It was getting late and yet Tenzin's mind refused to rest. The news Korra had given him was startling and unnerving.
Taking away a person's bending?
His father had been the only one to do it and had only done it once in his life and that was because he refused to kill. Yet Amon was somehow able to do it as well and he seemed to be building it up to use on anyone who could bend.
"Tenzin?" His heard his wife's sleepy voice come from the doorframe of the living room. One hand was rubbing her eyes as the other hand rubbed her expanded stomach. "What are you doing up?"
"I could ask the same of you," Tenzin put lightly. Even slightly groggy with bedridden hair his wife could still give him a look that said he better fess up otherwise he was sleeping on the couch, which he would rather avoid doing at the moment. "Thinking."
"Then why aren't you in the Meditation Pavilion?" Pema walked over and took a spot next to Tenzin, both husband and wife staring out at the city before them.
"Because…" Tenzin sighed and turned to fully face his younger wife. "Do you still talk to Jordan?"
Pema seemed to awaken a bit more as the name was uttered and her back stiffened. With a solemn face she shook her head, "You know he hasn't talked to me since I've joined the Air Acolytes. Why do you ask?"
Tenzin had no proof. He only had Korra's words and there were probably hundreds of people who had relatively the same past as Amon and Jordan's. Who could possibly think that the leader of the equalists and the young, inspirational man who used to be Pema's boyfriend could all be the same person. It was crazy, it was too farfetched, and yet if Amon's tale is to be true…
"Tenzin…" his wife's soft voice broke in through his reverie. Her eyes narrowed, worry and confusion shimmering in them as she gazed up at him. "What's going on?"
"You heard Korra snuck into an Equalists Rally, correct?" She nodded her head. "According to her she saw Amon take away a person's bending." Pema was wide-awake now.
"But…" Pema paused, her tired mind racing as she rubbed her pregnant stomach. "I thought only the Avatar could do that?""
"So did I." Tenzin muttered and took to staring out at the city. It looked so calm, so… innocent.
"But what does that have to do with Jordan?"
Tenzin didn't answer right away and when he did, his voice was softer and more serious then usual, and that was truly saying something. "I don't know I just have a feeling. I've never seen or talked with him but according to Korra… I… I… I'm just wondering if they might be the same person."
"No." Pema's voice was soft but stern as she refuted the idea. "Jordan could never take a person's bending away, he wouldn't even hurt a fly. Not to mention he's a non-bender like I am. How… how would he have been able to do it to begin with?"
"I don't know Pema and it was just a thought."
"Yeah, a thought that's keeping you up all night." Pema muttered indigently. Tenzin struggled to not roll his eyes. "Look, Jordan is a lot of messed-up crazy things but I don't think he would be the one to lead this." Tenzin didn't comment, close to twenty years of marriage Tenzin had figured out when to speak and when not to speak but still… he couldn't help but wonder…
On the opposite side of the city, hidden far underground, a man with a charred face looked at a portrait in hands. It was of a bright and sunny girl in her late teens, a young woman, and the holder of his cold heart.
He had loved her, worshipped and idolized her all throughout their relationship; and he still very much had feelings for the woman who would occasionally grace the magazine and newspaper stands as she was now the wife to Avatar Aang's youngest son. And he hated that.
Hated how she had left him for that "spiritual" way of life.
That was what she had told him on that last, fateful night that they were ever going to see each other again. She had told him she was joining the Air Acolytes because she enjoyed the people and its lifestyle. But he had known the true reason for her leaving him even if it was he who broke it up; she wanted to get closer to the Avatar's stuck-up son. A bender and a man almost twice her age!
Would they have lasted if his face had not been burned? Would she still have left him if he were a bender?
Through cold, hardened eyes he turned his attention to a newspaper clipping that was tacked to the wall. Taking a dart, the burnt man took aim, he used to be a calm, peace loving soul, but after his parents, after her betrayal, his world officially broke and all he wanted to do to those privileged brats was to make them feel the same pain he always felt.
Taking aim, in quick four fluid movements, four darts left Amon's hands and hurdled to the clippings striking Tenzin, Jinora, Ikki and Meelo all straight in the forehead, right between their two brows.
They were benders, they weren't Pema, they were privileged bratty kids who like the Avatar had no concept of what hard, bone breaking, and an honest days work meant.
All four of them could lose their bending and die for all he cared.
He just wanted his Pema back.
At the age of 18, Pema, a young Republic City University student, started to study spirituality and writing a paper that discussed how the spirituality of the world had changed since the 100-year-war and the dawning of machinery. To conduct the essay the young woman started to study the Air Acolytes and their sense of spirituality.
Thirty-Four year old Tenzin after many lively and well-discussed conversations between him and the young university student, started to realize he had feelings that he really shouldn't be feeling for the young woman, especially as she already had a boyfriend.
Jordan was an active political science and debate student. He had a nice commanding voice and after a few speech classes, could easily work up a crowd if he so wished, even though he never showed his face. The only one who had ever seen his charred face was his girlfriend, Pema.
But within a year or so of starting the paper Pema announced the decision of moving to Air Temple Island and living with the very people she had been studying. Jordan freaked, hurt and scared that she was going to break up with him, he decided to do the dumping, not wanting to get hurt.
Within two-and-a-half years the gossip papers were all about Tenzin's wedding, a marriage to a girl that was pretty much half his age. The night of the wedding Jordan changed his name as he made a deal with a spirit; the spirit would grant Jordan's wish to have Pema again, but only if he could rid the world of benders.
And that was exactly what Amon was going to do.
A/N: I wrote this like a day or so after "A Voice in the Night" aired so this is pretty much an AU now. Oh well. This is what I get for waiting around when it comes to posting things.
Let me know what you guys think of this and constructive criticism is always welcomed. Please tell me what you liked or didn't like about it. Thank you and I hope you have enjoyed reading this little one-shot.