Jump for a Second Chance at Life (Jumpchain: Start with Last Airbender X Original Universe)

[Jade Isentry]

Welcome everyone to my first jump chain, if not my first time doing creative writing. There are still some fairly big gaps in the plan for this story, but if I don't start posting it, I never will. Hopefully, I can fill things in as I go. There is a lot of fun stuff planned between the gaps. Hope you enjoy 😁


Episode -2 (Pre-Jump): What Jump Chan Wants, Jump Chan Gets (Sort of)

This is the story of someone I brought to life--or at least someone who's life my imagination guided profoundly. Things didn't start with me though; they started--as many jumper adventures do--with Jump Chan.

I had gone to bed after a fairly rough day. My spinal problems had been driving me up the wall with back pain, and low blood pressure had left me horribly exhausted after the simplest of doctor visits. The day wasn't even over, and I had gotten home too exhausted to do more than grab a fistfull of pain meds and crash into my over-used mattress.

Eventually, the meds started working enough for me to lose consciousness, and I think I had barely drifted off before I started to dream. This dream was different though. It was... real. I know everyone says that about a dream they had at some time or another. "It was so REAL!" they say. But seriously, this dream was definitely real, as events soon confirmed.

In my dream, I saw God, or at least I knew it was him despite the way he was hiding his glory to look almost human. His wrists had scars on them, and he was seated in a comfy looking office chair behind a royally rich yet unimposing desk.

God seemed to be waiting for someone, and she entered shortly.

"Hello Jump Chan," God said with a friendly smile. "What troubles you?"

Jump Chan, as I now identified her, was in the very cutest feminine form I had ever seen. It was the sort that would make you want to give her anything she asked, and she was pouting. I suddenly laughed at her antics, realizing that she was trying to manipulate God!

"Oh c'mon," she chided, "you already know what troubles me."

"And?" God said, making it clear that he wanted her to say it anyway.

She sighed and flopped down into the waiting chair in front of God's desk. It magically resized itself to accommodate her small stature.

"I went to Earth--you know, the one you made that's been spawning a ton of my favorite realities--because I'd figured out the perfect person to use as my next jumper, and I couldn't get him! You have him anchored in his reality so tightly that I might as well be an ant trying to lift Mt. Rushmore! I need him! Pleeeease let me have him?"

"I can't Jump-Chan," God said, not unkindly. "I still have plans for him in this life that a Jump Chain would ruin. I won't deny him the Joy I have for him in the end."

Jump Chan looked utterly crushed, like a child that had just been told that Christmas, Easter, their birthday, and summer vacation had all been cancelled.

God chuckled. "Oh you silly girl. I would expect this from most humans, but you should know by now that I'm not out to ruin your fun. I know how to give good gifts to my people. Consider this, you're asking me for a jumper, but did you think of asking him for one?"

Jump Chan gasped, sitting up eagerly, with mouth agape and eyes flickering back and forth in thought, as she suddenly realized what God was suggesting.

"Just remember the rules," God said in a tone of stern reminder. "That World is Human dominion, as I decreed in the beginning. No doing anything there without their permission. And I'll also warn you, the person he lets you use is his, just as he is mine. Give that person the respect and benefit he demands of you."

"Yeah... sure..." Jump-Chan said absently, looking completely spaced out as she made her way to the door. She opened, exited, and closed it, and my dream faded as she did.

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"YO! Sleepyhead!"

I woke up with a start and a snort, looking toward the voice to see the girl from my dream standing over me next to my bed.

"Er... Jump... Chan?" I asked tentatively, still not sure I was actually seeing what I thought I was.

"The one and only," she confirmed. "You seem to be expecting me. Did the big guy tell you I was coming?"

"He um, kind of showed me a vision of that whole meeting thing you had with him I think."

"Pfff. He would do that. Anyhow, I guess you know what I'm here for then, right?"

"I think so," I said after a brief pause for thought. "But I'm confused about something. If you wanted me originally, that means you wanted a real person, not just some fictional character. Are you expecting me to just say 'Let there be thus-and-such a character!' and bring them to life for you? How are you expecting this to work?"

"Haha! Funny. Well sort of, yeah. I know you can't access your imagination like that on your own, but with my help…" she grinned mischievously as she reached out and rapped my forehead lightly with the back of her knuckles.

And my world exploded in front of me.

An entire cosmos unfolded in front of my eyes, and I was omnisciently aware of every last speck of it. I could sense it all within my mind, and my eyes roamed to and fro, zooming in on any part I wished to see.

I knew what it was at once. I had invented it myself after all. It was my personal imaginary universe, Tiranthia. Some of it I had consciously invented and guided through its history. Yet far more had apparently been made by my subconsciousness filling in the blanks and letting it run its own course. Now my conscious mind was accessing and observing the entirety of this infinite space, inside my head.

"See?" I heard Jump Chan exclaim next to me, "None of a person's thoughts are 'just imagination'. Whenever you imagine something, you create or expand a reality where it's true. Scary thought huh?" she grinned. My eyes refocused on the room around me as I turned to see her face.

"Exciting to see all of what you're mind has been doing since you started that reality in middle school, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yeah," I gasped.

"So, do you know what a Jump Chain is?" she asked, getting right down to business.

"Yeah, I've read a few jumps and chains online," I confirmed. "I suppose you want me to pick a character for you to put through a jump from this reality I've made?"

"Mmhmm?" she said expectantly, looking at me with big puppy eyes.

I chuckled good naturedly at her attempts to manipulate me, like she had been trying with God. Wordlessly, I created a space inside my reality separate from the rest, for her to meet my chosen adventurer in.

She eagerly stepped out of my room and into the reality inside my head. She existed there as something I had not created. I was not omnipotent over her like I was over the rest of my reality. There she sat, waiting for me to bring her the chosen one.

"One condition," I specified, my voice echoing through the room I had made for her, like that of an invisible god from on high, "I have the power to make alterations to jumps that my chosen person might enter, or warehouse rules, upgrades, and expansions they might employ."

I quickly continued as she started to frown. "Don't worry though. I'm not reserving that right for the sake of helping the jumper cheat. I'm only doing this to make sure the jump stays interesting and compatible with the person I have in mind."

Her frown dissolved back into her eager grin, and she wiggled and bounced where she sat, like a kid being handed a christmas present. "OoooOOoo, okokok! Just hurry up and bring me somebody good for it--someone like you!"

'Well, not quite like me…' I smirked in thought, as I responded by letting her see through my eyes while I zoomed in on a specific time period, on a specific earth-like planet, far out in the ocean, many days sail off the coast of a great continent, where a beautiful merchant ship cut eastward through the waves, trying desperately to outrun the pirate ship closing in on her stern…


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Author's Post-Notes: The next part is where the action starts. It is already written, and you'll get to meet our protagonist, Kaiadrii. I'll post it in a short-ish time, maybe, based on the feedback I get.

 

[Jade Isentry]

So, I decided to post the next part sooner than I will typically do updates since this part has the real narrative hook. There's no point in using only the first part to see if this fic can gain a reader-base. So please enjoy. If you like it, please leave some feedback, as it will let me know that there are people actually reading this.
Without further ado:

Episode -1 (Pre Jump): Kaiadrii Dies (Sort of)

Kaiadrii was so engrossed in her artistry that it took her a moment to realize someone was knocking on the door of the ship's guest cabin. It took yet another second to become aware of what that meant and tear her mind back into the present.

'Oh!' she realized. 'Someone needs my attention for something!'

"Miss Erenzin?" she heard the voice of the ship's first mate call out. "Thy presence is nee--"

"--Yes, coming Sir," she interrupted him, without even realizing her discourteous error. Her thoughts were already running away, planning her next actions as she began stowing her chalk. "Come in please, I'll be ready shortly." She called as an afterthought, "I assume I'm needed above deck?"

"Yes," the mate verified as he came in. "It's a dire matter, but please don't be afraid. This entire crew will defend thee with our lives."

Kaiadrii grinned, her thoughts running away with her again. His words sounded adventurous, something she was denied at home under the watchful eyes of her parents. They were insistent on raising her to be ladylike. She wasn't against them in this. Like any girl or young millen (millen=female terian) of her time, she dreamed of marrying a fine gentlegalen (galen=male terian) and keeping a wonderful house and family. Being like a lady of noble birth was part of that. Still, she wished for excitement, and her imagination constantly involved a husband with an adventurous lifestyle and a penchant for bringing his beloved wife along.

Back in reality, the first mate frowned, puzzled by her happy expression after being told they were in the highest of imminent danger. She ignored him, putting her chalk kit safely in her trunk. As far as she knew, chalk, as fine art on canvas rather than just for temporary markings on slate was an art form she had completely invented herself. As such, properly colored chalk was hard to come by, and she valued her kit highly. Much of it she had gone so far as to make herself, including many of the colors and the interior of the wooden case with its sewn holsters.

"Wow, It's gorgeous!" the first mate gasped, suddenly distracted by her canvas as she picked it up to tie it somewhere secure. "But, thou really shouldn't have used chalk. It won't last."

Kaiadrii rolled her eyes. It always puzzled her how people around her never saw things for any and all uses they were capable of. They were always so caught up in doing things the "right" way, rather than however worked best.

"Painting equipment isn't portable," she explained for the bajillionth time since she had started using chalk. "Too much set up, and tear down, and clean up. Besides, I'll varnish this when it's finished."

She stood up from tying her canvas in place, then yawned and stretched her wings backward in a 'V' shape, arching her back and stretching her arms overhead. "Alright. Let's go."

As they headed above deck, she noticed that the crew was rushing about shouting with worried looks on their faces. The arbalest ports were open, and all sorts of other preparations were transforming the deck into a completely different place from what she had grown used to over the past couple months.

As the first mate began climbing the ladder above deck, Kaiadrii skipped ahead of him by levitating with her force-wing into the open air of the top deck. That invisible force making body part on her back was a wonderful advantage to have over the other races.

The force "wing" of the terian species was located between the four normal wings on their back. It created a bulge between the shoulders and lower back but was flat enough to lie on. The mages of the time said that this organ used the same force that pulled things to the ground to let terians maneuver and accelerate in the magical ways that they did. Kaiadrii smirked as the mate finished climbing, wondering for the umptillionth time why terians were the world's only sapient bipedal species gifted with flight, let alone a force wing.

The captain was busy shouting orders as they approached, but sent away the officer he was instructing when he saw them.

"Miss Erenzin, thank thee for coming," he said, doffing his tri-cornered hat politely.

"Of course," she responded. "Thou say there's trouble. Are we under attack?"

"We will be once they catch up with us, and they're closing fast," he confirmed grimly, pointing astern at a distant ship. He handed her his spyglass so she could take a closer look. She did, and sure enough, difficult to see though it was with the wind blowing toward them, a black pirate standard was fluttering from the forward masthead.

"Why is it black?" Kaiadrii asked, puzzled. "I thought pirate flags had red backgrounds."

"Most pirates start with a black flag to say that they'll only spill blood if their victims resist," the captain explained, "the implication being that they will leave us unharmed and supplied if we lay down arms and let them take what they want. They only fly a red flag when they're past mercy. There's no point in surrendering if the flag is red, because that means they intend to bring death regardless."

"We're fortunate that thy father had this ship built with defense and combat in mind, since surrender isn't an option for…" he trailed off suddenly.

"Why isn't surrender an option?" Kaiadrii pressed, asking the exact question he was afraid she would.

He didn't answer.

"Is it because I'm aboard?" she asked, a gleam of understanding suddenly showing in her eyes.

"Aye, it is," he sighed.

It was true. Even if surrender would save the crew, it would not save her. She was a female. The honorless pirates would see her as a prize to be taken and abused, just like any of the rest of the ship's cargo. They would kidnap her, and she would face a fate worse than death. Her only option was to fight and win, and that was now the only option for the crew as well--unless they did the despicable thing and let her be taken to save themselves.

She gulped, feeling a small stab of guilt. Female or not, she was just one person. Was it really right to demand that an entire crew risk their lives for one? The situation was a bit grim for her as she considered it. Perhaps adventure wasn't as grand or desirable as she had thought.

"Please," she suddenly blurted at the captain, "give me a weapon, just in case worst comes to worst."

The captain looked at her like she had just grown a fifth wing. "No."

"No?"

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"I know the're available. Please."

"A weapon takes training to be of any use. At worst thou would be more of a danger to thyself and comrades than to foes," he remonstrated.

"But it would give me some peace of mind," she reasoned. "It's not like I'm some child at play who would go waving it about like a toy."

The captain stood in thought for a couple of long moments before finally sighing. "Noran," he called to a crewman, "bring me a hand-and-a-half rapier from the smithy."

"Aye captain!"

The captain turned back to Kaiadrii as the crewman rushed off. "Now remember, I do not expect thee to be of any use whatsoever should there be an actual fighting situation. In fact, I doubt fighting will even get to thee, as thou will be below deck in thy cabin."

"Actually," she said hesitantly, "I would prefer to be up here than down there where I have…"

"NO!" the captain remonstrated.

She gulped, taken aback by his sudden outburst, but then continued, refusing to be interrupted. "...have no idea how things are going, or what fate awaits me. I'm not asking due to some foolish desire for battle or any such."

"Absolutely not," the captain repeated, no less adamantly. "This deck will be exposed to arrow fire, and even if I could justify placing thee anywhere but behind the last possible combat line, thy parents would have my head for it."

Kaiadrii fell wisely silent.

The crewman soon returned with the requested blade. It was exactly what the captain had named it as--a thin weapon, less than double the length of a hand from wrist to fingertips. It was more of a dagger really, but with a full handguard.

"Now remember," the captain admonished as he handed her the sword, "what I teach thee now is not instruction in how to fight. I am only teaching thee basic safety that noone should ever be handed a sword without knowing. I do not expect thee to be able to fight any better with thy new blade than without it, but at least I can keep thee from being more of a danger to us than them."

"Yes Captain," she acknowledged obediently, taking his wise words to heart.

"I've chosen this sword for thee for the simple reason that a weapon of full length or width could not be wielded well by a terian due to its weight," the captain explained.

Kaiadrii nodded. The small piece of metal had felt hefty to her as she strapped it on. It always amazed her how the stronger races, even their less strong members, always swung and tossed tools of metal about as if they were mere sticks.

"Now remember," the captain instructed, "always draw in a direction away from thy friends, no matter how far in front of thee they would be. Thou would not want an accident if thou misjudged the distance, or lost thy grip and flung the blade."

He demonstrated, and she copied him, drawing swiftly toward the open sea, and settling into a stance that felt firm, but was still sideways with her wings held close to hide behind her sword. She kept it pointed at an imaginary pirate in front of her.

The captain smiled approvingly. "It's a shame we don't have more time. Thou would make an excellent pupil."

He went on to do his best in getting her started in the habit of staying aware of who was beside and behind her at all times. "If a time actually does come when thou simply must fight," he concluded, "only fight with thrusts for the time being, not with slashes, as slashes have a greater potential for hitting things thou don't intend to, like thine own wings."

"How much chance do we have of winning this battle?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Well," the captain frowned, "like I said before, we are fortunate thy father had this ship built with defense and combat in mind, but, on the other hand," he pointed up, "that doesn't bode well."

She looked up, and immediately grew concerned. High above them, a terian with pure black wings circled. Everyone knew that black wings were witches, bringing trouble and misfortune with them more easily than anyone else might carry and use a knife.

A few crewmen were attempting to shoot the witch down with crossbows, but she flew too high for them to aim accurately, and she easily rolled out of the way of any would-be lucky shots.

Kaiadrii grew silent. There was nothing left to say or do... except worry... and think... and pace back and forth along the gunwale. So that was what she did until the pirate ship began to draw close, and the captain sent her below.

Kaiadrii couldn't bear to trap herself in her cabin though, cut off from any true knowledge of what was going on. So she stayed out of it on the lower deck, watching the crew. All the battle preparations were complete, and they stood at their positions awaiting orders. They all looked as nervous as she felt.

This was the calm before the storm, as everyone waited for the lightning to strike, hoping against hope that it wouldn't hit too hard. The tension in the air was so thick that she felt like her sword could have cut it. Then, just when she thought it couldn't get tighter, it did.

The form of the pirate ship came into view through the ballista ports on their port side. All the rest of the world seemed to freeze in time as it pulled slowly up until it was almost level with them. And then the tension snapped.

"LOOAAD BALISTAAAE!" came the captain's shouted order from above deck.

"Load ballistae!" the first mate echoed on Kaiadrii's deck.

"Load Ballistae!" came the muffled order of the officer on the third deck just below them.

The loaders scrambled, grabbing red hot tipped bolts from the braziers along the deck and notching them into place on the giant crossbows.

"Now with everything you got comrades! LAUNCH AT WILL!"

"Launch at will!"

"Launch at will!"

And all hell broke loose. The ballistae let loose all along the deck with huge 'SNAP!'s, and almost an instant after they did, the pirate's own volley crashed in through the side of the ship. The pirates hadn't fired heated shot though. What smashed in through the woodwork was barbed grappelling shafts, which quickly pulled tight against the ship's interior with loud 'SMACK's wherever they had penetrated.

The ship lurched as the two vessels were yanked toward each other, causing some of the crew to lose their balance before scrambling back to their feet. Kaiadrii just hovered for an instant with her force wing.

Some of the crew began scrambling to winch and reload the ballistae, while others began trying futilely to hack or pry the grapnels loose.

Kaiadrii's frantic need to know what was happening above deck finally got the better of her. With a flap of her main wings and a touch of force-wing motion, she flashed to the top of the ladder and lifted the hatch by just a crack. Peering out, she saw arrows and crossbow bolts stuck into the deck all over. The crew were dashing about, trying to stay behind wooden shield barriers while returning arrow, crossbow, and ballistae fire.

The captain shouted orders and urged them to be brave and keep giving it everything they had and more, much like the first mate was doing on the second deck. Above deck though, men and ereden had been hit and were lying dead or crying out in pain. In some places, they were reduced to bloody messes where they had fallen from the rigging or crow's nests.

Then Kaiadrii looked at the rigging of the pirate ship. It was coming closer at an alarming rate. Closer… closer…

"Prepare for enemy boarding and brace for impact!" came the captain's shout. There was the swish of men and ereden unsheathing their swords.

Closer, closer, 3, 2, 1, CRASH! The ships collided with a thunderous, splintering lurch that knocked almost everyone off their feet and made Kaiadrii smack her face against the decking boards she was peering over. She was nearly torn off the ladder.

A moment later, huge wide planks with metal claws on the bottom came tipping toward them from the pirate ship and crashed into the deck, where the claws stuck. With a massive war cry, the pirates came charging and swinging across.

With a thunderous warcry of their own, the ship's crew rose to meet them, but in short order it became very clear which crew was more experienced in war. Kaiadrii held her hand to her mouth in consternation as she watched crewmen being stabbed and slashed into mutilated bloody corpses all up and down the deck.

It was then that she realized she needed to get behind her next line of defense. She dropped down from the ladder, letting the hatch fall shut, and retreated to the door of her cabin. There she stood, gripping the edge of the door and wincing as the shouts and cries of death continued to come from above deck. Adventure was definitely not turning out to be a good thing.

The noise from above soon faded though. The crew below stood grimly silent, waiting for the next hammer blow. Many had their hands on their swords already. Then the hatch was cracked open, and a voice shouted down through it.

"Hi there, yuh second deck trapped rats! We're feelin' merciful. Surrender now, and we'll spare yuh--unless of course, yuh think you can give us a whoppin' bigger challenge than yer buddies up top did. Whudduyuh say?"

The crew began looking back and forth--many of them at Kaiadrii. No one wanted to betray the millen and give her up without a fight--or at least they didn't want to face a hanging for doing so when they got home--but if they were going to get killed and fail her anyway, the thought of avoiding spilled guts and dismembered limbs was feeling more and more attractive. Yet still, silence reigned. No one was willing to be the first to cross that line.

Kaiadrii herself stood and sweated with tension, her heart twisting with her own internal conflict. She realized the position of the crew. She also realized that she could save them by giving herself up, and that her predicament wouldn't really improve if she didn't. Yet her fear still held her down, refusing to let her open her mouth, and she felt despicable for it.

Then suddenly, the gentlemanly first mate broke the silence.

"Do you fools really think you've robbed our ship because you took out those lubbers on the top deck? They put all us veterans down here to man the artillery deck! You'd best leave now if you don't want to be hung by your own entrails!"

Some guffawing came down the hatch, calling the first mate's bluff.

"All right then rats. Time to exterminate!"

The hatch was flung open, and a pirate in a billowing red cloak came leaping down through the opening with a red and black sword raised over his head. The first mate raised his own weapon to block the blow, and somehow, that strange sword of red and black metal sheared clean through. Through the boards of the upper deck, through the mate's upraised blade, and through the first mate himself, it went through them all like they weren't even there.

The pirate then swung around himself with an expression of vicious glee, clearing an area into which more pirates came leaping down through the hatch. From there, the scene of the top deck repeated itself. Some of the ship's crew tried to surrender. Some were shown mercy, some weren't, but all who resisted were cut down to the last man or ereden.

Weeping tears of panic and terror, Kaiadrii closed her door. Her eyes frantically flitted about the room for something to barricade the door with. The table was too heavy for her to move… THE CHAIR! She Grabbed it and did her best to jamb it under the door handle, kicking it into place with all her might.

Before she had hardly even started with the chair, her mind was already ripping furiously through every possibility for everything in the room at her disposal. Nothing was presenting itself as useful, much to her agonized frustration. Standing at the back of the room, she faced the door and unsheathed her sword. She didn't have long to wait before someone tried to open it. Finding it jammed, they tried more forceful methods. There was a crash as the door was rammed from the outside, then again, and again, and with one final smash the latch broke, and the chair was sent hurtling into the corner. A brigand with a cutlass came stumbling into the room as the door gave way, with two others right behind him.

"HA! Look at this boys!" he exclaimed, recovering his feet, "I just KNEW there must be something good behind this door. A millen!"

The next moment though caused all three of them to take a step back at Kaiadrii's venomous snarl. The blaze in her eyes was the vicious inferno of a cornered beast. It was the sort of focused insanity that would furiously shred anything foolish enough to get within its reach, and it had a sword. They recovered in a moment though and grinned at each other. They were veterans, and they knew a rookie when they saw one.

They pounced. She stabbed. They deftly turned her weapon aside and then had her face down on the floor the next second. She struggled and thrashed furiously with all 8 of her extremities, yanking this way and that with her force wing. She even managed to jerk them a foot or two in various directions across the floor, but more of them came in, attracted by the whoops and shouts of their comrades. Each of them sat on another part of her, crushing her painfully--her arms, legs, back, each wing--until she was hopelessly supressed and lay there whimpering.

"Wow!" one of them exclaimed, "A real ladygirl besides Crow! This ship IS a dragonload!"

"First dibs!" another proclaimed, "hold 'er down for me fellows!"

Kaiadrii began struggling anew in panic, but couldn't even be sure her muscles were getting the message from her brain, they had her so immobilized.

"OH NO YOU DON'T!" The room fell silent and still at the sudden thundering command from the doorway. It was the voice that had first called down to the "rats" on the second deck. Turning her head to the side, Kaiadrii saw the pirate in the red cloak who had cut down her good hearted first mate. He wore a blue bandana, a thick blue vest, and black trousers.

"You jackdaws know the rules about lootin'. What's makin' yuh think I won't cut yuh in half for tryin' to indulge before everything's safely stowed, or for tryin' tuh snitch for yourselves without puttin' it all intuh the stash tuh be split up fair 'n square huh?"

The others cringed or showed other signs of discomfort, having been caught red-handed.

"Pinion her wings and stick her up on deck, separate from the other prisoners," the pirate leader ordered, "and make sure you always have enough of you holding her chains that she can't use that blasted force wing tuh drag yuh into the sea, and fasten her chains very securely tuh the deck!"

"Yes, Captain!" They shouted in unison and scrambled to comply.

Kaiadrii soon found herself chained down to the top deck of the pirate's ship in the manner the captain had ordered, like a prize animal. On the other side of the deck, the few other survivors from her ship were cuffed to the gunwale. Some of them threw pitying glances to where she lay splayed out on her face by her arms and legs.

Raising her head, she saw her own chalk kit and canvas being carried away by a couple of thugs.

"Hey!" she cried out, bitter tears springing to her eyes, "What are thou doing with that?!"

The thief laughed, holding it up, "Art like this? Should fetch a nice bounty in the right market, babe."

"But…" she cried softly to herself as he carried it away, "it was for my cousin in Andurell… It was for my cousin..."

The other prisoners were eventually taken below deck. Kaiadrii was left though as evening dragged on. The upper deck became less and less active until it was dark out, and the pirates could be heard carousing down in the mess hall in celebration of their victory. Kaiadrii grew numb. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. Everything around her happened without her even noticing. She didn't notice the lone female voice approaching each of the remaining pirates on the deck, and telling them to go enjoy themselves below deck while she took watch.

'Clink.' Something moved the chain holding Kaiadrii's wrist. She looked up and gasped in consternation, a shot of adrenaline bringing the world into vivid focus. This did matter. The black wing stood above her, frowning. A set of keys dangled from the witch's finger.

"Well," she said tensely, "here goes nothing."

Kneeling down, she began unlocking Kaiadrii's wrists. Kaiadrii sat up as the black wing moved to her ankles. "What…"

"I'm freeing thee. Well, kind of. I'm giving thee the best chance I can, which is basically nothing. It's better than thou will get staying here though."

"I…" Kaiadrii paused, confused and not knowing what to say. Then a feeling of anger, bordering on rage, gripped her and spread over her face, "if thou didn't want someone going through horrors here, then why did thou curse our ship and help raid us to begin with, thou witch!"

"Hey!" the black wing hissed, her expression briefly mirroring the angry hurt Kaiadrii herself felt, "what would thou do if the whole pit-blasted world told thee thou were a *&^%ing curse and hounded thee at every turn until thou were actually fortuned enough to find a group of pirates that actually gave thee a home?"

Kaiadrii fell silent. As angry as she was, she didn't really have an answer to that.

"Here," the black wing regained her composure, "see that star? That's the pole star. Keep it to thy right and fly in the same direction we're headed. Last time we took a nav-reading we were somewhere sort of near the great south-west continent. If by some miracle thou can fly and float far enough, that direction is thy best chance to reach land."

She pulled out a skin of water with a flight-carry harness and handed it to Kaiadrii, "I'd give thee thy sword back too, but thou are going to be glad for every last feather's-bit of weight thou leaves behind."

Kaiadrii swung the water skin over her back and tied it. "Well, thanks for… for nothing I guess. It's better than less than nothing."

"Thou had better just go quickly. I got everyone to go below deck to party so I could free thee. I told them I'd rather keep watch for them up here than be down in the middle of the stuffy man-party, but I don't know how long we'll actually be alone."

Kaiadrii nodded. There was nothing more to say. She raised her wings, crouched, and blasted off into the night with a flash of moonlit blue and green feathers.

One loose feather drifted down behind her as she faded into the distance. Crow caught the feather, holding it as she watched the young millen's silhouette getting smaller, then tucked it silently into a pocket and returned to the helm.

Kaiadrii flew. She flew, and flew, and flew. She had never been particularly athletic, but she paced herself, and pushed herself until she thought she couldn't go on. Then she gained her second wind, and pushed on again until long after her chest muscles screamed with every stroke, and even her tail wings were sore. At some point she exhausted even her third wind, but she dared not stop. The rhythm of her own wings was getting a few steps beyond monotonous, and was getting bleary, rather like the rest of her senses…

Sploosh! She woke with a jolt as she crashed headlong into a cold salty wave. An adult of her species only weighed thirty or forty pounds, so she floated like a cork, but it was still scary to have fallen asleep like that. She still could have drowned if she had wound up floating face down in the water. She pulled her wings in, rolled onto her back, let them drift out again, and lay there like she was dead. It was anything but restful though. The waves kept throwing her up and down, the wind threw spray into her face, and the sun soon came up. She had flown through the night.

Kaiadrii shook herself out of her stupor. She had to get airborne again. Terian wings would shed water for a while, but it would be hell to get them un-waterlogged if they soaked for too long. She took a sip of her waterskin, only to realize how idiotic she had been to go without water this long, and she guzzled it desperately.

Stowing it again, she took off, only to repeat her desperate endurance flight of the night before, and this time, when she crashed, she really couldn't go on. While still in the air, her wings finally failed her, flailing like ribbons as she plummeted toward the water, and she fell helplessly asleep soon after hitting it. When she awoke sometime later, it was too late. Her feathers were utterly saturated with saltwater, and her wing muscles were so sore that she couldn't even move them without screaming in pain.

As she pulled out her waterskin, she realized the predicament she had become trapped in. She couldn't fly, she had no means of drying out her wings to regain flight, she had no other means of significantly swift movement, and no land was anywhere in sight. Furthermore, the sun was hot, and her supply of fresh water was getting more and more limited by the hour. If she didn't lay face down and drown, she was going to die of thirst.Force wing flight would be like running non-stop. There was no way she could keep up the effort long enough for her wings to dry. Hours passed, but think as hard as she could, she still couldn't find a solution. Adventure absolutely sucked. Things couldn't possibly get worse.

Then they did.

She saw a dorsal fin gliding around her. Misery became terror. The fin dipped below the surface, and about eight seconds later she was treated to the all consuming agony of having her shins crushed in a pair of hungry jaws. They snapped onto her faster than she could even react. With a screech, she yanked upwards with her force wing, only to be dragged toward the depths a moment later. Her mouth flooded with water as she was pulled under, not even giving her a chance to suck in a breath. As the water dragged through her wings, and crushed in on her lungs, getting heavier as she was dragged deeper, she realized that this was the end.

"What a pointless way to go," she thought. Yes indeed, how foolish she had been to wish for adventure of all things. The light faded, both with the water's depth and her loss of awareness.

Then nothing.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"It's all you now Jump Chan. Take it away and give her a real adventure." A male voice.

*Insanely eager and gleeful giggling*
"Oooooooh yeheheheees… I will!" A female voice.

*Bright reddish tinted whiteness.*

*Something soft underneath*

Light…

Sound…

Feeling…

A sense of self...

AIR!!! Kaiadrii gasped it in, life returning to her limbs in a rush. Never had she been so grateful for such a simple thing.

Her eyes snapped open, and the reddish tint of her lids disappeared from the light's whiteness.

"Ahah! My specimen wakes!" the female voice exclaimed.

Kaiadrii would soon find out that she knew nothing about what adventure truly was.

 

[WeylandSmith]

Well, that's a jumpchain idea I haven't see before. Seems pretty interesting. So AtLA first?

 

[Jade Isentry]

Well, that's a jumpchain idea I haven't see before. Seems pretty interesting. So AtLA first?

Click to shrink...

Yes indeed. The next update is well underway, but I'm having a bit of trouble wrapping it up. I may need to go back to the drawing board on a few plot points. It's coming along well so far though.

 

[Jade Isentry]

Episode 00a (Jump Setup): A Child Touched by the Spirits (Sort of)

Noril lay gasping and gritting her teeth. Her husband Laeif stood beside her bed, maintaining a stoic and calm expression in the faint hope of doing anything he could to be strong for her. She was gripping his hand so hard that some small piece of the back of her mind wondered with dry humor how much pain she was causing him and how it compared to her own.

The midwife, Windy, was using water-healing techniques to help her along, and was assuring them in a confident voice that she hadn't seen a delivery go this well in some time. Noril couldn't help wondering though as another contraction made her curl in on herself and produce popping sounds in her husband's knuckles.

It wasn't long later, that Windy was holding a very healthy looking little girl, but there was a worried look on her face.

"What's wrong?" Laeif asked, seeing her expression.

Noril felt a rising panic. Was something wrong with her child?

"Ah, perhaps it's best for you to see--I mean feel--for yourself, Mr. Hunter."

Windy handed the newborn carefully to her father, who gasped as she was placed into his arms, his eyes growing wide.

Noril couldn't contain herself any longer. "What's wrong?" she demanded, a quaver of ill-contained panic coloring her tone, "What's the matter with my daughter? Let me hold her!"

Laeif turned slowly, schooling his features with an effort back into his calm and confident facade, and lowered the child gently into his wife's waiting arms. The look of astonishment on her face exceeded that of her husband's a moment before.

"What does it mean?" she demanded with a squeak, looking up at Windy.

Windy looked back at her with utter confusion. "I don't know. I've never experienced anything like it. She can't be more than a pound or two, yet she's as big, and apparently as healthy, as any birth I've seen. Normally, I would say that no child should be that light-weight, and still be alive, but this goes far beyond that into the realm of the ridiculous."

"And then there's these," Windy continued, reaching out, guiding Noril to lay the girl on her stomach, and unwrapping her to show the mother her back. There, running along the ridge of the baby's tiny shoulder blades, almost all the way down her back, were two distinct… ridges ...of some kind of tougher, yet still completely flexible flesh. Two more such ridges ran just inside of them from mid-back down to just above her bottom.

"So what do we do?" asked Laeif with a note of concern. "Is there anything we can do? Or even need to do?"

"I suppose all that we can do is take good care of her and keep an eye on her," Windy sighed.

And so they did.

On a whim, Mr. and Mrs. Hunter named their daughter Kaiadrii. They didn't know where the inspiration for inventing that name came from, but they both felt that it just plain fit somehow. As Kaiadrii grew up, she only became stranger… much stranger. So strange in fact, that it was just about impossible to believe, even though she was growing up right in front of everyone.

The ridges on the girl's back began growing out, and by the time she was learning to walk, they were already taking shape enough to reveal what they were--wings. Four of them. Honest to goodness wings with an adorably strokably soft down of blue and green baby feathers growing out of them. Kaiadrii's weight remained abnormally low, but with the discovery of her wings, the purpose of that oddity became laughably obvious. She also began growing a strange bulge in about the center of her back, the purpose of which only became clear later when she was old enough to talk and explain for herself what she was able to do with it. It allowed her to hover and move quickly through the air, somehow, without even moving her wings--like a form of self-bending, if there was such a thing.

There was absolutely no way to keep news of these happenings hidden, even if they had had any reason to, and the whole northern water tribe had soon turned the Hunter girl into a baby celebrity. All sorts of more or less absurd speculations and rumors went bouncing around about what she was, how she had got that way, and what it meant.

"She is a child touched by the spirits!" was the most common one, followed closely by, "She is a child of destiny!" or, "She is fated for great things!" The blame for where this great and mysterious destiny or fate came from was generally never addressed, or else passed off like so many similar things onto 'the spirits', without any real evidence to blame the creatures.

It took all of Kaiadrii's parent's effort to keep her from being spoiled by her popularity growing up. She might as well have been a princess of the village, born to the chief himself. On the plus side, her family's social standing in the tribe rose considerably as a result. Kaiadrii did also get to know and befriend the Chief's actual daughter, Princess Yue, when that girl insisted on meeting 'The Winged Girl' that she kept hearing the adults talk about.

While Kaiadrii loved the semi-royal treatment that she was frequently afforded as she grew up, it soon became apparent that she also loved following in her father's footsteps as a hunter in the icy wilderness abroad. So he and his other ranger friends taught her everything they knew, despite the occupation being traditionally for men. This earned them frowns from many village folk of both genders. Male and female roles were thoroughly ingrained in their traditions, and Mr. Hunter's choice of caving into his daughter's inappropriate whims felt wrong to them.

It started because of how utterly doomed any attempt was to keep the little bird girl at home once she began figuring out how to fly, or even within the village walls if she didn't want to be. Like any good father, Mr. Hunter wanted to raise his little girl into a respectable woman, and he tried to discourage her explorative behavior at first. It wasn't long though before he realized that such a parenting strategy was doomed to crash and burn, so he started taking her along with him when he left home.

Her father wasn't the only person she had to win over though. His ranger buddies came next. Most of the other hunters were at least as hung up on tradition as he had been. In the end, though, Kaiadrii's quirky and sometimes clueless personality made her too much fun to not bring along, and, one by one, they all caved. It also didn't hurt for them to realize the usefulness of having a flying girl along to scout out their quarry. One old hunter commented that it was almost like cheating.

The next group that needed to be convinced was the tribal elders and the tribe as a whole, and, while they grudgingly acknowledged that the decision was her father's, Kaiadrii often wound up being both beloved and looked down on by them, often at the same time by the same person. She became sort of an anti-celebrity in the eyes of many. She was a spirit-touched child to be sure, but also a problem child whose influence they didn't want in their homes.

However, the last straw came for the elders when she began to learn bending. No one was daring to break tradition and teach her; it just sort of… happened. It started when the hunters were amazed to catch her moving water about with her chi like it was second nature while she romped around in the snow with the children of the other hunter families. The adults were only slightly less astonished than if she had begun spouting trigonometric functions at them. Just like her wings, it went past amazing and into the absurd. No child--not even a prodigy--should ever be that developed in their waterbending potential by the mere age of five. As amazed as they were, however, they knew that this had to stop. It was bad enough that she was roughhousing with the boys, but adding waterbending into the mix was far too much like combat bending--a waterbending discipline that was very strictly male.

Laeif Hunter promptly scolded his daughter and forbade her, promising that she would be grounded for the next several hunting trips if she was ever caught bending the waters again while playing with her friends. She complied, but only after much badger-moleing her father with various forms of the question 'why'.

After consulting the elders, Mr. Hunter placed his daughter in the healing classes along with the other young girls who had bending potential. She was a little young to start, but it was generally hoped that getting her started early would give her an acceptable outlet and guide her down the proper path for a budding female bender. Mr. Hunter had his doubts that she would be satisfied though. He knew his daughter well, and his fears were soon justified. As much as Kaiadrii was enthralled by everything her teachers could show her about medicine, the human body, and the flow of chi, it was pitifully inadequate to satisfy her ravenous greedy lust to learn, test, and try all the things.

Soon she was making anything and everything out of ice with bending. If she could see it, a small-scale reproduction of it would soon show up somewhere. The more "manly" it was, the more obsessed Kaiadrii would become until she had thoroughly copied it in function as well as form. This wasn't so bad, except that she could never seem to stop at just making all the things--she also had to use them.

In response to this next development, Laeif introduced his little birdy to a couple of tribe sculptors and architects, and again, her inquisitive little mind devoured everything they would show her. Also again, it failed utterly to satisfy whatever itch was driving her.

When it came to anything bending related, she couldn't be described as anything less than genius. She rapidly put two and two together between what she learned from the healers and what she saw when the hunters taught her about cleaning and skinning game. She quickly began to find ways to apply most everything she learned in one discipline to the other. She truly overstepped her bounds though when she started using waterbending to help take down game while on a hunting trip one day.

"No one taught me," she insisted, wilting inward, and staring up with scared guilty eyes when the adult hunters harshly confronted her, demanding to know who had given her the technique. "I saw Hunter Tro doing it."

Once again they were floored. The girl had actually learned a combat bending technique just by watching.

This forced her father to bring the issue before the elders once again. In the end, after much arguing about how much could be allowed vs. how much it would even be possible to restrict her, a compromise was settled on. Kaiadrii was called before them, and together with Mr. Hunter, they forbade her from practicing any kind of combat or competitive bending, even against the animals she hunted. They threatened her with dire consequences if she did. They even forbade her from watching such things, knowing that her bright little mind would capture it all like a steel trap. Any other sort of utility or artistic bending, however, was left open to her.

Young Kaiadrii cried inconsolably all the way home as if someone had just killed her pet turtle-seal pup. Laeif hadn't thought that his daughter wanted to do active bending that badly, and her reaction puzzled him.

For some time afterward, Laeif and Noril saw their daughter become quite moody and morose. Her friends began to worry about her. It wasn't until quite sometime later though that the next clue came as to what was going on inside her head. Her attitude had begun to truly fester, and Mr. and Mrs. Hunter had even begun to accept this new Kaiadrii as the new normal,.

Mr. Hunter was walking past his daughter's room when he overheard her talking with her friend. Yue was over visiting, and the two of them were busy playing some complex board game that Kaiadrii had invented. Laeif wasn't normally one to eavesdrop, but something his little bird said caught his ear.

"Have you ever wanted to leave the Northern Water Tribe, Yue?" Kaiadrii asked, but then then corrected herself, "I mean, leave this place, not abandon the tribe."

"What? No!" Yue exclaimed, sounding surprised, though calm and patient as she ever did, "Why would I--no, why would you--ever want to do that?"

There was a long pause before Kaiadrii answered, so quietly that Laeif could barely hear her through the door. "For adventure. For real freedom. To be able to do what I really want."

"But… don't you get to do that on hunting trips with your father?" Yue queried, still sounding a bit surprised.

"Those are fun, and nice, but no. I guess, if this city is a cage, then those trips are a leash. They let me move just a little bit farther, but the're just little walks. Not really any kind of freedom."

The girls fell silent, and the sound of tiny ice-sculptured game pieces clicking on the table continued.

Mr. Hunter stood in distress, listening to see if they would say more. They didn't. The light and pretty chatting that he used to know his daughter for had become a rare thing.

What he had heard caused something to click in his mind. Rangering was the closest thing she could get, as a girl, to adventure and adventurous activity. Apparently, it had never been nearly enough. He remembered all the similar obsession with exploration and 'adventure' that the little free spirit had shown as a slightly younger child. She always loved the stories of the old battles against the fire nation. While her insistence on becoming a huntress had always made sense for a girl such as herself, it had never fallen into place in his head so completely as in that moment.

He moved on, knowing that he was going to have to talk to Noril about this. When he did, she was concerned, but as much at a loss about what to do as he was. So they let it be, hoping another clue would come up, and giving their daughter as much freedom and space as they could.

That turned out to be a mistake.

While 'giving her space' was good in theory, in practice, parental habit and instinct didn't make it easy, especially when tribal and cultural demands made it prohibitive. In the end, it only really translated into a lack of attention, and a child not taught the right way with love by someone, will find a way to teach themselves in an effort to find that love. It will usually be the wrong way, since they don't know any better. This, among other things, led to the next devolution in Kaiadrii's approach to life.

While it was nightmarishly hard to keep track of a winged child (without actually putting her on a physical leash), Mr. and Mrs. Hunter had always done the next best thing. They had raised their daughter with rigid schedules, protocols, and rules about always letting them know where she was going and always being back when she said she would be. As a result, Kaiadrii had grown up learning to be obedient--even to a fault, if such a thing was possible.

Thus it was that they became quite worried one day when Kaiadrii disappeared for most of an entire day without telling them where she was going. Well, she actually did tell them, but she lied. She had said that she was going to visit Yue, but when some unexpected business brought Mrs. Hunter to the palace, Yue said that her winged friend had never shown up.

Kaiadrii's parents went all about the city, asking after her with their friends, and searching all her usual haunts and perches. When the girl finally showed up at home, it was already well past the time she had said she would be back. Her father and mother met her in the entry room and confronted her as if she had just committed a murder.

At first she was contrite, cowing in fear before the onslaught of frantic scolding as if she were cornered by a couple of angry polar-bear-rabbits. However, when they started pressing her about where she had been, she went hard and silent, a defiant glint showing in her eyes. In the end, they sent her to her room and thoroughly grounded her (literally, no flying) until her father returned from his next hunting expedition.

After that, she didn't disappear like that again--or at least they didn't catch her at it outright--but the defiant and resentful attitude only got worse. Furthermore, her father started to notice small things about her reported schedule that didn't quite seem to add up, and every time he tried to confront her about it, she would only become more obstinate and estranged. When he talked to other parents and friends about what to do, they would always tell him something along the lines of 'What do you expect? She's going into her teenager phase. She'll get over it'.

So, as much as it worried him, he left it alone. That was also a mistake.


One fine day, a young man named Hahn was out fishing by the ice cliffs east of the city. He wasn't lazy by any means. It took practice and discipline to gain the rank and respect he had among the Northern Water Tribe's warriors, but that didn't mean he wasn't a spoiled and self entitled rich boy. His father was a tribal elder with a penchant for being over indulgent with his children. It also didn't mean that Hahn wouldn't take the chance to relax now and then, and so he was out for the afternoon, sitting back in his canoe, chewing some salted smoked halibut, and enjoying the sun.

He had gone fishing here enough that he was familiar with the major ice cave mouths in the faces of the cliffs, and what they looked like. He had even explored a few of them. So he was mildly surprised when he noticed a new one about halfway up the cliff.

A new cave mouth wasn't actually so unusual. The caves were changing all the time when ice or snow melted on top of the polar cap and flowed down through it, but they didn't generally get that big within the time since he had been here last. What was more, they certainly didn't happen in that shape. It looked downright man made. It had a flat bottom, sharp bottom corners, and an arched top and sides, and was cut cleanly into the face of the cliff like any well constructed arched doorway in a wall.

"Yeah," he thought, "definitely man-made." Curiosity piqued, he determined to come back later with some ice-spelunking gear to investigate.

A few days later, he was able to take another day off, and went to satisfy his curiosity. He approached from the top of the cliff, rappelling down from above. Upon reaching the opening, any doubt about whether or not it had been put there by a person were dispelled. The mouth was a perfectly formed door frame about 2 feet thick, inside of which was a perfectly square-cut hallway going back into the cliff face without even sloping up or down. There were no tool marks, so it had obviously been made with waterbending.

Lighting a lantern, he made his way in. As he went, he began to hear smashing and clashing noises, along with a female voice growling and panting with exertion. It echoed, and he soon found out why.

He came to the end of the hallway to find that it opened out high up in the wall of a massive room… cavern… thing. It was also man made--or actually woman made as he now guessed--being perfectly rectangular, but it was BIG! Big enough to make the echoes anyway. Various beams of ice ran from wall to wall in seemingly random places, and pillars of various heights jutted up here and there from the floor. It was an impressive construction. Even for a bender, it had to have taken at least a few days to carve out.

What really had his attention though was not the what, but the who. There, up on one of the beams, was a person that literally anyone in the tribe would recognise at a glance… the bird girl.

She was hacking away at a rather artistically sculpted training dummy with a series of flurrying slash moves that Hahn immediately recognized as basic waterbending slash attacks. She wasn't slashing with water though. She was slashing with ice. A short, thin, dagger-like blade of ice extended from each of her hands. Sharp edges and spikes of icy crystal coated the leading edges of her wings, and she was going all out against her inert foe, looking viciously gleeful as she did.

No sooner did she manage to pulverize the poor ice dude--which looked suspiciously like Master Pakku--than she drew water from a nearby cavity on the cave wall to form another two on either side of herself at medium ranges. One of these looked definitely like Hahn's father (he recognized the hair), while the other was some nondescript (though detailed) mook wearing a well crafted copy of the fire nation armor captured from 81 years ago.

She unleashed a whirlwind attack, spinning rapidly, a half a foot off the pillar beneath her, while using bending to hold her blades level with herself while spinning them around at a distance, chipping across the dummies rapidly and repeatedly with crushing bell-like rings.

'Crash-crash-crash-crash-crash-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-…!' There was no pause as she flowed happily into a dashing uppercut slash against his dad, followed by a leap backwards with her blades up in a reverse-held guard position that looked cool, but that Hahn knew better than to try and use in actual combat.

Hahn wasn't a bender himself, but he had trained against them plenty. He knew a rookie when he saw one. The girl looked like she was half improvising, and half copying what she had seen professionals do, but to his professional eye, the impressive part was how the things she copied, she copied perfectly, like she had been well taught by someone. That was impossible though. There was literally no one who would do something that… that… he didn't have a word for it. Repulsive? Stupid? Teaching bending to a girl? Preposterous! Girl's couldn't waterbend!

He watched in amusement as she continued to attack (play-with) her dolls. It didn't take long before she needed new ones.

An idea occurred to him, and a conniving smirk took over his features. This could be useful. Hahn retreated down the hallway and left for home. Better to corner and confront her there than here. He foresaw some very nice… arrangements in his future.

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

Spoiler: Author's Notes

This part was a long time coming. I had a story point I was aiming to write to before posting, but it just kept getting longer without reaching that point. I finally had to say "enough for now", find a half-decent breakpoint, and post what's done. Hence the jump setup episode about the background Kaiadrii chose and how it leads up to her Tiranthian-timeline consciousness merging with her AtLA background one (episode 00) is being split into episodes 00a-00?.

 

[CivilReader]

This is a really interesting start on a jumping adventure. I really like the coverage of the pre insertion time.

 

[Jade Isentry]

This is a really interesting start on a jumping adventure. I really like the coverage of the pre insertion time.

Click to shrink...

That's great to hear, thanks I had my doubts at first about how well this would fly (pun intended), but I think it's working. I just hope I can keep it this interesting as it moves forward.