Chapter Twelve: New Strategy – Don't Get Caught

"What happened?" Hotaru whispered as she awoke in the very strange bed. "Did we get caught?" Everything was very blurry. She did remember a very annoying little earthbender.

"Hotaru!" Kaiya yelped, jumping out of the armchair where she'd dozed off the night before. "You're awake! Are you all right? What hurts? Tell me what hurts!" Kaiya yelled inches from her friend's face, having climbed up on the bed with Hotaru.

"Agh! Get off me!" Hotaru said, pushing Kaiya away. "I'm fine. I'm … Kaiya, what the hell happened to you?" she asked, noticing Kaiya's torn clothing and the dark circles under her eyes.

"Oh, yeah, well, the Elites gave me a very warm welcome," Kaiya muttered, shuddering.

"I thought I heard you two talking," Washi said from the doorway. "How's it going, Hotaru?"

"I feel like I missed something," Hotaru answered. "What have you got there?"

"New clothes for you and Kaiya. Courtesy of Iroh's closet." He threw a shirt and sweatpants to each girl.

"Oh, wonderful!" Kaiya said, regarding the Hawaiian print. "I can become a pilot now."

Hotaru laughed. "So, what's our plan now that we apparently got Kaiya out?" she asked Washi.

Washi straightened, putting an index finger in the air, as if it would help make his point. "We have ourselves a new strategy, benders. Don't. Get. Caught."

*****

"What do you mean, it was Zakk Foco?" the General growled over Mike's cell phone.

Mike Chan sighed. He knew this was going to be a tough call. It didn't help that he was in a crowded café making it. "Just as I stated. Zakk had never been happy in the compound. Since last spring he had been acting, let us say, unstable. Slightly rebellious attitude that Wei thought he would grow out of. It was because of Kaiya Saito, Sir. He found out the truth and chose protecting Kaiya over serving Wei."

There was a moment of silence as the General considered this information. "He chose correctly. Wei was a threat to the operation. But he must be punished for destroying the compound. When will our agents be ready to go on the hunt?"

"That's just it, Sir, not many of our agents got out. In fact, only those who were in the basement with Tong Fa survived."

"And, of course, you." The General's voice was not judging. Merely observing.

"Zakk always liked me. He warned me what he was going to do. I was unarmed, had no way of stopping him. I am afraid I ran, Sir," Mike explained anyway.

"You know when to cut your losses, Chan. We need someone who thinks realistically to head the new compound. You know where our priorities lie. How would you like to step up in the world, Chan?"

"General," Mike started, surprised, "I don't, I mean, I never wanted. Sir, with all due respect, I saw what this job did to Wei. He lost his mind looking for the Avatar. I do not want that to happen to me."

"You are a different man, Chan. You have a choice to make. I suggest you take your time in making it."

The line went dead. Mike took a breath. If he refused the job offer, would the General let him walk away? With everything Mike knew, he kind of doubted that. A waitress slid by and handed Mike an envelope, "Someone asked me to give you this, hun." Mike nodded at her and looked the envelope over. It had a seal on the back that looked like a lotus. He hands started shaking so badly that he nearly dropped the envelope.

When he was finally able to open it, a note card slid out of the envelope and into his hand.

Choose Good.

Great. Now two organizations were trying to manipulate him. He left the café without paying for his coffee.

*****

"But I like my new cell phone!" Kaiya whimpered. "I can play Sims on it!"

Washi laughed. Hotaru blinked. Iroh sighed. "They can track it. Put it in the junk pile. Along with your parents' credit cards."

Kaiya pouted. "The credit card is the only way I know my parents know I exist." She put the card in the pile as well. For good measure, she added all her membership cards, and basically anything with her name on it. Just in case.

Washi threw in his Blockbuster card. "I don't know about you two, but I'm pretty much spent on cash." He fingered his own debit card. Throwing it in the pile, he added, "And that thing only had like five bucks on it anyway."

"Money will not be a problem," Iroh said.

"Well, it wasn't until you made me put in the Saito card. Saito is like instant gold," Kaiya said. As much as she disliked her parents, she really did like their money.

"Hey, the Jia card is just as good," Hotaru said defensively. She'd been the first to empty her wallet. The hardest thing for her was the library card. How they could track a library card, she wasn't sure, but Iroh was preaching to them about not taking any chances. She had just learned the barcode on it, too.

"I actually doubt that, Hotaru," Iroh said. "The Saitos are extremely influential."

Kaiya nodded. "They're taking over the world. With the complete backing of the government."

"Anyway, as I was saying," Iroh said, "Money will not be an issue." He handed Washi a credit card with a picture of a flower on it. "This card is untraceable. You can stay invisible a long time using it."

Washi turned the card over and over in his hands, examining it. He'd never had a credit card without a limit. "Is this how you two feel all the time?" he asked the girls. "Like, powerful. Like you can rule the world?"

"Well, yeah," Kaiya admitted.

"There's one more thing. Kaiya, where's that ridiculous costume of yours?" Iroh asked. Kaiya avoided his gaze. "I am going to make sure you lay the Red Spirit to rest for good now."

Kaiya nodded. The Red Spirit did stupid things. Kaiya was going to be smarter than that now. She calmly went out to Washi's van and retrieved the costume. "There we go," she said, putting it in the pile.

Iroh shoved the whole mess into a trashcan and nodded to Hotaru. "What?" she asked.

"Burn it." Hotaru blinked. She took a deep breath and pointed at the can. A small shot of flames flew from her fingertips and into the trashcan, setting the mess ablaze instantly. "Excellent," Iroh said. "You'll be a firebender yet."

They left very soon after that, with the promise from Uncle Iroh that they wouldn't be alone. Kaiya wasn't sure exactly what he meant by that, but as with all things Iroh, she just naturally trusted the man. Which was good since he now knew a secret that could destroy her and her new friends.

*****

Anil stood on his balcony, looking out over the city and wondering if blowing out all the windows in the Saito building would accomplish anything. He loathed this city that idolized those murderers. But it was time to begin his search, and where better to start than here?

"I just heard that the Elites lost a whole compound," Glacia sing-songed in her disturbingly cold voice as she slid up to Anil.

"I do love your ability to retrieve information," Anil said, meeting his partner's blue eyes. "I would think the blue hair would frighten them away."

"I am a puppet master, Anil. People do whatever I want them to do," she said. "No matter what my hair looks like." She ran a hand over the tattoo on Anil's forehead. "At least I have hair."

Anil moved her hand away. "You were saying why the compound is important to me?"

Glacia straightened, sighing. "They say it was a turncoat firebender and an unknown firebending master that did the job."

"Again. The importance to me, Glacia?"

"My dear Anil, I was just getting to that part. The good part. You always want me to rush to the good part," she pouted. "Don't you know I worked very hard to get this information for you?" She slid even closer to Anil. "Don't you know how difficult it is for me to work without a full moon on my side?"

Anil touched her cheek. "Of course, Glacia. I know what you do for me." He twirled a little twister in his hand and put it close to her eye. "But I have had a very bad day, and I am likely to lose my temper if you do not tell me why I care about the Elites losing a compound. It is not the Elites I am after, but their backers. The Saitos. You know this. Yet you waste my time. Why is that?" He inched the twister closer and closer to Glacia's eye.

As always, Glacia didn't flinch. She was too valuable to destroy. She knew that. "They destroyed the compound to get Kaiya Saito out."

The twister disappeared. "Out of where?"

"The compound," Glacia said in her sing-song voice.

"What was she doing there?"

Glacia threw an arm around Anil and whispered in his ear, "She's a waterbender."

Anil smiled. This was incredibly good news. Jumping up on the railing, he threw a slice of air at the Saito building to celebrate. As the air hit, all the windows on the top six floors crashed into a million pieces. Anil turned back to Glacia, who was admiring his work. He took her by the waist and kissed her. "Good job," he whispered in her ear.

"I know," she whispered back.

*****

It had been silence for two hours. It was driving Washi nuts. "Okay, so what are we going to do? Just travel around the country? Sounds like it would get boring pretty damn quick."

"Not like we can do much else, Washi. I mean, we can't get jobs. We can't do anything, really," Hotaru said, thinking of college.

"We can help people," Kaiya said. "When we can. You know."

"That doesn't sound conducive to staying invisible," Hotaru stated.

Kaiya shrugged. "It was just a thought." A pretty good one, if you asked Kaiya. She felt like she had to make up for her stupidity, like she had to fight the Elites, like she had to make the world a better place while she could. She'd been selfish. That's why she'd gotten caught so many times. If she started doing things just because it was the right thing to do, karma would back her up, right?

But saving people wasn't the new strategy. Not getting caught had become the priority while she had relived Wei and the torture chamber in her sleep. Not getting caught sounded good to Kaiya, too.