This fanfic is essentially about the most misunderstood entity in all of Atlab or Lok, despite the fact he will rarely be shown, yet be there at almost all times. Now I love the concept of the dark avatar, just not the way it was dealt with, so I am rewriting continuity to fix that. This is an AU so don't complain. And as for why I am giving arguably the worst person in avatar a redemption, simple. Chaos comes from choice, peace from conformity, as long as there is life, chaos will remain, why? Because true peace is death, but Chaos, chaos is life.

Prologue: freedom

Darkness. Vaatu lived on darkness, he lived for darkness, hell, he was darkness. He was perfectly contempt with living in darkness for 10,000 years, except that darkness can't keep you company. That was his real punishment, not being trapped in darkness, being trapped, alone.

He had no idea how long he had been there, just that he had finally caved. Vaatu was a patient spirit, he knew good things come to those who wait, so he waited, and waited, but no one came to his aid. Years must have had past by now, he knew no one was coming for him, no one had missed him, no one cared that he was gone. All they cared about was the era of peace and light they had with Raava.

He hated that name. While most, including her, might say they have both existed since the beginning of time, this was wrong. Darkness predated light, Vaatu was older than Raava. The first time Raava attacked him, (soon after the big bang, which he was glad he would never have to deal with again, it would have blinded him if he had eyes), he had just humored her. But as time passed he realized just how delusional the spirit of light was. She actually believed that he was evil, and she existed because the world couldn't handle his chaos. At first, it was easy, Vaatu would knock her down a few pegs then proceed with his day. But as time passed and the light grew, it came to the point that they were near-equals, that was when it became a problem. At some point, Raava refused to let Vaatu escape, she locked him into combat for thousands of years, he wished nothing more than to escape, to finally be free again.

Then one day, salvation came, a young fire-bender by the name of Wan saw them fighting, from his perspective it appeared that Raava was viciously attacking Vaatu. The Dark spirit told Wan the truth, Raava had locked him in combat for thousands of years with no real reason.

Wan freed him from Raava, Vaatu gave his thanks and was on his way. He had missed out on so much since his last taste of freedom, so he may have gotten a bit out of control, Ok a lot out of control, but finally, he was free, Raava was no longer his problem, he could finally put things back the way they were supposed to be. Chaos and peace as equals, Raava was always so obsessed with keeping balance, she completely overlooked what it entailed.

Vaatu went straight to work, he randomly selected locations to turn spirits dark. And when the time came for the harmonic convergence, he was ready for half the world to be consumed in total chaos. But then, everything went wrong. To put things simply, Raava and Wan combined into one entity, then locked him in a tree until the next convergence.

At first, all Vaatu cared about was revenge, but as time passed, he stopped caring. Now he didn't care what happened to Raava, he didn't care about these Avatars who act all high and mighty because they were lucky. All he wanted, was freedom.

Then one day, in his prison of darkness, he felt a faint, light. He turned to the center of the tree of time and saw it, a faint, blue light. He was puzzled, Vaatu had no idea why the light was in his prison of darkness. He circled it for a moment, it didn't seem to shrink in any way as he did.

"What's this? Raava's latest attempt to torment me?" he asked himself staring into the light. He normally despised light, but this felt… familiar, it wasn't just light, it was, Alive.

Vaatu backed away from the light. When he did, the light started to fade. He noticed this, the light faded as he moved, it was strange usually light faded as he approached, now it seemed to be doing the opposite. He came closer to the light, it grew in accordance.

He decided he'd enough of this. He turned his "back" on the light, he was the spirit of darkness, light was none of his concern. But as he moved away from the light he heard something. It was like a cry in the darkness, echoing off the walls so you could hear it on all sides, Vaatu looked around the abyss as the cry seemingly got louder. He turned toward the light, it was almost out completely.

Vaatu then had an urge, he couldn't let this light die. Without thinking, he threw himself toward the light, he wrapped his paper-thin body around the light, as if to protect it. The next thing he knew, the light began to burn brighter, and brighter, until it illuminated the entire tree of time, Vaatu was blinded.

When the light faded, Vaatu felt… small, yet powerful, he looked around his surroundings, he was in a bright red room, dimly lit by candles. He tried to fly away to get a better look but found himself restrained by something, he turned to see one of his tendrils attached to… a baby? More specifically the infant's soul.

The child had brown hair that was almost black, its eyes were closed, and he felt the same light from before. He looked to the side to see the child's mother holding him, she seemed completely unaware of Vaatu's presence. She had lighter brown hair, brown eyes, and was wearing red and gold robes, Vaatu was noticing a theme.

It was then he realized his situation, he was unnoticeable to humans, but was tied to a child. He could go anywhere unnoticed, as long as the child was with him. Vaatu wraped his body around the child, if he was here, he might as well get comfortable, he was in this for the long hall.