Chapter 1

Solitary confinement was a punishment meant to strip a criminal of their spirit. The intension was to seclude the person from the rest of the world. They would be put in a windowless room, devoid of the world outside. They would be devoid of anything to attempt to tell the passage of time. The only constant a person would have is the interaction with their thoughts.

It was a punishment that broke the spirits of most. But to the untrained eye, it would appear that Zaheer had accepted his life this state. In fact, he almost seemed content. A small smile hung on the edge of his lips. He never seemed to be in distress, and he never acted hostile towards the occasional guard who came his way. He was peaceful. Tranquil.

But the reality was, the confinement had the opposite effect on him. Yes, though his mortal body would be forever locked in his bindings, his spirit was as free as it ever was. There was an entirely different world he could travel at his leisure. Though they could temporarily take his bending, they could never take his access to the spirit realm. In fact, he lived a less restricted life then most of the world's unprisoned population.

This wasn't to say that he didn't intend to free his body. No, though his most trusted teammates had fallen long ago, his connection to the Red Lotus remained. He was a driven man, with a destiny to change the world for the better. That was the other benefit of solitary confinement; it gave him plenty of time to plot.

As it was, his plans lay dormant inside his mind, waiting for the right opportunity to be ignited.

And as the doors to his cell started to open, Zaheer had a feeling that today would be the day he got his chance.

As the entrance opened, there was a single White Lotus guard. With a thrust of his arm, a tight whip of water came rushing towards his body. Zaheer noticed that this whip was carrying something. A dart of some kind?

The dart hit his leg, and Zaheer felt the effects instantly. Knowing that consciousness would soon leave him, Zaheer's smile grew. There was only one reason they would feel the need to knock him out.

They were going to move him from this prison. For what purpose? He wasn't too concerned with that. He would find out soon enough.

Lin sat alone in her office, changing the form of a small piece of metal. She had been told that such things were used to calm people's stress. Lin decided that whoever told her that was a good-for-nothing liar.

As she sat, the world's most dangerous criminals were being retrieved for the president's task force. She sat alert next to her phone, waiting for the inevitable phone call that the president's plan was as much of a disaster as she anticipated. Zaheer and Kuvira had escaped, and were now creating god knows what havoc globally.

She pictured how nice it would be to call up the president, right then and then. How satisfying it would feel when she told him he could shove it, and that she changed her mind. She wasn't going to go through with this. Doing that, however, would require that she had a choice in the matter. Things were becoming dire in Republic City. Ever since the Earth Empire invasion a year prior, the city was struggling to get back on it's feet. It was getting there, but the process was slow. And certain individuals were taking advantage of that fact.

This team, though a horrible idea, was their last option.

It was then that her phone started to ring. Lin bended her metal into the wall, preparing to hear any number of worst case scenarios, some more likely then others.

"Zaheer and Kuvira have escaped, and have killed all of the active guards on duty!"

"Zaheer and Kuvira have escaped and are in the process of destroying the northern water tribe!"

"Zaheer and Kuvira have escaped, and kidnapped the Avatar!"

"Zaheer and Kuvira have escaped and have accumulated an army of giant spirit mecha death rays!"

"Bei Fong," she answered the phone, mentally preparing herself.

"Zaheer has been acquired, and is being transported your way. Squad B is about to extract Kuvira."

Lin let out a deep breath. So things hadn't gone to hell.

At least, not yet.

Adjusting from the life of a leader, to the life of a prisoner wasn't an easy transition. Where her days used to be spent traveling her empire, where now spent in a small, windowless room. A small, windowless, platinum room that was designed especially for her

Wasn't she lucky.

No, the life of a war criminal wasn't easy. But it was okay. It was a life she lived with dignity. She had set up a routine for herself to make things a little bit easier. Every (or what she assumed was morning), after she woke up, she would groom herself. She would undress, and sit under the small faucet (also made of titanium) placed in her cell. The water itself wasn't warm enough to be comfortable, but it wasn't cold enough to be freezing. She would let the water run over her body, as she did some stretches.

By the end of this, a plate of food would be slipped to her from a slot at the door. It usually consisted of a meat of some kind, some (usually stale) rice, a small cup of (not ripe) vegetables, and every once in a while, they would give her a piece of bread. This would be her food for the day. It was up to her to make it last.

She would eat a small portion of the meat and rice, then move onto the next part of her routine. She would do some push ups, some sit ups, and some general exercises to keep her body strong. She didn't do too many, as she wasn't given the calories to sustain too much exercise, but she did enough.

Sometimes during this point, a guard would slip in letters from the food slot. Some of these were letters from her supporters. Despite everything, there were still those who considered her a hero. How Republic City and the Avatar were horrible for locking her up. How they would always be loyal to her, how they would never recognize whatever policies Wu put in place, and so on. There wasn't anything too different about themEven war criminals have a fan base.

However, a lot of the letters she received were letters expressing hatred towards her. How they were glad she was in prison, how they hoped she was tortured daily, how much she deserved to be in prison. These letters also didn't hold much of a variety.

She didn't particularly enjoy reading either type of letter, but it was something to do. After reading the letters, she would eat the rest of her meat and rice, larger portions then she had before, leaving only the vegetables.

Finally, after everything else, she would get up, and practice her bending. She didn't have anything to bend with, of course, but she wanted to keep her movements sharp, for on the off chance she got out of the prison, she could still be a semi-skilled bender. But not only that, but she found freedom in her movement. She had never realized how much freedom she felt when she moved until being placed in this cell. Within the first few days of being in-prisoned, she started to feel very claustrophobic. When she practiced her bending, it helped suppress that feeling.

It was all that kept her sane and dignified. She would practice, until she physically couldn't practice any longer. And with that, she would go to bed, so she could start the routine again.

She sat under the faucet, and felt as the water trickled down her body. Her clothes lay neatly piled on her bed. She rolled her neck, letting the water fall to other parts of her body. Her eyes lay on the small food slot. Soon, they would be sending in her food for the day.

She heard the footsteps approaching the door, and nodded. Right on cue.

But instead of sending food in, she found that the doors opened. Outside stood two guards. They prepared to move in, before seeing her clothes less appearance. They stared at her with wide-eyes, like lemurs in the path of a train. She smirked. If they had opened her door, they obviously had some sort of an agenda, and seeing her bare wasn't part of it.

After a few awkward seconds, one of the guards finally spoke, "Put your clothes on, prisoner!"

Kuvira shrugged, and turned off the faucet. She felt no shame in this situation. She stood up, rung the excess water from her hair, and calmly walked to her bed. She placed on her prison uniform, grey pants with a grey shirt. She took a slower amount of time then normal to do this. After all, she had never had guards walk in on her like this. Something was happening, she knew that much. In taking her time, she could try and guess what was happening.

She wondered if they were here to relocate her to a different cell. A newer, smaller cell. Or maybe Raiko had decided to have her executed. That was a common fate for most war criminals, after all. Maybe one of her sympathizers was beginning to cause some trouble, and she was going to be interrogated. Whatever it was, she figured it didn't mean good things for her.

Her suspicions were confirmed when, right as she was about to turn around, she felt one of the guards grab her. This was immediately followed by a stinging sensation, as they injected her body with something. Judging by how she felt, she imagined this was a tranquilizer of some kind. Within seconds, she found herself in the realm of unconsciousness.

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