The room was still, the sickly green glow of the chamber's gemstone walls cast a pale light. Water rushed along the sewer way, causing a stink to rise up in Aang's nose. He tried not to breathe. He strained his ears and eyes through the murky light. His blood thumped in his head louder than that of the running water. He felt Katara take his hand and squeeze it and he turned back to her. They were hidden in the hallway, watching from the chamber's entrance. Freedom and escape from the underground sewer system lay on the other side of the room; a rackety steel elevator, destination: up.
"I don't see them," Aang whispered.
Katara frowned. "Doesn't mean they're not there."
"Do we have a choice?" Aang asked.
Katara paused. "I could go first. Give you time to get away."
Aang shook his head immediately. "You know I won't let you do that. We go together."
"Aang." Katara pressed a hand to his chest. "You're the most important person alive. I can't let anything happen to you. If you died the rebellion would…"
Aang took her hand in his. "We go together."
She stared in his eyes for a moment then nodded. She turned to face the entrance. "I'll take point."
Aang laughed. "You just can't concede a point, can you?"
"Shut up," she said, her eyes not leaving their watch.
Aang studied her in the pale glow. He took in a deep breath. "Katara…"
She heard the tone in his voice and turned her head to him sharply. "Don't!" she whispered harshly.
They looked at each other for a moment before she turned her head away. Her voice came softer this time. "Just don't. Tell me after."
Aang nodded. "Okay."
He joined her at the entrance. She had her guns drawn and Aang cracked and flexed his gloved hands in anticipation. He had a gun on him, Katara and the others insisted on it, but he never used it. His weapons would be of a different sort.
"Ready?" Katara asked. "On three."
"One," Aang said.
"Two," Katara continued.
"Three."
They ran into the room, Katara taking point as she had insisted. Their pounding feet echoed in the chamber, their breath harsher and louder still in their ears. It took maybe ten seconds before they appeared. Katara and Aang were halfway through the room when the first Crawlers jumped from the roof.
"Heads up!" Katara shouted.
Five landed in front of them, their light-weight metal frames barely cracking the floor. Aang glanced above him and spotted another two making a move to land behind them.
Katara opened fire. The Crawlers' sleek, black-and-green canine forms shimmered and camouflaged, their skins melding into the background. They dashed away from the gun fire, their fluid forms making it hard to follow.
Katara swore and slowed her run, her fire thing to track on the shifting Crawlers. Aang didn't stop. His eyes followed the Crawlers with ease and he chased after the nearest. He pulled a small cylindrical object from his belt. The Crawler he chased turned on him and leapt in the air for the kill. Aang didn't slow his charge and shook the object in his hand. The cylinder suddenly extended, jolts of electricity running down its length. The Crawler impaled itself upon it and shuddered with shock.
Aang turned his head and saw a second Crawler lunging at him. He shook his staff and it retracted, sending the first Crawler crashing to the ground. Aang spun, shaking his staff to extend once more. He swiped at the second Crawler, tearing off its jaw and shorting it out. A third came and Aang swept its legs out from under it and finished it with a crushing thrust to the head.
Aang looked up and spotted Katara. She had taken out a Crawler and was finishing off a second. The last two were coming at her from behind.
"Katara!"
Aang threw his staff. It lanced through a Crawler just as Katara turned around. She saw the second lunge for her and raised her gun. Aang screamed and ran but knew both of them would be too late to stop the blow.
The Crawler blew up.
Smoke and metal erupted into the chamber. Katara fell backwards in a hail of shrapnel. Aang raced to her and dropped to her side. His hands brushed over her.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
Katara coughed a little and brushed off the debris from her clothes. "Fine. What was…"
Her eyes widened as she saw something through the smoke. "Oh no…"
Aang turned and his stomach dropped in fear. Golden eyes glowed unnaturally in the black smoke, two sets of them. And they were getting closer.
Aang pulled Katara to her feet and grabbed his staff. They backed away from the smoke and those eyes.
"Katara, go!" Aang said. "Run for it!"
"No!" she said angrily and reloaded her guns. "What happened to 'we stick together'?"
"You can't take them," Aang said. "I'll buy you time-"
"Time for what, Aang?" Katara said. "There's no revolution without you and there's no way I'm leaving you behind."
Aang watched those golden eyes advance. By all the Spirits, they terrified him. "We run for it."
"Agreed."
"Katara?"
"What?"
"I love you."
Her heard her tisk. "I told you to save it for later."
The golden eyes emerged from the smoke attached to the bodies of a man and woman. They were athletic-looking, black-haired with sharply refined features. FireNet, for all its machine-made glory, liked its killers to be good-looking. And killers they were. And they had a name.
Incinerators.
The young, male-model Incinerator's hands and arms suddenly burst into red flames, the young female's into blue.
"Run," Katara said. "Run. Run!"
They turned and bolted. A fireball suddenly flew over their heads. It crashed into the elevator, destroying it completely.
"No…" Katara skidded to a halt.
Aang stared as their one hope of escape burnt up in front of them. The flames shot up the elevator shaft like a chimney flue.
"No, no, no,' Katara kept saying.
Aang turned to face the Incinerators and screamed at them in anger. He heard Katara take the emergency radio in her hands and begin to transmit for help.
"Mayday, mayday, mayday," she said. "Immediate evac required! The Avatar's in danger!"
No one would hear them, Aang thought. Not down here. He ran to the Incinerators, yelling defiance. He heard Katara scream at him.
"Aang! No!"
The Incinerators' walk turned to a run to meet Aang, their optromics obviously identifying him as a primary target. They raised their arms and began to pepper Aang with fire. He spun his staff, the electricity humming as he did so. He blocked most of their flames. But not enough.
The spitting fires that got through burned and pocked his skin. Aang kept coming. He went for the male first, the weaker of the two. He spun his staff into it, swatting its hand away as it launched flame after flame at him. Its silicone skin was an electrical insulate; the charge in Aang's staff doing nothing but annoying it. It took a hold it as Aang swung again. Aang shook his staff hard and it retracted. The Incinerator's hand flared its flame too late.
There was gunfire behind Aang. He ignored it. The Incinerator he fought threw a punch. Aang ducked but the thing was fast. He took a kick in the side and a second punch ripped into his stomach. His fire-retardant armour only did so much. Aang yelled in pain as his stomach was roasted. He grabbed the Incinerator's arm with his hands, spun and threw it behind him. The male Incinerator crashed into the female, just as it was about to attack him from behind.
Aang pressed a hand to his stomach and ran to push his meagre advantage. Behind him he heard something thump and the ceiling quaked. He shook his staff, it extended and he smashed it into the male Incinerator as it untangled itself from its female counterpart. Its head twisted awkwardly with Aang's blow. Aang thrust his staff into its chest and it crashed to the ground. More gunshots behind him and another thump in the ceiling. Blue fire blasted at Aang. He jumped and rolled but he felt his back burn. The male Incinerator was getting up. Aang shoved it again and jumped on its chest. Before it could open its mouth and roar fire on him Aang pressed his hands to its head and chest.
He was called the Avatar for a reason. Aang, the Avatar of Mankind. And Machine. People often left off that last bit of his title. But it was a part of him and he couldn't save the world without it.
He sent his mind into the machine and searched. He felt the cold will of FireNet reach out to him, try to ensnare and kill him. But he pushed back at it, broke through it. He found the mind of the Incinerator, small and fragile, and destroyed it.
He pulled his mind out and saw the golden light flare and burst in the Incinerator's eyes. It was dead.
Above, the ceiling thumped again and burst. Sunlight poured through the opening before a shadow passed over it. The sound of propellers clattered into the chamber. A metal ladder dropped down from the hole.
"Aang!" Katara yelled. "Come on!"
Aang stood. Freedom was only a few metres away. The female Incinerator still stood in his path.
It was riddled with bullet holes. Aang smiled at that; Katara had done well to keep it off of him. But then the Incinerator smiled back and Aang went cold. There was nothing human in that smile, only mechanical mimicry. The blue flame on its hands grew and enveloped the machines whole frame. There would be no destroying this Incinerator's mind. Aang ran instead.
The Incinerator sprinted after him with terrifying speed. It raised its arms and shot blue flame out, like a tumbling wave. Aang jumped, sailed through the air and landed in the sewer way. He went under water for a few moments, sound and sensation cutting off from him, before his head broke the surface.
The shattering rapport of gunfire greeted him. His rescuing friends hung from the ladder and pelted the Incinerator with bullets.
"Quickly, Aang!" Katara called.
Aang pushed himself out of the water. The water ran off him and he felt like he'd gained a hundred kilos. Adrenalin kept him moving but only just. His friends gave him covering fire and Aang ran as fast as he could to join them. Katara was already on the ladder. Aang grabbed a rung and he heard the call go up to raise them.
Aang sagged against the rungs. His back was in agony but his stomach was numb. That was bad. But he was alive and that had to be enough.
He raised his head and sunlight bathed him. The outline of the helicopter above was clear, as was that of his friends. Katara was only a few rungs above him. She looked down on him, her face streaked with soot and blood. She had never looked so beautiful to Aang. She stretched a hand down to him and Aang reached a hand up.
The lightning shot through him before they could touch.
Katara watched as Aang jolted once, twice with the lightning bolt before it passed through him. Her hand caught his up-stretched one before he fell.
Below them she saw the female with its arm extended out, the smoke still rising from its pointed fingers, before the others on the ladder shot her to pieces.
Katara could hardly care. She held onto Aang and screamed his name. Beneath her fingers she felt no pulse.
Sokka sat in the bay of the helicopter and watched his sister furiously work to save Aang. Katara's hands moved frantically through procedure and technique from the moment they boarded. Her movements were getting more and more desperate, less professional.
"Please, Aang," she whispered to him as she performed CPR. "Please."
Sokka knew a lost cause when he saw one. Aang was dead.
"Katara." He put a hand on her shoulder. He felt the helicopter land. "Katara, stop. He's gone."
"Wait," she said. "I could…"
He squeezed her shoulder. "I'm sorry."
Slowly, Katara dropped her hands. She stared at Aang's still form. Then, very gently, very slowly she closed his eyes.
The helicopter doors opened. A dozen worried faces looked in at them. they had received the radio wire. The Avatar was down.
Someone in the crowd asked the hanging question. "Is he..?"
Katara turned her head to them. Sokka saw some sudden feral emotion flash in her eyes. She jumped off the helicopter and grabbed a man amongst the gathered group.
"You!"
Sokka ran after her. "Katara, stop!"
"You did this!" she screamed.
She lay into the man, pummeling his face. Sokka grabbed a hold of her arms and hauled her off of him.
"No!" Katara screamed. "This is his fault."
The man stood and cracked his neck, seemingly unperturbed. He was missing an eye on the left side of his face, the area badly burned. On the other side his eye glowed golden.
"I'm sorry for your loss, Katara," Zuko, Aang's pet Incinerator, said in his monotone voice.
Katara lunged at him with a wordless scream but Sokka held her back. She fell into her brother's arms and wept. Sokka looked around the camp and saw his friends in various states of shock. Their leader, their Avatar, was gone. And with him the hope of the human race also.
"I'm sorry, Katara," he said again to her. "I should have got to you sooner. I'm sorry."
Katara slowly pulled her head up. Her face was streaked in tears but there was a look in her eyes that Sokka couldn't quite believe; hope.
"We can still save him."
Sokka stared at her, the meaning of her words coming slowly to him. "What? No, Katara, it won't work."
"We have to try," she begged.
"It's too dangerous. I have no idea when that thing sends you!"
"Does it matter? We only need to go far enough back to save Aang."
"I'm not sending a person! They'll go back as meat patties."
"Then send him," Katara said. She pointed to Zuko. The Incinerator stood impassively, watching them.
Sokka stared at the Incinerator. Zuko regarded him back with his cold, golden eye. Sokka sighed. "It could work."
Katara grabbed hold of Zuko's shirt and pulled his face close to hers. "You have to save him. Do you understand me? I don't care what it cost you. You have to save Aang. Aang must live!"
The machine continued his impassive gaze and nodded once. "I understand."
The temple grounds were cold at night, their high, mountain elevation making the winds chill. Most other monks and acolytes were in their rooms at this time. Aang was not. He sat on the balcony rail swinging his feet over the oblivion below. He watched the stars come out and the moon cross the sky. Tomorrow was his birthday, twelve years old, and he wanted to be awake for the first hour of it. He grinned as the moon hit its highest peak. Midnight and the world was one year older for Aang.
There was a crack of thunder. Aang frowned; there were no storm clouds in the sky. Another crack lashed the air and light flared up behind him. Aang turned his head and his jaw dropped.
A ball of light glowed on the balcony getting brighter and brighter. Lightning shot from the ball and it began to expand. Aang put one foot on the other side of the rail when the ball suddenly exploded. Aang teetered backwards, windmilling his arms wildly. He lost balance and fell. One hand grabbed hold of the rail, the rest of him flailed over the edge.
Aang looked down and his stomach came up. "Help. Help!"
"Accessing data file."
Aang's head jerked back at the voice and he almost let go of his grip. A man stood looking down at him, naked and muscular, with only one eye that glowed golden. The other eye was missing in burn scar. Aang screamed.
"Identity confirmed. Target acquired," the man said.
The man reached down and Aang panicked for a moment that he would push him off. But the naked stranger grabbed Aang's arm and hoisted him up like a ragdoll.
The man regarded him with his golden stare. "Aang."
Aang tried not to squirm in the man's vice grip as he hung over the edge of the mountain. "Y-yes?"
The man did not so much as blink in his stare. His voice was as monotonous as a machine and it made Aang colder than any mountain wind had ever done.
"Come with me if you want to live."