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Angelii essay
Jun. 14th, 2013 09:05 pmFor a normal girl living a normal life in Gotham, Dana Tan initially took to the weirdness of Nautilus quite well. Being from a universe where superheroes and villains are common helped, though her previous experiences with such things had been brief and traumatic. Dana enjoyed not having to look over her shoulder for trouble all the time, and the general friendliness of Nautilus's residents let her helpful nature flourish.
The biggest problem Dana had at first was with Bending. Though intrigued by the possibilities it offered, she was afraid to use it much. She knew people, back in Gotham, who had been like her - up until they got superpowers, at which point they used their new powers to hurt others. She was afraid of becoming like them, especially as her first accidental Bending was destructive, and so at first she avoided practicing Bending at all. But with reassurances from many, including Wally, a superhero she was inclined to trust, she worked past her fears and started practicing in earnest- but with a focus on constructive and protective abilities.
As Dana got more used to Nautilus, she appointed herself an unofficial greeter to new arrivals. She felt it was the best way she could help, as she was not Ascended or any other authority, and she remembered how confused she had been when she first arrived and how much she appreciated the help others had offered. Unconsciously she was afraid of overstepping her authority and felt more kinship with new arrivals than with long-time residents, closer to the girl she was in Gotham.
Besides working on Bending and helping new arrivals settle in, Dana had no real goals until a kid named Phineas arrived. Even though he wasn't around long, he and his optimism left a huge impression on her. She realized that she had missed a lot of childhood fun, as living in Gotham with its crime made children grow up fast. She knew that she had had a much easier life than many of her friends back home, but she hadn't realized that even so, she had been deprived, and so she resolved to enjoy herself more than Gotham would've allowed.
Unfortunately for Dana, she didn't have long to enjoy childish pursuits before events intervened to prevent it. Hekket, one of the city's Devas, gave all the residents a warning about sinking into chaos and tasked them to wind the chains, a task Dana readily accepted. At first she worked diligently, but when Lelouch noticed that Bending was getting weaker as they wound the chains and suggested they stopped, she did so, ignoring Batman's convictions. Before then, she'd held the protector of Gotham City in awe, but that was the first time she decided that just because he was a superhero didn't mean he knew best.
When the Dark Aeon attacked the city, the crisis took its toll on Dana. Two of her friends, Skyfire and Orihime, had been its first victims, and it weighed on her that there was nothing anyone could do to help them. The nightmares the Dark Aeon sent chipped away at her confidence, reawakening her fears of turning evil and making her relive past trauma. At one point, she almost left, rather than potentially endanger everyone else either by turning against them or letting them down at a critical point. A late night impromptu pep talk from Dib helped her overcome her fears and stay to fight. The later nightmares failed to break her and only strengthened her resolve.
With the city under siege by the Dark Aeon, many residents evacuated to Kalliste. Dana considered joining them, as she thought of herself as a civilian, but ultimately decided that if she could stay and help in Nautilus in any way, she would. And she found a way to be useful - she set herself up as the guardian of the Northern Gate, the evacuation route. She had been working on her shielding Bending, and with Bending restored and improving, she kept the Gate under constant watch, freeing other strong Benders up to fight the Dark Aeon's creations.
Perhaps inevitably, her concerns about the Gate's safety were proven right, when Xemnas, aiding the Dark Aeon, attacked her to remove the shield. Drained of energy and mortally wounded, she kept the shield up, less afraid of dying than of letting everyone down. She survived, thanks to Death's timely intervention and rescue, an act that she would remember.
When the Dark Aeon's final attack came, Dana joined Peter Pan's flying ship's crew, again using her shielding to protect the attackers. When she came under direct attack from the Aeon, she fought it off herself as best she could, until others came to her rescue. She continued to protect the rest as they prepared their final counter-attack, choosing not to join in on the Unmaking effort.
The euphoria of their victory over the Dark Aeon was short-lived for Dana, though. Dib had previously warned her about another Wakened, Tak's, evil intentions, and when Tak created a giant battleship to fight the Aeon, Dana feared that it would be turned against Nautilus after the battle was won and resolved to destroy it herself if it survived the battle. She only told Dib her plan, not wanting to burden others with the knowledge of her morally questionable actions. Sure enough, Tak's ship emerged unscathed, and Dana detonated a bomb she had planted on the ship. She broadcast a warning before the explosion, hoping that Tak would take her advice and abandon ship, but Tak tried to attack the ship Dana was on instead, endangering everyone in her path. Luckily, Dana's Bending was still strong enough to protect everyone, both from the ship's weapons and from the explosion.
Tak's death in the ship's explosion and the censure of the other Wakened, especially Batman, shook Dana to her core, and she realized that she had abused the powers she'd gotten, just as she'd been afraid of. After the wreckage of the ship had been taken care of, Dana vanished from the public eye, once again restricting her Bending, this time only using it to repair the damage the Aeon had done to the city. She pushed herself to exhaustion as a personal punishment, which landed her in trouble when she fainted while winding the chains. Wally came to her rescue and persuaded her to stop hiding and hurting herself. She continued to push herself, but not to such extremes.
From then on, Dana's life returned to Nautilus normal, though she was somewhat more subdued than before. She started practicing Bending again, but instead of working on it alone, as she had before, she looked for a teacher who could help keep her from abusing the power again. While she had some brief success with returning Ascended Starscream and Tally Youngblood, both left, and she let her training lapse.
Then, a couple months after the Dark Aeon's defeat, a familiar face from home arrived: Terry McGinnis, her boyfriend. While she had had issues with him in Gotham, she was overjoyed to see him in Nautilus, not just for his company, but to have someone who knew her before Nautilus had changed her around, someone who could tell her how much she'd changed, and whether or not it was for the better. While the problems they had had in Gotham no longer applied, new problems arose, mostly through outside influences. Still, Dana was happier than she'd been in months, just being with Terry.
That changed when she found out the secret Terry had been keeping from her for ages, the one that had caused so much trouble for their relationship: That he was Batman. At first she was mad at him for the deception, but after some time for reflection, she came to peace with it and started talking with him about it and why he'd taken on the title and hid it from her. Thanks to the storm that led to the reveal, she knew that at some point, she could become a partner to Batman, and she decided that that was what she wanted. Once again, she sought out training, but this time from her boyfriend. Now that she knew why trouble seemed to follow her, she wanted to be prepared for it and not be a burden and a worry for Batman.
Keeping Terry's secret, and by extension Bruce Wayne's, weighed on her mind, especially when Nightwing, one of Batman's former sidekicks, arrived. She presented herself as a civilian ally, trying to reassure him that her knowledge of his identity wasn't sinister without revealing Terry's identity. She was hoping that Terry would reveal himself to Nightwing, and they would all start working together, when Terry went back to Sleep, followed by Nightwing. Once again she was the only Gothamite in Nautilus, but this time she was part of the Bat-family by association, and felt it was her responsibility to do what they would have. Despite that feeling, she knew that she was nowhere near as capable as them, and all her teachers were gone. During Pitch's machinations and invasion, she took a more active role, trying to rescue Death to repay him for saving her in the last crisis, but well aware that she was the weakest of the team. She turned her weakness into an asset, luring Pitch's minions into a trap, but she wished she could do more.
Since then, Dana has once again started searching for training - focusing on physical this time. She wanted to keep up with the heroes, to stop being just a civilian looking to others for leadership. Everything that has happened has helped her realize her potential, both the good and the bad, and she wants to be the best person she can be. She has realized that superheroes aren't innately better than people like her, that being a leader is a choice. Because of what she knows, she feels more responsible for others. She isn't the same ordinary high school girl she was when she arrived, and she knows that she doesn't have to be.
The biggest problem Dana had at first was with Bending. Though intrigued by the possibilities it offered, she was afraid to use it much. She knew people, back in Gotham, who had been like her - up until they got superpowers, at which point they used their new powers to hurt others. She was afraid of becoming like them, especially as her first accidental Bending was destructive, and so at first she avoided practicing Bending at all. But with reassurances from many, including Wally, a superhero she was inclined to trust, she worked past her fears and started practicing in earnest- but with a focus on constructive and protective abilities.
As Dana got more used to Nautilus, she appointed herself an unofficial greeter to new arrivals. She felt it was the best way she could help, as she was not Ascended or any other authority, and she remembered how confused she had been when she first arrived and how much she appreciated the help others had offered. Unconsciously she was afraid of overstepping her authority and felt more kinship with new arrivals than with long-time residents, closer to the girl she was in Gotham.
Besides working on Bending and helping new arrivals settle in, Dana had no real goals until a kid named Phineas arrived. Even though he wasn't around long, he and his optimism left a huge impression on her. She realized that she had missed a lot of childhood fun, as living in Gotham with its crime made children grow up fast. She knew that she had had a much easier life than many of her friends back home, but she hadn't realized that even so, she had been deprived, and so she resolved to enjoy herself more than Gotham would've allowed.
Unfortunately for Dana, she didn't have long to enjoy childish pursuits before events intervened to prevent it. Hekket, one of the city's Devas, gave all the residents a warning about sinking into chaos and tasked them to wind the chains, a task Dana readily accepted. At first she worked diligently, but when Lelouch noticed that Bending was getting weaker as they wound the chains and suggested they stopped, she did so, ignoring Batman's convictions. Before then, she'd held the protector of Gotham City in awe, but that was the first time she decided that just because he was a superhero didn't mean he knew best.
When the Dark Aeon attacked the city, the crisis took its toll on Dana. Two of her friends, Skyfire and Orihime, had been its first victims, and it weighed on her that there was nothing anyone could do to help them. The nightmares the Dark Aeon sent chipped away at her confidence, reawakening her fears of turning evil and making her relive past trauma. At one point, she almost left, rather than potentially endanger everyone else either by turning against them or letting them down at a critical point. A late night impromptu pep talk from Dib helped her overcome her fears and stay to fight. The later nightmares failed to break her and only strengthened her resolve.
With the city under siege by the Dark Aeon, many residents evacuated to Kalliste. Dana considered joining them, as she thought of herself as a civilian, but ultimately decided that if she could stay and help in Nautilus in any way, she would. And she found a way to be useful - she set herself up as the guardian of the Northern Gate, the evacuation route. She had been working on her shielding Bending, and with Bending restored and improving, she kept the Gate under constant watch, freeing other strong Benders up to fight the Dark Aeon's creations.
Perhaps inevitably, her concerns about the Gate's safety were proven right, when Xemnas, aiding the Dark Aeon, attacked her to remove the shield. Drained of energy and mortally wounded, she kept the shield up, less afraid of dying than of letting everyone down. She survived, thanks to Death's timely intervention and rescue, an act that she would remember.
When the Dark Aeon's final attack came, Dana joined Peter Pan's flying ship's crew, again using her shielding to protect the attackers. When she came under direct attack from the Aeon, she fought it off herself as best she could, until others came to her rescue. She continued to protect the rest as they prepared their final counter-attack, choosing not to join in on the Unmaking effort.
The euphoria of their victory over the Dark Aeon was short-lived for Dana, though. Dib had previously warned her about another Wakened, Tak's, evil intentions, and when Tak created a giant battleship to fight the Aeon, Dana feared that it would be turned against Nautilus after the battle was won and resolved to destroy it herself if it survived the battle. She only told Dib her plan, not wanting to burden others with the knowledge of her morally questionable actions. Sure enough, Tak's ship emerged unscathed, and Dana detonated a bomb she had planted on the ship. She broadcast a warning before the explosion, hoping that Tak would take her advice and abandon ship, but Tak tried to attack the ship Dana was on instead, endangering everyone in her path. Luckily, Dana's Bending was still strong enough to protect everyone, both from the ship's weapons and from the explosion.
Tak's death in the ship's explosion and the censure of the other Wakened, especially Batman, shook Dana to her core, and she realized that she had abused the powers she'd gotten, just as she'd been afraid of. After the wreckage of the ship had been taken care of, Dana vanished from the public eye, once again restricting her Bending, this time only using it to repair the damage the Aeon had done to the city. She pushed herself to exhaustion as a personal punishment, which landed her in trouble when she fainted while winding the chains. Wally came to her rescue and persuaded her to stop hiding and hurting herself. She continued to push herself, but not to such extremes.
From then on, Dana's life returned to Nautilus normal, though she was somewhat more subdued than before. She started practicing Bending again, but instead of working on it alone, as she had before, she looked for a teacher who could help keep her from abusing the power again. While she had some brief success with returning Ascended Starscream and Tally Youngblood, both left, and she let her training lapse.
Then, a couple months after the Dark Aeon's defeat, a familiar face from home arrived: Terry McGinnis, her boyfriend. While she had had issues with him in Gotham, she was overjoyed to see him in Nautilus, not just for his company, but to have someone who knew her before Nautilus had changed her around, someone who could tell her how much she'd changed, and whether or not it was for the better. While the problems they had had in Gotham no longer applied, new problems arose, mostly through outside influences. Still, Dana was happier than she'd been in months, just being with Terry.
That changed when she found out the secret Terry had been keeping from her for ages, the one that had caused so much trouble for their relationship: That he was Batman. At first she was mad at him for the deception, but after some time for reflection, she came to peace with it and started talking with him about it and why he'd taken on the title and hid it from her. Thanks to the storm that led to the reveal, she knew that at some point, she could become a partner to Batman, and she decided that that was what she wanted. Once again, she sought out training, but this time from her boyfriend. Now that she knew why trouble seemed to follow her, she wanted to be prepared for it and not be a burden and a worry for Batman.
Keeping Terry's secret, and by extension Bruce Wayne's, weighed on her mind, especially when Nightwing, one of Batman's former sidekicks, arrived. She presented herself as a civilian ally, trying to reassure him that her knowledge of his identity wasn't sinister without revealing Terry's identity. She was hoping that Terry would reveal himself to Nightwing, and they would all start working together, when Terry went back to Sleep, followed by Nightwing. Once again she was the only Gothamite in Nautilus, but this time she was part of the Bat-family by association, and felt it was her responsibility to do what they would have. Despite that feeling, she knew that she was nowhere near as capable as them, and all her teachers were gone. During Pitch's machinations and invasion, she took a more active role, trying to rescue Death to repay him for saving her in the last crisis, but well aware that she was the weakest of the team. She turned her weakness into an asset, luring Pitch's minions into a trap, but she wished she could do more.
Since then, Dana has once again started searching for training - focusing on physical this time. She wanted to keep up with the heroes, to stop being just a civilian looking to others for leadership. Everything that has happened has helped her realize her potential, both the good and the bad, and she wants to be the best person she can be. She has realized that superheroes aren't innately better than people like her, that being a leader is a choice. Because of what she knows, she feels more responsible for others. She isn't the same ordinary high school girl she was when she arrived, and she knows that she doesn't have to be.
