thinking. “CHI-RYUS! BOIL AWAY THAT WATER!”
She gives the order just in time for the Avatar to fling the entire supply of liquid straight at them. She has to wonder what he’s thinking; a little water is hardly going to slow down a Fire Nation Steamer.
It’s when the first fireball hits the liquid that she realizes it isn’t water.
“DUCK AND COVER!” Quinn shouts, diving off the roof as the mass of flaming napalm lands on the train. Huge flames billow out from the engine on all sides, draping over the windows, making it impossible to see or counterattack.
The Chi-Ryu Captain grinds her teeth. Fine. If he wants to play it hot and heavy, Quinn will so bring the heat…
~~~
“YEAH, BOY!” Artie shouts, giving a fist-pump as the alcoholic napalm hits home, driving everyone into the cars.
“Awesome!” Finn says as he watches brilliant flames barreling out from all sides of the train.
“Good thinking,” Mercedes says.
“All that ale,” a hobo weeps. “Gone to waste!”
“Oh, get over it,” Kurt sighs, shooing his friends to the next car. “There’s plenty of beer in the sea… or… you know, a similar metaphor.”
He cuts the tramp trolley, having spent its useful contents. “Farewell, gentle vagrants!” he says, waving at them as they drift off like the drifters they are. “May you live to drink another day!”
It’s as he’s waving to the angry hobos that he notices the ale-fire swiftly and violently extinguish itself.
“Well, crap!” he curses. With no small amount of reluctance, he abuses his aching muscles into more fire tossing. “Okay, that was short-lived. We need more bendables, fast.”
“Come on, y’all,” Mercedes says. “Think! What do we know about coal?”
“Ummm…” Finn thinks. “It’s black.”
“It’s dusty!” Rachel contributes.
“It burns,” Artie says.
And suddenly, Kurt wants to perform a fiery facepalm. “Of course,” he says quietly. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
With that, he promptly turns around, and starts firebending at their train.
“Okay, far be it from me to question your authority or anything, but what the Hills are you doing?” Mercedes asks, pointing at the Quicktana Express. “Bad guys are that way!”
“I’m not worried about them. Come on!” Kurt says. “Follow me! Don’t worry about anything, just keep running until I tell you to stop.” He bounces over onto the next car, laying down some more scorch-marks and not liking what he sees.
They’re not quite sure what he’s doing, but he is the Avatar, so they follow him, running from car to car. On each one, Kurt does the same thing-light a fire, make a face, keep going. They’re making quick progress, but unfortunately, Kurt’s absence on offence has invited the baddies to bring out their big guns again.
It isn’t long before the cars start blowing up behind them.
“MOTHERFUCKER!” Artie says from Mercedes’s back, shielding his face from the heat as one of the closer cars is blasted apart. “Uhhh, Kurt, I think you might do something. Unless your master plan involves us getting blasted to the moon!”
Kurt ignores him. It’s his privilege as Avatar. He knows what he’s going for-at least, he thinks he does.
“Dude, seriously!” Finn says. “What are you doing?”
“Coal is dusty, black, and flammable,” he says, finally deigning to explain. “Pretty much any car that has it should have some residue on the outside, meaning it will react to fire. We figure out what’s inside by what’s outside.”
“Damn, dude,” Artie says, impressed. “You are a genius!”
Another explosion rocks the train, but this one wasn’t even an actual hit. The shot went high, and slammed into a cliff a short distance away.
“Is it just me, or is he getting worse?” Mercedes asks.
“Look behind you!” Artie says, pointing out what he can already see. All the flaming cars that Puck has detonated are still burning, and the combined effect of which has created a pretty effective smokescreen.
“They can’t see us!” Finn says brightly.
“Yes, but we can’t see them, either,” Kurt says, keeping them on track. “Plus, with Puck throwing unpredictably like that, you never know when he might get a lucky shot and actually hit us. Or the engine, for that matter.”
“…oh,” Finn says. “Good thinking.”
“Come on…” Kurt says, jumping over and tossing a fireball onto another car.
He almost runs past it before he notices it flare up beautifully, and skids to a stop.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says with a serene smile, “here, we make our stand.”
~~~
“Stop it!” Santana says.
“I can still hit them!” Puck insists, beckoning for another shell.
“Yes,” Quinn says, trying to stare through the smoke with the spyglass. It isn’t working. “You could also accidentally take out the track in front of us, derailing us so we can die horrible, bloody deaths.”
This halts Puck’s throwing arm mid toss. “…oh.”
“I don’t know what they’re up to,” Quinn says, “but for now, we just need to be patient. Our train is faster than theirs. It’s only a matter of time before this smokescreen is behind us and we have a clear shot at victory.”
That time comes much sooner than Quinn anticipates. One minute, they’re flying blind-the next, they’re in the clear, with the entirety of the smoking cars having been cut from the Avatar Steamer. She’s just getting ready to order Puck to start shelling them again, when she sees something unusual.
An open-top car, full of black rocks, with two earthbenders and a pissed-looking Avatar inside.
Oh.
Crap.
“EVERYBODY DOWN!” Quinn shouts, diving off the roof and slipping into the first car.
Puck and Santana jump down into the second car just in time to avoid being buffeted with a hailstorm of coal. Hundreds of tiny briquettes slam into every part of the train, smashing any windows that aren’t already broken, bouncing off the engine, and rebounding inside the cars causing all manner of havoc.
“Shit. Shit!” Quinn curses. “BACK OFF!” she yells to the driver. “WE NEED MORE DISTANCE!”
As she shouts this, she notices several Chi-Ryus and guards yelping and dancing around like lunatics. A quick look at the ground.
Oh, how cute.
They’ve started setting the coal on fire.
Well… two can play that game.
~~~
To the Next Part...
Title: Solar Winds (Avatar: The Last Airbender Fusion, 49/?)
Rating: PG-13 for innuendo, swearing, violence.
Spoilers: None for either series that I am aware of.
Warnings: None for this chapter.
Word Count: ~17500
Summary: When a usurper sets eyes on the Fire Nation throne, Avatar Kurt and friends find themselves on the run with the deposed Prince Blaine in a country gone mad. Can they escape Lady Sylvester’s wrath? Or will her minions snuff them out for good? Fusion fic!
Author’s Note: So, I did some research on real-world trains, and I’m quite aware that some of the things in this chapter aren’t possible with real trains. But these aren’t real trains. They’re Avatar!Verse trains, so we can forgive them for being a little less advanced than ours. :P In this chapter: a glorious movie cliché, the traintop battle! Oh, and incredibly important plot developments that I’ve been building towards for months. Those too. ;D
Master Post
~~~
CHAPTER 49 - Trainwreck Extravaganza, Part 2: Battle of the Eastern Line
Freddy and his buddy Don drive trains for a living.
Freddy keeps his eye on the gauges and doohickeys and watchamabobbits and flips switches and turns dials that keep them from exploding. It’s important work.
Don mostly just shovels coal, takes care of water refills and other manual labor, and pretty much just does what Freddy tells him to.
It’s a decent living, but it’s not their dream.
See, Freddy and Don are also in a band. They and their two mechanics, Charlie and Lou, form The Chuggas on their off days. They dream of a life where they can forget the trains and just get by on the music. And like all good musicians, they know the key to greatness is practice, practice, practice.
And what better time to practice than on a long train ride (you know, in between doing their actual jobs and whatnot)?
“I’M A ROLLIN’ ON DOWN THE LINE,
GONNA LEAVE MY WORRIES BEHIND,” Freddy sings.
“HIS WORRIES BEHIND!” Don echoes, playing his shovel like a guitar (no freakin’ way he’d bring his real guitar onto the filthy cab of a Fire Nation Steam Engine).
The thing is, trains, by default, are loud. So in order to hear yourself sing over the sound of a chugging engine, you have to be even louder. You’ve gotta give it all you got, let the passion flow up out of your mouth in its raw form. That’s real music. It’s a trip, man.
So, you know, just in case you were wondering why the guys in charge didn’t notice their train being blasted into scrap metal… this would be the reason.
“…CAUSE YOU GOT NO TIME,
WHEN YOU MAKE YOUR LIVING ON THE LINE!”
“ON THE LIIIIIIINE! Shovel solo!”
~~~
“…inn! Finn, can you hear me?”
What the… what? What’s going on? Who stuffed his head full of cotton candy? Why? Can he eat it?
If he eats cotton candy that’s already inside of him, will he still be hungry?
Whoa. Mind blown.
“FINN!”
Someone is being loud. And insistent. Loud and insistent… equals… Rachel! Finn shakes his head, eats some cotton candy, and looks up at the concerned face of the girl in front of him.
“Finn!” Rachel says, wrapping him in a slightly painful death-hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“Huh…?” Finn tries another headshake, hoping to jostle some memories loose. It doesn’t work.
So instead, he tries to look at where he is now. He is… on the ground. On the shaky, move-y ground, with lots of noise and wind around. The ground is moving. He is moving… they are moving.
They’re on a train! A train that, from the looks of the shredded walls and flames all around them, exploded.
HOLY SHIT. The train exploded!
“Kurt!” he says, sitting up. “Blaine! Where are you? Are you okay?”
His eyes and ears are still a little iffy. Everything is hazy, and there’s a whoosh in his ears, like somebody is sitting beside him and blowing in them to annoy him and he can’t smack them away. He has to squint to see anything. When he does squint, he kind of wishes he hadn’t.
A short ways in front of him, Kurt is cradling Blaine in his lap, trying so hard not to cry, just rocking back and forth.
“I can’t,” he says. “I can’t keep doing this. I can’t.”
Finn crawls over, completely forgetting the fuzz in his brain and ignoring the little spikes of pain from all the bruises he forgot to heal. (Oh, and now he remembers Santana beating the crap out of him. He could have done without that one, thanks).
“Let me see him,” Finn says softly.
Kurt really doesn’t want to let go, but he does it anyway. Soon, Finn has an armful of Blaine, and another important job to do.
“Boys, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but they’re gaining on us. They’re gonna start shooting again,” Mercedes says.
Oh. That’s why the train exploded. “Who hit us?” Finn asks.
“Who do you think?” Kurt spits, standing up with a clenched fist. If he is hurt at all, he doesn’t show it-he just steps over to open-air end of the car and starts letting loose with the biggest fireballs Finn has ever seen from him. A few fireballs fly back at him, but he takes them apart with ease, and they’re piddly in comparison to the monsters Kurt is tossing out.
“Finn!” Artie says. “Hey, focus, dude.”
The weight in his arms comes back to him, and Finn looks down at Blaine. Suddenly, his own chest is clenching super tight. It’s just like before-they were all at the Palace and Blaine was hurt and Kurt was pissed and nobody knew what was going to happen, if he would live or die. It’s the same damn thing only… not at all. Because back then, Blaine was just Kurt’s. Kurt’s teacher, Kurt’s friend, Kurt’s potential de-virtue-izer. But now… now he’s everybody’s. He belongs to all of them, and it shows. Mercedes is trying to glare him into waking up while trying not to cry at the same time. Artie can’t keep his eyes on Blaine for more than a second, but he can’t completely look away, either, so he just looks back and forth a lot. Rachel hasn’t even known him for that long and she looks like she’s about to melt into a puddle of tears.
“Is he going to be okay?” she asks.
Finn pulls out his water and starts putting his glow-fingers to good use, running through Blaine’s hair, rinsing away the gel whether he means to or not. He can feel the way Blaine’s energy is moving inside of him, and it spikes in a big way around the wound. He lends some of his own energy to give it a hand.
“It’s not as bad as it could be,” Finn says. “He won’t die. I can definitely fix it, it’s just…”
A fireball slams into the wall over their heads, blowing debris all over them.
“…I need a less death-threatening place to heal him in,” Finn finishes.
“Kurt, they’re still gaining on us!” Artie says.
“I noticed!” Kurt shouts back at them. “Would you be a dear and run up to the front of the train and kindly ask the driver to pick up the fucking pace?”
Artie has a pretty good bitchface when he needs it. “Funny.”
“Ooh!” Rachel says, raising her hand. “I’ll go!”
“I was being sarcastic, Rachel!” Kurt sighs, hopping on one foot as a fireball explodes on the ground near him. He tosses back another blast, but it’s smaller than it was earlier, while the bad guys’ looks like they’re getting bigger.
“Wait…” Artie says. “That’s actually not a bad idea.”
“Say what now?” Mercedes asks.
“We can’t stay here,” Artie elaborates. “If we do, they’ll either blow us up or capture us. So why not go further up?”
Mercedes gets the picture. “Oh… good point.”
“If we’re going to go, we should probably do it soon!” Kurt says. His face is all shiny and his hair is all stringy and wet. He’s super sweaty and tired and Finn knows he can’t keep this up for much longer.
“Okay, I’ve got Blaine. Who’s got Artie?” Finn asks.
A bunch more fireballs suddenly slam into the walls, raining rubble and blasting more holes in their already hole-y car.
“I do!” Mercedes says. “No more talking. Let’s go!”
With that, Mercedes heaves a surprised Artie over her shoulders, while Finn stands up, cradling Blaine like a baby. Rachel looks ready to split when she suddenly remembers something. She dashes over to a corner and picks up the Sun Warrior tablet again, and Finn is super glad they trusted her with it, because he’s pretty sure the rest of them would’ve left it behind.
“Come on, Kurt!” Finn shouts.
Kurt nods. He doesn’t have the breath for words. Instead, he just runs to them as fast as he can while fire slams into the floor behind him.
The door to the caboose pretty much collapses when they try to open it. The next car in line is a big metal box car. Finn can’t see a way around or through it, but there is a ladder for them to climb up top.
“Guess we’re going over,” he says.
Rachel scrambles up the ladder and starts to stand up when a fireball whizzes past her head, putting her on her stomach with a frightened squeak.
Mercedes outright hurls Artie on top of the car and jumps up the ladder after him. When she’s in place, she reaches down, and Finn hands her Blaine so he can climb up himself.
Kurt comes last, but his brain gets hung on something. He pauses halfway up the ladder, staring down.
“Kurt, what is it?” Finn says.
“Either a great or terrible idea!” Kurt shouts back. He pulls his hand up, and the water from his pouch jumps out like a beardog ready to do tricks for a treat. With one clean slice of his hand, the water arcs below him, and Finn hears something snap.
Suddenly, the destroyed caboose is drifting away from them, no longer attached to the train.
“Dude!” Artie says, watching the caboose slowly roll to a stop. “You’re a genius!”
“I know,” Kurt says, smiling as finishes climbing up.
“I don’t get it,” Finn says.
A fireball soars past his ear, and Kurt turns around to start bending them apart again. This time, he doesn’t throw any back. “It’s dropping dead weight, Finn,” he says, still a little out-of-breath. “If we lighten the load by cutting loose the cars, our train goes faster.”
“Plus,” Artie adds, “if we cut the cars as we go, it’s harder for them to jump onboard.”
“But how do we know which cars are dead weight?” Finn asks.
“They all are, as far as I’m concerned!” Artie says.
“Wait!” Rachel says. “What if there are important things in there?”
“Like what?” Artie asks.
“Like bendables,” Mercedes says.
Artie raises his eyebrows. “That’s… a pretty good point.”
“Okay,” Kurt says. “Here’s the plan, people. Rachel, you’re in front. Keep your eyes ahead and warn us if anything dangerous is coming. Finn, you’re behind Rachel on Blaine duty. Artie, Mercedes, you guys check every car for bendables. I’m on defense-firebending is exhausting to do, but relatively easy to undo, if that makes any sense. Everybody got it?”
“Got it!” replies everybody. Well, you know, except Blaine.
“Then let’s go!”
~~~
The enemy train is composed of a mere three cars. Two passenger cars full of guards, and a caboose with… shall we say… other supplies.
“Keep up that suppressing fire!” Quinn shouts down to her Chi-Ryus the guards tagging along. She stands on the roof of the frontmost passenger car, watching the Avatar and friends through a spyglass.
“What are they doing?” she asks, shaking her head.
Santana snatches the scope, watching as the big black one lowers Mr. Duck by his legs. The cripple smashes the lock on the boxcar and slides the door open, peering inside. “Looking for loot?” she says with a shrug. “Fucked if I know.”
Quinn snatches the spyglass back from Santana. “And you continue to be useless. How about you do something productive and tell the driver to speed up?
Santana glares at her with her head cocked, but she complies anyway. A quick jump carries her onto the edge of the tender. “HEY!” she shouts at the driver. “Move this hunk of junk! Put some juice into it!”
The nervous man sputters his acquiescence, and starts fiddling with his instruments.
“You’re welcome,” Santana says snottily as she jumps back up.
“Shut up,” Quinn grinds out. “If you two and the other idiot weren’t such… idiots, we wouldn’t even be here.”
“Hey!” Santana shouts. “I don’t recall you doing much better.”
“Well, I did,” Quinn says flatly. “Because you were too worried about your stupid rhino,” she says, jamming a finger at Puck, “and you were more concerned with venting your anger on the big dumb one than actually capturing him,” she adds, accusing Santana, “my Chi-Ryus and I had to face his entire team. And we still held out better than you.”
“Yeah, well we would’ve done a lot better if your dumb Chi-Ryu’s hadn’t bailed on us!” Puck grunts.
“Yeah,” Santana says. “You forgot to mention the little part about them turning tail whenever you call. What the fuck did you even need them for, anyway?”
The Chi-Ryu Captain stiffens, bristling at the question. “It’s none of your concern,” she says quietly, pulling out her spyglass again.
Up ahead, Kurt detaches another car, and it slowly rolls away.
“Now I get it,” she says quietly. “Smart. Tell the engineer to keep ramping up the speed!”
Santana gives her another challenging glare, but does as she is told.
“How many more shells do we have?” Quinn asks Puck.
“Enough,” Puck says, crossing his arms.
“How many is enough? Did you get the tank’s entire supply?” Quinn asks.
“There wasn’t time to get ‘em all before you made us pull out, but we got a couple boxes,” Puck says.
“Good,” Quinn says. “I think it’s time we gave them another shot.”
Puck grins. “Hey,” he calls back. “Get me another shell up here! The human cannon’s ready to fire!”
~~~
“How are they still firebending?” Kurt asks as he shreds a few more fireballs in mid-air. “They should be passed out by now!”
And yet, the Chi-Ryus and the City Guards continue to toss out a steady stream of combustive fury.
“They’re probably just better than you,” Mercedes says casually.
Kurt pauses for a second to glare at her.
“At firebending,” she clarifies testily. “Don’t be gettin’ all sensitive on me.
“Whatever,” Kurt says, putting himself back on defense. “What’s in this car? More antique furniture?”
Mercedes dangles Artie like a fishhook down to the door of the next boxcar. Just like before, he punches the lock off and slides the door open, peering inside.
“Barrels!” he shouts.
“Of what?” Kurt asks, flinching back from a fireball that buzzed just a little too close to his face.
Artie’s rock gloves punch a hole in a few barrels. “Seeds!”
“Friggin’ useless,” Kurt sighs. “Alright, move on!”
Mercedes hauls Artie back up and tosses him over her shoulder again.
“You know,” Artie says from behind her. “I could put my arms around your shoulders...”
“After what happened last time?” Mercedes laughs as she jumps to the next cart. “I don’t think so, Mr. Grabby Hands.”
“That was an accident!” Artie cries.
“Mmmmhmmm,” Mercedes hums. “I bet.”
“Hey,” Artie says testily. “If I really wanted to, I could get a couple of juicy handfuls back here too, if you know what I-MMMF!”
As Mercedes jumps to the next car, she accidentally sticks the landing so that Artie winds up smacking face first into her back.
When everybody is clear of the car, Kurt waits for a pause in the firestream to pull out his water, and cuts another car loose.
“Curve!” Rachel shouts.
“Everybody down!” Kurt orders.
The gang crouches to steady themselves and keep from sliding off the roof as the train rounds a curve. Centrifugal force is kind of a bitch.
From this position, Kurt notices that the Chi-Ryus have stopped firing, which instantly makes him wary. On the roof of the enemy train, Quinn and Santana step back, while Puck steps forward with something in his super-hand. Kurt can’t quite make out what it is before Puck rears back and hurls it at them.
He hears a strange whistle.
And suddenly, the seed boxcar is blown apart in a violent, flaming cloud of shrapnel. The so-called seed scatters through the air, much of it popping from the heat as it flies.
“What was that?” Finn shouts. He’s healing Blaine as he does it, taking every opportunity to work the water over the Prince’s abused scalp.
“Popcorn!” Artie says excitedly.
“No, I mean… the big explosion!” Finn clarifies.
“That was Puck!” Kurt shouts. “They’ve got heavy artillery!”
“Damn!” Mercedes curses. “We’ll be smithereens if we don’t do something quick!”
“The only thing I can throw back at them is fire,” Kurt says. “So I guess I’m back on offense until we find some decent bendables.” He sighs. “What I wouldn’t give for a car full of rocks, or sand, or-”
“Coal!” Rachel shouts suddenly. “Coal and water!”
“Yes, Rachel, those are excellent examples of things we can bend,” Kurt says.
“No,” Rachel says. “Well, I mean, yes, but also-both of those are things that Fire Nation trains run on! Coal is used everywhere in the Fire Nation; I bet there are cars full of it!”
Kurt snaps. “And I can draw the water from the train!” he says with a grin.
“Oh, no, silly,” Rachel says. “That might cause an explosion.”
“…oh,” Kurt says.
“But you can get some from the refill towers! There are some on the sides of the tracks, just in case a train needs an emergency refill,” Rachel says brightly. “I’ll keep my eyes open.”
“Great!” Kurt says. “And we’ll be looking for coal.”
The curve finally evens out, enabling them to stand up again. “Alright, let’s go!”
He stands up and takes aim. Puck is in the process of being handed another shell, but Kurt sends some fierce flames his way. The shots come close enough to his face to send him flailing back, accidentally tossing the shell into the air behind them, where it demolishes a sizeable section of track.
Kurt smirks in satisfaction. “Okay, so,” he says, keeping the heat on as best he can. “What’s inside car number three?”
Once again, Artie is lowered to examine their latest foray into the wide world of train robbing.
The lock on this car is already broken, so Artie is immediately leery of the contents. He slides the door open, only to find…
“Barrels and bums!” he shouts up at Kurt.
“Barrels of buns?” Kurt shouts back.
“No!” Artie yells again. “BARRELS, AND-”
“We prefer the term ‘hobos,’” says a rather helpful dirt-crusted man in tatters.
“Oh, cool,” Artie says. “BARRELS AND HOBOS!”
“That is a highly derogatory term!” Rachel says. “How can you be so insensitive?”
“Their word, not mine!” Artie counters.
Kurt rolls his eyes. “Okay; barrels of what?”
“What y’all shippin’, my brothers?” Artie asks.
“The good stuff,” one of the hobos winks, raising a dirty mug and taking a swig. “It’ll cure what ales ya.”
“Score!” Artie shouts. “Hummel, we have bendables! Alcohol on deck!”
“Fantastic,” Kurt cries. “Open one for me!”
“Blazes yeah!” a hobo shouts. “Drinks all around! We’ll make it a party!”
“Can’t,” Artie says sadly. “No drinking on the job. I’m glad you guys are willing to share though, because we have something else in mind for this brew…”
With that, he glove-smashes a hole in one of the thick barrels, and Kurt’s grin widens.
~~~
“They’re talking about… something, I have no idea. I can’t lip-read,” Quinn says, shaking her head. “Puck! What is taking you so long?”
“Look, I can’t just use this thing non-stop, okay?” Puck says, holding up his hand. “It’s like sex. I have to chill for a little bit, give the juice time to build up again-”
“Do not finish that sentence,” Quinn seethes. “Just… hurry up. And try not to drop it this time.”
“He shot fire at my face!” Puck sighs. “I’m not just gonna stand there and take it! I like this face.”
“HEY!” Santana says, pointing ahead. “Hate to interrupt your little squabble, but we gots issues.”
Up ahead, Kurt is drawing a massive amount of really murky-looking liquid from inside the train. A look through the spyglass reveals a bunch of dirty bums inside the car, shaking their fists and yelling at him.
“Damn it,” Quinn says without thinking. “CHI-RYUS! BOIL AWAY THAT WATER!”
She gives the order just in time for the Avatar to fling the entire supply of liquid straight at them. She has to wonder what he’s thinking; a little water is hardly going to slow down a Fire Nation Steamer.
It’s when the first fireball hits the liquid that she realizes it isn’t water.
“DUCK AND COVER!” Quinn shouts, diving off the roof as the mass of flaming napalm lands on the train. Huge flames billow out from the engine on all sides, draping over the windows, making it impossible to see or counterattack.
The Chi-Ryu Captain grinds her teeth. Fine. If he wants to play it hot and heavy, Quinn will so bring the heat…
~~~
“YEAH, BOY!” Artie shouts, giving a fist-pump as the alcoholic napalm hits home, driving everyone into the cars.
“Awesome!” Finn says as he watches brilliant flames barreling out from all sides of the train.
“Good thinking,” Mercedes says.
“All that ale,” a hobo weeps. “Gone to waste!”
“Oh, get over it,” Kurt sighs, shooing his friends to the next car. “There’s plenty of beer in the sea… or… you know, a similar metaphor.”
He cuts the tramp trolley, having spent its useful contents. “Farewell, gentle vagrants!” he says, waving at them as they drift off like the drifters they are. “May you live to drink another day!”
It’s as he’s waving to the angry hobos that he notices the ale-fire swiftly and violently extinguish itself.
“Well, crap!” he curses. With no small amount of reluctance, he abuses his aching muscles into more fire tossing. “Okay, that was short-lived. We need more bendables, fast.”
“Come on, y’all,” Mercedes says. “Think! What do we know about coal?”
“Ummm…” Finn thinks. “It’s black.”
“It’s dusty!” Rachel contributes.
“It burns,” Artie says.
And suddenly, Kurt wants to perform a fiery facepalm. “Of course,” he says quietly. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
With that, he promptly turns around, and starts firebending at their train.
“Okay, far be it from me to question your authority or anything, but what the Hills are you doing?” Mercedes asks, pointing at the Quicktana Express. “Bad guys are that way!”
“I’m not worried about them. Come on!” Kurt says. “Follow me! Don’t worry about anything, just keep running until I tell you to stop.” He bounces over onto the next car, laying down some more scorch-marks and not liking what he sees.
They’re not quite sure what he’s doing, but he is the Avatar, so they follow him, running from car to car. On each one, Kurt does the same thing-light a fire, make a face, keep going. They’re making quick progress, but unfortunately, Kurt’s absence on offence has invited the baddies to bring out their big guns again.
It isn’t long before the cars start blowing up behind them.
“MOTHERFUCKER!” Artie says from Mercedes’s back, shielding his face from the heat as one of the closer cars is blasted apart. “Uhhh, Kurt, I think you might do something. Unless your master plan involves us getting blasted to the moon!”
Kurt ignores him. It’s his privilege as Avatar. He knows what he’s going for-at least, he thinks he does.
“Dude, seriously!” Finn says. “What are you doing?”
“Coal is dusty, black, and flammable,” he says, finally deigning to explain. “Pretty much any car that has it should have some residue on the outside, meaning it will react to fire. We figure out what’s inside by what’s outside.”
“Damn, dude,” Artie says, impressed. “You are a genius!”
Another explosion rocks the train, but this one wasn’t even an actual hit. The shot went high, and slammed into a cliff a short distance away.
“Is it just me, or is he getting worse?” Mercedes asks.
“Look behind you!” Artie says, pointing out what he can already see. All the flaming cars that Puck has detonated are still burning, and the combined effect of which has created a pretty effective smokescreen.
“They can’t see us!” Finn says brightly.
“Yes, but we can’t see them, either,” Kurt says, keeping them on track. “Plus, with Puck throwing unpredictably like that, you never know when he might get a lucky shot and actually hit us. Or the engine, for that matter.”
“…oh,” Finn says. “Good thinking.”
“Come on…” Kurt says, jumping over and tossing a fireball onto another car.
He almost runs past it before he notices it flare up beautifully, and skids to a stop.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says with a serene smile, “here, we make our stand.”
~~~
“Stop it!” Santana says.
“I can still hit them!” Puck insists, beckoning for another shell.
“Yes,” Quinn says, trying to stare through the smoke with the spyglass. It isn’t working. “You could also accidentally take out the track in front of us, derailing us so we can die horrible, bloody deaths.”
This halts Puck’s throwing arm mid toss. “…oh.”
“I don’t know what they’re up to,” Quinn says, “but for now, we just need to be patient. Our train is faster than theirs. It’s only a matter of time before this smokescreen is behind us and we have a clear shot at victory.”
That time comes much sooner than Quinn anticipates. One minute, they’re flying blind-the next, they’re in the clear, with the entirety of the smoking cars having been cut from the Avatar Steamer. She’s just getting ready to order Puck to start shelling them again, when she sees something unusual.
An open-top car, full of black rocks, with two earthbenders and a pissed-looking Avatar inside.
Oh.
Crap.
“EVERYBODY DOWN!” Quinn shouts, diving off the roof and slipping into the first car.
Puck and Santana jump down into the second car just in time to avoid being buffeted with a hailstorm of coal. Hundreds of tiny briquettes slam into every part of the train, smashing any windows that aren’t already broken, bouncing off the engine, and rebounding inside the cars causing all manner of havoc.
“Shit. Shit!” Quinn curses. “BACK OFF!” she yells to the driver. “WE NEED MORE DISTANCE!”
As she shouts this, she notices several Chi-Ryus and guards yelping and dancing around like lunatics. A quick look at the ground.
Oh, how cute.
They’ve started setting the coal on fire.
Well… two can play that game.
~~~
To the Next Part...