Matchstick Wars

by Daezil

With the world teetering on the brink of another war and battered by threats from angry spirits one would hope for better than a cynical, apathetic, and untrained child for an avatar, least of all one born on the wrong side of the battle-lines. In fact, the only one more disappointed about the identity of the new avatar is the new avatar himself.

4. Cutting Ties

Violence warning for this chapter! Seriously guys.

Two more character view-points have been added this chapter, so point-of-view alternation will be more common from here on out.

Anyway, sorry this chapter took a bit longer to produce than I had intended; this month was busier than usual and unfortunately it cut into my editing/revising time so apologies if this chapter is a bit rougher than usual. Thanks as always for everyone's reviews, favorites, and readership!

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Chapter 4: Cutting Ties

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The Great Uniter was on the warpath.

The palace was a cacophony of sound as messengers, soldiers, and guards scurried every which way, following or delivering orders. The chaos of hastening feet was nearly deafening, and yet General Nianzu still picked out a very distinctive pair of footsteps marching sharply towards his office door, clacking against the polished stone floors with deadly intent.

Empress Kuvira didn't bother knocking. She also didn't bother announcing herself. With the years of painful experience behind their interactions she was all too aware that there was no reason to bother.

"The avatar's gone," she said without preamble. Only then did Nianzu glance up from the mechanics report on the new mecha units they were supposed to have coming in.

"Ah, yes, I thought I heard Wei's name being thrown around out there." He very carefully did not notice the slightly fractured quality to the steel in her eyes. "So the stupid boy really has run off? How on earth did he manage that?"

"With a mecha unit," Kuvira said in that venomously composed voice of hers. "A mecha unit that, if I'm not mistaken, was under your jurisdiction since I trusted you to oversee this month's equipment transfers."

Oh dear. Nianzu took off his reading glasses and set them down on his desk, giving himself a quick moment to consider. Yes that had been his responsibility since Guowei was on leave. Damn him for thinking the supervisors could keep things secure without someone holding their hands.

"So it would seem," he ended up saying. There was no point in blame dodging with the empress. "I'm assuming the brat and his family have already made it out of the city, then?" There was no way the empress would have returned to the palace if she thought there still might be a chance of catching the boy herself; such was her pride.

"All except for one." And, oh, wasn't that interesting. He wondered which poor sap had been unlucky enough to get left behind and whether or not they were even still alive. You never knew, with Kuvira and her moods. "We've put out a warrant for their arrests and will be sending pictures of the family to all of the military depots, check points, and city police heads. The avatar might run, but he won't make it far."

So you say–after he's already managed to escape what is supposed to be the most secure city in the world. He wasn't going to say that of course. Instead he asked, "Are you sure that will be enough? Admittedly, Wei is not a genius, but after working with him for a while I'll admit he is intelligent."

"Of course it won't be enough!" Kuvira snapped, and, ah, yes, there was the temper hidden underneath that composed facade. "Now stop trying to distract me with your rambling and pack your things. You're leaving!"

Nianzu's hand froze where he had been fiddling with a pencil. "Your Eminence?"

"I may have underestimated the avatar this time, but it's not a mistake I will repeat." Her jaw tightened, and there was a flash of something vicious in her eyes that Nianzu definitely would not want to be on the receiving end. "You said yourself, you've been working with Wei on tactics for the past month and half. You know the way he thinks better than anyone here."

Nianzu opened his mouth to protest, but before he could Kuvira leaned in close over his desk. "The avatar wouldn't have escaped in the first place if you had been doing your job properly. It's a very lucky thing for you that I have decided that you're still useful at all. So you have two options, Nianzu: you can either go on the road with your own vehicle and a couple of loyal soldiers to help you find and bring me the avatar, or you can go rot in a jail cell for the rest of your miserable existence."

Nianzu stared back at the empress's impassive face. He glanced up at the ceiling, regretting, not for the first time, the day he had enlisted. "Right. I suppose I'll go pack."

---

When Wei woke it was to a dark, humid place and the unfamiliarity of a strange bed. He was only stunned for a moment before relaxing bonelessly into the mattress, scattered memories of what had happened floating back to him in pieces.

It took him a couple of moments to push down the horrible thought that they had actually gotten caught and that he was lying in some kind of prison cell. He didn't think the jails in Ba Sing Se had mattresses this big. There was also the fact that there was a bit of moonlight streaming in from a window on the far wall, and as far as he knew the prisons at the palace were underground.

He could feel someone lying next to him in the darkness, breathing lightly in their sleep in a familiar rhythm he was used to from the old days when he had shared a room. Meiling.

At first he figured that it was the throbbing in his head that had woken him up, but gradually he became conscious of whispered voices coming from beyond the door on the other side of the room.

"…that isn't going to work," his mother's voice said. "We can't just train hop–before long they'll start searching every vehicle to leave and come into the stations, you mark my words."

"Agreed," his father murmured back, "but walking isn't going to be an option either. We'd never make it more than a couple of days, and that's not even taking into account the checkpoints."

"What if we don't head for Fire Nation?" his mother again. "I have some relatives on Kyoshi Island–they usually remain neutral during conflicts."

A heavy sigh. Wei could imagine his father rubbing his temples. "It would be more conceivable–a faster route. But we still would need a safer way to travel."

"If we disguised ourselves, maybe?"

"…It would help but there are too many of us–we're too noticeable. And there's only so much fake names and stolen clothes can cover up."

Wei chewed on his lip in the darkness and wished desperately for sleep to overtake him again. He didn't want to hear this–no one wanted to hear their parents worry. Especially when they were the cause of that worry.

Another sigh from his father, this one even more exhausted than the last. "Bai would know what to do. Or, at least he would have better ideas than this."

Uncle Bai's not here? Wei was fully awake now. In fact he felt like he had been splashed with ice water.

"I know," his mother's voice was soft. "But Bai made his choice, and we've made it this far because of it." No, it can't be–"Moving forward is the best thing we can do to honor his sacrifice."

Wei felt sharp pain from where his teeth were digging into his lips and a shock of warmth as he drew blood. No. No, no, no, no. Uncle Bai couldn't be gone. There was no way they could have left him behind! There was no reason–

You passed out after making it through the gate, the coolly logical part of his mind pointed out. Kuvira's men were going to be all over that mecha the moment they regrouped and got through the gate. Without a distraction it would have been very unlikely that everyone could have gotten away cleanly on foot.

He guessed Uncle Bai had thought so too.

There were warm tracks running down his cheeks, different from the warmth of the blood in his mouth.

"What we need is a way to escape notice," his father was saying, outside the door and a world away. "My friend Gao used to have some contacts through the Equalist party that could produce…certain documents. We will need money, and a lot of luck for them to still be open and operating, but if we can make it to where they are…"

"What we need is some sleep," his mother said firmly. "We're certainly not going to make it far if we're all exhausted."

A moment later, the door handle opened and his parents walked into the room. Wei froze and tried to even out his breathing so that it didn't sound like he was awake and panicking. There were some rustling sounds as his parents crawled into a bed that he could barely make out on the other side of the room and some extra movement as they settled in.

Wei lied there for a long time, listening to his parents breathing gradually settle into the shallow rhythm of sleep, hardly daring to breathe himself. Only after he was sure that they were dead to the world did he let his mind wonder.

Uncle Bai's gone. He stared into the darkness, trying not to feel. It's my fault.

Then, minutes or hours later: "What we need is a way to escape notice."

Wei didn't know a whole lot about past avatars. From what he did know…avatars were a lot of things, but they were never subtle. They couldn't be if they tried.

Kuvira is going to be looking for all of us, he thought, but it's me that she's hunting. Because he was the one who had pulled one over on her. Well, him and Meiling, but she didn't know much about Meiling.

He lied there for maybe a little while longer, heart pounding in his chest like a drum. Then, quietly, he rolled out of the bed.

The wooden floor was cool on his bare feet despite the summer heat spilling in from the window. His legs barely supported his weight, and his stomach churned so hard in protest that he thought he was going to give himself away by being sick all over the floor. Wei had to lean against the wall for a few awful minutes while his head spun and he tried to get his bearings.

He was wearing the same clothes they had escaped the city in, and upon putting his hands in his pockets he found his goggles, safe and sound. There was a cloth wrapped around his forehead, most likely to stop whatever wound was there from bleeding. After a moment of fumbling around along the floor he found his shoes and slipped them on.

He tip-toed across the room and out the door with as little noise as possible, cringing when the door creaked on its hinge. No one stirred in their sleep though, so he figured he was in the clear. The hallway outside their room was long and sported several other doors, most of which were tightly shut and bore the sounds of other sleeping occupants upon listening. They were probably in some cheap inn or hotel.

The last door on the hall before a staircase leading down to what he assumed as the main room stood ajar and turned out to be a bathroom, which Wei gratefully took advantage of. He ended up spending more time in the room than he would have liked, staring at his reflection.

I look like shit. There was just no good way of putting it. There was no dried blood on his face so he figured someone had washed him off earlier, but the white cloth tied around his forehead was stained with plenty of the stuff, making it cling to his skin. There were also a couple of scratched on his face that were mostly scabbed over but by no means pretty, including one just above his left eye. Then of course there was his split lip from earlier and the fact that he looked haggard in general after being chased through Ba Sing Se and nearly caught by the empress herself.

Figuring he could at least clean himself a little, Wei went about carefully removing the wrap from his head and replacing it with a clean white hand-towel that he found in the cupboard under the sink and tore into strips. Between that and washing up his face a little…well, he still didn't look pretty or very presentable in his slept-in clothes, but he figured he probably wouldn't be the worst looking figure on the streets.

There was a light flickering from somewhere down in the main part of the inn–probably one of the owners up getting the kitchen up and running in preparations for breakfast in a few hours–which made Wei reluctant to venture down. Instead he explored the hall until he found another open door, which yielded an unoccupied room. There wasn't much to be found inside, but he did manage to locate a pad of stationary paper and, upon further searching, a pen. He also got a good look out the window and determined that there was a roofed porch that ran along the front of the building and facing what he judged to be a back road with little traffic.

He sat on the edge of one of the unoccupied beds with a pen and paper in his hands. He caught himself about to chew his lip again and thought better of it.

Wei didn't remember later exactly what it was that he wrote on the note he left. Just that it felt like half an explanation, half an apology, and entirely something that he didn't want to dwell on. The clock on the wall read almost half past five in the morning when Wei snuck back into their shared room. He slipped the note onto the nightstand beside the bed his parents were sleeping in, nearly tripping over Cheng, who was curled up on the floor.

For a moment he stood next to the window and looked around the dark room. The sun would be up in an hour or two, but he figured that with the night they had had no one would be waking up for a long while. Plenty of time.

Enough time for a good head start.

Deliberately not thinking too hard about what he was about to do, Wei gently slid the window open, relieved when it didn't catch or stick too much. He slid through the opening, swinging his left foot over the wall first, then his left, out onto the roof of the porch below. Once he was fully through, he quietly pushed the window shut behind him, leaving him sitting in the warm night air. Alone.

It was easy enough finding a way down from the porch without much risk of broken limbs–he had been breaking out of his own house to peruse the Lower Ring for over a year, after all. There weren't even any Dai Li or cops around.

Which way? He looked up and down the street, and then decided it didn't really matter so long as he found the main road eventually. He didn't have money for another train ride, which might still be an okay option since Kuvira wouldn't have had enough time to send out pictures of him and his family to local law enforcement yet. Maybe he could hitchhike? That was a bit more risky, and he didn't know how kindly the locals viewed strangers out here–didn't really know much about local attitudes outside of Ba Sing Se in general if he was being honest. If worst case he supposed there was always walking, though that wasn't going to work at all long term considering how time- and energy-consuming it was. There was always the possibility of thieves too, but it wasn't like he had anything worth stealing–

Wei could finally see what looked like the main road up ahead after what had been a couple of fruitless turns and was just about to step out onto the street when a sudden weight crashed into him and sent him colliding into the nearest building. Wei panicked, thrashing out his arms in an attempt to fight off whoever was attacking him, only to go slack when he happened to look up and catch a glimpse of fierce eyes and familiar hat, allowing himself to be pinned.

"You," Meiling spat in his face. She was leaned in so close that their noses were nearly touching, and the three inches of height difference between them was feeling like not nearly enough to be of any benefit right now. "You. Complete. Dumbass."

"Mei," it came out much closer to a whine than Wei had intended, "let go! That hurts!"

She did let go of his wrists–only to grab him roughly by his shirt collar and press him against the wall again.

"Please tell me," she ground out, giving him a look usually reserved for stingy fightmasters and schoolyard bullies, "that you hit your head really hard during our escape from Ba Sing Se, because that is the only acceptable reason I can come up with for thispiss-poor decision of yours!"

"You're supposed to be asleep," Wei wheezed because Wei was an idiot like that.

"And you're supposed to be unconscious. And smarter than this! Looks like it's a night just full of surprises!"

"You weren't really asleep." Wei summed up. Oh look, the headache's back.

"I heard someone messing with the window," she said.

Great. If Meiling had woken up then who was to say the others were still asleep? Then again Cheng usually slept like the dead and their parents had been up later than all of them so maybe there were some odds in his favor. But not if Meiling stalled him here.

"What I want to know is why," Meiling said, shaking him out of his thoughts.

"Um," Wei started awkwardly, "I left a note–"

"Not that!" He thought he heard an 'idiot' thrown in under her breath, but he wasn't about to interrupt. Her eyes slid away from him. "I get why you want to take off. It's a big risk, all of us together. Especially after…" Wei dug his tooth into his lip again, disturbing the scab that had just started to form there. Meiling's hands tightened on his collar again, nearly choking him. "But that doesn't explain why the fuck you would leave me behind!"

The pressure against his throat went slack as she released him, but Wei was too busy gaping at his twin to think to make a run for it. Meiling was looking at him again, and he really wished that she wasn't because for all the anger that was there, there were tears shimmering in the corners of her eyes.

"Mei–" he started.

"How dare you!" She snapped, cutting him off. "After everything we've been through, how dare you!"

"I didn't think you would want to come!" Wei snapped back, finally finding his words again. "Spirits, Mei, you shouldn't want to come! Do you have any damn idea how dangerous this is? This isn't like mecha fighting! This isn't going to be some fun road trip, roaming the empire and having adventures! I could–we could get killed, Mei! And I don't…" He twisted his fingers through his hair in frustration, "You, Mom, Dad, even Cheng–I'm just trying to look out for you, dammit!"

He saw the fist coming. He could have dodged it. Instead he stood there and marveled at the small explosion of pain in his left upper arm, feeling it all the way in his fingertips.

"Dumbass!" The sniffle that followed was probably indignation, he told himself, because he didn't think he could deal with full on crying right now. "And who's going to look out for you, huh? You're completely hopeless on your own!"

Wei sighed, looking intently at the clouds so that he didn't have to face whatever expression his sister was giving him. It…wasn't like she was wrong. It was just…he had never exactly been on his own before. Neither of them had. Not completely.

"If I leave, you're just going to follow me, aren't you?" He didn't even bother looking down to see her nod. Well, it wasn't like he had been looking forward to who-knew-how-many-miles of silence and brooding, anyway.

"You're not going to try to get me to go back for everyone else, are you?"

This time he did watch her as she shook her head furiously.

He sighed again, this time through his teeth.

"Fine," he said, turning towards the road again. "Maybe you can help think of a way to get us to the next town without getting mugged or murdered."

Meiling sniffed, wiping at her face. "You mean like train tickets?"

"Tickets cost money," Wei pointed out.

Her sniffles stopped abruptly. She dug around in her pocket for a moment and pulled out a familiar sack.

Wei sucked in a surprised breath. "The mecha-unit money…Mei, that was supposed to be for everyone to use!"

"And everyone will get to use it!" She said, tucking the pouch back in her pocket safely. "I left half the money in the room. Next to your note." She had what might have been a wavering smile starting on her lips, but when she noticed him looking she just shoved past him and started walking towards that main road. "Mechas go for a lot of money these days, you know. We'll be out of the empire in no time!"

---

In the end, they didn't just buy one pair of train tickets. They bought two.

After finding their way to the train station and waiting around two hours for it to open and another half hour for some other customers to show up so that they wouldn't stand out as much, Wei waited out of sight while Meiling purchased a pair of tickets on the next train heading southwest–it was an expedited trip with one of the newest and fastest trains running, the quickest way to get to the Fire Nation without outright flying there. Even better, it was due to leave in two hours.

After about ten minutes Wei went up to the ticket counter himself while Meiling browsed the postcard rack in the corner and bought another pair of tickets going straight east. The train model wasn't nearly as new or fast, but it was leaving in only half an hour. Wei left the store as soon as the tickets were paid for. Ten minutes later, Meiling came out and joined him outside of a cheap diner a block away for breakfast. By now the town was slowly starting to come alive as most of the men in residence prepared to head off to work. Wei was starting to feel anxious now; sooner or later someone back at the inn was going to wake up and notice their absence.

"So, you bought a decoy pair." Meiling said, nodding to the four tickets sitting on the table between them over her bowl. "I know we can afford it right now, but please tell me we won't be making a habit of this."

"Hopefully, we won't have to," At Meiling's raised eyebrow, he explained, "Kuvira may have a couple screws loose, but she smart. Deadly smart. And she knows I'm not dumb either. She's going to expect me to try and do whatever I can to avoid detection so that we can get to the boarder in one piece. And, while we might have a bit of a head start, I don't doubt that soon Kuvira's going to have every single train station, airship depot, and military checkpoint looking for us and reporting to her."

"Which is why we split up at the train station." Meiling hummed thoughtfully. "Though honestly we look so much alike that I highly doubt just splitting up is going to be enough on it's own."

"Of course not," Wei said, "Kuvira's going to know good and well that we came through here, we were together, and we bought train tickets."

"Two sets of train tickets," Meiling acknowledged. "So, obviously we were here. Obviously we were trying to avoid drawing attention to ourselves, and obviously we bought extra tickets. Either we both go east, we both go southeast, or we split up and go on different trains, but either way, we're making her guess."

"Exactly," Wei said, "Kuvira talks with General Nianzu, she'll know I like a good guessing game. And as a bonus Mom and Dad won't know where we're headed either if they try to catch up with us."

"So," Meiling said, "that only begs the question: which train are we taking?"

Wei allowed himself a rare grin, swiping all four tickets from the table and getting to his feet. "Neither."

Meiling frowned, but it was that bemused sort of frown that she wore when she was secretly pleased to be facing a challenge. "Neither?"

"Nope," Wei said, walking off towards where he thought a parking lot earlier. "We're hitchhiking."

"Two pairs of decoy tickets," Meiling hummed thoughtfully. "Not bad, brother of mine. Not bad at all."

---

Wei wasn't big on the idea of buying rides off of people, especially since they had just dropped money on tickets that they weren't even going to be using, but luckily it didn't come to that.

They walked around town for a while observing people who seemed to be loading their satomobiles for a long trip instead of just heading off to work. Despite the fact that the town had a train station, it didn't seem like many people used satomobiles in the first place, instead relying on walking or making use of local rickshaw businesses to get around. That made it pretty easy to spot a young couple carrying bags to their vehicle parked in front of one of the nicer hotels in the center of town.

Wei was just starting to think of how they definitely didn't have a chance of buying the couple off if they had enough money to stay in a nice hotel when he glanced at Meiling and the most outrageous idea struck him. Tugging on Meiling's sleeve to get her attention, he darted out from the bushes and crouched behind the couple's satomobile when they went back to the hotel lobby to get another load..

"What're you–" Meiling started, but he clapped a hand over her mouth before she could finish asking.

"How much do you know about satomobile mechanics?" he asked, and her eyes widened in understanding.

"Just enough to mess shit up," she whispered back. "You want to con these nice people, don't you?"

"What I want is get us out of the empire before Kuvira finds us," Wei said, casting nervous glances at the hotel entrance. Luckily, Meiling couldn't have had that much of a problem with it because she was already crawling under the front of the satomobile. She took a moment fidgeting with something.

"Don't mess it up too bad, okay?" Wei hissed after her. Right as Wei was about to warn her that the couple was coming back, she rolled out from underneath the car, grabbed Wei by the sleeve, and pulled him around the other side of the vehicle and behind some tall shrubs at the hotel's entrance.

They watched with baited breath as the couple got in their vehicle, apparently set to go. The young man turned his keys in the ignition, and the satomobile purred for one nervous second before it started sputtering and belching black smoke and then went completely still.

Wei shot Meiling an impressed look. Meiling held up some important looking piece of mechanics that she had most definitely just stolen and stuck her tongue out. "One of the main bolts was really loose. They're lucky it didn't fall off on its own, really."

The young man got out of his seat and pulled up the hood of his vehicle, scratching his head and looking generally put out. After a moment he called over one of the hotel's luggage boys and exchanged some words about mechanics and costs of repairs.

Wei sucked in a deep breath. You've buffaloyak-shitted your way into a military mecha hangar. You've got this. He stepped out from behind the bushed, pulling Meiling behind him and angling their approach so that it looked like they had come from the building next door.

"Excuse us!" he called, waving over the young man. "Um, we couldn't help but notice you're having some difficulty with your vehicle."

The man furrowed his brow at him, "Yeah, you wouldn't happen to know a mechanic that doesn't charge an arm and a leg, would you?"

Wei laughed and hoped it didn't sound too forced, "In this town? 'fraid not. But, listen; our dad owns a repair place not too far from here. I could take a look at your car, and if that doesn't work our dad could probably get you a good deal!"

The man frowned at Wei thoughtfully. "You look awfully young to be working on satomobiles."

Meiling smiled disarmingly, "Oh, he's been helping Dad in the 'shop since he was old enough to hold a wrench!" Wei wanted to choke, but tried to plaster on a smile instead.

The man shrugged. "Well, I don't suppose it would hurt. Come on over here."

Wei stood at the hood of the satomobile with its owner by his side, babbling about how he had just had repairs done and what not. Wei stared under the hood at the guts of the vehicle and fiddled with some things to make it look like he was doing something while Meiling slid underneath the satomobile and started reattaching whatever it was she had stolen. He tried throwing around a couple of mechanical terms he heard Meiling use when discussing Mecha tune-ups and was relieved that the man he was talking to seemed just as clueless as him.

After a moment, Meiling rolled out from underneath the wheels and went back to innocently standing off to the side. Wei pretended to flip a switch somewhere in the tangle of tubes and metal and brushed off his hands like he had done something important.

"Well, sir, I think that might have been your problem!" Wei said.

Sure enough, when the young man leaned into the driver's side and turned the ignition, the satomobile started up without a problem.

"Oh, how wonderful!" his wife said, beaming at them. "You don't know how grateful we are!"

Grateful enough to give us a ride? Wei wondered, gears spinning in his head.

"Oh, I wish there was some way we could repay you," the young man said, rubbing his head, "Unfortunately we really must be leaving, and I don't have any spare cash on me–"

"Actually," Wei cut in, "if you're heading east, we could kind of use a ride home."

The young man trailed off, giving him a furrowed-brow look.

"We're here visiting our grandmother," Meiling added, looking downtrodden, "but unfortunately Dad's swamped back at the 'shop and needs us to go back and help."

The man considered for a moment. "Which town did you say this was?"

"Pao Lan Village," Wei said, remembering a town that had shown up not too far to the east on the map in the train station.

"Well, me and the missus were heading east anyway, so I guess it's not a problem…"

Five minutes and some heartfelt thanks later and they were on the road.

---

It wasn't the cleanest way of getting around, morally speaking, but for the next three days it was how they managed; the twins would locate some obvious out-of-towners or generous looking people about to head out in their satomobile and they would pull a quick con in order to get a ride out of them.

"We're not going east anymore," Meiling couldn't help but note on day three when Wei didn't bat an eye when the traveling phonograph salesman they were tagging along with told them that he was heading north.

"I think this might actually be better," Wei admitted quietly to her in the back seat of the vehicle. "I mean, I think we can both agree that getting out of the empire fast is the top priority here."

"Yeah," Meiling conceded, lowering her voice even more, "but weren't we shooting for the Fire Nation?"

"Yeah…but I was thinking. Isn't that exactly what Kuvira will be expecting? And, anyway, the Northern Water Tribe is closer. Plus I think we still openly do some trade with them, so it would be easier to get there…"

Meiling scrunched up her face in that unhappy way of hers, letting out a hard puff of aggravation. She tossed a glance at their driver, who had had the radio on for the past ten miles and was lost enough in tapping his fingers to the beat on the steering wheel and wailing along with the music anytime a song he knew the words to came on that Wei figured they weren't in much danger of being overheard.

"What happened to getting a firebending teacher as soon as possible?" Meiling asked, turning back to him. "You sounded pretty eager to get that worked out…isn't that part of what pissed you off about Kuvira?"

Wei pursed his lips. "It's still important! Trust me, I want to get a safe lid put on the unnecessary bending as soon as possible, but…we could probably find a way to get from the Northern Tribe to the Fire Nation without having nearly as much of the hassle it would be going all the way through the empire. I mean, there would probably be someone willing to help us."

Meiling snorted in a most un-lady-like fashion. "Are you kidding? The whole damn government will probably be bending over themselves to accommodate you! If anything it will take forever to get out of there with everyone fawning over the shiny new ava-"

Wei cut her off with a glance. "Not if we don't tell them who I am."

Meiling stared at him. "You want to hide your identity."

Wei scowled at her. "Yeah, well, its not like being known exactly worked out in our favor here for long. And, I mean, we've never met anyone from the water tribes before; do we really know if they'd be welcoming or not?"

Meiling was tugging on her braid again. "Okay, fair point. But don't the Water Tribe chiefs have a reputation for being easily offended? What happens when we skip on over to the Fire Nation and then they announce that they have the avatar? Someone's going to put two and two together and get kind of pissed that Mr. Balance decided to give the Northern Tribe a pass through without saying anything."

Wei pretended to look thoughtful. It didn't work–of course not, she always knew when he was being dishonest.

"You don't plan on revealing yourself in the Fire Nation either, do you?" she deadpanned.

"Um," Wei said, deciding that it just might be safer to look out the window, "not really."

And then there were hands grabbing his shoulders, shaking him ever so slightly, and he finally relented and met his sister's irritated eyes. "What?"

"I'm just a little curious," she ground out. "Because, you know, it's a little hard to bring balance to the world and peace to the nations when you're hiding like a damn weaslerat."

"Yeah, well, maybe I don't want to around playing peace keeper!" That got her to let go of him, at least, though the slack jawed look she gave him made him cringe internally. "Maybe I just want to find someone to teach me how to control firebending so that I don't destroy anything. Last time I checked, you don't have to be a celebrity to find a decent teacher."

Meiling's face got all scrunched up again. He kind of wanted to tell her that if she kept that up it would probably stick that way, but there was a dangerous tilt to her eyebrows that stopped him. "What happened to the whole 'keeping the world safe' speech you gave Mom at the palace?"

Wei felt sweat beading on his forehead, free to run down his face now that he had abandoned his makeshift bandage. "Okay…well…I never said I actually intended to do any of that?"

"You lied to Mom."

"I did not! I just…" a strangled sound made its way out of his throat in place of actual word. Frustrated, he tangled his fingers through his hair. "We needed to get out of the palace. I didn't lie I just…Dammit Mei, we're fifteen years old! Who in their right minds would want me in charge of fixing the whole damn world anyway!"

"Wei–" she started, and, yep, that was definitely 'you're being an idiot and here's why' voice.

"It doesn't even matter because I don't want me in charge of it!" Wei cut her off. "I'm not cut out for the whole 'saving the day' thing. Aren't people like that supposed to be good with people, or enjoy helping people or something? At the very least they're supposed to be nice."

"You can be–"

"I'm not even interested in doing any of that though–wondering around the world bending four elements at problems until they go away. I mean, do you know what I wanted to do with my life before this whole fiasco got started?"

"No, what?"

Wei threw his hands up in the air. "I don't know! I'm fifteen years old, and I have no fucking clue what it is I want to do with my life, Mei. But whatever it is, it's not this!"

"You are so–" Wei was spared from whatever name Meiling had been about to call him when the satomobile jolted to a stop, and the driver switched off the radio.

"Checkpoint," the man explained when they looked at him. "We've reached the province boarder."

The twins exchanged a horrified look. Checkpoint? Okay, so they had known this was coming. Eventually. Everyone knew there were military checkpoints periodically along the roads along province boarders. Wei just hadn't figured they would come across one so soon, and they had allowed themselves to be distracted when they should have been thinking of a plan.

"You young'uns got your papers with you?" The salesman asked kindly, watching as two men in military uniforms slowly approached the vehicle.

"Oh no!" Meiling said loudly, turning about in her seat frantically, as if she were searching for something, "I think we left them behind!"

The driver glanced at them in the rear-view mirror, eyebrows drawn together. "Ah, well, don't panic, now! I'm sure we can talk this out. They keep a registry, so if you came through this checkpoint on your way into the province they can look you up."

"Great," Wei said, sarcasm barely light enough for the driver to miss. Think, he told himself as the driver's side window was rolled down and one of the officers began shooting questions at the salesman, there has to be something you can do. He looked to Meiling, but she seemed to be at just as much of a loss as he did. And there are no mecha units around this time. Great!

"Looks like you've got quite the load there," the officer was telling their driver, motioning to the trailer hooked to the back of the vehicle where he kept all of his wares. "I'll need to see your sales license along with your identification papers. We'll also need to check the back."

The salesman muttered something discontent under his breath but hurried to dig out his paperwork from the glove box. The second officer was already walking around to inspect the back.

"How many people have you got with you?" The first officers asked, catching sight of Wei and Meiling in the back seat despite Wei internal pleas that they might escape notice.

The salesman shrugged carelessly, "Oh, just a couple of kids in need of a ride. They lost their train money while visiting some relatives and needed help getting back."

The officer eyed them for a moment, but didn't seem particularly interested. "Well, I'll need their papers too."

"We lost them!" Meiling said, and for once the anxiety on her face wasn't an act. It didn't have to be.

"Lost them?" The officer's lips turned down in a scowl. "What, both of you?"

"I think our IDs might have been in the same bag that we kept our money for the return tickets," Meiling lamented. The officer didn't look very convinced. Meiling's chin started quivering like she was about to cry, and Wei was pretty sure he looked just as painfully nervous as he felt. The officer sighed and glanced over at his partner. "Hey, can you run check the registry for me real quick?" There was a passive grunt of assent from the back. The officer turned back to Meiling and Wei. "What are your names?"

"Kuan," Wei said, quickly recalling the pair of names they had given the salesman. "Kuan Guo. And this is my sister, Yin."

The officer shouted the names to his partner, who had finished up in the back and sprinted back towards the small station built into the side of the wall to check the names in the registry.

"They're not going to find anything." Meiling muttered to him, eyes never leaving the officer going over their driver's papers.

"Of course they're not going to find anything!" Wei hissed back.

"Should we make a run for it?"

Wei scanned the area outside the car. There were a couple of soldiers standing guard by the gate, and more than likely there were more stationed inside. There were also several military vehicles parked along the wall, ready to roll at a moment's notice. If the area had been heavily forested Wei would have considered running a possibility, but this side of the wall was nothing but open, rolling hills for at least a couple of miles, which meant there was nowhere to hide.

"I don't know about you, but I probably wouldn't make it far," Wei admitted. Meiling nodded. Athleticism had never been either of their forte.

"If we move fast enough, you think you could earthbend us over the wall?"

Wei gave her a flat look. "We are literally surrounded by military level earthbenders."

"Well, yeah, but training with The Great Uniter herself for over a month has to be worth something, right?"

"Not when it's ten to one!" This wasn't good, they were taking too long. They needed to just make a decision and do something.

The second officer came out of the checkpoint station at a run. He was holding a single piece of paper in his hands.

"Out of the car." Wei decided, unlatching the door behind him. They slipped out of the back right as the second officer was skidding to a halt next to the satomobile, but by the time Wei was fully on his feet and ready to take his chances with making a run for it, there were four more soldiers surrounding them and leaving no gaps for escape.

When did they get over here? Dammit, we weren't paying enough attention! Wei didn't get much time to dwell on their mistakes, though.

The officers who had been checking through the salesman's paperwork was taking the piece of paper from his partner. His brow furrowed, and he stared over the satomobile at them with obvious distaste before flipping the paper so that they could see. Wei and Meiling stared at a picture of both of their faces on what was most definitely an imperial wanted poster.

"You kids," the officer said, "have some explaining to do." Before Wei could open his mouth to protest, to lie, or to stall, hands came down on his shoulders and both him and his sister were being steered towards the checkpoint station.

---

Anyu was a patient man. He was used to waiting.

The prison cell that they had put him in was not especially daunting. The electric lamps hanging from the walls didn't flicker too often, and the bunk where he lied was actually long enough that his feet didn't hang over the end for once. There were a couple of cameras stationed on the ceilings, recording his every move. As with most Earth Empire prisons the bars were made from wood–a deep inconvenience for metalbenders. For those with certain other skill sets…an opportunity.

There was no conventional way of telling time since there was no clock on the wall and no windows since prisoners were kept in the basement of the building. It hadn't been very long though–a full day, maybe, with how often the guard brought food. Not long enough for Anyu to give up on meditation. Not nearly long enough for the thunder of footsteps coming down the stairs. Curious. They wouldn't be coming to relocate him this soon. Not unless the Empire's intelligence network was decades ahead of where they appeared to be.

It was a parade of five people that came through the door: three soldiers leading two adolescents–a boy and a girl–in ragged street-clothes. More prisoners apparently. The two were put into the cell across from him, so he was able to get a fair look at them without moving and drawing attention to himself. They couldn't have been very old–definitely not recruiting age. They were strikingly similar looking, so probably siblings at least, quite possibly twins. Two all-but-children in a military holding cell. Curious indeed.

"Don't get comfy," One of the soldiers was telling them as their cell was being locked, "You two are gonna be on the first transport vehicle back to Ba Sing Se."

"Really?" the boy asked with a twisted smirk that had Anyu wanting to smack him just on principle. "I'm surprised Kuvira isn't tearing up the Empire to drag us back herself considering how well keeping in someplace worked last time."

"Don't get cocky!" one of the other's ground out. "The Empress doesn't have time to waste on dealing with a couple of property damaging delinquents like you." With that the three filed back out of the room and left them to the otherwise empty room, though Anyu knew one would be staying in a small side room just outside the door where he could watch all their activities from a television monitor.

As the sounds of the heavy door swinging shut faded away, the girl whistled appreciatively. "Wow. So, those guys have no clue."

Neither of them seemed to have noticed his presence yet. The boy sat down heavily on the bottom bunk in their cell, slumping against the wall. "Yeah, what did those wanted posters even say? 'Property damage'? I feel kind of insulted."

"Well, that's not technically wrong. We did kind of a number on the Lower Ring," the girl reached up to her head and then her hand froze, impulsively reaching for something that obviously wasn't there. She let out an irritated sigh. "I can't believe they took my hat."

"They took our money!" the boy complained. "That's kind of more important than a stupid hat!"

"There's no reason for them to have taken it," she argued, turning listlessly in their cell to take in their small surroundings. "It's not like we could use it to help us break out of here…" her eyes stopped on his, and she froze. "Oh, hello there!"

The boy straightened up to look at him from across the room. "Eh?"

The girl pressed against the bars, obviously trying to get a better look at him. Anyu didn't bother moving to accommodate her. Well, so much for peacefully meditating.

"You look too scary to have gotten thrown in here for not having your papers." she commented. Anyu didn't feel the need to dignify that with a response. After a few beats of silence, she asked, "I guess you heard; we're here for 'property damage.'" And wasn't that just a little interesting that apparently the Empress herself was concerned about hunting down two adolescents for something so petty.

The girl was still looking at him expectantly. "So…what are you in for?"

The boy groaned. "Ah, leave him alone, Mei. If he really is here for something dangerous is that something you reallythink we want to know?"

Smart kid. After some bickering–ah yes, they had to be siblings–the girl turned back to him yet again. "Well, if you're not going to say anything, then I'm just going to start guessing."

"That's dumb," her brother said.

"I'm bored," she retorted.

"It hasn't even been five minutes!"

Spirits help me, Anyu prayed silently. He was not a praying man. Help me not to do something drastic.

"Let's see," the girl continued, sliding down the bars to sit cross-legged. "I've already said it probably wasn't your papers…hmm, theft? Nah, you don't look like the stealing type." Anyu didn't know what the 'stealing type' was supposed to look like, or whether or not this was supposed to flatter him. "Arson? That's fun option, I guess–kinda falls under property damage too, so then we would all have something in common. Battery? You don't look beat up, but then you look like maybe you could beat the snot out of someone without getting a scratch on you–"

"Mei," her brother whined.

"Smuggling," the girl, 'Mei' continued, not missing a beat. "Less fun than some of the others, but kind of cool–like being a pirate. Oh-oh! Maybe he killed a man! Had a vendetta or something, and he was skipping town, but the law caught up with him before he could make it out of the province."

"It was my papers," Anyu said, slicing through the incessant chatter to sweet silence. It was worth it just to see them jump at his deep, rumbling voice. For a moment he dared to hope that that would be the end of it.

"Oh, buffaloyak shit!" the boy shot back. Of course not. "If that's true then why didn't they just look you up in the registry?"

How impertinent. The last time Anyu could recall someone talking to him so brazenly he had been at least a foot shorter than he was now. Maybe it was because he was lying down. Reluctantly, he sat up a bit. Might as well put the kid in his place if he wanted peace and quiet.

The boy's eyes visibly widened as he leaned forward into better lighting. "Kid, does this look like a face that military men give the benefit of the doubt?"

Mei didn't seem perturbed. If anything she seemed…fascinated. This could be troublesome.

"Are you Water Tribe?" she asked, pressing even further into the bars of their cell. "I mean, not to be rude, but you're skin's all dark and it looks like your eyes are blue and ermfrf!" her brother lurched forward off of his seat and pressed a hand over her mouth before she could irritate him further.

"Don't ask rude, personal questions to the scary looking man." he hissed in her ear.

Anyu couldn't decide on if he was more irritated or baffled. They're pretty young. He reminded himself. Too young to have been around before Kuvira closed the boarders, probably. And they mentioned coming from Ba Sing Se. Which meant the odds of them seeing someone from outside of the Earth Empire before were slim to none. No wonder the rude children were surprised to see someone who looked foreign.

"It would be really helpful if he were Water Tribe, though!" Mei said once she got free of her brother.

Don't ask, Anyu told himself. Despite passing curiosity, he really didn't want to know. He had decided long ago that it was better not to get involved the locals and their problems. And he didn't want to encourage her.

"Even if you're not foreign, you still want to get out of here, though, right?" she continued.

Anyu didn't sigh. He was too self-disciplined to sigh. "Oh?" He really wasn't sure why he was indulging her–it could only lead to more unnecessary chatter. Maybe it was because, in a weird way, she reminded him a bit of Yana at that age. Though he was pretty sure that even Yana had known better than to make conversation with convicts. "What makes you think I'm not just awaiting my due process of law?"

The boy laughed, loud and short and bitter. "How stupid do you think we are?"

Anyu eyed him and his sister. You're two criminals who have done something serious enough to earn your own wanted posters sitting here trying very hard to make it look and sound like you're not sizing me up and analyzing the best way to be out of here long before that government escorts arrives to drag you to the capital. Anyu wasn't clueless. He knew when someone was trying to drag information out of him. And he knew the difference between someone who was truly disinterested and someone who was trying to look like they weren't cataloging every word he said. I think you two are more dangerous than you look, but you're too stupid to realize what kind of a man you're trying to fool.

"Stupid enough to try and play mind-games that you're not nearly good enough at," he said out loud.

Mei's eyes widened a fraction, and she leaned back from the bars, looking at him from a different angle. "Ah, well, the only way to get better at games is to practice." She smiled at him, and it was all teeth. "You're interesting, Mr. Prison Guy. I think I like you."

Anyu really wasn't sure how to take that. Blessedly, the girl didn't seem inclined to drill him for information any more.

A number of minutes passed. Outside, the sound of raindrops slowly began, pattering on the roof and the earth lightly until it steadily increased into the thunderous tempo of a downpour. Anyu sat up fully and leaned against the wall, letting his eyes slide closed.

It wouldn't be long now.

A while later (an hour, two hours?) he heard the sound of boots on the steps again and a brief exchange of words between someone and the guard outside. Then, the door swung open and a soldier stepped inside. He was younger looking than most of the officers Anyu saw around–fresh from recruitment no doubt, clean shaven and still jerky in his movements. Obviously he had just come from outside before being sent down because he was drenched from head to toe, uniform and hair soaked through and boots squeaking with every move.

He was balancing three bowls of what looked and smelled like a thick stew of some sort, nearly tripping as he walked down the hall towards them. "Dinnertime for the convicts," he grumbled under his breath, stopping in front of their cells. "And why the blazes I'm the one stuck playing nursemaid is anyone's guess." He slid Anyu's bowl through the bars first, and Anyu turned to accept it, taking the warm bowl in his hands. He set it down on the bunk beside him as soon as the soldier turned his back to hand the other two bowls over to the siblings.

Anyu shifted his legs apart into a slightly tighter stance than he preferred. Hopefully the tightness of his cell wouldn't prove too troublesome. He glided his hands forward, the pounding of rain still singing in his ears as he reached for the subtle push and pull of water.

"You brats are just lucky you're getting treated as well as you are," the soldier was saying, "Back in the city I hear things aren't nearly as ni–" Anyu shifted backwards, pushing forwards with his hands a fraction before bringing them up and back, pulling every ounce of cold rainwater soaking the man's hair and clothes sliding into the air and towards him.

The soldier turned in surprise, making a choked noise in his throat as he saw Anyu twist the ball of water around in the air. He opened his mouth to say something–to call out for help or maybe even to scream. In one smooth motion, the water sliced forward, hardening into a shard of ice an instant before meeting skin. All the escaped the man's lips was a choked, gurgled noise that cut off sharply as his throat was sliced open.

All of this in a matter of seconds. The door at the end of the room flew open, the man in charge of monitoring them shouting in horror. This one had time to fight back, bending his metal shoulder pads towards Anyu to restrain him. Anyu dodged the projectile metal by a hairs width–damn these restricted quarters–and coiled the rainwater into a ball again, launching it at the guard.

The guard also dodged, much more easily, too, and readied himself to try again with his metal cufflinks. Before he got the chance, the water he had sidestepped turned in mid-air, pulled by Anyu's careful fingers, and swung back around to hit the man straight in the face wetly.

Rather than splash and separate into droplets again, the water stayed in a single mass, covering the guard's mouth and nose. His body stiffened with panic, and he clawed at his face as if to pull the water off of him. Anyu observed from across the room and held firm, hands turning and twisting in the air to keep the water circulating in the same place over his face. The guard began to convulse, and slid to his knees, clawing at his own throat now as his face turned red and then purple. A moment later, his body went limp, and he collapsed. Anyu slid the rainwater away from his face, drawing it back to him in a ball once again, surveying the now silent room.

He couldn't hear any commotion from upstairs. He might have a couple of moments then. The two in the other jail cell were staring at him. He didn't dwell on it.

Instead he sliced at the wooden bars with the water. It took a couple of lashes and quite a bit of concentration, but he cut all the way through the wood on the three bars holding the lock in place. In another couple of moment he cut through underneath the lock too, and the entire section of the cell door that locked it in place was a completely separate piece. After that it only took a solid kick to the doorframe and the entire thing swung open with ease.

The Earth Empire children were still staring at him. The girl had her hands pulled up to her mouth, eyes darting between him and the bleeding corpse that he was now standing over. Well, that was only to be expected. There was something queazy in the boy's eyes, too, but more than that…more than that there was something calculating there that made the hair on the back of Anyu's neck want to stand on end.

He wanted to leave them there. Well, part of him did, anyway. The two of them looked like they thought he was going to leave them there too as soon as he turned and walked towards the body at the end of the hall. That wasn't right though, he knew. There was nothing two teenaged brats could do that would make them more deserving of the empire's cruel 'justice' than him. Even if they were dangerous, they couldn't be as dangerous as him.

The girl flinched when he walked back to their cell and jammed the guard's key in the lock. It was faster than all the cutting was, and the two of them looked jumpy anyways. He left the key in the lock after he opened it and walked back towards the door. He didn't bother looking back to see if they would follow. When he was nearly out the door he heard them coming anyway, whispering to each other as they tip-toed over the bodies.

The monitor displaying the now empty jail caught his eye at the base of the stairs, and he paused long enough to pop the recording device out of its slot and smash it with a heavy fist before moving on.

Anyu wasn't sure how many people were in the main part of the office. He held out his hand behind him in the universal sign to wait when he got to the top of the stairs. The siblings were a couple steps below him, and he heard the boy whisper "But I can–" before being cut off sharply by his sister. He didn't dwell on it.

He wasn't sure whether or not the door was likely to creak, so rather than peaking through the crack to survey the situation, Anyu instead slammed the door wide open and went in swinging.

There were three people in the main room: one sitting at the main desk, one picking up the phone on the opposite wall, and one just walking in from another room. Anyu targeted and had the man with the phone down before anyone had fully lain eyes on him, jugular cut and spilling lifeblood onto the nice hardwood floor. The woman that had just come in reacted fast and was bending doors off of the metal lockers on the other side of the room at him. It wasn't much of a problem, now that there was room to dodge. Anyu scattered the ball of water into droplets in the air, tossing them towards her face, then hardened them into icy shards a moment later impaling her from multiple angles before the metal cuffs she had bent at him could lock around his wrists.

The third person, another man, was hiding behind the desk, shaking. Not a bender, then, he assumed. He grabbed him by the shirt collar and pushed him up against the wall. The water swirling around his fingers was stained red now, making for an unpleasant picture. The man's eyes followed its swirling, wide as saucers.

"Wait!" Mei said, right as he was about to move. Her voice had lost its casual vibrato. "C-Can't we just leave him?"

Anyu's fist tightened around the remaining officer's throat. This was why he didn't work around children. "No."

"But–"

"He'll report what happened to Kuvira as soon as your escort squad rolls into town." Anyu said. "Is that what you want?"

"N-No!" the man gasped. "I wont! I promise!"

"Oh, you will," Anyu said. "Trust me when I say that anything I do here is much better than what the Empress's men will do to get information."

"P-Please!" the man tried on last time. Anyu loosed his hold on the man's neck a fraction. Then he got a better hold and slammed his head back against the wall with all his strength. The man went still, and when he dropped him, he fell, blood dripping from the back of his head.

Anyu didn't close his eyes. He was too professional for that.

He didn't bother turning to face the siblings before bending down to rifle through the drawers of the desk. "If you want your things, I suggest finding them quickly."

He found his own things in the second drawer. Two knives that had been found strapped underneath his clothes when they had patted him down. His papers were there too–a small error in the ID number giving them away for fakes when the officer on duty had gotten too snoopy for his own good. He took them anyway. It wasn't like he was going to find better quality ones any time soon. His backpack he found in a closet behind the desk, still mostly full with some basic supplies and his wallet.

The girl was wearing a brown, floppy hat when he turned back around. He tried to look past them as he made his way to the door.

It was still raining outside, though perhaps not as hard as before. A quick scan of the area showed four soldiers stationed at the gate, huddling under the wall as much as they could to avoid getting completely soaked. There were three others standing guard, two of them by the military vehicles and one leaning up against the building right next to where Anyu stepped out. One sharp strike to the temple and he was down before he could be a problem, though, so a total of seven left to take care of then.

One of the men standing by the satomobiles gave a shout upon seeing him. Anyu ignored him and walked up to the gate. Splashing footsteps too soft to be from booted feet told him that the siblings were following behind. Before they got too close he tossed a firm "Stay close to me," over his shoulder at them.

"Halt!" one of the soldiers, a middle-aged woman with a crooked nose, shouted. "What do you think you're doing!"

Same as all of us, Anyu reflected. He brought his arms up sharply stretching out from his sides, fingers stiff and controlling. My job.

Over the entire yard, the rain froze. For a single moment, the soldiers stared at the unmoving droplets in stiff amazement at the droplets of water hovering in the air.

Anyu clenched his fists, and the droplets froze into a thousand blades of ice. When they fell they fell harder than before, slicing into ground and metal and flesh alike. There were screams. Most of them didn't last long.

A couple of men managed to squeeze themselves fully under the gate and were trying to bend the sopping earth into a defensive barrier, but the ground was all mud now, and it was slow to cooperate. Rain and ice skirting widely around him and the two Empire children, Anyu walked forward, pausing some of the ice shards in their descend and shooting them forward instead, stopping the remaining soldiers where they stood. The bodies slumped into the mud as they walked past with a squelching sound that almost hid the squeak that escaped the lips of the girl behind him.

It only took half a second to locate the button to open the heavy gate in front of them. On the other side there were more soldiers standing around, clearly bothered by the sounds they had head from the other side. Three tried to attack him right off the bat. The other three were smarter and tried to make a run for it instead. They didn't make it far.

The abrupt silence as the last soldier fell was louder than the pattering of the rain. Thirteen foot-soldiers outside, three in the building, two in the prison room. Anyu paused–blinked through the rain up at the gray sky. Eighteen total then.

It was a shit day.

He turned his eyes forward and continued walking. There were trees on the near horizon, the start of a forest. After a moment, the sounds of wet footsteps followed behind him, first one, and then for some reason another. He didn't turn back to look. He swallowed the question that wanted to rise to his lips. This wouldn't last long, he told himself. Whether it was curiosity or fear of being alone that inspired these two children to follow him, it wouldn't last long, and then they would part ways.

Through mud and rain, Anyu moved forward.

Anyu was a patient man. He was used to waiting.

---

By the time they made it to the cover of the trees, the rain had almost stopped. Meiling might have felt grateful for that, if she had been inclined to feel grateful for anything at the moment.

It was a bit easier going without the downpour, but the undergrowth and roots seemed to make up for what the weather was lacking. The man in front of them didn't seem bothered by the change in terrain in the least, and he didn't seem inclined to slow down to accommodate their struggles, either.

That was fine with Meiling. She knew when she was being ignored. But there was no way that she was letting an opportunity this big get away without a fight, even if Wei looked like he was itching to ditch this guy just as much as he was clearly itching to ditch them. Even if she was soaked and tired and ready to collapse as it was.

Five minutes into the forest and the gap between them was steadily widening. Meiling decided continuing her silence would serve no purpose.

"So," she said, pitching her voice loud enough so that the scary looking man could hear her from a few meters ahead, "You are Water Tribe, then."

It was a ridiculous statement. Meiling knew it was a ridiculous statement. Thankfully it was ridiculous enough to stop the man dead in his tracks, if only for a moment.

"You caught me," he said flatly, still not looking back. He kept walking, but Meiling had managed to scramble a few paces closer.

"New theory," she continued, hating the way her feet tried to slip out from underneath her every time she stepped on a rock. A faint rushing sound up ahead hinted that there was a river or stream somewhere close. "You did get arrested for your papers, and it just so happens that you're some kind of assassin who snuck into the Earth Empire and is trying to get back out."

Wei looked like he would have told her to shut up if he weren't so mentally and physically exhausted. Which, okay, she really didn't feel like talking after watching…watching everything that had happened back there. But. But. Even if the man in front of them scared the ever-loving shit out of her, he was obviously an enemy of the empire. And there was that whole 'the enemy of my enemy' thing to be considered. Also, she doubted any other possible aid was going to drop out of the sky anytime soon. Wei might be fine with conning their way across the empire and praying that Kuvira didn't catch up, but Meiling wasn't.

The rushing sound got closer, and, sure enough, up ahead a rain-swollen stream stretched into view. They fell into step along the bank quietly, and Meiling had accepted that she wasn't going to get an answer.

She had been staring so hard at the back of his head that she nearly started and fell into the water when the man glanced briefly over his shoulder at her.

"Your reasoning?" he asked in that deep, rumbling voice that sounded like it could crush a man all by itself.

She was so stunned that it took a moment for her to regather her thoughts. "Your papers had been confiscated," she explained, "so obviously you had papers. You being a waterbender would have been enough to warrant arresting, but the guards looked shocked to see you bending, which is why they didn't react fast enough. So, it really was a problem with the papers that got you arrested, then–probably they were fakes.

"The most obvious reason for you to have fake papers would be that you're a foreigner, which is supported by the fact that you are a waterbender who is conspicuously not in a government camp. The fact that you have papers suggests that you're probably working for someone else who has money and resources to get that kind of stuff. Most likely occupation? Bounty hunter or assassin." She flinched, despite herself, and tried not to remember bleeding bodies and gaping, dead faces. "And you obviously have experience with that sort of thing." She chewed her lip, debating how much to give away, and then decided, eh, why not. "Also, back at the station, you caved and started talking right after I added murder to the list of possibilities." Your move, Mr. Prison Guy.

She half expected him to stop again, or at least to finally look at her. Of course he didn't do either.

"You do realize," he said instead, "that that would mean you've both just followed a foreign bounty hunter into the middle of the woods."

An excellent point. The sun would be setting soon too. But then, the way Meiling saw it, if this guy wanted to kill them he could have done it back at the checkpoint.

"Frankly," Wei spoke up for the first time and nearly scared the spit out of her, "Given a choice between taking our chances with a known killer and Kuvira, I think I'd still go with the killer every damn time."

Okay, that was…a little extreme, even for Wei. "Is this because of…what you said during our dramatic parting of ways with her Eminence?"

Wei frowned and looked down at the ground like a petulant child. "Mostly? I mean, I knew she was dangerous before, but…" His mouth hardened into a hard line.

She wanted to ask what had happened, exactly, how he had reasoned that Kuvira had murdered the last avatar, but even she wasn't willing to discuss that in front of a listening stranger.

"So, anyway," Meiling continued, "We're both totally willing to follow a strange bounty hunter as long as it means getting out of the empire."

"And what exactly makes you think I'm going to go out of my way to help two delinquent children get out of the empire?" The man asked. She could hear the stiff facial expression in his voice, if that was actually possible.

"Um, because you're an adult who feels obligated to help out a couple of poor lost teenagers being persecuted by the government?"

"Strangely enough, I don't feel at all obligated."

Wow, what a dick. Well, she hadn't wanted to do this, but if that was how things were going to be…

"Really?" she asked, feeling sly smile coming on. "Then how about because my brother here is a waterbender too?"

The scary Water Tribe man froze, slowly turning his head to look at her.

It would have been a really successful moment had Wei not stopped and stared at her, slack-jawed. "What?"

Meiling raised an eyebrow at her brother. Play along, Dummy, it's not like we're lying!

Wei seemed to catch on, finally, and shook the stupefied look off of his face. "I mean–yeah. I'm…I'm kind of a waterbender…I guess."

The man was looking back and forth between the two of them, clearly not buying it.

"Okay," he said slowly.

"Okay?" Meiling echoed, confused.

"Okay," he repeated, crossing his arms over his massive chest. "Show me."

"Show you?" Wei squeaked, looking like a rabbitmouse staring down a catowl. "N-Now? Here?"

"Why not?" the waterbender motioned to the stream gushing along happily next to them. The sarcasm in his voice was present enough to get arrested right along with the rest of them if the cops were to show up any time soon. "There's a perfect source of water right there. Even a beginner shouldn't have too much trouble."

"I, huh, haven't really been able to practice." Wei stuttered out, staring at the stream like it was going to bite him.

"It's a little hard to find time to practice an element that's been officially banned with the Dai Li breathing down your neck." Meiling added, hoping that would get the man to back off a bit.

"Well, we've got time," the man said, turning back around, "the next town isn't for a long while yet, though I recommend getting to it before the sun goes down. Wouldn't want to accidentally fall in."

"I hate you," Wei whispered in her ear as he fell back behind her, still staring intently at the water and making some vague hand gestures to coax it into motion.

"I believe in you," she whispered back, giving him a thumbs up.

To the Water Tribe man, she said, "Hey, give him a break! We grew up in Ba Sing Se, and our parents are Equalists." And, there it was again with the half truths, but, well, as much as she believed in Wei's abilities to eventually bend yet another wrong element, she really didn't want this guy to get bored with them and actually leave them behind.

"So city born, Equalist bred, and obviously you've had a bad run-in with the Empress herself," the man said. "Why would that make me want to let you tag along, exactly?"

"Because you and Wei have things in common!" She said. Wei, who was stumbling along the bank waving his hands around like an idiot, paused long enough to give her an extremely dirty look. "I mean, you both hate the government, you both want out of the empire, you and Wei can both waterbend," okay, well, that last part was a work in progress, "and you'll both probably be thrown in government camps if we're caught."

"I still don't see how that makes sticking together an appealing idea."

Meiling huffed in irritation. "Wei, back me up here."

Wei was still thrusting his hands over the water, "Yeah, kind of busy."

"Look, kid," the watertribe man said. "I get what you're trying to do here. But trust me when I say you and your brother are better off not following me around. It'd be less dangerous."

Worried that she was losing ground, she threw out her arms in exasperation. "Dangerous? We attract danger! We attracted you didn't we?"

Wei, still intent on what he was doing, walked smack into her outstretch arm and fell in the stream. The Water Tribe man let out a noise that sounded half between an chuckle and a groan and paused to watch Wei thrash wildly in the water for a moment before he realized that it was only knee deep and sat up, sputtering.

"Oh, yeah," the man mumbled, looking like he was trying very hard not to smirk, "A real waterbender."

Wei spat out a mouthful of water and then grinned. "Ha! Joke's on you, asshole!" He held up his hands over the water, a ball of water about the size of a thimble floating shakily back and forth between his palms before quivering and falling back in the stream.

Meiling blinked, and had to bring her hand up to her mouth to hide her smile. He looked so proud; it was just…she couldn't decide if it was funny or sad.

The Water Tribe man stared blankly at Wei, who was somehow making climbing out of a swollen stream and attempting to wring your clothes dry look self-satisfied.

"Well?" Meiling asked, resting her hands on her hips. You can't pretend you didn't see it. We all know you saw it.

The man sighed, deep and heavily, and for some reason Meiling felt like that was a victory. "Well. I guess, technically, that counts as waterbending."

"Technically!" Wei complained. The loser already had another tiny bead of water suspended between his fingers, and he looked and sounded too fascinated to be too put down. He looked like a dorky little kid who had just watched a Mover with mecha fighting in it for the first time, all awe and enthusiasm. She hadn't realized how much she had missed that look.

The watertribe man placed a meaty hand over his face, rubbing at the worry lines on his forehead before letting it slide away.

"I know some people, in a town a couple of miles from here," he said finally. "They might be able to help get you north."

Well. It wasn't what she had been aiming for, but it was something. "Thank you, sir." Meiling said with as much politeness as she could muster. She even meant it. Mostly.

The man made a noncommittal noise. "Don't call me, sir," he said, and when he started walking away his pace was a little slower. "The name's Anyu."

They walked in silence again after that. This time, it didn't feel quite so heavy.

---

They ended up camping out overnight in the damp forest, which was about as miserable as could be expected without any sleeping bags or suitable shelter. Wei figured they could have at least had a fire despite everything being wet if only Meiling hadn't blabbed to the Water Tribe guy that he was a waterbender. Discomfort be damned–there was no way he was letting on to a complete stranger that he was the avatar. Especially not a stranger who he had watched massacre almost twenty people.

Why is everyone so damn afraid of firebenders? Waterbending is terrifying! He'd be lying, though, if he said he wasn't filing away some of those moves he had seen for later exploration. The images were traumatically burned into his mind anyway–might as well put them to use.

The three of them made it to the town Anyu had mentioned in only a couple of hours the next day. By midmorning they were stumbling into town looking like…well, three people who had just broken out of prison and spent the night in the woods. Luckily Anyu claimed that this place was located pretty far from the main road system, so it was less likely to be swamped by police searching for whoever massacred a government checkpoint. That was assuming, of course, that that particular bloody scene had already been discovered and the word had been put out to local law enforcement.

"Right," Anyu said, the first word he had actually spoken to them aside from a gruff "get up" earlier that morning. "My contact should be open for business today, unless he's moved shop or something big has come up. I'll see what he can do about getting you some passable papers and a ride north." He eyed the two of them like one might eye gum stuck to their shoe. "This shouldn't take long, so just…stay here. And, for spirits' sakes, try not to draw attention to yourselves."

"Oh, yeah," Wei muttered the second the guy was out of sight, leaving them standing in the middle of town between a noodle shop and a used satomobile dealership. "No problem. We'll just stand here inconspicuously. It's not like we look like a couple of damn hobos who crawled out of the wild."

Even Meiling couldn't seem to muster much optimism to counter him. "The rain kind of washed our clothes, at least." Was all she managed, shoulders drooping.

"Huh," Wei said, "Maybe we're so sloppy that no one will recognize us from the wanted posters." He doubted it. The bad thing about being twins was that they were kind of twice as likely to get recognized. "This is a bad idea. We got past the checkpoint, we should just pull another con and get moving again." Though it would probably be a good idea to buy some new clothes first, even if it did drain their funds more.

"Yeah, but if we wait a couple minutes we'll have fake papers and stand a better chance of not getting stopped at the checkpoints." Meiling pointed out.

"Yeah, if this guy comes through for us," Wei said, eyeing the building on the other side of the road that Anyu had entered suspiciously. "If we're careful I bet I could earthbend us over the boarder walls–we'd just need to find a point where there aren't many people patrolling."

Meiling was giving him a look. "Not to say I don't have confidence in your earthbending, but…wow, do you really hate being around Anyu that much?"

"No." Okay, yes, he really, really, really did. Meiling's face told him that she didn't believe him either. "He murdered an entire checkpoint full of people, Mei! And, yeah, that worked out for us, but it's not like he did it for our sakes. And, sure, I'd still take help from the murderer over Kuvira, but we're back in a town, now, with actual other people and resources around–we can make it from here on our own. Besides, It's obvious he doesn't like us tagging along. What happens when he decides we're less of a charity case and more of an inconvenience, huh? So, no, I don't like being around him. I don't trust him, and neither should you!"

A frown set itself firmly on Meiling's lips, which could only mean trouble. "I don't trust him," she huffed. "But, Wei, there are an awful lot of checkpoints between here and the end of the empire–even if we make for the north. We've made it okay this far, but we can't do this forever. Next time we get caught there probably isn't going to be a burly waterbender there to break us out."

Wei felt his tooth digging into his lip again. That cut was never going to fully heal at this rate. "Fine," he bit out, because she did have sort of a point. "We'll take the papers then. But we're not tagging along any more after this, Mei." He stabbed a thumb at the building across the street for emphasis. "At this rate I'd rather walk to the Northern Tribe than hitch a ride with Mister Murder Fists over there."

"You're being very rude about the person who's getting us fake documents." Meiling pointed out, but before he could argue she held up a hand to shush him. "I'm going to go buy us some breakfast, now. Try not to cause any problems before I come back." And just like that she disappeared into the shop they were leaning against before he could offer his opinion one way or another.

"Problems," he muttered under his breath to no one in particular. "Come on, I can take care of myself for five damn minutes."

The universe, it seemed, drew pleasure from proving Wei Yuan wrong whenever possible.

It was pure luck that he caught sight of the small clump of people gathered on the corner on the far end of the street. He wouldn't have noticed them, except the thin, reedy man standing in the center of the group was waving his hands around wildly, fingers jerking in Wei's direction a couple of times and catching his attention. The two men he was talking to were leaned in close, talking quietly together, and they wore matching uniforms that weren't quite military official but definitely spelled out authority figure. Local police, probably. Fabulous. He couldn't tell if they were looking at him exactly. He really hoped his luck wasn't that bad.

Pretending to look disinterestedly across the street, Wei walked a couple of paces to his right, watching the group out of the corner of his eye. The cops' heads turned slightly, following him. Just to be sure, he walked back to the left again, trying to make it look like he was pacing. Their gazes followed him. Damn it.

Okay, so he was being watched. Maybe it wasn't that bad. Maybe the civilian guy was just complaining because he obviously looked homeless. Maybe he owned the satomobile dealership and was irritated that they were loitering. Nonchalantly, Wei moved towards the door of the noodle shop. At least if he went inside he could warn Meiling and hopefully no one would cause a scene with other people around.

"You there!" a voice called from the end of the street. Wei glanced over his shoulder, and, yep, the police were walking towards him, the other guy lingering at the street corner, wringing his hands. Wei ducked his head, pretending not to have heard them.

"You, kid!" the cop called again, unmistakable. "Stop right there!"

His hand was on the door handle when he felt the earth quiver beneath his feet in an all-too-familiar way. He didn't think–he jumped straight up in the air, barely avoiding the stone that came up to swallow where his feet had been a moment before, touching down safely just to the left.

The two police officers in front of him stared at him like he had just sprouted four heads. "Um," Wei said, mind unhelpfully blank as he tried to avoid pressing his back into the wall of the building behind him. "What seems to be the problem, officers?"

The shorter of the two stepped forward boldly. "Why didn't you stop when we called you?"

"Oh," Wei said, rubbing the back of his head, "you were talking to me?"

"Of course we were talking to you! You see any other stupid kids loitering around local businesses this time of day?"

"Well, what can I do for you?" Wei asked, heart rate slowly climbing towards panic.

The other officer, taller and with a bushy beard that could make a buffaloyak jealous, clapped a hand on his shoulder, which was nearly enough to make Wei's suddenly weak legs give out beneath him. "We're going to need you to come with us and answer a few questions," he said in a deep, rumbling voice.

"Why?" Wei was no law buff, but he was pretty sure there was supposed to be some sort of legal process here. "Am I under arrest?"

Shorty smiled thinly. It was not at all reassuring. "Not unless you've done something to be arrested for."

They totally know. Wei decided. Well, maybe they didn't know, know–if they knew about the checkpoint incident they wouldn't be bothering with niceties, but they were looking him over way too keenly to not have recognized him from the wanted posters.

Wei sized up the two men. They didn't look half as nasty as most of the metalheads that he's seen in the mecha fighting arenas, but they were police, which meant they weren't pushovers bending-wise. Maybe if he could surprise them somehow he would have a chance to get away, but he couldn't leave Meiling behind, and he currently had his back up against a wall, literally.

Before he could think of any sort of smart solutions the door to the shop swung open and Meiling stepped out onto the street, two steaming bowls in her hands.

The officer with the beard, who was closest to the door, was the only one to give her a glance, both of them too focused on their intended target to pay much mind. In the fraction of a moment it took for the man to look away, Meiling's eyes darted from Wei to the arm on his shoulder to the two officers intent on arresting him, and before Wei could force a warning past his lips there was a bowlful of hot broth in the tall officer's face and the hand on his shoulder was gone.

Beardy bent over in pain, hands covering his scalded face and eyes. Shorty took his eyes off of Wei finally, and Wei braced himself against the wall and kicked the man right in the kneecap with a sickening crunch. Shorty went down like a felled tree, howling in pain. Wei tried not to think about it too hard as he launched himself over the man's body and out into the street, snatching Meiling's hand to drag her with him.

They only made it a couple of steps before the road beneath their feet reared up like a startled ostritchhorse and nearly sent them tumbling on their asses because apparently Beardy was up again and out for blood. Reacting more than thinking, Wei yanked Meiling closer to him, rooted his stance, and dug his feet sharply into the ground, forcing the terrain beneath and around their feet to still and solidify in a circular patch of stability about three yards across.

My range is getting better, he reflected distantly. The last time Kuvira had pulled something like this on him he had only been able to manage a two yard diameter at best.

Wei didn't get much time to consider it because now there were chunks of rock lifting up from the ground and flying at them as the bearded officer seemed pretty put off that Wei was putting up a fight. Wei ignored the primal part of his mind screaming at him to move so that he could dodge and weave instead of standing there and actively blocking the blows, bracing himself against the bent weight coming at them and bringing up barriers only to sink them back into the earth a moment later so as not to trap them. That's what he would have done in earthbending practice for the most part. And that had worked in earthbending practice but back then he hadn't had a nonbending sister who was much less practiced at dodging thrown into the mix. It was better to stay put and focus on keeping their little safe island of ground stable so that it didn't rise up and trap their feet.

Besides, Wei considered, punching clean through a rock that he couldn't freeze in the air fast enough. This meathead's punches weren't even close to being scary as Kuvira's.

"Is he actually trying to kill us?" Meiling shrieked when another chunk of earth flew past their heads. The shouting pedestrians running for covered locations to get out of the line of fire seemed to concur.

No, he's aiming for the hands, mostly. The rock shapes coming at them weren't the neat gloves that the Dai Li used to apprehend, and his aim was a lot more shaky, but Wei could see that that was probably what had inspired the motions. He's probably not a metalbender, either, if he's trying to hand cuff me with rocks.

He was so sidetracked making sure that the bastard didn't take out his head with his rotten aim that he missed the other officer rising to prop himself up on his good knee. He noticed him out of the corner of his eye just in time to see a flash of light on metal as the asshole's shoulder plate flew through the air and snapped onto Wei's outstretched wrists. The momentum sent him toppling sideways, and of course since his hands were tied, he couldn't catch himself and would have smacked face-first into the ground if Meiling hadn't barely caught him.

"You son of a buzzardwasp!" Beardy snarled, yanking him up by his shirt collar. Wei tried to tell Meiling to make a run for it, but before the words were even on his lips there was a shirk of metal flying through the air and suddenly her feet were knocked out from under her as the metal from Shorty's other shoulder pad cuffed her by the ankles. And, okay, for someone who was still mostly slumped on the ground, Shorty was looking awfully damn smug.

"I don't care who the brat is," Beardy said, eyes red and scalded and spit flying angrily off of his lips, "central command said they only wanted him alive. They didn't say nothing about him not being roughed up."

That's didn't sound good. Behind him, Meiling had managed to worm her way back to her feet and had a look on her face set to kill, a scrape on her chin from the fall she'd taken. Wei was getting just a little pissed.

"Call in to the station," Beardy shouted over to his partner, visibly more relaxed too with both of them in cuffs.

Dumbass. Wei shifted his weight, leaning back and bracing himself.

Fun fact that most law-abiding officials never considered: mecha piloting required you to bend with all of your limbs. Legs included.

In the next moment, two things happened. One, Anyu tore open the door of his associate's office, grimly determined to find out what the commotion on the street had been.

Two, Wei snapped up his foot and kicked the bearded officer squarely in the chest, using the forward motion of his foot to bend the cuffs on his hands free. The loose and still malleable metal continued forward in the air until it collided with the police officer's already scalded face, and Wei used his now free hands to wrap the metal around his head in a blindfold.

The man wheezed from the impact, staggering backwards blindly and flailing out his hands to find something to balance on. Before he could manage, Wei snatched one of his wrists out of the air with one hand, crouched, and contorted the metal band off of Meiling's ankles, guiding it forward to wrap around the earthbender's other wrist and bringing it snapping together around the one he was holding, binding him like Wei had been a moment ago.

"The other one!" Meiling shouted. Wei figured she meant for him to do something about him too before he could be a problem again, but when Wei turned his attention to the other cop he was laid out on his stomach, one of his arms pulled back straight behind him by strong hands and a sturdy foot pressed to his back, holding him down.

Anyu was not staring at the officer of the law that he was almost crushing, and he wasn't looking at the other officer cuffed on the ground either. He was watching Wei, eyes narrowed in an unreadable expression.

"What's his problem?" Wei muttered, feeling uncomfortably like an antelopefox caught in headlights.

"I…" Meiling, sounding uncharacteristically nervous, stopped, cleared her throat and tried again. "You metalbent at that guy just now."

Well, yeah, but that shouldn't be that strange. Anyu certainly shouldn't have any objection to violence, unless he was the biggest damn hypocrite in the world. And, sure, Wei was a bit young for a metalbender, but they were in the Earth Empire so it shouldn't be that big of a surprise.

"You're supposed to be a waterbender, Dumbass," Meiling hissed under her breath when he didn't respond.

Wei felt the bottom drop out of his stomach, and that sharp blue gaze felt like shards of ice stabbing him in the chest. "Oh." Oh fuck.

He took a step backwards, instinctually, like a nervous animal. Then he turned and took off running back across the street. He made it about eight good paces before there was a hand on the back of his shirt, and okay, he would really appreciate it if people would stop grabbing him by the collar like he was someone's lost poodlemonkey.

Anyu's hands pushed him the rest of the way across the street, releasing him with a heavy shove that nearly had him slamming into the wall of the noodle shop. He had barely regained his balance when the same pair of hands grabbed his shoulders and forced him sharply against the wall.

The Water Tribe man had a good foot on him, maybe even more. Pinned underneath his seething gaze, Wei felt even shorter, and this close he got a detailed view of the angry scar leading from the edge of the man's hairline above his right eyebrow trailing over the bridge of his nose and ending just above his top lip.

"You're an earthbender." He stated. If Wei hadn't spent the last month reading people in the palace he might have called his voice calm. He could see Meiling hovering a few feet behind Anyu, wringing her hands anxiously but clearly at a loss for what to do.

"N–" Wei started. The fingers on his shoulder tightened. "Y-Yes."

"And a waterbender." There was definitely a growl underneath his words this time.

"Yes." The fingers on his shoulders loosened fractionally. There was a glint in Anyu's eyes that Wei was starting to associate with murder.

"How old are you?" Anyu demanded, and from the twist of his lips it looked like he literally had to force the words out of his mouth.

"Do you really want to know that?" Wei couldn't help but ask because, if their roles were reversed, he knew he sure as summer would rather not.

"How old?" He repeated, another hint of a growl that sent the beads of sweat on Wei's forehead dripping.

"Fifteen," he breathed, barely audible even to his own ears. The hands holding him went slack.

Anyu wasn't looking at him. He was staring at the brick wall above his head, tightlipped and brows evened out into an expression somewhere between contemplation and loathing. Wei wondered idly if he had actually held any hope that he was going to get a different answer.

Anyu's body tensing was Wei's only warning before one of his big, meaty fists shot out and slammed into the wall about a foot to his left.

"Son of a buzzardwasp," he shouted.

When he pealed back his hand there was a cracked dent in the brick and Wei was distinctly glad that his bladder was empty.

Anyu straightened, and, ignoring both the dent in the wall and Wei completely, took off walking down the street, taking long, halting strides. Meiling and Wei shared a wide-eyed glance. Then, despite Wei shaking his head furiously, Meiling steeled herself and slowly crept after him, leaving Wei with little choice but to reluctantly follow behind.

Pedestrians had started peeking out from shop fronts and street corners, back to being curious rather than scared now that the commotion had died down. They really needed to be clearing out of here soon. Wei wasn't sure how many police officers there would be for a small, out of the way town like this, but it was still probably more than he wanted to deal with.

Anyu stormed into the parking lot of the used satomobile dealership and up to a satomobile that sat parked but running right near the exit. Inside sat two people, a salesman and a prospective buyer, presumably out for a test drive. Anyu tapped on the driver's side glass. The two men stared at him open-mouthed with fear, but silent. The Water Tribe man brought his fingers to his temples, as if warding off a headache, and sighed heavily through his nose.

"Get out of the vehicle," he said, again with the near-calm that made Wei's stomach churn. The salesman slammed open the passenger-side door and both of them piled out of the satomobile, scrambling off towards the dealership as fast as their legs could carry them.

Anyu got into the still running vehicle, slamming the door shut behind him. He sat in the driver's seat, hands resting on the wheel.

"Is he going to leave us here?" Meiling wondered. Wei didn't bother with an answer. He kind of hoped he would.

Anyu didn't move though. He just sat there, hands on the wheel, leaning back in his seat and staring through the windshield into the far, far distance at something Wei couldn't see. A full minute passed. Two. Still no move was made to drive away. People were starting to wander closer, a crowd gathering around the two downed police officers. Wei was wondering if they should start walking–make for the edge of town and head for the forest again.

"Um," Meiling–for some stupid reason–called out to the occupied satomobile, "Is there anything–"

Anyu held up a silencing hand in her direction without even turning to look at her, continuing to stare at nothing. They stood watching him a little longer, their own pocket of uncomfortable quiet in the steadily building uproar of a town that was probably about to turn nasty really soon.

Wei was about to grab his twin and insist that they get moving before someone noticed them standing there when the back door to the satomobile on the drivers-side was thrown open. Both of them were so stunned for a moment that neither of them moved. When neither of them were quick on the uptake, Anyu rolled down the window.

"Get in the damn vehicle." His voice was flat, face devoid of expression.

All thoughts of making a run for it fled Wei's mind. Wordlessly they both crawled into the back of the satomobile. The moment the door closed behind them and they had buckled in, Anyu adjusted the stick to drive and they pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road. He didn't seem overly concerned at the flood of people in the street a building over–just turned them in the other direction and gunned it.

"Um," Wei said, finally finding his voice somewhere down near his toes, "Where are we going?"

Anyu drew in a heavy breath through his nose, held it, and released it in what could pass for a snarl. "You're the avatar."

Wei flinched at the mix of irritation and exasperation thrown into the word. "Well, yeah, that's been established–"

"The Empress knows. Doesn't she?" he continued, clearly not caring for lengthy responses. "That's why you're on the run."

"Yeah," Wei admitted, wondering why the guy hadn't pulled over and thrown them out by now if he was so worried about that. It's probably what he would have done, in his place.

Another hiss of breath, and from between the seats Wei could see his hands tightening on the steering wheel until his knuckles were almost white.

"You need to get to the Fire Nation," Anyu said through clenched teeth. "And–spirits help us all–it look's like I'm going to have to be the one to take you there."

---

Alright, so, good-news/bad-news time:

The good news: After the tension of the past two chapters, the next two chapters are going to be a two-parter side adventure with spirit shenanigans that will hopefully serve as a nice breather before the main plot drop-kicks everyone again. I haven't quite decided yet if I will be posting both chapters together or splitting them up like usual due to current writing time constraints, which leads us to...

The bad news: So, I'm currently in preparations for moving abroad at the end of the month, which is sort of why this chapter took a bit longer to come out. Between actually moving in a couple of days, getting everything set up in the new place, and starting up classes again after a five month break, I have no idea how much free time I'm going to have in October. In order to reduce stress, I've made the decision to skip October's update and use whatever free time I have to catch up on writing. Sorry for the inconvenience–hope you all have a lovely October!