Immovable Object

I tugged at the sleeves of my robes, pulling them back up to my wrists as they once again rode up to my elbow. The tough wool and silk of the green, black, and gold Dai Li outfit was very comfortable and almost as addicting to play with as the green tassel on my conical hat, but for the life of me it would not stay in place.

"How much longer till we get to the convention?" I asked from the back of the car I was in.

"Not much longer," my friend Marideth told me from the driver's seat. She was dressed as Azula from one of our favorite shows, Avatar the Last Airbender, dressed in the earth kingdom clothes she had worn after taking control of the organization that my outfit was inspired by. "How you holding up back there?" she asked, taking a moment to look back as we came to a red light.

"I'm fine," I muttered, once again pulling my sleeve up after readjusting my hat. "Sleeves are a pain but that kind of comes with have them so wide." My other friend, Ryan, who was also dressed as a Dail Li agent like me, chuckled while we resumed our drive to the convention center.

"Yea, maybe next year we could go water tribe. They're either wearing no sleeves at all, tight sleeves, or jackets. Would that make you happy?" he teased in a faux patronizing tone.

"I already spent a couple thousand to make these costumes as authentic as possible, even down to their supposed durability. If you want the water tribe, you're buying the furs," I told him seriously. Of course, I wasn't actually serious, but these outfits did cost a pretty penny, even for someone with my salary. I could afford it becoming a yearly thing, but not by much.

"Ah, don't worry," Marideth said, waving her hand dismissively. "We won't bleed you dry. Besides, I'm getting a great new job in a month, so I could chip in too."

After some more idle chatting about plans for future conventions, we arrived the huge convention center. Thankfully, today was another one of those days where the weatherman had lied and instead of a blistering heat, a nice cool breeze greeted us. Even the inside of the center was nice and cool, despite the crowds. Apparently someone had even been kind enough to break the thermostat while it was on a comfortable 68 degrees, if the madly grinning Naruto cosplayer being pushed into a police car for 'destruction of public property' was anything to go by.

As soon as we entered though, Ryan and I flanking Marideth, we began turning heads left and right. Marideth radiated confidence and charisma, just like the actual Azula, while only having to fake the fire princess's sadistic superiority. And just like we had practiced for weeks, she pulled it off perfectly. Ryan had some trouble keeping a straight face as everyone ogled us but just like Marideth, our practice allowed him to keep the calm and apathetic demeanor of the Dai Li. Unlike him though, I didn't need to pretend to hold the same demeanor. Granted, I exaggerated a little when it came to dismissing everyone else as worthless peasants, but I didn't have to do it too much since that was Marideth's ball park.

"Woah!" someone shout from one of the small crowds that had gathered to take pictures of us and ask about how we made our outfits look so real. A scrawny kid, probably fourteen or thirteen, dressed like Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter pushed his way through the crowd and looked at us with awe. "You guys look just like Azula and the Dai Li from The Last Airbender!"

"Well, I'm glad that someone was able to recognize fire nation royalty even under all of this hideous dirt fashion," Marideth exclaimed haughtily, looking with some disdain at the bald and nose-less robe clad convention goer, "even if he is some hideous street rat." Ryan and I stayed silent with our hands folded into our sleeves, our hats shading our eyes from the public.

The little boy nearly fangasmed at this. "And you act and sound just like them too!" he squealed in delight. Marideth looked at a clock on the wall and sighed. She always did enjoy getting attention but it seemed that we had to cut our fun short so we could move on to sign up for the main festivity, the costume contest.

"Dai Li, I grow tired of the presence of these peasants. Take me to my destination," she ordered, waving dismissively at the boy Voldemort as he was dragged away squealing by what I could only assume were his parents.

"Of course, your highness," I intoned with a bow. Ryan and I took up positions in front of her now and walked through the crowds, not bothering with manners, except for one elderly lady carrying many Star Trek memorabilia, and just barged through any group that got in our way. Of course, no one was mad, though slightly disgruntled. This convention center often hosted contests where behavior was also judged throughout the con. So far I think we had nailed our roles to a T.

Finally, after some hours of going around and looking at and buying fan drawings and paintings and other such things from shows we liked, we finally made our way to the area where the costume contest would be held. However, on our way there Ryan noticed something out of the corner of his eye and grinned, completely breaking character as he ran off to look at a solitary stand with a number of items that looked like authentic pieces of gear from what looked like dozens of franchises.

"Guys! Guys! Look!" Marideth laughed as we walked over and also broke character while I just slowly facepalmed, hiding a small smile of my own at my friend's antics. Ryan pointed to two sets of gloves and shoes that looked to be made of earth as well as the little crown/hair piece that Azula wore. He grabbed a glove and shoe. "And look! They even feel like rock too!" He put the glove on and marveled at it.

"That's because it is!" the friendly, if unassuming, man behind the stall counter exclaimed. I looked at him questioningly, Marideth and Ryan too engrossed with looking at the items respective to their characters.

"How? It doesn't look like there's anything holding it together..." I said. Really, it just looked like pieces of rock shaped to someone’s hand and yet, as Ryan moved his hand around, it looked about as flexible as any other glove. I grabbed one myself and tried it on. It did indeed feel like rock and yet none of the little plates of earth caught onto each other or anything as I closed my hand then wiggled my fingers. "These are pretty cool."

"Pretty cool?" Ryan asked incredulously. "These are awesome!" The man behind the counter blushed slightly.

"Oh, why thank you. I put quite a bit of work into all of these." He motioned towards all the merchandise. He noticed Marideth flipping Azula's crown this way and that, eying it for all its details, and grinned. "Find something you like?"

Marideth looked up and smiled amicably. "Yea, is this 24k gold? Looks and feels like it..." she trailed off. The man nodded and her grin got even bigger before she quickly re-did her hair into a top not, using the green ribbon in her hair to secure it, before placing the crown around it. "You got a mirror?" she asked. Once again he nodded and pulled out a small hand mirror. She grabbed and couldn't help but be impressed. "Well now, don't I look absolutely diabolical now." She chuckled and I rolled my eyes.

I could tell the both of them wanted these and I couldn't help but admit so did I. They would go well with our costumes. I turned to the man. "How much for these?" I asked. One transaction later and Ryan and I were sporting earth shoes, which were shockingly comfortable, and gloves while Marideth wore her new crown as well as the psychotic fire princess had.

Half an hour later, our group and a dozen other people stood behind large curtains off to the side of the large stage that had been erected for the costume competition. I could make out characters from several famous franchises, though one girl was dressed as someone I couldn't for the life of me recognize. I had a feeling that the weird combination of black thigh high boots, mini skirt, enormous shoulder pauldrons, tight sleeves, and suspenders whose only purpose were to cover her nipples was famous among the audience if the loud cheering when she had gone on stage had meant anything.

Thankfully, I didn't have to say anything as, when she approached us to wish us luck, Marideth had rebuffed her with the same level of haughtiness that only Azula herself could match. She didn't say anything about the girl's state of dress, sure, but I could tell even she was annoyed by it, which was enough for me. Really though, it was so impractical and blatantly meant for fanservice I almost felt insulted just seeing it existed.

"Are you ready, your highness?" Ryan asked neutrally as the duo in front of us, dressed like Ryu and Ken from Street Fighter, were called up.

"Of course I'm ready," she replied hotly, playing it up someone for the camera watching us. "What do you take me for, a child?"

"No your highness," he replied hastily and bowed his head. I almost smiled. We were sure to win at this point.

"And next!" came the voice of the announcer. "Marideth, Ryan, and Charles as Princess Azula and her Dai Li agents!" That was our cue.

We walked up the stage in formation, our stride confident, faces passive and somewhat dismissive, and demeanor otherwise unaffected by the loudly cheering crowd. We stopped at the center of the stage and Marideth crossed her arms, giving the crowd one self-assured and prideful smirk, sending them raving. Oh yea, she had definitely just gotten us first place.

Unfortunately, our little victory was short lived as the ground began to violently shake. People began screaming and ran about, pushing past each other to get outside. The three of us were knocked off our feet as the earth beneath the convention center seemed to make waves, shattering concrete and collapsing pillars.

"What's going on!?" Marideth cried out desperately as Ryan and I pulled her up and steadied her against us, our rock shoes apparently giving us more traction than normal shoes.

"Earthquake!" I yelled as a wall collapsed. 'What the hell?' I couldn't help but think. The last time an earthquake this bad hit California was way back in 1906 and I was beginning to think that this one might have been more powerful as a large portion of the building collapsed and crushed several dozen people. This place was supposed to have been built to withstand natural disasters like the San Francisco earthquake and yet here it was crumbling like sand! We had to get out.

We slowly began making our way to one of the out of the way exits that only a few people seemed to remember. I nearly lost my footing several times but, by coincidence, the earthquake kept causing several pieces of tile to pop up and stop my foot. Marideth wasn't so lucky since she had to place all her weight on our shoulders due to the ground knocking her feet out from under whenever she tried to move on her own power.

It was only fifty feet away, the door. Barely a few seconds worth of walking. Yet, as we made our way to it, it seemed like hours passed us as we stumbled and forced our way over the undulating ground and falling rubble. But just as it seemed like we would make it to the door, the final pillar holding the roof above our heads succumbed to the earth's power. We didn't even have time to scream as the rubble fell on us.

I sighed within my stone prison, wishing for all the world to be able to fiddle with the cloth of my robes as I pulled myself out of my trance. That had been a long time ago, the memory that I had just relived through. So very long. It was a miracle that I had kept sane these past few thousand years.

Even more so considering the kind of trance I was just in occurred often, through my own will no less, during my meditations.

But none the less, reliving my past and pondering the many questions of the universe, as well as a great deal of pride, helped soothe my mind and ward away the clawing grasp of insanity. It also helped me become much more poetic in my speech too.

But never the less, that memory had been the last time I had been with my old friends before I came to this world. This world of magic and anthropomorphic creatures of legend. This world where I had spent years building a hidden empire only to locked away in stone by two ponies. Two ponies, sisters, one a great crusader and the other the queen of all pirates, with the powers of the sun and moon respectively at their command who had deemed me too great a threat to their interests and used the power of ancient artifacts to lock me away for thousands of years, put up as a trophy of their victory in the gardens of their homes.

And in that time, I had seen the two sisters found their own kingdom, battle the lord of chaos, ward of hundreds of invading nations, and eventually battle each other, a battle that had resulted in the younger sister, the once proud pirate queen, being locked away in the very celestial body that fueled her powers and then returning not but a year ago to be cleansed of the dark spirit that had possessed her.

Well, I hadn't seen them directly, but I had seen the results beyond my stone prison. But that didn't matter now because I would soon be the cause of similar events, for as I recollected all that I had seen and experienced, the horrified visage of the re-petrified lord of chaos, who had escaped earlier that day, was wheeled into the gardens across from me. I would have smirked in satisfaction were my lips mobile as, when the ponies who had brought the statue in left, I began to feel cracks along my prison as the chaos lord's final bit of residual magic began to free me in one final act of revenge against the rulers of this land, the sisters who had locked me away so long ago.

It was night when the stone around had weakened significantly enough for me to simply walk off the platform, trailing dust as the final remnants of my prison failed. I nodded in thanks to the the lord of chaos. He knew that I held no ill will towards the princesses of this land, as I would have likely done something similar to what they had done to me unto them under similar circumstances, but he also knew I had priorities that they were in the way of.

With little hesitation after my brief thanks, I willed the ground under me to open up. With my senses clear, I began to 'swim' through the earth, the vibrations of my movement through the ground giving me a perfect image of the land around me. By the end of the night, I had left the gardens and the castle and city attached to them sitting atop the lonely mountain they sat on dozens of miles behind me. I did not stop though, for I knew my destination, the place that I been absent from for nearly two and a half thousand years, and could not delay my return any further.

Tomorrow, I returned home.