Book 3: Water
Chapter 12: The Face Stealer (The Southern Spirit Portal, Part 2)
In the Spirit World, Aang felt the essence of everything he was being split in two.
More than ever, he felt the force of his own world trying to pull him home. But the other world wasn't so keen to release its hold on him either. Both tugged at him, warring with each other using the Spirit World as their battleground. Here, as his past lives said, he was at his most powerful. He'd make that war come to a truce. The world shifted around him, the ground and skies flying past while he remained stationary.
He felt the Spirit World's energy in a way he never had before. He traversed great distances just standing alongside Appa in a way they never had before in the sky, but he didn't get the sense of belonging here that he did from the winds. Here, he was a blade slicing through the Spirit World, leaving scars in his wake. The Spirit World loved the Avatar but reviled Aang for what he had done to it in tearing the worlds in two.
A vast meadow flew under their feet. Appa rumbled, perhaps disoriented by the sensation, and Aang placed a hand on his flank to steady his friend. "It's okay, buddy," he said. "We'll see Toph soon. I can feel her."
Ahead, a tree sprouted into his path, growing taller and taller, and a moment later Aang realized it wasn't a tree at all. It was a spirit made of bark and vines, tall and slender and vaguely human-shaped, with arms that dragged nearly to the ground and a crown of growths that resembled horns. Between each horn, he saw an eyeless face, like pale white masks. Their lips had set into a stern frown.
Aang stopped when dozens of faces blinked into existence around the spirit, floating unattached to anything. He saw the faces of people and beasts, spirits and animals, and the world stopped moving when he found himself in front of the giant spirit, whose age felt nearly as ancient as Raava. He didn't know how he knew that, but it was as if time clung to her like moss, heavy and permeating.
"Avatar," she said. Mist shrouded her lower body, glowing with light. "You are hard to miss. The Spirit World weeps."
"I know, but I'm going to fix things," he replied. He had to crane his neck to look up at her. "Were you looking for me? And since you seem to like faces do you happen to know a spirit named Koh the Face Stealer?"
Her hands, almost like claws, gestured toward the grasslands beyond them and her five mouths twisted into frowns. "I sought the very same spirit until I sensed you like a blight upon this land. Koh is my son, and he keens for me."
Aang stepped in front of Appa, wondering if this spirit would obstruct him out of association with Koh. "I didn't know spirits could have children. What kind of spirit are you?"
She straightened, stretching high into the sky, and for a moment Aang thought he had insulted her with his question before she gave him an answer.
"The oldest of us are born directly from Raava in her attempts to preserve pieces of herself," she replied. The face of a bearded man drifted by Aang, orbiting her form like all the others. "I wanted to mimic her, to preserve myself, and out of that desire I made Koh. It wasn't until later that my curiosity to make something better drove me to utilize just a little of Vaatu's darkness. His spark. It was with his power that I crafted faces for all humans, spirits, and animals. I gave you individuality, and the ability to create and interact with the world. And thus am I called the Mother of Faces."
Vaatu's words rang in his head like bells. "'You will find the spirit born of light who saw the value of darkness,' he said to me. That must be you." With that action, that innocent creativity, she had given humans their identities. Their emotions. Their darkness. But could he really say that what she had done was wrong? Aang shook his head to clear those thoughts - he wasn't sure if he could go down that road. "I don't have time for this. I need to find my friend Toph and you need to find your son. He took Toph's face."
The Mother of Faces clenched her fist and the faces around her hung heavy with melancholy. "You mustn't hurry there yet. He is sure to be there. And the way he is now, Koh will defeat you."
Aang frowned. "What do you mean, 'the way he is now'? No offense, but how could he get any worse?" He thought back to his first and only meeting with the spirit. He'd found Koh terrifying then and couldn't imagine him becoming any stronger. The earth beneath their feet rumbled and Aang felt a change coming, like a slumbering beast had slowly started to awaken.
"My son has gone through a metamorphosis," she said, unheeding of their environment. "I can try to placate him, but he was born without darkness in him. And thus he espouses all of the worst parts of the light - of stagnancy and preservation, order and control, taken to its worst extreme. He has become Deva-Koh."
"If we're going to the same place, help me," Aang said. Clouds rolled across the sky far above, far more swiftly than in the mortal world. "Please. I know he's your son, but…"
The faces hovering around her froze in place, but each one turned to look at him. "He must be stopped," she said, before Aang could finish. "You go seek out your friends and I will try to halt his advance."
Aang jumped onto Appa's head, gripping the reins. "Can you… can you give Toph her face back?"
"I'm certain I could," said the Mother of Faces, the mist coiling around her. She seemed to glide forward alongside Aang, moving with him as he shifted the world beneath his feet. "As long as it isn't too late for her."
Through their raging battle, Sokka saw the pillar of light far away where Aang had flown, but he had no time to think about what could have happened because explosions continued roaring around him.
The Combustion Man - did Chit Sang say his name was Yanhuo'li? - continued to be a massive threat even though his pet wolverine-skunk had been knocked out by Lirin. Sokka only managed to avoid getting blown up because of the mobility afforded to him by all the snow and waterbending, but Sokka and Sangmu had both already been burned by his simultaneous blasts. It seemed that the hit to his dear pet had made him angry.
Sokka and Sangmu faced Yanhuo'li together while Zuko fought Chit Sang and Lirin dealt with the earthbender Xin Fu. Sokka did everything he could to keep Yanhuo'li on the move so he wouldn't get a chance to hit any of them, but in a wide open field with no cover whatsoever he had his work cut out for him.
"I can't get close," Sangmu cried, in one of the rare moments where she was able to touch the ground. Every time she went airborne, Yanhuo'li directed his attacks at her and Sokka had to do everything in his power to keep the bounty hunter distracted. "I don't know what to do…"
Sokka dove toward her when a conflagration boomed just inches from where he had been standing. "Can't you use your soundbending attacks? Something like that might really disorient him!"
Yeah! That's the only way he'll go down - you gotta disorient him! I say hit him on the head, boomerang style!
"If I do it from this far away I'll just hurt everyone," she admitted, twirling her staff so that winds spun toward Yanhuo'li in retaliation. He simply directed another blast at her, which tore through her attack and forced her to glide away.
"Then get close," he said, locking eyes with the airbender and nodding to her. "I'll give you an opening. Trust me. But after that, you're gonna have to get as far away as you can, okay?"
She had just enough time to nod back before the barrage of explosions continued, and they split.
Sokka emerged from his cover of ice blocks, hurling his boomerang to force the Combustion Man to duck away and following it up with a trio of ice boomerangs that converged on him before the actual boomerang even returned. Yanhuo'li leapt into motion to avoid the three aerial attacks and Sokka didn't give him a chance to reorient himself. He drew his club in one hand and machete in the other, swinging the club for bludgeoning water strikes while waves sliced from his machete. He hurled the machete to dissuade Yanhuo'li from letting off another blast, freeing his hand to let him catch the boomerang on its return flight.
His metal arm swung at the machete and they met with a loud clang, diverting the flying weapon, but then Yanhuo'li followed it up with another attack. Sokka's only warning was his widened eyes and flared nostrils, but the attack was directed at the ground in front of Sokka. The explosion washed over him in a wave of heat and then he didn't know where the ground was until he met it again in a crunch of ice and snow, his head spinning and clothes smoking. He stumbled to his feet as fast as he could, driven by pure instinct to keep moving, but when he grasped his head and braced himself, so dizzy he felt nauseous, no more attacks followed.
Instead, Yanhuo'li had directed his ire toward Sangmu again.
Gritting his teeth and forcing himself to keep going, Sokka drew the meteorite sword once he realized he had dropped his club somewhere during the last attack. He swung it with both hands in a fluid dance, letting the innate familiarity of the weapon's usage guide his resultant waterbending strikes. Arcs of water and cutting ice sliced toward Yanhuo'li, diverting his attention away from Sangmu with a vengeance. The force of Sokka's attacks pushed him backward, but Yanhuo'li didn't risk blasting the water and ice to evaporate the assault with it so close to him. Focused on Sokka, he didn't notice when Sangmu dropped from the sky right next to him.
She got as close to Yanhuo'li as she dared, within reach of his metal claw, and clapped her hands together once.
A sonic pulse erupted out from her joined hands, the shockwave making an indent in the snow beneath their feet. Even from where he stood, Sokka heard a low booming sound that made him wince. Yanhuo'li pressed both of his flesh and metal palms to his ears, his eyes screwed shut in pain.
The voice in Sokka's head rose up in excitement. Now! Boomerang time!
He let it fly. The boomerang whizzed through the air just as Sangmu flew away and it struck Yanhuo'li right in the center of his forehead. He let out a snarl of pain and looked at Sokka with anger. He braced himself to avoid another attack, wondering just what it would take to take down this juggernaut of a man, when his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fell flat against the ground, unconscious.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," Sokka said. "I kind of expected an explosion."
"You haven't had enough of those?" Sangmu asked, frowning. Worry creased her brow. "I really hope I didn't do any permanent damage… Soundbending is truly fearsome, and it makes me wonder at the philosophical implications of airbending…"
Sokka brought a healing glove to the exposed, burned skin of his hands and wrists. "Yeah, Sangmu, I don't really think now's the time to ponder that sort of thing."
She pressed her finger knuckles to her lips. "Right. Let's help the others."
In the midst of their fighting, Chit Sang looked over to see that Yanhuo'li had fallen, and he put up his arms in a gesture of surrender. "I yield," he called out over the snowfield. Even as he said so, a cloud of snow and dust arose from the Great Glacier - the arrival of Lirin's tribesmen and women, coming to their aid on the backs of buffalo-yaks. "I know when I'm beaten."
Xin Fu cursed after Lirin knocked him to the ground. "Forget that. I'm not letting myself get captured by an outlands clan. I'm outta here." He scrambled away from her and Lirin moved to follow, but Zuko held out a hand.
"Stop," he said. "Let them go. Holding them prisoner won't accomplish anything."
Sokka wanted to question the wisdom of just letting Chit Sang and Xin Fu walk free - Lirin especially grumbled when the firebender and earthbender together lifted Yanhuo'li onto the back of a buffalo-yak - but they said nothing. Chit Sang glanced back once at Zuko before they rode away.
"I'm not normally in the habit of letting my prey escape," said Lirin, scowling. She glanced at the wolverine-skunk, which had started to stir. "I'm content to skin this monster and wear its pelt, though."
Sangmu looked at her with wide eyes, horrified. Sabi flew into her arms after having avoided the battle and Sangmu clutched her tight. "No!"
Lirin sighed and shrugged, lifting her giant machete over her shoulder. "Oh, fine. We'd best make ourselves scarce before it wakes up, then."
While the Mother went to go find Koh, Aang kept the image of Toph in his head and followed their connection. Right now, the fear of losing her overpowered everything else. He didn't know how he would defeat this new Koh, this Deva-Koh, especially because he didn't know Kuruk's spiritbending technique. He could only hope that the mother knew how to placate the rampaging son.
His route brought him to a forest with some of the thickest trees he had ever seen. His connection to Toph led him high above the ground - something he found unusual, knowing Toph - and up to the towering branches in the treetops. Seemingly thousands of identical trees with blood red fruits clustered together in their branches, but Aang didn't stop to stare at them for too long. He knew Toph was close. The connection binding them together felt almost electric, living in and of itself, but when it led right to one of the fruits he and Appa perched on a massive branch in front of it. Big enough for even Appa's bulk, the branch didn't budge.
Aang leapt off of Appa and shared a glance with the bison. "Huh? Is she… inside that?" He approached the red fruit, which radiated warmth and even a dull luminescence when he looked closely enough, but when he peered inside he drew back in shock when he saw Toph unconscious inside. "Appa, that's her!" He drew his sword and was about to hack the fruit to pieces when he heard a voice behind him.
"Hold it, Twinkletoes."
He spun when he heard her voice, and the shock and confusion turned to joy until he saw her in the form of a spirit and then he felt his face get wet. "You… you're a spirit," he said, trying not to let his voice shake. "What happened? Am I too late?"
Toph hovered in front of him, beaming with her hands on the back of her head. "Well, a little. But seriously, don't you recognize me? Shouldn't be too hard to figure it out, since I do have a face and everything."
It was hard to tell since she was transparent and floating, but then his mouth dropped open when he realized this Toph was just a bit taller. Just a bit older. He looked back to the Toph in the fruit, searching her for similarities, and knew the answer as soon as she saw the burn scar around her left wrist. He wiped the tears from his eyes and wished for nothing more than to be able to hug her in that moment. "Toph, it's good to see you again."
"Oh man, you have no idea how good it feels to not be called 'Spirit-Toph,'" she said with a chuckle. "Wondered when you'd find us. Been a long time, huh?"
He settled on smiling at her, hoping she could feel his warmth regardless. "It has. What's your body doing in this fruit?" he asked, sheathing his sword and turning back to her physical form. Appa had edged closer to the fruit, sniffing.
"Not really sure," she admitted. "But I think all of 'em have people inside. All the people from our world, I'd bet."
When he looked at some of the fruits adjacent to hers, he realized she was right. "Everyone from our world…" he said in awe, and now he really took a look at thousands and thousands of trees spanning all the way to the horizon. "When our world started crossing over to the Spirit World, I wonder if the Spirit World encased everyone like this to protect you all."
"Well, that's an optimistic outlook," Toph said. "Sokka would probably say something like those fruits are sucking our brain juices out. Not that I think that's what's happening."
Aang felt his chest tighten. "Are Sokka, Katara, and Zuko here? Can I see all of you?"
"Their bodies, maybe, if you go look for them," she replied. "But their spirits? Nah, they're all with their other selves, I'm pretty sure. In this fancy new world you've found yourself in. I only found my physical body here 'cause the other me happens to be close by. And something tells me that cutting my body free isn't really a good idea."
His gaze dropped to his feet. "Toph… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be away from home for so long, to get you all in this situation. But I will come back. I'm not going to leave you all to a ruined world."
Her smile softened. "I know. And don't waste time being sorry - the other me still needs her face. She's right down on the ground, waiting for you."
Aang looked back up at her and swallowed his guilt. "Right. We're gonna take down Koh."
"That's the spirit, Twinkletoes," she said, but then she grimaced. "Ugh, I just made a pun, didn't I?"
Aang leapt back onto Appa and they all descended together. Toph drifted down alongside him and he glanced at her with a furrowed brow. "How can you see if you're not connected to the ground? You can't even earthbend like this, can you?"
"I still don't think I can see like you do, but I bet it's some spirit nonsense. Or maybe I sense my surroundings through the other me, I dunno. I don't think about it too much. Also, ignore the freaky eyes on all these trees. Nagi hates them."
"Nagi?" he asked. And then he noticed the eyes all over the trees, which he'd thought had just been knots previously. He felt chills tingle up his spine, but he focused his attention on the ground below, where he saw a tiny shape sitting on the ground that became clearer and clearer as he neared. Once he was low enough, he jumped off of Appa and landed at Toph's side, falling to his knees. She barely reacted to his presence, only slightly angling her head toward him. His hands found hers. "Toph… I'm here."
Her grip tightened.
Back when he'd first met Koh, he hoped he would never have to see a person without their face. He never imagined it would happen to someone like Toph, always so strong and unyielding. It was almost haunting, like a nightmare he had long ago coming true. "I'm gonna fix this," he promised her. "The Mother of Faces is coming and she'll give you your face back."
He sensed the presence of three other people with his earthbending before he heard them approach. He turned his head to see Yue, distinguishable by her white hair as always. "Did you say the Mother of Faces? You found her?"
Aang stood. Along with Yue, he spotted two women that he didn't know - one that looked like a Dai Li agent and the other an older Water Tribe woman. "I did. She's coming, and she's going to help me face Koh."
Yue clasped both hands to her chest, averting her eyes. "Avatar, I know we have opposed each other in the past but I want you to know that your friend Toph - both of them - have come to mean a great deal to me. I would very much appreciate it if we could put our differences aside and help each other. Once we get through this ordeal, I will do what I must to make amends."
Aang smiled. Before coming here, he didn't know what sort of person Yue might become in the Spirit World, but he was thankful that Toph wasn't alone through everything. "I'd like that, Yue." His reaction to her apology seemed to disarm her, like she hadn't expected him to be so readily accepting of her.
"And I would like to add that Yue and I know of your, ah, secret," said the Dai Li agent. She wrung her fingers together. "Oh, and by the way, my name is Nagi. It is truly a great honor to meet you, Avatar! I hope I can be even a little bit helpful in the battles ahead, Avatar. And Misu here has been trying to teach me how to spiritbend, so I hope that can help deal with the Face Stealer, Avatar!"
The older woman, Misu, stared at Nagi with a raised eyebrow. "My, you are both so wordy, aren't you? It is indeed an honor to meet you, Avatar, but I suspect I can hold it together better than Nagi."
Nagi's cheeks reddened. "It's just that… with all his past lives, the Avatar is a walking repository of historical knowledge! Just imagine what secrets he could unearth just by meditating and connecting with his other selves!"
Aang scratched his cheek. "Um, it doesn't really work that way. But you can just call me Aang." It certainly made things easier if they already knew of his other world. "It's nice to meet you, Nagi and Misu."
Nagi pressed her palms together. "Was Spirit-Toph correct? Have we really never, um, met each other?"
He wracked his memory but gave her an apologetic grin. "No, I'm sorry. I can't really say that you look familiar."
She slumped forward in disappointment. "Oh, very well. What must we do?"
Yue bent down to pull Toph to a standing position. "We must steer Koh away from the survivors. If he were to appear in the center of all of them, there is no telling what kind of devastation he might unleash."
Aang's head shot in her direction. "Survivors?"
Yue nodded. "From Ba Sing Se. Victims from the attack and the raiders both. Everyone got pulled here when Wan Shi Tong's library appeared in the mortal world, it seems."
For the first time in a long time, Aang felt some of the ever-present weight lift from his shoulders. Against all odds, those he thought lost - those he thought he'd failed - had returned to him like an act of providence. It was the kind of hope he never dared to let himself feel.
"Hey, you okay?" Toph asked.
"He does indeed look a little emotional," said Nagi. "Misu, why don't you head back and make sure everyone in the encampment is ready for an attack?"
Misu nodded. "Very well. I don't think you've grasped the spiritbending technique yet - though I still don't think it's possible for an earthbender - so be careful. Avatar Aang, you know how to do it, I trust?"
Aang scratched the back of his head. In truth, he had only witnessed Kuruk and Aniak perform it, but he had no idea how it worked. "Uh, sure?"
Apparently seeing right through him, Misu rubbed her temples and sighed. "Well, be safe. All of you."
She turned and departed down the path, but before she went far she stopped when she saw someone standing ahead of her. "Rafa! What are you doing here?"
Aang felt something wrong about the man approaching them. He walked with unnatural movements, his legs jerking at angles that made Aang think of a marionette in motion while his arms hung limp at his sides. As he neared, Aang could see a plain wooden mask covering his face, but his movements jostled it and the mask fell to the ground. It revealed his lack of a face, but something white had covered him like another skin, engulfed even his hair by plastering it to his head. He almost resembled a moving statue of marble.
"Rafa?" Yue called, but then she put a hand over her mouth. "The ailment that gripped him has spread…"
"Rafa?" Misu called again. "Brother, can you hear me?"
In answer, he froze in place before flashing right in front of Misu. Aang, Yue, and Nagi all shouted in alarm as Rafa drew his hand back and wrapped an inhumanly large palm around her face. Misu shouted out as he gripped her, but before Aang could rush forward to help her Rafa released her from his hold and when she fell to the ground she had a splash of white where her face had been, like a burn. She fell to the ground, unmoving.
"Misu!" Yue cried.
Nagi stepped in front of Yue and both she and Aang punched a ripple of earth toward Rafa, but he just took their attacks without moving and let them batter him as if it didn't even hurt. Before Aang could do anything else, he saw a radiant white light dancing in the trees at the edge of his vision and Rafa froze as if he noticed the light as well, falling prostrate into a pose of supplication.
"There is pain here," said the voice, which seemed to ring both among the trees and in Aang's head. "Offer it to me, and I shall free you from it. Let me taste your sadness, savor the juices of your misery on my tongue and the flesh of your loss down my throat. Offer it to me, and you will know grace and mercy and peace, life everlasting."
Aang recognized that voice. He never realized it had stuck with him in the years since he first met Koh, but hearing it again brought him back to that dismal swamp and dark cave with the coiling centipede legs, tapping and scratching. But now the brightness was almost blinding and no less terrifying for it - where there had been a hundred legs tapping and scuttling before, Koh now slithered across the ground, his lower body bloated and covered in gleaming white plates that were a deformation of his former carapace. The legs he used to have now floated away from his main body, detached, only a reminder of his previous form, except for two larger claws that resembled scythes closer to his face.
And his face. Aang would never forget his new face, not until the end of his days.
It looked even more like a mask than Koh's old face, the one he sometimes saw in his nightmares. This one hardened into a permanent smile, round and white as porcelain or candle wax, with dark, dead eyes. Despite how inhuman it looked, it made Aang think of a baby's face, and even more morbidly there was another face pressed against it - a woman's, frozen in mourning, almost as if she caressed the baby. Surrounding them both was a golden wheel that made Aang think of a sunburst.
"I am Deva-Koh," said the spirit. "And I am your deliverance."
Aang summoned a wall of stone to prevent Appa from looking at Koh. "Appa, you've got to get out of here - it's too dangerous for you!"
He let out a roar of protest, but Aang wasn't about to risk Appa losing his face. The bison padded his feet against the ground as if ready to fight and defend his humans, but Aang stood firm. "Go!"
It was Toph who acted first - the physical Toph, the faceless Toph - and her palm strike lifted a spike of earth underneath Koh's carapace that made him unleash an echoing scream. Nagi followed up her attack by snapping her wrists and rolling the earth underneath him, but Koh braced himself by planting his forelegs into the earth. Wordless, but still with that unearthly smile, he slid forward and slashed toward Toph but Aang recovered his wits and summoned a wall of white fire between Koh and his target.
From behind, Rafa threw himself at Nagi but she bent below the attack and grabbed his wrists with earth cuffs. Before she bound his hands together, he twisted unnaturally and kicked her in midair, sending her sprawling. Yue tried to hit him with the flat of her blade but it was as if Rafa moved like an airbender and dodged out of the attack, despite his inability to see.
Koh looked at Aang.
Unbidden, a thrill pounded from inside his chest and he was nearly overcome with the desire to let out joyful laughter. He found none of this funny, but it threatened to burst from his chest and he fought it so much that his face hurt. Something was wrong, and that thought along with the horror of the spirit in front of him were the only things keeping him from giving in to the sudden levity that gripped him so firmly.
Yue's voice came out subdued. "Don't show him any emotion," she said. Her eyes glistened and she stood completely still. "The… the desire to cry just came over me. I… I think Koh is trying to force us to change our expressions. I… I've truly never felt so full of awe." She turned away from him, covering her face, and Koh took the opportunity to attack her.
Spirit-Toph spoke through grit teeth just as Toph slammed him away with another attack right at his face. "Well that's his mistake. I fight best when I'm in a good mood."
Sokka, Zuko, and Sangmu split from the Beaver-Bear Clan after recuperating at the edge of the Great Glacier, but after Lirin pledged her clan's support for the Avatar's cause they had no idea where to go. They didn't know when Aang would return from the Spirit World (hopefully with Yue and Toph), and Sokka knew they couldn't just sit around and wait. Mostly because they'd freeze to death, but also because the world quite abruptly underwent another major change.
Clouds rolled across the sky, heavy and black and glowing with violet lightning. It was as if the Everstorm expanded outward, dispelling the blizzard raging across the Great Glacier and blanketing the sky as far as Sokka could see. Motes of sunlight pierced through the dark haze in places, and sometimes white and gold shapes formed from that light to clash with dark shapes from the clouds and Sokka just didn't know what to make of that.
The change happened just after Lirin left them to return home with her people to survey the damage the Wolf's Skulls had done, and also to prepare for the invasion that loomed closer and closer. They'd left Sokka and the others with a trio of buffalo-yaks and supplies, but when they took shelter in an ice cave at the edge of the Great Glacier they stared in fearsome awe at the sky.
"What is happening?" Sangmu asked, gaping. "Everything's in disarray. Why is this? Why does it seem as if our world is becoming the Spirit World?"
"That's because it kind of is," Sokka said, trying to calm the buffalo-yaks. They brayed at the sudden change in the atmosphere. He exchanged a glance with Zuko, who sighed as if in defeat.
"We need to tell you something we've learned, Sangmu," Zuko said. "Apparently there are plenty of worlds besides our world and the Spirit World. Kind of like ours, but different in all sorts of ways."
"Oh," said Sangmu, twisting her finger in her braid. "That sounds like Avatar Yangchen's parallel worlds theory. She thought that the world changed with every choice we made, like a tree growing and splitting at each branch. But they all share the same roots, which means they have many similarities."
Sokka blinked. "You, uh, believe it that easily?"
"Avatar Yangchen is from my temple," Sangmu explained. "I've read much of her writings and philosophies. But that doesn't explain what's happening now."
"The worlds are all merging together with our world and the Spirit World," Zuko said. "Aang's been trying to hold it off, but … I guess something happened."
Sokka and Zuko shared a glance again. He knew that Zuko must have considered telling Sangmu the truth about Aang, but neither of them wanted to be the ones to tell her. That was Aang's secret to share. "I don't like all those dark spirits and what I assume are light spirits popping up all over the place," Sokka said. "Who knows how far reaching this is? Or how long it'll be before Aang returns?"
"What're you suggesting?" Zuko asked.
"I say we try to find some experts," Sokka replied, pounding his fist into his palm. "Scientific ones. Maybe the scholars at the Aniak'to Alchemical Institute know of a way to deal with all these spirits."
Sangmu pressed her fist against her cheek in thought. "Scientific experts to deal with a spiritual issue? I don't know…"
"And we'd be heading right into the belly of the beast," Zuko added. "Without Aang. I'm not so sure that's a good idea."
Sokka tightened the saddle of his buffalo-yak and mounted it. "Have a better idea?"
Zuko frowned. "No," he said, but then he looked thoughtful. "I wonder if that's where Azula and Katara went…"
"It's a slim chance," Sokka admitted. "I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but…"
"You'd be reunited with your sisters again," Sangmu pointed out. "I suppose that's as good of an idea as any."
"You're with us, Sangmu?" Sokka asked her. "Even if this'll take us away from Aang?"
She mounted her own buffalo-yak and stared at the reins clutched in her hands. Momo hid in the hood of her parka, chittering in her ear as if to reiterate Sokka's words. "Well, where else am I supposed to go? I… I have no one else. And if you said I'm part of your family now..."
Zuko gave her a smile. "Yeah," he said. "You are."
Sokka pulled up his hood as they prepared to leave the cave. If Katara really was at Aniak'to, he wanted to be prepared to face her. But if she'd split from them so early on in their journey to the South Pole, did that mean she really never cared about rescuing Yue from the Spirit World? Had she lost sight of her friends? Or did she, in her own way, trust Aang to rescue Yue?
So many things still left him confused and unsure. Far away, he thought he heard the howl of a wolf and it made him think of the Wolf's Skulls. "Zuko," he said. "Are you sure you're fine with letting Chit Sang run free?"
"It's too late now to say otherwise, isn't it?" Zuko responded as they headed back out into the cold. "But I think he has a chance to find the good inside him. Capturing him won't help him see that. I learned that when we tried to capture you and Katara."
"I guess I can see your logic there," Sokka admitted. "I'd know, I guess."
Leaning against the fur of his buffalo-yak, he spurred the beast on. Now, he supposed, it was time for a proper homecoming.
With gleaming claws, Koh flashed to Toph but Yue held him at bay with her blade. With Koh immobilized, Aang and Toph both took the chance to attack him from both sides, but his detached legs revolved around him and let him roll around Yue's defenses. Koh's massive bulk slammed into Toph, hurling her into one of the trees surrounding their battleground.
Aang let out deep breaths in a titanic effort to keep from bursting into laughter. It was like every fiber of his being just wanted to let loose and have fun, to revel with this ancient spirit. He had never felt quite this carefree in such a long time and the only reason why his face didn't split into a grin, he suspected, was because he was so unused to this feeling. It was like wearing a skin that wasn't his. "Where are all of the people from Ba Sing Se?" he asked. "We need to keep Koh away from them."
"There are so many more to feast upon," said Koh. His expression never changed from his knowing smile. His voice had become higher than Aang remembered, almost melodic and even soothing. "I will find them… I will show you all true bliss, true ascension. You will be part of me. Why don't you want this? Rest your weary heads."
"Please, Rafa, leave me," said Nagi, ripping up dirt to push away the man that had fallen under Koh's control. "I need to gaze upon Koh. I've never felt so at peace."
Before Nagi could turn toward Koh, before their eyes could meet, Toph slid between them with a wall of earth and shoved it at Koh. The spirit shrieked when it struck him, a harsh sound that left Aang with a momentary lapse of his complete and utter joy.
"Nagi, you need to snap out of it," Yue urged her, as much as her monotone voice would allow. "We… we have to resist him."
Aang circled his hands and a gale rose to meet his movements, warding away Koh just as he gripped Toph's wall in his claws and tore it away. "I don't know how to spiritbend," Aang said to Nagi. "If you really think you can do it, you have to try."
Without any sound and with footsteps so light Aang could barely sense them, Rafa hurled himself at Aang's back before he could react, clinging onto him with surprising strength. The man was much larger than him, and stronger, but Aang managed to bend forward and flip Rafa over his shoulders. After hurling him to the ground, Rafa moved again without the need to gather himself or catch his breath, and when Aang tried to hit him with earthbending he hesitated just long enough for Rafa to slip away. Despite his strength and speed, his body looked so fragile - like one solid hit would shatter him to pieces.
Behind him, Nagi took a deep, steadying breath. "Okay," she said. "Hold Koh in place for me."
Aang tried not to look directly at Koh, at his blinding radiance, and pumped the clearing full of red and blue flames, intent on stopping the Face Stealer once and for all. Koh cowered from the heat and the fire, screeching and shrieking as it licked at his carapace. The white melted like candle wax, dripping over his perfectly serene face and golden sunburst orbiting his head. Toph shifted the earth under his form so that he couldn't move, burying him deeper and deeper into the ground. While they did that, Yue kept Rafa occupied, slicing empty air to ward him away from Aang, Toph, and Koh.
"Resonate with the spirit's chi," Nagi said to herself, as if repeating a mantra. She pressed her hands to the ground, digging her fingers into the earth. "Let the chakra flow, unimpeded. Spirits are malleable. Adaptable. Redress the balance. Yin… and yang."
Memories of Tui and La swam to the surface of Aang's mind, dancing along with the dragons Ran and Shao. He knew what balance looked like; he'd known all along that it required both light and darkness. But what did balance mean for the world? They were two different questions with two different answers, and he knew he wouldn't find either of those answers with Raava or Vaatu or any spirit.
"What would it mean to devour the divine?" Koh mused, even as Aang's flames and Toph's earth buried him. He stared directly at Aang and his eyes glowed with a harsh brightness that Aang's eyes never matched in the Avatar State. "I see the pondering on your face, child of the cosmos. I will learn the answer to my question, for your face is mine."
Aang realized his blunder too late. Even without moving, Koh's face seemed to come closer to his, as if detaching from his body, and Aang felt the world spin. He stood rooted in place, mesmerized, as Koh's smiling face filled his vision along with blinding white light, his soft laughter reverberating. Distantly, he saw his surroundings: vivid green energy glowed from beneath Koh, purifying energy from the earth - Nagi's spiritbending? But Koh grew brighter and all but Toph recoiled from the searing flash.
Aang thought about trying to reach for the Avatar State again. But he also knew he wouldn't be able to control his face, and he ran the risk of Koh being able to take the faces of all his past lives. His most powerful, his most vulnerable.
He was too late.
"Sleep…"
Darkness fell over his eyes. For a moment, he thought it was the end. But he could still smell the fresh, disturbed soil under his feet, the burning of his flames. And he still had eyes. When he opened them again, he still saw his friends - but it was as if each one of them wore a mask.
Yue, Nagi, and Spirit-Toph wore human faces superimposed over their own. Women's faces, perfectly sculpted and so beautiful that Aang couldn't find the words to voice his surprise. Yue's had a golden chain from nose to ear. Nagi's had blue skin like ancient artwork he'd seen many years ago. And Toph's looked a little bit like Azula, with sharp golden eyes. Aang brushed his hand against his own face and felt a hard surface above it, and assumed he must have been wearing a mask now, too.
"Mother?" Koh's voice fell several octaves deeper and Aang looked behind him to spot the Mother of Faces, dozens of her constructs orbiting her like before. Aang realized she had been the one to save him and conceal all of their faces from Koh. "What are you doing here? What have you done?"
"I am here to help you, my son," she said. Just as the new faces over his friends fell away, others took their place - faces to be stolen and devoured by Koh. "You are lost."
"No!" he shrieked, and his momentary shock had vanished, only to be replaced with aggression. "I am the answer, I am preserving all of your creations! I need them. I need to understand them."
Koh's claws sliced at his mother, but vines from the base of her form reached out and clung to him, binding him in place. Aang drew his pearl blade and stabbed it into the ground, calling stone blades to pierce Koh from below him. Toph shifted the earth underneath Rafa to hurl him toward the Mother of Faces, whose hands brushed past him in midair. When he fell to the ground after touching her, he had his face back - but he still looked to be partially made of marble, like a statue. He didn't rise again.
The Mother of Faces sounded sad. "No," she said. "Humanity is meant to create and grow old and decay, to fight stagnation. That is the gift I have given them."
"My spiritbending didn't work," Nagi said, staring down at her hands. "I don't believe it. I was so certain something was happening."
"Maybe it truly is only waterbending that can do it," said Yue. She looked to Aang with an old woman's face, lined with wisdom. "Avatar, it's up to you."
Toph continued to hold back Koh and Yue went back into the fray, but Aang hesitated. He'd only ever seen memories perform the technique, and didn't know the basis behind it himself. How was he supposed to balance Koh?
"C'mon, Twinkletoes," said Spirit-Toph. "Now's not the time to doubt yourself."
The Mother stood in front of them, protecting the humans from Koh's rage. "Only human intervention can help a spirit regain their balance," she said, as if reading his mind. "Only humanity can find the light in the darkness… or the darkness in the light."
He saw Tui and La again. Ran and Shao. The moon and the ocean, life and destruction - both necessary for their eternal dance, and he had to find that equilibrium within Koh. From the mist that gathered around the Mother of Faces, Aang grasped twin streams of water and they coiled around Koh's form. His light was almost overpowering, but with the glow of his water Aang sought the darkness around all of them. He couldn't look within Koh - he had no darkness to draw upon.
Koh thrashed even while Toph and his mother restrained him. "All I desire is to offer you succor! Freedom from pain and mercy from oblivion!"
Koh never understood humanity and their pain, so Aang would help him feel that. He had enough to spare. Koh knew loss already but it consumed him. The face stealer would never grow.
The water glowed a bright yellow, almost gold. Aang guided the blockage of energy and came to learn that was all spirits were made of; energy given shape and purpose. Koh let out one final cry and his face cracked down the middle, revealing a void beyond it. He curled in on himself and his form dispersed into beads of light until the Mother of Faces held an orb between her hands.
"It has been eons since I have seen my Koh at all. I had forgotten what he was like, and only now do I realize the depths of my mistakes when I made him and left him without a face of his own," she said, her voice dripping with mourning. "Now… bring me those who have been touched by him, and I will restore your faces to what they once were."
Their masks dissolved. Instead of stepping forward first, Toph pressed her fists forward and dragged Misu before the Mother of Faces, and Spirit-Toph, above them, put her hands on her hips. "Misu got messed up special, like Rafa did," she said. "I think they need their faces back first."
The Mother of Faces pressed her palm of vines to Misu's face, and in a flash of light she had it back. "This human has been corrupted, just like her brother," she said. "I am not sure when - or if - she will wake on her own. I have never seen this type of imbalance in humans."
"Because Koh did this to them after he transformed?" Yue asked. Even Rafa still hadn't moved and Yue seemed especially disturbed by the condition of him and his sister. "Would spiritbending help them?"
"I am not certain. This sort of change in a physical being is not unlike other spiritual scars, usually indicated by spiritual possession. I do not know what would happen if you tried that, or if they can be saved. I am sorry," said the Mother of Faces. She looked to Toph as Yue's eyes fell to Rafa and Misu. "But I can restore you, and once again craft the face I first made for you."
Toph stood still as the Mother of Faces extended her palm toward her, and Aang held his breath.
Toph inhaled a deep breath, and the first thing she knew was her sense of smell.
She'd forgotten what the earth and soil smelled like, rich and heavy with moisture, the kind that she loved to dig her toes into the most. Even the air carried its scents to her, like autumn leaves and smoke from the burned detritus of their battle. She didn't know if it was the Spirit World making things more vivid than usual or just the fact that everything was so unfamiliar to her now, but all of the smells felt so overpowering.
She felt something warm on her face and when she touched it with her fingers she realized she'd been crying. She cried for everything she almost lost and everything she'd found again. She cried, unashamedly, when Aang grabbed her hand and then enveloped her in a tight embrace and she cried when Yue and Nagi both joined in, crying themselves. She cried when she admitted the fleeting hope to herself, however unlikely, that the Mother of Faces would be able to do something to give her vision - to restore Toph, as she'd said - but then she cried more when she remembered that she was Toph Bei Fong, blindness and all. Nothing about that needed to be restored because she wasn't "broken."
They were tears of overwhelming relief and victory and happy reunions, and only Toph noticed when the Mother of Faces vanished into the forest as if becoming one with the trees, Koh held protectively in her hands.
When they all finally pulled away from each other and wiped their eyes, it was Toph who spoke first. Her voice came out in a croak after what felt like years of disuse. "Okay," she said, clearing her throat. "I'm ready to get outta here and never meet another spirit again."
"Me too," said Nagi, and she let out a laugh. Toph didn't even realize that even sounds felt so far away when she didn't have a face, and now Nagi's laugh sounded like music to her ears. "But how will we get all the people from Ba Sing Se to the portal?"
"I don't think we'll need a portal anymore," said Aang, as Appa returned and nuzzled Toph with so much force that she actually fell over. "The barriers between worlds are so thin now that I think I can just… get us through, bodies and all."
"Amazing," said Nagi, gasping. "And a little frightening. That can't be good for the state of the world."
Aang shook his head. "It isn't. Things are going to be bad when we get home."
The other Toph, her spirit self, let out a chuckle and Toph knew a cocky smile accompanied it. "But you've had a pretty big victory here. Don't let yourself forget that, Twinkletoes. Other me, you're gonna have to remind him not to dwell so much on the sad stuff, okay? It's a bad habit of his."
Toph grinned, spreading her arms to encompass as much of Appa as she could. She even missed the big fuzzball. "Nah, I won't let him."
Yue knelt over Rafa and Misu, both of them still prone on the ground. "They're just staring at nothing. And they still look like... dolls. I hope it is just the Spirit World having an adverse effect on them, and they'll return to normal once we go back to our world."
"Let's hope so," Aang said with an unsure shrug. "If not, I'll try spiritbending again. Or even healing. But now, we have to go."
When they made it back to the encampment of Ba Sing Se citizens and raiders alike, the tea-loving toad spirits let out loud, tearful sobs when they announced their departure. The Water Tribe raiders regarded Aang with wariness but kept their distance from Appa and said nothing when Aang, Toph, Nagi, and Yue organized everyone in one big cluster. Aang's plan was to more or less punch a hole through the barrier between worlds big enough for them all to fit through. It was simple and direct, just like Toph liked it.
"I'll catch you later, Twinkletoes," said Toph's other self, when Aang sat down in a lotus position. "And hopefully next time you see me I'll be able to hit you in the arm myself. But until then, other me's gonna have to do it."
"I can't wait," Aang said, and he spoke it with such conviction that Toph could feel it through the earth. "I wish we got to see each other longer."
"It's fine," said Spirit-Toph. "I'll be latching onto the other me again, so I'll be with you just like all the others. You just won't be able to see me. You're fine with that, right?"
Toph realized that the last question was directed at her. "Yeah. Now I'm gonna be the one doing all the talking for you instead."
The world rippled. Toph didn't know how else to describe it, but it was as if the ground moved like water. Gasps and mutterings rumbled through the crowd behind her and she wondered briefly what they might see.
"Goodbye, Toph," Aang said to her spirit self. "For now, anyway. I'll see you again, I promise!"
So Aang had made his decision, Toph noticed. She wondered when, and how much she had missed. She found herself excited to see Zuko and Azula again, even Mai. She wondered if they'd have a problem with Yue.
She heard the warmth in her other self's voice. And underneath that, something sad - like she wasn't sure if Aang told the truth with that promise or not. But Toph herself knew he would make every effort to return to his friends in their world. "Bye, Aang. I really hope you do."
The world fell away.
She hurtled through something empty and for a long, horrifying moment she thought she'd lost her face again. Only her heart pounded in her chest and it felt like her arrival to the Spirit World in the first place. She couldn't breathe. It happened again - she was alone. Somehow she'd lost them all. Why didn't they take more precautions? How could Aang let this happen? What would happen to -
She landed on something dry and soft. She grunted at the impact and winced at the cloying warmth and overpowering smell of something rotten. When she stood up straight from the surface she'd landed on, something powdery clung to her skin, hair, and clothes. And then she realized she wasn't alone at all - that all the other people trapped in the Spirit World were here with her, all of them tangled in the roots of the biggest tree she'd ever seen with her feet. It dwarfed all the eye-trees in the Spirit World, so tall and so wide that she couldn't get an image of its full magnitude.
Toph sneezed.
Many other people did, too.
She sensed Aang nearby, along with Nagi and Yue and Appa. So many people shuffled with confusion that Toph could barely focus on any of them, but she heard Aang's voice cut clear through the din.
"We're in the Foggy Swamp," he said with a breathless gasp. "At the Great Banyan tree… how did this happen?"
Toph concentrated as much as she could, casting out her senses beyond the massive tree's roots until she realized they, too, continued beyond her ability to grasp. They became part of the trees in the surrounding swamp, all of it connected. But beyond the new arrivals from the Spirit World, she didn't pick up any movement at all. No water, no animals or insects or… anything.
"It does not look like how I would expect a swamp to be," said Yue, after a long pause. "I'd heard rumors that this swamp became inhospitable after my people invaded, but this is beyond anything I could have expected."
"And the sky," said Nagi, pointing upward. "Look past the canopy of this huge tree. It's almost as colorful as the sky in the Spirit World. Are we sure we even left?"
"I'm sure," Aang said. He knelt and pressed his hand against the roots of the Great Banyan. For a moment, he became as still as the swamp around them until he straightened with another abrupt gasp.
Toph inclined her head toward him. Based on his reaction, things were about to get even worse. "What is it?" she asked.
"I know who's been trying to speed up the worlds merging," he said, breathless. "The swamp just gave me a vision. It's Xai Bau, a member of the White Lotus! We have to stop him!"
"The White Lotus?" Nagi asked. "That Pai Sho group? Okay, so we're heading back to Ba Sing Se?"
Yue checked up on Appa's saddle, presumably to make sure the still unmoving Rafa and Misu were still there. "First, I think we should concentrate on getting out of this swamp," she said. "If I remember correctly, the very air has become poisonous here, forcing the local tribes to move elsewhere. And we have many people we need to worry about now."
Aang stood and rolled his shoulders. Toph felt the way he braced himself, like he usually did whenever he tried to shake off his doubts. "We ended up a lot further away from everything than I wanted. From everyone."
"And somewhere that is exceedingly dangerous," Yue added, worry sneaking its way into her tone like an infection.
Toph punched Aang in the arm, her other self's words echoing in her head. She didn't know where this next step of their journey would lead them, but more than anything she was grateful to be herself again. Aang rubbed his arm where she hit him and she hoped her grin matched how she felt. "We made it this far, didn't we? Keep your heads up. We'll make it through. Just some measly swamp's in our way? We got this."
"This isn't just 'some measly swamp.' It's more than that," Aang said. He turned behind him to stare up at the giant tree. "It's alive. But... I think it's dying."
Azula and Katara's arrival at the Aniak'to royal palace was not met with much fanfare - not like Katara's appearance to the common people in the city. Here, attendants and warriors met her with all the polite indifference suited to a disgraced princess. But Katara walked through the halls of her palace home with her shoulders back and head held high. She didn't spare them a glance, which was ironically one of the first times Azula ever thought she carried the demeanor of a proper princess.
The palace was wide and expansive, covering a lot of ground rather than building upward. But even from far away, the upper levels of the palace looked almost like a place of legend, hewn entirely from ice. It made the palace look as if it floated in the sky and Azula had to admit that she was curious to see that upper level, dubbed "Winter's Heaven," even if the rest of the palace seemed drab and even cramped in comparison. She supposed that was a necessary drawback in order for it to stay warm.
Katara led the way to Winter's Heaven, passing through concentric hallways decorated with woven tapestries and animal skins, crossed weapons and ship models and stuffed beasts regarded as hunting trophies. They also passed riches from the other nations - jewels and gold from the Earth Kingdom along with scrolls and statues from the Fire Nation. These, too, Katara passed by without a word, so Azula did the same in an attempt to not look painfully out of place.
They came to a chamber Katara called the Whale's Belly, named for the whale rib cage hanging from the ceiling. Here, Katara did pause long enough to spare a glance around the mostly empty chamber before climbing the set of icy steps to Winter's Heaven. Members of Hakoda's court milled around the Whale's Belly while they waited for the upcoming appearance of the emperor upstairs and Azula was surprised to see just how many members of the other nations she saw present here. Sages and provincial governors from the Earth Kingdom rubbed shoulders with pirates who chatted amicably with merchants and nobles from the Fire Nation. Traitors, all of them, but Azula reminded herself that she was just like them now. Plenty of clan chiefs and shamans and Water Tribe elders waited here, too, drinking from goblets of ale while they prepared for Hakoda's next convocation.
Azula almost missed a step on the stairs when she passed by a familiar face walking down them. She saw his long, deep green robes first before she recognized Long Feng, all the way from Jie Duan. And based on the way his eyes widened when he met her gaze, he recognized her too.
Well, this is a surprise, said the voice of Fire Lord Azula, amusement tickling at her. It's almost like being reunited with an old friend, isn't it?
Author's Note: I hope you all liked this one! Please leave a review!
