105 My SI Stash #5 - Somebody that I used Tahno by Lost Carcosa (The Legends of Korra)

-The first SI Legends of Korra fic in the stash~ SI as Tahno, he'll be using his meta knowledge to the fullest! He's of course training to improve his waterbending abilities and add in Chi-blocking to the mix~

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Sypnosis: ???

Rated: M

Words: 190K

Posted on: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/somebody-that-i-used-tahno-a-lok-si.670771/page-3#post-49922230 (Lost Carcosa)

PS: If you're not able to copy/paste the link, you have everything in here to find it, by simply searching the author and the story title. It sucks that you can't copy links on mobile (´ー｀)

-I'll be putting the chapter ones of all the fanfics mentioned, to give you guys a sample if you wan't more please do go to the website and support the author! (And maybe even convince them to start uploading chapters in here as well!)

Chapter 1+2 (exceptional)

Bars were the same wherever you were. London, New York, Vegas, Republic city, they were all the same.

The differences were slight. Mainly, the very angry stares and glances he got as he crossed the threshold and entered. They watched him, these men and women sat at the table, fury and suspicion in their eyes. The Bartender wasn't much better, slowing down cleaning his glance to glare at me.

I ignored this. I always do. People recognised me here, It was a fact of life. Being loathed was a first however.

"Double Firerum." I ordered as I sat on the bar stool and placed a few Yuans on the bar top.

The Bartender glanced to my right, and I rolled my shoulders as he took a step away from me even on the other side of the bar. As he finally did place my glass on the table, conveniently forgetting any ice or anything, the man who was trying to loom over my shoulder finally spoke.

"This ain't your kind of bar pretty boy." He growled. A few of his rather tall friends stood behind him, egging him on.

"Hey man. I'm just here for a drink." I grinned, holding my shot glass aloft in my hand, raising it to them before I made to drink it.

He slapped the glass out of my hand. Very carefully I hid the fury on my face, instead slamming another few Yuans on the bar top.

"Another please?" I asked politely, clenching and unclenching my fist slowly, rolling my neck.

"This is a bending free bar. Get your fucking ass out before we throw it out." the heavy man growled.

I smiled, turning on the barstool to them. Another glass was placed before me and I made to pick it up.

"Come on man. I've got money to spare. Let me buy you guys a round, put this all behind..."

Once again, the fucking bastard slapped the glass out of my hand, the glass and it's contents slamming into the earthern floor.

I sighed, genuine anger playing on my face for a brief moment, before I smiled with clenched teeth again.

"I'm going to order one more. Should you slap that glass out of my hand you'll find yourself eating the dirt." I said cheerfully, placing another few Yuans on the table. I almost ordered a glass of water to go with it, but I had hoped it wouldn't come to that.

"Cheers!" I said, raising my glass. The man's friends laughed as he slapped the glass out of my hand again.

I rolled my neck.

"I warned you." I said, warming up and shaking my hands.

I kicked back the stool I was sat on, standing up in an instant. Before the guy could work out what on earth was going on he caught a palm in his neck, his throat closing upon impact. He fell to his knees, wheezing as he did so.

His three buddies looked shocked and glanced between themselves, before shouting for two more of their friends to join them. The bartender stepped back a few feet, signally his neutrality in this. I had paid for three drinks and not drank a single one after all, that did buy a certain amount of loyalty.

The first came at me, arms raised ready to swing right at my head. His attack was so telegraphed I could almost have seen it the moment I entered the bar. Dodging was easy, ducking my head to the right t miss his swing, before tripping him up by swiping at his leg. Two of his friends might have realised that taking on a pro-bender was not the best of ideas, so decided to attack at the same time. With a simple flick of my wrist, letting go of myself for a moment the pool of Firerum I had allowed to spill on the floor came with my command, rushing forth through the air like a fucking ballistic missile.

I had to lean back to dodge the blow of his friend, the other trying to grab my collar at the same time, forcing me to take a few steps back, nearly tripping over another barstool on my journey. The Firerum caught one of them square in the face. Firerum is not named that without good reason, and as he screamed and cried with what was essentially ethanol and chilli dust in his eyes, the other, perhaps a boxer, kept swinging. Unlike the firsts' drunken obvious swings clearly this guy had some formal training, swinging and jabbing rapidly. His fingers clenching and outstretching depending on what he intended. I recognised them easily. Chi Blocking, combined with good old fashioned bare knuckle boxing. Looks like I found the equalist of the group.

I turned to dodge one of his jabs at my left arm and threw down another three Yuans on the bar top, and quickly the bartender slide a Firerum towards me. The Chi blocking boxer grabbed a bar stool and slammed it into my back. I leaned over the bar, wincing in pain as the wood snapped upon my back, splintering across the bar.

I picked up the glass and debated taking a swig, before deciding that ending the fight was more important right now.

Letting go, I bent the firerum out of the glass. It was a minuscule amount, and the chi-blocker immediately moved to block his face, having learnt from observation. Instead I simply threw the water on his crotch, then froze it into ice once it stained his clothes. He winced and gripped at his trousers, and I could feel sympathy pains as he desperately tried to rip the ice off. A quick kick to his head sent him to the floor.

However, taking him out of the fight had opened me up to a bottle to the head, smacking me in the skull. I shouted out some very family unfriendly expletives (consisting mainly of how I had fornicated with his mother), then threw down six Yuans on the bar-top and pointed to a bottle of beer. I needed a fair bit more liquid, and I wasn't going to simply steal from the honest man. Gingerly and annoyingly slowly the bartender reached and shakingly passed me the bottle, even as I had to duck and catch the bottles and glasses being thrown at me.

I snapped open the bottle by slamming it's top into the bar-top, then pulled its liquid contents out. With the bottle in one hand and the other controlling an orb of beer, I spoke to the men too afraid to get near me.

"Back down. I don't want no trouble." I asked, channelling Jackie Chan.

Alas, the remaining three men had no apprehension for the works of the Drunken Master. Deciding that trying to out-range a waterbender with whatever they could get their hands on in a bar was a fools errand, they charged instead. I grinned wolfishly, flicking my hair back before charging in return.

_____________________________

*Needle Scratch*

Yep, that's me. You might be wondering how I got here.

God, I love that cliché.

Anyway, you might be wandering. Well, you ever drank enough to essentially kill yourself immediately?

I haven't. But believe me, I wish I had. No, there were no fucking ROB's talking shit about responsibilities or being pieces of shit or whatever. No, I wasn't in some fucked up afterlife, or whatever the hell is going on with 'Whales and Unicorns'. Best I can tell, one day I'm Alex... Well, that's all you need to know. One day I'm Alex, the next I'm some very pretty waterbender in republic city.

My first thought was

I have no idea how to waterbend

My second:

But I prefer ATLA! LOK sucks in comparison

My third:

Whoa. So am I dead. Shit

I'm... Not the most optimistic person, it has to be said. Still, I'm stuck inside the body of a elite athlete. Not bad.

Of course, I had no idea how to waterbend, and seeing as that was literally my job I was pretty royally screwed. I had the biological capability, the means and some of Tahno's memories, but that's it.

Perhaps I was in the clear, and I was actually a non-bender at this point. Hopefully the most traumatic event in Tahno's life happened and I could just be lazy until Korra got lucky and defeated Amon by crying.

No luck. Given what the exposition radio told me, I was three days after the 169AG Pro-Bending finals.

Well. A little time to learn I suppose till I got dropped by my sponsors.

________________________________

"Fuck." I said to myself, marching around my new room. I was taking the whole being in a new body rather well, which you chould be glad about. No one wants pages and pages of me learning how to walk in an entirely different shell, or thinking of the existential consequences and realities of being in a fictional world. No, you want me to kick arse and take names don't you?

Not so much on the first day.

Instead, I stood on a balcony and smoked like I was in a French indy film. An entire packet in one day, nearly killed myself. Not going to lie, I considered jumping and seeing if I would end up somewhere where the writing was a little better, but chances are that I'd just end up in something really bad like Worm or something. Fuck that. I'd take True detective over that shit.

So, there I was, naked as the day I was born and leaning moodily on the balcony of my very nice White falls apartment, looking over the city. I'm pretty sure a few enterprising Paparazzi took some picture from below, but I was eight stories up, so that should make my genitals naturally blurred enough.

No, I finished my pack of cigarettes and threw them over the bannister like a bastard. Then, I considered the fucking mess I had ended up with.

First things first I suppose. Probably should put some clothes on. Though I heard a few wolf whistles down from the streets below that might've argued with that.

Secondly...

I should probably learn how to use this magical power I've woken up with. I returned to my rather nice kitchen, grabbed a bottle of some spirit I didn't recognised but certainly smelt strong, then returned to the bannister, still naked.

After a swig of the stuff and nearly chucking up from that, I considered my predicament. And it was quite the bad one.

Chapter 2

There's a certain comfort in food. Not one I aught to regularly engage in, but it's there. It seemed the previous occupant of this body I stole agreed with me seeing as the guy decided to live about a noddle shop.

I could not complain at all. Narook's was great.

So, as I tucked into my bowl of noodles, and Narook absent mindedly cleaned some glasses, long used to my or other minor celebrities presence in his humble establishment, I ran through my many options.

1) Run. I hold no loyalty to this place, I certainly lacked the skills to continue with my current job and I knew it was going to go to shit in a years time.

2) Quit and do something else. More likely. I had a trade of my own, a few months to a year in some trade school here in the city and I could completely change career paths and make enough to get by, living off the previous owner of this body's wealth for a year or two.

3) Learn and learn fast.

It took some bloody fine noodles...

"Fucking great noodles by the way Narook." I said as I raised my bowl. It seemed this was a bit out of character for Tahno, given the odd look he wore, but I found it difficult to care.

But eventually I came to this conclusion. I could spend years moping about how my life was dead and the existential and personal terror that came with consuming another person's life, but that sounded exhausting.

I was in the prime of my life, famous within this city, in a career that meant I actually owned the apartment in downtown republic city and wasn't paying rent, one of the few people my age to own a car, good looking and with the audacious pride to back all of that up.

So what if it could crash and burn if I failed to learn in time. I wasn't going to let this opportunity slip through my fingers.

"Can I get a coffee to go?" I asked, tapping a few extra yuans against the bar top as I considered just how to do this.

And there were. Tahno's fame meant that if I, say, went to a waterbending teacher of any description within the city and asked for beginner lessons my reputation would be ruined.

So... It might have to be back to absolute square one. I was going to have to go to a...

I shivered.

A library.

________________________________________

I had been right to fear it. The Chasan district library was a labyrinth in every sense of the word. The dickish nearly hundred year old earthbender librarian regularly moved the stone bookshelves to screw with any sense of order to the place, the building was old enough to be both merely built of earthbent stone and lack electric lights, instead lit by flickering lanterns of some kind. The room was tall, and a thick layer of shadow hung above the shelves, bearing down on any that tried to read below. Natural light seemed to be in short supply inside the building. From the outside it had looked like a single block of earth, and the insides only confirmed this.

Then there were the inhabitants. This seemed to be a point between the undercity beneath Republic city and the surface world, where the homeless might spend a few hours on the surface before being forced back down below, less the virulent criminal gangs of the city discover them.

Still, perhaps only by the mercy of the librarian even pretending to do his job it did have books in it, and thankfully books on beginner waterbending at that. Transcripts of scrolls that, to my amusement, I realised were part of a series written by none other than Katara. However, rather than the simplistic and informative pictogram of bending technique, she instead preferred to transfer the knowledge into long and dry as dust treaties on moon and sea worship, on the evils of bloodbending, on the application of healing and, not that I could frankly blame her at all, a great amount of vitriol towards the sexist northern water tribe. It seemed even she could not completely change their society.

This great tome, apparently one of four volumes, was far too large to simply be read here, in this building of eternal twilight.

So, I grabbed all four volumes and wandered between the great stone bookcases, lights flickering and passing before my eyes every so often, hunched other people reading at stone tables, or moving like spectres between the corridors of scrolls, books and oil lanterns. I could not tell what time it was outside, how long I had spent inside this sepulchre of writing. For half a heartbeat I thought I was on another plane of existence, stretching on for eternity containing nothing but wandering souls and books.

But my journey soon came to an end, as I finally once again found the main desk before the foyer.

"Is that everything for you today?" Asked the librarian.

"I need to get a library card here I think." I added.

"That might take four to six..." The old man said lazily, grinning owlishly as he said that.

I placed twenty Yuans on the desk.

"Seconds." the Librarian corrected with a smile. He scribed into a great ledger. Whilst he did his job I looked up. There was slightly more light here at the entrance, if only from the currently open door behind me letting the last rays of the sun come streaming through. Owl statues lined the walls. No, not owls. These were to owls what an ape was to a man. They were twisted things, some had four wings, others had their beaks lined with rows upon rows of sharp, misshapen teeth. One particular one that was glaring directly where I stood had three eyes in its head, its wings raised to strike.

This was a foul place.

"Here you go Tahno." He said with a smile. The same grin I could see on some of the owl statues above.

"Thank you." Was I could reply with, so desperate was I to leave.

I grabbed the books with both hands, carefully carrying them out. As I turned to leave and walk away he spoke up again.

"You'll be in my thoughts."

_________________________________________________________

I fumbled with the key. Carrying the books up eight flights of stairs had been annoying, but trying to open the door with my hands full was just taking the piss. None the less, eventually I managed the arcane ritual of placing a key inside a lock and turning it.

I threw the books onto my plush leather sofa. Beyond the sofa, the curtains of my balcony window waved in the late evening breeze. Curling and unfurling with the salt sea winds of the Yue bay. I stood there, in the doorway for a moment.

Then closed the door behind me, rushing towards the sofa to devour the contents of the four volumes. If I could just get the waterbending basics down, surely my muscle memory would kick back in for me. Surely I could be as great as Tahno had once been, and I could live a comfortable life as a professional athlete?

My answer came after nearly sixteen more hours of uninterrupted conciousness, fuelled mostly by a few stops to Narook's below to grab some decent coffee. Perhaps the lack of sleep had made me only more aware. Perhaps I had entered some trance to see beyond the threads of reality, finally having found a vantage point beyond the mere three dimensions that made up this plane to realise an uncomfortable truth.

Or, and I'm just going out on a limb here, I was sick of sixteen hours of trying with no results.

"I can't waterbend like this." I admitted to myself somewhere around my twelfth cup of coffee. Somewhere in that caffinated nightmare that had been the last sixteen hours, I saw the inevitability of my practise.

I was, technically, still a waterbender. That much I knew. The fact I could vibrate the water within a bowl without moving anything but my hands was as much confirmation as I needed. But that was it. I could not lift the water out of the bowl, I could not freeze it in a moment, nor could I turn the contents into steam. I couldn't do anything with it but drink it, or throw it away.

In a fit of pique brought on, again, by nearly twenty four hours of uninterrupted conciousness and twelve cups of coffee I threw the china bowl against one of the walls and held my head in my hands. I was fucked, good and proper.

The telephone choose that moment to ring, as if to compound my problems. Gingerly, I picked up the receiver.

"Tahno." I said, trying to put on a laid back 'I don't give a shit about anything' voice over the fact I was practically twitching and beginning to hallucinate at this point.

"You little shit." The voice said on the other line. "Have you seen the papers this morning?"

Strangely enough, despite the harsh words, the man on the other end (who I sort of recognise from somewhere in the memories of the man who's body I had stolen) sounded overly smug. Like listening to a recording of myself in fact.

"No. I've been busy." I admitted to Tahno's agent.

"Well, you're page three on the Republic gazette, page one of the Tribunal and page 53 on the Financial." Said my agent.

"We did win I tournament a few days ago." I grumbled as I scratched the back of my head, my eyes beginning to close.

"No one cares about that, that was four days ago. This is so... Well, you'll get some new fans that's for sure, though perhaps parental groups might boycott your next fight in a week." Han'za admitted. Somehow I could hear the shrug through the line.

"Wait.. A week?" I asked fearfully.

"Don't tell you forgot buddy? You guys versus the Golden temple Tigerdillos, little charity match thing, something about baby sealturtles or something." My agent explained.

I nearly shat myself. I had thought I had an entire year to get back into the grove, free to live off the winnings of this year and the odd sponsorship. This was... Well, certainly put a damper on my plans. Not that I could admit that to my boss. Telling him I was effectively useless as a probender would simply see me kicked off the team, then it was goodbye to the life of relative luxury.

"Right. That." I said slowly, carefully, as I ran through likely means to fake my death and steal enough money to live somewhere else in the world. Surely the water tribes would be cheap real estate?

"But that's not what I wanted to talk about. You got a paper yet?" Han'za asked.

Dead medium anywa... Wait, pre internet society. So, the only alive medium. Great.

"No." I replied.

"Well, they've got this picture of you smoking on your balcony. Very avant garde." How is there such a thing as avant garde in a world without France?

"And I'm naked in it." I said slapping my forehead with my free hand.

"And your naked in it." My agent confirmed. "Got to say, not bad."

"I work out." I replied. "Wait, what?"

"I mean, the guy was taking the picture from ground level, so you can't make it out, and it's covered by the railings of your balcony, but it, you know, implies a lot." Said Han'za. "Plus, it's clearly wasn't set up by me or you, so no ones talking about me exploiting you or anything."

"Spirits forbid." I said drolly.

"Trust me Tahno, this little picture is going to be hung up in rooms across the world within the week." Said my agent.

"That's... Horrifying." I admitted.

"What are you talking about Tahno? This is big publicity! Plus, It means a total reinvention of your image. Vain pretty boy was getting old hat anyway, other probenders are trying to copy it, so we need a change." Han'za said excitedly. I hoped he was drooling over the money he might make, rather than the picture of me, but who knows.

"You've been probending's bad boy for a while, but we need to show there's a tortured soul underneath it. All that crap. Women love a tortured soul." Said Han'za.

"I hardly think my life..." I began.

"We'll make it up. I hired enough PI's to cover up your 'foggy' past anyway, no harm in making up an entirely new one." Said Han'za. "You've got to come down to my office. Day after tomorrow, we'll sort this all out."

"We'll make up my new entire life story?" I asked incredulously.

"Tahno, buddy, I do this all the time. So, I was thinking perhaps both of your parents died in a whaling accident and you've both feared and loved the ocean ever since, the raging..."

Does my life always revolve around whaling in some description?

"Look... Han'za. Can we discuss this later?" I asked, the sudden news and lack of caffeine darkening my vision, narrowing to a single cone of light as I struggled to keep my eyes open.

"Of course. See you in two days Tahno. I'll bring the entire team down." Said Han'za. Shit

"Great. See you then." I said tiredly, placing the reciever down on its stand with a slam.

I leaned back into my sofa, running a hand down my face. There was no way I could train to be a waterbender within a week. I tried to stand up, perhaps to grab another coffee, or perhaps to just go to bed. But my legs were dead, refusing to respond. I tried to move them, even poking at them to try and feel something through them, but I felt nothing.

And then, in a flash of inspiration, it came to me.

Perhaps I don't need to waterbend. I just need to not get hit. And what style more accurately fits not getting hit...

I looked at my dead leg, and poked at a pressure point. It twitched even in death.

Than Chi-blocking?