Suki and her Kyoshi Warriors swiftly and silently moved through the streets of Caldera City. Native citizens fled indoors as agitated cultists moved through the streets to find the infiltrators. The warriors ambushed and dispatched cultist after cultist.

Making their way up to the palace was easy in the chaos, with the watchful Dai Li missing from the grounds. Servants milled uncertainly around the damaged areas of the building. Suki signaled for the rest of her warriors to hang back in hiding near the garden walls. She padded ahead alone to get the attention of the servants.

"Psst! Over here, in the bushes."

A maid tentatively stepped closer. "Who's there?" she whispered.

"I'm a friend," Suki whispered back. "I'm trying to find Benedictus. We're going to free the city from the Twilight's Hammer."

The maid nodded. "Prince Zuko was just here. He tried to poison the Twilight Father and escaped."

"I know. Where's the Twilight Father now?"

"The Throne Room."

"Thanks. Don't let anyone know you saw me," Suki said.

She moved away through the garden and told the Kyoshi Warriors what she knew. With what they remembered of Zuko's description of the palace layout, they found an access point through a window on an upper floor, scaling the walls as easily as owl-cats. Once inside, they made their way down to the hall just outside the Throne Room. A man's angrily ranting voice echoed from within.

Suki peeked cautiously in the open door. An old man in long robes paced around the room as he alternated between shouting and muttering to himself. The dark and spacious room was full of pillars perfect for hiding behind. She watched him for several moments, ducking out of sight again as he neared the door. Once she heard him turn to pace back the other direction, she signaled for her warriors to rush stealthily into the room.

Once they'd taken their places, Suki darted straight for the Twilight Father. He didn't notice her until the last moment, turning with a surprised shout as she sprang. They toppled to the floor, and she drew out a pair of manacles she'd taken from the prison, wrestling to clasp them onto his wrists.

Benedictus scowled at her. "Interlopers! Such insolence!"

"If you know what's good for you, you'll come quietly," Suki said.

"You cannot comprehend the forces set in motion here."

"I comprehend enough," she said. "I've seen enough."

He looked about to retort again, but something in his expression flickered, his pale eyes searching hers.

"You have," he said. "You've seen it!"

Suki grunted noncommittally. "Come on. You're coming with us. Just be glad you're more useful alive than dead, for now."

She stood from pinning him, hauling him to his feet roughly with a hand on his arm.

"'Us'?" he said with a new glimmer in his eyes.

"Don't try anything," she warned.

She realized too late that he didn't need free hands to use his powers. With a shout, a wave of white light radiated out of him, knocking back Suki and with a shock of searing pain. Half the hidden warriors were struck as well, sent sliding away from their pillars with a chorus of surprised grunts and gasps.

Suki drew her fan-blades and leapt at him again. He raised his hands, taking slices against his forearms, sparks flying whenever her blows hit the manacles instead.

"Kyoshi Warriors, attack!" she shouted.

The warriors rushed in from all directions. Benedictus sent out waves and orbs of that scouring light, but he had no hope of holding his own against them all for long. His light waned shortly. He could no longer push them back. Suki swept his legs out from under him with a low kick, and his face hit the floor hard.

"Give it up," she said, pointing a fan at him.

"Don't you understand?" he croaked. "Have you not had the epiphany of twilight?"

"I don't have time to listen to your nonsense."

"The whispers know all truths," he went on. "They see all paths. In the shadow, all things are true."

"What's true is that you're coming with us as our hostage now. Someone gag him already."

A warrior moved forward with a strip of ragged cloth. His body suddenly jerked up as if hoisted by an giant hand, wispy trails of deep purple energy swirling around him.

Suki didn't stop to wait for his next trick. She jumped at a pillar and launched herself off it toward him in the air, striking out with both fan-blades in a spinning attack. In the same moment, a wave of light – no, this time a wave of shadow, rolled out from him, the dark tide knocking over everyone else in the room but her. She landed again the second after it had passed by beneath her, blood dripping from her blades.

Shadow enveloped the man like a cocoon, then darkened and peeled away to reveal his transformation. He was somehow even more withered and aged, dark lines painted on his face in the shape of starbursts centered on his eyes. The white and gold of his robes had dimmed and darkened as well, as if coated with charcoal film.

The manacle chains glowed purple a second before crumbling into filings. The Twilight Father dusted his hands on his robes, smearing ash and blood on them.

"You will drown in shadow."

He rasped dark words as he gestured freely. Suki was too slow to stop him, as pools of shadow welled up at the feet of all the warriors. Tendrils of darkness snaked up their bodies and clasped them fast in place.

She head the familiar whispers from the shadows. She had felt this before, when the Twilight's Hammer had captured her shortly after she stumbled onto their world. The very metal they forced her to harvest had spoken to her. Illegible words had skittered at the back of her mind every night she slept in her cage.

Then the words bleeding into her own thoughts had become legible. It hadn't felt like she learned them, but that she should have known them all along and her ignorance had peeled away.

The words now were still legible. A font of them, like many rivers converged into one, or maybe one river splitting into many. Each sentence was a truth trying to make itself known to her. Contradictory truths competed to be observed and made real.

You are weak. The Fire Nation will destroy the world. The Avatar has been taken.

"Quiet," Suki growled.

Our realms can empower one another. Let them know one another.

Benedictus summoned more orbs of darkness. The orbs darted around the room as if alive, striking her helpless warriors where they stood immobile. Suki strained to break free.

Your ranks have been infiltrated by the enemy. You have been lied to. Betrayal is imminent.

"Quiet!" Her hands clenched her blades, her arms twitching as she tried to lift them.

Have you had the dream again? We offer the gifts of freedom. Of strength. Can you taste it?

A dark pall had fallen over the entire room. Her eyes felt filmy. Color was leeching out of the world.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl, then to a stop. The shouting of the Twilight Father and the pained cries of her warriors became muffled. The silence in their place was filled with the buzzing of the whispers, pressing in at the sides of Suki's skull.

No! She was stronger than this! She wasn't one of those simpering idiots like the Dai Li, nor some pompous Fire Nation royal suckered in with false promises.

You are no fool. You know, then, the truth in our offer.

There was no truth! She'd seen again and again what shadow magic did to people. She wasn't about to start worshiping the gods of another world, let alone gods trying to destroy her own.

And you will die here instead. Yes, how noble, I'm sure. You are always powerless in the end. For all your training, for all your flashy makeup, you will always be below benders.

Bending was pure and honorable. She respected benders. They used the natural power of their world. They were blessed by the spirits.

The spirits were picky. They allowed her village to be destroyed by someone like Zuko. A world like her own let all her warriors be defeated or destroyed over and over again by those simply born with access to power she was never allowed to touch.

What better way to emulate Kyoshi than through the power to split the earth and cast tyrants into the sea?

Wait – those weren't her thoughts – or were they? If she were offered the chance to become the Avatar instead, with Aang gone, wouldn't she take it? The Kyoshi warriors trained so hard because they must. For what those in power had, people like her had to work ten times as hard to even have a chance.

And then one firebender can come through and destroy it all. One sea serpent in a rage. One ogre with two heads. One priest of darkness. One Fire Lord. One dragon. One portal.

Their worlds were not so different. Just islands in the same sea. When you backed away and looked down at them from the outside, you saw why they looked so similar. They were all just shadows cast by the same truth.

In every world there was hateful fire. Wounded earth. Cries of anguish lost in the howling wind. Enough weeping to fill the seas. And beneath it all would the truth reside: In the shadows.

In the shadows has always been the only world she's ever known.

Suki blinked once and the world returned. She knew what she had to do. She would do whatever it took to win. Now, and hereafter.

She relaxed her senses toward the shadows wrapped around her. She didn't try to resist the painful cold. She didn't let it overpower her either. Her mind was clear and focused. She had the discipline necessary to temper this darkness into the weapon she needed to protect her comrades. She had been training for this all her life. The shadows would never again control her. She would control them. The fear that had gripped her senselessly before was gone now. She finally understood. Finally she could see.

The bindings dispersed, but she didn't let them escape her in return. She inhaled deeply and drew them into herself. She purified the air around her with nothing but the razor-sharp focus of her mind. She snapped the fans open again.

Benedictus saw her break loose. He started to chant. His words were his power. Her power was to deny it.

"Silence," she commanded coldly.

The incantation was sapped from his mouth like the air out of a balloon. He gasped, mouth moving soundlessly.

Rivers of whispers were flowing through her freely, cool and crystalline, awakening her to what she could do. She could not change reality, but she could cast new shapes against it. A dance of blades like a puppet show.

She whispered back: "Pain."

Her twirling fan-blades flared with black nimbuses as Benedictus fell to his knees, clutching his head. His mouth was open and bared-tooth in agony, his screaming making no sound. In his distraction, the shadowy chains binding the rest of the warriors fell away. Several warriors slumped limp and dead to the floor. The rest stood their ground, shakily assuming battle positions.

"Kyoshi Warriors," Suki said. "Finish him off."

They fell in on him, and this time faced no resistance.