Okay, well, it took long enough but I am finally posting this thing. I admit...I wanted to post this a month earlier but other things got in the way...personal things. However it is, that is all behind me now so I was finally able to start writing this. I'm sure those of you that have been waiting for me to post this would rather get on with the chapter and start reading the actual story so I would just like to say two things and then I'll leave the rest of the authors notes for the end of the chapters.

1. This fic is a sequel to my other fic, Avatar: Reawakening. If you haven't read that yet...then I highly suggest you do because if you don't then...well, you probably wouldn't understand this fic all that much. There will be some recap every now and then to serve as a reminder for people that have read Reawakening before but those recaps will not be enough to understand the fic if you did not read Reawakening.

2. Unlike Reawakening, this fic is rated M...mostly for lemons in later chapters. However, should you not want to read the lemons, or you are uncomfortable with them, I am going to make it very obvious as to when they take place so they can be easily skipped over by people that don't wish to read them. So my point is, don't let the rating turn you away from the fic.

Apart from that, on to the fic...

Disclaimer: And I still don't own Avatar

Leadership. Control. Power.

Those are the traits that Shyalum had and those are the traits needed to succeed. The fortress he was currently hiding himself in, away from the rest of the spirit world, was nothing more than an allusion; an allusion created by him. It wasn't going to help him though. Whatever Shyalum hides in, whatever form he decides to take, it will all end the same. It's unavoidable and it is his punishment for creating something that he doesn't understand and unable to control.

The Yanari: one of his many own personal creations that eventually expanded outwards from their original purpose. They grew, they thrived, and then they were locked away when they became too strong. When one is locked away though, they have time to think, to plan, and when the opportunity presents itself, they're ready to take advantage of it.

Tau had given them the opportunity. Something went wrong though. The portal for the Yanari didn't open properly and it closed after just a few simple minutes; not nearly enough time for the Yanari to escape.

One did though and it was the only one that needed to.

It sat up at the top of the massive throne room that Shyalum had built for himself, its tentacles curling around the many pillars, holding itself up at the ceiling and away from Shyalum's gaze.

Shyalum was used to being safe and it's made him sloppy when he is in the confines of his own home. He wouldn't need to look up.

The lone Yanari knew this however. All it needed was the right moment to strike. Shyalum had the power. Shyalum had control. What would happen however if that fell into something else's hands? Anything would be possible with Shyalum's powers and those powers were what the Yanari needed.

The lone Yanari, with its glowing red eyes, watched Shyalum as he moved below, its gaze following his every move.

It was time the Yanari regained their former strength and it was time for them to return stronger. They had to be in control. That starts now. They had been locked up for far too long.

As Shyalum stopped his movements, standing still below the ancient spirit that he had created so many millennia ago, he had no idea for what was to come next.

With a loud screech that was enough to bring terror into even the strongest of spirits, the lone Yanari shot off of its perch straight at Shyalum. The creator of the spirit world, of everything really, had just enough time to turn and see the dark, ghastly figure flying strait towards him.

It didn't matter though, whether he saw it or not, Shyalum didn't have time to react. There was nothing he could do, and he was barely able to feel the lone Yanari's spirit connect and merge with his own before everything faded to black…

One month later…

Aang shot up in his bed with a sharp gasp as his head throbbed with pain. He cradled his head in his hands, rubbing his temples, trying to get the pain to stop but nothing changed. His head throbbed, and it was a feeling that he had become all too familiar with ever since he had destroyed the Southern Air Temple a little over a month ago. At first, Katara had told him that it was simply him feeling guilty but that couldn't be it. These sharp pains in his head had started about three weeks ago and they had only gotten worst since.

His breathing became ragged as the pain increased and he couldn't help but let out a sudden yelp of pain as his body leaned forward in an automatic reaction.

Suddenly though, all of the pain vanished and he felt the cool, soothing feeling of water on each side of his head. His body instantly relaxed and he fell back onto the bed. After closing his eyes briefly, he looked over to his right to see Katara kneeling beside him, dressed in her white under bindings and giving him a soft, sympathetic smile. He couldn't help but notice the glowing water the floated around her hands and he gave a grateful sigh. He should have known it was her that took the pain away, it was always her, but even she didn't know why the pains were occurring.

She waved her hands through the air, evaporating the water back to its original source she had taken it from and reached one of her hands down to cup his cheek, gently stroking the soft skin with her thumb.

He let out a soft, exhausted smile and laid his own had over hers, his own eyes meeting hers lovingly.

"Thanks," he whispered.

His girlfriend just simply shook her head as her long, wavy, dark brown hair followed her movements.

"I've told you before, you don't have to thank me for that," she told him, her eyes running up and down his body sympathetically, "It hurts me enough to see you in that much pain."

Aang let out a quite hum in acknowledgment as he sat back up beside her. His eyes darted around the room and, not to his surprise; everything was how it should be. They were in their shared bedroom, in their Ba Sing Se home, it was the middle of the night, and all he was wearing was his simple sleeping pants. Everything was fine…but then why did something feel so wrong?

Katara instantly noticed and her head tilted to the side curiously, "Is something wrong?"

His gaze turned back to her and he let out a soft laugh, "You're getting good at that."

She knew what he was talking about. Their connection they had with each other that allowed them to do so many things, some of which they haven't even discovered yet. It was the same connection that allowed them to feel each other's emotions and that allowed her to see her own, long dead mother. It also allowed them to essentially hear each other's thoughts; which was something a little more difficult to do when compared to sensing emotion but they were both still learning. Katara was sure that eventually, it would become second nature to each of them. Still though, she could help but notice that Aang hadn't answered her question.

"Well it's not all that hard anymore, I just kind of hear your thoughts how I normally would hear your voice," Katara said in response to his observation as she gave a small shrug, "But you didn't answer my question."

Aang looked away from her and down at the bed sheets while he let out a soft sigh, "I don't know. Everything seems like it will be fine. The new Earth King's coronation is tomorrow, we stopped Tau from releasing the Yanari," Aang paused and looked at her through the corners of his eyes before shifting his gaze away again, "You and I are still alive despite everything…but something just seems so wrong…out of place. I can't get it out of my head."

"Aang, it's probably nothing," Katara told him, reaching her hand out to comfort him only to have him quickly get up off the bed and move his way over to the window.

"No, it's more than that," Aang told her sternly as he leaned against the window sill and gazed out into the night sky. Katara wasn't sure if it was just her imagination but Aang seemed annoyed and that only became more apparent when she heard him give off a noticeable huff. This wasn't the first time he had brought this subject up to her in the past month but he usually just believed her when she told him nothing was wrong. Now though, he seemed to be past that.

"Well…" Katara started, not really knowing what to say next and she began to twirl her hands around each other in thought, "What do you think the problem is?"

Aang just shook his head and sighed, "I wish I knew."

Katara raised an eyebrow at him as she gazed at his unmoving form at the window. He looked, and sounded, so unsure of things right now. As always though, she decided to do the only thing that she knew would cheer him up, it always did. Just as she was about to get up from her spot on the bed and make her way over to him, he spoke up once again which stopped her movements with her legs dangling off the edge of the mattress.

"I tried to go to the spirit world yesterday too," he said, giving off a one shoulder shrug, "I thought that maybe Roku could help but you know what?"

Katara saw his head turn towards her and she met his eyes to let him know that she was listening while she gave him a small nod to continue.

"I couldn't go there," he told her, his head turning back to where he could look out the window, "I don't know why. I usually just meditate to get there and it had gotten so easy but this time I sat there for hours, just trying to get into the spirit world, and nothing happened."

Katara's brows furrowed in confusion as she bit her lip in thought before she tried to come up with an explanation, "Well maybe something is wrong with the Avatar Spirit…I mean…it's been around since forever…maybe it's just old and it can't do everything it used to be able to do."

At that comment, Aang turned around and raised his eyebrows at her, an amused look clearly evident on his face.

"What?" Katara asked, trying to sound like she didn't know why he was looking at her like that. She knew exactly why though.

Aang let out a small laugh, "Kat, I don't really think spirits can get old and lose their power and even if they did, the Avatar Spirit worked fine a month ago…I doubt anything has changed with it since then," He paused, and his looked of amusement changed to one of accusation, "Besides, is that just your way of calling me old?"

The twinkle in his eye let her know that he was just joking with her but she could help but raise her hands in front of her defensively, "Hey, I was just throwing ideas around. If you don't think it's that then what do you think it is smart guy?"

As quick as Aang had become his normal, joking self, he reverted back to what he had been before and leaned his back against the wall with his arms crossed, not saying a word. Katara could feel his emotions jumping all over the place from confusion, annoyance, exhaustion, and then back to confusion. Deciding that neither of them could really do much about it at the moment, she stood up and made her way over to him with the intention of doing what she had been planning before.

He didn't stop her. He fell into her embrace, resting his head on her shoulder as his arms held her against him. Katara couldn't help but let out a small smile, she loved being close to him like this, and she placed a light kiss on the crook of his neck while one of her hands rubbed circles on his back in comfort. She could feel all of his raging emotions fade away and they were replaced by a feeling of peace.

Aang took in a deep breath before letting it out again as he nuzzled his head against her shoulder, feeling her soft silky hair brush against his face. They stayed like that for several minutes, just holding each other and enjoying the others closeness before Katara pulled away and cupped his face in her hands.

"Look, I'm not saying that we just ignore whatever you think it going wrong but there is nothing we can do about it now until we know more," she told him slowly, locking her eyes with his own, "You're dwelling on this too much, its unhealthy and I hate to see you all confused like this…" she paused for a few moments as she thought of what else to say to get her point across, "You don't need to worry about this…those headaches you're having is what we should be worried about and if the two things are related then we'll fix it, just like we always do. Until then though, just try not to get yourself worked up about it too much okay? For me?"

He didn't say anything for a couple of moments but he finally conceded with a small nod, "Okay, Katara… I'll try."

She smiled and leaned in to place a soft kiss on his lips. She intended it to be short but his hands grasped her hips and held her to him and she couldn't help but continue the kiss. One of her hands moved up to the back of his head to deepen it and they both let out soft sighs of content in response. They were tired though, and it was the middle of the night so a few moments later they broke away and Katara led them both back to the bed. The couple spent the next few moments getting situated under the covers before they snuggled close to each other so that their foreheads were touching.

For the next few minutes, they slowly began to drift off to sleep before Aang suddenly spoke, "But wait, remember all those months ago when you felt like something was wrong when we were down in the South Pole?"

Katara, who was just about to have drifted off to sleep, opened her eyes slightly to regard him curiously, "Hmm…what about it?"

"That's kind what is going on with me right now…and you were right," Aang explained, "Not long after you started feeling like that, Tau showed up and we both know what that led to. If I am going through the same thing that you were going through…"

"Then you could be right too," Katara finished for him, her eyes widening.

Aang nodded, which looked a little awkward since they were both lying down but it got the message across.

"I had visions though," Katara told him before asking, "You haven't had any of those yet have you?"

"Well no but…" Aang paused for several moments before shaking his head, "You know what, like you said, it's not worth worrying about. If I start having visions, then we can start to worry."

Katara let out a long yawn while she responded, "Sounds like a plan."

Aang smiled slightly, before leaning in to kiss her cheek before they both fell into silence again.

While Aang was able to fall asleep rather quickly, Katara couldn't as new thoughts began to rage in her head from her own visions that Aang had just reminded her of. Those visions had the dark, ghastly creatures in them that she and Aang later learned to be ancient, dangerous spirits that were locked away in the Southern Air Temple. As far as she knew though, she and Aang had stopped their release a month ago when Aang destroyed the Southern Air Temple but her visions showed them in the world, no longer confined in their prison. Katara couldn't help but wonder if her own visions haven't been avoided yet. What if they were still somehow going to come true? What if the Yanari had still managed to be released?

The questions kept Katara up and she couldn't help but start to agree more with her boyfriend. Maybe something really was wrong…

There and back again.

Tau really found it hard to believe that at the start of his journey to unlock the Yanari he was in a prison and at the end of it all…he was still in a prison.

Sure, it was a different prison but it was still a prison nonetheless. So here he was, once again, confined to a small prison cell with very little space to actually move around. He didn't even know where they prison was, he knew it was in Ba Sing Se, but his captors had put a blindfold over him before he could pinpoint the prison's specific location. Tau supposed that the one thing he should be thankful for is that the prison guards didn't torture the prisoners as they did in the Fire Nation prison that he had used to be in. Still though, he got no free time out of his cell and it was very clear to him that this was a high security facility. One top of that, they had taken his necklace which had been passed down from Avatar Kuruk and it had been his most prized possession.

That had pissed him off and the thought of escape had coursed through his mind many times but it seemed impossible at the moment. The little food that was fed to him was filled with herbs that blocked his bending ability, which he assumed was why nobody ever bothered to chain him down. As long as he ate, no one had to worry about him escaping. His bending was simply useless right now.

There was a time when he had decided to stop eating in an attempt to get his ability back and get out of this miserable place but after a few days of doing that with no luck, he realized that the effects of the herbs lasted a lot longer than he had originally believed. It got to the point where he simply just gave up and he was sure that the prison guards had been amused by the whole ordeal. They had to have noticed it.

Now, he just simply sat in one of the four corners of his cell, which was clouded in darkness with only the light seeping through from the small, barred window on the door. It irritated Tau a bit. The guards had candles scattered throughout the hallways so they could have light but no one had the decency to give the prisoners a little light…just small glimpses of it. The doors, and the cells, were all metal and besides the small barred window in the door that allowed the guards to look into the cells; the only other thing to take notice of was the small opening at the bottom of the door that the guards used to slip the food trays in. It truly was a bland and depressing environment but all things considered, Tau supposed that things could have turned out worse. He only wished that his to former companions, Ryu and Sorin, had not perished during the battle in the Southern Air Temple. They were his friends, and like everyone else he cared about, they were gone and unreachable.

His fingers taped lightly against the metal wall as the thoughts of his friends rushed through his head, bringing a deep sadness to him that he had become accustomed to but yet couldn't find the strength to ignore. All those thoughts were gone however when he heard footsteps coming from the hallway outside of his cell and he perked up from his spot on the wall that he was leaning on and turned his head towards the opening at the bottom of his cell's door.

Sure enough, a few moments later a food tray slipped into his cell and Tau looked up a bit to see the guard staring at him through the window. Something was different though. The guards here were all earthbenders and they had green or brown eyes. However, Tau found his own blue eyes staring into golden eyes…a common trait among Fire Nation citizens.

"Enjoy your dinner sir," the guard said calmly, before turning away and walking off.

Tau raised his eyebrows, one of his hands reaching up to scratch the top of his nearly shaved head in confusion. The way the guard had said it had been sympathetic and pleasant. It wasn't how the rest of the prison guards talked to him. He was usually talked down to but this guard, with the few words he had said, seemed to speak to him as an equal…maybe even as a superior.

Once Tau could no longer here the guard's footsteps, he scooted over to the food tray and his eyes widened at how much food was on it. It was easily double of what he would normally get and it wasn't just the usual old bread either. The tray was filled with bread, rice, and even meat. Tau took his tray and went back to the corner of the cell that he had been previously resting in. As he started to eat his food, he found that dozens of thoughts flowed through his head but that one stood out in particular…

That guard wasn't supposed to be here.

Okay so I know this one was a little on the shorter side compared to my usual length that I give my chapters but that is because this is just setting things up. Truth be told, on average, the chapters in this fic will probably be longer then the average chapter length of Reawakening, which was about 5000-5500 words.

For those of you that care, I might as well reveal the other reason why this fic took longer then originally intended to post. I added a lot to it. If you guys remember that at the end of Reawakening I said how there would be kind of a secondary story detailing Tau's past...I kind of scrapped that idea. There will still be Tau flashback but only a few. Instead, I changed Tau's story line so that it dealt with the more current issues going on here. On top of that, I also added a lot of spirit related things that originally weren't going to be there. By the end, I had to hold off the writing of this fic so I could get everything to fit together in my head.

One last note, like Reawakening, I am going to start this fic out with once a week updates. This is to give my readers a chance to figure out I posted this without being left behind. I am also a lot busier then I used to be back when I was posting Reemergence so I need to find out how well I can manage weekly updates before I update twice a week. However, I am sure we will move to twice a week updates eventually.

See you all next Monday and don't forget to let me know what you think!:)