AN: You guys, this is an 8k monster of a chapter, so grab your mugs of tea and settle down : ) HAVE FUN and I hope it hurts, in the best way possible of course.
TW: Graphic Depiction of Injury, suicidal ideation
Swimmin' with sharks when they ain't feed yet
'Cause I like high chances that I might lose
- What's Up Danger, Black Caviar & Blackway -
The boat was miserably cold when he drifted into reality again. A glaring reminder of exactly why he should have changed hiding places ages ago.
Though the painkillers were supposed to be at their peak, there was a constant ache emanating from his burn on the verge of true discomfort, which he was resolutely ignoring. Harder to ignore though was the heaviness in his aching limbs. The tremors in his hands.
Every part of him felt awfully slow and clumsy. As though redressing his burn had reassembled his whole body the wrong way.
After struggling into his dry jacket, he gathered the quilt, painkillers and the torch into the blanket, balanced the empty jook bowl atop the pile, and knotted the whole thing up into an easy-to-carry bundle.
He blundered out of the boat, blinking at the light grey dawn sky for a few disorienting seconds before carefully letting himself into the living quarters on Deck B. Everything was quiet. A part of him prayed he was remembering correctly.
He listened at the door to one of the empty storage rooms and quickly crept inside. He was greeted by sparse shelves of odds and ends, and on their left, large cupboards that lined the entire wall from floor to ceiling. On opening the last of these, he found the bottom section empty.
It was perfect.
The musty air tickled his nose when he crawled inside, his head barely brushing the shelf above. Struggling to move quickly, he emptied his blanket, spread out the quilt and arranged everything else along the wall. The empty jook bowl would have to be returned soon, but he thought it unlikely to be missed right away.
He removed his shoes and sat in the quiet then, his head drooping in relief as his aching feet were allowed to stretch out. Just breathing.
Not deep enough to aggravate his ribs but enough to calm his racing heart. He didn't know why it had to react like this when he'd barely done anything physical, and maybe didn't want to, at the moment.
More disquieting it was, to be closed in on all four sides like this after such exposure.
But he didn't have the capacity to ponder anything further because his chi felt smothered. His body, weighed down. Whatever this feeling was, it was working hard to pull him under. Urging him to melt into the quilt beneath him and go back to sleep.
After only a couple of minutes of fighting it, he gave in and did just that.
• O •
He slept better in the cupboard, snuggled beneath the blanket with his scarf balled up beneath his head, acting like a pillow. It was warmer. It was less exposed.
It also lulled him into a slumber so deep that he missed his next dose of pain meds.
One second he was hurtling through a vivid dreamscape, the next he was gasping awake in the vice grip of unadulterated pain.
His burn felt like a thousand dagger-like teeth had sunken themselves deep into his flesh and wouldn't let go; like his father was in there with him, burning him anew.
Nearly choking with the effort not to scream, the first thing he did was blindly shove the cupboard door open.
"Aargh- Spirits- Fuck ."
Panting hard, he groped for the painkillers. Inhaled as many as he should– and then some.
Slammed his fist into the wall when nothing happened immediately.
Agni, how was he supposed to do this!
His nails dug into his fists. His fists found the wall. Again. And again.
The dull pain helped, but only barely. All he wanted was for the burning hand to release himself. For the agony to abate.
• O •
It did. Slowly. Incrementally. Until it was no longer a steady inferno but pulsating bursts of flame. But even after the medicine kicked in enough to stop him wanting to rip his face off, he found he was still not free of torment.
Facing his wound himself had irreversibly changed something about the pain. Now that he was more lucid, a little more in control, he noticed the difference.
He was sure it wasn't an infection. The purple discolouration Onoke had told him to look out for hadn't been there.
No, he supposed grimly. This change was as an exacerbation, an aggravation, heightened by his sloppy bandages no doubt, but ultimately caused by the detailed imagery that now accompanied every unpredictable burst of pain radiating from his face.
It was because of how, every time he closed his eye, the memories of his shiny, red skin devoured him. The memories of how his left eye, with its lid shrivelled and stuck fast with dried fluids, had had to be pried open like a stubborn clam.
In the darkness of the cupboard, these illusions stood out starkly, red against black, dancing mockingly around him mid-air, until it did not matter if his eye was closed or not.
Towards the latter part of this combined assault on his mind and body he'd thrown up into his bowl, too exhausted to hold back the waves of nausea rocking through him. His medicines had already been absorbed into his system so it didn't matter. It was easier to just let everything go until he could hopefully slip into unconsciousness.
• O •
Even that escape eluded him.
• O •
After five, ten, sixty minutes alternatively fighting off shadows, flashes of fire and despair, he knew that he was deluding himself. He just could not sleep.
Nor could he take any more pain meds. Not with enemies so close at hand. Not if he wanted to wake up again– the alternative of which was starting to sound increasingly welcome the longer he went shaking and shivering in the dark.
But he did want to wake up.
He did.
His fingers curled inside his jacket pockets– and touched the stiff edges of a card.
A lump formed in his throat.
He clutched it without pulling it out, not wanting to face it just yet. But when he eventually did, when he looked at the silhouette of the last thing Demaih had given him, something got jolted inside him.
He needed to do something instead of lying passively, waiting for all his problems to catch up with him.
He didn't know what had happened to Demaih. He didn't know whether he was even alive. But he owed his life to the man in black. He owed it to everyone who'd helped get him this far– from his servants to Onoke, and even Junho and his cat– to try.
So even though it took monumental effort to crawl out and stand, he still gritted his teeth and did it.
He held onto the cupboard door for support, annoyed at how he could possibly feel even worse after sleeping so deeply he'd slept through an entire day.
Even if the light from the portholes hadn't told him this, his link with the sun would have. It was terribly weakened, but he could yet feel it pulling at his ebbing energy. And it was now below him.
Yet another thing that sucked him down.
He knew that lying back down in the suffocating darkness wasn't going to take his mind off any of this. He needed something else to focus on.
Something that would distract from the searing pangs, the awful heaviness, on the cusp of dragging him under.
Something solid.
That's why he gave himself a plan.
After the emergency meeting, all Tolrok had wanted to do was fall into bed and sleep for a week. He hadn't been able to relax for the entirety of the two months and fourteen days he'd been stationed in Shanghai. Not when Ozai and his traitorous nation could make him disappear whenever they pleased, on some made-up pretext.
Though he supposed they wouldn't have been entirely wrong about him. It was not like he was on their side. He was actively working against the genocidal pieces of shit and everything they stood for and didn't need to be liked by them.
So when he'd stepped into his cabin and found his bed waiting for him, he'd been ready to drop his guard at last. Only to find that he couldn't.
Because he'd toed his shoes off– it was the first thing he always did after closing the door, and the action was almost thoughtless– but when he'd tried to blindly find his slippers where he'd left them, just inside the door, they hadn't been there.
He looked down and found them a few inches away, somewhere closer to the far wall.
Someone had been in here.
He glared at his table and chair, but nothing looked disturbed. He opened his closet and drawers. Nothing. The stash under his mattress. Untouched.
Then what had they come for?
Narrowing his eyes, he divested himself and went for a shower.
Valaq.
This stank of the stupid, childish shit his partner liked to pull. Tolrok had always been his favourite victim, for whatever imbecilic reason, and messing with Tolrok's stuff for the fun of it wouldn't be too far off base for him.
It was only after he finished that he realised his bathroom floor had been splashed before he'd used it.
Thoroughly annoyed by now, he muttered under his breath as he marched out and got ready for bed, punching his pillows into shape a little harder than necessary.
They were only a fifteen man crew. All stuck on the Arnaaluk for the next seven days. He was going to relish sorting this out with the unfortunate culprit once he woke up.
Get the boat ready.
Even sleepless and in a haze of pain, it wasn't a demanding task he'd given himself. Not by a long shot. Nearly all the things he needed for survival were already on the pill-shaped rescue boat. And since it was equipped with rations enough for at least twelve people, he didn't have to worry about quantities.
Still, he spent the next two days packing whatever extra food he could steal from the kitchen, both fresh and tinned, and more warm clothes and blankets from the laundry room. It took that long because he had to be extra careful, moving much slower than usual, venturing out only at night, all too aware of how easy it would be to mess things up in his state.
And it worked.
He wasn't caught.
• O •
By the time the third night rolled in, he was more sleep deprived, and his teeth hurt from gritting them against the pain, but the boat was almost ready for his solo escape.
Water wasn't an issue. He had ten gallons of it. Fuel wasn't a problem. The cell powering the motor was top of the line and wouldn't let him down.
Which left the single most important thing he had yet to obtain. Something he was fairly sure his survival at sea hinged on.
Unfortunately, it also happened to be something he could only get from the ship's control room. Of course it was.
• O •
On his fourth and hopefully final night on the Water Tribe ship, he was lying on his back on the flat roof of the highest deck, waiting for the room beneath him to be empty of people.
He half-wished he had a watch, but forced himself to lie still amongst the antennas and radar equipment.
He didn't need one. He'd studied the movements of the crew during the previous couple of nights, lying in this very spot. He knew they had two night shifts in the control room; ones they followed like clockwork, at 8:00 p.m. and the other at 4:00 a.m.
It was now only a matter of minutes until the morning shift.
While he waited, watching dark grey clouds swell and dissolve above him, counting breaths, he realised he'd been right. It felt good to be out here with a plan, even with the wind numbing his face, persisting no matter how high he yanked his stolen scarf or turned his head.
It felt better to look through the railings out at the seething mass of black froth, with the knowledge he was doing everything within his power now to not die once he was out on those waters. Because very soon he would be put there. Alone. He intended to not just survive; he intended to thrive.
Best of all though, out of all the outcomes of his current plan so far, was the absence of his demons. Pain had finally taken the backseat. He'd even managed to grab a few hours of fitful sleep here and there.
So by the time snatches of voices finally floated up to him, ripped away by the wind before he could make sense of the words, he had finished conditioning his mind for action.
Now despite how battered his body was, his head was clear and his thoughts were sharp.
He was ready.
He turned onto his side, slowly poking his head halfway through the railings.
Just underneath him, the two watchmen were exiting the control room, yawning and stretching their backs.
They didn't look up. They didn't see Zuko watching them. And when the tops of their heads disappeared down the staircase, cutting off their voices… they left him with full access to the bridge.
And so it begins.
He pushed to his feet slowly. The ship's natural rhythm wasn't helping his balance issues but he couldn't take time to recover now. Every scant second counted; he only had a couple of minutes at best until the next watch showed up.
He ran down the stairs and encountered his first obstacle at the door to the control room: a security keypad, glowing softly in defiance.
None of this would work if his hunch about Demaih's card didn't pay off. If it wasn't the highly sophisticated all access pass he thought it was, then he'd been screwed over.
That seemed not to be the case. When he pressed it against the touch pad, it glowed green and the door clicked open.
On slipping inside the room, the disconcertingly familiar scents of coffee and paper hit his nose first.
Luckily he didn't need to turn on the lights. The whole front wall was glass, and moonlight streamed in through it, bathing the rows of computer stations and tabletops in the palest of blues.
He sucked in a breath as warring emotions assailed him.
Now this was home turf.
He left the door ajar and looked around.
The soft hum of machinery made him nervous. When the men arrived he wanted to hear their footsteps on the stairs in time to slip out and hide. It was the only flaw in his plan. Not knowing how long he had. One chance was all he would get for the night.
He started at the front and combed swiftly through the workstations in each section, going from one row to another.
Every machine in the room had each been built for a purpose. They each displayed a variety of readings of their own. Cargo status. Freezer status. Engine. Weather. Water levels. Radar.
He didn't dare mess around with them – to get what he needed straightaway – lest it triggered an alarm or something. He needed to leave without anyone the wiser he'd been there.
As he went from workstation to workstation, his fingers traced the computers absently, but he quickly curled them into fists and restrained the instinct to do what was only second-nature by now. Maybe it was a good thing his chi was out of action after all…
Come on sweet hearts, show me what you've got.
And suddenly he had it.
He was at the back of the room. The workstation holding exactly what he needed was right in front of him.
As it happened, the elation that flooded through himself was barely a couple of seconds old, before the dreaded sound of approaching company reached him and effectively killed it.
He looked back at the door in dismay.
If he ran, he could reach the stairs in seconds. But through the crack, he caught sight of movement outside– meaning that the men were already up the stairs and walking towards the room.
Cursing himself for not listening closely enough, he ducked and squashed himself underneath the very last desk. The strip of light spilling into the room was now only a couple of feet away. Right in front of him. He covered his mouth with his hand and watched it slowly getting cut off by shadow.
Thankfully, these guys were making enough noise themselves. And this time Zuko could actually hear the words they spoke. It was Wavetalk, of course. And though he was slightly rusty, he could understand them.
"... your training?"
"Not too great. Couldn't do much undercover."
"But it's been, what? Two months?"
"And a half."
"Oof. Pakku's not going to be happy."
"Old man never is."
They laughed and pushed the door open.
Zuko tensed, grimacing as the light from outside poured in all at once and hit his shoe.
But the men walked past him without incident.
He listened to them settle down somewhere upfront while the door softly clicked shut.
He had to leave. Now. But he hadn't yet taken what he'd come for despite finding it, and couldn't stand the thought of leaving without it.
The last time he'd tried to steal during an argument was still fresh on his mind however. Like then, the final thing he needed lay just out of reach. Unfortunately, he could only imagine what would happen if he was caught here . Something told him he wouldn't escape these guys as cleanly as he had Tai…
But it was not an item he wanted this time. It was information. The coordinates of the ship and maybe a map too, if he was lucky.
From where he was hidden, the computer that glowed dimly with the location data was just a few steps away, in the same row. But he couldn't risk creeping up to it while the men had their backs turned, even if they were pretty engrossed in their conversation…
What if he got close enough, and lost his chance anyway? This was too important to mess up. He'd just have to time it right and come again.
Oddly relieved about his decision, he sat on his haunches.
The men were still talking. The door had closed so he had to time his escape well.
But as he waited with his ear pricked, something in their conversation finally caught his attention.
"... At least, Tolrok's having it worse."
Tolrok.
He knew that name…
Then the memory of his last day in the Fire Nation came back to him and it clicked.
The driver of the truck from the health centre. This was the name he'd overheard. Tolrok. He had no doubt about it.
Huh.
So those two guys had been up to no good. He'd been right.
Because if this crew knew them, maybe they even were Water Tribesmen themselves.
Intrigued despite himself, he listened closer.
" Someone's hidden his scarf."
"The one he sewed?" asked the deeper voice, sounding faintly amused.
"The very one. He's been on a rampage, asking around, but of course the guys know fuck all about it."
Zuko smirked. The soft material around his neck had suddenly become a heavy wreath of doom. But the thought of the men blaming each other for his thefts was quite sweet.
Of course, it was only for as long as he remained well out of the picture.
"Prime suspect's Valaq, I take it?" the deeper voice enquired.
And that's the other name!
"Couldn't be anyone else."
One of them snorted.
"He's brought back some impressive performing skills– or has he always been like that?"
"Like what?"
"You should have heard him in the mess, lamenting to us about everyone's 'unjust lack of faith in him'. Thought he was up on stage the way he was going on."
"Oh, definitely him, then."
Back in his corner, Zuko snorted softly to himself. He didn't know why the thought of the grouchy driver's partner getting all the blame was so funny to him.
But he shouldn't have gotten caught up in the conversation.
He should have left while the men were distracted.
He paid for this mistake almost immediately.
Without warning, his laugh caught in his chest.
His throat tickled.
And then he couldn't form a single coherent thought because he was valiantly trying to stop himself from coughing, without making a single sound.
It was like trying to keep still while drowning.
His lungs seized as the spasms went unreleased. It became impossible to breathe. His eye watered. He thought his side was going to split apart.
Through it all, he knew this was it. He was making too much noise. This was how he was to be discovered.
Until the spasms ended…
And he was somehow, miraculously, not.
He uncurled from the tight ball his body had become, blinking away tears. He rubbed his chest and looked around in confusion.
The voices of the men were rattling on as though nothing had happened.
He couldn't believe he'd just got away with that. Somehow, he had lucked out and been given a second chance.
But it had been too close a call. He needed to leave before anything happened again.
His eye caught on something as he moved out from under the desk. Opposite him was a counter with a coffee machine and mugs, but it was what was next to them that had given him pause.
Communication radios. Lying on the counter top, ready for use.
An idea began to form, and tentative hope blossomed with it.
Having one of these would help immensely, because if he tapped into the ship's comms, if he knew where the crew was at all times and what they were up to, he could be two or three steps ahead of them. Maybe he could even hide for longer on the ship, dodging the crew whenever they came close. Maybe he wouldn't even have to leave on the boat at all...
The men were fully distracted now. Judging by the resonance of their voices, they had their backs to the door. He could grab a radio on the way out without missing a beat.
It was an invaluable chance to make his escape and he couldn't not take it.
In one swift move, he straightened up, dashed towards the counter and grabbed a radio, vowing to come back with a better plan to get the coordinates the next night.
Blackness engulfed his vision.
He clutched the radio to his chest in alarm. A flat surface crashed into his flailing right hand, and he caught himself, clinging to it, blinking frantically all the while.
He couldn't see.
The whole world was black. He couldn't see a thing.
Why couldn't he see anything?
He was panting harshly when the room rematerialized.
It came back suddenly. Just the way it had disappeared. The whole episode had probably lasted a second or two but he could feel sweat dripping off his face and knew he was a few shallow breaths from throwing up.
And when he pushed himself off the wall, he realised something else.
Everything about the room had returned to normal. Everything was the same.
Everything, except for the voices.
Bato didn't encourage petty rivalries between his team members. It distracted from the work at hand and also created unnecessary tension between the guys.
Tolrok and Valaq had been at it since their unit's inception. But Bato figured they deserved to let loose now, after their extended stint in enemy territory. He'd tell them to cut the shit when they got back home.
But even as he listened to their youngest agent talk about the latest drama with Tolrok, the cogs in his mind couldn't help turning the information over and tracing a tentative pattern. First Tolrok's alleged cabin break-in, then the galley's mysterious hungry sleepwalker, and now this missing scarf.
Harmless.
Yet, Bato wondered…
Because pranking Tolrok didn't include hiding Bato's socks too.
It couldn't.
… unless it wasn't a prank at all.
Kavra's eyes widened at the same time Bato brought his hand up to silence him.
As they'd been talking and watching the seas, the soft thud behind them hadn't been in his imagination at all.
There was someone else aboard the Arnaaluk. Someone that none of them had taken into account.
And right now, they were in the bridge with Kavra and himself.
The two of them only had to exchange one loaded look to draw out their weapons.
Bato led the approach, while Kavra stole around the other way, their footsteps as silent as the silver moonlight.
They were only halfway to the door when a shadow darted out from nowhere, crashed into a table, and made it to the door, all before they'd realised what was happening.
Bato's first shot hit the door frame.
Dropping all caution, he shouted for Kavra to give chase.
The intruder seemed to have escaped unscathed. But not for long. There were only so many places one could hide on this ship.
As soon as Kavra passed through the door, Bato's fist smashed into the alarm and sirens rent the quiet night asunder.
Zuko's lungs were going to burst. He leaped down the last of the stairs, trying to breathe and not breathe at the same time.
A head-splitting claxon wailed around him, the swaying of the ship heralding more white spots into his vision.
Stuffing the map he'd grabbed in that last desperate moment deep into his pocket, he pumped his legs as fast as they would go, in the very opposite direction he needed to, fear and adrenaline pushing to the back of his mind every bit of agony that ripped through him with each jarring leap.
The ship was larger than he remembered. How could it take this long to run half the length of it?
He gasped as he bumped, shoulder first, into the side of the passage, his speed making him ricochet off again.
The radio in his other hand crackled to life.
"Code Red. Single hostile detected on board. Heading towards the hold from the bridge. Immediate backup required. Over."
Zuko hated how he was running away from his boat. His instincts were tearing him apart. But he had to end this chase before he left. He had to buy himself some time.
He swung into the middle of the ship, into a wide passage with a trapdoor. At the end of it were the very pipes he'd squeezed behind when he'd first hidden from someone on the ship before finding the boat.
Breath coming in sharp bursts now, he skidded to the trapdoor, fell to his knees and pressed Demaih's access card against the authorization pad.
It was an electronic lock, just like the one at the control room doors, a level of sophistication that was at odds with the rest of the ship, but none of this mattered right now, he thought hysterically.
The card worked.
The trapdoor hissed open just as pattering footsteps echoed in the passage behind him, growing louder and more distinct.
Zuko fumbled with his radio, turned the volume all the way up and flung it down the dimly lit ladder. Then he scrambled to his feet, staggered to the end of the passage and slipped behind the pipes there.
He flattened himself against them, a sleeve pressed tight over his mouth, listening hard.
The radio crackled behind him, echoing oddly through the trapdoor, just as the footsteps crescendoed and stopped.
A soft voice filled the passage.
"Suspect's entered the hold through the main. One in pursuit. Requesting immediate backup."
Zuko's spine tingled. He tried to breathe through his sleeve, but it was more suffocating than anything.
His forehead touched the wall as he bowed his head, eye scrunched tight in fear, as the footsteps resumed slowly. Getting closer and closer.
And changed to soft metallic clangs.
The passage behind him grew quiet and remained so for half a minute.
Zuko remained frozen.
More thuds sounded, and built in volume, until the drumbeat of a dozen footsteps flooded into the passage. Heavy breathing and grunts filled the air.
Backup was here.
But not one man thought to look behind the thick pipes. Not one of them thought that someone could fit into the gap between them and the wall. Or maybe they would have if the evidence had spelt a less obvious story.
Unfortunately for them, all the signs pointed to the open hold door. Their fellow crew member had confirmed it himself. They had no reason to question him.
So one by one, Zuko listened to them take the ladders to the depths of the ship, never once guessing their quarry was mere feet away.
And as soon as the sounds died, Zuko peered out, acknowledged the empty passage, and dashed to close the hold door.
He touched his card to the pad and the locking mechanism activated with an enormously satisfying click.
The crew would find another way out, obviously. But for now, they didn't know this way was blocked. He hoped that would be enough to delay them.
He pressed his palms onto his knees. All he wanted to do was lie down. But though the coast was clear, he was a long way from safety.
So he spared himself just one long moment of stillness, to breathe, before he made himself get to his feet again and run back the way he'd come.
• O •
He flew back up the stairs, chest splintering, back the way he'd come, to his very first hiding place. The rescue boat was just as he'd left it. Hanging securely from its tethers.
He opened the door, flung his map inside and frantically began to untether the boat.
But it seemed he'd taken longer than he should have.
The stairs were vibrating as though a dozen angry bulls were charging up them.
Someone must have opened the hold and set the crew free. He was out of time.
Fuck.
He jumped into the boat. The mechanism to release the boat had two parts. The first tether had to be loosened outside the boat. The other one was inside, and had to be cut. Once that was done, the boat would lower itself until it hit the water.
Willing his body not to let him down, Zuko grabbed the axe waiting for him inside, and hacked at the rope wildly. The door was still half open, so he could hear the sounds of pursuit getting louder. It was only a matter of seconds…
With a gut-wrenching jerk, the boat moved. Lower and lower it went, the side of the ship rising upwards at an incredible speed. Zuko dropped the axe and clung to the steering wheel for dear life.
It hit the water with a bone-jarring smack. Despite having been braced for impact, he nearly bit his tongue in two.
Operating on sheer instinct, he leaped for the ignition and the engine sputtered to life. He experimented with the steering and the boat shot forward, bobbing smoothly in the water, leaving the ship behind.
He couldn't believe it.
He'd done it.
He let out a whoop of exhilaration, laughter bubbling out his lips even as it made him hunch over and groan in pain.
The odds had been against him but success was his. The coordinates may only exist in his mind, but at least he had the map to tell him where to go. He knew where he was, had a boat load of supplies, and would make it to land soon. He just had to outrun a ship full of unfriendlies first.
It was an undeniably fortuitous occasion.
Through the windows on either side and the front windscreen, the deep blue waves were getting bluer. The fog of dawn was clearing and he could nearly make out the horizon.
His knees wobbled and he sank into the steering seat, exhaustion hitting him in waves now.
The peace was a welcome change. It was only him, the boat and the ocean.
Freedom tasted as sweet as getting his own back on those men. He didn't know what they were up to but it served them right for messing around in his nation.
He wasn't sure why he felt that way. But in the end, it didn't really matter.
He was never going to see them again.
Flashing lights on a screen caught Kavra's eye. They had turned the alarms off on returning to the bridge, and for some inexplicable reason Bato had turned their engines off too, so this had to be something else. He walked up to it in dread.
"Sir?" he called, swallowing down panic. "We have a problem."
He pointed at the radar reading.
Bato swung towards it, stared at it for five full seconds, before rushing to the front of the room. He hunched over the captain's station, typed in a few strokes on the keyboard and then straightened up.
"It's still blocking. We're still invisible."
"Then what…?"
Bato's face had grown cold. He grabbed a set of binoculars and looked out to sea, not bothering to explain.
He didn't need to.
"Oh, spirits," Kavra groaned in horror.
"All stations prepare for combat," he heard Bato announce into his comms.
It was their stowaway.
Their ship was undetectable, cut off from all wireless signals, but by going out to sea by himself, he'd probably been able to send out his own signal. Thus making sure every security tower in the Fire Nation border was alerted to their presence in this location. All their months of work, destroyed in minutes.
The enemy was being led right towards them.
Zuko watched the ship fall away. For some reason it was not giving chase.
He curled over the steering wheel, eye glued to the seas, catching his breath.
His heart was thudding too fast against his battered ribcage. The beginning of uneasiness was creeping out from under his exhaustion. Something was very off about this whole situation. Why were they letting him get away so easily?
He clutched the wheel harder.
Bato marched across the silent deck, watching the orange boat get smaller and smaller.
"All stations are ready to go, Sir," came Tarmon's voice through his comms.
"Engage only if attacked," Bato called as he passed the line of men, and stopped at the stern, gazing at the skies. "Until then we hold our peace."
"Sir," Kavra said, coming to his side. "He's going to get us all killed. Is this what you wanted?"
Bato didn't spare him a glance. Kavra was young for an agent, the youngest on the ship. What he said came from a place of emotion and not of tactical judgement.
A disturbance far up in the clouds took away his reply anyway.
"And it's on," he breathed.
From the corner of his eye, he could see Kavra's face go pale at the sight of the enemy.
The ashmakers took their security more seriously than any other nation, of course because the bastards had the most to hide. Technically the Arnaaluk was still on their waters, with only a few nautical miles for neutral territory. If their spy had chosen a later hour to end them, his efforts would have been wasted. His signals wouldn't have reached, the alarms wouldn't have been triggered. His little plan would have failed and their ship would still be safe.
But if they had wanted any proof their stowaway was not a stowaway, they wouldn't have got it.
So risking all their necks had been the only way.
"The piece of shit," someone breathed out. Tolrok had come to witness the scene unfolding before them.
"Are you surprised?" Bato asked tersely.
"No." Tolrok had an ugly look on his face. "Makes sense."
Two unmanned aerial combat vehicles, alerted by the boat in their waters, were bearing down on the ship with deadly accuracy. Even if the ship hadn't been its target when it had set off, it would be now.
Bato calmly reached for his comms.
The Fire Nation may take their security seriously but the Water Tribe knew to up their game.
"Start the engines and move in," he said. "Let's give it to the bastards."
Zuko wasn't doing too great in the boat. His vision was fading and he couldn't hold himself upright.
He didn't know what was happening.
The ship had anchored itself. It wasn't chasing him.
Worried about what this might mean, and also quite unable to keep forcing the boat to accelerate, he let the boat slow too.
He let go of the wheel, letting the vessel drift on its straight course, clambered to the open door and peered out.
Sea sprayed into his face. The sky was much lighter now, and he could see pale blue in some places, though the rising sun was still hidden behind clouds and fog.
Out there, behind him, the ship remained ominously still.
As though it were… biding its time?
Waiting for Zuko to fall into some sort of trap?
He shifted his gaze, blinking hard, searching the seas desperately for some sign that this was not the case.
But it very much was.
He was cornered. Not by the Water Tribesmen, but by the two silver drones winging their way towards him.
And he could tell from this far out that they had been sent from home.
The picture did not make sense. It didn't make sense that they were here at all. But the evidence was indisputable.
So this is how it happens.
He supposed the send off was fitting.
Lost at sea, at the mercy of his enemy, utterly alone, and yet brought down by his own father.
It always came back to his father.
His knee buckled and he crashed to the floor with a gasp.
High up above, the drones were going into a steep nose-dive, speeding directly for his boat, missiles taking aim.
There was nowhere left to run.
He was dead already.
From somewhere far away, a deep rumbling sound rolled towards him.
In these final seconds, as death flashed before his eyes, he realised he was sorry that the ship had gotten entangled in his mistakes. Though unlike him, it stood a chance to escape. Something he never would receive.
I'm sorry, Onoke.
His vision was blurrier now. He swayed where he knelt.
The sea seemed to be holding its breath. Waiting for the release of the missile that would finally take him out. Waiting for the tell-tale trail of smoke…
He wanted to keep looking till the last moment but it seemed his body wasn't going to allow it.
Already the drones seemed to have started to swirl in the sky, dropping so fast they made his stomach swoop. Trying to fight the dizziness, he hunched over and bowed his head as a roaring sound grew louder and louder until it was all he could hear.
No, that's not right…
He could still hear the sea perfectly well.
His eye cracked open as it suddenly dawned on him that the rumbling sound wasn't just in his head.
The boat beneath his feet was swaying, but only as was usual for a boat at sea.
He looked up again, afraid of what he would see.
Just in time.
In an eerie spectacle, the first enormous drone silently skimmed past him– missing the boat by a mere stone's throw– and plunged straight into the water, dousing him in spray.
He stared in shock at the spot where the metal monstrosity had disappeared, at the bubbles popping at the surface– the only sign the whole thing had happened at all. Another huge splash told him that the second drone had gone down on the other side too.
He hadn't done anything. He couldn't have. He wasn't capable of it… He would've felt something .
Then how…?
Does it matter?
Somehow, miraculously, he'd been given a second chance when he'd thought all hope was lost.
Was he going to sit here and waste it?
Fired with renewed vigour, he leapt to his feet and began to steer again.
Bato watched the drones hit the water on either side of the moving boat. He hadn't been sure it would work. For the few seconds before their inhibitor kicked in, he'd thought the spy was going to die. He now let out a long breath and loosened his grip on his gun.
The others stood beside him, weapons forgotten, watching the boat in various states of disbelief and fury.
Fury at being outsmarted. Disbelief that it had happened at all. And some more than others. Tolrok was positively frothing at the mouth.
None of them seemed to have noticed what he had.
He ran a hand down his face and sighed.
"Kavra," he said, glancing at the agent on his left.
The kid snapped to attention and nodded.
They all watched in silence as the ship slowly closed the distance to the boat for ten, fifteen, twenty seconds. At thirty, people began to shuffle uneasily. But Bato watched closer.
Come on, kid.
It was worth the wait.
As they watched, the water around the boat rose gently. Like a giant hand was pushing it up and out of the water and pulling it back towards the ship.
Next to him, Kavra's face dripped with sweat, scrunched with effort.
Bato would have clapped him on the back if it had not disturbed the rhythm of his bending. Instead, he settled on smiling smugly to himself. Practice or no practice, he'd known the kid could do it.
The boat was skimming along the water, freedom was a shoreline away and he was ready to fall into his bedding again. He was so focused on sitting upright he only realised something was wrong when the boat refused to go faster.
Then it was refusing to move at all. Stuck in the same place. But the engine was running perfectly.
The steering was simply refusing to work.
Something was stopping it from moving forward. From the outside. He was no longer in control.
Zuko's miracle had flared to life only to burn to ashes the very next second. All of his hope crashed and broke into a million pieces as he let go of the wheel and watched the second inexplicable thing in the last ten minutes happen outside the windows.
The sea was falling downwards.
It was also moving backwards.
He had a clear view out the windscreen and he watched, powerless, braced against his seat, as all the water he'd managed to put between him and the ship rushed by in the opposite direction.
All his planning, all his effort, everything was unspooling before him. An escape that had taken days to orchestrate, undone in a matter of seconds.
All because he'd chosen the wrong ship.
All because he hadn't factored in waterbenders.
He could only cling on to his seat as the whole boat lurched and rose up, up, up out of the water, borne aloft by a wave, sucked back to the ship, reaching its highest point yet.
He could only watch in devastation as it began to tip sideways.
Grey clouds peered through the open door and watched him get thrown off his seat.
His head crashed into the side of the boat. Water roared in through the opening and the echo consumed him. Salt water pounded onto his body, punching, kicking, suffocating, and he was pinned where he had fallen. Unable to move while the waterbenders' wave devoured his soul.
On the deck, silence reigned as Kavra caught his breath, with his hands on his knees.
"Hey, buddy. You need to turn this thing over."
Kavra looked up. Valaq was pointing at the rescue boat lying before them. Somehow, despite his lack of practice, he'd managed to reel it in and onto the ship. But he had tired when it had been halfway up. His control had slipped and in a last ditch effort he'd pushed all his remaining energy into getting the thing over the railing.
And it had come, dripping and groaning like a defeated sea monster. But that final wave had made the boat tip over and land on deck harder than he'd meant it to.
Now it lay on its side, creaking and expelling water, with the door gaping open to the skies.
He winced, and hurriedly bent the residual sea water under the boat until, with a final crash, it was pushed upright.
A body spat out of it in a gush of water.
Bato swore next to him and the others lowered their weapons and moved in. Kavra stared in shock. He hadn't meant his wave to be that strong.
He hadn't meant to kill anyone.
"Little shit's not breathing," Tolrok announced. He had reached the prone figure first and knelt beside it, and was now looking expectantly at Kavra.
Oh.
"Shit. Sorry," he muttered and lurched towards them.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Kavra registered that their spy was young. Much too young. His gaze was drawn to the pink-stained, soaked bandage covering half his pale face. A face paler than a human's had any right to be.
"Kavra, snap out of it!" Bato said in a hard voice.
"Do it," hissed Tolrok at the same time.
So he did. He bent the water out of the spy's lungs.
They all watched the liquid snaking out in silence. Not because of the solemnity of the scene. But because of what everything they'd just witnessed meant.
This level of infiltration had never happened before. It was a breach unlike any other and none of them quite knew what to say.
And when the spy spluttered and choked on air, none of them moved to help him up. They waited.
But Kavra frowned as the hoarse coughing didn't let up. He stepped forward, suddenly uncertain, because this wasn't normal.
He knew he'd bent the water out.
So why was the spy still struggling to breathe?
An arm across his sternum halted him in his tracks.
It was Valaq. He shook his head at Kavra and then pointed with his chin at the spy.
A flailing hand swung out and nearly clipped Tolrok in the jaw, taking them all by surprise.
Tolrok growled. He made quick work of pinning the spy's arms and flipping him over, ignoring the pained wheezes as he undoubtedly used a little too much force.
The look on his face made Kavra shiver.
Oh, he wasn't worried at all. He was furious.
Heavy breathing and muttered curses engulfed him. Was that blood he tasted? He coughed and spat to the side. A huge weight was on top of his back; he couldn't breathe; he couldn't even move–
And then he wasn't on his stomach anymore. He was kneeling and his arms had been yanked behind his back. So far back his shoulders were nearly out of their sockets.
"I think you're hurting him, Tolrok."
The loud scoff in his ear made him jump.
The pressure on his arms eased but when he tried to pull them in front of him, he found that a colder, more-solid pressure had encircled his wrists.
And his chest. There was definitely something around his chest.
His chin dipped as he searched for the source of the restriction.
Nothing but the front of his jacket greeted him. It was torn.
Maybe his vision was malfunctioning more than he thought?
He really hoped it wasn't torn. He liked his jacket.
Without warning, he was pulled to his feet. He bit hard on his tongue to stop the cry that involuntarily bubbled up his throat.
Why was it so hard to keep track all of a sudden?
Around him, all the men were blank-faced and silent. None of them looked like they cared if he lived or died.
Well. He'd be damned if he was the first to make a sound.
He shuddered from head to foot. He wished it wasn't so cold. Even his teeth were starting to chatter.
Slowly, his every move under scrutiny, he was led back into the depths of the ship. It was the most he could do to hold himself upright and keep walking when he knew he was a blink away from passing out.
As he was turned around, the last thing he registered of the outside world was the rising sun glinting mockingly at him through the railings.
AN: ... so what'd you think? Did this turn of events meet your expectations lol; in my defense, our boy DID make it off the ship successfully : D But yeah, this gets worse before it gets better, I hope you're cool with that! THANKS SO VERY MUCH FOR BEING HERE, reviews always make my day but feel no pressure to leave one. Adore you regardless : " ) See you in a month, hopefully