Chapter 100

Azula's hands slid across the almost polished surface of the rock she was trying to scale, searching for the slightest outcropping she could use to propel herself upwards. The rock face was not particularly high, perhaps seven yards at most, but it was certainly very steep with very few obvious outcroppings to support her hands and feet. For a relative novice at rock climbing, this was a very tough challenge, and she had failed a few times already. The fall was cushioned by the soft desert sand at the bottom of the rock face, but it wasn't the fall itself that Azula was worried about. It was the burly seven feet tall man holding a large whip standing nearby that concerned Azula, the personal manservant of "Guru" Pathik ready to punish her for every little failure as a part of her training.

Azula focused all of her willpower, spotting a small cranny just above her. If she could only reach it with her arm and get a good grip, she could probably pull her legs upwards to find support from another outcropping. Azula grunted with effort as she pushed herself upwards and managed to find a grip in the cranny, scampering up the rock face. After several botched attempts she was finally nearing her goal, Azula could see the top already, a yard or so away. It was at this point that Azula suddenly felt something crawling across her hand stuck in the cranny. She looked up to spot a fairly sizable scorpion sitting on the back of her hand, its stinger raised and poised to strike. Azula yelled in horror and let go, landing on her back in the sand and shaking the scorpion off as it skittered away.

"Get back on your feet, you miserable failure! It's no wonder your mother abandoned you, you're so useless!" Pathik's assistant barked at her. Azula quickly rose from the sand, mentally preparing herself for what was to come. She didn't even wince when the whip lashed across her back. This was pretty pathetic compared to Ozai's punishments, and her higher than normal pain threshold helped a lot. It was the psychological torment together with the physical punishment that often got to her and caused her to break down in tears. As she resumed her attempt to scale the rock face, Azula was still tearing up, struggling not to sob, so she had to take the attempt very carefully until she got her emotions back under control. Once she had managed to do so, however, her progress was swift. She had by now discovered the path to the top, and since Azula seriously doubted that she would have such a horrible luck to find a whole nest of scorpions in the cranny, she now repeated her previous steps and a couple of minutes later emerged at the top of the rock face.

"Well done," Pathik's brawny manservant gave her a pleased nod. Even though over the course of the previous week she had endured plenty of physical punishments and verbal abuse from the man, Azula had not developed a raging hatred for him. She knew that he was simply carrying out Pathik's instructions, and the training certainly was as brutal as Zuko had warned her about.

"Get down here, time's a wasting," Pathik's assistant told her. Azula quickly scampered down half way down the rock face before letting go and landing gracefully in the sand. She then followed Pathik's manservant all the way back to the nearby tent where Zuko sat, looking angry and in pain. He had taken considerably more attempts to reach the top of the rock and had encountered the whip a few more times as a result. Zuko looked up at her, sympathy in his eyes, but they were not allowed to speak with one another, or Agni forbid, act supportively in any way until the very evening when the day's training was considered done.

"Meditation, three hours," Pathik's goon barked at them. "And don't you dare to move a muscle, because I'll be watching every second of your time." Azula and Zuko quickly assumed the lotus position, trying to settle in as comfortable as possible to endure the punishingly long period of time sitting still. From their earlier experiences, they both knew that Pathik's manservant was not lying about the punishment.

"Guru" Pathik was apparently all about various techniques of meditation as an aid of reaching spiritual enlightenment. Azula had never considered herself to be a very spiritual person. Pathik's theories about chakras and all that nonsense fell on deaf ears with Azula. That was something more up Ty Lee's alley. However, Azula found meditation itself quite easy to master because it was very similar in its practical application when compared to the coping mechanisms she had developed in her youth when dealing with her father's physical and emotional abuse. She'd just let all emotions drain from her and go into a numb and unresponsive state, like a retreat from all the pain she was being put through. Meditation was in a way similar to this technique. She would simply center her thoughts on this one thing, shutting everything else down.

Azula and Zuko were allowed to interact as much as they wanted at the end of the day, and being able to vent to their sibling seemed to help them both. Zuko was far less motivated about going through with the training, and Azula had a feeling that he was hanging in mostly just to help her see it through to the end. Zuko seemed to be genuinely concerned that by allowing Azula to subject herself to this emotional abuse in particular, she was risking to undo all the progress she had made in her therapy. Azula supposed that the concern was not entirely without merit. She had suffered some truly terrible days at the boot camp. There were only so many times she could hear how her mother thought that she was a monster, how her girlfriends were happier without Azula being with them, or how she had deserved everything that Ozai had done to her, without suffering some kind of breakdown and starting to once again believe these things that she had spent so much time trying to unlearn. However, if sabotaging her therapy was necessary in order to exact vengeance on her father, then Azula was willing to pay that price.

Certainly, Azula understood that her girlfriends held a wildly opposing opinion about her quest for revenge, but Azula couldn't allow that to sway her from the path forward. After what Ozai had done to Katara in the fall, there was no going back for Azula. She'd have her revenge even if it messed her up beyond repair. Her girlfriends would simply have to understand why she needed to do this, and if this broke and consumed her, well… at least Yue and Katara would still have each other.

Of course, Azula hoped that it wouldn't come to such a dramatic scenario. She had bent under the verbal abuse of Pathik's manservant, but she hadn't broken, and she had no intention to break no matter how terrible the training became. Azula felt that she was over the hump now, with the worst behind her. The physical punishments of the training did not bother her at all. Lying on nails or shards of broken glass was not exactly pleasant, but she had endured worse. Walking barefoot on smoldering embers had been more challenging, and the soles of her feet were still covered in blisters. These physical hardships became much harder to endure when they were combined with verbal abuse, which often broke her concentration and the emotional suffering opened doors to the physical pain. She was getting better at resisting the taunting, however, and Azula took that as a sign that the training was starting to pay off.

When Pathik's manservant once again shook Azula by the shoulder to urge her to rise, Azula didn't feel like anything close to three hours had passed, but she supposed that she was starting to get a better hang of this meditating lark as well. "You can speak now," the man told them both. "Well done, both of you."

Azula looked at Zuko, her brother appearing rather relieved. Iroh had apparently taught him some rudimentary meditation techniques earlier as a way to handle his angry outbursts, so Zuko was reasonably decent at handling this part of the training. It seemed that they both had escaped punishment for failing to remain perfectly still during meditation, which was a first. And even if they had received permission to speak with each other, Azula was in no hurry to do so, focusing first and foremost on stretching her limbs that had gone numb during the hours of stillness.

Azula and Zuko were still busy recovering when Pathik's manservant spoke to them again. "Alright, you two, your next task is to take apart the tent and make your way back to the base," the man said. "It's going to be dark in a couple of hours, so I suggest you don't tarry around, because if you don't make it back in time, you'll probably freeze out here in the desert. Oh, and I guess you'll need this," he tossed a bottle of water to Zuko. "That's all you're getting, so use it sparingly."

"Thanks," Zuko growled as their tormentor exited the tent, got into his dune buggy and drove off. "Ugh, I hate that asshole," Zuko grunted as they quickly set to work dismantling and packing away the tent. If they had learned one thing about Pathik's assistant, then it was that his words had to be taken at face value and his threats were never idle.

"He's just doing his job, Zuzu," Azula said, helping her brother fold up the tent.

"I don't care, I still hate his ugly, fat face," Zuko grunted petulantly. "I am so going to punch his lights out before we leave."

"Whatever, Zuko," Azula rolled her eyes. "You know what would be a lot worse, though? I would hate him if he actually acted nice and friendly after the training. Being nice during downtime and then saying such hateful things would really throw me off, I think."

"Huh," Zuko shrugged, throwing the packed away tent on his shoulders, Azula grabbing the leftover supplies and the water bottle. "You might be right about that."

"I always am," Azula replied smugly. "Anyway, we should probably get going. I don't think he was joking about us not having a lot of time."

"You're sure about the direction?" Zuko asked as they set out to follow the tire impressions left in the dunes by the buggy.

"You think he might have purposefully driven off in the wrong direction to get us killed?" Azula blinked.

"Wouldn't put it past that asshole," Zuko snorted.

"I think you're out-paranoing me now, Zuzu," Azula chuckled. "Anyway, the camp should be northeast from here, and-" she pointed at the sun as it was starting to descend behind the tall dunes. "The tire tracks lead in the right direction."

"Alright, I guess I'll trust you," Zuko said. They walked for a while in silence, sharing the occasional mouthful of water from the bottle, Azula keeping a close eye on it to make sure they distributed the meager supply evenly across the journey. "Do you still think this is all worth it?" Zuko asked.

"I don't know. I hope so," Azula shrugged. "I guess I'll have my answer only after I've faced father again, but I want to think that this will help."

"I hope you're right, or else we're reopening all of our old wounds for a whole lot of nothing," Zuko sighed. "I know how much Sokka hates that I'm doing this to myself, but he's too nice to put his foot down and stop me. Also, I think Sokka likes that we're doing this together. He thinks that at least that part might be good for us, but I'm not sure that your girlfriends would necessarily agree if they knew all the details about this training." Azula winced at the reminder of the deception she was perpetrating. "Speaking of which, when are you going to tell them?" Zuko asked.

"I don't know yet," Azula shrugged. "Once I have made sure that they're both in a better frame of mind, Katara in particular."

"Aren't you afraid of keeping the lie going for so long?" Zuko asked.

"Of course not," Azula lied. She was not at all sure that she was doing the right or the smart thing here. She just knew that if there was a chance that this could help her against Ozai, then she had to try. "They'll understand why this is so important to me. They have to," she added, more to try and convince herself.

"Uh-huh," Zuko looked uncertain. "I'll be honest, Zula, I was really worried about you the first few days, especially when you were crying in your sleep-"

"I so was not!" Azula shouted. It was a lie, of course. She had suffered a terrible nightmare, inspired by the fears of Yue and Katara learning the truth about what she was doing and then kicking her out of their relationship. She had nearly succumbed and begged Zuko to take her back to Ba Sing Se, but somehow, Azula had managed to cling on and persevere. It had been her lowest moment and it had felt truly horrible.

"Okay, you were not crying, but I was still worried about you," Zuko said softly.

"Don't worry, Zuzu, I'm going to be alright, and so will you," Azula gave her brother an earnest smile, leaning in closer to give him a slightly awkward shoulder bump. "With less than a week left, I feel like we've got this."

"I think so, too," Zuko smiled back at her. "You know… I don't think I would have been able to do this without you, Zula. So, uh, I guess… thanks for the support."

"Hey, don't go too soft on me now," Azula mock-glared at him. "I think it's fitting that we help each other with this, you know? Working together to defy our father, he'd hate to see us getting along like this. Who knows, perhaps we'll end up defeating him in the finals, the two of us?"

"That would mean everything to me," Zuko nodded. They walked some more in silence, Azula passing the time by indulging in her happy fantasies of humbling her father and toppling Ozai from his Pai Sho throne. "Are you going to make the drive tonight?" Zuko asked a while later.

"I want to, it's been three days," Azula replied. "I don't actually feel very tired," she added. She was referring to the twelve miles long drive to the nearest village with a pay phone that she was using to call Katara and Yue at the Crystal Castles Sanatorium. It was getting harder and harder to perpetuate the lie she was spinning, but Azula still had to first and foremost reassure Katara and Yue that she was alive and well, besides, she also needed to hear the voices of her girlfriends. Without these moments of happiness, Azula didn't know if she would have the mental fortitude to see her training to the end.

"You are freakishly tough, you know that?" Zuko shook his head at her.

"Yes, well… there's a reason for that," Azula replied. Zuko immediately looked uncomfortable. "Don't stress it, Zuzu," Azula managed a smile. "It's just one of the many reasons why our father needs to go down." Zuko merely nodded in approval as the lights of Pathik's campsite finally appeared behind the tallest of the dunes of the Si Wong Desert.

Toph Beifong let out a heavy sigh as she looked around her father's study at the splendorous family estate. If the information Azula sought after was to be found anywhere, it would most likely be somewhere in this study, within these many drawers filled with file folders. Toph was once again left cursing her near sightedness, but fortunately she had a partner in this little crime of spying, Teo having rolled into her father's study with his wheelchair to help her out.

"Did Azula say what exactly she was looking for?" Teo asked her.

"Something incriminating," Toph puffed out a heated breath. "I know what you're going to say, it could mean anything. That's why I'm so frustrated."

"Yeah, there's a… lot to go through," Teo agreed, having looked around. "Perhaps there is a place where your father keeps his most important documents?"

"That would be the safe," Toph said, patting her father's work desk and opening the little wooden door to reveal a metal strongbox inside. "I used to know where dad kept the key, but that was years ago. I doubt he'd still keep it in the same place," she said, walking up to one of the nearby shelves and picking up a snow globe, flipping it over to reveal a key attached to its base with bits of playdoh. "Well, what do you know?" Toph retrieved the key with a chuckle.

"That's convenient," Teo nodded with a smile. His face then became slightly concerned. "Are you… completely okay with doing this? I mean, you're still going behind the back of your father."

Toph frowned before stubbornly shaking her head. "I may have had my reservations, but that was before we came here and I had to watch the contempt with which he was treating you," Toph said sternly. She was really mad at her father for his snide attitude towards her husband, and her mother was behaving only marginally better. In fact, Toph in a way preferred her father's open distaste for her marriage than her mother's offhanded little comments and digs. Where her father was using a hatchet to attack the issue, her mother was using a slow working poison, and Toph somehow hated that a lot more.

The frosty reception had also affected their performance at the Gaoling tournament, an event that Toph had expected herself to win, but now found herself firmly lodged in the middle of the pack. Teo was for once doing better than she was, challenging for the podium. Somehow, he seemed less affected by the cold shoulder treatment of Toph's parents than Toph herself was. Toph was hoping that she would get the last laugh, however. With Lao and Poppy attending some fundraiser event for a local puppet politician, Toph was determined to make a good use of the absence of her parents to snoop around and see if Azula's suspicions about her father's involvement in something shady were merited.

The first thing that Toph noticed inside the safe was the extraordinary amount of cash, filling up at least a half of the available space. Toph had no idea why her father would have the need to keep such amounts of money on hand. Payments that could not be traced seemed to be the only reasonable explanation. Money wasn't what she was after, however. Toph instead grabbed a stack of documents that looked the most recent and started to browse through them, squinting hard behind her thick glasses.

"Give me some of those," Teo asked, rolling up next to her in his wheelchair. Toph handed him the entire pile, having too much trouble with the fine print. She then waited patiently for Teo to go through the papers. "Most of these are invoices of Beifong Arms equipment sale to the Earth Kingdom's Ministry of Defense."

"Well, that's not very exciting," Toph said. "It's a well-known fact that my father and his business partners are major defense contractors for the government. Is there anything about those invoices that doesn't look right? Are they maybe overcharging and doing some money laundering?" she asked.

"That would require me to know the actual market price of…" Teo took another look at the invoices, reading aloud the items listed. "M60 machine guns, M26 frag grenades, M79 grenade launchers and M19 anti-tank mines."

"Wait, grenade launchers?" Toph blinked in surprise. "I have a fairly good idea of what the Beifong Arms are producing, and they definitely don't manufacture grenade launchers."

"Maybe they've introduced them recently and you just haven't heard about it?" Teo asked.

Toph gave him a skeptical look in reply. "I don't think so," she shook her head. "Read me the items from some of the other invoices," she urged her husband. Teo read the contents of all the invoices to her, and what Toph heard only served to make her even more concerned. "Okay, so quite a few of those things shouldn't be on that list, the Centurion tanks in particular. Maybe the Beifong Arms are capable of manufacturing grenade launchers by now, but actual tanks? There's no way. The Earth Kingdom tanks are made by the Cabbage Corp, or at least they used to be. Beifong Arms didn't even have any prototype designs for manufacturing of tanks the last I checked."

"So, what does this mean?" Teo asked. "Is your father reselling the Cabbage Corp tanks to the government like a middleman, adding a huge markup?"

"But why would Cabbage Corp agree to that? I would have thought that they had their own government contract," Toph shrugged, scratching her head. "This is weird. I think we better get copies of all these invoices and maybe Azula might be able to figure out something that I'm not seeing here. Do you have the camera?"

"Right here," Teo produced the Minolta camera which Azula had loaned to them for their spy mission. Within a few minutes, the two plucky spies had taken photo copies of all the invoices and Toph then placed the originals back inside the strongbox and put the key to the safe back in its place under the snow globe.

"Anyway, I'm starting to think that Azula might have been right all along," Toph said as she helped push Teo's wheelchair back to their room. "It definitely feels like my father is up to his neck in something very shady."

"Huh," Yue remarked with curiosity, eying the move Katara had just made on the Pai Sho board. "I was sure you were going to capture my Lily there," she said. They were by now in the fifth week of exposure therapy, and Katara was finally showing some definite signs of recovery. She was now able to spend many hours at the board without experiencing any kind of mental of physical discomfort, and when the discomfort eventually came, the effects were far milder than before. Katara was slowly getting a grip on her PTSD and not only that, her Pai Sho form was starting to come back as well, both girls becoming much sharper than a month ago, though still not quite back to their ultimate best.

"I might have something better in mind, darling," Katara winked at her.

"Are we still talking about Pai Sho or something else now?" Yue winked right back, making Katara blush. While they had toned down physical closeness as if by unspoken agreement once Azula had left, they were still engaging in intimacy at least a couple of times during the week. It was now three days since the last time they'd had sex and Yue couldn't resist the light tease.

"I'm probably talking about both," Katara laughed, waiting for Yue to make her move on the board.

"I'll hold you to that, Kat," Yue gave her girlfriend a promising smile as she picked up her isolated Rhododendron and pulled it back into relative safety, shoring up her defenses.

"Looks like I have you on the run," Katara remarked, looking amused. She made her next move, continuing to amass her tiles in the center, forming almost like a battering ram to pound Yue's defenses.

In all honesty, Yue had to admit that they both already played well enough to consistently place high in pro tournaments, at least skill-wise. Katara still maintained her resolution to step away from professional Pai Sho, at least for this cycle of world championship, but also potentially for good. Katara had repeatedly stated her preference to focus on her medical studies, and she was looking forward to going back to her hospital training once they returned to Ba Sing Se. Yagoda was supportive of this decision, even if she continued to claim that given enough time, Katara would be able to restart her Pai Sho career should she so wished. Katara didn't want to hear anything about that, however. The only thing she was interested in doing was to spar with Azula and help her prepare, but even then, Katara was aware that at the beginning she would only be able to do so in a limited capacity, pacing herself and making sure that she avoided the worst of her triggers and kept constant track of any potential setbacks.

As for Yue herself, she was also determined to stick with her decision to skip the current world championship cycle, and perhaps resume playing in the next one, but she wasn't certain about that either. The truth was the she had come to love teaching at the Five-Seven-Five academy for girls, and the more and more time she spent with her students, the more Yue came to believe that she had found her true calling. But she loved Pai Sho as well, and it was what bonded her with Katara and Azula, so she didn't want to burn down those bridges just yet. And Yue wanted to help Azula as much as she could. Unlike Katara, Yue felt that she would be able to jump back in and help Azula right away after returning to Ba Sing Se, and she was eager to do so.

As their game progressed, Katara continued to build up her forces in the center, while Yue was preparing for an enveloping pincer maneuver to counter it. She was being a little obvious with her intentions however, because when Katara eventually launched her attack, it wasn't narrowly focused on just a single point in Yue's defenses, but struck her on the flanks as well. Yue had to really sweat in order to hold on and not become overwhelmed in the ensuing frantic exchange of tiles. Once the air had cleared from the heated battlefield, Yue breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn't been obliterated in the onslaught, and the strength of the leftover tiles remained in balance, giving her a chance to hold on for a draw. Before Yue could make her next move, however, a cat jumped on the table they were playing at and raced across the Pai Sho board, sending some of the tiles flying.

"Ran!" Katara exclaimed. "You rascal!"

"Or possibly Shaw," Yue pointed out, laughing. After Azula had confessed as to how often she had changed the collars on the cats, they had realized that nobody could tell anymore which cat was actually which, so they had made the decision to name the collars instead of the cats themselves. The blue collar and everything inside of it would now be called Ran and the red collar would be similarly called Shaw. Since the cat Katara had brought to the asylum was sporting the red collar, it was thus supposed to be referred to as Shaw.

"Yes, I suppose so, Shaw," Katara grinned. "So… do we agree that was a draw?"

"Indeed, a draw courtesy of force majeure," Yue said. "Or perhaps that should be called force meow-jeure," she grinned.

Katara burst into laughter. "Sweetheart, your puns are becoming worse and worse by the day," she sniggered before pointing at the Pai Sho board. "Shall we play one more?" Katara asked. She then glanced at the doors of their little Pai Sho study that they always kept open, just so that they could hear the phone ringing back in their room little ways down the hall.

"We might as well," Yue nodded. "You know that Azula doesn't usually call this early, love."

"That's true, I suppose," Katara smiled. The past few weeks, Azula had been calling every day and she usually spent more than an hour on the phone with her two girlfriends, Katara and Yue often having to compete for the handset, but most of the time they were happy to share and somehow awkwardly manage a three-way conversation.

Azula's punctuality and attentiveness was a welcome change from the sparse contact she had maintained with them at the end of January and early February, calling only every third day at a strangely late hour, and only remaining on the line for some ten to fifteen minutes. It had all felt very weird to Yue, despite what Azula had told them about doing some sort of a weird speed Pai Sho tour. Yue was relieved that Katara hadn't noticed something very weird about Azula's phone calls. Whenever she called, the connection was always very poor, but it was always choppy in the exact same way. Azula's assertion that she was traveling around the Earth Kingdom was starting to feel like a lie to Yue, because it definitely felt as if Azula was calling them from the same phone every three days, and something felt seriously off about that.

Yue felt confused when contemplating the reasons for Azula's behavior. She didn't want to jump to the unreasonably jealous assumption that Azula was seeing someone else on the side. Azula had been so devoted to them during her visit in January, and more than that, Yue simply did not see Azula as the type of girl who would cheat. Azula had some pretty strong principles she genuinely held on to, but if she wasn't seeing anyone, then why else would she be acting so secretly and hiding something from Yue and Katara.

The only explanation that Yue could come up with was that Azula was doing something that she knew Yue and Katara would clearly disapprove of. While Azula herself had not suffered any direct trauma as a result of her father's actions in the championship finals the previous year, it was no secret that the events had affected Azula deeply to the point where her own Pai Sho level had dipped considerably. Azula was so full of rage and anger towards her father that Yue often worried that their girlfriend's thirst for revenge would consume her. Maybe Azula was engaged in something crazy to get to Ozai, perhaps endangering herself in a way that she knew Yue and Katara would never approve of. That was a scary thought, and Yue knew that she wouldn't find out more until they returned to Ba Sing Se. At least Azula seemed to be back to normal these past few weeks when she was clearly calling them from the Ba Sing Se estate, so that was a relief.

"I can't wait to go home," Katara blurted out suddenly as they were clearing the board and setting up tiles for another game.

"I know, love," Yue smiled softly at her. "I want to go home too."

"It's me holding us up, though," Katara's expression dropped slightly.

"You're not holding up anything, love, we're doing important work here," Yue said, taking Katara's hand, interlacing their fingers. "And we'll be going home very soon," she smiled. Yagoda had given Katara an updated timeline, suggesting that Katara needed two or three more weeks. With Yue's own guilt issues having been largely resolved, it meant that they would be returning to Ba Sing Se somewhere around the middle of March.

"I suppose that's true," Katara admitted gratefully. She looked ready to say more, but then the phone suddenly rang back in their room. "Maybe's she's home early!" Katara immediately jumped up to her feet and raced off to answer.

Yue took her time to rise as she shook her head and followed her adorable girlfriend. Given the time of day, it was more likely that the phone call was from either Hakoda or Kanna, but it was still sweet to see Katara this excited. And Yue shared her sentiments wholeheartedly as she couldn't wait for the mid-March when they would finally be able to return home. After a lengthy break caused by the despicable actions of Ozai Nakamura, it was finally time for the power throuple of Ba Sing Se to be reunited at the International House of Lesbians.

Next chapter: Katara and Yue are both mentally in better places as they finally return to Ba Sing Se, and it doesn't take them much time at all to catch Azula in a lie.