"Hi. I'm Jet."

And such it begins.

A twisting game of human emotion and human compromise. Of course, no real compromise can be reached, not in this game. It isn't even a game—it's survival. More accurately, our survival over theirs. The twisting of emotion comes when outsiders venture into our territory. Either we get them on our side, or they are against us. No one comes for free.

As it was when Katara came to visit us. Fortunately, she was on our side. That is, she was, until that brat of a brother turned her and the boy against us. Katara would have made the perfect addition to our coterie, but her brother had to explain our plans and turn her against us.

I suppose, in the long run, it's for the best that he told. If Katara was so willing to side with him over us, so unable to see our side of the story, so devoted to that boy who called himself the Avatar, well, then she wouldn't have been very trustworthy, would she?

But we could have shaped her to see the world our way. I know we could have! If only we were given the chance to, we could have opened her eyes. She is not meant to live in wartime, I see that now. She is too soft-hearted, too willing to listen to all sides before reacting.

If she were faced with a Firebender, with a hunter's knife in her hand, would she be able to do what needed to be done?

No.

And that is what makes her so useless to us.

She cannot see things the right way. She sees them the idealist's way. She sees them with a solution, with a resolution that will leave us all satisfied, but the real world, the real lives out there every day trying to stop the Fire Nation, they don't see it that way. They see it as it should be seen: as war. Losses are unavoidable, and if a few villagers have to be wiped out in exchange for the lives of a dozen Fire Nation soldiers, then so be it.

What I cannot understand is how Katara's loyalties were swayed so easily. First she would do anything for me, then she would do anything to stop me, then she regretted hurting me… Such an easily influenced one cannot be trusted. We would need to mold her to our ideals if she were ever to side with us.

But, in a sense, I would regret that. Her spirit, while a challenge to fix, would never quite be the same if we took her under our wings. The vitality in her, the thing that would make her such a powerful tool, would be…gone.

I don't know if I could do that.

Though, if it would stop the Fire Nation, I would have no choice. Sacrifices must be made, and if turning Katara into the kind of person we need her to be would win us this war, then so be it.

There would be no turning back. I would change such a lively girl into a drone of my own creation, if it would lead to success. I would break her down and rebuild her into something I could use. I would become a doctor of epic proportions.

I have become something I might regret.

I just can't stop to think about it.