Jet watched the three stumble blindly through the bushes knowing full well what they were going to find. His dark eyes were shadowed by his overgrown hair, which crept across his face in a breathtakingly handsome way. His skin was perhaps darker, his muscles perhaps harder, his height perhaps grown since those many years ago on that fateful and life-changing night; but his heart remained, stubbornly, the same. He killed Fire Nation soldiers on a routine basis, and he enjoyed it to an endless degree. His blind savagery lingered in his gaze like a phantom, hidden only by thin layers of midnight shadow ad his own artful cunning. He was seventeen now, and even in this maturing age he held, within his dark and fearsome eyes, memories that he forced himself never to forget.

They were memories of buildings, burning in unbearable hell fires lighted by legions of horned, laughing demons; memories of wrenched screams that echoed from the pits of an unholy, ravished underworld; memories of bloody, mutilated, misshapen bodies, charred black from the flames of Devil servants; memories of men possessed by demonic forces, memories of a decapitated soldier, his pitiful, stabbed excuse for a son, the still convulsing body of his wife. The memory of Mayia as her eyes burned to a horrible, pulsing white from the fatal flame. The memory of his mother's head rolling towards the feet of a smiling Devil as her body fell, cold and red, to the earth.

Remember why you fight.

He would take revenge. He would never let the Fire Nation hurt anyone else ever again.

He bent low on his tree limb and nodded to Longshot, who was situated on a lower branch across from him. The older boy of the traveling trio - whom Jet immediately identified as the greatest, yet most clueless threat of the group - was walking through the bushes, completely disregarding the rustle of the Fire Nation camp several feet in front of him. Jet, eager after long hours of waiting, raised a make-shift bow and watched the scene with calm and collected ease.

"...Look, guys, I'm tired too...but the important thing is that we're safe from the Fire...Nation..."

The three walked full-on into the clearing and the soldiers turned and stared at them. Several were still finishing breakfast and stopped chewing to stare at the unwelcome arrivals; men with spears grew wide-eyed at the intrusion and the General, whose right eye was covered with a black patch, stared in complete surprise. Jet tensed and notched an arrow in his bow, only to hear the older boy yell.

"Run!"

They dropped their packs and sped back the way they had come, but the soldiers were up and after them in a brilliant flash. Swords were taken up with practiced hands and the General, whose mind functioned faster than an arrow, sent a swift stream of fire flashing past the boy's shoulder. It ignited the bush behind them and they stopped short. Jet stared fixedly at the General, waiting for his moment. Pipsqueak tensed in the shadows with SmellerBee; The Duke and Sneers readied themselves. Longshot drew his arrows.

"We're cut off!" yelled the boy. The younger boy - bald and tattooed, which Jet found strange but carelessly ignored - pointed abruptly to his arm.

"Sokka! You're shirt!"

The older boy gasped fearfully, and then something happened that completely captured Jet's attention. The girl - quiet until now, and seemingly harmless - opened the flask she held at her side and bent a small amount of water through the air, slashing the boy's shirt and dousing the flames. For a second, Jet's mind turned and clicked; then he fell back to the task at hand and raised the bow.

The soldiers surrounded them in a semicircle that was completed by the roaring fire. Spears were pointed at them and the tattooed boy and the girl fell back into bender stance. Jet's dark eyes fixated on the General's heavily-armored back as he walked towards them. The older boy stepped forward and held out his arms.

"If you let us pass, we promise not to hurt you," he declared. Jet smiled amusingly at this. The Fire Nation General laughed as the girl and the boy whispered uneasily to each other. Jet fixed his mark on the General as he began to speak, his dark eyes glimmering with bloodthirsty anticipation.

Time to be a hero.

"You? Promise not to hurt us?"

There was a soft whistle and a faint gasp escaped the General's lips. He crumpled to his knees and fell forward with the arrow sticking guiltily from his back. The younger boy stared and smiled.

"Nice work Sokka! How'd you do that?"

"Uh...instinct?"

"Look!"

The girl had spotted him, which obviously made her a lot more clever than those dim-witted Fire Nation soldiers, and everyone turned towards him. He dropped the bow an unsheathed his blades, smiling and eager. Weightless, he leapt from the branch, caught it with the hooks and swung beneath it. He landed perfectly on two soldiers and barreled them into the earth, his eyes growing dark and terrifying, his elation vanishing as he fell to his true task: judgement. He threw the memory of his mother in his face and his anger tore through him with a fierce and painful vengeance.

He did not pause to meditate over his victory, but sped towards two others who raised theirs hands in vain defense. Jet ducked low and swept the blades around their ankles and caught them both off their feet. Leaping, he flipped in mid-air and sent them hurtling towards the dead General, landing perfectly on his feet, crouched low and grinning from behind the twig in his teeth.

"Down you go."

He heard the man coming and spun with unrivaled skill, deflecting his ill-aimed spear and sending him flying head over heels across his left shoulder. As he flew past another soldier the other Fire Nation devils looked up and caught sight of the others just as the decided to join in on the fun.

"They're in the trees! -"

The Duke fell heavily on his head and silenced him, riding him like a bucking horse around the clearing. Longshot released his arrows and swords fell to the earth like metal rain; he swung himself upside down on his branch and aimed two arrows across the clearing, quickly relieving a pair of soldiers of their weapons. As they ran from the spot Sneers dropped down from a neighboring oak and spun another soldier across him, sending his blade flying harmlessly to the ground while his body spun in the opposite direction. SmellerBee, eager and deadly, fell to the earth in trained silence, the dagger clenched in his steady fist. He did not observe the formalities of knocking the men out or fighting them with strength; he simply leapt at their throats and slit them before they could slit his.

Jet did not have to worry about his Fighters, so he turned his attention to the girl and the tattooed boy. To his amazement, not only was the girl waterbending with some practiced skill, but the bald boy was airbending with what Jet recognized, even then, as complete and irrefutable mastery. Unfortunately, the third traveler seemed to have no bender capabilities; in fact, Jet found him as a hardly adequate warrior. He raised his boomerang defensively and yelled very loudly, running rather slowly towards a Fire Nation soldier. Jet leapt onto his hook-swords and kicked hard in the man's side, sending him flying from the warrior's reach. The action seemed to particularly irritate him.

"Hey! He was mine!"

"Gotta be quicker next time," Jet grinned, running to find his next victim.

Pipsqueak, finally making an appearance, fell down heavily from his branch behind two terrified soldiers who raised their swords into feeble fighting positions. The gigantic teenager swung out his great log and crushed the weak metal with one blunt and decisive blow. The soldiers stumbled backwards and broke out into a run, causing Jet to smile amusingly. It was half a second before he heard the footstep behind him.

He turned and caught the man's spears between the two hooks. The man's strength was great, but it could not rival the infamous Jet. Twisting sideways he freed one of his own blades and knocked out the stunned man, sending the butt of his spear flying into a nearby soldier. The hit knocked him out and the warrior boy, holding a heavy club now, seethed as his enemy was defeated.

Jet heard a second man come behind him and barely deflected the blow; the spear whistled past his face and the man stumbled by, placing himself in fighting stance, face to face with Jet. He lunged, and Jet's blades caught his spear; using the shaft as a ladder he ran upwards and leapt, kicking the man in the back of the head as he went, and stumbled forwards only to stop, just in time, before the waterbending girl.

"Hey," he whispered evenly.

"Hi," the girl responded, breathless. Simultaneously they turned to see the Fire Nation camp, completely deserted of its former inhabitants. Jet, standing rather regally before them, studied the remains as the tattooed boy walked up behind him.

"You just took out a whole army almost single-handed!" he stated, his voice filling with awe. The warrior boy huffed and crossed his arms.

"Army? There were only like, twenty guys!" he said indignantly. Jet ignored him and turned around.

"My name is Jet, and these are my Freedom Fighters," he stated. He gestured towards the others.

"Sneers, (who was devouring the soldier's leftover breakfast) Longshot, (he looked up when his name was spoken), SmellerBee, (he raised two Fire Nation blades and sliced them expertly) The Duke, and Pipsqueak (they fidgeted when their names were called)."

The tattooed boy walked up to the Duke and smiled boldly, laughing.

"Pipsqueak, heh, that's a funny name!"

The Duke sniffed, ignoring the comment since it was not directed at him, and Pipsqueak leaned forward, glaring intensely beneath thick eyebrows.

"You think my name is funny?" he snarled. The boy stared for a moment and then gathered himself again.

"Its hilarious!"

There was a slight pause, and Pipsqueak burst out into sudden laughter. The Duke joined in and his massive companion slapped the tattooed bow on the back, unwillingly causing him to collapse to the ground, where he continued to laugh despite the pain in his back.

Across the campsite, the warrior was glaring at the Freedom Fighters as they carried boxes towards a cart and began to load them up. The girl walked nervously over to Jet, who was watching from his shadowed position, leaning against a tree.

"Um...thanks for saving us, Jet," she said, nearly blushing. "We're lucky you were there."

"I should be thanking you," said Jet, turning on his cunning charm. "We were waiting to ambush those soldiers all morning; we just needed the right distraction. And then you guys stumbled in."

"We were following instinct," she said, her voice hinting a note of disdain. Jet smiled.

"You'll get yourself killed doing that," said Jet encouragingly. His gaze fell into hers and she turned away in slight embarrassment. The Duke's voice drifted towards them.

"Hey Jet! These barrels are filled with blasting jelly."

Jet noted to himself that today was an absolutely great day.

"That's a great score," he said, his voice never revealing any emotion. Emotion led to weakness; weakness led to defeat. He had trained himself to be emotionless.

"And these boxes are filled with jellied candy!" exclaimed Pipsqueak. Jet could hear his massive stomach growling even from fifteen feet away.

"Also good. Let's not get those mixed up," he joked, smiling softly. The Duke jumped into the back of the cart and gestured towards the woods, clearly intent on leaving.

"Let's take this stuff back to the hideout," he said. The airbender boy lighted up at these words.

"You guys have a hideout?" he asked, his voice filling with wonder for the second time. Jet raised his eyebrow and leaned more into the tree, half-chewing his twig.

"You wanna see it?"

The waterbender girl clasped her hands together and leapt to his side.

"Yes we wanna see it!" she stated earnestly. Jet turned his dark gaze on her and softened his fearsome eyes. The effect was entrancing; his eyes melted into deep pools of sincerity and the girl nearly sighed. Jet grinned inwardly.

That was too easy.