Aang Anil didn't notice the figure leaping over to the right, concerned as he was with not falling off the door he was clinging onto dangerously. He climbed up and over, looking around at the truck and possible means of heading forward. The roof was a no-no after the last fiasco, so the safer bet was the side. There was a large gap between the top of the door and the edge of the truck, but handily enough Aang noticed a rudimentary stepping stone between himself and the way ahead.
"Ow!" the Sergeant clinging onto the door handle cried out, as Aang stepped on his head and hopped over to the side of the truck. The monk made sure of his footholds, and dug his fingers in as the truck swerved again to the side of the road, catching a large rock under the wheel and nearly sending him flying while dust flew up and stung his eyes. A brief moment later he was edging his way cautiously to the back. Halfway there, his confidence increased, only to be sharply reminded of the risks he was making when the truck door slammed shut behind him with a loud metallic clunk.
Aang's head whirled around and saw Lieutenant Raiyuban, focused intently if slightly reluctantly towards capturing the boy monk. He called out over the wind and the wheels, "you couldn't make this easy, could you!?" The man was angry at him, a dangerous state to be while the soldier closed in on Aang, and encouraged the sprightly child to edge forward faster. His way was soon blocked, however, as around the side of the truck there emerged a small flotilla of soldiers, nestled inside the tarpaulin and quicker on the uptake than the last squad had been. All were determined not to let Aang get away.
With the way ahead blocked, and the way behind closed to him, Aang had no choice but up. Clutching onto the nearest wire that held the tarpaulin up, he uttered a small karmic prayer that his fasting and exercise meditations had made him light enough for the wire to support his weight, and pulled himself up. He dug his fingernails into the tarpaulin, seeing it bend under his mass, and panicked a little when he felt fingertips briefly brush against his bare feet. But he made it to the top, and the wire did support his weight.
Aang sighed heavily in relief, and carefully worked his way forward towards the rear of the truck. Perched on the very last wire rung, he looked over and saw a great chasm of churning dust and rock between himself and the next truck. The driver had apparently been ordered to speed up, and now the journey ahead was impassable. Unless he did something very urgently, his escape would have been for nothing. Events were to work in his favour, however, as the soldiers surrounding the truck attempted to follow him to the roof of the truck. Aang was just light enough for the roof to support him, but a squad of professional Japanese soldiers certainly wasn't. Their hands tore into the tarpaulin, and Aang felt a surge of gloating superiority to the soldiers, taunting "aww! Can't get up!? Come back later when you've taken a diet!"
The smile got wiped off his face when an ear-splitting ripping sound broke the rushing air. Aang froze on his perch, realising suddenly that the tarpaulin ripping apart was probably the worst thing that could happen to a person perched on the very back of a fast-moving vehicle. The monk felt the wire moving beneath himself, and muttered under his breath "...bad karma." The section of the tarpaulin he sat on separated from the rest and began falling backward, plummeting towards the road. Halfway down its arc, Aang crouched and sprang.
For the brief moment he was in the air, time seemed to slow to a crawl. Aang closed his eyes tightly. He wasn't going to die. Not yet.
An eternity later, his hands felt something, and Aang clung on for all his worth. His chest slammed into a truck's front bumper, and his feet briefly grazed the road he was hanging only inches above from. The boy curled up around the bumper and breathed deeply. The swinging arc of the tarpaulin support wire had brought him just within flinging distance of the truck, and it was sheer, unadulterated luck that he was still alive. That was far, far, far too close for one so young.
The two Japanese soldiers driving the truck in the far rear of the convoy had witnessed a small boy apparently plunging to his doom, and reacted to his unfortunate demise in different ways. The tall, gentrified Sergeant Nishio was wiping a tear out of his morose eye, "such a tragic fate for a promising young man in the prime of his youth."
The portlier, unhygienic driver called Private Honjo was more worried about the mess he'd have to clear up from the front of his truck, "the dumb kid had it coming."
"Private! How can you be so cold-hearted?" the Sergeant admonished, "I, for one, believe we should stop and give the boy a proper send-off. His spirit demands solace."
"With all due respect, sir, I'd rather carry on and forget about that stupid brat," the driver moaned, "the sooner this pointless mission is over, the sooner we can go home and forget these last two years of poking every nook and cranny on the mainland for a fairy-tale fantasy."
"Honestly, Private, you're such a callous brute," the Sergeant shook his head slowly in sorrow, "alas. If only the cruel winds of Susanoo could lift, and give the unfortunate a second chance."
A hand slapped onto the windscreen, shocking the soldiers rigid. Securing a firm grip, the boy Nishio and Honjo had believed squished pulled himself into view, his bald head sweaty with effort and some fear. Honjo briefly lost control of the truck through sheer surprise.
Nishio screamed, "aaah! He's a vampire! Kill it! Kill it!"
Honjo, shocked as he was by the boy's rise from the dead, and busy with regaining control of the truck, nevertheless gave the Sergeant a funny look, "you sure change your tune quick, sir."
The narrow road hugged the edge of the mountain, some distance up from the wider canyon road below. Appa's engine growled deeply, hurtling at top speed with no time to stop. All three on the motorcycle were focused on their particular tasks. Sokka with riding the bike, Katara with operating the strange instrument that led their way, and Gakki with ruminating over his unfortunate fate.
Katara winced, puzzling over a change in the nature of the signal. After some experimental waving around and a couple of good, solid beatings the signal remained changed. She reported, "hey! Something's weird with the signal! It sounds like it's all around us! We must be getting close!"
"We can't be! We shouldn't be anywhere near 'em yet!" Sokka yelled back.
The nurse decided it wasn't any use giving herself a deeper migraine listening to a signal that didn't point to anywhere, so she shut off the device and tore off the headphones. The flood of sensation took her breath away, hearing the sounds of tires in dust and wind rushing past her ears, the grumbling piston engine of the motorbike and the rattling of suspension springs. She felt more alert than she'd ever felt before. Senses sharpened, she looked around at the moon-lit, textured valley they drove through. Then she saw something.
Peering closely, she could make out vehicles trundling down the road at the bottom of the canyon, many metres below the narrower mountain path Appa flew along. As the vehicles came into focus, their identity became unmistakable. She shouted, "down there! That's gotta be the guys who took Aang!"
Sokka took his eyes away from the path ahead to look down, seeing the swaying, erratic convoy below and yelling in turn, "I see 'em! Looks like they're having trouble!"
"We don't have much time! We gotta get Aang out of there!" Katara shouted urgently. Pausing in thought, a rather important question abruptly occurred to her, "hey, Sokka!? Just wondering here! Now we found Aang's kidnappers, what do we do!?"
"Don't you worry your pretty little head, sister!" Sokka gleamed at Katara, and then more ominously at a distressed Gakki, "I gots me a plan!"
Katara wondered warily, "...will I like it!?"
"Probably not!" Sokka shouted unapologetically, tugging at the accelerator handle to give Appa a burst of speed and overtake the convoy below.
Aang Anil panted as he clawed his way onto the top of the cabin. With little time for reflection, he looked behind at the comfortably large space between himself and the nearest truck, and ahead at the large moon-lit space beyond the very end of the convoy. Knowing now that the roof was relatively safe so long as he was careful, he crawled across the tarpaulin rung by rung, digging fingernails in whenever the truck swerved, dragging himself all the way to the end. There he stopped and looked over the rear edge of the truck at the racing mass of earth beneath. There was nowhere else to flee to. Dead end.
"Nowhere to hide, Qoghusula," an uncomfortably familiar voice rang in his ears. Aang swirled around to see Major Hinaga standing astride the forward cabin, hair unkempt from activity beneath his officer's hat and bathed in shadow from the headlights behind him. He looked exhausted and angered beyond measure, but determination drove him forward when nothing else would. Aang sagged in defeat, as Zuko aimed his pistol, "I learn my lessons. And you will learn yours. There won't be a second chance at escape."
"Why are you doing this!?" Aang spoke over the rushing wind.
"I was always meant to do this," Zuko answered plainly and waved his pistol downward, "get in."
"Who would've thought a mere boy had so many talents?" Iroh extinguished the matchstick and settled down with his pipe, "makes one think, doesn't it? ...what's taking them so long?"
"The boy's causing chaos in the other trucks, sir," the gunner reported, giving a running commentary of the goings on in the team's struggle to regain their prisoner, "but it looks like Major Hinaga has him cornered."
"About time," Iroh groaned, "this whole affair's already worn on longer than it's really needed to. And doesn't this road get any less rocky? My knees are starting to dance off my body."
"Should be smoother travel soon, General," the wiry old driver with half his teeth missing turned back to inform the retired old man, smiling as he did so, since he was looking forward to smoother travel too.
The driver turned back and peered into the lit road ahead. Pebbles and bumps flew past as the headlights illuminated the rushing ground. He always took care to avoid obstacles, and considered himself good at spotting them before the Chiyoda hit them. He spotted one such obstacle ahead. It was a small, squat thing, probably a part of a tree stump or something. He paid it little heed. The Chiyoda was more than resilient enough to swat it away with a decent punt.
Consequently, he was surprised beyond all reason when the headlights lit up Gakki, tied up and sat in the middle of the road, screeching at the top of his lungs, "STOOOOOP!"
No time to brake, no space to turn, no time to decide. The driver screamed in surprise himself and swerved hard on the wheel. The sudden turn sent the Chiyoda into a spin, and centripetal forces tipped the whole vehicle on its side, forcing all its occupants out of their seats. Forward momentum kept the car rumbling forward towards Gakki, tearing up earth and crushing everything in its path. The captive technician screwed his eyes tightly shut as he braced himself for the crunch. The car tore forward, inching closer and closer, gradually, nail-bitingly, slowly coming to a halt mere inches from Gakki.
The car came to a rest, and the engine cut off by itself. Draped in darkness, missing his pipe and lying upside down, Iroh groaned painfully, "much smoother travel. Thank you kindly for informing me. I never would have noticed otherwise."
Gakki was still braced for impact, and only gradually realised he was still alive. The technician began to laugh uncontrollably at his unbelievable luck, washed over in relief. Then the car inched forward with a crunching bang, and Gakki squealed as he braced himself again, whimpering with every impact the careering trucks made into the fallen armoured car.
Unable to brake in time, the rear-most truck crunched into the developing pile-up. The sudden halt sent both Aang and Zuko flying off the roof of the truck and barrel-rolling into the tarpaulin of the middle truck's roof. Zuko landed first, cushioned by baggy fabric, and Aang landed after...cushioned by Zuko.
Regaining his senses, Aang quickly took in the sorry state of the convoy and counted his blessings. He got to his feet while Zuko was still groaning himself upright, and climbed up the roof to the cabin of the rear truck. The rear truck had ran straight into the middle truck, so he didn't really need to 'climb' anything, since the cabin was half-way inside the middle truck as it was. Looking up and over, Aang noticed that the sounds of the truck's engines had ceased. Instead, a new sound had appeared, somewhere ahead of the monk. The sound of a particularly guttural bee.
Aang peered down the canyon the convoy had been travelling down, and as the source of the sound came into focus, a feeling of excited happiness washed over the boy. It was Sokka and Katara, riding one of those strange things he'd seen before in Usutai. His friends. His friends had come to save him.
The soldier blinked himself awake. In the rear truck that held much of the squadron's materials, they had been relatively untouched by all the drama surrounding Aang's escape, and the first thoughts of the Japanese soldiers was that they were under attack. The soldier was an elder, a mainstay of General Hinaga's personal corps who had remained with Zuko, and so battle-hardened his skin could probably deflect bullets. The other soldiers mildly concussed, it was thus left to him to respond to the threat.
He looked out the back of the truck and saw the approaching motorcycle. Not Japanese make, for certain, so it had to be the enemy. Instinctively, the soldier reached into one of the equipment racks and pulled out a stick grenade, raising it high and waiting until the right moment to fling it.
Iroh kicked open the turret hatch of the Chiyoda and staggered out, rubbing his head to ward off the approaching headache. He twisted his body this way and that and heard his spine crack several times as his bones clicked back into place.
"This is a mockery of the word 'retirement'," Iroh griped to no one in particular. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the approaching motorcycle, and began wandering to the crushed rear of the convoy out of curiosity, asking aloud "what's going on there?"
"I wasn't even sure that'd work!" Sokka impressed himself as he readied his rifle for the inevitable showdown with Zuko's men.
Katara peered out from behind Sokka, and called excitedly "I can see him! I can see Aang! He's alright!"
"Great! Less work for us!" Sokka smiled as he too saw Aang climbing over the remains of the truck to meet them. His joy turned into worry, however, when he saw the threat approaching from behind, "that's not good."
Aang Anil was overjoyed. He began running forward over the roof of the truck to get away from Zuko's squadron and meet his friends again. But Major Hinaga was incapable of giving up. Aang leapt ahead, only to suddenly have his left leg grappled from under him, Zuko gripping tightly to Aang's bare ankle. So close. The weight of the both of them was too much, the force too great, so the monk and the officer tumbled together as the roof of the truck collapsed.
The roof's collapse knocked over the soldier standing poised at the back of the truck, and shunted the grenade out of his hand. Zuko, Aang, and the grenade plummeted into the dirt behind the crashed truck, coming to a rest with Aang lying face-down on one side, Zuko lying flat on his back on the other, and the grenade freed from its inhibitor rolling to a stop between them, armed and primed.
"Aang...Aang..." a voice drew Aang back to his senses, blearily raising his head out of the dirt. Everything seemed slowed down, catching every individual second like it was ten. His awareness was heightened, but simultaneously confused, and he peered around with slowly blinking eyes. He peered down the canyon and saw the motorbike approaching, still some distance away. Sokka was gritting his teeth in concentration, but Katara's expression affected him the most. It was creeping over with a growing horror, a despairing realisation of something deeply wrong. Aang saw Katara's lips mouth her words slowly, "...Aang!"
The sound of his name rebounded cacophonously inside his skull. Wondering what she was worried about, he slowly looked forward. Zuko was getting back up to his knees, snarling in anger. But the expression wavered as his eyes flittered past the ground beneath them. They looked up towards Aang, filled inexplicably with a fear he hadn't witnessed before in the scarred teenager. Still confused, he looked down at the unassuming cylinder coming to a rest between them.
He finally got it. Aang's eyes flared as he realised what he was looking at. He hadn't thought much of it before, but the reactions of everyone around him allowed Aang to piece together the danger of what was in front of him. The fuse crackled with energy, and for Aang a possibility that the monk purposefully kept distant was now an utter certainty.
Aang was going to die.
He gazed forever at the instrument of his death, unable to move as he hadn't the time to. The void opened up before him and enticed him in. He had no choice but to follow, past his own slow, limited self to an endless world of emptiness where everyone was as one, indivisible, inviolable...forever.
Time disappeared.
A raging flash nearly blinded Aang's eyes, and the monk curled up to protect himself from the explosion. He rejected the void and became himself again...and took some of the void with him.
Noticing he was still in one piece, Aang opened one eye, and then the other, peeking in-between his fingers. His hands fell away, his jaw dropping, at the sight before him. A perfect sphere of air shimmered around a bright yellow starburst, spreading out from the fragmented remains of the grenade on the ground like a flaming tree, wispy tendrils of flying dust frozen in mid-air. It felt like he could reach over and touch it, this solid, immoveable explosion. Time had disappeared in a small corner of the world, and saved his life.
Sokka couldn't be heard over the engine, muttering disbelievingly "it's...beautiful."
The paused explosion, this miraculous freak of nature, reflected pin-pricks of yellow into the centre of Katara's eyes.
"It's true...it really is true..." Iroh staggered ever forward.
Zuko was shocked into immobility, left incapable of reacting to the starburst. His eyes we hypnotised by the frozen display of the Qoghusula's power. For the first time in three years, he felt a sense of awe.
Aang was unable to move himself, as he had no idea whether ceasing to concentrate on it would make it 'fast forward' into a regular explosion and blow him to bits. He never realised he was capable of such things. Such...impossible things.
His senses were shut tight. He never noticed the motorcycle running past behind him until he was tugged violently up at speed and pulled up onto Appa, tugged up off his spot with a kick of dust.
Zuko was still transfixed, and simply, humbly sat there gazing into the starburst as it slowly began to enter time again. Abruptly, his shoulders were grabbed by the hands of an old man, and Iroh pulled Major Hinaga harshly to cover behind the vehicle, ordering fiercely, "get down!"
The explosion returned to full speed, rocking the back of the truck and blowing its roof clean off. The soldier who had thrown the grenade was blown off his feet and used his comrades as a cushion. Leaning up in confusion, the soldier looked out at the crater, at his hand, and at the crater again, remarking "I don't remember 'em ever doing that..."
Aang found himself in the best place he could imagine in that moment, held tightly in the arms of the Mongolian nurse Katara. Their clothes rippled by the speed of the wind as they rode, and Sokka spoke up loudly, "hey! Get him in the side-car! I need to balance the bike!"
Aang looked up into the face of Katara, crying from relief that he was still alive. Profoundly grateful, Aang gave a fierce, silent hug back. Bringing himself back to the task at hand, he looked around and saw the empty side-car, quickly sliding into it and hanging on tightly, asking aloud, "we gotta go!"
"On it!" Sokka revved up faster, grinning from ear to ear at out-foxing the soldiers who had humiliated him so soon before. The bike rode past the left of the convoy, avoiding the crashed trucks. Before them, the Chiyoda had come to a halt squeezed between two large bumps, cutting off the road completely...to vehicles that weren't motorbikes at any rate. Appa tore forward more quickly, and Sokka called out "brace yerselves!"
Katara and Aang did just that. The nurse emitted a squeal of terror while the monk uttered a squeal of excitement. The bike rolled up the bump, and the speed they hit the incline launched the bike into the air. Katara closed her eyes and Aang laughed with joy.
Appa clunked back onto the road, losing no more than a couple of screws, and roared forward unstoppably, putting a chasm of distance between themselves and the convoy.
"Zuko!" Iroh cried, trying to stop the boy as he ran at full tilt towards the front of the convoy. He leapt up to the top of one of the road-blocking bumps, aiming his pistol determinedly at the fast retreating bike. Appa was already well ahead, but Zuko might have been able to let off a shot if he could just have enough time to hone in on his target. As the bike got further away, the harder this process became. Eventually, a cloud of dust kicked up behind, he couldn't see the group at all.
Major Hinaga growled. The kids had made an idiot out of him, and even worse was the knowledge that he had his lifelong goal right in his clutches. Right in his clutches. And yet he got away, destroying their means of pursuit as he escaped. This...this wasn't right. This wasn't fair. This wasn't...destiny.
Zuko threw his pistol angrily at the ground, making a Nambu-shaped indentation in the dirt. He consequently winced as the pistol let off a shot into the air. Iroh laid a comforting hand on Zuko's shoulder, cautioning, "you really shouldn't throw loaded weapons around like that, nephew."
The bike had rode off the beaten track for some miles until they were quite certain of not being followed. The night's events had left them all thoroughly exhausted...Aang most of all. So when they parked themselves in a gap of a cliff, they gratefully flopped out and practically fell asleep on the spot.
Sunlight hit Aang's eyelids, and he awoke blinking sporadically. They had hidden themselves fairly high up a hillside, overlooking a long river valley. While their side was still noticeably sparse of vegetation, the other side was lush with forests and fields. They had finally left the tendrils of the Gobi Desert, free not only of Mongolia but all vestiges of Mongolia's influence on her surroundings. The bald-headed, bare-foot boy monk stretched his arms, and looked at the sleeping others. It was still early, as a summer morning, and they hadn't been as scrupulously trained in getting up at the crack of dawn as he had back in the monastery...back in Tibet.
Would it be as he remembered it?
Katara stirred, and Aang felt something stir himself. He looked away when he found himself blushing, and mentally slapped himself. The Gelugpa was very specific on the principle of celibacy. Aang sagged...as if that kind of thing still mattered after all this. Well, he thought, it had to. Some of Zuko's words still had force. He had run away from his responsibilities, and the world obviously needed help...any help...to regain its fragile equilibrium.
Once the group was awake, they quickly moved to organise things. Sleeping bags were packed and the motorbike checked over for any wear or tear. Katara suggested a change of clothes to Aang, and handed over a small bundle with a smiling wink at the monk. Confused, he stepped behind a rock to change and quickly realised what Katara was winking about. Sandals slapped against stone as Aang Anil, Qoghusula, walked into sight wrapped in his traditional monastic clothes. The cloth felt soft and familiar against his skin, and he rejoined the others with a smile on his face. It felt good to be back in his...'skin' again.
"You look great, Aang," Katara smiled at the monk being back to his old self again, and feeling so at home with himself.
"He looks like a walking curtain, stop kidding yourself," Sokka opinionated. Aang laughed. The moment was too perfect to bring down with mere smart-talk.
Breakfast was simple...some stored fruits and emergency food cans. Aang gulped it down hurriedly, and Katara had to steady his intake, as he couldn't honestly remember the last time he ate. Sokka was only marginally more careful with his food, being the strong red-blooded male he pretended to be, so Katara decided that as the medical authority of the group she was in charge of administering food.
"Okay," Sokka acquiesced, "a woman's place is in the kitchen, after all."
After breakfast was cleared away and Sokka stopped griping about the painful slap-mark on his face, the group held conference.
"So going home ain't an option, I take it?" Katara asked out loud, just to get that possibility out of the way.
"I overheard Zuko in the car. Don't know how, but he got this message that the whole border's on the look-out for 'three Mongolian bandits on a motorcycle'," Aang told the others, "I don't know how you guys did it, but I don't think you're gonna do it again."
"Even if we could, there's no way we could hide your identity to the Mongolian authorities, Aang," Sokka pointed out, "the Party guy they sent to make sure the prisoner was returned would have brought his friends with him. If we get home, you'll probably be pushed straight back out again into the waiting arms of the Japanese. And things won't exactly be rosy for us two either."
"So...what do we do?" Aang asked cautiously.
Katara turned and glanced knowingly at the monk, "you tell us."
Aang nodded in understanding, and looked down at the dirt, feeling slightly ashamed at his actions, "I'm sorry for bringing you into this. I never wanted anyone to get hurt..."
"Don't worry about it! We brought ourselves into this!" Sokka waved off the self-pity, "although it would've helped if you just told us you were some freaky super-monk with power over time and space in the first place. Honestly, I wouldn't have minded. In fact, I would probably have been much, much less of a jerk to you. So why all the secrecy?"
Aang didn't have a ready answer for Sokka, but Katara knew what he wanted to say "you just wanted to be 'you' for a little while, didn't you?"
The boy twiddled his toes as he related the story, "I'm the Qoghusula, an aspect of the Buddha Vairocana, reincarnated over many generations to bring humanity in touch with the emptiness inside all of us. I can sense the Void, in a corner of my mind, if I concentrate hard. And if I can concentrate hard enough, I can manipulate the very fabric of the universe. But I can't control it. I'm not even sure I want to control it."
"Why not!?" Sokka challenged, "I'd kill to be able to do those kinds of things."
"Because you don't know what it feels like," Aang shot back, "it feels...like you're foam on the ocean, and any moment you know you'll disintegrate. Everyone else...they can't feel it. It's just living to them. But I can feel it, and every time I get close to it, to the Void...I can feel myself disappearing. I'm always afraid that if I push too far...I won't get back again. I won't be me anymore. I'd be...everything. And nothing."
Sokka rubbed his head wearily, "what a load of...listen, even if any of this is right, there have been Qoghusulas before you, right? Did any of them vanish in a puff of smoke?"
"Everyone thought I did, from what you told me," Aang pointed out.
"But...wait! If you were trained in your skills, developed them, then you might be able to use them without...disappearing," Katara considered.
"And then what?" Aang asked aloud.
"And then you can stop people dying," Katara implored the Qoghusula, "...please."
Aang Anil thought hard, then looked up at the rising sun. His robes fluttered in the wind, and he contemplated in utter seriousness. He made his choice, "okay. If we go to Tibet, we can find monks from my old sect and train me how to be a Qoghusula."
"Finally!" Sokka slapped his knees and got to his feet, "I mean, sheesh, we were gonna do that the whole time anyway..."
"But first..." Aang held a finger up to Sokka, studying him closely, "...you got a motorcycle."
"Its name's 'Appa' and it's a BMW R-71 with a 750cc engine, 22 horsepower and a top spee-" Sokka began to reel off the details with arms crossed.
Aang hunched over and smiled wildly, hands clamped together pleadingly "can I ride it?"
"No!" Sokka declared forcefully.
"Pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pleeeaaase?" Aang smiled wider and attempted the largest, shiniest eyeballs he could physically bulge to sway over Sokka's cold heart.
"I said no!" Sokka turned away, "it's my bike and only I can ride it!"
"With sugar on top?" Aang implored, following Sokka.
"What part of 'no' don't you get?" Sokka winged. Katara was doubling over in laughter at the exchange.
They prepared to set off, across the valley and down, further into China. Well aware of the dangers ahead, but knowing the risks had to be faced. For the sake of everything. The bike roared to life and took off with a scrunch of pebbles and dirt, rumbling down the freshly-lit valley. The sun was still low on the horizon...rising over the east.
END OF PART ONE
To Be Continued…
Avatar: The Last Airbender Concept and Characters © Nickelodeon 2005-07
Author's Note: Look forward to Part Two, coming soon! ...ish!
This first part follows the premiere episodes of the show relatively closely, but from this point on they're going to diverge increasingly sharply. There wouldn't be much point making an AU if I just retold the story in 1940s clothing. In any case with eight parts to go it's going to be hard to cram everything in, especially when I don't need to. But there'll definitely be sign-posts for events that correspond with the series, since they're going to follow something of a pattern as far as areas and moods go.
Can't be more specific. That would be spoiling! For now, it's off to Hailar, and beyond.