A/N: Ello! I'm back from the middle of nowhere. 8) Once again, cyber cookies to everyone who reviewed. You guys make me so happy! -B

Disclaimer: IDNOATLA ^_^

I GET CAPTURED BY THE FIRE NATION. KINDA.

"Stop that, now.
You're as close as it gets without touching me."

"Is everybody clear on the plan?"

I turned to Kaida, who had chosen that moment to meet my eyes as well. I raised an eyebrow and she nodded, her grin returning.

"Crystal," she answered. Uncle turned his gaze to me and I confirmed it. We wouldn't get any more ready than this. Kaida looked like she was ready to explode with impatience. She had hardly made it through Uncle's detailed explanation without loosing it.

I couldn't decide how I felt. As much as I hated what the fire nation had done to me - and the feeling was mutual - this place was, and would always be, my home. There was no other place on earth that held that title; not from me. It was making the whole ordeal much more complicated than it needed to be.

Still, though, I argued with myself, it wasn't as if I was going out and ruining anyone's life. Well, no one's but my own, that is. And that was something I did frequently, anyway, so the sting of it had been lost.

No, we only had one objective; one seemingly harmless objective. Or, it was more like three, I supposed, when you broke it right down: get in, get Kaida's family and get out. It all sounded so simple when I put it that way, but, in truth, there was hardly any room for detours. If anything unexpected came up, we would have a problem on our hands. If we wasted any time, any time at all, we would have to fight to make it out of the Royal City alive before we were trapped inside of it like hunted animals.

Uncle ushered us both out of the very temporary house he had managed to acquire at the last minute. There was something final about the action of walking through the deteriorating door. I knew that it would be a very long time before I walked these streets again. My heartbeat quickened at the thought; the premonition of something big. I couldn't shake the feeling that this was only the beginning.

Kaida smoothed out her old, torn fire nation prisoner's dress; something that we had managed to pick up from a local vendor. She had almost had a bit too much fun making it look years old, rather than brand new. Uncle and I, however, were clad in the armour of common foot soldiers. It was one of the times when I couldn't help but be impressed with my uncle. How he had known all along to pack the uniforms he'd borrowed from Mr. and Mrs. Yuumi's ship could only be explained by perfect planning and a streak of genius.

"Very well," the old man replied at our readiness to go. "On my signal then."

Through the dark crimson bars of my helmet, I watched Kaida grin, the dirt and soot streaks on her face only adding to the act we were about to pull. Suddenly, I wasn't so decided. What if something went wrong? One of us could die trying to pull this off. I had been close enough to death before to know that it wasn't really as peaceful as people made it out to be; not the kind of death we were in danger of, anyway.

But it was too late for that. Kaida was already moving into position and away from us, while Uncle touched my arm lightly to follow him behind the house. I followed wordlessly, my muscles tensing up All I could think was, This is it.

Once we were both safely concealed in the back alley on the far side of the building, Uncle waited a few agonizingly long minutes in dead silence before bringing his hands up to form a cup around his mouth. A piercing bird's whistle cut into the easy sounds of the village, which was only just beginning to wake up from a night's rest. That was the signal. We only had about half a minute before Kaida started her part of the plan.

I stepped out of the musty alley, truly attempting to look like a common fire nation soldier, just out on morning patrol. Needless to say, Uncle was a much better actor than I was, but I must have done a decent job of it as well, since no one gave us a passing glance as we strode by. It was probably a good thing my face was covered, though, or I undoubtedly would have given us away.

Suddenly - and perfectly on cue - Kaida burst from the narrow alley on the other side of the house, kicking over several large barrels in the process. She paused, took one look at Uncle and I, then took off down the street at full speed. Playing our part, we sprinted after her, shouting things at the 'runaway slave' and yelling for people to get out of the way. Every now and then, she would look back over her shoulder, the glint in her green eyes letting me know that she was fully enjoying her little act.

We flew down the narrow and dangerous roads, attempting to keep up with Kaida's act of jumping over random things lying all over the place, tossing obstacles in our way and more or less wreaking havoc to anyone she passed along the way. Whole stands went down by her hands, and it was almost too much to keep up with the shadowbender's antics. It wasn't until a few minutes into the chase that I discovered a way out of it.

Up ahead in the road, a child's wagon lay skewed haphazardly across her path. In that moment, I made a split decision to play up the acting a bit. I shouted something, the first thing that came into my head, and Kaida looked back purposefully, locking eyes with me and intentionally keeping her eyes off the road.

"You just try it-whaa!"

In a perfectly played out 'trip', Kaida was on the ground, rubbing her head distractedly. Uncle and I caught up easily, kicking the wagon out of the way and forcing her to her knees. While I tied up her hands and attempted to shoo away several crowds gathering around us, Uncle kept himself busy with explaining to her one last time how to reach the respective chambers for the different aged slaves. To any outsider, however, he could easily have been threatening her not to run away from us again. True to her part, the shadowbender glared hatefully at the old man, gritting her teeth.

I pulled Kaida up by her hands, making sure to do it just rough enough so as not to hurt her for real. Uncle taking her left arm, and I her right, we tediously started a path for the palace's working quarters. None of us spoke until the very end of the lengthy trip. I didn't know what was going through Uncle or Kaida's minds the entire way there, but I was already planning out every escape route I knew in case something went wrong. I didn't know why, but I couldn't shake the notion. It was stuck in my mind, and wasn't about to go away.

Finally, the palace came into view, and I almost had to close my eyes at the sight to keep myself in check. Never in all my life had I thought that this would be the reason for my return to this place; that it would be under circumstances like this.

"Remember," Uncle spoke in a hurried whisper. "Zuko and I will stay as close as possible. As soon as you have them, meet us in the courtyard so we can leave quickly."

"Got it," Kaida responded promptly, a look of pure determination crossing her face. "Anything to add, sparky?" I looked over at the acknowledgement, only one real suggestion coming to mind at her words.

"Don't die."

"Deal," Kaida promised, a grin splitting her face as she met my eyes. I could see it in them that there was no chance of that. Everything in her expression spoke of unparalleled willpower. She would not be brought down today. So I decided that neither would I. We would all make it out of this alive if we had to cut down the entire fire nation army in the process.

However, that resolve was about to meet its first challenger.

"Hey, hey. What's going on here?"

The palace's main guard, a stocky man who's name I couldn't quite remember, was encroaching on us, suspicion clear in his maple wood eyes. This was the first true test of our acting capabilities, and luckily I would not have to say a word, seeing that Uncle was there to take it up.

"This slave girl somehow escaped," he answered in a perfectly believable tone. "We are escorting her back to the holding rooms." The man huffed, leaning in as if to get a better look at Kaida, our 'captured slave.' As if to prove the point, and also in what I assumed was personal gratification, the shadowbender spit at the guard, causing him to draw back, his nose wrinkled in distaste.

"Very well," he answered, now eyeing Kaida as a threat. "And make sure she gets punished appropriately."

"Of course," Uncle and I answered in what was supposedly a protocol answer, moving as quickly into the palace as we could without being blatantly obvious. As soon as the colossal doors of the main entrance had boomed shut, our snare-like grips on Kaida dropped, making her stumble the slightest bit. She glared at the door, as if it had offended her.

"Remind me to cut that one later," she muttered, then turned around. The shock was clear in her eyes as she surveyed the unimpressive entryway.

"Spirits," the shadowbender whispered. "Still can't believe you lived here." I shrugged, brushing it off as nothing, even though, in reality, I could relate to how she felt. It wasn't until I was long banished that I realized how much I'd had back at home.

We speed-walked down the oversized hallways toward the slave's quarters, praying the whole time that no one cut us off before we could get there. Once or twice, there was the sound of footsteps in a far-off corridor, and Uncle and I would have to grab Kaida's arms at the last second, but whoever it was never made it to the main hallway where we were. Regardless, though, our nerves were about fried by the time we finally made it to where we were going.

Kaida's hand was on the handle of the thick, wooden door before we could say anything, but she stopped and looked back at us, something seemingly crossing her cluttered mind.

"Maybe this is a bad time," she smirked, still the cocky, overconfident girl she had been when I'd first met her. However, something was different now. Something had changed. "But I wanted to get this out in case we die." Always the optimist. Uncle and I waited while she took a breath, letting her eyes slip shut for a short moment. Finally, she went on.

"Thanks," she said shortly, amusement in her eyes. "Both of you. Thanks for helping me get here."

"Of course," Uncle replied, his voice softened considerably from before. I could tell Kaida had grown on him lately. The shadowbender reached a hand behind her head, her smirk growing in something that almost looked like emberrassment.

"Yeah," she continued, her tone casual again. "You were right. I never could have gotten anywhere trying to sell Zuko."

"Right. What were you thinking," I muttered sarcastically, internally rolling my eyes.

Suddenly, the air grew sober as it dawned on the both of us that whatever happened after this moment was up in the air. There was no guarantee that either of us would come back from this. Kaida stared at the ground, as if afraid to meet either mine or Uncles eyes, and the silence stretched on as her face grew more and more uncertain. I decided that now was my turn to keep her going.

"Don't tell me you're scared already," I taunted. Her head raised a fraction, a fire suddenly blazing beneath Kaida's emerald eyes.

"Not a chance," she answered as easily as ever. "I'll see you all after I take this place down."

And with that, Kaida Hotaru, the world's last shadowbender, took my hand for a frozen moment, her eyes boring into mine, before she pulled the door open and disappeared behind it without another moment's hesitation. I simply stared at the mahogany entrance, my hand tingling inexplicably, until Uncle regained my attention by reattaching his helmet. I copied, leaving the rest of it all behind.

We had work to do.

B-L-A-C-K-O-U-T

I grinned as I took my first step into the fire nation's slave quarters.

Apparently, the men and women held separate jobs, since all I could see were females mulling around, washing dishes and cooking and such. That was fine, though. It would actually make finding Leila and Grandma a lot easier. I ran and reran Iroh's directions silently in my head, trying to find the specific area of the enormous room that I was searching for.

I internally let out a breath of relief over having gone so 'overboard' with my attempt to filthy up my outfit. Zuko had outwardly thought that it was a bit too much, but looking around now, I knew that I had only just done enough to pass as an actual captive. Most others were in a far worse condition, and I was only barely fitting in. I tried to get a good look at everyone in the room while still appearing to have a purpose there.

More than a couple footmen were prowling around, making sure that everyone was being worked. It was a time when my insignificant height came in handy. I slipped out of their line of view each time before being caught.

Somewhere along the line, I noticed something going on in the corner that caught my attention. Apparently, some slave girl had failed to do her work up to one of the foot soldier's standards, and was getting an earful over it. He stood over the girl, blocking her from my view with his bulk and excessive hand movements. Stepping closer to the scene, I pricked my ears to listen in on what had happened.

"It won't happen again," the girl panted, clearly about to collapse. "I swear."

"That's exactly what you said last week," the man towering over her exclaimed, his voice enough to frighten most people. Somehow, though, I had the feeling that most fire nation men were all talk and no walk. Or maybe I just hated them all too much to care if they were dangerous or not. Either way, his tone did nothing to stop me from intervening in on his little discipline chat.

Here, now. Let's pick on someone our own size.

"I promise," the girl continued. I couldn't help but resent the sound of her voice. She was so young; a baby really. My anger at the fire nation flared.

"Well, you know what? That isn't good enough anym-"

"Oi," I interrupted; quite rudely, actually, but what did I care? "Someone sent me to replace this girl for the day. Firelord's orders." I tossed my thumb over my shoulder casually, as if the firelord were right behind me, backing me up.

The foot soldier stared at me for a moment, but apparently I looked confident enough in my purpose there that he didn't feel the need to question it. Instead, he simply backed off the little girl on the floor, taking up what he probably thought was a dignified stance.

"About time," he scoffed, stepping away without another word. I watched him leave distrustfully before turning my eyes on the girl.

She gaped up up me from the ground, and it didn't take long for the pieces to fall together in my mind. Her long, curly midnight hair was completely filthy, random curls sticking out haphazardly at odd angles, and her china blue eyes were the size of saucepans. I smirked, astounding even myself at the luck that happened to find me at all the right times.

"You alright?" I quizzed, reaching down to pull the younger girl up from the floor. She closed her mouth with some effort, taking my hand and standing up shakily.

"I'm fine, yeah," she answered, shaking her head as if to shake off what had just happened. I grinned, not waiting for her to collect herself.

"That's good," I replied slyly. "I can't have you all beat up if we're going to be breaking out of here. Right, Leila?" My amusement only extended as I watched the play of emotions in my cousin's eyes go from confusion, to suspicion, and finally to disbelief. Her eyes resumed their previous level of shock as she attempted to get out a question, but only managed to say one thing.

"K-kaida!"

B-L-A-C-K-O-U-T

A/N: Yay! One down, one to go. Although, I'm not sure how I feel about Kaida finding her so quickly. Oh, bujeezus, what am I talking about? I'm the author! Oh, well. What's done is done. Click the shiny review button!