Chaos Theory
Chapter 5
"Spirits, the Rough Rhinos…" Wan gasped, "…how did they find us?!"
"Shh!" Rin tried to silence her brother. The two of them were crossing an open field, and even though they would have seen pursuit a mile away, literally, she wasn't about to take any chances, "save your breath for running!"
"We didn't…we were just trying to survive! We just delivered messages!" Wan said, tears in his eyes, "we never killed anyone! …did we?"
"It doesn't matter to them," replied Wan, "it's the Rough Rhino! They don't care about any of that! All they want is blood!"
"Oh, but we do," said a new, soft voice, "in fact, we do this horrible thing that we do, because we can't not care."
Rin felt tears in her eyes, when she heard that voice. It could belong to only one person.
She yanked her dagger from the sheath on her belt, and tried to plunge it in her stomach, but a strong, firm hand caught her wrist just as the steel bit flesh.
"Oh no," the grip on Rin's wrist became searing hot, and she dropped the knife, "we don't want that, not yet."
She looked to her brother, and saw a man standing behind him, wearing a blue Oni mask with a sword in each hand. Wan was on his knees, hands bound behind his back, and the tip of a sword at his throat.
"Please…please don't do this," Rin wept.
"Please do not act as if this were my fault," said the fire bender, "this is the end you chose when you joined the Red Lotus."
"We never hurt anyone!" Wan said, half believing, "we just delivered messages!"
"As if that were not enough, you are believer of the Red Lotus," the Fire Bender said, "and that? That is enough. You, and all your ilk, know us, do you not?"
"…yes," Rin whispered.
"Good," the Firebender grabbed the young woman by the hair, and dragged her back to their camp, "but it's clear to me that you don't know us well enough. Come along young lady, you require an education."
Neither Rin nor Wan had really seen the Rough Rhinos when they attacked. All they heard was an old Fire Nation warhorn, their signature announcement, and then the camp had erupted into chaos. Earth, arrows, water and fire flew with lethal precision.
All the siblings could do was run.
It was only now that they saw how few their attackers were. There were two members of the Southern Water tribe who looked to be twins, an archer wearing old Fire Nation warpaint, a large man, six foot if he was an inch, with metal ribbons hanging from his wrists, a statuesque woman who wore a forger's apron and carried two glowing hot swords, and the last was bare-chested man in Hami sand clan garb.
Rin saw her comrades were in the center of the camp, sunken into the earth but to their necks. The large man stared at them like a wolf ready to lunge.
"General," said one of the water benders, "we were able to claim one of their codebooks."
"Excellent," said the Fire-Bender, "but it may not be enough. The Red Lotus changes their methods all the time."
The Fire Bender grinned at Rin.
"You rats always find new ways to scurry about, don't you?"
"Please," Rin said softly, "we never meant to hurt anyone. We'll turn ourselves in, we'll do anything, you don't have to do this!"
The Fire Bender sighed dramatically.
"Yes, yes we do," he said, "because of you, actually. Thresh?"
Rin quivered as the large man with the metal ribbons stalked over to them.
"…why me?" Rin's voice was barely above a whisper.
The Fire bender pushed Rin to her knees, and stepped in front of her.
"Because you know me, and yet, you still cling to the disgusting ideals of the Red Lotus," he spat, "you spread the disease of war across the earth nation while claiming to cure it! And now, when faced with a monster equal to your own cause, you beg and mew pathetically. You know my name, and yet you do not fear it!"
"Please…!"
"Thresh," the Fire Bender pointed to Wan, "the brother."
The metal ribbons on Thresh's wrist moved like a living thing, and entangled Wan until nothing could be seen of him except for a metal cocoon, that Thresh hoisted above his head.
Wan's screams were hard to hear through the metal, and above that of his sister's.
"Please! I did this! I made him join!" Rin begged, her face a mess of tears and snot. She remembered how she promised her mother, promised her father that she would always protect her little brother, and now he was little more than a scrap of meat in the mouth of a wolf, "hurt me! Not him! I'll do anything!"
"If you want my mercy," the Fire Bender opened his palm, and a blue flame emerged from his flame, "then pray to me. Say my name, say the name that you so casually disregarded. Say! My! Name!"
"Zhao!" Rin screamed, choking back sobs, "General Zhao! The great and powerful! Zhao!"
"…it's never Admiral," he muttered
"I beg you!" Rin tugged at General Zhao's pants like a pauper begging a king, "Please! Kill me, just spare my brother!"
"Very well," the young Firebender smirked, "the spirits returned me home to bring balance, to make penance for my wrongs. Butching your brother won't bring that. I see that now. Thresh?"
Thresh channeled his will through the metal that held Wan, and the metal cocoon shrank, and blood rained down on Thresh like a summer's mist. With a shrug, he lit his ribbons fall to the earth in front of Rin, and reveal what was now left of her brother.
No one who didn't know it was once a young man before, would have recognized it as once a human being now.
"Nooooo…!" Rin lunged at General Zhao, but he slapped her aside effortlessly.
"You promised! You said…!"
"I said I would spare him, and I did," said the General, "you, and the rest of your band, will not be nearly so fortunate. Thresh?"
Rin felt the blood soaked hand of the earth bender tighten around her throat. The giant of a man loomed over Rin, the blood of brother dripping from his brow, and falling unto hers.
"Thresh is not a man of many words, I'm afraid," said General Zhao, "not after he lost his family to bandits, after the Red Lotus was kind enough to kill the local tribal leader. He was simply a farmer, who taught himself metal bending. He speaks only through action."
Rin struggled, but the man's grip was iron.
"But his old life still comes in handy. You would be amazed how many animals he knows how to skin."
Much, much later
"That was a bit much, wasn't it?"
General Zhao, who had been pondering the night sky, turned his head to face his subordinate.
"Maybe," General Zhao said, "but the point of what we do is to instill fear. So much fear that any fool who even thinks of joining the Red Louts will look to the shadows to find us. And that is not accomplished with a subtle, nuanced performance."
"Nor is it accomplished, General," Esna said the title sarcastically, "if you don't leave anyone alive to spread the word. Dead men tell no tales."
"Is that why you simply watched?"
"We told you, 'Genera', that we have limits," Desna said, "we're here to avenge our father, not indulge in sadism."
General Zhao shrugged, "Fair enough. Force of habit, I suppose. I was still debating what to do with the codebook, and got a little carried away."
"And what do we do with it, General?" said Deska, "we lack the resources to use it properly. We should turn it over to the Water Tribe, or the Fire Nation. Maybe even the United Republic."
"Maybe," General Zhao rubbed his chin, "but we know from experience that the Red Lotus is adaptable, fluid. If they know that one of the major nations has compromised their security, they could change everything before a lethal blow could be landed."
"What makes you certain that you could even read it?" asked Esna, "Zaheer's people would have anticipated the possibility of their codebooks falling into enemy hands. And you've left no one alive who might be able to read it."
General Zhao smirked, "My father was something of a military genius, and he taught me well. I'm confident that I can decipher the book, in time."
"Yes, but…" Desna glanced to the sky, and the words in her mouth trailed off. The sky became an ugly color, and the two twins felt as if their heart was filled with oil.
"My home…," General Zhao doubled over as every inch of his body felt as if it were cast in flame. He felt as if every ounce of agony he'd inflicted in his life had come back to him ten fold, and yet, the fear for the fate of the Spirit world was all that he allowed in his mind, "…what's happening to my home?!"
A name sank into their minds, into the mind of every member of the Rough Rhinos, but only General Zhao could speak the name aloud with all hatred and bile it truly deserved.
"Vaatu!"
End Chapter.