*****************

Tuesday, May 21st, 3015

Underground Laboratory, Omashu, Earth Kingdom

2:25 PM

Entombed within a castle of gleaming chrome, swirling neon lights, luminescent computer screens, and beeping medical technology—as well as guarded by a virtual battalion of the world's most renown scientists from across the globe—stood a row of four alarmingly large test tubes, each easily the size of a large aquarium and filled to the brim with an eerie green plasma.

The tubes, or Incubators as they were called, rested within a room that was entirely coated in large panels of stainless steel, the cold visages of the bland metal giving a chilling, impersonal atmosphere to the room. Adorning the steel walls were display screens of all shapes and sizes, each bearing an immense load of dizzying statistical calculations that would bewilder the standard citizen. Numerous machines and computers littered the floor, walls, and worktables of the laboratory, each often accompanied by their own display screen and a myriad of blinking lights and multi-colored buttons adorning the surface.

Scientists bustled to and fro within the glimmering stainless steel vault that was the laboratory, their usually placid tempers rendered volcanic with the overwhelming stress of countless of sleepless nights and verbal dressing downs by their superiors. Orders were being shouted out through a series of connected telecoms, relaying the same message over and over again.

"Begin Combat Simulation"

A flurry of activity burst into existence as the already harried scientists leapt into action at their latest order—a sense of urgency and anticipation beginning to permeate throughout the room. Squadrons of scientists scrambled together at the command, forming several pre-determined Teams and taking up their respective corners of the lab.

"Alpha Team, ready on standby—Initiating simulation sequence." Spoke one of the group leaders, his voice floating over the chaotic laboratory and was quickly responded with a series of concurrences.

"Beta Team, ready on standby—Nervous response receptors up and running"

"Medical Team, ready on standby—Adrenaline and endorphin boosters administered"

"Gamma Team, ready on standby—Power generators and Arc-Wielders warming up"

A flurry of clicks and beeps accompanied each announcement, as the entire room was suddenly filled with a storm of blinking lights from every inch of the walls and desks. The crank of large lever was nearly drowned out by the cacophony of shouting voices and flicks of switches, but its result—a steady rumble that permeated the room as the power generators activated—could not have gone unnoticed as their processes created a sort of turbulence that shook the ground ever so slightly.

A toneless, mechanical voice seemed to resound from the very walls of the laboratory, it's cool, impersonal voice bouncing off the similarly stainless steel walls, "Combat simulation sequence: Initiated."

The enormous display screen embedded into the wall flickered to life, displaying a boundless canyon range of ashy, burgundy soil that was surrounded by thousands of craggy rock surfaces and towering mountains.

Deep in the heart of the canyon, a violent river roared with the earth-shattering intensity of a thousand lightning bolts as it crashed against the canyon walls, tearing apart enormous chunks of rock at a time as it cleaved its path through the walls of stone. Enclosing both sides of the river was a massive valley of hardened, beaten down rock littered with various shrubbery, broken metal shells of abandoned and rusted automobiles, and large burgundy boulders.

From above, the desert sun beat heavily down from a cloudless sky upon the ashy soil, its exceptionally powerful rays smoldering the dried up and decayed forms of withered plants and animal carcasses. A wave of heavy, turbulent wind blew through the valley—the product of violent desert winds funneled by immovable rock until they reached to near tempest-level force—kicking up a storm of ash, dust, and rocks from the rocky floors.

All four elements were present.

Behind the growing crowd of scientists fighting for a good spot to view the large display screen in the laboratory, four sets glowing blue eyes burst into existence within the emerald darkness of the test tubes, revealing the presence of a human-like figure locked within the thick, murky depths of green plasma.

*****************

He opened his searingly cold blue eyes once more, breathing in the acrid scent brought upon by desert conditions such as that of this canyon range.

He felt energized—no, revitalized—beyond imagination, the last resting sleep evidently had been his deepest one and he considered himself lucky for having awoken to partake in the taste of battle once more, considering the bitter tang of blood that had filled his lungs from their last trial—a result from a devastating blow from a Goliath like none other that had crushed his lungs and pounded his chest plate into dust.

He looked beside him and breathed a relieved sigh as he perceived the presence of his three other Brothers—especially his youngest brother, whose affinity resided within the whimsical nature of Air.

Good. They had survived.

The three elder Brothers shared a frighteningly protective nature toward their youngest, and weakest, Brother—whose Avatar State was the most unpredictable of them all, often tapping into a smaller well of power than his Siblings but occasionally also capable of enormous feats of Bending that overpowered them all more than once.

Such was the nature of an Avatar whose affinity resided within the fickle natures of the wind.

The crackling and swirling of a sudden whirlpool within the raging waters of the river broke the Brother from his worthless, dust-collecting musings and he took a quick glance at the battlefield, taking in their position within the heart of the valley—at the very shores of the raging river—and that it was surrounded by stone walls easily over a mile high. The battleground was littered with rocks, debris, and other such obstacles that would soon prove to be good shelters from the next monster that presented itself to them.

The river swelled suddenly, and the rapids parted in a geyser of water to reveal an enormous Leviathan, a serpent-like monster with shiny black scales and insidious decorations formed by unique formations of its yellow scales scattered intricately all over its body. Its body was limbless, lacking any arms or legs except for the innumerable emerald fins that spread over its body like enormous fans.

The Leviathan reared up like a posing cobra, flaring out its fins, and roared a guttural challenge, revealing the rows upon rows of gleaming razor teeth as the constraining walls of the valley echoed the scream a hundred times back at them, forming a nauseating wave of sound that pounded at the Avatars' heads.

He felt his body unconsciously shift into his classic offensive stance, reveling in the feel of liquid flames that rush through his veins and the pounding light of the desert sun on his crimson cloak.

The Four Avatars slid into their stances, their powerful limbs entirely hidden from the desert sun by large, billowing robes with hoods that were color coded for their respective elements—red for the firebender, blue for the waterbender, green for the earthbender, and yellow for the airbender.

*****************

Project Avatar began as a privately funded operation, dedicated to the research and study of specialized genetic mutations within the Human Genome that seemed to give our ancient Ancestors the ability to wield and guide the elements at their whim, and of the story of one being—the Avatar, a god-like being capable of wielding all four elements and who's existence seemingly transcending even Death and Reality.

Above all the chaos and excitement created by the scientists, who roared and clamored as their creations clashed against an impossibly powerful virtual construction in a test of both will and cunning, Head Scientist Professor Gyatso, a celebrated geneticist who's mental ability was unlike the world had ever seen, rested within the lighted confines of his office, busily tapping away at his keyboard.

In delving into the disappearance of this ancient art within the cultures of our ancestors, Project Avatar first discovered that the fall of these Benders came after the Great Cataclysm five centuries ago, when most of the world's population was wiped out. The Benders never did return to prominence since then, as people with the potential to bend must be tutored within their art and culture. Without these backbones, the practice of bending becomes incapable of producing nothing more than a simple parlor trick.

However, as the research delved deeper into the bending of our ancient Ancestors, and as the increasing numbers of evidence toward the existence of the ancient art of Bending began to sway the minds of the officials seated within the highest ranks of government, the Federal government of Ba Sing Se began to seize control of the project and convert it from its original purpose. Gathering the knowledge acquired from the project's intense research, the Earth King was able the identify a means through which Benders could be identified at birth, and began an extensive military program designed to use these extraordinary people in the only way that Humanity has always used such powers.

As Weapons.

Equipped with the knowledge of the existence of benders and their training, the Earth King swiftly created a military wing dedicated solely to the acquirement and training of benders from a young age. At many times, these children were taken from their homes only a few years after their birth and then placed in isolation camps where each and every bender was brainwashed into upmost servitude toward the Earth King. They were trained to be loyal to the King, and only to their King, not even to their nation.

The earthbenders of the Ba Sing Se essentially became the Black-Ops for the Earth Kingdom and were used extensively for sabotage and tactical warfare. It was not uncommon, during those times of war, that an enemy battalion or convoy would suddenly be crushed beneath an avalanche—and there was no way for the foreign nations to prove that anything other than nature had been the cause for such casualties.

Even so, the other nations, especially in the case of the Fire Nation, learned of the existence of benders hidden within their own populations by use of espionage within the ranks of the Earth Kingdom's monarchy. They thus, also began to form their own armies of benders, leading to an escalation of world powers.

*****************

The once acrid and densely packed rock of the canyon floor was now drowned beneath a virtual sea of raging waters, as the Leviathan had drawn the violent rapids from the river out of its earthly constraints and brought it crashing down upon the four Avatars.

The youngest Avatar immediately summoned a whirlwind beneath him and his Brothers, floating the four Avatars just above the initial tidal wave right before the Leviathan swung it down like a sledgehammer.

The wave of water from the river crashed against the valley floor and, suddenly, a geysers of water began erupting from the jagged crevice that marked the original resting place of the river—a body of water having been dragged forward by the Leviathan from underneath the canyon and onto the battlefield.

Before long, the battlefield was nothing more than a turbulent sea at high tide as hundreds of gallons of water continued to rise up from below the earth.

The Waterbender swung his arms down with a pounding motion, freezing the raging tide beneath them into a mountainous tundra of ice. Hundreds of chains and hooks of ice suddenly burst into existence, converging upon the Leviathan—the icy coils looping and snagging onto the serpents body as they grounded the beast onto the icy floor from all directions.

The serpent writhed and flailed against the icy shackles but the Water Bender held on obstinately, bending the chains of ice so that enormous icy barbs formed on the shackles to agonizingly dig into the serpent's body—prompting a screaming wail that echoed painfully against the narrow valley walls as it drilled into the Avatars' skulls.

The Waterbender turned the hood of his cloak toward the other three, his terse tone hinting at the mental strain it was taking to hold down the serpent,

"What are you guys doing?!" He hissed, "Hurry up already!"

Floating on the whirlwind not too far off from the similarly airborne Waterbender, the Earthbender had clasped hands with the firebender and they swung together in an intricate dance, their arms following a pushing and pulling motion much like that of the flow of the ocean washing up on the shores of a sandy beach.

The northern stone wall of the valley swelled and bulged at two Benders' motions, the solid rock straining and groaning as they were forced to sway backwards and forwards. Smoke and steam was curiously pouring out from the tiny cracks that had begun to appear at the surface of the cliff side as a result of the strain on the stone walls.

With a loud cry, the two Benders dragged their arms backward, as if pulling an immense weight, and the stone wall of north side of the valley exploded into a rockslide, spewing out a river of molten lava that poured onto the thrashing Leviathan. Sulfurous smoke and poisonous gas poured out of the gaping wound in the earth along with the molten rock, poisoning the air around the valley and mixing with the steam that had begun to rise off of the glacial ice holding on the Leviathan as a result of the magma pouring over the trapped monster and its shackles.

The barbed chains of ice, already weakened by the struggling beast and now by the molten rock pouring all over them, snapped easily at the Leviathan's renewed struggles.

Now free, the Leviathan slammed its maw into the frozen tundra, sending a spider web of cracks along its surface before slamming through the icy floor with a sledgehammer blow with its tail.

The blow crashed through the icy surface, revealing an icy ocean hidden beneath the frozen surface, and the creature dived into the freezing waters, escaping from the geyser of lava pouring from the cliff side. Behind it, the icy surface of the ocean collapsed as the spider web of fissures spread throughout it entirely, fracturing the frozen surface into nothing more than small islands of ice floating amidst an icy ocean.

The Airbender, having lifted himself high above the combat going on below, clasped his arms together; his form glowing with power as ominously dark thunderclouds suddenly appeared at the horizon of a once cloudless sky.

He grunted, straining to pull together a violent enough storm, as thunderclouds from all sides of the horizon began to converge upon the battlefield.

The Waterbender joined him in the air, uplifted by another whirlwind, and, together, the storm grew denser and stronger in intensity. They spun their arms as one as the approaching storm swirled around them in a violent spiral—a spiral that followed the rotation of their arms as the furious storm converged onto a single point in the sky far above them.

When the sky became as pitch-black as the night, and the air thick with humidity and caustic tension, the Waterbender and the Airbender spun in unison, the glowing eyes of their Avatar state making a trailing circle of light around them, and they forced their arms down—as if dragging down a tree branch or a particularly persistent bird.

At their motion, the swirling clouds began a spinning descent toward the raging ocean below them, forming a furious tornado that crashed into the icy waters and began to vacuum up all of the frigid water within itself.

Forced to retreat, or else be sucked into the tornado, the Leviathan swum desperately against the swirling whirlpool the tornado had created in the water, and dove into the deep crevice of the valley floor that had originally housed the river— a retreat that allowed the ocean that it had created to dissipate and return the battlefield to its original state.

The four Avatars sunk back down onto the solid ground and the tornado, no long guided by the two Benders, returned to the sky, pulling all the water it had accumulated with it.

The four Avatars and their adversary fell into a stalemate again as the rushing tides of water poured out again, followed by geysers of volcanic rock, the tumbling of avalanches, and the scream of whirling tornadoes.

*****************

With the discovery of benders within every prominent nation, the advantage that the Earth King held over the other nations dwindled and failed. Forced into a brutal stalemate, the Earth Kingdom was finally forced to agree to a non-aggression pact with the other nations, or else risk being conquered.

The War of the Benders had ended, but the Earth King, in his last days of his life, sought a new edge against his enemies, the power of the Avatar. However, with the Avatar being missing for over 500 years—having completely disappeared from all records after the Great Cataclysm—there was neither record nor clue of even the existence of an Avatar within the Modern Age.

*****************

Despite the scalding temperatures of the volcanic lava, the intense pressures of the raging tsunami, the lashing winds of the tornado, and the blunt pounding of an avalanche; the Leviathan's audacious vitality remained relatively unharmed as it countered by sweeping its scaly tail across the canyon floor, cleaving apart the canyon floor with its razor sharp fins and causing a flurry of quaking vibrations to rumble the canyon floor.

The Avatars leaped into the air, buoyed up by the Youngest's airbending, as the ground suddenly crumbled beneath them—the granite-like rock suddenly breaking up into sand and the entire canyon floor becoming an enormous whirlpool of sand as the ground violently swirled into a single point in the ground.

The Avatar robed in the red cloak growled, "What in Agni's name is that?"

His earthbending Brother replied quietly, shifting from his weight from side to side—clearly uneasy with this new development.

"It's a kind of earthbending. It broke up the ground so it could eliminate all the porous holes present within the rock and its now condensing all that rock into a single point."

The Firebender frowned, "So? What's the point of doing that?"

The youngest Avatar rolled his eyes at him, "You mean, other than trying to kill us?"

The crimson Avatar scowled, but his retort was cut off by the Earthbender, who continued as if there had been no interruption, "Diamond. That's how you can make diamond. A lot of heat and a lot of pressure."

The three other Avatars blinked at him, "Diamond? What does it want diamond for? It's a monster, not a human being…"

The Earthbender could only shrug.

The Waterbender sighed, and began bending the water in the river far below them.

"How about we try doing something instead of standing around and chatting?"

They nodded collectively, and began to bend their elements once more, before the Earthbender scowled at his feet. He was still uncomfortable with the idea of bending earth while midair.

"Brother? Mind letting us down anytime soon? Hanging around in mid air isn't exactly fun for everybody…"

"Oh, right. My bad…"

They slowly floated back down onto the whirlpool of sand, which had already begun to slow down.

*****************

The scientists watched as the swirling sands slowed, the vicious whirlpool becoming nothing more than an odd swirl formation in the sand. When the sands settled, the four Avatars leapt toward the strangely still Leviathan.

As his last wish, the Earth King ordered the beginning of a project that would be the birth of an artificial Avatar, the unique splicing of the Human Genome in order to create a Super Weapon that would be able to command all four elements—the ultimate Bender.

Project Avatar is the culmination of his last wish. At first, we encountered extreme difficulties with attempting to force even one human to host the genetic traits required to wield all four elements, as the combination often resulted in schizophrenia, physical disability, and other such worrying ailments.

Suddenly, the earth was shaking beneath them, the sands were parting curiously and the four Avatars had barely anytime to react when a storm of diamond blades began flying out of the sands, each serrated blade spinning like whirlwind of death as they spiraled toward the Avatars.

It was only later, with the realization that the original Avatar was a spiritual entity that bonds with its hosts and provides a psychic link to their past lives that we began to make progress. We were able to create a metaphysical entity—aptly named AVATAR—very much in tune with the whims of nature and thus capable of wielding all four elements. We then spliced AVATAR between fifty subjects, imbuing each one with a spiritual shard of AVATAR. These subjects, once deceased, would then release their AVATAR and allow it to fuse with the other remaining hosts, thus reforming the entity through gradual steps that would theoretically allow the final host to adapt to the burden of AVATAR with minimal damages to the psyche.

The Youngest Avatar took to the sky, his form blurring as he vanished into storm clouds which still hung heavily over the battlefield—easily escaping the cloud of flying blades with his sheer acceleration.

The Water Bender spun a vineyard of water tentacles around himself, each slapping away and redirecting the diamond blades before they could reach him.

The Fire Bender became a rocket, enormous jets of flame sprout from his hands and feet like jet engines as he became a flaming comet soaring into the sky.

The Earth Bender slammed his feet into the sandy dirt, forging a virtual fortress of earth around him; but the constitution of the earth had been greatly weakened by the conversion of solid rock into sand and the swirling diamond blades pierced the earthen fortress like a hot knife going through butter.

The blades drilled their way through the earthy walls, and burst through the other side completely undeterred.

The fortress was crumbling, its walls shattered and butchered as they began to meekly crumble upon themselves, and then it suddenly returned to a wave of sand that just poured down onto the floor. The Earth Bender stood in its epicenter of his sand dune, and he slowly crumbled—just like his fortress—onto the sandy ground.

Thus, in order to create one Avatar, all but one host must be killed. There are no ways around this rule.

His green cloak was suddenly torn from him and a wave of blood seemed to erupt from his body, revealing the numerous holes that riddled his chest—to the point where there were more bleeding and gaping holes in his body than flesh. The flesh from his torso had been totally stripped from its bone, leaving it to sag down and wrinkle as a lumpy mass of grounded organs mixed with blood slowly dripped from his torso.

He gasped weakly as his eyes dimmed and his breath stilled.

"BROTHER!!!"

*****************

Journal Log Entry #37

We executed Specimen No. E7093 today, an event marked with great celebration by our elite staff. There was much drinking, dancing, and cavorting in the Recreation room of the laboratory.

I could not help but feel disgusted at such antics.

Have we really degraded so much that we are capable of such elation when one of our own—a human being—has just died at our own hands? Or do they celebrate in drunken revelry as a means to escape their conscience which, even now, screams at us for continuing this project?

It is a dilemma in of itself.

Should our project succeed, there is no doubt that a vast, perhaps even an innumerable, number of lives will be lost because of our actions. Yet, I cannot help but wish that it did succeed, that my life's work has not been in vain.

Nevertheless, our project is coming to a close, as there remain only two more Avatars to go. We shall chose between who shall die and who shall live in the way that we always have, by means of the survival of the fittest.

I only pray that my soul and humanity would remain intact after this project.

*****************

Journal Log Entry #39

The death of Specimen No. E7093 has had substantial effects on psychological well-being of his fellow specimen. It seems that, although our four subjects had never seen each other's faces, they had shared a silent camaraderie, perhaps even a bond of brotherhood, and the loss of one has had profound damage on both the morale and performance of the remaining specimen.

The fact that this phenomenon has occurred arises several matters of anxiety for us. The success of Project Avatar hangs on the premise that the resulting specimen is fully functional in all definitions of the word, whether psychological, physical, or spiritual. Even if all pieces of AVATAR are allowed to return to one entity, the matter will be irrelevant if the specimen emerges as a sociopath or otherwise damaged.

It seems that we have made a fatal error in the execution of this project, for we have failed to account for influence AVATAR holds over its hosts—that they would feel a sense of spiritual kinship through AVATAR even when they have been entirely dehumanized from each other.

Even now, our scientists are working to reverse the damage—but it is unlikely that they will be able to do so completely before the next stage of Project Avatar must begin. Our benefactors and superiors grow restless with the amount of money and time the project has already taken, and they have begun to pressure us—even threatening to pull funding.

I hope that these new pressures would not cause us to make a fatal step.

*****************

Journal Log Entry #51

Despite all my warnings against it, the next stage of the project has been initiated—far too soon, in my honest opinion, as the specimen have not recovered from the loss of one of their valued brothers.

Specimen No. W9314, informally known by our staff as merely the Waterbender, was executed upon this day.

As expected, the loss of yet another brother has only worsened the two remaining specimen's failing psychological condition. Our scanners have indicated that their neuroactivity appears to have become erratic, often shifting from periods of violent distress to complete and utter silence.

On the positive side, the remaining Avatars have begun to show a natural aptitude for earthbending—a sure sign that the shard of AVATAR from the earthbender has already begun fusing itself with the shards held by the remaining hosts.

The project is working, but time grows even shorter and there is little time before the final step of the project must be made. Now, never than ever before, are we so close to success, and yet so close to absolute failure. It is unclear, as of now, what will be the final outcome of the Project—as it closes into its final stage…

*****************

He grasped his fallen Brother's hand.

Breathing a heavy, almost sobbing gasp, he dropped to his knees at his Brother's side.

A blackened hand coated in ash—a hand so small…so tiny that it couldn't possibly be his that was poking out of his yellow cloak—reached out to the fallen form beside him.

It grasped the tattered, seared remains of a red cloak—markings of the enormous pyre of flames that had seared his Brother's chest and mutilated his body. A cataclysm of fire that had been heading for him, only to be intercepted by his Brother.

It's my fault…

If only I wasn't so stupid, if only I wasn't so weak.

It was there that he buried the body of his Brother, wrapping him in the cloak he had always worn.

He buried his Brother in that battlefield, a ruined, crumbling shell of a once thriving urban metropolis now shattered by the markings of war. The once towering sky scrapers, the fingers of Humanity that had touched the Heavens, were now laid low—charred, and crumbled into nothing more than mere ash and dust by the rain of artillery fire that had totaled the city.

Fingers of asphalt now stretched towards the stars in their place, the roads shaped into great earthen spikes by the gift of earthbending that another fallen Brother had given to them at his last breath. Dead bodies and mangled corpses littered the floor; bodies of civilians, infantry, and benders alike; their broken flesh and spilled blood mingling with each other and pooling into large puddles of gooey crimson mulch.

The Enemy, their last Enemy together, had not been a single being—not a titanic creature of the Oceans, nor a monstrous Bender from the far reaches of the world—but rather had been an army, a legion, of men in dark camouflage and guns rusted over in coatings upon coatings of blood.

They had riddled the air so thick with bullets that, for a brief, terrifying second, he had thought he faced a swarm of iron locusts instead.

He and his brother had fought with everything they had, discarding every shred of morality they had and using every single element, every tactic in the book, in order to survive the onslaught. Even so, when the sky began to rain fire—pouring down artillery shells and guided missiles—there had been nothing either of them could do except try to survive in a hellish world filled with blinding flames and choking smoke.

In the end, when the cataclysm was over, he had awoken from an oblivion he had not realized he had fallen into—and found his Brother laid on top of him, shielding his life with his own.

Gone.

His Brother had left the world bequeathing him as his last living legacy.

He was the last of his family.

They had been a family of fifty. Now they were only one.

There was no one else in this world, no one but himself—and countless numbers of faceless enemies, enemies who had ruthlessly slaughtered his Brothers and Sisters one by one until he was all that remained.

After that, there was nothing he could do except scream.

Screamat the burning world around him.

Scream at the silhouettes of enemies approaching in the black smoke of gunpowder.

Scream until the earth roared with his rage, and the ground became his fingers as spires of earth rose from beneath them, rumbling and pounding—twisting and crushing—until human bodies became nothing more than pulp in the dirt.

Scream until the oceans thundered with his fury, and the skies become his arms—opening up as thousands of frozen blades rained from the sky and the oceans swallowed his enemies whole.

Scream until the winds howled with his wrath, and the clouds became his hands—reaching down from their heavenly seats and fingers of destruction gouging trails of desolation onto the world.

Scream until his screams came no more, screamed until his screams became dying whimpers—wracking sobs of agonizing grief as the last of his family died in his arms.

And he sobbed.

He sobbed as his fingers dug pierced the asphalt, digging into the earth below and slowly scratching a tomb for his last Brother.

*****************

Journal Log Entry #73

Seconds have become minutes. Minutes have become hours. Hours have become days. Days have become months. Months have become Years.

Ever since the final step, ever since the completion of Project Avatar, the final host, Specimen A4179, has become nonresponsive. His body continues to function, but all neuroactivity within the cerebrum has come to a halt.

For all intents and purposes, Specimen A4179 has entered a coma he may never awaken from—and thus, Project Avatar has been officially classified as a failure.

The members within the high echelons of government have been humiliated with the massive temporal and monetary expenses involved with the failed project. It is inevitable that retribution shall fall upon us now, especially me, its Head Scientist.

Even so, I feel no remorse; I feel no shame in the failure of this project. It is a curious emotion, but I am gladdened that all our efforts that we have placed into Project Avatar have failed—even though I know that more than shame and humiliation shall come to me because of this failure.

Should we have succeeded, Project Avatar would have created a highly mobile and catastrophically destructive force, one nearly impervious to damage of any kind, and capable of manipulating virtually any natural force. Furthermore, the extensive Combat Simulation Program of Project Avatar placed the Avatar into almost every single feasible combat situation that could exist within this world, and even a few that couldn't have, and then made it capable of overcoming said situation—no matter how impossible the odds were or how many times our Victory Probability Calculators equated the probability of the Avatar surviving the situation as 0%.

That kind of power, one that can bend every scientific rule and logic in the world and even twist the very fabric of reality, should never lie within the hands of humanity—and especially not that of a young child susceptible to the extensive brainwashing program that the Earth King had already planned in apprehension of the project's success.

In light of the project's failure, the Earth King decreed the laboratory compound shall be shut down and annihilated, its last specimen executed, and all of its data eradicated. There will be no further need of such data anyway.

It is very likely that this shall be my last log entry for Project Avatar, as my participation in the selective annihilation of fifty human lives is not something I wish to remember.

-Professor Gyatso, Head Scientist of Project Avatar

*****************

Wednesday, September 26th, 3019

Underground Laboratory, Omashu, Earth Kingdom

5:46 PM

Professor Gyatso sighed as he twisted his chair around from the computer resting on his office table and rose to his feet.

He glanced at the clock, 15:35, and nodded solemnly—it was time.

Professor Gyatso left his office, taking with him a small plastic bag that contained a small syringe.

His fellow scientists were already lined up in front of the sole remaining test tube, their expressions a bewildering amalgamation of hopeless sorrow, heart-breaking grief, and utter confusion.

He stood before them for a brief while, gazing each and every one of them in the eye—saying nothing, but his broken, sorrowful gaze stirred in them more heartbreaking emotions than any words from the human tongue could profess. Many of them could hardly bear to meet his eyes for more than a second before looking away, but the truly remorseful ones—the ones who knew the consequences of what they had done, and of what they had tried to do—met his gaze firmly, even as shameful tears dripped down their cheeks as they bared themselves openly to the full extent of his silent admonishment.

Gyatso turned then, clicking the button to drain the luminescent green plasma of the sole test tube in the room. As the liquid slid away, the entire congregation of scientists saw, many of them for their first time, the fragile youth of their final specimen—nothing more than a tiny child somewhere between the ages of eight and nine.

A child they had forced into enduring countless numbers of brutal wars and massive conflicts.

A child they had stripped away his original family from, brutalized his childhood, and then destroyed the last vestiges of his new family.

The child was of an Asian descent and his frame thin and slender, his arms and legs like gentle twigs that one could expect to be broken with the slightest touch. His head shaved entirely bald, and his limbs and his forehead were tattooed with a series of streamlined arrows, the ones on his arms pointing outward from his fists and the large arrow on his forehead pointing down.

For all the tender, earthly weakness the body of the child, the strength imbued within the host of Avatar was belied by the brilliant, haunting light that poured out from his eyes and his tattoos. Despite the blazing light, however, the child was utterly unresponsive to any stimulus and was out without a single synapse within his cerebrum.

Gyatso gently pushed the syringe into the Avatar's arm, and slowly pressed down on the dispenser until the syringe was empty.

And they all watched as the light from the tattoos began to flicker and fade, the once brilliant light slowly disappearing from his body.

*****************

"Move!"

A tall, muscular man dressed in dark green robes emblazoned with the crest of the Earth Kingdom and a large green Li that rested upon his head, obscuring his eyes, prodded the line of scientists forward.

The scientists shuffled forward, exiting the labyrinth of cold steel that constituted the laboratory as they were herded on by a crowd of similarly dressed agents. The agents followed in the wake of scientists, their expressions utterly apathetic to the nervous glances the scientists kept shooting at the government agents.

They marched on at a casual pace, even as the ground beneath them trembled and quaked, even as the walls of the laboratory began to crumble behind them—the metal plates twisting, screaming, and buckling under the immense weight of stone pressing down upon the metal structure.

With the terrible screech, the laboratory behind them suddenly imploded, clouds of dust spewing out into the air as the structure crumbled beneath the might of an elite team of earthbenders trained toward specialized demolitions.

The scientists, now cold and shivering in the frigid temperatures of the Earth Kingdom's midnights, could only watch as their second home, the place where their hopes and dreams had taken form, was reduced to nothing more than broken rubble and piles of twisted metal as a group of robed agents thrust their arms down as if shutting the lid of a treasure chest.

"Line them up against the wall", one of the agents ordered, clearly the leader despite being a visual duplicate of his fellow agents.

In a flash, the agents who had been herding them out of the laboratory thrust their arms at the scientists, and each and every scientist found himself shacked to a cement wall by stone gauntlets.

Alarm and fear beset the incarcerated scientists, and they began to scream and struggle against their bonds—to no avail,

"What is the meaning of this?!"

"WAIT! I did nothing!"

"NO!"

Only Gyatso remained silent and docile against his bonds, his head bowed in shame.

'I'm so sorry, Avatar…'

In unison, the agents lined up across from every shackled scientist and reached into their robes, withdrawing a black assault rifle.

The leader nodded.

"You are approved to open fire."

He said, his calm, placid voice was unmistakable and uninterrupted even amidst the sudden screams and yells of terror that had erupted amongst the scientists.

A brief series of flashing lights illuminated the concrete jungle around them and the air was filled with the sound of rushing gunfire.

*****************

Friday, May 24th, 3021

Bei Fong Residence, Gaoling, Earth Kingdom

1:05 PM

Radiant light was pouring in from a cloudless sky on a bright sunny day, illuminating the masonry of a large mansion and its gardens that rested in its own alcove in the town of Gaoling. The gardens were a fine example of nature tamed by human hands, its labyrinthine paths arranged into orderly rows and pathways—all a rich emerald green that speckled in the bright sunlight. Small piles of smooth rocks lay scattered in an aesthetically pleasing manner around the ground as a sort of counterbalance.

A fragrant wind blew across the gardens and a gentle purple flower swayed in the calm, summer breeze. Tiny ripples, like miniscule waves of an ocean, formed upon the garden pond's surface, refracting the Sun's heady glare into a hundred shards of shimmering light cast upon the water.

However, for all the beauty of the garden, in its well manicured and pristine feel, the stunning aspects of nature were completely lost on its only observer.

The lone observer seated on the porch of an extensive mansion overlooking the family garden tilted her head curiously, allowing a sheet of inky black hair to fall between her eyes. It was a girl, a thin but wiry child with smooth, pale skin framed by a curtain of sleek, inky bangs that floated over her unfocused green eyes—obscuring their clouded depths. She was clothed in a thin, green dress with a pale lime-green yukata wrapped gently around her—a color combination that supposedly complimented her murky green eyes.

Her blind murky green eyes.

So what if the dumb outfit complimented her eyes? Not like she could tell, anyway.

Toph Bei Fong's pale, almost porcelain, features twisted into a scowl as she tugged uncomfortably at the silky fabric of the yukata—she felt entirely out of place being dressed up like some sort of a doll when she wanted nothing more than to run outside and be a normal child, to get filthy by playing in the dirt with friends or stain her clothes by running with others in the grass.

But no, she had to stay at home, hidden and isolated from the rest of the world, just because her parents had stubbornly decided that being blind meant being absolutely helpless.

Damn it.

She wanted to go, to leave this gilded cage of deceitful luxury and escape into a world where she could live however she wished—and be whomever she wanted to be, not who others wanted her to be.

Allowing an exasperated sigh to escape from her lips, Toph morosely kicked at the dirt, and fell into silence when the gentle vibrations moved through the still earth—like the clear ringing of a silver bell in a silent room—and illuminated the darkness of her world with distant shapes and figures.

She cocked her head again, planting both feet into the grassy dirt as she listened to the gentle voice of the earth speaking to her.

'Come. Let us walk the Path together.'

A tug. She felt a tug, as if an enormous insubstantial hand had just cradled her tiny body in its palm and gently pulled at her.

Toph glided to her feet, her ascension full of boneless grace like a puppet drawn up by its strings.

Tug.

It felt like her soul was being tugged forward, and her body was just being pulled in its wake—like a horse dragging a carriage.

She blinked. A sudden, desperate need to escape rushed through her veins, scattering all other thoughts in its wake and leaving nothing else in her mind,

She needed to get out…

Toph felt three heavy sets of footsteps rotating around the garden, pounding away at the ground much harder than any animal that lived in the garden.

Guards, she judged, from their organized and purposeful patrol routes around the gardens. Her parents had hired guards to patrol the perimeter of their home, not only to keep out intruders but also to keep Toph from leaving the house without permission—which she was never given, ever.

She watched their rotations, silently observing as they followed through the same patrol routes over and over again.

Toph frowned; the rotation of the guards was designed so that almost every single part of the garden was being watched by at least one guard at any given time. It would be extremely difficult to get through the gardens unnoticed, unless…

She smirked, a devious plan drawing itself in her mind.

Toph twisted her right foot, focusing on the spot of dirt just ahead of an approaching guard

There!

A small ledge of earth popped out of the ground, snagging the boot of the passing guard and sending him tumbling onto the ground. The guard swore angrily as he got back onto his feet and, as if just realizing his rather unprofessional outburst, gave an embarrassed cough before continuing on his patrol without a second thought.

The systematic efficiency of the guard rotation had been broken, as the other two guards had continued on their patrol without realizing the slight delay in the third guard's patrol. Now, there was a tiny blind spot between the second guard and the third, where she would be able to slip in and out of the gardens without being caught.

Toph grinned, a thrill of elation pumping through her as she realized that she had had enough of her 'home'—this may be the last time she saw this prison.

'It's about time I ditched this place'

She slipped back into the house, 'About time I ditched this outfit too'

*****************

AN: A "Li" is a large conical hat, much like that of the Chinese bamboo hat.

Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar. This doesn't get me money.