Water. Fire. Air. Earth. For thousands of years, the Avatar has been a paragon of righteousness and order to all nations. But must this always be the case? Does the universe choose righteous individuals, or has the world just been lucky so far? 840 years before Sozin's War, an Avatar was born into the Hei Chaoliu, organized gangs that all but held Ba Sing Se in thrall. Fifteen years after his birth, civil war has erupted between Ba Sing Se and Omashu over which great city deserves to lead the Earth Kingdom, and the gangs have not abated. Only the Avatar can stop the war, depose the corrupt Earth King, and return balance to the world. But the circumstances of Avatar Zhengyi's birth have lead him to forsake the Avatar's duties for a selfish life dedicated to what he calls "justice" and most call "revenge." The world waits as he struggles to choose between his two roles: the Avatar, and…The Heir of Ban.

Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 3: The Game

Part 1

Ying Su held out a handful of mushrooms to Zhengyi's back. He did not turn around, remaining seated with his knees tucked in and his arms wrapped around them.

"It's all we could find for breakfast," she told him. She paused, regarding him. "…Zhengyi, did you sleep last night?"

"A little," he mumbled. He reached over and scratched the stomach of a sleeping Fu Shan.

"You know, I spent a long time trying to find us some breakfast in these crystal caves. You could at least eat the mushrooms," Fung added, perching her large frame on a rock a few yards away, eating her own mushrooms.

Zhengyi eyed her. "I'm not interested in breakfast," he said. "I just want to find more bending masters and start training. I want to get on my way to killing Wu."

"You need to get safely out of the city before you start looking for masters," Su told him, placing the mushrooms down and dusting her hands on her waist-skirt. "I don't want to stick around to find out what kind of freaks Wu hires to hunt you down."

"But how are we going to get out of the city?" Fung asked, still chewing. "No one's been allowed through the wall without a permit since the civil war started. Zhengyi can't even tunnel us under; earthbending guards patrol all the escape routes under the wall."

Su turned to her. "I know. That's why we're getting a permit." She had clearly already hatched a plan.

"From where?" Zhengyi asked. "The only guy I ever knew who had a pass was Wu."

"Only top city administrators and the very wealthiest nobles and merchants are supposed to have them," Su explained. "But the Chaoliu Mountain Masters all have forged or illegally purchased ones so they can smuggle drugs past the wall."

Fung stood up. "You think we can get our hands on a Hei Chaoliu clan's travel permit?" she asked, rather skeptical. Zhengyi turned around and listened more closely.

"I think it's the best way to get one," Su replied. "Zhengyi, before all this happened you had just spent weeks fighting the Tong clan for Wu." The Avatar's skin prickled at the thought of his past mistakes, and how he had actually helped Wu become so wealthy and powerful. Su took no notice and continued with her plan. "The Tongs hate Wu, and they're some of the only people in Ba Sing Se that he doesn't control. They also have no idea of your identity. As long as we disguise our tattoos, we can hide in plain sight working for the Tongs. Wu would never find us. All we have to do is bide our time until we can get a position moving the contraband, and then the Tongs will hand us passports on a silver platter."

"That must be more difficult than you make it sound though," said Fung. "I mean, can't we just stroll up to the wall, have Zhengyi bend three elements at once, and say 'Hey, this is the Avatar. Now let us through?' "

"No, if we—" Su began.

"I wouldn't get to kill Wu," Zhengyi said coldly. "They'd haul me off to save people, or fight for Ba Sing Se on the front lines or something."

"Wu has the whole city fooled. No one realizes how dangerous he is," Su said. She seemed very intense. "Zhengyi is the only one who can stop him. Zhengyi would have no chance of getting back to Wu. We absolutely cannot allow that to happen."

"Oh…uh, all right." Xin Fung started to wonder what kind of people she had fallen in with, but she put it out of her mind. The army did have a tendency to appropriate things it deemed useful to the war effort—food, money, men—with little regard for the previous owners' thoughts on the matter. Earth King Jinling would certainly covet something as useful as the Avatar.

"Then we had better get going, right?" Fung said. She started off for the cave exit, an underground tunnel that wound into the middle of Ba Sing Se.

Su started after her, but turned back to Zhengyi. "Are you done with breakfast?" The boy got up and scooped up his mushrooms off the rock as he brushed past her, chewing them as he walked.

Ying Su smiled, looking satisfied.


In the back of an alley in the middle of Ba Sing Se's Lower Ring, an empty crate tipped over, revealing a meaty arm coming out of the hole it had formerly covered. Soon the arm was joined by its twin, and together they hoisted the rest of Fung out of the hole. After she was out, she reached back in to give Su a hand up. While she did that, Zhengyi popped up out of the ground a few feet away, holding Fu Shan. He set the cat down and nonchalantly flicked some dirt from his shoulder. "So what now?" he asked.

"Well, we're in Tong territory now," Su said. Her breath was slightly labored. "But before we can start trying to attract their attention we need to disguise our tattoos. We'll have to buy something…maybe heavy make-up or bandages. Zhengyi will need a shirt."

"Yeah, I should probably get something different to wear," Fung said, holding her arms wide and looking down at her stiff nun's outfit. Her stomach rumbled. "…And some real food. Except we don't have any money," she added.

Su placed a hand to her chin in thought, but Zhengyi already knew how to get money. A man was walking past the alley just then. Zhengyi pulled his fist to his waist and the man slid into the alley on a shifting patch of earth. Instantly, Zhengyi trapped the man against the alley wall by putting spikes of earth through his clothes. "Gimme your money!" he barked. Confused and panicked, the man hesitated for a moment. Zhengyi put one hand on the man's throat and bent a fist of rock around the other. "I said gimme your money!" The man threw a small sack onto the ground. Zhengyi released him and pushed him out of the alley using the same technique with which he had dragged the man in. He scrambled away.

"Did you just mug him?" Fung cried. "I can't believe you just mugged someone!" She wouldn't have believed the Avatar could be so mercenary if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes.

"Here." Zhengyi tossed her the sack of money. "Go buy those clothes."

"I'm not using stolen money!" she railed, flinging the purse back at him. "Don't you understand how…how…how evil that was?"

Zhengyi looked at her icily. "We needed money, I got money."

"I knew you grew up a criminal, but I guess I didn't realize how cruel you really are," Fung said, with an air of curiosity in her voice. She had thought the Avatar would just be naturally benevolent, but the fact that Zhengyi was, in fact, a Black Current gangster had just hit her. As Zhengyi ignored her, inspecting the coin purse, Fung closed her eyes and seemed to cool down. "That doesn't matter," she said. "No matter how you act, you are the Avatar, and Jian Lao has given me the honor of guiding you. I have faith that I can make you a good person, and I'm going to stick with you until that happens, no matter what you do," she said condescendingly.

Zhengyi laughed in her face. "You can make me a good person? Fine. In that case," he laughed, and furrowed his brow. He began dramatically straining his whole body and making a corresponding straining sound. Fu Shan looked up at him curiously. Fung's body tensed with alarm. Was he going to try and fight her? Or bend?

Then Zhengyi made a fart noise with his tongue. There was a beat. "I'm a good person now!" he announced sardonically. "So why don't you go back home and quit following me!" he barked at her.

Fung wasn't amused.

"All right, you two stop it this minute!" Su yelled, breaking up the fight. "Listen, you both better realize—"

"Yo, kid!" A boy a few years older than Zhengyi came striding over with his hands in the pockets of his trousers. He had a coarse mop of hair and wore his green yi open, like a coat. "You just mug that guy?" the boy asked.

"So what if I did?" Zhengyi asked, tough as ever.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," the boy said, condescendingly wagging his finger back and forth. "Ya' in Tong clan territory. Nobody commits a crime around here unless Tong Suei Sing gives the okay."

Zhengyi noticed the mandrill-rhino tattoos on the guy's forearms. He was definitely a Tong member. Zhengyi furtively grabbed the hem of his vest, making sure it didn't accidentally shift and reveal his Ban clan pygmy-puma tattoo.

"The Tong clan?" Su said. "That's…that's great! We wanted to join the Tong clan, actually."

"Then why'd I catch you tryin' to hustle in our territory?"

The kids looked at her. Su would certainly be the best at making up a cover story. "I'm sorry. We just needed the money. We moved here from the East Side a few days ago. These are my kids, and…and their father just died. I haven't found a job yet, and I heard the Tong clan takes care of people around here. These two would make great clan brothers. They can really fight, and I'm a very good cook, if you need one."

The Tong boy eyed Zhengyi. "Well, I liked what you did to that guy. You really put the fear in 'im," he chuckled. "An' ya seem pretty tough…Sure, I'll take ya for an audience wit' the boss. We can always use new blood. You can call me Tsi." He bowed slightly to them.

Su thought of the pygmy puma tattoo on her back. And Zhengyi's was barely concealed. Why doesn't that idiot wear a shirt? she thought.

"Um, Tsi…we, uh, have a few belongings we'd like to retrieve before we go, if we could," Su told him, buying time. They needed to cover their tattoos somehow, no two ways about it.

Tsi was a little annoyed. "Sure. I got somethin' else I gotta do around here anyway. But I don't come an' go at your convenience. I ain't a messenger boy. If you don't meet me back here in an hour you can forget the offer."

"Thank you," Su said.

Tsi marched off. "One hour," he called.

Su looked to the kids. "I'm not going to use stolen money," Fung said dismissively.

"I know how you feel, and Zhengyi, what you did was wrong," Su said, "but we don't have a lot of choices right now. Fung, it's not like we can give it back. We might as well use it to help our mission."

Fung looked away.

"It's not so bad. We'll get the clothes…some food…"

Fung remembered how hungry she was. She was a big girl, and usually expended a lot of energy training, so she was used to big meals. And she had eaten nothing but a few mushrooms for almost a full day.

"All right," she said. "I just hope this plan works."


"What are we doing in this neighborhood?" Lucky Cho asked One-Eyed Wu, glancing around at the run-down, seedy-looking buildings. Poor citizens peered out of cobbled-together shacks, watching as Wu and his entourage of Cho and Aguta ambled between their homes.

Wu said nothing.

The men came to a "restaurant," which was actually a dai zhiwu den, called "The White Mountain." Wu hesitated a bit, wrinkling his nose at the prospect of entering the place, but momentarily he did.

The only light in the place came from the doorway and a few candles throwing a ureic yellow glow. Addicts lay sprawled on mats lined up over the whole length of the floor, half-clutching pipes and spark rocks in hands with no strength left. There were several loud coughs as Wu crossed between the mats, looking each of the half-conscious junkies over.

Finally it became clear who Wu had been looking for. In the back of the place lay a massive human being. He was at least 6-foot-6, 250 pounds. He was stout and barrel-chested, with a bit of a gut on him, but where plant addicts were usually thought of as being emaciated, this man looked as strong as an ox-sloth. Yet he took a pull of his pipe as Wu approached him, all the same.

"Bi Junren," Wu said. The large man's eyes slowly rolled toward him. "The war hero," Wu grinned with satisfaction, having found his prize. "Five years ago they called you 'the Moose-lion of Guiqaio.' You single-handedly held off a company of Omashu soldiers while the rest of your battalion regrouped and made a wheeling motion, coming back to win the battle…And now look at you." Wu shook his head disappointedly. "What happened, Junren?"

Junren looked quizzically at him, wondering how this stranger knew so much, unsure if it was all just an effect of the drug.

"I've heard your story, Junren. Maybe everyone else forgot you, but I remember," Wu said, in his most sympathetic voice. "I know what happened. You were stabbed at Guiqiao. The surgeons gave you dai zhiwu when they sewed you back up, but they couldn't fix you completely. The tip of the knife broke off in the wound and they couldn't pull it out. Too close to your liver. You couldn't serve anymore with that injury, and everyone just forgot about you, didn't they? …But you'd had a taste of the plant, and now that's the only thing that keeps the pain away." Wu knelt down next to the reclining addict. "See, I know who you are, Junren. I understand how people treat you, and I know how it feels," he said soothingly. "The question is: do you know who I am?"

Junren looked down and chuckled softly. He looked back at Wu. "No, who are you?" he slurred.

Wu reached into his robe and pulled out a small sack. "I'm the man who can give you more plant than you've ever seen." Wu opened the sack, revealing the dai zhiwu inside. Junren eyed the dried white leaves inside with hunger. "I just want you to do a little job for me. Your strength is renowned, Junren. I want you to bring that strength to bear against someone who thinks himself strong. An enemy of mine. Then I'll give you enough plant to smoke yourself into a coma and back out again." Wu grinned as Junren's bleary eyes stayed locked on the drug.


Tong Suei Sing gulped down a mouthful of saké as the gambler to his right laid down his tiles, chuckling triumphantly. "Bing jiu," the gambler said, naming both his hand and the game he was currently playing. The lacquered pips totaled five on one tile and four on the other, adding up to nine, the highest score possible in most situations.

"Not so fast," the Tong Mountain Master responded, dropping his own tiles. They were a 6-6 and a 2-6. The 6-6 was considered a special tile, allowing Sing to retain his hand's full value of ten. Now it was his turn to chuckle. "I told you, no one beats me in my own house," Sing grinned, scooping the pile of wagered gold pieces toward himself. The other gambler stared at the table in disbelief, then buried his face in his hands. Sing took another swig of sake and wiped his small moustache and goatee.

Sing was like Wu, and all good clan leaders, in that he loved money. But unlike Wu, he positively wallowed in it. His clothes had gold and silver threading, his saké was the most expensive in the city, he ate only the finest foods. He was still somewhat young, and surrounded himself with trophy girlfriends. He considered himself a ladies man, and his wardrobe reflected this: he wore the latest, most expensive fashions. He even used expensive, imported solutions of animal fat and oil to style his hair, which hung shoulder-length and framed his face like parentheses.

He was about to begin another game when his clan accountant, Heung Sai, approached him with Tsi in tow. Sai was a slim man, with thin limbs that tapered into slender fingers. His hair was close-cropped and crowned with the small Earth Kingdom-style bun. He wore half-moon spectacles, a neat beard, and twin tufts of moustache hair that drooped next to the corners of his mouth. "Um, excuse me, sir," he interrupted. Sing put a forearm on the gambling table, twisting around his chair to listen to his lieutenant. "We have a few more prospective recruits," Sai said, cocking his head toward the gambling parlor's doorway where Zhengyi, Fung, and Su stood.

Zhengyi wore his usual stony expression. He now wore a new yi under his vest to be sure his tattoos were covered. Fung was now casually dressed in an olive green yi with the sleeves cut off and brown ku tucked into military-surplus ankle bracers. She tied the yi with a sash, to which she had tied one item from her nun's outfit: a pendant with the symbol of Jian Lao. Her bangs were pulled back over her head and gathered into a messy ponytail, while more black locks were left at the sides, framing her face. Her eyes darted around the room. Su snapped into a bow once she realized the Tong boss was looking at her.

Sing kept his eyes on the three people at the door. "Who vouches for them, you?" he asked, now pointing and looking to Tsi.

"I saw the boy mug a guy," Tsi said. "Seemed tough. He's got the attitude ta be an outlaw, at least. The other two are 'is mom an' sister. Said they wanna join the Tong clan, an' I know your orders was to recruit everyone we could find, so I said I'd take 'em ta see ya."

Sing scowled inwardly. One-Eyed Wu and the Ban clan had won so much turf and drugs over the last several years that they could afford to pay better than any other clan. People generally joined the clan that controlled the area that they lived in, but anyone who could get away with it—that is, anyone who wasn't afraid of reprisals from the clan that claimed the area he or she lived in, should they be caught working for the Ban—joined the Ban clan, and the Ban controlled what was by far the largest territory anyway. Sing had been forced to accept any candidates he could for his clan.

"Yeah, all right," Sing conceded, turning back to the bing jiu table. "Tell 'em I'll swear 'em in tomorrow with the others, then test 'em," he finished, beginning to stack the ceramic tiles into neat piles of four. He took another gulp of booze with his other hand as Tsi and Sai bowed to him, and Tsi moved to relay the news to the new recruits.


Su, Fung, and Zhengyi slept outside that night, in an alley near the gambling house. They had bought a few bedrolls and camping supplies with the remaining stolen money, figuring they would need it soon, once they left Ba Sing Se.

The next day they showed up early at the gambling house that served as the Tong clan headquarters. Twelve other initiates were preparing to be sworn in. Su and the children began preparing themselves as well, because it did take some time.

Tsi met them and let them know everything they had to do in order to get ready for the ritual. Zhengyi and Su were quite familiar with it, and Su had begun explaining it to Fung, but it was nice of Tsi to make sure they were informed. Performing the ritual incorrectly was considered disrespectful, and clans were known to kill initiates for offenses even less than that.

Hei Chaoliu initiation rituals were not as elaborate as they once were, but were still much more sanctimonious affairs than one might expect from a criminal organization. They represented the last vestiges of the honor of the Black Current, back when it was a paramilitary rebel group. Their elaborate and ceremonial nature helped instill respect for the organization in new recruits. As part of the ritual, male recruits were required to strip to the waist, but females were allowed to wear wrappings over their breasts.

Knowing this, Zhengyi had wrapped bandages over his tattoo before he had even shown up at the gambling house, hoping to disguise them as an injury. Fung, of course, had no tattoos to cover, and Ying Su was fortunately able to cover all the tattoos that marked her as a Ban member with her wrappings.

Zhengyi and the others assembled in formation with the twelve other recruits. Most were younger than twenty, and a few were even younger than Zhengyi. One couldn't have been older than thirteen.

Incense and statues had been set up in very specific locations around the large main room, in accordance with feng shui. The bing jiu tables had been temporarily rearranged to one side of the casino floor. Fu Shan perched on one of these, watching his friends. Tong Suei Sing was seated in a grand chair at one end of the room, before which an altar had been set up. On the altar were one bowl of wine and one bowl of water. Between the entrance to the room and the altar three "gates" had been set up. One gate consisted of two Tong officers standing with knives crossed, the next was earth from two pots that had been bent into an arch, and the last was a bamboo hoop painted yellow. The initiates entered and stripped down to their trousers, as the ceremony dictated. They assembled before the first gate, all kneeling on one knee.

A woman in green robes, whose nose was bent noticeably to the left from some trauma Zhengyi could only guess at, began reciting the ceremony to the assembled initiates: "Proceed no further if you are not loyal." Another retainer clapped a set of wooden blocks, once.

"I am loyal," said each initiate successively, as he or she passed through the first gate.

"Before the Gate of the Earth, all are brothers," the woman recited. The wooden blocks were clapped again.

"We are brothers," each initiate said in turn, passing through the gate.

"Through the Gate of the Spirit are born the children of the Black Current." The wooden blocks clapped.

"I take the Tong family as my own. Mountain Master Tong is my father." They passed through the bamboo hoop.

Except when it came to Zhengyi's turn. "Mountain Master Tong is…" He hesitated, forcing himself to say the next words. His tattoo seemed to burn under the wrappings. All eyes in the room fell upon him, waiting to see if he would slip up. "…is my father," he said finally, dropping his head. He proceeded through, followed by more initiates.

They washed their faces in the bowl of water on the altar and were given new white robes to wear, symbolizing their rebirth. Then came the oath-swearing. There were thirty-five ritual oaths each initiate was required to affirm, all written out on a yellow scroll, which the woman with the bent nose presently placed on the altar for the initiates to read. They recited thirty-five oaths about loyalty and courtesy toward their new "family," that they would help their sworn brothers in any situation, that they would never sell out the clan to the law or to rival clans for any reason. Each oath also mentioned a specific form of punishment for the swearer, should it ever be broken. They were the same oaths Zhengyi had heard Shi Hua die reciting only two days ago. "If any of my sworn brothers are killed, arrested, or have departed the city, I will assist their wives and children in their time of need. If I respond to their difficulties with indifference, I shall suffer death by eating of the White Jade. If I should harm my sworn brothers, or otherwise bring trouble to them, I shall be killed by ten thousand knives," Zhengyi intoned dully, remembering Hua's voice. "If I should cause discord among my sworn brothers, I shall be killed by ten thousand knives."

When the oath-swearing was done, the bent-nosed woman burned the scroll and sprinkled its ashes into the bowl of wine on the altar. All of the initiates drank a sip of wine, and when they were done it was passed to Tong Suei Sing. To symbolize their bond, Sing drank as well. He drained it and then held the bowl out before them. "I treat my children justly," he recited. "Loyalty will be met with rewards." He turned the empty bowl upside-down. "Disloyalty will be met with vengeance." He threw the bowl to the ground, shattering it.

"In order for your Mountain Master to measure your fighting ability," the bent-nosed woman continued, assuming a place next to Sing's chair, "each of you will face three opponents in unarmed combat for five minutes. If you cannot at least remain standing, Master Tong will not consider you for the position of a clan soldier. These are the conditions you have agreed to. Children must obey the father," she announced.

In earlier times, no one without at least a modicum of fighting ability would even be considered for a Chaoliu clan, but with Wu around the other clans could no longer be so selective. Sing swore in everyone willing to join, then tested their ability so he could place his retainers in suitable jobs. Poor fighters could always work as cooks or dealers in the gambling houses where the Tong clan made most of its money.

Everyone in the room withdrew to the walls, the new recruits lined up in single-file against the left one. The first recruit stepped into the center of the room, and three more senior Tong retainers advanced on him from the opposite wall. The three grinned as the new recruit sternly took a fighting stance. He wasn't a bad fighter, but he wasn't that good either. He got some hits in, but three-on-one was more than most people could handle. The fight soon degenerated into a beating, but the recruit did remain standing throughout. The test was more or less designed so that the recruit would pass, but just barely. It was intended to be more about enduring a beating than fighting. Even a pretty good fighter would have trouble with three opponents, but the test showed that the recruit was willing to endure pain at the command of his boss. If anything, that was a more important quality.

One by one, the recruits filed through and the groups of three senior retainers rotated out. Most of the initiates did remain standing, but took some bruises. It was really an ordeal for the bad fighters though. More than a few fell to the ground in a fetal position, unable to stand up again or do anything but endure a series of savage kicks.

Of the Avatar and his companions, Fung entered the floor first. She was one of the few recruits who was actually able to dispatch all three attackers. Using her grappling art, she was able to throw one attacker into another. The third one attacked recklessly. He punched her, but only caught the bony part of her head. His defense was so poor he didn't even see it coming when Fung tripped him and flipped him over.

Two more people went, and then Zhengyi was next. He strolled into the ring as casually as if he were getting out of bed. Sing was not using benders in the test. It took Zhengyi under thirty seconds to take out the three fighters. He waved his hands a few times and three rocks slammed the attackers to the ground. Sing hopped out of his chair, amazed at his luck, that a bender of such ability should join his clan. He already began to realize that with a bender like that on his side he might finally be able to beat back the Ban clan. Momentarily, he restrained himself and sat back in his chair, but Zhengyi noticed his excited reaction and smiled to himself.

Su's turn was a different story. She knew how to fight, certainly, but she couldn't take on three young people. Now she realized she probably would not pass the test, but had forgotten to factor this into her plan. She stepped onto the floor as her opponents did the same. She blocked the first punch and struck back lightning quick. The man faltered, but stayed up. She blocked a punch from the second attacker, then the third one. Su struck the third one but the first one came back. Anticipating a punch from him, she failed to block a punch from the second one, then took a kick from the third. She couldn't keep up her defense anymore and threw up her hands to block her face. The third opponent tripped Su and she went down. Her opponents were more merciful than some of the others, leaving her be after just a couple of kicks for good measure.

Fung took a step to help her, but Zhengyi placed an arm out to block her way. He didn't like seeing Su get hurt, but he knew how clans worked. Helping Su could mean serious trouble. Fung looked at him, then reluctantly stepped back against the wall.

Su stayed still for a moment. She certainly wouldn't be going with the smuggling caravans now, which might complicate her plans. On top of that, she could feel her ear starting to swell up on her. Slowly, she got up so the next person could take the floor.