[b][i]Siku - Response[/i][/b]

No one thought to test whether Siku was the long-disappeared Avatar; hope was just that lost. But in time, they would discover that he was a Waterbender too. But in what year? His first year of life, his second one, or the third, fourth, and fifth? By the sixth, he was old enough to be told that he should not go off alone, as the Fire Nation's raids were intensifying. Would he go out during that time anyway? 

Whatever the answers to the questions were, he would dream of Aang, the [i]true[/i] Avatar, now trapped in the Spirit World, or rather, he would dream of [i]The Imposter[/i], he whose spirit now rested in Aang's Body, in the Iceberg that kept the latter alive all through the decades. And that impostor spoke in his dreams.

[i]Was what Avatar Wan did good, little Siku? Cutting off Humanity from the Spirits? I was lucky that just as [b]Raava's[/b] Avatar reincarnated to the future, [b]I[/b] reincnarnate backwards into the [b]past[/b]. Would this be the case if I were killed? Would I displace the body of say, Avatar Roku should my life end? Or did I only manage to take over Avatar Aang's body as it was busy holding itself together in ice?[/i]

As Siku grew up, he would be able to guess just [i]who[/i] had taken over Aang's body, and was now harrassing him when he spoke. 

[i]Oh, little Siku, all alone, tasked to protect the [b]real[/b] Avatar's eventual wife. But how, when your enemy has power beyond imagining even in his icy prison? Power that will one day reverse this spirit-forsaken, materialistic world where people are cut off from meaning. By the way, how old are you now, eight?[/i]

Siku would wake up just as the Fire Nation raided his village again, and his mother, Kya, was trying to hide him and Katara from the Firebender, the Captain of the band of specialized raiders who would eventually kill her.

[i]One Chance. Will you save her? [b]Can[/b] you?[/i]

He could feel it; he had a genuine chance to succeed, to make the next six years happier for himself and Katara, his twin in this new life. But did he succeed?

Whether he did or not, six more years would pass; he would turn fourteen along with Katara. 

And fourteen was when the False Aang's iceberg would wash up on his home's shores...

[@Crimson Flame]

[b][i]Li Yang - Response[/i][/b]

As Li Yang grew, tales spread of his strength, which impressed and frightened his playmates in equal measure. In his first few years, will he make playmates? Friends? People he grew close to? Either way, his parents were well-off enough to send him to a good school, although a good school in the [i]Fire Nation[/i] wasn't just a place of learning, it was a place of [i]indoctrination[/i] about how 'superior' his culture was, how the Fire Lord was the wise, enlightened ruler of the Nation, and how civilization was being spread by the loyal armies of the country, armies whose personnel may or may not see potential in Li Yang.

Did he make too much mischief as he grew up? Did he feign loyalty to the Fire Nation and the Fire Lord? Did he outwardly support the official policy of imperialism and colonization?

His family was growing richer due to plunder and resources from the Fire Nation Colonies, as well as access to finely crafted steel from Yu Dao. Whatever business they owned was sharing in the bounty and general prosperity enjoyed by the Fire Nation as a whole. And as a typical Fire Nation Family, they had relatives in the armed forces, and one of them, an uncle or cousin or whatever, would soon start bugging them to put Li Yang in a military academy; he was smart for his age and was fond of feats of strength, right? So, why not put him on a path to military advancement? 

[i]All it would cost him were his morals from his old life, morals that still applied to this world.[/i]

But who knows, maybe Li Yang was too independent-minded for his stuffy relatives in the military. It could be that he was too much of a maverick, despite his fighting abilities. And if he was too open about potentially subversive views... Another path may be open to him.

Fifteen years later, messengers would gather at the local square of his neighborhood, proclaiming a new call for volunteers. Would he answer the call? Had he already done so and was accompanying the messengers? Or was he a miscreant and subversive who was planning to disrupt their efforts now?

[@Aku the Samurai]