Breaking the Wheel (Legend of Korra)

[iwvs]

This work is canon divergent at mid season four of LoK, but otherwise it's not particularly an alternate universe.

Unable to save Jinora from the spirit vines, and with the people around her losing faith in her abilities, Korra goes to Zaheer in his prison. Not to confront him, but to put his skills to use against the Earth Empire. Kuvira advances on Republic City as Tonraq prepares to lead a rescue party into the spirit world.

This is also cross-posted from SB, so apologies to anyone who's seen it already.

Okay, now that's out of the way, let's begin.

---

Only once the old order has burned, can the world be made anew.

Zaheer closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, feeling his heart rate drop to a familiar, steady pulse. His new cell, deep in the earth, was less spiritually connected than his mountaintop had been, but that didn't mean there was no way to access the spirit world, particularly not now the spirit and physical realms were so closely intertwined. There were places in the spirit world that had affinity with cages, and cells.

Slipping between the worlds, Zaheer felt the telltale brush of cobwebs against his face, and rose stiffly to his feet, the chains that had bound his limbs gone. He stood in the entrance to a cave, a lake at its centre and the rest of it strewn with cobwebs, all glowing with a soft yellow light. The place was near to the fog of lost souls, and it had a tendency to trap lost items, and sometimes travellers.

"Zaheer! You came back!" called a voice from above. Aruki, the lantern spider spirit, squeezed himself out from a narrow crevice in the ceiling, legs tipped with hands preceding his eyeless torso, and his wide mouth split into a grin. "I guess you're in jail again, huh. No way you'd let yourself get so scruffy if you weren't."

Zaheer frowned, but the spirit's observation was accurate. Even the metalbenders that guarded him were too wary of him to let a sharp object anywhere near him, and the fine fuzz of hair that now covered his head had followed him into the spirit world too.

Aruki crawled down the webs on the wall, stopping when his body hung little above Zaheer's face. The ball of light within him glowed a happy yellow. "You're my favourite human, you know that?"

Zaheer's expression was wry as he stepped inside, treading carefully round the deformations in the webbing. "You try to kill me every time I come here."

"Yeah, well-" Aruki rotated himself in his web, as he followed, his light ebbing a little with embarrassment. " That's just my nature. I can't really help it. And honestly, I would be very disappointed if I ever caught you."

"I'm sure you would," Zaheer agreed.

The lantern spider went still, his light taking on a cold white cast. The surface of the lake became blacker, the strange shapes in his webs more sinister. "What's wrong, Zaheer? You're not yourself."
"I'm not?" Zaheer raised an eyebrow. The spirit had never called attention to his state before, aside from lamenting his failure to entrap and eat his guards.

"Mm… you know what I mean." Aruki circled round him, trailing a filament of bright silk, as thick as a man's finger. "You usually talk back more than this." His body tilted thoughtfully. "It's probably dehydration- I'll make us some tea."

This was definitely unusual behaviour from the spider, observed Zaheer as Aruki vanished up into the web. Shaking his head, he brushed the silk from his sleeves. Left to harden, Aruki's thread could become stronger than steel, but the spirit hadn't even bothered with a strong anchor point for it. It was a murderous gesture, rather than a genuine attempt. Maybe the spirit was actually worried for him.
Aruki returned with a tea-set, a table, and a small portable stove, setting them out on the floor between them.

"Where did you get that?" Zaheer asked.

The spider shrugged with two spare arms as he arranged the tea set with the other four. "I have friends other than you, you know," he said. Reaching into his mouth, he plucked out a portion of his light and placed it in the stove, where it flickered into life as a flame. "So what happened? You'd been gone so long, and no-one has seen the Avatar. I figured maybe you'd won, maybe settled down with that nice lady you were always pining after."

P'Li. Zaheer breathed in. Hearing Aruki talk about her was like being back in the moment. Like watching her go again. An almost physical pain, as if his sternum were about to crack. She had died, and for what? So he could fail? It must have showed on his face, because Aruki stopped what he was doing.
"I… guess she didn't wait for you, huh." The spirit reached out, squeezing Zaheer's shoulder with a small, dark hand. "It'll be okay, buddy."

"She's dead," said Zaheer, quietly.

Aruki made a small noise of sympathy, and touched Zaheer's cheek. His hand was soft, and warmer than Zaheer would have expected. "Don't cry," he said. "I mean, you can if you wanna, but then I'd hafta eat you. You didn't come here for that, did you?"

Zaheer froze, staring at Aruki, at the ball of light that bobbed behind his half-open jaws. Oblivion. That was what Aruki was offering, half-joking. Darkness, and cold, with no more pain, no more chains. "No," Zaheer said, finally. Closing his eyes, he took Aruki's hand in his, and lifted it from his face. "Thank you for your concern, old friend, but this is something many humans must come to terms with."

"You do die a lot, dontcha," the spirit mused, going back to preparing the tea. His six hands worked in tandem, grinding the powder from the block and whisking it in the cup. "I was in Wan Shi Tong's library once, and there were whole books full of it. Just stories about humans, and how they died." He poured a cup for Zaheer, and handed it over before making one for himself. "Hardly any of them got eaten. So wasteful."

Zaheer took the cup from Aruki's hands. "Thank you," he said, his voice almost cracking, and the spirit dismissed his thanks with a free arm. They drank together, and Zaheer considered the tea. It tasted at least a decade stale, and Aruki had brewed it too strong, making it bitter, but tea was difficult to obtain in the spirit world. It was a gift, and a priceless one. "How has everyone been while I've been gone?"

"What?" Aruki's mouth quirked. "You're not going to tell me about your adventures first?"

"Why would I take away the only incentive you have to not eat me?"

The spider harrumphed. "Did you ever consider that I might enjoy your company?"

Zaheer felt himself smile for the first time in a long time. "How long have we known one another, Aruki?"

The spider's mouth was downturned as he slurped his tea. "And after I was so nice to you, too. The nerve."

His beard. His beard was the hardest part of being chained like this, his hands bound behind him. It grew out, and it itched like hell. It wouldn't have been so bad, save that he had nothing to distract him from it. Four walls, the floor, the ceiling, and the chains. Save for his daily gruel, Zaheer was alone in his cell with his thoughts and his itching beard. He wanted to tell himself his meditation served some higher purpose, but some days he found himself slipping into the meditative trance to stop himself scratching at his face.

Guru Laghima had said let go your earthly tethers. Enter the void. Empty, and become wind, and for a day he had understood it perfectly. He grasped at the sentiment, so obvious in the moment, and it slipped through his fingers like air. P'Li was dead, his allies were dead, his scheme in ruins. For the first few weeks of his imprisonment, he sat, cross-legged on the floor, afraid to try to fly again. The losses weighed him down, and he sorted through them, untangling them, and allowing himself to feel the grief that he had set aside in the moment. Everyone who had died, had died in vain, and thinking of them would bring the pain to the surface, like picking at a wound not yet healed. He had succeeded in toppling the Earth Queen, at least, but he had failed to change the world. His love for P'Li, the strongest thing he had felt for anyone, had been, in truth, an obstacle on his path to enlightenment, and that hurt almost more than losing her. He embraced the pain, letting it flow through him, replaying the moments in his mind, until watching no longer brought the lump to his throat and pain to his chest. He watched until it stained his aura and made the spirits shy from him. After that, he was numb.
It would be so easy to let go right now, to slip from his physical form, as Iroh had, and leave the White Lotus guarding his husk.

What kept him here, then? Why did he choose to stay in a cell, deep underground, with his hands bound and his beard itching? A man who is devoted to freedom, spends his life in a cage. It was almost an aphorism. He smiled at the thought that future acolytes might read the work of Guru Zaheer, a great airbender dedicated to solitary meditation. It was unlikely. Fire Lord Ozai had died in similar circumstances, and little record remained of his time confined, even among the ranks of the Lotus.

It was the breeze that brought his reason back to him. It was cold and intermittent, mountain air, and if he bowed his head, he could feel it on the back of his neck. It came down from a hole in the ceiling of his cell, no larger than the palm of his hand. Enough to airbend with, just barely. Enough to breathe. They had denied Ghazan earth, Ming Hua water, and P'Li warmth, but they could not take the air from him, no matter how far from the sky they tried to hide him. Just as they could not rob him of his freedom, no matter how many chains they wrapped him in.

Zaheer turned his face to the wind, and focused. For a the first time in the months since his defeat, his body rose from the ground, only the physical chains around him holding him in place. He would have another chance to change the world.

He waited.

---

"Zaheer." The Avatar threw his name like an accusation as she stalked from the earthshaped elevator.

"Avatar," Zaheer opened his eyes. "I figured you would show up sooner or later." The events on the spires would have damaged her spiritually as they had damaged him, but she looked well physically, her brown shoulders square and her stride strong- a good showing for someone who had been poisoned so severely. How long has it been, he wondered. In his cell there were no days or nights, and he had stopped trying to count them a long time ago. One of the avatar's companions, Asami Sato, slipped out behind her, a box of wires and components held under one arm, and the stone door slammed closed, sealing the three of them in the cell. Zaheer looked between the two women. What did the Avatar want with him? They looked wary, both staying beyond the extent of his chains. "You must be really desperate if you're coming to me for help."

"Korra," Asami started, but the Avatar raised a hand and she stopped, eyes pleading.

"No. I can handle him." Korra looked up at him, her blue gaze steady, but her shoulders were tense, her breathing quicker than it should have been. Was she still afraid of him, after all this time? Zaheer felt a pang of regret. He had never wanted to make her suffer. "And he's right- we do need his help." He saw a flash of something in her eyes, as she turned back to him. Resentment? "No-one believes I can do anything anymore, but they still believe in you. We need you to speak to the people, like you did in Ba Sing Se."

Zaheer stared at her, speechless. He had expected her to be angry, to rail at him, maybe even hurt him, but the Avatar who stood before him was a different woman than the girl he had tried to kill.

"When you took out the Earth Queen, you created something worse," she said. "The worst dictator the Earth Kingdom has ever seen."

Kuvira. Zaheer paused. He had failed. In everything that he had done, even in liberating the earth kingdom, he had failed, and the sorrow hit him anew. "I'd heard rumours," he admitted. "But I didn't know how powerful she had become." He hadn't wanted to believe it. He looked to the Avatar, her sincere eyes, fear and resentment beneath the surface. How had he not seen it? It was the same face she had worn, when she had handed herself over him to secure the safety of the Air Nation. "I will help you depose her."

"You will?" Her face betrayed her surprise, and for a moment she was the girl he had killed again. She had expected him to refuse, he realised, or bargain for his freedom. How was she to know that there was nothing in the world that he wanted more than this?

Zaheer nodded, and lowered himself to the ground. His chains slacked around him, and he unfolded his legs, rising to his feet before the Avatar. The earthen floor of his cell felt alien between his toes. "It would be my pleasure."

---

On the mountaintop, Varrick hugged his furs around him, water dripping from his nose as the rain pelted him. This was no south pole, that was for sure, but Varrick Industries' work on metal fatigue in the extreme weather still seemed to be applicable. The transmitter swayed in the wind, and Bolin's surly older brother looked up at it doubtfully.

"I can't believe we're working with Zaheer," he said.

"Thirty years ago, no-one believed a panda bear dog could talk, and look at us now! Times change, kid." Varrick gave the thing a good pat, and it didn't collapse in on itself. That was a start.

The kid just shook his head, completely ignoring him. "I can't believe Korra asked us to," he said, frowning. His dark grimaces might have attracted women to him like spider-rats to fresh garbage, but they wouldn't get him anywhere with Varrick.

"That's your problem," said Varrick. "You don't have to believe in anything. You just gotta go with it. Be flexible."

A strong gust of wind hit, and Varrick clung to the mountain. The transmitter bent nearly double before springing back to shape.

"Is it meant to do that?" said the surly kid, shooting him a glance.

Had the study covered tall structures like this? Varrick sucked in air through his teeth. "Sure," he said. "Why not."

The kid just narrowed his eyes, settling down into a firebending stance as the stormclouds closed on them, close enough that he could feel the pressure change. The kid wasn't someone Varrick would have chosen as an assistant, but the list of lightning benders ready and able to help the avatar on a top secret mission was pretty damn short. There was a boom and the smell of ozone as the kid directed the juice, and Varrick glanced to check the control panel hadn't melted before he clicked his portable radio on. "All fired up and ready to go."

Asami Sato's voice crackled faintly through his earphone in reply. "Roger that."

The signal was all static at first, a hiss of white noise that built from a whisper to a roar in one ragged crescendo. It overrode all other transmissions, crackling over news and music alike before it coalesced into a voice. Not a smooth and articulate newscaster, but one hoarse from long disuse, and on the edge of fury.

"Attention, Citizens of the Earth Kingdom," Zaheer began, locking eyes with the Avatar as he hunched over the equipment. They were alone now, save for the thousands listening. "When last I spoke to you, it was to tell you that you were free of a tyrant. Now, I come to ask your help in overthrowing another."

 

[iwvs]

...you cannot trust your future to those who will exploit you, those who will imprison your loved ones, send your neighbours to camps, send your children to camps to work as slaves…

Kai's thoughts were clouded with thoughts of Jinora as he flew to the pole. Jinora, helpless in the spirit vines. Jinora, struggling, eyes wide. Jinora, screaming voicelessly, her fists beating weakly on the inside until they unclenched and went limp. He had to save her, even if it meant going through the portal into the unknown. Hell, she would do the same for him.

Urging the sky bison onwards, he almost missed the expanse of white that rolled below him. The south pole had more snow than he had ever seen in his life. The villages in the mountains north of Ba Sing Se got some snow in the winters, but nothing like this. If theirs was a scattering of snow on the ground, like rice before a shrine, the pole was a warehouse stuffed full of dead clouds. He landed the exhausted Pepper at the edge of the spirit forest by the portal, half falling from her back in his haste to dismount.

... The woman who calls herself the Uniter is no different than those who came before her. There are no good kings, no just queens. There are only tyrants, imposing themselves on the people…

Mako held an umbrella above Varrick as they listened to the broadcast, his face fixed in a scowl. It was an utterly futile act, as both of them were already soaked, but one Varrick appreciated. The kid was no Zhu Li, but at least he knew his place.

The man in the mountain had a knack for the wireless, Varrick had to admit it. Maybe once all this was over, he could get him his own show, where he interviewed world leaders between anarchist diatribes. Radio Zaheer. It would be a great opportunity for advertising, too- with a voice like that, he could sell anything! Bison manure-based bending enhancers! Medicinal elbow leeches! Of course, getting any world leaders to appear would be tricky, after what Zaheer had done to the Earth Queen.

"Wait…" Varrick lifted a headphone from his ear, frowning. "I thought we were with the royals. Weren't you and Prince Wu...?"

"I'm his bodyguard," said the surly kid, not looking Varrick in the eye. "Appointed by Republic City police."

"Really?" Varrick raised an eyebrow, leaning in. "I heard he lives with your family."

"Yeah," The kid turned to Varrick, scowling. Was he even capable of other facial expressions? "It's for security."

"Shame," Varrick wrinkled his nose. "For a moment there, I thought you had connections."

... And for generations, we have not spoken. We have stood aside, letting the greedy take from us, letting the powerful dictate if our families eat or starve. We have been silent too long…

The physical journey to the spirit portal was nearly complete, the men and women of the Water Tribe laden with packs and supplies, but now they had stopped, standing round in a curious half-circle as Kai talked to their leader. The trees of the sacred forest seemed to shift in the half-light, their dark branches curling towards the gathering.

"I'm sorry, but I can't let a child go with us." Korra's father, Tonraq, looked down at him, his face serious. "The spirit world is dangerous. Unpredictable."

Kai bristled, bringing himself to his full height. "I'm not a kid. I'm a member of the Air Nation. Who do you think's been keeping order in the Earth Kingdom the last few years?"

"A member of the Air Nation, huh," said Tonraq. "Tenzin didn't say anything about sending anyone."

"Well," Kai folded his arms across his chest, narrowing his eyes. "Maybe he forgot."

"I can radio him and check. You want that?" They locked eyes, and Tonraq snorted. "I thought not."

"No! Please," Kai cast his eyes round the gathered tribespeople, his hands outstretched. Most of the averted their gaze. "I can airbend. I would be useful. Surely some of you can see that!"

Tonraq narrowed his eyes. "I'm expedition leader, and my say on this is final. You're not coming."

"Fine." Kai gritted his teeth. "I guess I'll go."

He snatched a pack of supplies from Tonraq's sled and leaped away, lifting himself with the cold southern air, Tonraq and the others shouting after him. If he had to go by himself, he would. For Jinora.

The southern spirit portal seemed to grow larger as he flew towards it, until its blue glow touched the highest point in the sky.

... but together, we are stronger, our voices louder than our oppressors care to remember...

"Enough," Kuvira snarled as she looked up from her desk. "Turn that garbage off."

Baatar frowned, fiddling with the knobs on the radio. "It's on every frequency," He adjusted his glasses. "I… can't. It's-"

Kuvira growled, making a claw motion with her hand, and the little radio flew backwards, crumpling as it hit the wall of their carriage. Baatar flinched back, his hands clasped, and shot her a reproachful look. Their radio smoked softly, but the broadcast was still audible, faintly, through the speakers scattered around their army's camp.

"We can triangulate the signal," Baatar offered, holding his hands out in a placating gesture. "Find out who's broadcasting and send someone... to deal with it."

Kuvira shook her head. "No need," she said. "I recognise that voice, and there's only one place it could be coming from." She allowed herself a small smile. She had been there for his capture, after all. "Have the team prepare the weapon."

...rise up, and destroy your oppressors. Use your bending if you have it, and your body if you have none. Rise up, for those who cannot. Rise up, for those who have already fallen...

When Asami stepped from the elevator, there were six White Lotus staring at her.

"What is the meaning of this?" The guard captain, a stocky metalbender named Daruka, jabbed a finger at the radio.

The white lotus guarding Zaheer's prison had a radio in their break room. Of course they did. And Zaheer's speech was piping steadily through it. She could have kicked herself. Pursing her lips, Asami scrambled for an explanation.

"Korra- I mean the Avatar- she convinced him to help against-"

"Zaheer is a very dangerous man," Daruka interrupted her. "And his ideology is a poison. The Avatar would never be so foolish as to spread it."

Asami brushed a strand of hair from her face. "Well, maybe you should go talk to her about that."

"I will," said Daruka. "Just as soon as you're safely in custody."

They squared off, Daruka blocking the way. Asami breathed in. Even with all of her training, it was hard to see how she could hope to face this many earthbenders, especially inside a mountain. They were still eyeing each other up when another White Lotus came charging along the corridor. "Excuse me. Sir."

"What is it?" Daruka snapped, turning his head.

"Kuvira," said the messenger. "Earth Empire forces have been spotted nearby."

Asami felt a shock run through her. Mako and Varrick were still outside with the transmitter, in clear view on the side of the mountain. She took a step back, prompting a startled glance from Daruka.

"Hey now! Not so fast-" A cable shot from the earthbender's armoured sleeve, but Asami caught it and activated her electrified glove.

He recoiled from the shock, teeth chattering "Sorry," said Asami, as she slipped past him. "But I really gotta go."

...there is nothing that can stop you. The only chains that bind you are the chains of fear.

She wasn't afraid of him, damn it. She had beaten him. She was over that. Korra's jaw clenched and unclenched. The worst thing about hearing Zaheer was that it all sounded so reasonable. Like something she should want. Not like the man who had tried to murder her. Who had crippled her, ruined her, in pursuit of some half-baked idea of how the world should be. Korra blinked, and caught a flash of him bearing down on her, but when she looked up, he was sitting where he had been, his long, filthy hair half covering his face.

"One broadcast won't be enough, you know," he said, matter-of-factly. "If Kuvira is all that you claim, the people will fear her too much to act out right away."

"Ugh." Korra shook her head. "I'm not taking advice from you, Zaheer."

"Why not? Our interests are aligned, and-" Zaheer paused, frowning. "Wait. Do you feel that?"

"This better not be some kind of trick," said Korra, getting to her feet. There was no telltale rumble of earthbending, but neither was there any sign of the disturbances and pressure changes that came with an airbender's work, and Zaheer was very still, his gaze fixed on the far wall.

"No." The airbender's tone was firm. "Reach out with your senses. The spiritual energy."

With a sideways glance at Zaheer, Korra put her palm to the wall, opening her spiritual senses. Zaheer was right, she realised with a gasp. There was a wrongness there, as if something had been warped. Not the sense of a dark spirit, as Vaatu had been, but something totally unnatural. Spirits, stretched and twisted together, like fibers of a rope, each one pleading to be released.

"What-" Korra snatched her hand back. "What is that?"

---

The Earth Empire army had already been mustering close to Republic City, so the detour north to Kuvira's target took next to no time, metalbenders laying tracks as fast as the convoy could move.

Kuvira stood before the troops on her stage, and she looked good. At peace. Like nothing in the world could stop her. The weapon loomed behind her, barrel level with her shoulder, but she showed no fear of it, her mouth set in a grim line. It made Bataar's mouth a little dry just watching her like that.

If the troops had been disturbed by the strange broadcast, none of them showed it- each stood to perfect attention as Kuvira began, her voice carrying easily over the crowd. "Those of you who know me, know I have worked tirelessly for peace. For order. You know that I would never condone senseless chaos, or death."

She paced the length of the platform, taking time to look the regimental commanders in the eye. There were murmurs of assent from the troops, and some relaxed their stance enough to nod along. From the back, some fool shouted "Uniter!" and was not reprimanded.

"Republic City has defied us," said Kuvira. "But they are ignorant of our power."

She paused, looking back to the weapon. "Each of you has seen with your own eyes what the Earth Empire can do," she said. "And today, the people of Republic City will get the chance to see it for themselves." Kuvira gestured to Baatar. "Fire it."

Baatar pulled the switch to start the process, and the air was filled with the familiar smell as it consumed the spirit vines inside it, like copper and tree sap. He counted down the seconds as the cannon charged, harsh purple light emanating from deep within the barrel. The gathered troops turned as one towards the mountain as the weapon fired, their faces sallow in the eerie light of the beam.

As far as warning shots went, he supposed, you could do worse than a giant, smoldering hole through a mountain.

 

[iwvs]

"No!" Korra yelled, grabbing a wall as the earth around them shook.

The hot smoke that curled down from the ventilation shaft smelled of melting rock and sulphur, catching painfully in her throat and making her cough.

"What was that?" Zaheer asked. His voice didn't betray anything beyond simple curiosity, but his brows were furrowed as he looked up at the ceiling of his prison.

"Kuvira," Korra ground out. "She built a superweapon… she's using the spirit vines."

She planted her feet in a wide earthbending stance. She couldn't sense Asami or Mako through the earth, but she couldn't sense much beyond the chamber. Everything that Kuvira's weapon had touched felt broken, as if all the spirit energy had been torn from it. If she dug her way out of the complex, she could look for them from above.

"You're not going to leave me here to die," said Zaheer, quietly.

"Maybe I should," Korra growled, but Zaheer simply looked at her. He'd made his pronouncement with an infuriating confidence, and what was worse was that he was right. Korra stamped her foot, loosing all but one of the chains round Zaheer's ankles and wrists, and bent the final chain round her own arm. "There," she snapped, looking up at the ceiling, where an orange glow was beginning to show through in cracks. "But once this is over, I'm putting you right back down here, in the deepest pit the White Lotus can dig for you."

"I would expect nothing less, from the Avatar." Zaheer floated to his feet, bending the smoke away from them with a flowing gesture.

The White Lotus' records had said that the previous Avatars had shown great lavabending potency. Roku had used lava to trigger many volcanic eruptions. Kyoshi had used it to split her home from the continent. But Korra seemed to struggle, clutching at the stuff as it flowed and resorting to earthbending to trap it in place. Did her affinity with her native element prevent her from performing the same feats?

"You need to enter the Avatar state," he prompted.

"No!" Korra shouted, stamping another earth barrier into place. "I can do this-"

"You're still afraid of me," Zaheer called. The Avatar froze, her shoulders tense, confirming the truth of his guess.

"Well, you still want to break the avatar cycle!" she shouted. The barriers she had made against the lava now nearly filled the room, leaving the two of them barely room to bend.

Zaheer pulled the last of the breathable air around them. The heat was unbearable, as if he were holding his hand above an open flame, and the walls were cracking already, more heat radiating from them. "Do you think that I would sacrifice my own life to do so?"

Korra frowned at him, but turned away, putting her fist against her palm. Her eyes glowed white.

Zaheer had seen the state only a handful of times before, once Aang, from afar, and then Korra, directing it against him. The power of it had never failed to impress him. Not just the bending of the elements, which sent air, earth, and fire spinning around them, but the spiritual potency, too. The energy was incredible, as if all the power in the spirit world were condensed down, to a single, incandescent point.

The Avatar seemed to float before him, filling their small chamber with her light, and the spiritual power was with them, infusing Korra, close enough to make Zaheer's hair stand on end.

No. Something was wrong. Zaheer felt the Avatar's energy waver, and flicker, her aura returning to normal for a split second before the Avatar state reurned to her.

With a grunt, the Avatar pulled her hands apart, and the earth around them trembled as she tore the mountain open, a fissure that opened both above and below. Zaheer caught a glimpse of light from above, an opening, but the Avatar faltered again, her eyes flickering to blue. The ground lurched, and the Avatar gave a pained grunt as she resumed the Avatar state. She was struggling now, though, her composure abandoned.

The lava the Avatar had restrained ruptured from the walls of the chasm, and their glimpse of sky was gone. Korra worked frantically to get it under control, but all her earthbending achieved was pushing it around, her barriers melting away as fast as she could bend them, showering them with burning debris.

The Avatar state faded again, and Korra stumbled back, bending away the falling material with a wave of fire. Zaheer joined her, deflecting more debris with an airbending shield, and she looked at him, her blue eyes clouded with uncertainty. She hesitated, her bending failing for a second, and Zaheer moved to compensate, his fingers outstretched, but the power of his airbending alone wasn't great enough.

A glowing fragment of rock struck the Avatar's face and she screamed, all too human. Zaheer grabbed her by the shoulders, feeling her go limp. Clutching her, he leapt down into the chasm she had opened in the earth, the air burning hot around them.

 

[iwvs]

Hiroshi Sato was fortunate, in that Republic City Penitentiary housed a large population of equalists. There were the men he had worked with, of course, but even the non-benders who'd been in prison before Amon's movement seemed to respect him, nodding to him as they passed in corridors with a muted sir.

The triads and the other benders left the equalists alone, in no small part due to the chi blockers among their ranks. The man with the cell next to Hiroshi's, Takumi, was one of them- a short, slight man with greying hair and dark skin that betrayed his water tribe heritage. What Takumi had done to end up with such a lengthy sentence changed according to who was telling the story, but as one of the last people sentenced to imprisonment by the previous Avatar, he wasn't about to get parole any time soon.

Takumi nodded to Hiroshi as he set down his tray next to him at the equalist table. "You hear the news?" Prison food was slop at the best of times, but today's was particularly bad- a small bowl of greying stew, with bread hard enough to be used as an improvised weapon.

"About the Earth Empire?" Hiroshi chewed his bread thoughtfully. "Triads are saying Raiko is going to conscript prisoners for defense of the city."

"That coward?" Takumi raised a spoon of stew to eye level, inspecting the lump. "The only thing he's ever defended is his political office." He made a face as he slurped it. "And I was talking about the superweapon. How's Kuvira doing it?"

"I have no idea." Hiroshi shrugged.

"Some genius you are," Takumi teased. "Fine. How would you do it?"

Hiroshi adjusted his glasses, frowning. The chi blocker rarely asked questions for the sake of it. "The real problem would be generating enough energy. You can get a fair amount out of a galvanic reactor and some batteries, but enough to blast a hole in a mountain like that?" He spread his hands. "You'd need a reactor the size of Republic City. You could never transport it anywhere."

"And there's no way around that?"

"What's my research budget?"

Takumi chuckled. "Let's say it's more than what you could extort out of the triad lowlifes in a few games of Pai Sho."

Hiroshi lowered his glasses, gauging Takumi's intent. The chi blocker seemed at ease, absently poking at his stew with his spoon.

"Future Industries had a few teams working on the problem before Asami took over," he admitted. "Not weaponry, per se, but new energy sources." He frowned. "We had some encouraging preliminary results."

Takumi grinned, but seemed to catch sight of something behind Hiroshi, and raised his eyebrows. "Look lively now," he said, tilting his head back. "We've got company."

On the walkway above them, Republic City's Penitentiary's warden looked down, flanked by two guards in metalbender gear. "Hiroshi Sato," the warden called. "If you would please come with me."

---

Tonraq trudged through the snow, his shoulders hunched. He didn't envy Tenzin, knowing that his search party was now entering the spirit realm not only to look for only his little daughter Jinora, but one of his precious airbending students as well.

Tenzin's pain was one he had felt many times, since the day when Korra had first showed him her earth and firebending powers. Her hands had been so tiny. That was the thing he remembered, after all these years- how, after displaying such power, her hands had still been small enough to fit completely in his palm. She had laughed, even as he had been terrified. And he had surrendered her, to the big wide world, to bleed for them. If he had been able to be the Avatar for her, to take it on for her, he would have taken it in a second, but he had been given no such choice. He had joined the White Lotus, sworn their secret vows, with their knives at his throat, all to be allowed to stay with her, but he hadn't been able to protect her, not really. He had almost been relieved, secretly, after what the Red Lotus had done to her, that he would have her back, but the Korra that returned was not his laughing, joyful daughter, but one who stared into the middle distance, reluctant to brush her hair or eat. Once, he had tried to start the waterbending game that they had played when she was a child, snaking a comical tube of water towards her, but Korra had flinched away from it, looking at him with hurt in her eyes.

Maybe Korra's penfriend Asami knew what troubled her, but Tonraq did not.

The spirit portal shimmered as Tonraq stepped through it, into the meadow that held the tree of time, the beam of light emanating from the northern spirit portal visible at the other end. The rest of the search party emerged, lowering their hoods in the relative warmth, and Tonraq looked around, uneasy. He had crossed through the portals only a handful of times, but that was enough for him to get a sense of the place, and that didn't match up with what he was feeling now. It felt… discordant, like standing on a piece of ice that was liable to break under his weight.

"Careful here," he called, and the others nodded.

There was a movement in the flowers to his left, and Tonraq swung round, raising a watery spear with a sweep of his arm. Furflies, or spirits that looked like furflies, scattered from the grass like motes of night.

The flowers parted, and a small, deerlike face looked out. It was albino, with human eyes, both facing forward but spaced too wide apart for any human skull.

"Humans," the spirit called, its voice eerily soft, and two long arms rose from the grass in front of it.

"Honoured spirit," Tonraq addressed it, dropping his bending.

The spirit made a clicking noise deep in its throat, rocking back and forth, and it took Tonraq a moment to realise that it was laughing. "Honoured," repeated the spirit. "That's a new one." Slowly, it pushed itself up on its backward jointed arms, until its head sat level with Tonraq's. Its body was like that of a huge deer, but with the back legs missing, so that only a flap of skin dragged behind it, trailing ichor in a thick black slick.

Around Tonraq, his companions edged away, settling into bending stances.

"No!" Tonraq raised a hand. "We come in peace. Bending is a last resort."

"Peace… hoo, that's rich," sneered the spirit. "You people ravage the spirit wilds, you keep the Avatar from us, and now you say you want peace. If this is your peace, then I want none of it."

Tonraq narrowed his eyes. "What do you want, spirit?"

"To take back," it said, darkness creeping up from the ruined flesh at its hindquarters. "What was taken from us."

Tonraq moved the water from around him as the now dark spirit lunged, cervid face made fanged by its transformation, hitting it hard in the flank as he threw himself backwards, landing heavily. Two of his search party, Nilak and Miki, stepped forward, raising streams of water, but the spirit smashed them aside, contemptuous. It followed through, lunging at them, and Nilak screamed as Tonraq pulled himself to his feet, his view blocked by the spirit's ruined back. Grunting with exertion, Tonraq bent the water in the ground at his feet up into three icy spears.

"Keep it busy!" he cried, casting the icicles at its back. One hit true, lodging in its flesh, and the spirit screamed in fury, spinning itself round to face him.

The others stayed at range, bending grand jets of water at it as Miki rushed to the side of the injured Nilak. Tonraq gritted his teeth, raising a wall of ice in front of him. The spirit smashed through his wall, but he was already skating to one side, water under his feet. He saw too late that it was lunging towards Miki's unprotected back, and interposed himself with a shout.

There was a sharp pain in his right shoulder, and it bore him down, pinning him to the ground with one hand, its jagged maw leering over him. Tonraq grunted with pain, looking round for any weapon that might help.

At the edge of the spirit portal clearing, other spirits had gathered, peering out from the undergrowth with a multitude of strange eyes.

"They won't help you," the spirit pressed its face close to his, its breath sweet and cloying. "My cause is just, and they know that." It opened its mouth wide, until all that Tonraq could see was the darkness inside, his companions yelling his name.

A jet of water smashed into the side of the spirit's head, forcing it aside, and Tonraq gasped for breath as its weight left his chest.

A tall loop of water surrounded the spirit, spiralling upwards with a golden glow. It was waterbending technique Tonraq had not expected to see again. Unalaq. His brother's name caught on his tongue. Could it be? Could his brother's spirit have survived? Weakened, the spirit struggled within the bonds of the sphere until they froze solid around it, trapping it within.

It was not Unalaq, but Tonraq's nephew, Desna, that emerged from behind the ice, the northern spirit portal at his back. "Uncle," he said, deadpan. "Sister said you might require assistance in your search for the airbender girl."

"Desna!" said Tonraq, clutching his injured shoulder as he pulled himself to his feet. "You saved our hides there."

Desna glanced at Tonraq's group, eyes doubtful. "I am only sorry that I did not arrive earlier."

"That bending…" said Tonraq, as his party retrieved their scattered supplies. "That was incredible."

"Father might have been an evil man," said Desna, not meeting his eye. "But he had a great skill with the spirits."

It must have been hard, to have Unalaq as a father. It had been hard enough, having him as a brother. Tonraq clapped a hand on his nephew's shoulder and pulled him into a hug. "Thank you."

Desna eyed the frozen spirit anxiously, his thin form held rigid under his cloak. "Please don't do that."

---

Chief Beifong's face was serious, but Hiroshi barely heard her words. Beyond Asami, missing, and superweapon test site, they just seemed to rattle round in his head, not quite sticking anywhere. His Asami was smarter than that, surely. His Asami, who smiled knowingly, and sometimes let him win at Pai Sho.

Beifong said she was sorry. In the cold, hard light of the warden's office, her show of sympathy infuriated him. Like she knew what it was to not know if your child was dead or alive. How could she understand? How could she even pretend to?

Hiroshi staggered from the warden's office, barely noticing when a guard with metalbender's pauldrons fell in step beside him. He was carrying a folded pile of garments, the colour of prison uniforms.

"I think this is yours," said the guard. "From laundry."

Numbly, Hiroshi took the stack, too heavy to be merely fabric.

"Just because Amon was a fraud, doesn't mean the movement was," said the guard. He inclined his head. "All people need is for someone to step up and do the right thing. Sir," he added, as he hurried away.

Back in his cell, Hiroshi lifted the top layer of fabric. Inside was a large leather glove, wires running from the wrist to the palm. He slipped it over his hand, and made a fist.

 

[iwvs]

When their cell had finally come to an inn after their escape, P'Li had led Zaheer upstairs by the hand, and Ghazan had given him a surreptitious thumbs up as they passed in the hallway.

She'd demanded that Zaheer not leave her sight as she bathed, so he had sat, with his back to the tub, and talked to her as she'd teased the knots and grime from her hair.

They had been shy at first, like teenagers. He'd been surprised to see his own hands shaking as he'd undone his jacket, after being so sure for so long. Would she still want him, grey hairs and all? He had seen same uncertainty in her eyes, but she was still beautiful to him. It wasn't that her physical form was irrelevant, but that it was P'Li. The lines around her eyes, the frostbite marks around her wrists from her cold prison- these were not imperfections but simply a part of her. He saw her, and she was beautiful.

Later, she had draped herself over him, her legs too long for the bed, her face pressed against his neck. He had put an arm around her, holding her hand, and she had mumbled that he was warm.

Zaheer came to in a sitting position, and the soreness in his throat was not entirely down to the noxious fumes he had breathed. There was a reason he rarely chose sleep instead of meditation, but this time his exhausted body had demanded it. He rubbed his face, his cheeks flecked with pinpoint blisters where flecks of the hot ash had touched his skin. His kidneys hurt too, with the dull ache of dehydration, but the only water was the bottle that the Avatar carried, and she would need it to heal herself.

When he had first inspected the tunnels, he had expected them to be the work of badgermoles, or White Lotus earthbenders, making a secret entrance to his prison complex. Instead, they were strange, their walls smooth and curved. A skilled lavabender had made them at some point in the past, melting the earth in their path and allowing it to solidify into glass, and studding the walls with crystal that cast a faint green light. Roku, perhaps, or Kyoshi. Certainly the previous Avatars had made enough enemies to warrant a few boltholes here and there.

The current Avatar lay a few feet from him, on her side on the floor of the tunnel, her breathing shallow and the burnt side of her face exposed to the air.

Had saving her been the right choice, or was he simply clinging to his own life? Either way, he had only so long to win her over before she handed him back to the White Lotus. He doubted that dragging him around behind her like an oversized balloon held much appeal for her.

He had hurt her, badly, and gaining her trust would be difficult, but Zaheer had long since learned not to discount things that others deemed impossible.

"What… where am I?" the Avatar murmured as she woke. "Zaheer!"

Korra's eyes flew open, and Zaheer threw himself to the ground, barely avoiding the ball of fire that hurtled towards him. The chain between them pulled tight, keeping him dangerously close.

"Control yourself," he grunted, rolling out of the way of an earth spike. The Avatar yanked the chain, dragging him towards her, and Zaheer lurched forwards, catching her fist with his palm mid earthbend. "Stop!"

She jerked her hand back as if it had stung her, shuddering as her eyes cleared. "Zaheer," she repeated, looking down at the chain that joined them.

The Avatar yurned away from him and touched her face gingerly, hissing with pain as her fingertips brushed the raised flesh of the burn.

Zaheer composed himself, brushing the rubble from his rags before he spoke.

"I got us out of there," he said. "I can feel the air currents that lead back to the surface, but I won't get far if I'm carrying you. Can you walk?"

"I…" the Avatar closed her mouth, eyes flashing with indignation. "In case you'd forgotten, you're not in charge here, Zaheer. I need to get back to the mountain. My friends are up there."

"If what you said about that weapon is true, this whole region will be crawling with soldiers," said Zaheer. "Did you want to fight Kuvira's whole army? Because right now you won't even hold onto the Avatar state long enough to save yourself."

"No," said Korra, and her eyes blazed. "I can't. Because you… you ruined me." She choked the words out, dripping with hate. "This is your fault."

They stared at one another, tense, and the Avatar took a long, sniffling breath.

"Blaming me is just a crutch to make you feel better," said Zaheer, firmly. "It's not going to help anyone."

"If you're not to blame, then why did I have to spend a year learning to walk again?" Korra railed. "Why do I see you, every time I-" she stopped herself, biting her lip. "Why am I broken?"

"What happened changed both of us," said Zaheer, quietly. "I learned to fly, but now I'm bound-" he raised his shackled arm, the chain clinking. "You have all the power in the world, but you choose to hold yourself down."

"I'm not choosing to hold back anything!" Korra's voice had a desperate edge to it. "My power has limits, you saw that."

"You're wrong," said Zaheer. "The poison should have killed you, but you were able to fight it. I might as well have tried to stop the tides, or tear down the stars." He saw her eye twitch, but he held her gaze. "You say your power has limits. I say it's limitless."

"Then why?" Korra shouted. "Why do I keep failing?"

There it was; the Avatar that Zaheer had expected, her true feelings laid bare. Terror, and anger, that she could no longer be the weapon that the White Lotus had raised her to be. That she might no longer be the bridge between the two worlds. She was every bit as chained as he had been in his cell. Perhaps she always had been.

"You're holding yourself back because you're still afraid," he said. "And I think I can help you."

"Help me? You?" Korra's face twisted in disbelief. "No way."

"If you had better options, you would have taken them by now," Zaheer spoke carefully. "All I ask is that you listen to what I have to say."

The Avatar pursed her lips, clearly displeased. "Fine," she growled. "Once we're out of here, I'll hear you out."

---

In general, Varrick enjoyed cramped spaces. There was a certain I-don't-know-what, a certain sense of accomplishment to be had into squeezing yourself somewhere unlikely, somewhere no-one would expect you to jump out of.

This, though? This was an exception. Almost being buried alive in a landslide was hardly a vacation, but what made it worse was that the radio tower that Varrick Industries had so assiduously stress-tested had survived both the explosion and the avalanche, and was now digging uncomfortably into his back. Also, his face tasted of rock dust. Was this what being an earthbender felt like? Varrick licked his lips experimentally. This reminded him way too much of the time he'd narrowly escaped betrothal to a northern water tribe huntress. At least this time no-one had tried to stab him in the groin with a piece of iceberg, but hey, the day was young.

Portable caves. Now that was a saleable idea. You could import earth empire rocks, fire nation rocks, air bison rocks, anything. You just had to fix the portability issue. Varrick made a face. Maybe wheels.

"Varrick," Mako's voice cut through the darkness. "Are you alright?"

"I'd say I've slept in less comfortable places," offered Varrick.

"I'm… just gonna assume that's a yes."

The surly kid's bony knees jabbed into his ribs as he crawled over Varrick, blocking the light as he peered out of their temporary rock-based abode.

Varrick looked at Mako, stroking his moustache as he considered the view. The kid wasn't as personable as his brother, that was for damn sure, but he had some potential. Maybe as a brooding villain type. Heck, give him some sort of sinister hat and he'd be tying dames to train tracks in no time.

"Hey kid," said Varrick, rubbing rock dust from his forehead. "You wanna be in a mover?"

"Be quiet," hissed Mako. "It's the Earth Empire army."

"You think I don't know that?" Varrick pulled a face. "Who do you think built that cannon?"

The surly kid had the decency to look apologetic. What did you know? He had some range after all.

"Fair point," said the kid. He frowned. "If it's here, they must be bringing it to Republic City. Is there any way we could shut it down?"

"Do I look like some fancy shmancy metalbender to you?" Varrick spat. Squeezing himself along on his elbows, he joined Mako at the gap in the rock pile. Squinting, he could make out the sea of green and grey that was Kuvira's forces, arrayed on the plain below.

And heading towards them was the slow, heavy crunch of mech-feet on rubble. They stopped periodically, turning over pieces of rubble, and Varrick realised with a sinking heart that their rock-based hiding place would be dismantled before long.

"What about those things?" said Mako, narrowing his eyes at the approaching mechs. "Bolin mentioned you shut some of them down during your escape."

"Oh, don't remind me." Varrick sniffed. "Back then, I had a whole earth empire checkpoint to play with. Here, I've got no…" Varrick narrowed his eyes at the firebender, his speech slowing as the cogs in his mind clicked. This was what he got for thinking too hard before the mid-afternoon. If only the Avatar had agreed to his schedule. "...power source."

He dug around underneath Mako, pulling a couple bundles of wire from the front panel of the control box. "Could you hold on to these? When I say so, give them a little… you-know-what." He waved his hand, and Mako nodded, seeming to understand.

"What then?" Mako asked.

"Then?" Varrick arched an eyebrow. "Then we run, obviously."

"And then?"

"I'll figure something out."

Mako's expression, a mixture of horror and skepticism, said everything that Varrick needed to know. Maybe the kid had some potential as an assistant after all.

 

[iwvs]

In the years Lin had worked with Raiko, she had learned a few things about him. He was a snakeweasel, through and through, but he was also an astute politician, and he rarely did anything without a reason.

He held the first emergency defense meeting, the one with Wu, Lau Gan-Lan of Cabbage Corp, and Suyin, in a room with a view of the harbour, where Iroh's fleet hunkered, their guns a dull red in the late afternoon sun. The press were there too, but Varrick and Asami Sato were notable by their absence.

The second meeting, the real meeting, he held in his briefing room on the main floor, his window looking out onto the mountain range behind Republic City, the mountain that Kuvira had cored still trailing smoke into the sky.

The leaders of the three largest triads in republic city; Viper of the Triple Threat, Seppi the Shark of the Red Monsoon, and Buster Cheng of the Agni Kai, sat around Raiko's long table, drinking tea. It was surreal. They should have been there in cuffs if they were going to be there at all, and under any other circumstance they would have been trying to kill each other. Cheng's fernlike red scars, which branched from under her high collar to her bottom lip were testament to that, courtesy of Viper's predecessor Lightning Bolt Zolt.

"Republic City is a great city," Raiko began. "It has survived a great many things. The equalist movement has come and gone, harmonic convergence changed it but did not destroy it. But, in hard times-"

"Cut the crap." Cheng put her tea down, covering the top of the cup with her gloved hand. Her movements were quick and precise, those of an expert firebender, and that motion alone made Lin's back itch. "You know why we're here. I know why we're here. I think these two-" Cheng looked over at Viper and Seppi, raising a delicately arched eyebrow.

The leader of the Red Monsoon grunted. Seppi was huge, too big for his chair, his dreadlocks draped over his broad shoulders, and when he spoke, Lin could see his teeth were filed to points. "You've got no standing army to speak of," he said, his voice an even baritone. "And your navy don't have the numbers. Stands to figure, you want us to fight."

"Meat for the meat grinder," Viper remarked. He was a waterbender like Seppi, but unlike Seppi he was a true son of Republic City, his dark hair clipped fashionably short. "If you want us to bleed for you, you better have one hell of a pitch, Raiko."

Raiko adjusted his glasses. Lin hadn't asked how he'd been able to assemble Republic City's three biggest crimelords at such short notice, but she could tell from the way that he stood that he was at least familiar with them. "If you would let me finish-" he said, putting his hands on the table as he locked eyes with each leader in turn. "Desperate times call for desperate measures, and these are desperate times for all of Republic City. Once Kuvira has completed her invasion, you will be her first targets. All through the-" Raiko cleared his throat. "-Earth Empire, Kuvira has systematically rounded up citizens with non earthbender heritage and put them in labour camps."

"That's half the people in Republic City," said Cheng, her red lips curling into a slow smile. "Come on, you can do better than that."

Raiko turned his back on the three of them and stalked towards the window, allowing them a good view of the mountain range. "Do you think this is a game? That you can just pack up your pieces and walk away?" he asked.

"Life is a game," said Cheng. "And I'm not throwing in my lot with you unless I like your odds. Right now you're a poor bet."

Seppi gave a slow nod. "I hate to say it, but the lady's right. What can you do against a weapon that can level mountains?"

Lin shivered. It was hard to pin down how she felt when she looked at the view from Raiko's window, but as an earthbender, it was almost like a loose tooth, drawing her eye back to the damage. A mountain shouldn't look like that.

"Any weapon is only as good as the people who operate it," said Raiko, smoothly. "And if our forces get in amongst Kuvira's army, she won't fire on her own troops. We don't need to level mountains. We just need to level the playing field."

"That's real nice and all," Viper interjected. "But what's in it for us?"

Lin felt Raiko's demeanour change. His stance was a little wider, his footing more sure, as he sensed a victory approaching. "I'm glad you asked that," he said. "As president, I have certain prerogatives. One of those, as you may know, is to offer pardons. To those wrongly convicted, or who offer exceptional service in times of need." Leaning over, Raiko lifted a sheaf of paper from the stack by his chair. "Chief Beifong," he said, and Lin startled. Surely, he couldn't mean to- "How many members of the Triple Threat are in Republic City penitentiary right now?"

Lin cleared her throat, aware of all three of the gang leaders' eyes on her. "Around fifty, give or take. More, if you count associates."

"A strange coincidence," Raiko smiled. "I seem to have around that number of presidential pardons written up right here. Enough for all of you, if you take my deal."

Viper leaned forward, stroking his beard, but Cheng blew air through her teeth.

"You want to release them? Why? So that you can use them as cannon fodder?" Her dark eyes flashed.

"This is a necessary risk," said Raiko. "If you're afraid-"

"The Agni Kai fear nothing!" Cheng stood, five foot nothing of quivering rage. "Here's what I think of your offer," she snapped, making a dismissive gesture. Quicker than Lin could react, a flame leapt from the tip of her fingers and to the papers that Raiko held. They went up in a flash of fire, and the president dropped them with a yelp.

Lin leapt forward, bending the plates within her armour into a thin line, and wrapping it round the Agni Kai's leader, catching her round the wrists and drawing them together. Viper and Seppi turned to look at her, their faces dark with anger.

"Was that why you invited us here?" growled Viper. "To have your pet metalbender take us in?"

"Attacking the president is a crime," snapped Lin.

"Oh, relax." Cheng looked down at the cable, and rolled her shoulders. "I wasn't gonna hurt him."

"Tell that to your prison cell," Lin growled.

Raiko held up a hand. "No, Chief. She is still my guest here."

Lin stiffened. The leader of the Agni Kai was in custody. She had just seen her assault the president. She had her bang to rights.

"Lin," said Raiko, a little too familiarly, a touch of venom in his voice.

Lin pursed her lips as she stepped back, drawing her metal with her. Buster Cheng flashed a smirk at her over one shoulder.

"Anyway, I think I've made my point," said Cheng. "The Agni Kai will have no part in this."

She stalked out past Lin, her heels clicking on Raiko's marble floor.

"Now," said Raiko, the afternoon light flashing off the lenses of his glasses. "Are you going to take the deal? Or are you going to back out, like the lady?"

"Every Red Monsoon is worth ten of those Agni cowards," said Seppi.

Viper narrowed his eyes at his rival, calculating. "Fine. Count the Triple Threat in too."

Lin followed the vibrations of Cheng's shoes through the building. Instead of going out the front, she lingered in a hallway before heading up the stairs at the back, so she was not entirely shocked to find her in Raiko's office when she accompanied the president up. Cheng was reclining in Raiko's chair, smoking a long-necked pipe as she leafed through the papers scattered on his desk.

"What is going on here?" demanded Lin, scowling at the president.

"Cheng is our ally," Raiko explained, pulling a document from the gang boss's hand.

Cheng rolled her eyes. "Poor chief. Never seen a confidence trick before, huh."

---

For a moment, Mako had thought that Varrick's plan had worked. His pulse of energy had knocked out the mechs, they had burst out of their hiding place and started running, and Varrick had started pulling bits from his coat, muttering something about aerodynamics. Then he had pulled a cord, and something that looked like the front end of an airbender's gliding pole sprung fully formed from his backpack.

"Grab a hold, kid!" Varrick had yelled, and they had jumped together from the mountainside, Mako bending fire in a jet to give them some lift. They had, for one brief, glorious moment, been airborne. Until a cable had snapped round his trailing ankle, yanking them sharply to the ground.

Varrick, it seemed, had not been counting on there being metalbenders present. Now they were hogtied in the back of a truck, bumping its way back to the Earth army's encampment.

"Zhu Li would've had a plasma torch," Varrick grumbled.

"Well, I'm not Zhu Li, so… you're just gonna have to deal with that."

Varrick paused. "Bolin would have lavabent us out of here."

"Yeah," Mako sighed. "He would."

The truck stopped abruptly, knocking the air from his lungs, and the metal doors slid open with the telltale hiss of metalbending.

Mako looked up, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to the light. Kuvira, the Uniter, stood over them, her pauldrons tinted red from the setting sun at her back. When Mako had heard she'd beaten Korra at Zaofu, he hadn't wanted to believe it, but seeing her here, looking up at her from her feet, he felt the power around her. He'd felt it a little at Wu's botched coronation, but now the pressure radiated off her in waves. Mako rolled himself into a sitting position, and glared at her, but her attention was on the inventor beside him.

"Well, well, Varrick." Kuvira gave a lopsided grin. "I knew you must have had some hand in this mess."

"You," said Varrick, but there was a defeated note to his voice.

"Yes," Kuvira purred. "Me. Did you really think one little radio broadcast was enough to stop everything I have been working towards?"

"Did I think one water tribe farm boy could rise to be the world's foremost captain of industry?" Varrick retorted, narrowing his eyes at Kuvira. "No, but I did it anyway."

The Uniter's retribution was swift; two lumps of metal that slammed into Varrick in sequence, once in the face and once in the solar plexus. He flew back, coughing blood.

"No!" Mako barked, flinging himself forward, but Kuvira flicked a finger at him and he found himself pinned to the inside of the truck, a piece of her armour pinching round his neck.

"Both of you are traitors to the Earth Empire," she pronounced, smoothly.

"I'm not even an Earth Empire Citizen!" Mako bared his teeth. "I was born in Republic City!"

Kuvira laughed. "Oh, you will be soon. And in case you had forgotten, your friend here swore fealty to me, before he decided to switch sides."

"I left because I thought that thing you had me working on was an atrocity!" Varrick spat, his moustache quivering. "I'm not a death ray kind of guy!"

"In that case I have some good news for you. I don't need you anymore. It's finished." Kuvira turned her back on them, contemptuous. "Send them to camp fourteen."

 

[iwvs]

"Hey, Hiroshi," Takumi's voice was a coarse whisper through the wall of his cell. "They're moving the Triad members out. It's time."

Sure enough, the noise of booted feet and low voices carried up from the courtyard outside.

Hiroshi hadn't really been sleeping, just resting his eyes, his arms folded behind his head. The older he got, the less sleep he seemed to need, and prison had only accelerated the process. "I like how you assumed I would get the locks," he grumbled.

"Course I did." On the other side of the wall, Takumi blew air through his lips. "It's like my gran-gran always said; everyone's got something they're good at. All the time you've been in here with me, have you ever asked me if I can take a bender down? I think not." The chi-blocker paused. "Though I've got a hacksaw if you can't."

"That won't be necessary," said Hiroshi, pulling the glove and his improvised plasma saw from their hiding place under his bed. If the locks had been mechanical, it would have been an easier task, but Republic City Penitentiary had been designed with metalbending guards in mind, making brute force his only option. Shielding his eyes with one arm, he pointed the saw at the lock and pulled the trigger. The lock hissed as he burned through it, and his door gave a satisfying metallic clang as it was cut free. Flicking his saw off, he stepped from his cell, glancing down the walkway to check for guards. Takumi was stood at the back of his cell, looking through the bars of his window, the moonlight striping his silver hair white. He had armed himself too, a kama in each hand.

Hiroshi crouched by Takumi's door, applying the plasma saw to his lock. "Are those metal?" he asked, nodding to the chi-blocker's weapons as the door sprung open.

Takumi grinned a mad wolf grin as he turned. "Bone," he replied, spinning them casually round his thumbs. "They hold an edge well enough, don't worry." The chi-blocker turned sharply, frowning at him. No, not at him, Hiroshi realised, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. Behind him.

"Get down!" Takumi cried, grabbing Hiroshi by the shoulder and pulling him to the floor. Cables whipped past, close enough to part Hiroshi's hair, and Takumi was on his feet again in front of him. The cables snapped back, and Takumi grabbed hold of them, letting them pull him feet first into the chest of the metalbender guard. He kicked off, twisting midair and landing behind his opponent, delivering two solid hits with the hilts of his kama, one at the metalbender's heart chakra and one at the root. The guard span, his arms outstretched in a bending pose, but found himself facing a grinning Takumi, the metal in his bracers stubbornly immobile. The chi-blocker swept his legs from under him, casually kicking him from the walkway in the same movement.

The walkway twisted and buckled under them, and Hiroshi looked behind him to see three more guards; two metalbenders and a waterbender.

"Move!" the chi-blocker snarled, his grey-blue eyes wide. "Get the others!"

Hiroshi scrambled to his feet, his heartbeat uncomfortably loud in his chest. The walkway screamed as it sheared behind him, and Takumi's shadow flickered large across the floor of the mess hall below as he jumped for his opponents. He moved between them, and there was a scream as the waterbending guard hit one of the metalbenders with a poorly aimed jet.

Hiroshi's torch shuddered in his hand as he cut through the equalist cell locks. With the triads outside and Takumi making a distraction in the mess-hall, the guards were nowhere to be seen, and the men he had freed formed a crowd around him, shielding him from view as they moved down the wing.

On the furthest door, the torch sputtered and died, and Hiroshi stifled a grunt of annoyance. The failure was hardly surprising- the thing was made of parts scavenged from the prison laundry- but disappointing nonetheless. Hiroshi turned it over in his hands. The men around him shifted impatiently, talking in low voices as he pried the cover from the side of the torch. He might have burned his fingers, but years of working in his lab had given him some useful calluses. The problem was easily apparent- the heat from the torch had melted the connection to the capacitor. He needed a bigger wire. Hiroshi looked around at the equalists. Many of them had weapons; small knives or clubs, but none were wielding anything that used wire, and they couldn't waste time searching for one, not with Takumi fighting for his life. With a sigh, Hiroshi removed his glasses, snapping off one of the arms and jamming it in the place of the broken connector.

"This is what we at Future Industries like to call an engineering solution," he warned, as he replaced the cover and slipped his broken glasses into his pocket. "So stand back." The equalists around him shuffled backwards, and the three in the cell moved to the far wall. Holding the torch in both hands, Hiroshi looked away from the flame once more as he switched it on.

The torch came to life with a sputtering roar, the flame casting the whole area in a stark purple light, but it worked long enough to cut the lock, and the equalists surged past him to the entrance of the moonlit mess-hall.

Hiroshi swore under his breath as he saw Takumi still struggling with the waterbender. The pipes that carried running water to the cells had been perforated and were gushing, adding to the guard's waterbending as he gathered it up, growing greater with each pass. Each time the chi-blocker evaded him by a whisker, panting for breath as he leapt from wall to wall.

The floor was flooded, and the waterbender was standing in it now, ankle deep, his whole attention on the frantically jumping chi-blocker.

Hiroshi knelt, ready to activate his electro glove and end the fight, but Takumi caught his eye and shook his head.

The chi-blocker wasn't struggling, Hiroshi realised as he watched Takumi jump out of the way of the waterbender's crashing wave, strong enough to blast bricks from the walls. The perforations in the pipes were kama-sized, made at points the chi-blocker had jumped to. He was playing.

Takumi leapt again, jamming one of his kama into another pipe, but he lost his grip on it and fell, catching himself heavily on one of the larger pipes. It buckled under his weight, splitting at the join and spraying water as it did.

"I've got you now," said the guard, bringing the wave around again, building momentum and volume as it shot towards the chi-blocker. Takumi smiled, and let go of his pipe, falling backwards as the wave smashed a gaping hole in the wall behind where he had been.

There was a clang as the pipe above Takumi burst, and his bone kama shot out, propelled by the pressure. The guard danced easily out of the way, but Takumi had thrown his second knife as he fell, and it lodged itself squarely in the waterbender's forehead. There was a splash as the guard fell forward.

Takumi shook his head as Hiroshi helped him up, moonlight streaming in through their new escape route.

"Waterbenders are just the worst."

---

Asami! You need to be very quiet, okay? Your dad will be here soon. The last time Asami's mother had touched her it had been her hand on her shoulder, pushing her into the back of the wardrobe. The coats pressed against her face, suffocating soft. Her mother's heels clipped against the hardwood floors nearby, and the footsteps of the intruders were loud, like bison coming up the stairs, but her mother's first scream was muffled, as if at a great distance. The doors of the wardrobe buckled inwards slightly as they held her mother there, and the whole thing rocked with each strike, Asami pressing her small body against the back panel, her lip trembling as she held back tears. The worst was the smell that came each time; sickly sweet smoke, infused with burning hair.

Asami awoke in the dark, the earth pressing in all around her.

In the martial arts classes her father had enrolled her in, the first thing they had practised each lesson was breathing. Breathe in. Breathe out. Focus. The earth pressed down on her like a heavy blanket, and her first instinct was to thrash and gasp like a landed fish, but the small, rational part at the back of her brain told her to slow down and think. The landslide would have trapped a little air in with her, but how long she had was anyone's guess. Asami's heart hammered in her chest like it was an inline-eight engine, but she swallowed down her fear and slowed her breathing. She was still wearing her glove, and if she used up the remainder of the battery, she could blast away a couple feet of earth, but she had no idea how deep she was buried. A blast might just bury her deeper. Then what? Wait for rescue? The only earthbenders who knew where she was were Korra and the White Lotus who had been chasing her.

"Duraka?" Asami called for the White Lotus captain, but her own voice sounded strangely dead, the rubble that covered her strangling the sound almost before it could escape. No-one would hear her down here.

Please, Korra. Asami bit her lip. She didn't know exactly how Korra's spirit senses worked, but she'd managed to find Wu from across town. She would easily find Asami buried in a mountain. Wouldn't she? Korra had been so unsure of herself, after she had failed to pull Jinora from the vines, and Asami hated to admit it, but she had been unsure of her, too. Korra might be the Avatar, but she was still only human. You couldn't expect her to save everyone all the time. She had limits. Asami found herself wondering what the exact trajectory of the weapon had been. If Korra had been in its path. Please be okay.

Without light, or sound, Asami felt as if she was floating. So what if she was alone. Surely there was something she could do, rather than just wait to be rescued. She could always try to earthbend her way out. Plenty of people didn't manifest bending until later in life, when they were in a tight spot, after all. And she had earth nation ancestry. What did she have to lose? Closing her eyes, Asami recalled how Korra had looked while bending earth, how wide her stance had been, and how the muscles in her powerful nut-brown shoulders had bunched and shifted. Breath hot on her own face, Asami shifted her body into position. It ought to feel natural. Easy. Like breathing. She made a fist with her ungloved hand, and pushed. Nothing, save for the weight of the earth all around her. Asami breathed in again. Republic City hadn't been built in a day, right? She gritted her teeth, and tried again. Nothing. But her air was starting to smell stale, and it was dark, dark enough that there was no difference when she closed her eyes. Like being at the back of the wardrobe again. Asami took a breath, gulping down the hot, dead air. She gave a guttural scream, lashing out, and the earth around her shook.
She was a bender? She was a bender! She was a-
The earth around Asami shook again, but she hadn't moved this time. And she could see now, a faint yellow glow, the colour of electric light.

"What's this airbender look like anyway?" The voices of Earth Empire soldiers filtered faintly through the ground, accompanied by the rhythmic crunch of their earthbending.

"He's meant to be bald. No tattoos, though. I figure we just shave the first body we find and get out of here."

"Are you crazy, Wong? Kuvira would kill us for that. I mean, actually-" The first soldier made a sound like a knife being drawn across a throat.

"I guess." There was a crunch in front of Asami, and the weight around her body seemed to lift. "We're gonna be down here days, though, and I don't wanna-" the second soldier, Wong, sighed. "This place gives me the creeps."

"Oh, don't give me that superstitious crap again." The first soldier shook his head.

"Just because you can't feel something, doesn't mean it's not there, Lo. Everything that weapon's touched- it's like it's broken."

They weren't expecting her. That was good. But she only had a few seconds to act before the earthbenders closed the tunnel behind them.

"Sure it's freaky, but at least it's on our side, right?"

Asami bared her teeth, half leaping, half stumbling from the earth behind the two soldiers. Lo turned, a cry of surprise escaping his lips before Asami kicked him in the back, sending him sprawling. The other soldier, Wong, got into a bending stance, pulling a lump of earth from the wall to hurl at her, but Asami rolled to the side, quickly closing the distance between them and catching his wrist in her hand. Like many benders, he was over-reliant on his bending, leaving himself wide open to hand-to-hand attacks. He stamped his foot, bending the earth underneath Asami into a spike, but she swung him round, pulling him into a pain hold. Wong was still scrambling to his feet, but he was bending already, both his fists clenched and pointing forwards. She'd seen Bolin pull that move before. It was a trap- earth that would bury your opponent up to his neck. Asami stepped back, shoving Wong forward into the bent earth.

"Oh, now you've done it," Wong snapped, encased to his chin.

"Sorry!" Lo called, putting his arms up to reverse the bending, but the space was small, and a second was all that Asami needed to close with him. She jabbed at his eyes, distracting him long enough to stop him bending before she hooked him round the underside of the jaw, bearing him to the ground in a pin, her knee planted firmly on his back.

"You," she said, squeezing the pressure point in his wrist. To his credit, he didn't scream, the pain escaping his lips instead in a low whimper, like a loose fan belt. "You're going to bend me out of here."

Lo struggled, but she had him. "You don't understand," he said, a desperate edge to his voice. "Kuvira will kill us if we help you."

Weighing it up, that was probably true. Kuvira didn't mess around. She had a big gun, and she had shot it at Korra. Common sense dictated that she was pointing it at Republic City next. Asami's city. She couldn't afford to mess around here either. "Maybe I'll kill you if you don't."

"You're with the Avatar, right?" The soldier smirked up at her over his shoulder. "You won't kill us. The Avatar doesn't kill." He stared at her, gaze steady, calling her bluff.

"You're right," said Asami. "She doesn't." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "But I'm not the Avatar."

Placing her hand on the soldier's forehead, Asami discharged the glove. Death smelled like she remembered it, a sweet, acrid smoke.

The other soldier, Wong, flinched when she looked up at him. "You can't kill me," he gabbled, his eyes wide with fear. "You'd be trapped down here."

Asami tilted her head. "Maybe," she allowed. "But Kuvira is going to send a search party after you eventually. Maybe one of them will help me." She paused. "If they see two bodies down here with me, they won't doubt that I'm serious."

Wong swallowed, his eyes going to his friend's body. "Alright," he said, quietly. "Get me out of this, and I'll dig us out of here."

 

[iwvs]

Lin must have been aloft in the police department's airship thousands of times, but being airborne still bothered her. It wasn't as bad as it had been for her mother, of course, but seeing Republic City stretched out below her like a sea of stars yet not being able to feel its roads through her feet was disconcerting. The airship's engine was almost silent, but the thrum of its vibrations permeated through the whole of the ship, and Lin could feel it through the deck. She could feel other things, too, like the triad members crowded into the loading bay. And her sister's infuriating swagger. Lin didn't need to turn to know that Suyin was standing behind her. She was probably smiling, too.

"You knew about this," said Lin. "Didn't you."

Suyin folded her arms over her chest. "Whose idea did you think this was, exactly? I lost Zaofu and Bataar junior to that woman. I'm not about to lose Republic City too."

"And that somehow makes fraternising with criminals a good idea?"

"Oh, not this again." Suyin sniffed. "Anyway, you're here, aren't you? Why should I be held to a higher standard?"

"I'm here because this blimp is police property," Lin retorted. "I'm not about to let a bunch of lowlifes fly it into the sunset."

The plan was simple; the airship would go in under cover of darkness, escorted by a few of Iroh's fighter planes. They'd drop down, near the weapon, Suyin and Lin anchoring them with cables, and the Triple Threat members parachuting the rest of the way. Red Monsoon would lead a parallel attack from the coast, to distract the bulk of Kuvira's forces. The weapon itself was made of unbendable platinum, but between Bolin's lavabending and Zhu Li's knowledge of its construction, they would deal with it one way or another.

"Oh, sure you are," Suyin stepped level with Lin, leaning forward onto the railing of the airship. "I think you're here for the same reason I am."

Su was right, of course. But she didn't have to be so damn smug about it. Lin scowled down at the city, the points of yellow light becoming smaller as their airship rose. "What do you think mom will say about all this?"

"That we're being damn fools, of course. But she won't mind. She'd never let the law get in the way of justice." Suyin laughed to herself.

Lin bit back a retort, shivering as a gust of cold mountain air hit the ship. "Let's go inside. I'm freezing."

The triads weren't the only people that Raiko had conscripted to the hare-brained scheme. Zhu Li had volunteered to pilot the airship, and Suyin's kids had signed on too.

Lin stalked onto the command deck, which was for the most part free of triad members. Bolin was manning the radio, Opal leaning on his shoulder. Meelo and Ikki were there too, both of them wearing ill-fitting trench coats over their airbender gear. Lin did a double take. They hadn't been on the manifest.

Lin didn't like to admit it, but looking at Tenzin's children was pretty painful sometimes. Like a big flashing sign that read look at what you could have had. Could have had, if Tenzin hadn't waited until they were in their forties to decide he wanted kids. If he hadn't run off with an air acolyte barely out of her teens and tried to father a whole new air nation off her. If he'd just been willing to keep trying.

"Kids?" Lin put her hand to her forehead, pushing Tenzin from her mind.

"I'm no kid," declared Meelo, pulling the brim of his fedora down. "I'm a triple threat triad. Raaar."

"It's true," said Viper drolly, lounging on the seat behind Lin. "I gave him a badge and everything. Triple Threat takes benders of all persuasions."

"Wait," said Bolin, eyebrow quirking. "Doesn't that mean you're Quadruple Threat now?"

Viper shrugged. "We're consulting on it."

Lin snorted, turning her focus to Tenzin's daughter. Since Jinora had been swallowed by the spirit vines, Ikki's demeanour had changed. Suddenly the eldest child, she had become more serious, her small jaw set and squared. Lin could feel the change in her gait through the deck. It reminded her of an earthbender carrying an immense weight on their back, staggering valiantly beneath it. Poor kid.

"Does your dad know you're here?"

Ikki shook her head. "He's with Jinora," she admitted. "But we heard you were going to stop the weapon. We couldn't just sit there and do nothing." She paused, and looked up at Lin, her gray eyes clear. "Please don't send us back."

Lin sighed. "Alright. But stick with me, okay?"

Ikki nodded seriously. "Okay."

---

Desna marked the path through the spirit woods with bundles of sticks and leaves, carefully tied and arranged, the eyes of his uncle's search party on his back. Leaving markings or objects from the material world as markers was disrespectful, and likely to be removed besides. Closing his eyes, he squeezed the ball of water he kept in his palm under his sleeve, bending it up over the dry skin of his arm. He hated being watched. He hated talking more. But Eska had asked him to help their uncle, and she wouldn't have asked something like this unless it was really needed. And, lost airbenders aside, things looked bad. Tse Chu, the great deer guardian of the Banyan tree, had been half dead and half mad in the tree of time's grove. Thankfully, neither his uncle or his men had recognized the spirit. Their fear at the unfamiliar terrain of the spirit world already had a distorting effect, making the branches of the trees around them droop long and black towards the ground. He couldn't afford to panic them.

"This way," said Desna, reaching up to take a leaf from a branch of a tree. The thing blackened and crumpled in his hand like paper, the legs of a half-formed insect unfurling, and he shivered.

"What's wrong?" His uncle strode up behind him, brows furrowed with concern.

"Nothing," lied Desna, as he crushed the bug in his palm. "We should move."

---

The nearer they got to the Earth Empire encampment the more Lin's gut told her there was something wrong. They cut the engines for the approach, leaving the bridge in near pitch blackness, Zhu Li only visible as a goggled silhouette. Iroh's fighter planes were running silent too, relying on their momentum to carry them close enough to run interference over the camp.

"Everybody ready?" said Bolin, his voice rising to a squeak at the end. The fighters' pilots radioed in an affirmative.

They cleared the side of the mountain when they saw the pale purple glow gathering at ground level, and Lin's stomach turned. They were staring right down the barrel of the weapon.

"Left!" Lin yelled. She grabbed hold of the metal superstructure of the airship, bending it almost without thinking, and felt the frame distort as Suyin and her sons did the same. The ship lurched violently as the weapon's beam grazed it, sending most of the non-metalbenders flying. Bolin was clinging to Suyin's leg, and Viper was hanging from one of the safety bars by a watery tentacle. One of Iroh's fighter planes was caught half in the beam, and it whipped past them as it plummeted to the ground, a fireball.

"We've lost the aft engines!" Zhu Li shouted, thankfully strapped into her chair. "Brace for impact!"

"I'm bracing! I'm bracing!" Bolin whimpered.

"Oh, quit being a baby," snapped Meelo, and for once Lin found herself agreeing with the kid.

They hit the ground heavily, even with Lin and her sister warping the frame to soften their landing, the airship crashing down and spinning on its side. The airbenders had the best time of it, cushioning themselves with their bending.

There was a moment of quiet as the dust settled, and Lin pulled herself up.

"Any injuries?" Suyin called.

There was no shouting, no clank of mechanical suits. Focusing, Lin put a foot down, sensing the vibrations in the ground. Gathered around the airship, waiting, were mechs, platinum by the feel of them, and dozens of Earth Empire soldiers behind them.

"They have us surrounded," she said, and a wave of tension ran through everyone on the ship.

"They knew we were coming." Suyin frowned, looking older than Lin remembered her. Years did that to people. "How?"

"It doesn't matter now," said Lin. "We need to get out of here."

Everyone crowded behind Lin and Suyin as they faced the hull of the airship. Zhu Li had unstrapped herself and was donning an electro glove, while Viper had bent himself his trademark icy claws. Lin had never seen them up close, but she'd seen enough victims to recognise them. She shook her head. The Triple Threat were a problem for after they had dealt with Kuvira. Su nodded to her, and they fell into identical metalbending stances, mirroring each other. In one smooth motion, they peeled back the plates of the airship's hull, making an archway.

The spirit cannon loomed large on a nearby ridge, only a few hundred feet away, but Kuvira's troops were waiting for them. They stood in formation, a squad of grim-faced earthbenders three deep, their stances taut as they held boulders midair, ready to fire.

No sooner had Lin bent her section of the hull back when the first projectile came whistling in. Grunting, Lin shot it down with metal from the deck, and it shattered with a sharp crack.

"Forward!" Viper snarled, and his men took point as they pressed out. They were met with a hail of stones and shrapnel from the enemy benders, and several triple threat went down screaming. Even padded with the conscripts from the jail, the triple threats weren't an impressive bunch. They were an assortment of sizes, lots of them were missing eyes or digits, and many of their stances were hunched or uneven. Lin's heart sank. They might have been fighters, she realised, but they weren't soldiers.

They fell back, their backs to the airship, and Lin raised her arms, fists clenched, erecting a wall to shield them. Boulders slammed into it from all sides, but Lin widened her stance, reinforcing it. She wasn't about to let Kuvira's soldiers hurt her family. Or Tenzin's family, for that matter. One of the mechs slammed her wall with its claw, and her arms shook with the effort of it.

"They've got us pinned," she barked. "I can't hold this much longer."

Bolin stepped forward, seeming more sure of himself now that he had both feet on the ground. "Watch my back."

With a gesture, he pulled up the earth from around his feet, and it burned. It was one, then two spinning discs of death. It was a crest of red, a wave of deep orange crusted in black. Mechs melted and soldiers scattered before him, unable to counterbend his attack.

"What are you waiting for?" he called, and they got into formation behind him. Lin found herself standing shoulder to shoulder with two-toed Ping. "Let's ditch this joint!"

"No!" Suyin shouted. "Get us to the weapon! I'm not running anymore."

Bolin glanced at Lin, his green eyes uncertain, and she gave him a nod. With a huff, he shifted his stance and turned towards the cannon.

They moved as a ring, facing outwards as the Earth Empire army pressed them from all sides. Bolin's lava kept the mechs and the benders from getting too close, and their earthbenders kept the ground beneath them steady. Blasts of air, fire and water whipped past Lin as the other benders laid down suppressive fire. Lin concentrated on bending away projectiles, deflecting smaller rocks and breaking large boulders into something the weaker benders could knock away.

By the time they closed on the ridge, Lin was breathing hard. Bending might not require great strength, but earthbending was the most physical of the disciplines, and Kuvira's side had advantage in numbers. Her back and shoulders were a burning mass of pain. Bolin looked like he was doing better, his youth giving him an advantage, but he wouldn't last forever either.

"We're gonna take Zhu Li up," said Ikki, from behind her. "She says its our best chance."

Lin nodded reluctantly. With so many earthbenders around, making a stable platform would be next to impossible, and Bolin was the only thing keeping the mechs from overrunning them. "Be careful up there."

Ikki beamed, casually sidestepping a lemur-sized lump of earth. "We will."

The three airbenders launched themselves up on their gliders, carrying Zhu Li between them. They were clumsier with the extra weight, and slower than they would have been alone. Lin focused on deflecting rocks away from them, and barely had time to react when they neared the weapon and metal erupted from the ground.

"Opal!" Bolin choked the word out, and Lin didn't need to look up. She could feel her niece, suspended from a metal cable. There was only one metalbender in the world fast enough to catch an airbender on the wing.

"Surrender," said Kuvira, stepping forward from behind the weapon, her fingers curling as she bent the cable around Opal's neck. "And I let her live."

Lin stared at the scene in horror as Bolin's lava faded to a dull red and then to gray. The Earth Empire troops had perfectly predicted their arrival. How had Kuvira known? Only one answer came to mind, and just thinking it made Lin's stomach turn. Raiko.

---

They came to the exit, as Zaheer had promised. It was a grate, half covered in fallen leaves and grass. Korra frowned as she ran a hand over the bars, brushing the topsoil from the black glass. Glass? Who would bother to earthbend glass? With an impatient noise, she shattered it and stepped out into the night. Zaheer followed, floating, and when he was outside, he turned his face to the sky, his eyes wide for a second.

"What is it?" asked Korra. Had he sensed something?

"The sky is beautiful tonight," said Zaheer.

Korra looked up. It was overcast, and dark, the moon hidden behind the clouds. "Is that some kind of old airbender saying, or something?" she asked.

"No," said Zaheer, his head still tilted back. "Simply an observation."

"Well, it looks like it's gonna rain again," Korra offered. She'd been hoping for a few stars so that she could drag Zaheer back to Republic City, but as it was she had no idea where they were. Her spirit sense was still acting up, too, like the whole area round the mountain was disjointed. She couldn't feel Asami, or Mako, or Varrick, or any of the White Lotus.

The only one she knew for sure was alive was Zaheer. She reached out, unthinking, through the chain that joined them, and he gave her a sharp look. He'd noticed. Of course he'd noticed; it was something personal that she'd touched.

---

They stopped at a stream, and Zaheer knelt by it, cupping the water in his hands to drink. It was gritty, and a little sour, but potable.

The Avatar was staring at him, something like guilt in her eyes.

"What is it?" asked Zaheer, drying his hands on his rags.

"You aren't how I expected."

"Then what did you expect?"

"I dunno," Korra shrugged. "I guess I didn't expect you to get thirsty."

"All living things need water." Zaheer looked at her darkly, brackish water dripping from his beard. "You're still thinking of me as some kind of bogeyman."

Korra snorted. "Well, you did try to kidnap me when I was a baby."

"Oh really?" Zaheer cocked his head. "Who told you that? The people who took you away and raised you in a secluded base where they had total control over you and your training?"

Korra just stared at him. She was angry, he could tell, but she had no answer for him.

"It wasn't a kidnapping," he said. "It was a rescue attempt."

"From my family?" she scoffed.

"Unalaq was your family too," said Zaheer.

"You would have raised me as a weapon."

"You were raised as a weapon. We would have raised you as a child." Zaheer blinked, surprised at his own vehemence. He and P'Li had talked about it, about how they would raise her, so that she would never go through the horrors P'Li had gone through, growing up as a combustion bender. A memory ran through him, of P'Li, leaning on his shoulder as they sat round a campfire the night before the mission. As many damn birthday parties as she wants, with as many friends as she wants to invite.

"And you don't get what you want, so you decide to murder me instead?" The Avatar's jaw clenched.

"Believe me," he said. "I have never killed anyone unless I felt it was absolutely necessary." Zaheer looked the Avatar in the eye. "A year out of your compound and you had put down a populist movement and were busy playing tax collector for the Earth Queen. Do those sound like the actions of someone who could be reasoned with, someone who could be redeemed? Or like those of someone who was a tool in the hands of the White Lotus?"

"I wasn't working for the Earth Queen," she retorted hotly. "I was working against her. I freed the new airbenders when she was holding them prisoner."

"A noble act," said Zaheer. "Or, it would have been. If you hadn't immediately turned them over to the White Lotus to be trained as a police force."

"They volunteered," the Avatar protested. "And anyway, they're better off with Tenzin than they were with Queen Hou-Ting!"

"You really believe that, don't you?" Zaheer shook his head. "That's how the White Lotus works- they control the circumstances around you to force you into choices that benefit them. How do you think the Earth Queen knew about the airbenders? Where do you think she got the idea to turn them into a military force? The White Lotus have been propping up her family's rule ever since they helped oust the Fire Nation from Ba Sing Se."

Korra stepped towards him. "You just want to turn me against them," she said, accusing. She looked like she wanted to poke him in the chest, but she didn't touch him.

"No." Zaheer looked down. "If you want to continue working with the White Lotus, that's your choice, Avatar. There's nothing that I could say that would stop you. I just want you to see them for what they are. I want you to see what they have done to you."

Korra looked at him sideways, eyes narrowed. "How do I know you're not lying to me?"

"That's easy," said Zaheer. "Just ask to see their archives, when you have a chance. They claim to serve the Avatar. If that's true, they should have nothing to hide from you."

Korra made a dismissive noise, but Zaheer saw the seed of doubt in her eyes.

 

[iwvs]

Raiko Surrenders.

The headline was in hundred point print across the front page of all the papers, above an old picture of the president clasping hands with Kuvira. Few of them touched on the truth of the matter, their prose almost frantic in its praise of the Great Uniter. Hiroshi could almost smell the underlying fear.

On the inside pages they printed lists of wanted individuals. The Avatar, of course, and the escaped equalists, plus some of the airbenders who were unaccounted for. And Asami, her name printed neatly next to his own.

Hiroshi ran his finger over his daughter's name, smudging the cheap newspaper ink. Asami was smart enough to not get caught, but Future Industries was likely going to be government control soon, seized as the assets of an enemy of the state. He couldn't decide whether he was angry or proud. Future Industries was something he had built up from a rickety prototype in a shed, but Asami was the best thing he had ever made. Still, the heart of the company wasn't the money or the equipment but the staff; the engineers and scientists he had employed over the years, and many of those men and women would be loyal to him over any interim director the government put in place. He could salvage something from the wreckage.

After the escape, the equalists had split up, each cell going its own way to lessen the odds of being rounded up. Many equalists had been jailed in the aftermath of Amon's unmasking, but thousands of people in the city had supported them. He and Takumi were holed up in a loft above a textile mill. The owner was a man called Li, an engineer he had trained back in the early days. It was no Sato mansion, but it was better than jail. The tall, grimy windows made for good ventilation, and afforded them a good view of the area.

Factory workers spilled out onto the streets below him, their grey uniforms swarming past the green of the Earth Empire troops that now patrolled the city, and Hiroshi folded his paper, tucking it under one arm. There were two Agni Kai loitering on the corner, recognisable by their orange coats. They seemed unflustered as the imperial troops passed them by.

It made sense that the firebenders had been spared- they were critical to the city's infrastructure, after all. Raiko would have fought hard to get some sort of exception in place for the city's power plants. But the Agni Kai? Hiroshi stroked his beard.

Behind him, Takumi practised his chi-blocker kata, his bare feet almost silent on the smooth wooden floor. It was a routine he had practiced almost every night in his cell, and Hiroshi was familiar with the rhythm. Step-step-strike, step-turn-strike. He moved in a tight rectangle, as if still constrained by his cell walls, and sometimes he would stop himself and repeat a movement, as if correcting a strike no longer obstructed by furniture. Finally, he stepped outside his imaginary cell and let loose, launching himself into a series of twisting handsprings and landing a few feet from Hiroshi with a mock salute as he grinned.

"If you're expecting me to be impressed," said Hiroshi, quietly. "You're going to have to do better. My daughter has been able to do that since she was fourteen."

"Oh, relax." Takumi cracked his neck, pulling a face. "I was just getting warmed up."

"Good. We're going out."

"Already?" Takumi tilted his head, his face doubtful. "I thought the plan was to sit tight until the dust settled."

"We would," said Hiroshi, "Except for this." He handed the newspaper to his friend, open at the list of names.

"Your daughter," Takumi breathed, his brow furrowing.

"More to the point, my company is about to be seized," explained Hiroshi. "And it holds the single largest stockpile of platinum anywhere in the United Republic." Or it had, before Asami had taken over. He doubted she would have sold it off- she was too prudent for that. "We can't let anyone confiscate it- we need it if we want to build anything that stands a chance against the benders."

"So what? You're just going to stroll in there and reclaim your rightful place as CEO?" Takumi tapped the paper. "You're on this damn list too."

"No," said Hiroshi. "We're going to steal it."

---

The wind ruffled Zaheer's hair as he floated along behind the Avatar. She stomped forwards, her shoulders hunched anxiously. They had taken the steepest trails through the mountain range, neither of them afraid of falling, and now the rising sun was low and orange on the horizon, casting their surroundings in a dim, sallow light. His former prison was still visible in the distance, still smoking, and in the other direction, the ugly expanse of Republic City sprawled from its harbour.

Korra seemed to brighten when she saw it, her eyes going to air temple island. She stepped forward, her demeanour hopeful, but Zaheer's attention was caught by the mass of green and grey proceeding into the city from the north.

"Stop," grated Zaheer, alighting on the ground next to the Avatar. "They've taken the city." he said, gesturing towards the roads.

Korra stopped in her tracks and squinted in the direction he had pointed. "Kuvira," she said, an edge of disappointment in her voice. "Why is no-one fighting her?"

"It doesn't matter," said Zaheer. "Republic City is no longer safe. For either of us."

Korra shook her head. "We can't know that for sure," she said, her eyes still on the island in the harbour. "We need to get closer."

It was foolhardy, but then so was Korra. Zaheer sighed. "We should take precautions, then. Kuvira will be searching for us, and I have no great love of prisons."

Korra made a face. "Yeah, me neither," she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

They walked towards the shore, the stones on the path digging uncomfortably into Zaheer's feet. Kuvira would be looking for a floating man, after all. He didn't bother to ask the Avatar if she was satisfied as they stood on the beach; the shadows under her eyes told him that she was not. She bent the seawater around her, making room in the bubble for him as she walked into the bay. They flew through the water, the pale light of the dawn making Korra's dark skin seem ashen.

The last time Zaheer had been on air temple island, he had come as both supplicant and spy, his head freshly shaved and his powers newly awakened. Even as he'd worked his mission, he'd let himself be moved by how much Aang had preserved of their culture, by the poems carved into the floors of the pagodas, bidding the reader to be the leaf. Now, he came, as what? A guru, or a prisoner? He looked down at his shackles as he followed Korra through the complex. The sleeping quarters had been abandoned in a hurry, air nomad robes and coarse bedding left discarded over the floors. Even the kitchens had been deserted, a half-eaten meal left festering in the lacquer tableware.

"They're gone," said Korra. She ran a hand over one of the place mats, despondent, and Zaheer wondered what had happened in this place, to make her care for it so.

"I don't see any signs of a struggle," he said.

Korra looked up. "Is that meant to be comforting?"

"They've probably gone to one of the other temples." Zaheer spread his hands. "It's what I would do."

She made a face. "Yeah. Probably," she agreed. She looked as if she was about to say something else, but she was interrupted by the solid metallic thunk of an airship mooring cable, followed by the sounds of soldiers and mecha disembarking.

Zaheer scowled. "We should leave."

---

They made it through the courtyard by the time the enemy spotted them, a shout of Avatar! from on high, and Korra growled, turning to face her opponents as she sank into a bending stance. "Don't get in the way," she warned, and Zaheer nodded, floating into place at her side.

A dozen earthbenders in Kuvira's colours closed on them from the stairs above, a few of them already tearing white stone blocks from the walls around them.

Korra gave a roar of indignation, the barely-healed burn on her face stinging sharply. "Don't-" she huffed, sending fire in an arc with her fist- "Touch. My. Air Temple!"

Despite three years he'd spent locked in the White Lotus' basement, Zaheer was still irritatingly good. He avoided the first few air temple blocks easily, his arms folded behind his back as he floated from side to side, keeping the chain slack. Part of it was that he was fresher than her; he hadn't walked through the night like she had, but there was more to it than that. He was utterly in his element, in a way that she had never been with air. And just as they had at Laghima's peak, when he had drawn the air from her lungs, his eyes held nothing but conviction. It was terrifying.

"Avatar!" Zaheer's voice broke through just in time for her to deflect a stone block away from her head. "Much as I support your introspection, this is not the time!"

"That was your fault!" Korra snapped, pushing more fire into the air, this time fueled by her anger.

"Blaming me is a crutch!" Zaheer pulled a face as a spike of earth grazed him, drawing blood. He was no newcomer to fighting soldiers, either. He delivered a strike to the solar plexus of one soldier, knocking the air from her lungs before bending it away with a twist of his palm.

"Well, you just said no introspecting!" Korra rolled under a flying stone block, picked the earthbender who had sent it up and threw him backwards.

Spinning, Zaheer whipped the chain around him, keeping it at neck height as he clotheslined a third soldier. Korra felt the chain go tight, and braced reflexively, her eyes widening as she realised too late what Zaheer was doing.

"No!" she shouted, yanking the chain down with a metalbending gesture. Zaheer grunted as he was yanked to the floor by the arm, and the soldier pulled the chain from his neck.

But the eyes of the squad leader widened, his stance shifting subtly into a metalbending one. He must have been assuming the chain was platinum until Korra had bent it. The cuff round Korra's arm shot to the ground, hauling her with it, and the chain rose up, coiling round her neck.

With a scream of rage, Korra reached out her free hand, spreading her fingers and willing the chain to dismantle. It broke into slivers and she flung them out in every direction with a sweep of her arm, prompting hasty earth walls from the remaining earthbenders. It was only when Zaheer rose to his feet, unchained, that she realised her mistake.

Her ears hummed with the rapid change in pressure as the airbender launched himself into the air.

---

Zaheer was free.

Not merely outside, not merely tasting the morning air, but really, truly free. He closed his eyes, and for a moment, his heart soared. He was free. But if he remained free, he had nothing.

He looked down at the exhausted Avatar, her movements slowing as she sent gouts of fire at her attackers, the avatar state shining briefly before it guttered out. The soldiers were forming a ring, and closing it around her, building their defenses as quickly as she could tear them down. Why had he saved her, back in the mountain? Was it really for some higher purpose, or an excuse to preserve his own sorry life?

Time seemed to slow as he watched the battle play out, watched the Avatar stumble, taking a rock to her side as the earthbenders closed on her.

A man who fights for freedom, spends his life in chains.

Zaheer took one last breath, savouring the sweetness of the air before he dropped. He landed with his back to the Avatar, the rush of wind he brought with him knocking their opponents backwards and blasting up a cloud of dust.

"Zaheer. You came back."

"You sound surprised, Avatar," said Zaheer, flatly. He held out his arm. "I think we should get out of here."

"This doesn't mean I forgive you," growled Korra as she hooked an arm around his neck, her grip on his shoulder painfully tight.

Zaheer looked her in the eye as they rose from the ground. Her fear of him was plain on her face. "I would never ask that of you."

 

[iwvs]

Republic City had changed so much in the time that Hiroshi had been in prison, and he saw Asami's fingerprints on all of it. She had always loved clean, angular lines, and Hiroshi found himself staring out the window of the truck as he drove Takumi to the rendezvous point, admiring her work. The spirit vines wound thick and green round the buildings, and he felt a thrill as he saw how his daughter had integrated the huge plants in her architecture, not relying on them for structural support, but building to incorporate them. It was beautiful.

The plan for recovering the platinum went smoothly; five chi-blockers in earth empire uniforms went in first, taking out the actual guards and opening the main gates for Hiroshi and the other drivers. The rest was a case of keeping the element of disguise, disposing of the earth empire forces that were present and rounding up the workers still at the facility. The safes where the platinum was kept were ones Hiroshi himself had designed, and he'd been able to provide instructions for bypassing them.

"Well, all things considered that could have gone worse." Takumi looked down, pulling at the buttons of his earth empire uniform. "I think that's the lot of it."

Hiroshi shook his head grimly as he watched the masked equalists load the platinum into their trucks. "No," he said. "There's one more thing I need to do here. And something I need you to get for me."

There was a murmur as Hiroshi stepped into the room where they had held the engineers and assembly line workers. Non-benders, all of them, and he recognised their faces. More than one he had interviewed personally, paid hospital bills for, or congratulated at the birth of their children. But most of them weren't equalist material. Some had had brothers or sisters who were benders, others cousins or parents.

"Mr Sato!" One of the assembly line workers came stumbling out of the crowd and flung himself at his feet. "Please-" I thought it would be cool if he was like stumbling out of the crowd here.

"Get back!" The masked equalist who was guarding them interposed herself, grabbing the worker by the back of his shirt.

"Easy, now." Hiroshi held out his hand. "We haven't come to hurt you."

The prisoners stared at him, suspicious. Had he changed so much since going to prison? His hair was almost white now, he supposed, and he was thinner, but he was still the same man who had built this place. They shifted, muttering to one another, and he caught the eye of a few workers he had worked with closely. They looked away, uneasy.

"Then why did you come?" someone called from the back of the crowd.

Hiroshi paced to the middle of the room, the equalists parting to let him pass. "Because I need you. All of you." He looked across at their anxious eyes. "I'm not asking you to fight for us, or die for us. I couldn't ask that. I know many of you have never touched a weapon in your lives, except to assemble it. But the resistance needs more than just fighters. We need builders, too. Workers. People like you, people who will help level the playing field between us and the occupation. If you agree to come with us, you will be helping everyone in the United Republic. If you don't…" Hiroshi looked down, adjusting his glasses. "If you stay, then you should know that you're helping build weapons for the earth empire now. Weapons, like Kuvira's cannon, that will eventually be turned on you and your homes."

"You're just going to let us go?" One of the factory floor workers looked him in the eyes, incredulous, and there was a murmur of disbelief from the others.

Hiroshi raised his hands again. "I'm not going to punish you for showing loyalty to Future Industries. We'll leave you with enough injuries that you can say you resisted us. That's the best I can offer."

He stood aside, leaving the way open for the engineers to stand with the equalist group. The old came to him first; old man Keito who had started as a janitor and worked his way up to a foreman, and Yin, who had been a calligraphy master before he had recruited her as a draughtsman. She'd always been a sympathiser to the equalist cause, and had lamented being too old to fight. The floor workers came next, followed by the satomobile engineers and then the aeronautics group with their apprentices, all standing scared amongst his masked equalists. Not all of them, but enough.

Hiroshi watched as they loaded the engineers on to the back of the trucks with the platinum, equalists helping them to find handholds. Takumi stepped up beside him, quiet as a cat owl, a stack of folders stamped with both Earth Empire and United Republic seals tucked under his arm.

"There's not much, but here's everything I could find dated after the surrender." Takumi passed him the files. "Why did you need these, anyway?"

"They'll show us what the enemy is interested in," said Hiroshi, leafing through the documents. There would be records of any requisitions the occupiers had made, and anything they had shipped back to the empire proper. "Whatever they're fuelling that damn cannon with, they're going to need a lot of it. I want to know what they're using."

"So you're just going to copy them?" Takumi made a face. "I thought your company's research teams were working on alternatives."

"Those are research programs," said Hiroshi. "And we're at war. We can't afford to spend three years developing something that might not pan out. Do you have any idea what I could do with that kind of power?"

"Excuse me. Mr Sato." One of the engineers in aeronautics overalls stepped away from the line that was being lead away. A couple of the suited equalists stepped forward to intercept her, but Hiroshi gestured to let her through.

Takumi looked as if he was about to say something, but shook his head and stalked off.

The engineer was only a few years older than Asami, and she had only been an apprentice when he had been arrested, but Hiroshi recognised her.

He racked his brains for her name. "Jun, wasn't it?"

"That's right," she smiled, her green eyes going nervously to the electro glove he still wore. "I don't know much about Kuvira's technology, but I know someone who might."

Hiroshi took the girl by the shoulder and walked her a small distance, out of earshot the others. "Who?"

"Zhu Li Moon, sir. I worked with her during our involvement in the southern water tribe conflict. I heard she was part of the team that developed the weapon."

Hiroshi nodded. He had met the woman once or twice at various galas and balls; Varrick's secretary. But turning one of Kuvira's inner circle was a risky proposition. "Why do you think she would she help us?"

"Because Kuvira is having her executed."

---

Zaheer's hair smelled rank, like wet polarbear dog and burning. Hardly surprising for someone who had been chained in a cell for three years and then nearly set on fire, Korra mused, but it was still unpleasant. He had his arm round her, rigid enough to hold her whole weight even if she wasn't hanging off his neck, and she tried not to think about the last time he had carried her through the air. At least she wasn't over his shoulder this time.

"That airship's coming after us," she said, her hair whipping over her eyes as she looked behind them. They were level with the statue of Aang now, and his gaze seemed stern.

"They can try," said Zaheer, grimly, and they shot upwards, the clouds covering them with a fine film of cold water over them as they passed through them. Korra spluttered, blinking. She'd been up on the sky bison before, but Zaheer was way faster.

"How high can you go?"

"I don't know," he admitted, and he turned his face to her as if gauging her interest. "But Guru Laghima's contemporaries claimed that he once sought the limit of the sky. He went so high that he vanished completely from sight."

"And?" Korra probed. Zaheer's story was a damn sight more interesting than anything Tenzin had ever bothered to recite, and it was distracting besides.

Something like a smile twitched under Zaheer's beard. "He returned a few days later, half dead from exposure, and instructed them to never speak of it again."

"Then how do you know about it?"

Zaheer's powerfully muscled shoulders shifted under her arm as he shrugged. "Laghima wasn't their master; he held no authority over them. There's one of his poems that's dated just after his return. He said-" Zaheer paused, his gaze shifting as he called the quote to mind. "No matter how deep a man's scholarship, it is a drop of water in a great chasm. No matter how wide a man's worldly experience, it is a single thread against the void."

Korra snorted. "And you look up to this guy?"

"He was a great airbender, but he was still only a man," said Zaheer, a little testily. "We don't all have ten thousand years of experience to call on, Avatar."

"No," said Korra, frowning. Could Zaheer not know that the link between her and the previous avatars was broken? He always seemed to know so much about spirit things. "I don't."

"What?" Zaheer's look of surprise was genuine.

Korra shook her head. "When I fought Vaatu at harmonic convergence, I lost my connection to the previous Avatars. It's just me and Raava now."

Zaheer was silent for a moment, the only noise the rush of cold air around them. "The White Lotus certainly kept that one quiet," he remarked, and for a second Korra thought he was going to recite his airbender poem about destruction and new growth. Instead, Zaheer looked solemn. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said, as if someone had died.

Between the noise of the wind and the hair that whipped over his face, it was hard to tell if he was being sincere.

The Red Lotus safe house was an old airbender shrine, hidden in the side of a ravine. An overgrown circular outcrop that looked to have been a garden once provided a spot to land. The entrance was barely wider than Zaheer's shoulders, and Korra might have mistaken it for a natural rock formation if he hadn't pointed out the carvings that adorned the rock face around it. An airbender nun, her face weathered beyond all recognition, was carved sitting in the lotus position, a stone lemur curled in her lap.

When they landed, Zaheer set her down gently, not complaining when she grabbed his arm for balance. Korra pulled back from him, the burn on her face aching from the cold.

"Why did you come back for me?" she asked, as Zaheer turned to go inside.

"The same reason you gave yourself up to me, when I had the airbenders hostage," he said, levelly. "I believe that there are some things that are worth making sacrifices for. We're not too different, in that regard."

"We are not the same," growled Korra. "You're dangerous, and you hurt people. You need to be locked up."

The airbender shrugged. "If you wanted to put me in chains again, there's not a power in this world that could stop you. Whatever you decide, I wasn't planning on leaving."

The inside of the hideout was larger than Korra had expected; large enough for a couple of dozen people to sit and eat. It also looked like a tornado had hit it. It had obviously been well-ordered once, with shelves and cupboards, and even woven reed baskets under the shelves of rock that Korra guessed were meant to be bunkbeds, but the contents of these were strewn over the floor, broken ceramics scattered alongside torn blankets and grains of white rice. Korra found the sack of rice that had been tipped on its side and righted it.

Zaheer was rifling through the cupboards. He pulled out a length of dun-coloured cloth and slung it over his shoulder.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Korra peered round him. The hideout had been well-stocked at one point, judging by the number of pans and bowls scattered around, but not much remained.

Zaheer pried a bar of soap from the back of the cupboard, and squinted suspiciously at what looked like a bite mark in the side of it. "There's a spring in the caves beneath the shrine. I'm going to go shave. You can make some food while I'm gone."

Korra folded her arms, narrowing her eyes at him. Who had made him the boss? "I'm not going to do things just because you tell me, Zaheer."

"I suppose not," the airbender agreed. "Do what you like, then."

Saying that, he turned and padded off into a dark passage at the back. Korra watched him from the common area, her traitorous stomach grumbling.

---

Zaheer walked down through the tunnels to the spring, deep in thought.

Whoever had come to the hideout before them had shown little respect for its sanctity, but whether they had been members of the Red Lotus or not was debatable. Not all of the Red Lotus cells could have as much respect for the air nomads and their history as he and his companions.

A bath was a luxury, but the solitude it entailed was a necessity. For all his years of imprisonment, even when he had been at his most alone, the White Lotus had watched over his body, and the Avatar's presence inflicted its own unique stresses on him. Zaheer's shoulders slumped as he put his things down at the water's edge, and he fought to keep his breathing steady as he stared at his bearded, haggard reflection, the adrenaline of the last few days receding. He had wondered if he would scream, when the time came that he was unobserved, if he would sob into his hands, but instead he found inside him a stillness, like an aching, empty pit, one that had started with P'Li's death as a seed and grown larger with the years, and at the bottom of that, a gnawing, coiling question. Would everything he had sacrificed be for nothing?

Zaheer peeled his rags from his skin, the fabric stiff with dirt. The water was cold. If he hadn't been an airbender it would have been bracing, but controlling his temperature through breath was one of the first tricks he had learned, in his cage high on the mountain, and he barely felt it as he lowered himself in. Was it right to use a cosmic gift for personal comfort? Zaheer cupped water in his hands and poured it over his face, beyond caring.

Once he was clean, he picked up the razor he had found, testing its edge with his thumb. Making a blade from the air was one technique he had never tried to use in prison, for fear that his captors would restrain his hands more thoroughly, maybe make him eat from a bowl on the floor like an animal, as they had done to Ming Hua. No instruction scrolls remained for the technique, and no guru had cared to make a poem for it either, so how to achieve it was anyone's guess.

Manipulating the air with his fingers, he ran it up and down the edge of the little blade. He could make an eddy there, or spin the razor in place, but anything else just tossed it from his grasp. With a sigh, Zaheer formed a vortex over the blade as it sat on the surface of the water, pulling it back to his hands. After he had hacked away the worst of his beard, he pulled his hair back into a tail.

---

Kai flew. It wasn't quite flight, not true flight, not like a sky bison could manage, but with his glider out and the wind under him, it was close enough, leaping from treetop to treetop. The skies in the spirit world were glorious, iridescent red blending into gold with the sunset. The only problem was, he had no idea where Jinora was. The spirits weren't much help either; they either ran from him or scolded him for daring to talk to them. But he wouldn't give up. He couldn't afford to, not with Jinora depending on him. Kai spurred himself on, into the night, as the red-gold sky turned to purple-black, and the trees that sped beneath him darkened too, into thick, impenetrable firs.

Finally, a light. A soft, golden glow, like the light from within the spirit vine pods. Jinora. Kai turned his glider towards it, speeding himself on with his bending, and stopped abruptly as his glider snagged on something. It knocked the wind from his lungs, and sent him sprawling forward. He braced himself with an air cushion, but hit something that was not the ground, something that gave like a safety net beneath him.

"You're very lucky, young airbender," a voice called, from just behind him, as smooth and soft as silk. Kai wriggled, but found he could not move, his limbs and glider both stuck in place. "Any further and you would be lost, in the fog of lost souls. And that would be no good for anyone."

---

The pump in the hideout seemed to pull fresh water from somewhere underground, and Korra helped it along with a bit of bending, filling a couple of the bigger pans.

Korra pulled her shirt over her head, probing her side with her fingers. The earth empire troops hadn't been all that good, but they'd still done a number on her, and the bruises were just starting to show, her side particularly tender over what she suspected was a broken rib. It was probably a good thing that Zaheer had wandered off. He might have saved her skin on air temple island, but Korra couldn't say she liked the idea of him hovering around as she fixed herself up.

She grabbed a fistful of water from the smaller pan, and squeezed it as hard as she could. Katara had called it unlocking spiritual potential, but to Korra it always felt more like squeezing a sea prune, to get all the juices out.

It was no spirit water, but even after hundreds of years of abandonment, the connection of the shrine to the spirit world was potent, and its blue light shone bright through the gaps between her fingers. She focused on the flow of chi within her body, drawing energy from her uninjured side until the swelling and pain faded. She was just pulling down her shirt when she heard the noise from above; the purr of motorbikes and trucks.

Korra stood, centering herself as she heard the telltale crunch of earthbending; earthbenders making a steps down the ravine. The earth empire couldn't have managed to follow them this quickly, surely? Gritting her teeth, Korra bent water from the pump, keeping the bulk of it moving round her as she pulled it up. If she was going to stand a chance against earthbenders, it would be using an element they couldn't bend.

She took the first shot when they came into sight, launching herself out from the shrine entrance on a blast of air and curling the water round to meet them in a wave. They weren't earth empire soldiers, she realised, but outlaws, dressed in motley clothes, their faces painted and their beards dyed. They were also surprised, and all but two of them didn't even dodge on her first pass, getting frozen in the water she had pulled up as she bent it into ice.

The two who had avoided her bending slid back along the ravine's face on an earthbent platform; an oddly familiar-looking man with a green beard and skull facepaint, and a boy who looked barely older than Kai, a naginata clasped in his hands. Korra growled, bringing the remnants of the water up under herself in a spout, and propelled herself forwards.

The man made a motion with his hands, yanking his platform into the side of the ravine as Korra sped past. The kid stabbed out with his weapon, snagging the fabric of Korra's armband on the blade. Korra grunted, spinning to free herself, but the motion lost her control over the cohesion of the water spout, and it sprayed outwards, no longer able to support her weight. Hastily, Korra bunched her fists and shot fire downwards, propelling her up into the niche with the earthbender and the boy. The earthbender was ready for her, punching across his body to send a slab of stone shooting out of the wall, but Korra mirrored his earthbending, slamming the slab back into the wall and out into the boy's side. The earthbender gave a cry, grabbing the boy by the back of the shirt and pulling him back, but he lost his balance and fell, grabbing the edge. The boy dropped to his knees, throwing his weapon aside as he grabbed for his companion's arms. Korra brought the water around to freeze them both in place before skating back to the garden in front of the shrine.

---

Zaheer returned from his bath to find the Avatar standing in the overgrown garden, her arms crossed over her chest as she surveyed her defeated enemies. There were maybe a dozen of them all-told, and their feet dangled into the ravine, their bodies trapped within the spars of ice Korra had created.

Zaheer walked to her side, dead plants crunching underfoot. "What are you going to do with them now?"

"I beat them," she shot back. "Why do you care what I do with them?"

"Are you going to kill them?" he asked, quietly.

"No!" Korra's eyes widened, horrified. "I'm not like you, Zaheer-"

"What, then?" Zaheer pressed, raising an eyebrow as he looked down at her. "There's no-one here to arrest them. Are you going to leave them here to die?"

"Wait," one of the bandits breathed, a young man with a peach-fuzz beard. "That voice! I recognize that voice from the radio. You're the killer, the queen killer guy."

"Great," Korra rolled her eyes. "Now they can identify both of us."

"No, you don't understand." The young bandit's eyes were wide. "He's like my hero."

"I'm the damn Avatar!" Korra snapped, her blue eyes blazing.

"But all you ever did was take money from my village." The bandit paused. "And also you froze us. That guy freed us."

This seemed to have some effect on the Avatar- she looked from face to face, her gaze lingering on the leader, the man with the black-and-green dyed beard. "You're the guys- from Nanbian village, south of Ba Sing Se! The tax thieves!"

Zaheer looked at the Avatar. Her uncertainty was almost palpable. All she needed was a push, one way or another. "I think you should let them go."

Korra narrowed her eyes at him. "They're bandits. They tried to kill me and Asami."

"They're people who will fight for the right cause." Zaheer breathed. "Just because you were on opposite sides once, doesn't mean that always has to be the case."

"Fine," Korra shook her head as she struck an icebending pose, pulling the bikers back from their icy prison. "If this goes wrong, it's your fault."

 

[iwvs]

Zaheer sat, looking out at the thin rime of ice that still covered the face of the chasm. There were many ways he had imagined spending his first day of freedom, but none of them had included recounting the fall of Ba Sing Se to a gang of infatuated outlaws. The way they looked up to him was disturbing. He had never fancied himself a hero.

The first time he had been here, it had been with Unalaq. Before the lotus, white or red, had taken over their lives, before any of that. They had been barely more than children. They had been friends.

---

Zaheer had climbed down first, Unalaq following on the ropes he laid down, his blue robes cut in airbender style.

"Can you feel that?" The water tribe prince looked around him as he set himself down, his thin face lighting up. A pair of startled lemurs took to the air as he dropped his heavy packs. "The air nomads must have had a meditation circle here."

They sat back to back in the center of the circle, and after a moment of silence, Zaheer found that he could feel something. The sensation was there, beneath the soft shrill of cicadas and the beating of his own heart. It was a sense of tranquility, as if there was a huge body of water just at his feet. "Me first this time?" he asked.

"Sure," Unalaq smirked. "I'll make sure the lemurs don't eat you while you're gone."

---

Much as he was grateful to find a group that also opposed Kuvira, the outlaws disrupted the tranquility of the place, their chatter amplified by the ravine. The flying lemurs were long gone, and there was little sign that they had ever been.

Korra emerged from the entrance of the shrine, treading carefully round the remnants of the airbender garden as she came to meet him at the brink. She stood there, staring at him, as if she were working herself up to something.

"You said you could help me," she said, her voice abrupt in the cool air.

Zaheer looked away from her, down into the darkness of the ravine. "I think I can."

"Then what are we waiting for?" The Avatar sat beside him, folding her legs into the lotus position. "Let's do it."

Zaheer inclined his head. "Follow my voice," he said, just as he had instructed many before her, and her eyes closed, her breathing slowing as she sought the path to the spirit world. He matched his breath to hers, setting his self aside in the moment. There could be none of his own chi here, no ego. Just master, and student.

Korra shuddered, and Zaheer felt her fear as if it were his own. Felt himself thrown like a ragdoll, his limbs sluggish. And above him, Korra's vision of Zaheer, staring down with bleak, grief-mad eyes. Every heartbeat was agony, driving the venom deeper.

You can't fight both me and the poison.

Zaheer felt Korra panic, turning from the vision, fighting to escape.

"No," he used his physical body to speak, long practice keeping his voice level. "Let it play out."

"I can't," she choked, as vision-Zaheer drew the breath from her lungs. "I can't!"

Korra's eyes snapped open and she gasped for air, taking frantic, ragged breaths before she grabbed the edge of the platform and retched into the chasm, her gasps turning into sobs.

"Dammit," she cried, the stone around her fingers wrinkling and buckling as she bent it. "Dammit!" she screamed, hitting the earth with one fist, sending a massive rock crashing into the opposite side of the chasm.

"Korra," said Zaheer, softly. The outlaws watched them nervously from the shrine entrance.

She looked at him, accusing. "You said you could fix me."

"I said I could help you," said Zaheer. "I never said it would be instant, or easy." How many times had he relived his own worst moments, back in his prison cell? "You did well," he added.

Korra looked incredulous. "That was well?" she said. "I don't need well. What I need is to be back to normal."

"And what will you do with that, once you have it?"

"Excuse me?"

"What will you do with all that power?" said Zaheer. "It's a simple question. Are you going to fight Kuvira? Defeat her by yourself?"

Korra glowered at him. "You want Kuvira gone as much as I do."

"And I think you know as well as I do that taking out one person at the top doesn't solve any of the problems that put her there."

Korra didn't bother to answer him, instead settling into an earthbending stance and bending more huge rocks into the ravine. They hit the bottom with a noise like thunder, and Zaheer closed his eyes.

---

Tonraq saw his nephew stumble and hesitate as he reached the edge of the trees. Desna had always been a shy kid, but he'd been sure of himself, in his own way. He'd been acting stranger than usual since he'd bound the deer at the portal, but Tonraq had chalked it up to the absence of his sister. Now though, they hadn't seen a living thing save for trees in hours, and even those trees seemed sickly, their bark spotted with black.

Desna's voice was hollow. "We should turn back."

"Why?" Tonraq marched up to his nephew, towering over him. "What did you see?"

Desna stared up at him. "It's not important."

"We came here to save a little girl. Like hell it's not important."

"Uncle."

"Let me pass," Tonraq snapped. "If it's so bad, then you turn back, and let me see for myself."

"Uncle," Desna called after him, as he shoved his way past. The young man's voice was strained. "Please. Don't look."

By then, Tonraq was at the treeline, and it was too late.

What he saw was death.

The great banyan tree rotted, not one but four wounds through its core, its trunk swollen and sagging like an old man's stomach. The land around it was a sick, oily grey, no grass or moss underfoot. It made him nauseous just to look at it, as if he were looking at one of his own legs, only to find it broken. He stood there, transfixed, and the trees behind him seemed to become taller, their shadows longer.

Tonraq turned to Desna. "What is this?" he demanded. "Where have you taken us?"

"It's the banyan tree, Uncle." Desna lowered his gaze. "The same one that resides in the swamp in the physical world. All spirit vines originate here."

"Then… that means…"

Desna nodded reluctantly. "If the airbender girl is anywhere, she is here."


Tonraq looked at the tree again, forcing his eyes to focus on its branches, which seemed to stretch into the low, flesh-coloured sky. With a grunt, he stepped out onto the grey waste, pulling his machete from his belt.

"What do you think you are doing?" Desna skated alongside him, his eyes wide. The water that pooled on the ground was a filthy black, and it sprayed the hem of his robes as he moved.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Tonraq growled. "There's a little girl in there, and I'm going to cut her out."

"You can't."

"Why not?"

Desna shook his head. "You have no idea how important-"

"It's a damn tree, Desna!" Tonraq snarled.

Desna slid in front of him, and spread his thin arms. "I'm sorry, Uncle," he said. "I can't let you do this."

"Move aside," said Tonraq, his voice low.

Desna's lip trembled before he spoke. "No."


Tonraq stopped, his machete hanging from his fingers. Desna moved his arms, his long sleeves flowing, and the black water on the ground around them rippled and danced.

"You're just like your father, you know that?" Tonraq looked his nephew in the eye as he spread his fingers, drawing the ground water to him. His machete dropped, point first, into the strange grey soil. "Putting spirits before the lives of people."

Tonraq attacked first, bending the water below his feet up into a ramp of black ice and skating round, forming a spike between his hands.

Desna was ready for him, sliding away with a black wave in his wake, which rose as a white mist, obscuring his vision. Tonraq swore under his breath; Desna's long sleeves made it hard to tell exactly what he was doing with his bending. He was still busy trying to bend away the fog when Desna attacked, a textbook jet of water to his stomach, powerful enough to send him flying backwards. Tonraq grunted as he hit the floor and rolled, his mouth full of the foul stuff.

"Chief!" The others were running to the treeline, watching anxiously.

Tonraq spat black water. "Help me!"

Desna stepped back, his sleeves sweeping wildly as he worked his bending. Not one, but two full rings of water ripped around him as Tonraq hauled himself to his feet. The rest of the search party were spreading out, just beyond Desna's range, and Desna glowered at all of them.

"Together!" Tonraq yelled, and his team formed icicle spears, skating forward to attack. Desna might be good, but even a master bender would struggle when attacked from all angles. To his surprise, Desna didn't lash out with water tentacles as they closed. Instead, his nephew leaned back, and Tonraq's heart fell as he realised what he was doing. The spears of black ice hit Desna's water rings, but he didn't shatter them. Instead, he added the momentum of the ring to them, sending them flying back in the direction they had come. Tonraq pulled a wall of ice from the ground beneath him, which splintered as his ice spear hit it. Around him, his search party were not doing as well, knocked flying or frozen to the ground.

"No, uncle." Desna glared at him from behind his whirling rings of water, his eyes flashing defiance. "You are like father. Think about what you are doing."

Tonraq panted for breath, the point where Desna had hit him a bright nexus of pain. His nephew's water rings were formidable- he would never have stood a chance in a formal waterbender duel, just as he had never stood a chance against Unalaq. Thankfully, this was no formal duel. Darting to one side, Tonraq repeated his ice ramp maneuver, moving round to Desna's back. Desna reacted as before, sliding back with his rings around him, but Tonraq pulled back at the last moment, continuing past his nephew and towards the tree.

"No!" Desna shouted, lips curled back over his teeth as he shot out through his own fog. Tonraq reached down as Desna gained on him, covering his hand in black ice. The tree loomed large now, its twisted branches almost blocking his view of the sky. Desna lashed out with a water whip, trying to snare him, but Tonraq reached his hand towards the tree and launched his ice claws towards it. Desna cried out, his water rings dropping as he reached out to deflect the claws, and Tonraq grabbed the water from his wake, channelling it into Desna with a shout.


Desna went sprawling. He struggled to get up again, but his arms collapsed under his weight, the black water soaking into his robes.


Looking back at the unconscious Desna, Tonraq pulled his machete from the ground and got to work.


He found Jinora in the roots of the tree, a faint golden glow in the grey. Not just tangled, but enmeshed, the roots threading themselves through her thin airbender robes and into her skin. Tonraq ran a hand over the bark, hard and cold to the touch, squinting as he sized up the task.

Machete grasped firmly in both hands, Tonraq brought it slamming down at full force, a few inches from Jinora's side. The wood made a wet crack as it parted, and he yanked his blade out again, gritting his teeth as he readied another stroke. He worked his way round Jinora's body, trying not to look at his handiwork; at the sap that wept from the ragged holes he had made. Tenzin would do as much for Korra.

Tonraq ripped Jinora free, leaving a black cavity behind, and cradled her to his chest as he turned away. He put his hand against her cheek, feeling for her breath.

"Jinora," he called.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she was gone, evaporating into golden light in his arms as her spirit returned to the physical world.

 

[iwvs]

Mako wasn't entirely sure what he had expected, as the train took them to the camp, but the place looked more like a town than a prison, many of the inmates seeming to live in small, flat-roofed houses. The tall wooden doors of the pallisade parted to let them in and closed smoothly behind them, the team of workers on the walls mopping their brows in the heat.

"Welcome to camp fourteen." Their assigned escort, a middle-aged earthbender with close-cropped hair, walked a little ahead of them, her black boots raising dust from the track. "You might think you're special, but we get pretty much everyone in here; reactionary leaders, petty warlords, supporters of the… previous regime. Trust me, you don't stand out." They passed a row of tattered canvas tents, the occupants staring out at them with thin, weatherbeaten faces. "Here are your meal tickets," she said, and her assistant, a well-built soldier with a ponytail and a handsome moustache, handed each of them a booklet with thin, perforated pages. "You can exchange these for food at the big building at the south end," she continued, still walking. "You want more tickets, you sign up for a mining detail."

"What are you mining here?" Mako asked, and the guard shot him a withering look.

"A word of advice," she said. "You might be here on the orders of the Great Uniter, but she isn't here right now. We get a lot of leeway in how we treat you. So keep your head down, and don't ask too many questions." She stopped abruptly, and Mako had to catch himself to not walk into her.

At the side of the track, there was a patch of bare earth, deep grooves in the soil marking a square.

"This is yours," said the officer with a shrug. "Do what you like with it."

"We're not earthbenders!" Mako protested, as the woman turned to go.

"You'll figure something out." She gestured to the ramshackle tents and buildings that dotted the camp. "All the others did."


"Mako," Varrick stalked to the middle of the plot, turned sharply, and sat down. "Give me your ration book."

Mako stared at him. What was the inventor thinking?

"We're about to get mugged," said Varrick, a note of impatience creeping into his voice. "So give me your tickets."

Mako felt like he was twelve years old again, one of the older kids prying yuans from his hands, and his grip on the little booklet tightened. "I grew up on the streets," he said. "I know how to handle myself."

"You're going to fight, then?" Varrick's eyes gleamed as he looked past Mako and down the path. "You might be a pro-bender, kid, but I don't rate our chances highly here."

Turning, Mako saw the group approaching them. Dressed in traditional earth kingdom greens, the gang was five strong, all of them powerfully built, with geometric tattoos around their arms and shoulders. They didn't look friendly.

He frowned, glancing back at Varrick, who smiled grimly, his usual mania bubbling just below the surface, and thrust his booklet into the nonbender's hands. "Your plan better work this time," he grumbled.

Varrick turned away, tucking the books under his shirt. "Watch and learn, kid," he muttered, brushing his moustache into place with one finger. He turned on his heel again, all smiles. "Gentlemen!" he said, stepping brightly up to the gang. "Can I interest you in a business opportunity?"

Mako stood back as Varrick talked, his fists balled tight at his sides. He'd expected the violence to start quickly, but Varrick's approach had put them off balance.

"Name's Varrick," said Varrick, extending his hand to the largest thug. "Iknik Blackstone Varrick." He lowered his voice, conspiratorial. "You might have heard of me."

The big guy reached out his hand to shake Varrick's, but the leader of the group, a man who was about Mako's size, batted it out of the way.

"We're not here to make friends," he growled.

Varrick gave the leader a withering glance before turning to the big guy. "Does he always treat you like that?"

With a grunt, the smaller guy stepped between them. "I'm the leader," he snarled. "You talk to me."

Mako couldn't see Varrick's face from where he was standing, but he could imagine it- the slow grin that spread practically from ear to ear.

"The deal is simple," said the self-proclaimed leader. "You hand over your ration books, all peaceful like, and we leave you some tickets. You resist, you get nothing. So hand them over, both of you."

"I think not," said Varrick, mildly. "You see, my assistant here is an accomplished firebender. Former pro-bender, in fact. You try to take our tickets off us, and-" Varrick turned his head. "Mako, do the thing."

For once, Mako understood exactly what Varrick wanted him to do, and turned his hands skyward, bending fire from his palms.

"You so much as lay a finger on us? No-one. Gets. Anything."

"You're insane!" The leader spluttered, his face going red. The prisoners in the tents and huts around them peered at them curiously. Even the warden's assistant had lingered behind, bending himself a seat from the earthen track so he could sit and watch. Mako edged closer, extinguishing the flames in his palms.

Varrick, however, ignored the outburst, instead sidling round so that he could put a companionable arm around the shoulders of the other thugs. "But we're all grown-ups, am I right? This doesn't need to end in tears. I think we can cut a deal," he said, pulling a row of tickets out between his fingers and waggling them. Suddenly he had the full attention of the thugs, and there was a murmur of assent.

Their leader spun on his heel. "We already told you the deal. You don't get to make another one."

"Is he always this rude?" Varrick's face dropped in a moue as he looked side to side to his new friends. "I bet he doesn't even give you your fair share of your little racket here. What do you get, ten percent?"

"Five," one of the thugs mumbled, and Varrick shook his head sadly.

"Here at Varrick Industries, we treat our employees with respect. And Varrick Industries needs earthbenders right now like a polar leopard needs hibernation."

The thugs looked at each other in confusion.

"They do need to hibernate," Varrick clarified. "And right now, Varrick Industries needs you to bend something on this plot."

"Just wait a minute here," said the former leader of the thugs, but Varrick was already leading the team past him, congratulating them on their new jobs.


When the dust had cleared, their shelter was done, a squat, square structure. Not the prettiest house in the camp, but it would protect them from the heat and the wind. Mako followed Varrick inside, and saw the man's back slump as soon as they were out of sight.

"Hey," Mako clasped Varrick's shoulder. "Good job out there."

"Good job? Good job?" Varrick's voice was strained. "Do you have any idea what time it is? No? Because neither do I!" Varrick tapped his wrist. His timepiece had been confiscated by the earth empire soldiers, along with the rest of his equipment. "I've got no idea if I should be coming, or going, or brainstorming, and-" he breathed in deeply, his shoulder shaking under Mako's hand. "No-one here is bringing me tea."

He looked practically pitiable. Mako closed his eyes, reaching for the chi reserves deep within him, and feeling their levels. His firebending peaked at noon, and he hadn't used much since then. "It's just past one," he said.

Varrick stared at him. "How do you know?"

"Firebender."

"Oh." Varrick's face split into a tremulous smile, and he put his hand on top of Mako's. "Thanks, kid. You're a good assistant."

Mako sighed. "For the last time, Varrick, I am not your assistant."


---


Zaheer had watched Korra as she earthbent herself into exhaustion. What was going on behind his eyes was anyone's guess, but he hadn't said anything. Probably good, too. She might have punched him if he'd sat there and dryly quoted dead airbenders at her. Instead, he had waited for her to tire herself out.

"I'll be here when you're ready to try again," he'd said, as she sat back, panting on the rocky ground, and brushed earthbending dust from his clothes as he went back inside. Korra felt the exhaustion wash through her, purer and cleaner than what she had felt trying to get back into the spirit world, the pain in her aching limbs overriding the remembered sensation of the poison.


"Hey, Avatar," the leader of the bandits took a place on the edge beside her. He was less intimidating without his skull facepaint, though his eyes were still fierce.

"It's Korra," said Korra.

The outlaw looked at her a second, then nodded. "Gombo," he said, extending his hand.

They shook. "Did you guys have a fight?"

"Why would you think that?"

Gombo gestured to the ravine. "The guys have one-to-five odds on it being a lovers' quarrel. Just saying."

Korra shook her head, too tired to protest more strongly. "It's not like that. Where is he now?"

"Giving orders. He wants to know where the nearest internment camp is. It's like he thinks he's in charge."

Korra looked out at the side of the chasm. That sounded like Zaheer. "Is he?"

Gombo gave her a sidelong glance. "He's got a point," he said, carefully. "And the guys respect him."

"You sound like you're trying to convince yourself you're okay with this."

"I just don't want the anyone to get hurt," said Gombo, frowning.

Korra wanted to take the big guy by the shoulder, tell him she would do everything in her power to protect him and his men, but without access to the avatar state, her power didn't amount to much.

She leaned back, looking up at the sky. For the first time since Zaheer had pulled her from the collapsing mountain, it was clear, and the stars shone a cold white. Squinting, she made out the constellations; Tui's candle, the lantern spider and the north star. She might not have learned much about the world in the south pole, but navigation was one thing she had been rigorously drilled in. The great platypus bear was low in the sky, with Tui's candle near the zenith, putting them near the border of United Republic territory.

"You're a long way from home, Gombo."

"Yeah, well," The big man gave a sigh. "You gotta do what you gotta do if you want to stay alive. Sometimes you gotta run. Sometimes you gotta fight the avatar."

Korra leaned forward, hugging her knees to her chest. "I'm sorry about what happened, back in your village. I was trying to-"

The big earthbender interrupted her with a snort. "You got reasons. Sure. I'm sure they seemed real important to you at the time."

Korra made a face. "I was trying to apologize to you."

"I never came asking for an apology," said Gombo, scratching his beard. "Do I wish you had joined us when I asked? Sure, but you didn't, and it's no use crying over what might have happened."



She found Zaheer sitting cross-legged in the common area, part of a ring of outlaws who sat round what looked like a crude map in the dust. Some of the younger men were tidying or cooking, putting some semblance of order back into the place, and filling the space with the smell of boiling rice.

"Avatar," Zaheer greeted her as she walked in, his attention momentarily lifted from the map. He gestured for the outlaws to make space, and she sat down opposite him, Gombo taking his own place between two of the strongest-looking men.

"What are you planning?" Korra asked.

Zaheer's gaze was frank. "Are you planning on helping us?"

"That depends," said Korra, folding her arms. "On exactly what your plan is."

"Good." Zaheer nodded. "I need another airbender for this." His hand hovered over the dust on the floor, and for a moment it heaped up into hills and valleys. Korra could just about make out the subtle movement in his fingers that maintained it. "Most of the supplies for Kuvira's army are coming from Yi province right now, either by airship or train-"

"No." Korra interrupted him, and a wave of silence went through the room, the outlaws behind her stopping mid task. All eyes were on Zaheer. "I need to find out where my friends are first."

Zaheer withdrew his hand, and the dust he had raised with his airbending collapsed. He frowned, and for a moment Korra thought he was about to scold her. Instead, he turned to Gombo. "You said there was an Earth Empire checkpoint near here."

The bearded outlaw nodded cautiously. "A few miles to the east, beyond the river."

"If Kuvira has your friends, the post might have some record of their transport," said Zaheer.

"And if she doesn't?"

Zaheer looked somber, and Korra felt her stomach turn to ice as she realised what he was thinking. It had been days since their escape, and it was unlikely that anyone would survive being buried alive for that long if they weren't some sort of earthbender. "Then they will find us," he said. He met her gaze, and for a moment she felt like she was falling, his dark eyes bottomless. "Don't doubt it."


---


Thousands of people had fled Republic City in the wake of Kuvira's attack on the mountain, and now they were flooding back, many of them like Asami, dirty and with no papers. She'd returned to the city in the back of a cabbage corp pickup, two toddlers arguing over a stale bun at her feet as their tiny grandfather droned on about the time he'd won his Pai Sho league. The earth empire soldiers on the road to the city barely looked twice at them before waving them past.

They stopped in nose-to-nose traffic where a section of spirit vine had detatched itself from a building and blocked the road ahead, vehicles of all makes sounding their horns in frustration. As they inched past a streetside stall, Asami made out her picture on the front page of the papers. It looked like Kuvira was hunting for her. And Korra. She borrowed a headscarf from the family's grandmother, and pulled her goggles down over her eyes before she hopped out of the little truck and out into the crowds. Not much of a disguise, but it would make her harder to recognise. Walking round Republic City was totally different to driving, too. People jostled past her, or hassled her from the sidewalk, shoving cheaply printed pamphlets into her hands. The Dark Spirit Vaatu speaks, one read, another; The children of the moon walk among us. Maybe she'd make the sidewalks wider next time she rebuilt the city. If she ever rebuilt the city.


Spotting a squad of soldiers heading in her direction, dressed in Kuvira's green and grey, Asami looked at her feet and turned down a residential street, stopping with her back to the wall as soon as the soldiers were out of sight.


"Ma'am, can I interest you in Cabbage Corp's latest innovation in haircare?" A slight man in a smart-looking suit stood a few doors down, talking to the little old lady who had opened the door. He opened his briefcase for her, smiling, but the lady slowly shook her head, and he turned away, crestfallen.


Asami watched over her goggles as cabbage corp salesman steadily worked his way up the street. He knocked on every door with three smart taps, but it was the middle of the day, and even if anyone was home, he got a door slammed in his face when the occupant realised he was hawking cabbage corp brand hairdryers.

"Excuse me, ma'am, have you heard of Cabbage-" The door slammed in front of him, and he was left standing there, his black briefcase held stupidly at chest height. "Cabbage corp- everything a waterbender can do and worse," he muttered.

Asami bit back a laugh, and he stalked over to her, lip curling. "Think that's funny, do you?"

"No, I-" Asami shook her head, frowning. There was something familiar about the man, something she couldn't quite place. She looked up at him, studying the angular lines of his face. She'd seen him before, from her box at the pro-bending arena. "You're Tahno," she said. "From the White Falls Wolfbats."

"Formerly of the White Falls Wofbats," Tahno corrected with a twist of his hand. "Regrettably, I-" he stopped mid-sentence, his eyes narrowing. "Asami… Sato? Aren't you wante-"

Before Tahno finished speaking, Asami had him up against the wall in an arm lock.

"Listen closely," she growled into his ear. "If you know what's good for you, you're going to forget I was ever here."

Before the waterbender could respond, a barefoot girl with a bag barreled round the corner, narrowly avoiding crashing into them. She was followed by three soldiers in earth empire colours, and she got halfway up the road before one of them bent the earth under her feet and tripped her and she went tumbling.

Asami turned to watch, loosening her grip on Tahno's wrist.

The three soldiers stood in a loose circle round the girl, who lay on the ground, hands covering her head.

"Please," Asami heard her say. "I didn't do nothing."

"Yeah?" The soldier with the officer stripes leaned down, smirking. "Because I'm informed that someone who matches your description was seen loitering around City Hall. And if that's the case, I'm going to have to take you to central command for questioning."

The girl's expression was incredulous, her voice panicked. "That wasn't me."

Stepping in was dangerous, but she couldn't just leave someone who was in trouble like that. Asami took a step towards the altercation, and then another. She released Tahno, and he stared after her in disbelief.

"Maybe not." The officer smiled, the corners of his eyes creasing. "Come to think of it, there have been a lot of cases of mistaken identity lately. A few yuans would clear this all up."

The girl looked up, glancing at each of them in turn. "I don't have any money."

"Oh?" The officer tilted his head. "Then what do you have in that bag there?"

"No!" The girl scooted back, clutching the bag to her chest.

"Hey," Asami called, slipping her electro glove over her hand. "How about you pick on someone your own size."

The two soldiers span to face her, while their superior took a second or so to pull himself up.

"What have we here?" he said, glancing down at the girl. "A friend of yours?"

"No," Asami sank into a fighting stance. "Just passing through."

Asami jumped and rolled past the first two rocks, closing the remaining distance between her and the benders. The girl scrambled to her feet and fled as soon as their eyes were off her, and Asami was glad. Benders lost a lot of their advantage once they were in close combat, and she caught the first soldier in the middle of bending a wall to hem her in, grabbing his arm and administering enough shock to knock him out. The battery gauge on her glove glowed red. One more shot. Asami leapt and somersaulted midair, dodging a rock, and landed beside the second soldier. Her glove was round his neck, but the officer's bending hit her before she could discharge it.

There was a sound as the earthbending hit her arm, an almost deafening crack. It reminded Asami of the moment when the suspension in a car snapped, resonating through to her skull. She rolled, letting the momentum of the hit carry her, but when she tried to raise her arm to block the next attack, it hung there uselessly, and the rock hit her on the brow, hard enough to draw blood. Groggily, Asami crawled to her feet, only for the ground to ripple underneath her, and she fell again, hard enough to knock the air from her lungs.

"Assaulting imperial troops," said the officer, just in her peripheral vision as the two remaining soldiers swaggered up to her. "That's a pretty serious crime."

He might have wanted to say more, but something hit him across the face. A long, silvery tendril of water, as fast as you could blink. The officer cried out, clutching his cheek, red seeping between the fingers of his gloves. Asami pulled herself into a sitting position as Tahno stepped forward, frowning with concentration as he span a ring of water loaded with detritus from the street around one arm.

The officer frowned at his subordinate, both of them settling into earthbending stances, but Tahno was faster than either of them, sending his water lashing out with a twitch of his shoulder. It made contact with a sound like thunder, bowling the officer over as it impacted on his chest, and he gasped for breath. The other soldier turned pale as he watched this, hesitating only a second before he turned tail and ran.

Tahno took another step forward, but the officer was still conscious, and he made a sequence of quick stabbing motions with his hands as he bent the rocks out from Tahno's stream. Stifling a whimper of pain, Asami ripped her glove from her useless arm, using her teeth to pull it onto her good one. Tahno swore, throwing himself to one side as the small rocks pelted down around him, and the officer used the time to bend the road beneath his back, lifting himself to his feet. Tahno lashed out again, this time with a whip loaded with fragments of ice, but the officer raised a block from the road, and the attack landed with a noise like broken glass.

The officer's focus was on Tahno as Asami leapt, her broken arm trailing behind her, her gloved hand outstretched. She hit, her fingers clutching at the man's shoulder as she discharged with a crackle of yellow-white light.


Asami stood staring at Tahno, both of them bleeding, both of them panting. His hat had fallen from his head at some point during the fight, and his long black fringe was flopping loose.

"They're gonna be back soon-" he said, his expression apprehensive as he looked around. Every door on the street was quite definitely shut. "And I don't know about you, but I have no plans to be here when that happens. If you need somewhere to lay low, you can always come to my place."

The way he said it made it seem like a cheap come-on, but the look on his face was serious. Asami's eyes widened, and she clutched her injured arm to her side. "But… I just attacked you."

"Don't sweat it." Tahno turned, rubbing the large bruise that was forming on his cheek. "You'd be surprised how often that happens, doing this job. It's like one in three housewives is a martial arts expert, I swear."

"Why did you help me?" Asami asked.

"A pretty thing like you, I-" Tahno started, but raised his hands defensively as Asami took a step towards him.

"Don't test me."

"Okay, okay. I was kidding. Sheesh. You're her friend, right? The Avatar? I mean, you sponsored her team?"

Slowly, Asami nodded.

Tahno leaned down to pick up his hat and briefcase. "I owe her, big time," he admitted, his lip curling down. "I told myself that if she ever needed my help, I'd be there. I think this counts." Tahno held out his hand. "So what do you say?"

 

[iwvs]

Asami thought long and hard about the merits of installing automated lifts in all newly constructed tower blocks as Tahno helped her up the five flights of stairs to his apartment. The stairways were lit a dim green in the late afternoon sun, much of their light blocked by the spirit vines that grew rampant over the building, and the hallway was cluttered with shoes, blankets and personal items left behind in the evacuation. Adrenaline had carried Asami through the fight, but by the time they reached Tahno's door, she felt dizzy, and she leaned on the waterbender more than she would have liked.

She barely got a glance at the small apartment as Tahno half carried her through to the bathroom, lowering her fully clothed into the tub before he turned on the taps.

"What… are you doing?" Asami asked, feeling slow and cold as the water lapped at her boots. The tub had been clean before Tahno had dumped her in, but now the dirt from her clothes was leeching out, staining the water brown.

Tahno gave her a condescending look. "Your arm is broken," he said. "I'm gonna try to fix it."

"You're a healer?" Asami did her best to focus on him. He looked like he did when he was on the pro-bending field, his jaw clenched and his brows furrowed in concentration.

"I've fixed up Ming and Shao loads of times before," said Tahno, referring to the other two Wolfbats members. He avoided her gaze as he looped a little water round his hand, forming an icy blade along the edge of his palm. "I mean, it's just a broken arm- how hard can it be?" He touched her forehead with his other hand, and swore under his breath. "You're in shock."

He started wrapping water around her, warm to the touch. "Talk to me," he prompted, as the water ran pink from around her arm.

Asami blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Your bathroom is cleaner than Mako's."

She got a snort of mirth from that as Tahno cut away the fabric round her arm with his ice blade, probing her shoulder with his fingertips. Asami hissed through her teeth from the pain, and the waterbender made a hushing sound as he brought a strand of water out from the tap, flickering blue between his fingertips. He pressed it to her skin, moving it back and forth, and the pain ebbed a little as the blue light began to permeate through her arm, drawing energy down through her shoulder.

Asami looked away from the healing, doing her best to focus on something other than the sensation of Tahno manipulating her chi pathways. "Has anyone seen Korra?"

"The avatar?" Tahno made a noncommital noise. "I heard she was in a fight on air temple island. She had an old airbender guy with her." He pulled a stream of fresh water from the tap, cycling out the stuff he had used to heal. "That was a few days ago, though."

Asami nodded, thinking. Korra must have grouped up with Tenzin somehow. "What happened?"

"They flew off somewhere." The waterbender shrugged. "Trouble with the imperial forces. Guess she wasn't the best waterbender on the continent after all." He paused, frowning. "Aren't you more worried about your dad?"

Asami felt a chill crawl up her spine, one that had nothing to do with the temperature of the water around her. "My father? What about him?"

"You didn't hear?"

Asami shook her head. "I only just got back to the city."

"Well, your dad escaped from prison, and now he's on the loose with a load of hardcore equalists," said Tahno. He didn't meet her eye, but he didn't need to. Asami could hear the tension in his voice, and feel it in the way his healing water quavered.

Asami stared forward, feeling sick. She had just reopened the relationship with her father, just started to believe he could change. And now he was out there somewhere, probably busy making plans to hurt benders.

"Asami?" Tahno paused his bending for a second, the water quivering against Asami's skin. He slouched against the side of the tub, chin resting on his arms. "Sensitive subject, huh."


"Yes. Well, no, I-" Asami lowered her gaze, staring at her boots, which bled brown mud into the clean water of the tub. "We didn't exactly part on the best terms. Does anyone know where he is?" she asked. Her legs felt weak. If she hadn't been sitting in the bathtub already, she might have found herself a chair.


Tahno shook his head. "If they did, they would have arrested him by now."

There was a bang as the bathroom door shook on its hinges, and Asami froze. Had the troops from the exchange in the street found them already? A man's voice called from outside. "Tahno! What the hell are you doing in there?"

Tahno grunted with annoyance. "Nothing!"

Asami twisted to look at Tahno. "Who was that?"

Tahno narrowed his eyes at the door, his expression sour. "That's my housemate, Hasook. He's sort of in a band with me."

"Is that a girl? Do you have a girl in there?"

"Oh, for-" Tahno pressed his fingertips against his temple, and Asami's arm stung as his healing light vanished. "Yes, Hasook, I have a girl in here."

"In the bathroom? Really?" Hasook's voice was incredulous.

Tahno sighed. "She broke her arm."

"What am I meant to do in the meantime?"

"Go get noodles or something, I don't know." Tahno rolled his eyes.

"I'm broke!"

"Your problem, not mine."

"My problem?" Hasook's voice rose a good half-octave. "My problem is that you bought someone here, without asking-"

"Fine," snapped Tahno, his lips pursed. "There's twenty yuans in the top drawer of my dresser."

There was a series of thumps from elsewhere in the flat, and the slam of the front door as Tahno's housemate left. The waterbender's shoulders slumped, and he sat back down next to the tub, squinting critically at Asami's shoulder.

Maybe it was her imagination, but he didn't look as sure of himself as he had when he'd started. "Is it working?"

"You tell me- it's your arm," said Tahno, his frown deepening.

"It doesn't hurt as much. That's good, right?"

Tahno wound a fresh coil of water around his hand, scowling at it until it glowed a lurid blue. "I think there's more work to be done here," he said, pushing chi through the injury again. It felt uncomfortable, like stretching after a cramp, but it was a healing sort of pain.


Healing was a slow process, more like sanding down a surface than simply welding everything back together, and Tahno had to turn on the dim electric light in his bathroom so he could see to finish the job. He helped her up, pulling the water away from her without comment, and Asami found her clothes were dry, down to her feet in her boots.

Stifling a yawn, the waterbender showed her to his bedroom. Asami glanced at the corners, surprised by how cramped it felt. Had she really meant to make the rooms only seven feet by ten? His bed dominated the room, with just enough space for a dresser and a chair at one end, a large musical instrument case standing beside it. Tahno's wolfbat costume hung ominously from a hook on the ceiling, the rubber mask drooping from the hood, and a faded poster was plastered across one wall. It showed Tahno, in full pro-bending gear, a rose between his teeth.

"I wasn't expecting company," said Tahno, picking up a pair of discarded black socks from the bedside and tossing them expertly into the basket at the far end of the room. "Usually I put a cover over that guy," he added, nodding to the costume.

"Usually?" Asami gave Tahno a sidelong look, more critical than she had intended.

"I'll take the couch," he said, not meeting her eye.

The room seemed to close in on her as he turned to go. All day long, the bustle of the city and then Tahno's company had drowned out the quiet voice of her fears. The sound of her own heartbeat, which thrummed in her ears, reminiscent of firebending. Her memory of being buried alive.

Asami caught hold of Tahno's sleeve, and he stopped, his expression quizzical.

"Please," said Asami. "I don't- I don't want to be alone right now."

Tahno stepped towards her, his hand warm on her upper arm, her skin tingling with the memory of his bending. As if she had flicked a switch, he was smiling, and his eyes were half-lidded. "You know," he drawled, his voice oily. "That might just be the single worst seduction attempt I've ever heard."

Asami froze, pink rising to her cheeks. "I-"

Tahno quirked an eyebrow as he leaned forward, his nose almost touching hers. "You got anything to say for yourself?"

Asami stared into his eyes, her heart in her throat as she felt her pulse quicken. He was close enough that she could feel his breath. Three years. She'd waited three years for a girl who probably didn't even feel the same way about her. She must have written a hundred letters, and Korra had sent her only one, sweet but cursory. Even after she'd returned from the pole, she'd been distant; it seemed like Asami had to seek her out every time she wanted to talk.

Not that she'd minded, but Tahno was right there, and actually pretty cute if he wasn't being a sleaze. It was a nice feeling, to be wanted. She gave the waterbender a rueful look. "It still worked, didn't it?"

Tahno flashed a grin before he closed the space between them and covered her lips with his in a slow, languid kiss, his hand moving up over her shoulder to the nape of her neck. Asami reached out, grabbing the front of his shirt, and pulled him towards her.


---


Korra's dreams were fraught and confusing, filled with visions of her friends in trouble. Mako, trapped under rocks. Asami, dissolving as the beam of the spirit cannon hit her. Korra lunged forward, trying to grab her hands, but she could never quite reach.

"Avatar," Zaheer's voice cut across her consciousness like a knife, and the dream was gone. "Wake up."


Korra startled awake, combat rolling from the rocky shelf she had appointed as a bunk, and landing on her feet with a huff, fire daggers in her hands. She squinted across at Zaheer, who stared back at her calmly. It was not quite light outside, the rising sun tinting everything a reddish orange. "Zaheer." Korra stifled a yawn as she dismissed her bending. "It's early."

"It's sunrise," Zaheer replied, taking a few steps towards the shrine entrance. "The barriers between the physical world and the spiritual are thinner now, so it's a good time to try new things."

"Like they are at the poles at the winter festival?" Korra asked. There was no real daylight at the poles on the solstice, just a constant, eerie twilight.

"That's right." Zaheer looked at her expectantly. He wanted her to follow him, she realised.

She wasn't getting back to sleep any time soon, so it wouldn't hurt to see what he had in mind. Korra looked round at the sleeping shapes of the outlaws, curled in their blankets. They looked peaceful. "I don't think I feel up to trying meditation again."

"That's not what I had in mind," said Zaheer as he padded away.

Korra followed him, picking her way over sleeping outlaws. "What, then?"

"An exercise."


Exiting the shrine, he rose up out of the ravine, hovering soundlessly at the clifftop above. Korra followed, stretching before she earthbent herself steps from the face of the cliff, the simple motions working the tension from her shoulders.

"So what's the plan?" she asked, as she climbed the last little way, brushing dirt from her trousers. The landscape wasn't desert, as Korra had assumed having seen it from high above, but scrubland, littered with stones and hardy, brittle sedges.

As usual, Zaheer was more than willing to explain himself as he floated a small distance away from the ravine. "Much like waterbenders can make mannequins from water and pigments, ancient airbenders could make mirages from the dust." He stopped, and landed, bending the wind in an arc that marked a circle in the earth around them. "Guru Yun of the Eastern Air Temple once stopped an army that was marching on Omashu with such a technique. She created the illusion of an opposing army, and the attackers fled into the desert."

The story wasn't familiar. Korra frowned. "Don't think Tenzin ever mentioned that one."

"I'm not surprised." Zaheer shrugged. "Most of the attackers died because of her actions, so she was banished for breaking her vows of nonviolence."

Korra tried to imagine Zaheer in that time, living by the air nomads' laws. They had been strict. She tilted her head at Zaheer. "You would have been a pretty awful air monk, huh."

"Hah," Zaheer gave a rare smile. "Probably. They spent thousands of years believing they could be separate from the world. That if they were peaceful, the world would leave them in peace."

"And you don't believe in peace."

"The world speaks in violence, Avatar," said Zaheer. "Sometimes violence is the only reply."

They started small, using wind to raise a little dust, Zaheer reasoning that all they really needed from the technique in the short term was a way to mask the group's vehicles on the road. He demonstrated the forms for her, his movements slow and precise. How he'd learned them was anyone's guess, but it was probably the same place he'd picked up his old airbender philosophy.

Unfortunately, the dust didn't seem to want to co-operate, and though the air came easily enough, the best Korra managed was a fist-sized dustball.

"Hold on," Korra growled, repeating the form. "I haven't done this before."

"Neither have I," said Zaheer, as he raised then dismissed a small pillar of dust. "You think the White Lotus gave me the luxury of airbending practice?"

"Then why are you trying to teach me?"

"You're the Avatar," said Zaheer. "You've been an airbender longer than me. This should come easily to you."

"Well, it doesn't," said Korra, switching abruptly to an earthbending stance as she tried to bend the motes of dust rather than the air around them. It was no use- the tiny particles were too diffuse and fuzzy to grasp more than a few at once, and the rest swirled around her uselessly. With a noise of frustration, Korra sent an air punch at the stuff, clearing the air in front of her. No matter the amount of power she put into the movements, all she seemed to achieve was knocking the dust out of balance, cutting clear swathes through the clouds that Zaheer was managing to raise.

The airbender had paused his own practice, and was watching her intently, his expression curious.

"What?" Korra snapped.

Zaheer arched his broken eyebrow, but otherwise appeared unruffled. "Do that again."

Korra glowered at him, but obliged. The dust did as it had before, falling to the sides of her bending.

Zaheer bent down and scooped up a handful of the stuff, letting it run through his fingers. "You're airbending like a firebender," he said.

"So what if I am?" Korra gave a huff. "I'm the avatar, I can airbend how I like. I was following your forms before, and they didn't work either."

"No," Zaheer agreed. "I'm just wondering why you're using those pathways when others should be open to you." He circled round her. Korra felt the old fear rise, deep and irrational, from her stomach, and turned to face him.

Zaheer shook his head, frowning a little. "Hold still," he said. He put his hand on her neck, just above her collarbone, his fingers rough and his expression one of utmost focus.

Korra resisted the urge to pull away from him. "What is it?"

Zaheer lifted his hand. "You're out of balance," he said. "Your sound chakra is occluded. That's why you're having so much trouble with this."

"Because I'm afraid of you?"

"Only the earth chakra is blocked by fear. The sound chakra is blocked by lies," he explained, a spark of something in his eyes- perhaps judgement?


If anyone at the south pole had ever bothered to explain any of this stuff to her, she might not have looked such a fool. Korra folded her arms. "Great. So now I'm a liar?"

"Not necessarily," Zaheer allowed. "Chakras are sensitive to matters of self. Self deception in particular."

Korra felt herself flush. "So I'm lying to myself?"

"I don't know. Are you?"

"No!"

Zaheer's eyes flashed. "Then tell yourself something true."


They circled each other again, in the dustbending stance, footfalls mirroring each other, and Zaheer brought the wind. It whispered as it came, hot and dry, smelling of dust and sandalwood.

"I am the Avatar," said Korra, under her breath, but aloud nonetheless. It was the sound chakra they were trying to open, after all. The dust around her barely stirred, and she was tempted just to earthbend it again.

"Maybe something you haven't mentioned in the past day," said Zaheer, drily.

Korra scowled at him. "I'm trying, okay?"

Zaheer brought the wind, and it came with a low howl, smelling like rainless nights on wide plains. She needed something deeper, something she had never admitted. Jinora had looked so stoic and brave at her elevation to airbending master. Korra had wanted to be happy for her, but she hadn't been. She'd been furious. She'd grieved.

"I was jealous of the new air nation. I wanted the world to need me."

That seemed to get some response, at least, the dead air twitching at her fingertips, and she took it, lifting what Zaheer had given her and stirring the dust as she continued the circle.

Zaheer brought the wind, and it came with a roar, filling her face with grit. She would have airbent it away, but she would have lost the rhythm of the circle entirely. She could barely see the airbender now, the dust obscuring her vision. The only thing she could feel was the bending, the shape of it marked by the wind that roared by, and the steady rhythm of their steps. It reminded her of the last time she'd faced off against an elemental master. She'd lost, and she'd written it off as the lingering poison, as her inability to enter the avatar state, but she should have been able to beat one bender, even without Raava's assistance.

"Kuvira is a better bender than me." Korra said, her voice low. So was Zaheer, but she'd never held any illusions about her mastery of airbending. Earth was something she could touch, she could shape, a source of certainty. "She beat me, fair and square." The air was freer on her arms now, and it responded more quickly to her movements, keeping balance with the dust.

Korra brought the wind, and it came crying through the ravines, blending with Zaheer's and smelling of mountains and smoke. Their dance didn't quicken, but only continued, almost trancelike. She was getting somewhere now, somewhere deeper. A fear that gnawed at her. A thing she told herself couldn't be true. Something she didn't want to admit, even to herself.

"I might never be whole again," Korra murmured, and her heart felt lighter.

Korra brought the wind, and it screamed like a wild thing, whipping their hair into their faces. The final truth came to her in fragments. Hair like black satin. A pair of slender, kind hands. Hands that had smoothed her hair, and washed her and dressed her, when she had been incapable. A smile, stained carnelian, and bright green eyes, looking into her own, half-lidded and knowing. She'd buried her feelings, buried the way those looks stirred her. She wanted her, not as a friend, but as something more.

Korra whispered the truth as it came to her, and the roaring wind snatched it from her lips.

"I love Asami."

 

[iwvs]

Bataar sat by the girl's healing tank, reviewing his notes. He was glad that Kuvira had allowed him to take up the White Lotus' offer to call the girl's aunt in as a healer- he might have prided himself on his scientific skill, but he had no stomach for simply observing as a young girl withered away, not if he had another option. Kuvira had pointed out that the girl was the granddaughter of the previous Avatar, and they would do well not to aggravate the Lotus more than they absolutely had to, but Bataar knew she felt for the girl's plight too. The girl's mother was asleep in the chair nearest the tank, one hand on the edge of the tub.

The healer stared at Bataar with angry eyes she worked, the water around her niece swirling a dull yellow-green. She'd been working flat-out for two days, and the strain of it showed in the dark shadows under her eyes and the peeling skin on her hands. He'd asked about the colour change in the water, but she hadn't had a good answer for him when they started, except that the girl's spirit had returned to her body after a long absence. He'd ordered spirit water in for her, from the oasis near Omashu, and that seemed to work better than regular water, but it still changed colour, from blue to yellow to green and finally to black, when it came into contact with the young airbender's body. It was like the spirit vines. Bataar opened his notebook, taking a quick sketch, but there was no new information to be had.

The spirit vines were dying. It wasn't noticeable in the main city yet, but some of the bigger boughs were already losing their structural integrity, sliding down buildings and blocking roads.

They had no idea what was happening with the girl, but three days ago he had helped her mother pull her from a spirit vine nexus in the middle of the city, along with a dozen less fortunate victims.

The closer you got to the nexus, the worse the rot in the spirit vines was. It had to be related somehow. Bataar took off his glasses and wiped them down, for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

The girl gave a soft cough, and her mother startled awake.

"Jinora?" Pema's voice was cautious, daring to hope.

"Mom." The girl's voice was weak.

Pema gave a strangled cry and fell to her knees, clutching at her daughter. "Oh, sweetie."

The girl seemed to have retained her memories at least. Bataar watched the scene with interest as Kya glared at him. He was pretty sure that the only thing stopping the healer from attacking him was the metalbending guard behind him and her fear for her niece's well-being, but those were both sustainable factors.

---

Hiroshi's loft had become busier in the days since their raid on Future Industries platinum stockpile. Takumi had barely been there at all, spending his time coordinating their intelligence efforts as Hiroshi helped with their production line. On such a short timescale, there wasn't much they could do, so his first focus had been on items which would have immediate benefit. He could have made a shock glove or shock baton in his sleep, and the makeshift assembly line was already churning them out, but mechs were another proposition entirely. Activity slackened as it drew deeper into the night, the waning moon supplementing the cheap sodium lamps their workspace used, and the engineers slipped away with a quiet sir, one by one, tidying their workspaces or leaving items half finished for the morning, until only Hiroshi remained.

Hiroshi sat cross-legged in front of the mecha torso, turning his screwdriver over in one hand. With the first generation of mecha, he'd had development time and tooling, but now he lacked both, and he was sure that the technology would have advanced in the years he had spent in prison. Heck, Gan Lau Gan and Varrick were probably making the damn things too now.

"Sato," Takumi padded up to him, a paper cup of jasmine tea in hand. His footsteps barely made a noise on the hard floors of the makeshift factory. He peered down, his grey-blue eyes curious. "Doing something incomprehensible again, I see."

"It's like your gran-gran always said," Hiroshi replied. "Everyone's got something they're good at."

Takumi chuckled softly. "Can't argue with that," he said, taking a seat next to Hiroshi. "I've found where they're holding the high-value prisoners. They're using the basement of city hall- reinforced with some kind of metalbending." He pulled a face. "Place is crawling with soldiers."

"Any idea of the execution date?"

"She'll be publicising it. If all she wanted was those people dead, she'd have done it by now." Takumi must have noticed how Hiroshi was looking at him, because he raised his hands defensively. "It's the only thing that makes sense."

"No. You're right." Hiroshi rubbed his beard, considering the hydraulics of the mech suit. Kuvira was in a precarious situation. Even with Raiko as her puppet, she was still an occupying force, and her supporters in Republic City were a minority. She needed to take full advantage of any opportunity to demonstrate her control. "What do you think her next step is?"

"Honestly?" Takumi shifted, his expression sharper. "I've heard some things about what she's doing to the earth states and townships. She's asset stripping. Taking resources and men from areas that really can't afford it."

"Of course she is," Hiroshi reached down, pushing the thick bundle of control cables round to the side of the mech, where the ribs would be on a man. He'd known his friend had contacts outside the city, but not that they were so well informed. Takumi had received a letter practically every week, which he'd eaten after reading, claiming the paper was good for his regularity. What had they really been about? "She's on a war footing, why wouldn't she be?"

Takumi sipped his tea. "My point is, it's not sustainable. She'll need to keep invading if she wants to stay in power."

Hiroshi frowned as he clipped another cable into place and reached into the box beside him to pull out a length of shielding. "She has all of the old Earth Kingdom territory now. She won't stretch to an invasion of the Fire Nation."

"She might not have a choice." Takumi drained the last of his tea, and crumpled the cup idly. "One more thing. One of my informants saw your daughter."

Hiroshi froze, a heady mixture of emotions running through him. His daughter was alive. Alive, and back in republic city. He put down his tools and took a breath. "In the prison?"

"On the streets," Takumi replied. "Kuvira's looking for her, but I've put out some false reports."

Hiroshi breathed out. "Good."

"You want me to take her in?" asked Takumi, his look searching.

Hiroshi took a moment to consider. Asami was precious, yes, but she was also a competent young woman. She had survived for years without his protection. She would be fine, wherever she was. The last thing he needed was her interfering with his plans, just when the equalist movement was getting back on its feet. "No. We need you for the mission. Send one of the others to keep an eye on her."

---

Mako kept the fire from his palms at a steady level beneath the big urn that Varrick had bought as the water within steamed. Including the benders Varrick had hired to build the house, they'd spent half a book's worth of tickets already, on things that Varrick swore were important but to Mako seemed like junk.

"This was your plan?" he asked, scowling up at Varrick, who smiled down at him, tweaking his moustache.

"Republic City wasn't built in a day, kid," said Varrick, brightly. "It was built in about eighteen months on a lucrative Future-Varrick Industries joint contract."

He bent down, picking up a piece of junk from the pile and putting it to one side. "When you looked around this place, what did you see?"

Keeping the flame at the right level took most of his concentration, so Mako took a guess. "Dirt?"

"Precisely!" said Varrick. "Dirt, dirt, and more dirt. Not a tree to be seen, for miles around. No dirt means no fuel, means no hot drinks."

"You want to recoup our tickets by selling drinks?" Mako made a face. "You don't even have any tea!"

"That, my friend, is where you're wrong," said Varrick, drawing a tattered shirt from his pile of junk.

"Varrick," said Mako, quite slowly. "That's a shirt."

"Correction," Varrick held up a finger. "A green shirt. And the dye is-" he held it to his nose and sniffed, wrinkling his nose. "Plantain. One hundred percent non-lethal."

"What are you going to do about the smell?"

"Way ahead of you there, kid," Varrick grinned, pulling a handful of sad looking jasmine flowers from his pocket.

Mako shook his head. "Remind me to never eat anything you make."

Mako had his doubts, but Varrick's plan worked this spent the evening carting the urn around the quarter of the camp where most of the benders who worked in the mines lived, selling pots and cups of tea for fractions of tickets, and by the time the camp slipped into somnolence Varrick had a small wad of tickets tucked into his belt.

Mako carried the empty tea urn to the tap near the canteen, and it bashed against his leg as he walked. There was little noise from the dwellings at the late hour, a few snores and a bit of low conversation, but otherwise it was quiet.

Mako could recognise when someone was following him. It was a feeling, that started as an itch at the back of his neck and spread down his back. He was being followed now, he was sure. He took a wrong corner, and then another.

The last thing he expected was to bump into a group of large, dangerous men going the other way. Not wanting trouble, Mako turned sharply and headed in the other direction.

"Hey, you!" came the call from behind him, and Mako's heart sank. "Yeah, you," the voice repeated, and Mako stopped. He dropped the urn, and it hit the dirt with a low metal sound, almost like a bell, as he turned.

The leader from the gang earlier stood in front of him, flanked by two others Mako didn't recognize- a thin guy with a bald head and a tattoo like a crown, and a guy with one eye.

"This the one who was giving you trouble earlier?"

This was bad. The new guys carried themselves better than the thugs Varrick had faced off against earlier, and running wasn't an option, not when he didn't know who was following him. It could be tantamount to running into an ambush.

"Yeah," said the first guy, his sneer unpleasant. "That's one of them, at least."

Mako took a step backwards, centering himself. He knew this kind of fight. This was the kind of fight where they would push a him and push him until his back was a against the wall. Until he fought back. There was no-one here who had his back. No guards, no allies. Just like old times. He scowled at the three of them.

"You got a problem with me?"

"Yeah," the former leader squared himself off against Mako, getting right up in his face. "Damn right I got a problem with you."

Mako waited for him to get right up close, and then took a half step forward and punched him hard in the gut. Talking had never been his strong point. Violence, on the other hand?

Mako stepped forward as the man doubled over, retching. Lighting crackled below the fabric of his jacket as he beckoned the other two earthbenders to come fight him.

Violence he could do.

Get close. Zolt's advice for a street fight echoed in Mako's head. Don't give them time to bend. Don't give them time to think. In half a breath, he was on them, sweeping low on the thin guy's legs, and rising with a crackling elbow to one-eye's solar plexus. One-eye blocked adroitly, grinning as Mako span to face him. He'd formed a stone gauntlet round his left hand. The skinny guy was skating back, a thin layer of earthbending under his feet. Mako lashed out with the lightning, and it burst through the air, the smell of ozone as it arced from his fingertips, striking one-eye's face. The man staggered back, with a guttural scream, but his friend hunched his shoulders and raised his arms, bending a spire of rock that hit Mako in the side, sending him spinning through the air.

Mako hit the ground with a grunt and rolled, tasting blood and dust. In half a breath he was on his feet again, leaping back into the fray. He crossed his arms and swept them outwards, laying down bright covering fire and forcing the skinny guy to bend a defensive wall for himself and one-eye. The former gang leader was on his feet again too, his stance low and mean as he levitated a head-sized chunk of rock.

Mako jabbed out with one arm, two fingers outstretched, and the chi ran through him white hot as he bent lightning again, this time arcing out to hit the man's boulder. There was a crack and it exploded, showering both of them in shrapnel. Mako followed through, taking advantage of the man's surprise to barrel forward through the falling stones. The guy startled, yanking a wall from the earth in front of him, but Mako twisted at the last moment, throwing himself past the man rather than into him, and kicking up a gout of flame. It hit the side of the guy's head. Mako heard his scream cut short as he landed, but he still had two opponents to deal with.

Fernlike red marks were forming on the one-eyed man's face, but he was still standing, his lanky friend beside him. Mako turned to face them, wiping blood from his mouth with his sleeve.

Mako bared his teeth. "You wanna get burnt? Because that's how this is gonna end up."

The thin man shook his head, still grinning, and there was a crunching sound from the ground round Mako's feet. Too late, he realised he had been standing still while he had threatened the two men. And his feet had been on the ground. Trying to shift his stance, he found his feet encased in stone, immovable.

Mako struggled as the two earthbenders approached. One-eye bent himself another gauntlet, and sent it flying towards Mako, but Mako bent lightning again, shattering it midair. It was night, and his feet were locked in place, which really limited his range, but he could make it dangerous to get close to him.

Unfortunately, his opponents were benders too. The one-eyed man made a sharp motion with his fist, and the first slab of rock hit Mako hard in the side, connecting with a crunch, the casing round his legs keeping him standing. The next hit his chest, and he tried to block it with his forearms, grunting in pain. The third hit the side of his head, and Mako saw stars. Blood flowed from his hairline in a warm trickle.

He squinted at the pair of earthbenders, blinking through his double vision. Their stances were determined, their eyes steely in the low light. They meant to kill him, he was sure of it. They would kill him, and dump his battered, crushed, body on Varrick's door.

"That all you got?" he ground out, and he spat on the ground.

Just as suddenly as it had arrived, the pressure on Mako's feet was released. He almost stumbled. The earth around his feet was crumbling away. But why? He chanced a look at the earthbenders again, but they looked the same as before, advancing on him.

Mako looked downwards, feigning being stunned by the blow to the head as he worked his feet loose. He needed them to be closer, just a little.

"Listen here, punk," snarled the one-eyed man, close enough to jab him in the chest. "Around here, there are rules."

Mako breathed in. All he had was his fire. His fire, and his body, each breath burning his insides. It was purity of purpose. It was certainty. It was rage.

Mako saw his chance and took it, kicking out with a sharp lick of flame. He didn't give them time to bend. He didn't give them time to think. He knocked them back with fire, a series of strikes as fast as anything he'd done in the pro-bending arena, his lightning throwing dirt up from the ground around them, filling the space with noise. His two opponents stumbled back, caught off-guard, and Mako pressed his advantage. One solid roundhouse kick punted the thin guy into the wall behind him, and an open-handed jab sent one-eyes flying backwards, his shirt on fire.

The man looked at his two fallen friends and ran for it, using his earthbending to put the fire out.

Mako stepped over the gang-leader's unconscious body and picked up the tea urn with a sigh. He shouldn't have won that fight. His feet had been well and truly stuck, until they hadn't.

Assuming he hadn't spontaneously developed the ability to earthbend, which given that he wasn't the avatar, was pretty unlikely, left one possibility. Someone had been helping him.

And they had to be nearby. Night wasn't the best time for firebending, but Mako drew up his remaining chi, concentrating it in his hands before he released it in a rush, casting his surroundings in a bright orange light.

Maybe twenty feet behind him, the light caught on a pair of dark green eyes. Mako caught a glimpse of the man's face, making out a moustache and broken nose before his light extinguished itself.

"Come out," he called. "I've seen you now."

There was a hoarse chuckle from the darkness. "That's a funny way to say thank you, kid. Didn't your mama teach you any manners?"

Mako bent another flame, lighting the area again, but the man was already gone.

 

[iwvs]

Varrick paced anxiously. He'd been expecting some retaliation from the business venture- that was the nature of the business, after all- a little guy rises up and the established guys try to smack him down. But he hadn't been expecting them to go after Mako so early and so hard.

The kid was beat up, one eye bruised closed, and he hadn't let Varrick take off his shirt to check the injuries on his body, choosing instead to curl in the corner of their hut and sleep. He smelled of burning and ozone, so Varrick could only assume the other guy had come off worse, whoever that was.

"Uh, Mako?" asked Varrick, tentatively. "You didn't kill anyone, did you?"

Mako gave him one of his patented looks, about fifty percent dying embers of a housefire and fifty-one percent scorn. "I didn't exactly hang around to find out," he snapped.

Dang nabbit. This was bad. Varrick paced the length of their makeshift house. He'd hoped for a few days to get their bearings, work out who was in charge, and maybe make an alliance or two before anyone tried to make an example of them. Now, though? Reprisal was practically imminent.

"You couldn't have tried, y'know, just taking the beating?" he suggested.

"Maybe you could try that," said Mako, pointedly. "When you're the one getting beaten."

Varrick sighed, moustache drooping. "Did you at least get their names?"

"You think they'll come back." Mako said, something like surprise crossing his swollen face. He looked exhausted. "There was a guy with one eye, and a bald guy with tattoos. Thin."

Identifying marks. Varrick scratched the sparse stubble that had begun to populate his chin. That was something. At least now he could find out exactly who he'd pissed off.

"There was another guy," Mako said, after a pause.

"Another fella beating on you?"

"No," Mako frowned, giving an involuntary hiss of pain as his brow squeezed the bruise around his eye. "He was helping me. I don't know why."

"Don't suppose he left a calling card either."

Mako shook his head.

Varrick sat, chin on his knees. Their hovel, which a moment before had been colourful, a place full of possibilities and possible creations, was at once reduced to its sad reality, grey and cold in the low light. He had two, maybe three options now, and they weren't bad, per se, but they were just so damn pedestrian. Zhu Li would never have set anyone on fire during a streetfight. "You're a terrible assistant, you know that?"

The kid scowled at him through his one good eye before rolling over to face the wall. "I'm not your assistant."

"Damn right you're not," sniffed Varrick.

---
The spider spirit hadn't eaten him yet. That was something. Trapped in the web, Kai lost track of time. Perhaps that was a trait of the spirit world, that time didn't flow quite the same way. He tried counting days and nights, but too often a long shadow would pass over, making him doubt his counting. The spider spirit hummed to himself as it moved through the webs, picking up this item and that in his slender, almost-human hands.

Finally, there was a noise, footsteps in the cave below, and the spider spirit froze, the light inside its abdomen turning from yellow to a silvery white as it clambered down one of the walls.

Kai twisted in his web to get a better look. The man was short, and slight, dressed in traditional southern water tribe garb, complete with heavy black and white facepaint that was almost clownish. Kai squinted. One of Tonraq's party? No, the man was older than that, his grey hair stained yellow in Aruki's light, and wicked scars covering his exposed upper arms. Sheathed at his hips were two crude-looking bone kamas.

The spider lantern circled the man, its voice low. "Took you long enough, Moonboy."

The warrior, Moonboy, tracked the spirit with his eyes but seemed otherwise unperturbed. "I'm a busy man," he said. "I'm not here on your whim, Aruki."

The spider seemed to shiver at the warrior's use of his name, his light dimming to a low red that seemed to lengthen the shadows. "Remember whose house you're standing in here."

The warrior looked at him, impassive. "And you'd do well to remember who you're talking to," he said. "Koh said you had an airbender here."

"I do."

"Who?"

"Maybe I'd tell you," said the spider, his voice smooth as silk. "If you were a little nicer to me."

"My sincerest apologies, oh great spirit," said the warrior, and Kai felt the air in the room change, as if a thundercloud was passing. "Now, show me."

"Hmph," said Aruki. "That will do, I suppose." The spirit gave a shiver, but reached out and pulled a thread with one of his hands, and Kai felt the binding around him unwinding a little as Aruki lowered him, spinning on a single, steely filament of the spirit's thread.

"Let me go!" Kai yelled, struggling. But he was helpless, held in place by the spirit's web.

Moonboy looked up at Kai and clicked his tongue, his grey-blue eyes downturned in disappointment. "Damn. For a moment there, I thought you might have caught Zaheer."

"I should be so lucky," remarked the spider. "He's not been here in awhile."

"Please," Kai looked down at the man. "You have to get me out of here! This guy's gonna eat me!"

"Then why'd you let him catch you?"

"I was looking for my girlfriend, and-" Kai shook his head, his expression pleading. "Look, I don't care about me. But you have to help Jinora- my girlfriend. She was trapped in the vines, and-" he trailed off, realising the man was looking up at him thoughtfully.

"You're very selfless. That's a rare thing," said the warrior, softly. He narrowed his eyes, and leaned forward, lowering his voice, conspiratorial. "Though… Jinora, you say? I heard she was safe back in Republic City. So what are you doing still hanging round in this dump, huh?"

Kai's eyes widened. "You're serious?"

The warrior tapped the side of his nose, speaking at a normal volume once more. "Where's your physical body?"

"I don't know-" Kai's answer came out jumbled. "I went through the spirit portal."

The warrior nodded slowly. "I know the way there. I can guide you."

"You're interested now, I take it?" The spirit made a clicking noise, its mouth curling into a smile that was almost as wide as its body.

"I might be." The warrior gave Aruki a sidelong look.

The lantern spider bobbed slowly in its web, turning its faceless torso towards the warrior. "You know my price," he said. "And I don't see how you were planning on paying, unless you were going to let me have you in trade."

"I do," the warrior smiled, tilting his head to one side. "But I can hardly make use of the boy if I'm stuck here with you, can I?"

"Suit yourself," the spider turned away, grasping the wall of its demesne with his slim black hands, and grabbed the thread to pull Kai back up. "You're probably much chewier than him anyway."

"Wait," the warrior called, and the spirit paused. "How about we make this interesting?"

"What did you have in mind?"

"A wager. Play one game of paisho with me. Fire Nation rules. If I win, you let me take the boy."

"And if I win?" The spirit's light turned a yellow-orange, interested.

The warrior spread his arms wide. "Then I forfeit my knives."

"Your knives?" Aruki made an offended noise. "I hardly think they are a suitable wager."

"Are you sure? They're good knives."

The spirit's face was downturned, its light dim. "You're wasting my time, Moonboy."

Moonboy narrowed his eyes. "Fine, then. Myself."

Aruki paused, considering. "You swear it?"

The warrior put one hand to his chest, his eyes half-lidded. "On Yue herself."

The spider spirit grinned. "I'm holding you to that."

The warrior sat and waited as Aruki crept off to fetch a board.

"Hey," Kai hissed, as soon as the spirit was out of sight. His cocoon rotated slowly, and the warrior span in and out of his field of view. "Thanks for the help, but why are you doing this? I don't know you. What do you want from me?"

The warrior peered up. "You're talking like someone who's been burnt before," he said.

"So what if I do?" Kai shot back.

"Okay," The warrior glanced in the direction the spider had gone. "Look at it this way- What do I gain? I'm just going to let you go."

"Then what are you getting?" Kai completed another rotation. "Why am I important?"

"Because," said the warrior. "You believe in something more than yourself. Do you have any idea how rare that is? Someone who puts his love before his very survival?"

"Rare?" Kai guessed.

"Yeah," said the warrior. "And just between you and me, I'd rather have someone like that on my side than not."

"Then why's that important?"

"Didn't you know?" The warrior grinned. "Love is the most powerful force in this world."

The lantern spider returned, a paisho set tucked under one of his many arms, and set it out in front of the warrior. Carefully, he divided the tiles into two piles, red and white.

Kai watched blowing air to one side to stop himself spinning. He'd seen a fair few hustlers play paisho before, but they usually preferred ember island rules, which had fewer tile types overall, and the flower tiles could be placed either side of the board. Fire Nation rules made use of pieces representing each of the four nations, dragons and lotuses.

"Challenger first?" offered the warrior.

The spirit scoffed. "I think not."

"You could flip a coin," Kai offered.

The warrior and the spirit looked up at him.

"Stakes shouldn't talk," said Aruki, snappishly.

"Why not?" Moonboy leaned back, resting on his elbows. "I'm at stake too."

---

There was quiet before they moved out, the outlaws uncharacteristically serious as they cleaned down their bikes and their weapons. Korra stood on the roof of Gombo's truck, the canvas dipping a little under her feet, and shifted her stance a little. Anyone else might have been worried about falling off, but she had both airbending and earthbending to catch her. Even if she got knocked out, Zaheer would be nearby. He would do something to help. Korra felt a stab of doubt in her stomach. When had she started thinking of him as someone she could rely on? He had tried to kill her. He had hurt her, badly. He was floating a few feet away, his eyes fixed ahead, his face a picture of calm.

Zaheer must have noticed her looking, because he glanced back at her, frowning, and moved to her side.

"You're worried," he said, alighting on the roof of the truck beside her. The air was strangely still around them, as if all the echoes had been flattened out.

Korra scowled at him. "What do you care?"

The airbender arched one broken eyebrow. "I'm relying on you for this operation," he said, bluntly. "You're the only metalbender here, and I need you to help with the dust screen. If you have any doubts, then I would like to hear them now."

Korra stared at Zaheer a moment, the dead air around them warming in the sun. He hadn't even mentioned the avatar state. "It's not me," she said. "It's the others." Gombo, who had been unexpectedly kind. Ling, the kid who had been in Ba Sing Se during its fall, and practically worshipped Zaheer. She'd known them only a few days, really, but even so, the prospect of bringing them to a fight against the earth empire made her uneasy. Half of them weren't even benders, armed with polearms that would have looked at home in a museum.

"They've made their choice," said Zaheer. "All of them were fighting this war long before either of us."

Korra cocked her head. "Is that what this is? A war?" When she thought of wars, it brought to mind bigger things than this. Unalaq's troops at the South Pole, airships and ships of the line. Not a dozen angry villagers riding trucks and motorbikes.

"Would you like to call it something else?" Zaheer asked, something like humour glinting in his dark eyes.

"Don't make fun of me." Korra growled, leaning forward to prod him in the chest. "You haven't earned it. Not even close."

Zaheer looked down at her hand, then up at her face again, his own expression one of studied blandness. "I wasn't," he said. "But names are important. They colour our perceptions of things- how we think of them."

"Fine," Korra said, feeling like Zaheer was walking semantic circles around her. "I'd rather not think of it as a war. The avatar should end wars, not start them."

"New growth cannot exist without first the destruction of the old," Zaheer replied, though whether he was talking about the empire, or the checkpoint, or something else entirely was anyone's guess. He closed his hand over hers, pushing it from him, and Korra pulled away. "Are you ready, Avatar?"

Korra breathed in, and out, and nodded slowly.

"Then let's begin."

---

Kai watched the paisho match unfold on the circular board below him, Aruki's tiles in white and Moonboy's in red. The first few turns were quick, both Aruki and Moonboy seeming to have preferred starting layouts, but after that it slowed, both of them taking their time after drawing their tiles from the bowl.

Moonboy had switched to playing a tight defensive game, putting down blocks to Aruki's harmonies. Surely he wouldn't have bet his life on a game he wasn't sure he could win?

The spider spirit gave a clicking laugh. "You're never going to win like that, Moonboy." He reached out a slender black arm, moving one of his water tiles into harmony with both his earth and air pieces. Kai swore under his breath. Under Fire Nation rules, the game ended once either player had four pairs of pieces in harmony, and the spider spirit had just gained two pairs with one move.

Moonboy drew the lotus tile, and turned it over between his fingers. "You wanna know a funny thing about paisho?" he asked. "They say it dates back thousands of years, to a time when humans could simply walk into the spirit world. They say that spirits were the first players, and the endgame is representative of the harmony they have with the natural world. But I've never met anyone who thought that who was any good at the game." Idly, he pushed one of his spirit vine pieces over to take Aruki's earth tile, plucking the piece from the board and dropping it in his bowl with a soft plink. "It's not about harmony," he said, placing his lotus in its starting position. "It's about tempo. It's about the impermanent nature of being."

"Says the human who is currently losing," the spider spirit scoffed, drawing his own tile.

The warrior smiled up at Kai. "You're an airbender, right?" he said. "Tell me when you see it."

---

The sun was on Zaheer's back and the Avatar bent the wind with him, her power incredible and tireless, and he felt for her rhythm in the air around him, timing his own bending to syncopate with hers, so that none of their effort was wasted.

Dust rolled over them in waves. Bending the screen for the convoy on the move was more difficult than bending from one place and Zaheer felt the sweat soaking into the back of his new gi as he kept the stuff flowing flat over the top of the convoy. Used like this, it was almost reminiscent of waterbending or sandbending forms he had seen, arms in near-constant motion. His shoulders hurt already, the dull ache of disuse and middle age, but it was nothing that was about to cause permanent damage, so he powered through it as they swept across the plain.

From above, their convoy was featureless, a cloud of dust that merged seamlessly with the ground ahead. She was working with him. Actually working with him. His face towards the checkpoint on the horizon, Zaheer felt himself smile.

The Avatar was working with him, and now they were going to tear something down together.

They reached the rails before they reached the checkpoint. Korra, still standing on top of the truck that Ling was driving, made a sharp jabbing motion with her right hand, and then her left, and the rails buckled and contorted, curling up on themselves like dying snakeweasels. There would be no re-enforcements, at least not from the direction of the United Republic.

They reached the checkpoint; a metal tower set inside a metal wall. A couple of bored officers sat in the shade of the checkpoint proper, while a few more stood sweating on the parapets. It was mid afternoon, and the sun was on Zaheer's back. The imperial sentries would be blind.

They hit the wall like a train, the dust sweeping over it, and the earthbenders' ramps crashing into it.

Zaheer had no way of communicating with the others in the cloud, but he didn't need them. They were untested. The best he could hope for was a distraction. Dust swirled around him as he hovered a little above the checkpoint gate, listening. There was the crunch of earthbending, the growl of motorbikes, and the low whine of stressed metal as the avatar metalbent. There were the heavy footsteps of mecha, and low explosions as they fired their weapons. Officers inside yelled conflicting orders through portable radios, distracted.

Before he'd had his bending, he'd had a sense for the flow of combat. How someone would move, and how they wouldn't. The points on which each combatant balanced, and where to push them to make them fall. Now, though, he no longer saw each opponent as a discrete system, but rather the space between them. They were the spinning gates, and he the wind.

Zaheer swept in, sliding between two well-aimed discs of rock, and planting a blast of air squarely in the back of one of the officers before sweeping the legs out from under a second.

He hooked the portable radio they had been using to order the mechs from the floor with a gust of wind and caught it, pressing the button with his thumb.

"Surrender immediately," he called. "Lay down your arms."

Even if the mecha outside didn't obey the order, it would still spread confusion, and maybe give an edge to Gombo and his men. The last officer, the commanding officer stood behind him, and Zaheer felt the air move as she raised one arm. A metal cable whipped out from her cuff, towards his head, and he barely had time to move from its path. It caught the radio in his hand instead, and he let it go as the cable ripped through it.

He hadn't expected a metalbender. Her stance told him she had trained in Zaofu, probably under Kuvira herself. If that was the case, her weaknesses would be the same.

Zaheer lunged forwards, dodging her cable, forcing her to defend herself with her metal bracers. She braced herself against his airbending, but a kick to the stomach knocked her staggering.

Seeming to sense that she was overmatched, the woman used her bending to slide back through the doorway into the communications room, bending it shut with a jab across her chest.

Zaheer pressed his hand against the metal, but there was no give. The door to the communications room was sealed.

"Avatar," he called. There was a rush of air and fire as Korra landed nearby.

"Need some help?" The Avatar stepped through the door behind him, cracked her knuckles and grinned.

Zaheer glanced back at her, and nodded.

Her face became serious as she dropped into a metalbending stance, fingers curling as she pried open the door.

---

The spider spirit was still winning the match. He'd managed to get three harmonies a few times now, and each time Moonboy had managed to counter him, using spirit vines to take his pieces or rocks to block the harmony when the spirit was just a move or two from victory. Kai was sweating just watching it, but the water tribesman seemed unruffled.

"No," Kai hissed, as Moonboy fingered a piece that would leave a path to victory open to Aruki.

The warrior glanced up at Kai, gave a small smile, and moved a second tile without looking at it.

"Watch where you put your pieces! He nearly had you there!"

The spirit gave a huff, rotating his body to face Kai. "Stop helping him!"

"It's not about the pieces," said the water tribesman, shaking his head as he drew from the bowl.

"What are you talking about?" Kai's eyes bugged. "Of course it's about the pieces! That's how you win!"

"No." The water tribesman shook his head. "The pieces are transitory. Look at the board."

The Ba Gua circle. The spinning gates. Kai looked at the spaces between Moonboy's tiles and bit back a gasp as he saw the depth of the warrior's strategy. His tiles were scattered across the board, seemingly at random from his countering of the spirit's harmony plays. But they also crowded the board, limiting the spaces where Aruki could play. Controlling him. Kai fell silent, and watched.

---

The metalbender was waiting for them on the other side of the door. She lashed out with a cable, and Zaheer threw himself to the side. She hit the radio console instead, and it crackled and smoked as the bladed end of the cable tore through it, electrifying. To Zaheer's surprise, Korra followed him in, using her firebending to run along the opposite wall. The radio console had begun to smoke, and Zaheer thought of the code books and other paper records stored around it.

"Stop the fire!" he called, and the Avatar nodded, directing her firebending towards the console and flattening the flames. There was a low pop as she extinguished them, and acrid black smoke rose in their place.

Zaheer darted through the smoke towards the officer, twisting his body round the officer's cable as it swung round and blasting her backwards with a gust of air. She hit the back wall with a crash, falling to her knees. Zaheer closed on her, moving for a knockout blow, but she was lifted from her feet, clutching at her neck as her metal armour buckled inwards. The Avatar stood behind him, one arm raised, her hand making a claw as she metalbent.

"Get the documents," she said, and her eyes were a determined stormless blue, like Unalaq's had been many years ago, as she held the woman in the air.

Zaheer did as she asked.

---

Within ten moves, the water tribesman's tiles had closed around Aruki's, and he began to decimate them, dropping them in the scoring bowl with a ceramic rattle each turn. In another five, he was in a winning position, scoring one of his four harmony pairs from Aruki's lotus tile.

With a steady, softly spoken stream of epithets, the spider spirit unwound Kai from his wrappings and lowered him to the floor.

"There," Aruki said, his light a sulky yellow. "One airbender, as promised." He placed one small black hand on Kai's back, and gave him a shove forward.

"Pleasure doing business," said the warrior.

"Wait," said Kai. "My glider!"

"We never agreed anything about a glider," said Aruki.

The warrior nodded, putting one hand on Kai's shoulder. "Best leave it," he said. "I don't think I've got another game of paisho in me today."

Kai nodded, reluctantly, and the warrior led him out.

"I'm Kai," said Kai. "You're Moonboy?"

The warrior smiled. "I've had more than a few names, over the years. Moonboy is… more of a nickname, really. It's what the spirits call me."

Kai wondered what the man had done to earn the name, but the warrior's grey-blue eyes revealed nothing.

"Where did you learn to play like that?"

"From a great man." The warrior gave Kai a sidelong glance. "Why? You want me to teach you?"

"Wouldn't hurt," said Kai. He was on the straight and narrow now, but it still seemed like a useful skill. He blinked as they emerged from the cave. The spirit world looked different to how he remembered it. Gone was the iridescence in the sky, the deep greens of the forest, the glittering depths of the clouds. Instead, the trees drooped like willows, their leaves limp and wet, and the sky was the colour of a four day old bruise. Kai stopped in his tracks. "What's happening here?"

"That's what I was hoping to find out," said the warrior. He shook his head. "Tell you what," he said. "Once you're back in Republic City, leave a message for me on Avatar Island. Under the lotus."