The Primordial Weapon

[Drogon]

Aang had been in a state of rather severe panic ever since the Tarrasque had shown its giant, menacing visage. It seemed most of the group was mindlessly flailing about, trying to damage this invincible, lava-bleeding monstrosity in whatever small way they could, gradually draining blood until hopefully it would eventually fall, like mosquitoes sucking blood from an elephant-boar. Well, like mosquitoes, hopefully they could find some insidious way into the creature's bloodstream, some way to kill it that wouldn't be readily apparent.

He himself had decided to guard what remained of their damaged explosives. There was little he could do to the creature, and as such, it was better that he protect what little essence of a strategy the hunting party had prepared beforehand. Furthermore, he was hoping to formulate, before the day was done, a more valid strategy to take down the beast than simply pummeling it until one side was too exhausted to continue.

Aang's trance was thoroughly broken as he watched Alain, retreating from the beast, accidentally send himself flying into a Tarrasque-prepared abyss in the ground. Right. The rest of the good people here were doing their best to take out the beast. Get your wits together. You're the Avatar! He knew he had little to no offensive capabilities, especially against this thing, so he settled for the next-best position in this situation: Backup. He sprinted to the crack containing his endangered ally. There was little he could do at the moment for those fools climbing all over the thing, so he leaned over the edge and called out to the least insane of the pack.

"Velgr! You down there?"

There was movement far down the crack, and a fair ways off horizontally from where Aang crouched on the ledge. In the dim light, Aang could see the figure of a battered man hanging from a weapon of some sort imbedded in the fissure's wall. "That you, Aang? Yeah, down here!" One hand waved frantically before quickly returning to the weapon's hilt.

The crack was just wide enough for Aang to pull out his glider and float safely down to an outcrop only a few inches out of the wall, and directly below Alain. Of course, that lead to the predicament of actually getting the two of them out. The ground suddenly shook again, nearly dislodging both of the ridge's unfortunate inhabitants. Crap. "Okay, we're getting out of here as quickly as possible. Do you have a free hand?"

"A free hand? What? No, I'm holding on for dear life with both, thanks!"

"Well, okay, but the only way I can think to get out of here involves you taking my glider, and it needs to happen as soon as possible."

Alain's head now turned to face Aang, and after ascertaining his sincerity, shook in disbelief. "There's no way that thing can hold me like it can a 12-year-old with wind magic. It won't work."

"Look, you're going to have to -" The walls around them again rattled, and debris began falling from above. Alain barely managed to avoid the impact of a particularly large boulder, which came crashing down straight on Aang's shoulder. "- Uwaah! Mmmpf. Trust me." Aang writhed in pain, holding to the edge only with his right arm as his left shook wildly towards the abyss, Aang hardly able to control it in his pain.

A few seconds passed, and Aang again looked up to Alain. Through the fog of pain, he could see one arm reaching down to him. "Hurry up then, and let's get this over with." Composure partially regained, Aang attempted to retrieve his glider from the strap on his back, but flinched as his arm's muscles again twisted, putting him through yet another bout of agony. Yet, he managed to grab the staff, and let it hang in his limp arm as he again let his nerves return to functional status. By now, he was breathing deeply, sweat dripping from his face as the exertion of forcing himself to move despite his injury and the heat of the still-nearby Tarrasque combined to increase his discomfort in the face of death.

A few more seconds. He could feel again in his left arm. He began lifting it to the sky, each muscle contraction shooting electrical disagreements to his brain, each inch closer to Alain's still-outstretched hand an hour of pure torment. And yet, when the glider finally made its way into his comrade's unsteady grip, already unfurled by Aang's accidental death grip, the pain began to dissipate. He could feel very little in his injured arm, but for now, it was functional. Now, for the hard part. He knew he couldn't airbend at all with his bad arm - the movements would be impossible with his newfound injury. He'd have to do it with his good arm, which meant to keep himself hanging...

He again grabbed onto the tiny ledge with both of his hands. "On three, you're going to let go of the knife, and hold the glider in - eeurk - in both hands, from the sideways pole at the front." Alain examined the small instrument in front of him, finding said handle. He then glared down to Aang in disbelief. "I'll push you out, I'll push you out, I can bend air, you'll be fine. Just do it. There's no other way." The man sighed in exasperation, and prepared for takeoff.

"One... Two... Three!" Aang let go of the ledge with his good arm, pain again shooting up his shoulder and throughout his body. The man above him began to fall, and before Aang was over the debilitating shock, he was already below Aang's meager ledge. Don't. Panic. Your other arm is still fine. A gust of stale, rank air rose up from the chasm below, guided by Aang's better arm, slowly but surely steadying Alain's freefall. And then... He began to rise. Aang put his whole being, his very soul into the one nasty spout of air, pushing up and up and up on his own glider, and now Alain was higher than him, rising. The end was in sight, the surface was so near... And then Aang slipped. Something about the air changed. The glider turned, slowly at first, and then it flipped over, going into a freefall. He watched as Alain's figure began to flail, becoming disconnected as the glider flipped, tossed off to the side. "Wait... No. No! I was saving you, no!" He let go of the first gust, again claiming air from below to push his glider in the direction he'd seen Alain fall. But it was too late. The secretive, hooded man was nowhere to be seen.

Above the crack, Alain laid in the dirt for a moment, having just been tossed off of an unsteady glider, before standing up, brushing himself off, and focusing again on the task at hand. He couldn't hear Aang's cries of despair, for they were muffled by the warm, hard ground, and by now he was at least a good 30 meters from the boy. The glider's trajectory had been disturbed not by Aang slipping, but by the natural breeze of the surface, a breeze he was only too glad to again feel on his skin after being stuck in that dank, collapsing hole.

Aang gave up. He couldn't see Alain. Obviously, the man had fallen to his doom, and he was to blame. Aang gritted his teeth, and began wiping his tears from his eyes with his sleeve as he regrabbed the wall with his fully functional hand. He'd be back, he'd be revived at the Nexus, this was the Omniverse. Primes didn't really die. That said, he had still let down his allies, and lost his glider to boot. There was only one thing to do: Climb back up, somehow, and do what he could to defeat the beast, if nothing else, for the fallen one. Aang reached upwards, to another one-inch ledge, and began his ascent among the falling of rocks from above and the dankness of... Whatever it was that was below.