A.N.: So this kinda took a long time. Oops. But it's longer, to make up for it!

*Discretely shuffles away*


Chapter Seven: Bender


"There might be a blockade," Lee warned. "After the break out from the Metal Rock, the Fire Nation will be patrolling this part of the coast. We'll have to fly high. Maybe you and Katara could bend a cloud, or something."

The four of them were on Appa, racing against time to arrive to the island Aang had seen in the Spirit World; it was a few miles South and a lot of miles West of the Hei Bai forest. While Katara was not enthusiastic about the backtracking or the fact that the island was, hello, in the Fire Nation, she supported the idea of Aang getting some of his Avatar stuff sorted out. She had a feeling the events with the Hei Bai spirit wouldn't be an isolated occurrence and she'd rather nobody was kidnapped again.

They had been in the sky for hours already, bored out of their minds, but she balked at Lee's suggestion. "I'm not good enough to do anything like that yet." She could barely bend enough water to fill a medium-sized bowl. Well, except that time she crumbled an entire iceberg when she went fishing with Sokka, but that was different, because she'd been angry, and she wasn't quite sure how she did it.

"Don't say that, Katara! I'm sure we could do it we tried," Aang piped up. He turned to Lee. "But do you think we should make a detour, just in case?"

Sokka, who was studying Aang's map on his lap, shook his head. "We have to fly straight. We'll never make it before sunset otherwise." He groaned. "It's still gonna take hours."

It did take hours. Travelling by flying bison was fast and convenient, but there wasn't much to do. After a while Katara let Aang convince her to give cloud-bending a go - trying wouldn't hurt, and it would chase away the boredom for a while. They stood on the saddle in identical stances, trying to pull the clouds towards them. It was fun, at first - until the thin wisps of white trailing behind the bison refused to coalesce no matter how stubbornly Katara clawed at them.

"Let's try again!" Aang enthused for the fifth time.

Katara's mouth thinned. "I don't know how to grab it," she ground out.

"Try this," he suggested, moving his arms like a pendulum. Katara readjusted her stance to mimic his, but it didn't do anything. Ugh. Come on.

"You're too stiff."

She was so concentrated on what she was doing she jumped at Lee's statement. He was sitting on the edge of the saddle with Sokka, his chin resting on his hand, watching their attempts through half-lidded eyes. Exhaling through her nose, Katara unclenched her teeth and tried to relax. She could feel the water in the air and it would start moving when she tugged, but then it slipped away like sand between her fingers.

"No, the motion of each arm has to complement the other. Like push, and pull," he added.

She dropped her arms and rounded on him. "And what would you know about bending, huh?" Without waiting for his reaction, she stomped to the opposite side of the saddle and plopped down, fuming.

Aang hesitated. "I thought you improved in that last try. Do you want to go again?"

It probably wasn't fair to take her frustration out on others. She swallowed her anger and tried to speak in a gentler tone. "No, Aang. Thanks, but I'm kind of tired." She leaned her elbow on the side of the saddle and looked out at the vast expanse of sea below. Travelling by flying bison also meant one didn't have the privacy to brood in peace. Still, for the following couple of hours Katara refused to look at anyone. Especially Lee, who probably found it funny that she was a failure.

Back home she'd been proud of her bending. It made her feel special, to be able to do something nobody else could, even if she was mocked for it more than she was praised. She'd been a bit jealous of Aang when she met him, because he was two years younger than her and already a Master of his element, but he was the Avatar, so that was alright. Then they started meeting other benders in their travels, and she realized that she actually sucked. Like, bad. Even Haru, who'd been forced to practice in secret for who knew how many years, was better at it than her.

She didn't show off her bending so much anymore, choosing to train privately instead. She'd been watching Aang and the earthbenders they'd come across and she'd even copied some of the moves she'd seen Lee do with his swords, but it was like there was a disconnection between her body and the water, some sort of block that made it feel more like trying to move sticky glue. It just didn't flow.

What was Lee's deal anyway? She stole a glance at him; he was cleaning his swords. You're too stiff. Hmph. Like he knew anything about waterbending.

A dark line of smoke in the wide blue emptiness below caught her attention. "Guys! There's a ship following us!"

Everyone scrambled to the edges of the saddle. "It's Zhao," Lee said. He crawled to the front of the saddle. "There's no blockade. That's strange."

"Incoming!" Sokka cried. Appa ducked as a burning rock flew over their heads, launched from a catapult on the ship's deck.

Aang twirled onto Appa's head and urged him higher. "Come on, buddy, we have to lose them. We can't let them follow us to the island."

Appa grunted and pushed a bit faster to rise above a layer of clouds.

By the time they arrived to the island, the position of Zhao's ship was marked by a dark plume in the horizon. They hadn't managed to lose him. Appa landed in a sheltered space underneath a rocky overhang and rolled onto his back, exhausted; all the packs in the saddle clattered to the ground. "Let's go!" Aang urged. "We have to get to the temple before the sun sets, and before Zhao catches up!"

Lee pursed his lips. "You three go on. I'll distract Zhao to buy you some time." He walked over to his upturned pack and picked it up.

Katara, Sokka and Aang stared at each other uneasily. They couldn't just leave Lee against a whole shipload of Fire Nation soldiers, but the sun was sinking and the ship was getting closer. Sensing their hesitation, he paused the search through his pack and looked at them. "I'll be fine. I've done stuff like this before. I'm the Blue Spirit, remember?"

"I'll stay, too," Sokka declared.

"No, you need to go with Aang. There are Fire Sages inside that temple that you'll have to deal with too." He huffed. "Look, if it gets too dangerous, I promise I'll run away." He resumed digging for his mask.

All of a sudden Katara felt really guilty for yelling at him before. Maybe he wasn't a bender, but he'd been trying to help.

There wasn't time to think of anything else, so the three of them left Lee behind and raced up the long, winding trail of stone steps to the temple. It was a large tower with golden walls and red roofs that glistened in the setting sun, the only element of color among the otherwise black rock of the volcano. Katara had never seen such a tall building before, but there were more pressing things to do than stop to gawk.

It turned out Lee had been right about the Fire Sages; luckily, one of them was on their side and agreed to guide them to the chamber at the center of the temple. His name was Shyu. Unluckily, said chamber could only be opened by the combined action of five firebenders shooting fire into the mouths of five golden dragons at the same time. Oh, come on. Was Roku really on their side or just messing with them?

Through what Sokka called Creative Problem Solving but was really just a liberal application of explosives they tricked the other Fire Sages into thinking Aang had managed to bypass the mechanism and was already inside. As soon as the old men opened the chamber to get to him, Aang flew over their heads, the doors immediately closing behind him. As much as they tried, the Sages couldn't get them to open again after that.

Instead they turned around and captured Katara, Sokka and Shyu, but hey, at least Aang got his audience with the mysterious and fickle spirit of Avatar Roku.

They were marched to a column and tied to it with metal chains. Katara had been taken prisoner many times by now, and while being restrained didn't terrify her as much as it used to, she still hated that feeling of helplessness.

"The door still won't open!" one of the Sages said. "What should we do?"

She wiggled, trying to make some room. Next to her, Sokka was doing the same. Maybe between the two of them they could create just enough space for her beanpole brother to slip out. The Sages were too busy debating among themselves to notice what they were doing.

"You will do nothing." The cultured drawl came from behind Katara, from the corridor that led to the chamber. She'd only heard the voice once, but it sent a shiver down her spine. "If the Avatar is inside, at some point, he will have to come out."

Zhao.

She couldn't see him from her position, but she could hear his heavy steps getting closer to her pillar, followed by the metallic sounds of armored soldiers behind him. Her stomach sank. What happened to Lee?

"Who are you?" asked the oldest Sage.

"I am Zhao, Captain of the Navy. I have come to capture the Avatar and take him to the Fire Lord." He entered her field of vision then. He was holding one of his arms stiffly against his chest, but otherwise showed no signs of having been in a fight. His eyes slanted to the side and froze her in place. He was a firebender, but his eyes were like daggers, like ice.

"Rest assured, I won't kill you," he said, voice slimy smooth. "You're not even worth a bounty, so there would be no point. I'm sure we could find another use for you." Katara shivered. "Your friend the Blue Spirit, on the other hand - now that's a bounty I'm looking forwards to cashing in."

Her stomach went cold.

"There's no way a salami like you managed to kill him!" Sokka shouted.

"Yeah," she added, but her voice wavered. It couldn't be. Lee's not dead, I know it. Her eyes narrowed at Zhao. "Yeah," she repeated more strongly, "you're just making it up. You're not even a Captain, you're banished, Lee told us about it."

The Sages stared at Zhao with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. A muscle in his jaw twitched, his gaze on Katara turning hard. "Maybe keeping you alive is too much trouble, after all." And before she even registered his words, he lunged, and fire erupted from his fist.

She screamed, unable to look away from the flames. The blast was big enough that it would swallow the whole column, a dragon roaring for her death, they were going to die they were going to - Shyu jerked against the chains, yelling too, but it was too late, the chains didn't let him move enough to bend away the fire, it was hot -

Terror had shrunk her pupils to pinpricks, frozen her eyes open, so Katara saw every second of it: the dark, nimble shape that jumped between their column and the fire, the familiar movement he made with his swords, like a circle or a spiral, and the way the fire, impossibly, amazingly, dissipated into thin air.

The Blue Spirit sprung like a firecracker towards Zhao, blade clanging against armor. Then all the soldiers Zhao had brought and the Sages were on him. Lee was good, but he couldn't hold his own against so many people in such a cramped space. In less than a minute his face was pressed to the floor, three men straining to hold him down. He managed to kick one of them in the face and send him reeling back, clutching his nose, but the wounded soldier was immediately replaced by another one.

Katara was a jumble of confused emotions. Relief at being alive, incomprehension because had Lee actually bent the fire? Fear when one of the men holding him grabbed him by his hair and smashed his masked face against the ground, and Lee's limbs stopped flailing. Hope that Aang would open the chamber and save them all.

"Let me through," Zhao ordered, pushing his way past the men that surrounded Lee. He crouched next to him and grabbed his hair again, lifting his head. "Not so smug now, are we?"

Zhao tore Lee's mask off. His eyes widened in recognition. "What?"

Chaos erupted. The doors to the inner chamber burst open and the men that hadn't been occupied with Lee blasted fire inside, but it was reflected back at them by an old man in Fire Nation robes and the glowing eyes of the Avatar, and they scrambled back, screaming. The chains around her torso melted away without hurting her skin. People shouted. "Avatar Roku!" "He's going to destroy the temple!"

Katara ducked behind the column and clutched her head, eyes screwed shut, while fire and rock rained on around her.

"Help me get Lee!" Sokka shouted, grabbing her upper arm and pulling her up.

They zig-zagged around collapsing pieces of roof and cracks of lava opening in the ground towards where they'd last seen him. Zhao was grappling with a semi-conscious Lee, snarling something at him before knocking him out with a punch to the head. He lifted his fist for another blow, but Sokka smashed into his side with a cry of "Hyaaaaa!", toppling him over.

Katara grabbed Lee's arm and dragged him away from the fissure opening beneath their feet; the gap spread, running between Sokka and Zhao and forcing them to roll away from each other. Zhao shot a fire blast over the fissure, but Shyu appeared in front of Sokka to stop it just in time. The two men engaged in a firebending duel over the crack, punching fire at each other.

In the midst of the chaos, the spirit of Avatar Roku melted into the smaller figure of Aang. Sokka raced to catch him. Around them the temple rumbled and shook, the floor starting to lean to one side. Katara shook Lee frantically. They had to get out now or they'd be buried under hundreds of tonnes of stone and metal.

"Lee! Lee, wake up!" He stirred and blinked, his eyes coming into focus. "Come on, we have to go!" They staggered through the burning building behind Sokka and Aang as the slope of the floor became steeper, until their feet were sliding, rather than running. Katara looked back once, just in time to see Zhao's fire push Shyu into one of the fiery fissures. The old man's cry was engulfed by the booming crashes thundering through the temple.

For a moment she was holding Zhao's gaze across the collapsing room. Disdain and hatred danced in his eyes. Then Lee gripped her tunic and threw her out the window.

A slap of cold air stung her face. Katara didn't have time to scream before she landed on Appa's saddle on her hands and knees. Lee fell down next to her with a grunt and the flying bison accelerated, Roku's temple collapsing behind them in a slow-motion cascade of rocks and lava.


"Oh, man." Sokka flopped back on his bedroll. "That was intense."

"We should have gone back for Shyu," Aang stated hollowly. Transforming into his past self had taken everything out of him.

His words brought back the memory of how the earth had swallowed up the one decent Fire person they knew like a greedy beast. He wasn't swallowed up, she amended in her mind. He was pushed. Katara's chest constricted. It was an awful and depressing thing to think about. She felt drained, physically and emotionally.

They had found a small uninhabited island to settle down in for the night. It was much too close to the temple's island for Katara to feel safe, but Appa just couldn't carry them any further. They hadn't built a campfire for fear of being seen, so it was cold, on top of everything.

"It's way too risky, Aang," Sokka replied. "Don't worry. I'm sure he made it out."

Katara decided not to correct him. Aang had enough to deal with as it was.

She glanced at Lee, who was lying down a few feet away with his back to her. Now that the danger had passed she recalled, as if through a fever dream, the moment when he made the fireball disappear. But it was just impossible. He couldn't be a firebender. They would have found out by know.

Right. Shyu managed to bend it, or maybe Zhao's attack just ran out of juice. Or maybe there's a technique Lee knows to dispel fire by making wind with his swords, or something.

She tossed and turned fitfully that night, her eyes snapping open at every little sound around their camp. When she finally did sink into sleep, Zhao's dark eyes followed her there, chasing her from all sides, caging in her every movement. She startled awake, fear constricting her throat.

Calm down. Just a dream. Aang was safe, sleeping next to Sokka. Lee-

-wasn't in his bedroll.

She continued staring at it, but he didn't magically materialize.

Katara stood up carefully. She spun around, peering into the darkness, her heart pounding. The island they were on was bare of vegetation, save for a lone tree standing guard next to their camp; moonlight illuminated the desolate volcanic rock from shore to shore. It was like he'd vanished.

He took Appa, she realized, her stomach sinking. The looming lump of ancient beast was also notoriously absent. She looked up at the sky, and, sure enough, she spotted a dark bison-shaped blotch, gradually getting bigger. He's coming back?

Katara scurried behind the solitary tree and watched as Lee landed Appa far enough away that the others wouldn't be woken up by the noise. He was wearing his Blue Spirit attire, the complete set with black clothes and arm guards. His movements were heavy with weariness as he petted the bison and murmured praises.

Katara crept forwards until she stood directly behind him. "Where did you go?" she whispered furiously.

Lee jumped three feet in the air and whirled around. "Holy sh- Katara!"

They both winced at the volume of his shout. Behind them, Aang rolled over. Sokka made sleepy noises. "Keep it down, Momo," he mumbled, before his snores resumed.

Lee lowered his voice. "Nowhere! I just wanted to clear my head."

"If you don't tell me, I'm waking them up," she threatened.

"Wait! Uh... can we pretend that you're dreaming?"

"No." She crossed her arms. "How long have you been doing stuff like this?" The possibility that he might have been secretly sneaking off with Appa every night, without telling anyone, worried her in a way she wasn't able to define.

He lifted his hands in a placating gesture. "It's the first time, I swear."

Katara continued glaring at him, expectant. The wind picked up and carried the scent of ashes and burnt clothing to her nose, and she realized she could be staring a firebender in the face - don't be ridiculous. There was no way Lee was a firebender.

He sighed, deep from his bones. "Look, it's something you might not like to hear."

"Spit it out."

He sat down and crossed his legs, and ran a hand through his hair. His voice wavered. "I went to kill Zhao."

That threw her for a loop. Among all the things he could have said, it wasn't the one she had expected. "What?"

"He's cruel and ruthless and dangerous, Katara. He would have followed us to the North Pole. He would have captured Aang and taken him to the Fire Lord where he'd be a prisoner forever, and he'd have killed the rest of us, and he saw my face-" his words tumbled out in a disorganized rush. "He's done some things that you can't-" he shut his mouth.

Katara had trouble wrapping her head around the concept. He killed Zhao?

She didn't know what to say. She didn't even know what to feel.

There was no doubt in her mind that Zhao was a monster. He razed an entire town and tried to incinerate her and her brother alive. He killed Shyu. She should be relieved he was gone. And though some part of her did feel that way, she was also shocked and uneasy.

Lee had done it. Suspecting he'd killed people before wasn't the same as knowing that he'd planned and executed an assassination in cold blood.

As if sensing her thoughts, his face distorted into a grimace. "I hate doing it. But Zhao was too big a threat. Someone had to." He shrugged off the leather belt that tied his swords to his back. The scabbard thumped when it hit the ground. Katara eyed the swords on the floor. I hate doing it. Exactly how many people had he killed?

Just how well did she actually know him?

"I don't think," she started tentatively. "I don't think we should tell Aang."

Lee winced. "No. Please don't."

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Zhao's face was a clear picture in her mind, the triumphant, savage glint in his eyes when he pushed Shyu into the lava. She wasn't stupid, she knew people like that deserved to fall off a cliff and break their neck. But still. "Wasn't there another option? We could have-"

"What?" He stood up abruptly. "Hope he doesn't kill us every time he catches us? Take him along with us as a prisoner?" His voice rose in volume. "Ask him nicely to stop following us?"

Katara shuffled uncomfortably.

He turned his back on her and started taking off his arm guards with frustrated, jerky motions.

"No," she admitted quietly. "I guess not."

There would probably be a time when she'd have to make the choice to kill someone too, she realized. If it was them or Sokka, if it was them or Aang, if the swine who killed her mother was standing right in front of her then maybe... The thought made her feel nauseous. It wasn't a line you could excuse, justify away, uncross. Death was absolute and final.

Maybe Zhao deserved to die, but wouldn't killing him mean they were just as bad as him? Or did it have to be done to prevent him from hurting any more people? She didn't know the answer.

Lee just stood there, staring blankly at the wall of fur that was Appa.

Their friendship used to be effortless, sharing the workload around camp, filling silences with playful banter or teaming up against Sokka and Aang when they got too carried away. But putting on the Blue Spirit mask turned him into a stranger. She couldn't read him, she couldn't understand him, and she hated it. The lump of anger climbed its way back up her throat. "You should have told us."

His back stiffened. "You would have stopped me."

"Yes, because it was really dangerous! What if you hadn't come back? We would've had no idea what happened to you! Did you think about that?"

His body language told her that no, he hadn't. But it only lasted a second before his fists clenched. "It's done now. Just - go back to sleep."

She felt helpless; the things she thought she knew about Lee were slipping through her fingers like the clouds earlier that day. She realized that even if he felt guilty, he didn't regret it; he would probably decide to do something like this again at some point, and more importantly, there was little she could do to stop him.

"I still wish you would have told me." Great. Now she sounded wounded. "My point is," she resumed with more conviction, "I don't know if it was the right thing to do or not, but I do know it was really dangerous, and you could have died." Curiosity gave her pause. "How did you even, I mean... There were a lot of soldiers."

Lee glanced back at her. "I was careful," he rasped. "They didn't think we'd come back."

"Oh. And Zhao?"

His eyes settled heavily on her face. He didn't reply immediately, as if giving her the time to take back her question. "Zhao was asleep."

Oh.

She saw the image in her mind, the Blue Spirit looming over Zhao, swords raised -

She swallowed. "Next time you do something like this, you need to tell me."

"It was necessary-"

"Listen, just - I won't stop you, but talk to me first." At least, if he told her, she'd know where he was. Maybe she could help somehow. He shouldn't be making these decisions alone. And maybe, if he was able to trust her with this, maybe she'd find it easier to trust him too.

She waited, standing stiffly so as not to betray how important this answer was to her. He turned to face her fully, surprised by the request. "I promise." He gave her a small, grateful smile. "I'll talk to you first."

She nodded slowly. Good one, Katara. You just enlisted yourself as a murder planner.

But the lump in her throat had eased somewhat.


She had another nightmare when she went to sleep, except she remembered it this time. She was in a temple, but it wasn't Roku's. This one was an Air Temple, like the one where they'd found Monk Gyatso. Lee was there. And for a reason that she couldn't pinpoint, his mere presence in this place infuriated Katara beyond reason.

She leaned against the doorframe, staring somberly at the two-faced traitor. He thought he could just- he could just- he looked up and she sneered at him, watching the hope in his eyes dim.

Good. She wasn't here to make friends.

She walked inside the room."You might have everyone else here buying your... transformation, but you and I both know you've struggled with doing the right thing in the past." She stepped forwards, until her face was only inches from his, and watched the bead of sweat roll down his jaw. He was scared. He should be. "So let me tell you something, right now. You make one step backward, one slip-up, give me one reason to think you might hurt Aang, and you won't have to worry about your destiny anymore. Because I'll make sure your destiny ends, right then and there. Permanently."

Like she should have done in the catacombs in Ba Sing Se.

What had he been thinking, coming here? That he could fool her twice?

He remained silent, and Katara curled her lip in disgust, whirled around and slammed the door shut behind her.

She woke up to the sounds of Aang's laughter as he whizzed around on his air scooter, chased by an irate Lee crying something about spilled tea, while Sokka slept on, undisturbed by the chaos.


A.N.: Sooooooo... I know this chapter is kinda unpolished, but what did you think?