After a few days, they moved Aang and Katara to the same cell. This one was larger, with more greenery on the walls and floor, as well as two cots, mounted on cleverly-concealed rails so they could be slid together to form one large bed. They'd started bringing slightly larger portions of food as well, and there was a tap on one wall which could deliver cool drinking water, or provide a lukewarm bath. He and Katara spent their time talking quietly, or reading. There was something about the place... something in the walls and in the air and in them. It made them both calm, in a way. They'd agreed on that early on. They were terrified, angry, desperate to get out, but there was no physical anger. No sense of rising fury. No fight-or-flight. Just a sort of weary relaxation. Katara had undergone the same kind of odd, hallucinatory torture as he had; she described reliving random snippets of her childhood, but nothing like the bizarre internal conversation that Aang had had. She felt the same coldness, the same preternatural langour.

"It's like something in my mind- my soul- is frozen. That's the only way it makes sense. Like they've taken a great river of energy and made it solid ice", she'd said, eyes slightly unfocussed. She was right. Someone or something had tampered with the inside of their heads. Every day they'd both spend a futile hour or so at the small depression in the floor beneath the tap, trying to get droplets of water to move around. Nothing.

At any other time, Aang had to admit guiltily to himself, he would have been kind of happy to be in a situation like this. The little... male part of his brain, even partially contained by the aggression-blocking whatever, still continually reminded him that he was alone. In a room. With Katara. And that she was afraid, and needed someone to protect her. He tried to quash the thoughts, but they'd push through whatever meaningless nothings he ran through his head to distract himself. No matter how hard he stared at a page of ancient poetry or ran through bending forms, the little voice would whisper that she bathed at the tap, with nothing between her bare, damp skin and his eyes but their sense of modesty. At those times he'd look away and screw his eyes shut. So this was what the monks had talked about. Puberty was a battle. And every time he thought he'd suppressed that nagging wash of hormones, she'd snuggle tighter against him in her sleep or make eye contact or even just breathe and-

There was movement outside the cell. It wasn't regular mealtimes, and they'd received fresh sets of clothes earlier in the day. They both stood, Katara setting down her book and moving closer to Aang. Their hands met, and clung to each other. Aang took a deep, shuddering breath, trying his best to look confident and unconcerned. He knew it wasn't working.

The huge bolts slid back, and the door swung open on quiet, well-oiled hinges. A guard stepped through the opening, his face placid and set, his large hands empty. There was a brief pause, and then a figure out of a nightmare entered the room on clanking, unsteady feet. Its skin was smooth, segmented porcelain, broken by oddly bulky folds of thick, parchment-like skin, with bulging veins running just under the taut surface. Its face was a featureless mass of tissue, broken by two wide, blank discs that had to be its eyes. It swayed to a halt, hissing and buzzing, and they both recoiled. Then it spoke.

"I apologize for my rather unpleasant appearance. I hope you are both well, given the circumstances?"

Aang blinked, feeling the haze of panic drop away from his sight. It wasn't a creature, it was a man, of about average stature, wearing porcelain-plated mechanical harness over a full-body suit of overlapping bandages. The skin over the joints was thick dressings, the veins bulges from the knots holding the cloth in place. He was wearing glasses over his bandaged face. The man sighed tiredly.

"Do you mind if I sit?"

There was a moment's pause, then Katara made a slight motion of her head. He sat, the armour clicking and hissing, letting off small jets of steam. He sighed with relief, stretching out his lumpy, bulky legs.

"Like I said, I really am sorry for my appearance. I'm not intending to be intimidating. There was- an accident, and I suffered severe burns. The healers say they can repair most of the damage with Waterbending, but my skin still needs some time to recover on its own before that can happen. I'm also supposed to avoid overexerting myself, whatever that means. Hence," he made a broad gesture, "this ridiculous mummified getup."

He reached up with one bandaged hand, exposing gnarled-looking pinkish-red fingertips to pull at the bandages over his mouth, revealing lips covered with thick gauze pads. Where his skin showed through, it looked like raw meat.

"So. To repeat my previous question. Avatar Aang. Katara of the Southern Water Tribe. Under these... unfortunate circumstances, how are you?"

Aang gritted his teeth, feeling suppressed aggression boil and rage in the frozen depths of his mind. The little male part wanted to smash this freak's face in, but reason prevailed.

"Why are we being held here? Where are Zuko and Sokka and Appa? What do you want with us?"

The burnt man looked up at him, brown eyes expressionless behind his glasses. He gave what was probably a faint smile.

"You're not even going to ask me to introduce myself? Then again given what has happened I can understand. Well then. My name is General Si. I am in charge of the military arm of the Ember Group, which means that I am essentially in charge of the Ember Group, which means that most of the proceeding sentence has been a waste of your time and mine. But I digress. Now, as for your questions. In order... let me see here. Ah yes. First, because you're a danger to yourselves and to our goals. Second, the good Fire Lord is healthy and well, although his psyche dredging was necessarily a longer and more thorough process, given the number of state secrets we required him to divulge. He will be strong enough to speak with within the next day or two. Lady Katara, your brother is in high spirits, and recovering well. Your Sky Bison has been treated with utmost courtesy, and allowed to mingle with out local herds. Where was I. Oh yes. Number three. Ahem. Third, I want your cooperation."

He stood abruptly.

"Shall we walk? I am sure you would both greatly enjoy a change of scenery."

The hall outside was a slightly dimly-lit, cavernous space, lit by a faint, unwavering golden glow that seemed to emanate from the air itself. There were a half-dozen other cell doors, the thick layers of metal and ceramic standing out like tumors against the mossy wall surface. The cool air was filled with a faint sussuration, like pieces of paper being rustled against one another. Aang couldn't identify it, and then he heard Katara gasp. Following her amazed gaze, he looked up. At first his mind could not grasp what he was seeing; just immense geometrical shapes, overlaid across one another. He blinked, and it came into focus. Shelves. Racks and racks of shelves, branching and sprouting from one another in impossible geometric patterns. Bookshelves, kilometers long, filled with an uncountable number of tomes. Here and there, built off the edges of the shelves like small saplings hung cantilevered metal gantries. Though they were dwarfed by the scale of the place, they were overgrown with towering buildings, hanging off of and often underneath them. Thin rivulets of water ran off them, descending for kilometers before dissolving away into mist. It was a library on a geological scale.

"This the Great Library, isn't it?", Katara said. "That's how you kept the Ember Group safe from the White Lotus. All this technology couldn't beat the Spirit World. Only a Spirit could."

General Si smiled as best he could.

"Excellent. Katara, I'm quite impressed. You hit the proverbial nail. Owl, do you mind?"

There was a soft displacement of air, and a shape that was an ink drawing of an owl and an origami construction of one and the written character for 'owl' unfolded itself into the space in front of them. It spoke with a soft, vibrant and infinitely world-weary tone.

"Avatar Aang. Lady Katara."

Aang felt himself tense. That voice meant nothing good.

"Wan Shi Tong," he managed through gritted teeth. The Owl chuckled softly.

"I'm aware our last meeting was under hardly ideal circumstances," it said coolly. "But now that you've seen what's going on here, I'm sure you can understand that I could hardly reveal the full extent of my Library to you. Or my..."

"Houseguests," Si finished the sentence. "It's really more like a symbiotic relationship. We provide for each other. The Ember Group can give Wan Shi Tong here information that even his Knowledge Seekers are incapable of locating, as well as protection from interlopers. His ability to... defy certain cosmological barriers provides us with otherwise-inacessible resources."

Aang nodded slowly. Suddenly the highly improbable industrial base of the Ember Group made sense.

"You claim to be a humans-only organization, but really you're cheating. That's how you supply yourself. He uses his spirit powers to create raw materials for you. That's why everything you build is jam-packed with sky iron. That's how you can fuel all those airships. You don't work for what you have, it's handed to you on a silver platter. How can you be so hypocritical?"

Suddenly the aura of gentle politeness was gone from Si. When he spoke, his voice was just as menacing and mechanical as his appearance.

"Because, Avatar, we are fighting a war for this world. All is fair. We do what is necessary. The Owl knows this. We know this. If the Lotus wins, they will alter all life on this world so irrevocably that what you know as humanity will no longer exist. We cannot allow that to happen."

Katara crossed her arms, expression set in what Aang knew was her 'time for a serious moral debate' face.

"So the ends justify the means so much that you'd build a hyper-aggressive military society run on technology that you refuse to share with anyone? Do they justify what happened to the Northern Water Tribe- I assume that was you, knowing how much you like to be discreet. Do they justify attacking a small town in the Earth Kingdom for no apparent reason? Do they justify what you've tried to do to Zuko? And where is he? Or my brother for that matter, you creep."

Aang joined in as well, feeling his repressed frustration boil and bubble even as his voice remained level and his breathing even.

"And what did you do to our heads? And our Bending? Considering you're so pro-human, you're pretty willing to do a lot of terrible things to innocent people. You tortured us. We are children, and you tortured us. We were incapacitated, totally defenceless- thanks to the actions of your thugs, who tried to blow up a stadium full of innocent people- and you tortured us. How do you live with yourself, Si? Spirits, you're worse than Ozai. At least he was straightforward enough to tell people that he wanted to exterminate the Earth Kingdom. You'd do the same thing, only you'd call it 'reeducation' or something like that."

The Owl chuckled softly as it faded away into nothingness.

"Well spoken, you two," it said in hushed tones. They were left alone with Si and the impassive guards. He sighed, then hummed a few short notes. Aang blinked as the tones reverberated through his skull. Those were familiar-

they are screaming as they run out of the burning temple, their robes and tonsured hair afire as the soldiers circle in the darkness their armour glowing bonfire red and the mountain resounds with the crackle of sparks

He was on his knees, retching as screaming pain ripped across his psyche. Katara was sobbing. Then it passed, and the soft calm returned. He staggered to his feet. Si was calmly examining the wrist joint of his armor.

"We didn't just dig around in your mind to take from it, Avatar. We also left a few useful codes in there. Congratulations. You're one of us now, in a way. Your body will no longer enter states of physical shock. You will find that your heart rate remains more stable under stress. You cannot experience post-traumatic stress disorder. Your ability to focus will improve. And you will not , can not act against us. My predecessors picked apart hundreds of test subjects piece by piece to achieve the technologies that have altered your minds! You belong to the Ember Group! You ARE the Ember Group! I have need of you, and you will cooperate!"

His steady, mechanical tone never changed. His eyes, when they were visible, were calm and collected. And yet somehow Si's voice managed to become a thunderous roar all the same. Aang gasped an uneven breath.

"You're completely insane."

Si clicked his tongue. Suddenly the veneer of politeness was back.

"Spirits sakes, Avatar. That old cliche? Spare me, please. Yes, we're unethical. Yes, we have done incredibly unethical things. Yes, we intend to do more. Because our end goal is the ultimate survival of the human race. When it boils down to it, the Ember Group really just aims to show humanity that we shouldn't turn against ourselves when we've got a much greater threat to face. Namely, the White Lotus. Or rather, the inhuman intelligences that claim to be the White Lotus."

He turned away from them, giving an airy 'follow me' gesture.

"Now then. Time for some long-awaited reunions."

"Mai, if you don't mind me asking-"

Al ran into a low-hanging pipe. He staggered back, reaching out a hand to steady himself. He gripped another section of pipework, only to yelp and recoil as it nearly burned him. The interior of the Phoenix was a mess of heat-disippation machinery so overengineered and overbuilt that even Ed had to duck in places.

"Ow. What the hell is this thing?"

"An incredibly dangerous and highly unstable superweapon powered by the deposed Crown Princess of the Fire Nation.", the Fire Lady said, deadly serious.

Al blinked, frowning even harder against the diffuse red gloom that pervaded the mazelike corridors. One of the crewmen, apologizing profusely, squeezed past them, the fit not made any easier by the thickly padded heatproof suit he was wearing. The acrobat- Tai Lee? Ty Lee? Probably the latter- gave a brittle laugh.

"Just remember to never, ever open the hatch marked 'Imperial Ignition Chamber'. Azula gets pouty if you wake her up early."

There was a cramped and uncomfortable silence after that, and then they came into the relatively open space of the bridge. It wasn't disimilar to the bridge of the Wind Chariot, with the exception of the everpresent ductwork and the areas of floor that looked to have been literally tied down. The closer you got to the Phoenix's weapon, the more complete the ship was; there were areas of the crew quarters that were completely open to the elements, and some of the outer hull was held together by leftover drydock scaffolding. The painted woman, Suki, and the ship's captain were huddled over one of the small desks that someone had cobbled together out of loose construction materials, speaking quietly and poring over the small codebook that Mai had taken from the Ember Group warship.

"Any luck on those engines, ma'am?", the captain inquired, his high-cheekboned face perfectly neutral. Al couldn't read him well, but this man was obviously used to dealing with royalty. His previous boss had been... dangerous, it would appear, and he still bore the scars in his bearing and excessive politeness.

"They should be working, Captain Erzuo," Mai said. "With the Alchemists on our side, mechanical failures are a thing of the past.

"Of course, ma'am."

Suki stood, her steam armour hissing and clicking. It hadn't taken Al long to realize that she was falling apart at the seams as much as Ty Lee was, just in a different way. The acrobat had gone all tense and rigid, trying desperately to maintain good humor and a positive outlook. Suki was the obsessive type. Her paranoid devotion to wearing the armour at all hours of the day and night proved it. In the three days he and Ed had been on the Phoenix, he had never once seen her remove the heavy plate, or the strange mottled facepaint that looked like someone had poured mud on a china doll.

"Mai, we cracked it. Erzou found the base for the key, and then it was just a matter of filling in the blanks."

The little codebook came in two parts; the first had a mix of various lettering systems and the on-off codes for the Ember Group optical telegraphs. The second was far more bizarre; just a series of long, wavering lines, their swooping dips and curves carefully printed. Mai claimed it looked vaguely like an old form of musical notation she'd seen in a book once, but they couldn't make heads or tails of it. The bridge was suddenly crackling with excitement. Al knew that Mai had tasked her crew with recording every snatch of Ember Group optical telegraph transmission they could capture, and she'd been viciously thorough in ransacking the crashed airship for documents and papers.

"Where are they going, Suki? Where do these Ember bastards intend to hit next?"

Suki shrugged.

"That, I can't tell you. But they're very interested in Omashu, all of a sudden."

Mai actually smiled. It was cold, and it was angry, and frankly there was very little happiness to it, but it was still a smile. Ed glanced at Al. They didn't need to speak, but in that brief moment of eye contact they both said a lot. Al shivered. He knew they were probably siding with the good guys here, but the scary thing was he couldn't tell. And Ed was thinking the same thing.

"Captain.", Mai said, as if ordering something tasty at an expensive restaurant. "Lay in a course for Omashu. I think it's time we all paid King Bumi a visit."

"Katara!"

"Sokka!"

"Aang."

"Zuko!"

"GRUMF."

"Appa!"

"Hi, gang."

"Toph?!"

"Ahem. If I might have your attention, please."

"Who the hell are you?"

"Sokka, sit down."

He sat. Katara gave him another squeeze on the shoulder. Being all together again... Aang could feel the tension draining out of them. Zuko might have large, unpleasant looking scars on both temples, Sokka might be unshaven and haggard-looking, and Toph might be clad in something not entirely dissimilar to an Ember Group uniform, but they were together. They'd even managed to cram Appa into the tiered briefing room, somehow. He settled back into the bison's warm, soft fur, letting Appa's familiar scent wash over him. They were still trapped, that much was true. His mind was still encased in iron-cold restraints. His Bending, and the voices of the Avatars, were nowhere to be found. But they were together. And Si had gone, leaving behind this slightly pudgy man with a well-trimmed beard and droopy, slightly apologetic eyes. He cleared his throat, consulting a clipboard.

"Right. My name is Quanli Shou. I'm the General's assistant. The simple fact that I am briefing you today means that what we need from you is vitally important. Now, I'm aware that the psyche dredging process was... not entirely pleasant, especially for you, Fire Lord Zuko, but it couldn't be helped."

Sokka rose from his seat, drawing a breath. Without looking up from the clipboard, Shou flicked his wrist. Suddenly there was a largeish pistol crossbow in his hands, pointed directly between Sokka's eyes. Aang felt his entire body prepare to leap into the path of the bolt, muscle memory struggling against the spirits-damned mental block. Toph grabbed Sokka by the shoulder and forced him down into his seat.

"Thank you," Shou said. There was a hard edge to his voice now, one that Aang hadn't picked up before. It wasn't that he was arrogant- no, Shou was just supremely confident.

"About two months ago we lost every single one of our agents in Omashu," Shou said, spinning a valve on a rickety-looking device that seemed to project images through coloured sheets of glass. The back wall of the briefing hall lit up with a long list of names.

"Normally, losing a deep-cover agent or two wouldn't be an issue. Accidents happen. However. Over the course of one week, we fell out of contact with two hundred people. Everyone from beggars on the street to several of Bumi's cabinet ministers who belonged to us. We were expecting the unexpected in Omashu; I'm sure you've all heard of the rather strange orders Bumi issued before moving to Ba Sing Se. Extremely early curfews, interdiction of several of the major mountain passes... There was a massive swath of territory to the west of Omashu that simply became inaccessible. All of our agents had been reporting earthquakes, strange noises in the night, odd weather patterns. And then they vanished."

He triggered the projection machine. The next slide was... odd. It looked like a reproduction of a simple ink painting. It looked like a tree, perhaps. A tree of cloud, with a single starburst of lines at its roots.

"This is what the single Attuned Firebender who survived making a pass over Omashu drew for us. Three hours later he went catatonic and his heart stopped."

"Question.", Sokka said. "What're these 'Attuned', you're talking about?"

Shou was about to speak, but Toph cut him off.

"They're these weird Benders who've had surgery done on them or something. They can use their bending to see like I can, but more so. Waaaaay more so."

"Thank you, Miss Bei Fong.", Shou said evenly.

"Stuff it, Porky.", Toph retorted, her voice just as calm.

"I'll choose to ignore that comment."

"I'll choose to ignore that crossbow."

Aang couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief.

"I missed you, Toph.", he said. She flashed him a wide grin. Shou rolled his eyes and pocketed the bow again.

"Aang, now is really not the time.", Katara said, but there was a spark of humor in her eyes.

"May I continue? Thank you. We've made several attempts to infiltrate teams into Omashu, with no success. Given that you've missed recent events, you should know that Bumi has abandoned Ba Sing Se, and most of the court, and barricaded himself in Omashu by cutting off all the surrounding mountain passes. He is almost certainly accompanied by his royal guard, but the reports from the few squads that returned from reconnaissance in the area alive and intelligibly sane would seem to indicate that he may have acquired... active assistance from the White Lotus."

Toph cocked an eyebrow.

"Tulpa don't drive people crazy, Porky. Oh." She turned in her seat, facing in the general direction of Aang, Katara, Zuko and Sokka. "Tulpa are the big puppet things we ran into in Gaoling. They're sort of like White Lotus tanks. Kind of."

Shou shook his head.

"They're not Tulpa, whatever they are. All we know is that they make Attuned surveying impossible, and they're remarkably good at seeking out and destroying infiltrators. Which is where you come in, Avatar."

Aang started.

"I'm sorry. You've tried to brainwash me and now you're asking me and my friends to try and sneak in to a deathtrap mountain fortress controlled by childhood best friend, who may be conspiring with spirits and also completely insane? Riiight."

Shou shook his head again.

"No, actually. We've decided that the time for infiltration is over. So you're going to stroll in there and demand to see Bumi. You are to use whatever means necessary to find out what is going on there. If you judge it necessary, you even have our permission to destroy Bumi and his work, should that prove necessary."

Zuko spoke slowly, his voice strained. Whatever they'd done to his head wasn't healing up nearly as fast.

"What's stopping us from changing sides? Why couldn't we just offer to help Bumi and the White Lotus? He hasn't kidnapped us. Or messed around with our minds."

Shou smiled thinly and advanced the machine. It showed a chart; rank upon rank of tiny airship-shaped icons, accompanied by tiny panels of statistics.

"Fire Lord, you won't be going in alone. You'll be going at the head of Air Group Si Wong. This is reconnaissance in force. If reconnaissance fails, we will be forced to ensure that White Lotus forces in Omashu are no longer a threat to us. If you have any objections to this mission, we will be happy to put you into medically-induced comas until such time as you can be useful to us once more. So. What say you?"

-~0X0~-

No, your eyes have not deceived you. Harnessing the Elements is still alive. And also more than two years old. And it just passed the 80, 000 word mark. Hooray!

The moral of the story is that university and writing do not mix that well.

Thanks as always to people for following and favoriting. You're what keep me going.

Have a wonderful summer, y'alls.