The feral cat gator of a 13 year old freshly scarred Zuko being forcibly adopted by the foggy swamp tribe! Bonus points if they willfully ignore the fact he's a firebender and treat him as a very strange waterbender bending-wise
It was Earth Kingdom ships that drove the metal one onto the reefs, so when the little thing came crawling up through the marsh spitting and hissing and dressed in red, they knew it weren’t no earthbender. No matter how much mud it had tripped in, trying to find where the ground stopped sucking at its feet.
“Wow-ee,” said Old Earl, “that sure is one way of keepin’ off the ‘squito-chiggers.”
And they all watched from Big Earl’s porch, sitting or rocking, as them bugs came for the all-you-can-eat and ended up on the bar-b-que.
“Sure is some weird bending,” said Little Earl, who was taller than Big Earl, but when they'd been twelve and they’d wrestled for the title it hadn't been Little Earl who’d won.
The little thing looked maybe twelve, too. And he was little little. But he had that same look like he was going to shove someone’s face in the mud until they said otherwise, as he stood there all panting and dripping and just realizing they’d been watching him this whole time.
“It’s firebending,” the one-kid mud-wrestler said, as bugs kept pop-snapping into flames around him.
Old Earl cupped a hand over his ear, like he couldn’t hear. And he kept doing it, while the kid got louder and louder about that bending of his, but quieter and quieter about looking at them like they were his next bugs.
“Oh, firebending,” Old Earl said, nodding like he’d only just got it, when the kid had stomped straight up to his chair. “Right, right, Old Jane’s got fire-water-bending, too. Why don’t you take him to her, boys.”
“It’s not-- ugh,” shouted the kid, but maybe he only had the one volume. Certainly only had the one volume for stomping, even though stomping was what got a fellow’s shoes shoved down so deep in the mud they’d be seeing them again as mole-shrimp hats. Not that the kid had shoes. Neither did Earl, Earl, or Earl. ‘Cept for Fancy Earl, but he’d gone off to Ba-Singing-Se, to be fancy.
Anyway, Old Jane was the best at turning anything and everything into fire water, which was the kind of thing a fellow called his or her liquor when they wanted fancy folk to keep right on walking. Was really good for making shouty little firebrands take their naps, too, which let Old Jane get her glowing mitts all over that fresh burn of his. And the love-bites from the shark-wrasses that had probably been half the reason the kid had come a-shore all a-shouting in the first place.
“Nope,” diagnosed Old Jane, when the kid woke back up. “That’s just how he talks. Mother was a screamer-bird, I’d say.”
“You take that back about my mother,” screamed their screamer-bird, who had pretty good hearing for someone who’s ear had lost the same fight as his eye. Anyway, Old Jane had done the best she could about both, and nothing was on fire that shouldn’t be, and she had that extra quilt she’d been working on that needed a body under it
And the waves and the shark-wrasses had all the rest of the kid’s crew
So sure enough they set their little screamer-bird up with a nest and let him cry loud as he wanted.
Anyway, if there was one thing Earl Earl Earl and Jane knew, it was how to make a joke so good the other person didn’t even know it were a joke.
“Firebending,” their little fledgling shouted, and waved his arms around, like all that fire pointed at no one was going to get them startled off.
“A-yep,” nodded Old Earl. “That there is some fire-water-bending. Just like Old Jane.”
Old Jane wasn’t the kind of gal who showed off, but she wasn’t the kind who missed no cue, either. She swirled a lick o’ liquor out of her latest barrel and twirled it ‘round and straight into her mouth, and when she spit it out, it looked so much like the little bird’s breath-o’-fire that he didn’t even notice the spark rocks she kept on her fingers as jewelry. No one did, ‘til they’d seen the trick a few times.
The kid’s mouth hung open so low and so long, a moth-tick flew in. That was some kind of life lesson, that was. The swamp was good at sending those.
The Earth Kingdom sent troops a-stompin’ through, losing boots and scaring catigators out of their sunning spots left and right, askin’ all rumbly about those fires they’d spotted, and if anyone from that shipwreck had made it on shore, and talkin’ about how there’d be money in it for them if they made that last answer a “yes,” sounding like Fancy Earl and all his talk about commerce and living standards.
“Got a few parts of them ship people in the lagoon,” Big Earl said. “Probably still floatin’ if you want ‘em. But we better bring the shrimp-minnow nets, ‘cuase they’ll just slosh on through the turtle-sturgeon ones.”
“...No thank you,” the head stomper said, like sayin’ polite words made a fellow a polite man. He’d tracked those boots of his right up onto their porch without so much as a scuff on their mud rug. Even the kid had used the mud rug. “And the fire?”
“Oh,” said Little Earl, with a grin, “that was Old Jane.”
And she did her trick again, only less tricky, so they could see the spark rocks real good. “You boys want some fire water?” she offered. “It ain’t blinded no one who wasn’t already headed that way.”
They didn’t want any, which was grand, ‘cause she hadn’t really been offering.
When the last of them had gone stomping off back to the kind of land that let people stomp it, it took them two whole hours to lure out the catigators from under the porch. And their little screamer bird, too.
“...Why didn’t you turn me in?”
“What?” asked Old Earl, cupping his ear.
“Why—”
“What?”
“—didn’t—”
“WHAT?”
“—you—”
“Speak up, boy,” Old Earl said. “I never heard such a quiet child.”
And boy, did that set their bird back to singing.
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So, Danny was effectively homeless.
His parents are dead, his sister is dead, his friends are dead. Hell, even Vlad, Vlad kicked the fucking bucket which, Danny genuinely never expected.
Vlad was supposed to be his nemesis, his main bad guy, the guy Danny's supposed to constantly pull everything out against just to win. Not to mention how significant his presence was.
A part of him assumed that Vlad would always be there and him not being there and knowing he won't be there ever again is... weird.
So you're probably asking, how exactly did this happen?
Well you see, the nasty burger exploded, for one thing. Then when he was under Vlad's care both of them got outed for being ghosts to the GIW, which was technically Danny's fault, since he did something extremely stupid.
Somehow they got caught, and life under the GIW was not great in the slightest. The constant experiments, the dehumanization (Sometimes Danny doesn't even register himself as human), the amount of times their feelings were utterly disregarded, and so, so much more.
The GIW found Vlad to be more dangerous than Danny, even if he lacked the raw power Danny had his intellect made him dangerous and for good reason. For it was because of said intellect that Danny managed to escape.
Vlad didn't manage to do the same.
Danny hated reliving that memory. Because Vlad was a villain, evil and self-serving, he shouldn't be sacrificing himself for his literal greatest enemy to escape in his stead (Not that Vlad would say Danny was his greatest, he would probably say it was the person who refused him to buy the packers). It was just, so utterly stupid and out of character for him.
So, Danny managed to escape, Vlad died. He couldn't even say anything about Dani because she got destabilized in front of him, in front of both of them actually. It hurt to watch and, he didn't quite know the specifics between Dani and Vlad anymore, but he thinks they were getting... better.
Not how it was when Dani was first created, but Vlad was working on mending it. Which, honestly, just makes everything worse.
Danny isn't powerless but it's a damn close thing. He's far weaker than he normally would be, and he's injured on top of that too boot, his powers can barely work and it's just so stupid.
So here he was, hiding out in some random sewer because he didn't want to take the risk of being on the surface and he hates the smell, but he'll take that over being experimented on again. So, Danny spends most of his time in the sewers of this place called Gotham, he even managed to make his own little area with a couch he stole and a few other appliances that were thrown out.
He lacked a Tv or laptop, but he found a yo-yo! Most of his time was spent practicing various tricks with his yo-yo.
It got boring fast. But it was really the only safe thing he could do when waiting for his powers to come back. At least he's a god at yo-yoing now.
It was while doing various tricks with it in some random sewer path, that a literal, goddamn crocodile-man just splashed up from sewer water and half-laid on the edge, since his lower body was still in the water.
Danny looked at his yo-yo, the crocodile, and then slowly stepped on over and gently poked the crocodile dude.
He made a sound, so he was alive!
Finally! Someone to appreciate his godly yo-yoing skills!
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