Air.
Water.
Earth.
Fire.
When I was a young girl, the White Lotus taught me about the United Republic of Nations and how we lived in a golden age of unparalleled peace and harmony. The era of strife and turmoil that Avatars Aang and Korra fought to stem gave way to one of scientific advancement and wonder under the banner of the Republic. War is almost a thing of the past.
My predecessor, Avatar Jianguo, helped humanity reach for the stars during his long and successful life, taking us to the far reaches of the universe, with Republic City becoming the beating center of a system-wide civilization. He was a hero and paragon; perfect and noble in everything he did. His name was given to a dozen different settlements, and he has statues in a thousand more.
But as ever, the Avatar cycle continues, and now I guess it's my turn.
1.01: Ill-Suited For The Job
"You need to stop fidgeting".
Azi looked over from where she'd been anxiously staring out at the Republic City launchport from the window of the space-plane next to her seat. The source of the voice, her best friend in the seat across from her, eyed her with a mixture of bemusement and concern. Azi grunted defensively, "...I fidget when I'm nervous". They'd been sitting here for several minutes waiting for launch, and while Azi had brought her tablet to draw on, her nerves had prevented her from doing anything other than worrying.
"Well, you're going to burn a hole in the armrest".
Azi noticed the small amounts of smoke emanating from her hand and immediately pulled away with a surprised yelp. Her friend chuckled warmly at her expense, then nudged her leg with his own, "It's gonna be fine".
"You're not the one who's been summoned to a meeting with the Moon spirit out of nowhere, Shi" Azi glanced at him, then away again. It was just like that too; just all of the sudden and out of the blue. Grand Lotus Zhuang and the rest of the White Lotus had offered to step in and handle negotiations after the uh...incident on the lunar surface, but the Moon wanted the Avatar for this job and had refused to take no for an answer. And what Yue wanted, Yue got.
"I'm...sure she just wants to get to know you" Shi said, attempting to be reassuring, even though even he knew the situation wasn't great, "Yue's one of the nicest spirits around, right? Otherwise she wouldn't have let us colonize the Moon".
Azi gave him a look. She didn't believe him, especially not since there was now a several-mile-long scorch mark on the surface just barely visible from Homeworld. A corporate natural disaster was one thing; having it happen on a goddess's sacred ground was quite another. Yue had called for her specifically, and that left a rather nasty pit in her stomach.
To his credit, Shi withered a bit under Azi's gaze, knowing full-well he was talking out his ass. Azi sighed and let the glare go, relaxing as best she could.
"Look, I know this isn't..." Shi searched for the words, "ideal, but I'll be right there with you" Shi said, "Whatever happens, we'll get through it together, yeah?" he gave her an earnest smile and thumbs up. This was the way it had always been, even as kids. Azi was the Avatar and Shi was her backup, her shadow.
Her friend. No matter what happened, he'd be there.
Azi looked down at the ground, non-committal, "...Yeah" she said with a sigh. She knew what he was trying to do, and she appreciated it, but it wasn't what she wanted right now. What she wanted was to be back home, doing whatever. She was supposed to stream on her VR channel tonight after training was done; guess that wasn't happening.
...She much preferred the thought of dealing with anonymous strangers online who didn't know who she was instead of the Moon goddess face-to-face.
"...Azi" Shi grunted, leaning forward. No, he wasn't going to let her slip into a Mood right now.
"...What?" she asked, less like the Avatar and more like a petulant teenager. Shi just stared at her, unblinking and direct...until he had her where he wanted and suddenly made a face, crossing his eyes. Azi cracked and giggled despite herself, "...Yeah, alright. I get it".
"Good! As long as we're clear!" Shi leaned back in his seat with a smug look, a toothy grin as he put his hands behind his head in satisfaction.
Azi grunted and rolled her eyes at her friend's ego. Still, he did an effective job of keeping her afloat; she very reluctantly but earnestly replied with a smile she tried to keep down but failed, "...Thanks". He flashed her another grin; nothing more really needed to be said.
Despite the two being roughly the same age (Shi was six months older than the recently-turned-eighteen Azi, something which he'd taken every opportunity growing up to remind her of...to her annoyance) the pair couldn't have looked more different. Shi was very obviously a member of the White Lotus; he and the other two bodyguards, both far older than the two kids, were in the standard Lotus uniform of dark jacket and pants with white trim—the organization having ditched the old robes in favor of something sleeker in order to keep up with the times. Despite this clean look however, Shi had let his brown hair grow out in just about every direction possible; an impossible mop of someone who had gotten out of shower and let the hair do what it wanted. While Azi's Fire Nation heritage assured her fair complexion, Shi's southern Earth origins came through with his decidedly swarthy appearance.
Azi meanwhile could have easily been mistaken as a civilian, dressed in only casual black pants, a t-shirt, and a red and black hoodie with her black hair up in a loose ponytail and having forgone anything that could have identified her as part of anything. She was inconspicuous and unassuming—something she was fine with...as was the White Lotus, even if the existence of a bodyguard detail sort of ruined that. Not that it mattered here since she and her guard detail were the only passengers on the privately-chartered flight.
"Attention!" an overly friendly voice sounded overhead, before a holographic figure resembling a cheerful, cartoon tiger-monkey appeared via transmitter overhead. A similar creature appeared in every other seat alcove. "I'm the ship's resident artificial spirit! You can call me Fei Hu Dui, and I'm here to let you know the captain has begun final preparations for launch!" the green 'walking' light up above was replaced with a red 'sitting' one, "Because of this, we ask you to please remain in your seats for the duration of the flight! While we will be engaging internal dampeners and artificial gravity in a moment, just in case these fail it will be in your interest to be seated!"
Azi frowned, "I never understood that. I mean if the artificial gravity fails, would it really matter if we were sitting or not?"
It was Shi's turn to give her a look at the implications of her statement. Sigh,"Well, that's space travel ruined. Thanks, I guess".
"Happy to help!"
"Why are you like this?"
Azi stuck out her tongue.
The ship jolted slightly as the machines beneath it grabbed its underbelly and began to transport it to the launch ramp. Out the window Azi could see the endless skyline of the megacity that was Republic City in the distance, as well as a couple of the space elevators that stretched up endlessly into the sky. She'd kind of wished they'd taken one of those instead of being hurled into the void at mach whatever, but at the same time this was far more private which suited her just fine.
A moment later, the spirit ended its recited pre-launch speech and deactivated the holo-emitters, and a moment after that the artificial gravity kicked in—not super noticeable, but Azi had been on enough space planes to know. It was certainlyenough to mess with the other occupant onboard, and a flutter of wings followed by distressed squawk came from somewhere behind her, reminding Azi that she was missing someone.
"Hey, Tenku, get over here! You know what she said!"
An elderly messenger firehawk issued another squawk, this one more petulant as it nonetheless fluttered over to his owner's lap. His feathers were somewhat dulled from the vibrant red and tan of his youth and his right eye had been scarred and left blind from a fight in the past, but other than that he was a tough old bird that just radiated grumpiness. As if to prove a point he gave Shi a look of abject disappoint, as if he'd judged him and found him wanting.
The feeling was mutual.
"...You had to bring the bird" Shi deadpanned. Tenku gave him a scoff.
"Well yeah, duh. He's my wingmate!" Azi said cheerfully, before gently scratching her companion's wings who seemed to really enjoy it, "Right?" Tenku chirped in approval.
"So, we're reduced to puns now".
"You know you love them" Azi looked up, continuing to 'groom' Tenku when she noticed both he and Shi were giving the other rather ugly glares, "You know, if you weren't such a grouch to him, he'd probably like you more".
"...He pooped in my bed".
She actually laughed at that, "Way to hold a grudge there".
"It was two days ago!" Shi said, "And it's just the latest of petty things he does when I'm just minding my own business! He has a vendetta against me".
Azi's eyebrow rose at her friend's ranting, "...He's a bird, Shi".
"He dropped a dead rat-bat into my food!"
"He's a bird!"
"Yeah, a bird who's out to get me".
She rolled her eyes, "Well, have fun having your Eternal, Mortal Arch-Nemesis be my pet, I guess". The conversation basically ended there. The outside world tilted as the ship's track was aimed upwards. Beneath her she felt a very faint hum as electrical energy began to flow. It wasn't something nonbenders could feel, but a bender, even one as lackluster as her? Yeah; she knew the team of metalbenders and lightningbenders below were gearing up for the launch. Subconsciously Azi began to grip her seat in preparation; she wouldn't feel anything when they launched, but somehow she was still somewhat nervous whenever they had to travel this way.
The spirit appeared once more to deliver the news that launch was immanent and then….
Well, Homeworld sped away from the ship, silently and seemingly without effort. Within a second or two the ship was hurdling into orbit; the clouds having flashed by so fast you could have blinked and missed it. The blue sky gave way to the darkness of space, and all around were numerous space elevators ending in large habitat stations, all flanked by light shows as ships came and went, traveling upon predetermined space-lanes to prevent crashes. The space-plane however ignored them and continued up, curving around the planet in an escape orbit and using the planet's gravity to slow it back down before it approached its destination.
...A jump gate.
From her seat Azi looked up at the holographic windows that lined the top and front of the plane, giving her a wide view of what was ahead. The large cylindrical structure that was the gate was actually five separate sections that hovered around each other and could separate depending on how large the vessel trying to pass through was. As the space-plane wasn't all that large, it didn't have to budge much.
On one hand, it felt weird to Azi that they were going to use the jump gate to use the spirit world's natural and ever-changing eddies and currents to bypass the physical world when the Moon was, y'know, right there in the distance. But on the other, appearances were misleading as it would still take well over a day via standard travel, and that didn't sound like a particularly fun time.
"...Tracking exit coordinates" the plane's spirit stated calmly and cheerfully as the ship slowed itself as it closed in on the gate, "Formulating route. Ready to jump".
The gate shifted and turned as the new coordinates were accepted by the team stationed onboard. The plane entered the gate as everything lit up in a golden light and…
It was gone.
The Moon was a lot like Homeworld, at least in terms of how much was built up in orbit; space elevators, orbital habitats and refineries, shipyards...the works. The surface of course couldn't have been more different; there was none of the blue or green of Homeworld; just barren shades of gray pockmarked by an endless sea of impact craters which in turn flanked and surrounded flatter, darker regions.
But of course looks could be deceiving, and Yue's personal queendom was anything but barren or dead.
The plane ignored the various stations in orbit and made a quick beeline for the surface, issuing its thrusters to slow its descent in the absence of an atmosphere. The action was enough to overwhelm the artificial gravity slightly, and the interior of the ship shook.
Yue had chosen the site of the meeting—near the scar left by Apex Dynamics' accident. The outpost had been gutted and abandoned by the corporation, requiring the group to land in the nearest colonial settlement, a small city of about a hundred thousand people named Mao's Port, before taking a moon rover out to where the Moon goddess waited.
Azi watched as they sped away from the habitat, taking a moment to let her voidsuited hand down as it passed through the cloud of nearly-microscopic ice grains that made up the surface of the Moon as the rover kicked them up. All around her were signs of the Moon's native ecology; a vibrant array of spirits of all shapes and sizes. Some were akin to sea anemones or sea lilies as tall as trees and were being attended to by schools of smaller floating spirits, others were serpent-like and effortlessly gliding through the sands of ice below. All shades of silver or white like ghosts...Azi kind of wished she'd had time to sketch drawings here.
Next to her, Tenku squawked with indignation at being confined to a glorified bubbled pet carrier, since they didn't make bird-shaped voidsuits (for obvious reasons) to protect against...well, the void of space. Azi chuckled good-naturedly at him, despite her stress and anxiety roiling inside, "...Sorry, Tenku. Best we could do". The bird glared at her with ruffled feathers and squawked again. "...Treats, later? Yeah?" The bird's response was noncommittal and grumpy.
Honestly, Azi had never cared much for voidsuits either. They were always so tight and suffocating, and heavy or awkward in the wrong places. Then again, she'd seen pictures of the bulky monstrosities worn by early astronauts, and was rather glad she didn't have to put up with any of that nonsense.
"Space anemonone" Shi said, shaking Azi from her thoughts, then grinned, "Sea anumenon". Azi looked at him with an unamused eyebrow raise as he continued, "Sea anomenon. Sea anomumenon". Being an annoying little shit was always a sure-fire way to get Azi out from any self-destructive spirals. He much preferred her snarky and annoyed instead of self-defeating.
Azi rolled her eyes and corrected him even though she knew he knew the correct word and was just getting under her skin, "Sea anemin-onom—augh! Now you've got me doing it!"
"Sea aluminum" Shi said, grinning.
"...Why are you like this?"Azi playfully pushed him.
"Almost there" said one of the White Lotus guards, a man named Li Han. Azi looked up ahead, feeling that familiar pit in her stomach once again as off in the distance, atop the rim of a crater that was quickly getting closer, she saw a the shining figure of a woman with brilliant white hair and flowing robes that were almost indistinguishable from one another.
Oh boy.
The rover came to a stop at the top of the hill, a short but respectful distance from the goddess who had summoned them, her aura calm and silver yet ever-present; her soft light radiating in all directions. Yue regarded them with a polite but neutral gaze, watching silently as the group of four (minus the bird) stepped out of the craft and walked towards her.
But she was really only here for one of them. Dread filled Azi.
"Princess" Li Han said, bowing slightly. He noticed his companion Ozaki standing like a dumbass and nudged him hard. The other guard grunted in surprise and did as he was told.
She gave Li Han a respectful smile "Please, It's just 'Yue'", but her attention was solely on the person they'd brought. "Avatar Azi. It's good to finally meet you".
"I...uh...yeah. You too" Azi stumbled over her words with no small amount of awkwardness, not ready to be put on the spot like that. She then proceeded to inwardly cringe at her own...uh, cringe. Boy, this was off to a great start.
Yue gave the girl an amused smile before turning to the others, "...May I speak to the Avatar alone for a bit?"
Wait, what? Azi's dread suddenly heightened.
"Er..." Ozaki was a bit taken aback, "That's not standard operating proc-"
"I did ask for the Avatar, and not the White Lotus" Yue said, her smile fading, "Or is the Avatar somehow incapable of performing their job?"
"...We're the Avatar's bodyguard, ma'am" Li Han stated, "We're only here to ensure her protection".
Yue nodded at him, "With all do respect to your assumed skills, captain, but I am the Moon spirit. This is my domain. Do you really believe you have a better chance of protecting her from phantom adversaries than I?"
"Well, no, but-"
"Then there should be no problem, should there?"
"I..." the two guards and Shi all looked at each other uneasily, but were unable and unwilling to really fight with the princess. Li Han sighed in defeat, "I'll...have to clear it with the council".
"You do that. In the meantime" Yue turned her attention back on a withering Azi, "Avatar Azi, would you care to accompany me on a walk?"
"I...uh...that's...I mean...uh..." desperately Azi looked around at the others for any sign of support—some way she could convince the Moon spirit to let her bring her entourage with her. Anything to not leave her alone in the middle of a complicated political incident which she was woefully ill-equipped for.
She wasn't a diplomat or a politician. Even 'Avatar' was stretching it, considering.
But no help was forthcoming. Li Han was already calling it in, but he just shook his head at Azi.
"I..." she swallowed in apprehension and fear, feeling that sinking feeling return as that mildly out-of-body experience she'd always get before getting on stage hit her like a truck. That bitter taste of adrenaline in the back of one's throat—that was happening now. "...Yeah, I guess. Sure. Why not".
Crap. Crap crap crapity-crap. She wasn't ready for this. She couldn't do this. The White Lotus were the ones who always dealt with crises like this, it was her job to put on a smiling face for the press. And now Yue was stripping her support away so they couldn't even give her advice or tell her what to say?
Shi gently grabbed her arm as she began the slow death march. She looked back at him, and he gave her his winning smile, "Hey. You got this".
Azi gave him a bewildered look somewhere between 'are you stupid?' and 'please save me', "...No?!" she managed to exclaim under her breath. "I mean, this is...this isn't...I can't..." She had no experience with this! She was going to blow this and it was all going to be her fault and-
"Yes. You do" Shi took her hands with that infuriating confidence of his, "You're the Avatar. You got this. You've studied and passed every class the White Lotus has thrown at you".
"...Barely" Azi corrected him. She hadn't been bad at school, but it wasn't like she'd really mastered any of it. And she was pretty sure some of those last few math classes had been pity-passes on the part of Zhuang.
"You've trained and mastered all four elements".
"'Mastered' isn't really the word I'd use" Azi said flatly. She hadn't 'mastered' anything. Certainly, she'd studied each element and knew many of the basic styles, but heck if she knew how to actually command the elements. Her demonstrations were always lacking—something her teachers were always very quick to point out.
Shi sighed in aggravation, rolling his eyes, "You're doing that thing again".
"… 'Thing'?" Azi asked, though she already knew where this was going.
Shi leaned in closer with an intense look, "Yeah, the thing you do. Where you immediately deflect any and all positive reinforcement so you can continue to be a grump".
"Shi-"
"Riiiiight?"
Sigh. There was no winning against him.
"Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight?"
"...You're lucky your granddad's the boss" Azi reluctantly conceded.
A smirk as Shi folded his hands and leaned towards her, "Oh, is that the only reason you put up with me?"
"Spirits only know why else anyone would". Azi couldn't contain the humor in her voice, and Shi snickered.
"Good to know naked, blatant nepotism continues to serve me well!" Shi knew he'd won and pressed on, switching tracks, "Just...do your best. Do what you think comes naturally. Don't sweat it that much. It's Yue, for crying out loud, not Koh the Face-Stealer or anything. And if things go south, you still have Korra and Jianguo to fall back on, right?"
Huh. That was true, Azi supposed. Feeling a bit better (and a bit foolish that she hadn't thought about that), she nodded hesitantly with hints of a relieved smile, "Yeah, okay".
"Great!" Shi punched her shoulder gently, "Go do what you were born to do. And when this is all over, we can celebrate".
"You make it sound so easy".
Yue politely coughed, and the two realized they needed to wrap this up. Shi gave Azi one last look of reassurance, Azi in turn gave him a look that basically said 'here we go' and then she turned to leave with the Moon spirit.
"He seems nice".
"Hm?" Azi was drawn out of her internal worry session as the two walked. Well, 'walked'; Yue was more just gliding over the grains of ice. The Moon spirit was absolutely stunning; brilliant to look at yet somehow not blinding like the sun would be. She was otherworldly and somehow both reassuring and absolutely imposing. It took Azi a second to realize what she was referring to, "...Oh, yeah. Shi and I have known each other since we were kids. His granddad's the current Head Grand Lotus of the order, so uh...yeah".
It felt weird. Really, really weird. Y'know, talking to the Moon goddess. About mundane things.
Really weird. Azi swallowed.
"You can take your helmet off, you know".
"I—what?"
"Your helmet" the princess repeated, "There's air here, I've made sure of it".
"Oh, uh. Okay. Thanks" Azi said, stumbling over her words. She coughed.
Awkward.
Still, she did as she was told and took off her helmet, despite doing so right on the surface of the friggin' Moon. But it was as Yue said; her lungs didn't immediately begin folding in on themselves, her blood vessels didn't start boiling, and she inhaled just fine.
Y'know. On the Moon. It's fine. This was fine.
It was fine.
"Tell me about yourself" Yue said as they continued to walk.
"Uh..." Azi dithered, unsure of what to say now that she was on the spot, "I mean, I don't really...what's to tell?"
Yue gave a slight smile as she tilted her head back towards Azi, "You're the Avatar. Surely there's something interesting about you".
"I...not really, no".
"Hm" Yue mused, failing to hide a bit of disappointment, "You know, I see you everywhere on the news. Yet I never see you about. If I didn't know any better I'd think the White Lotus were hiding you".
Azi chuckled nervously, "It's not that bad. They let me out of my cage when I'm on good behavior".
Her attempt to lighten the mood with an obvious joke did not go as expected; Yue stopped dead in her tracks and looked back at Azi with a mixture of shock and disgust, "...What?"
"Wha-"
"They lock you up?" Yue exclaimed, aghast.
Uh oh. Oh, Azi had messed up bad. She put her hands up and backed up, trying her best to limit the damage, "What?! No! No no no no! That was just a joke! I was joking! Ha-ha, see?" Spirits, five minutes in and she was already fumbling this whole thing into the garbage. Yue eyed her warily and Azi hurridly explained further, "My room's bigger than my parents' first apartment, I've got a walk-in closet, and the base has a swimming pool, honest! Please don't hurt them" Okay yeah sure she'd referred to the base as one giant prison on more than one occasion when angry, but that was always hyperbole on her part. "It's not what you think, really. They're just protecting me" Azi replied uncomfortably, "I'm...really just not ready yet. And there's a lot of dangerous people out there. Red Lotus, Rim Cults, that sort of thing".
"Mmm. Of course" Yue said, reluctantly letting the topic pass. Something about her tone was still troubled as she turned back to continue guiding Azi, but Azi didn't inquire. "And how do you feel about that?"
"Feel about…?"
Yue's brow furrowed at Azi's intentional obtuseness, "Are you alright with how things are? Your predecessors were much more active players at your age" she paused, "I mean no disrespect of course. I'm simply curious".
"...No, not really. Er, I mean, yes. I am. Fine with it, I mean" Azi said, correcting herself. She really didn't like where this conversation was headed, or being probed like she was. Once again someone was comparing her to the likes to Jianguo, Korra, Aang, Roku, Kyoshi, and the rest and finding her wanting. Once again they were demanding she be like those heroes of old even though that was plainly impossible, "I'm fine with it". When Yue gave her an expecting look, Azi hesitantly added, "Like, history is like..." she fumbled with the words that had been drilled into her in class, "'trends and forces', right? Heroes make for nice stories, but at the end of the day they're just products of society" she shrugged, "I'm not fighting the Hundred Year War or anything; the Republic's at peace".
"I suppose that makes sense" said Yue, "...Is that something the White Lotus taught you?"
"I mean, all my tutors were White Lotus, so I guess. But yeah, Grand Lotus Zhuang was really big on that. Always told me that 'Wild East Diplomacy' doesn't work anymore. There are rules".
Yue didn't respond to that directly. Instead she crested the ridge of the crater they'd begun to climb, "...We're here".
Ahead was the center of a vast crater, created eons ago. But not all was well; a deep scar had torn through the landscape, a dark scorch-mark that had torn through the far wall of the crater and continued on to the horizon in a widening gash—the same one Azi had seen from Homeworld. It had cut through the native spirit forest of silver-white anemones and would-be sea lilies, leaving nothing but devastation and death in its wake.
And the seeming source of the destruction lay at the bottom of the crater; a human laboratory base, now torn open and abandoned, left to the elements.
"...Woah" said Azi.
"It's terrible, isn't it?" Yue asked, an edge now to her otherwise placid and polite demeanor.
"...What happened?"
Yue's gaze out at the destruction hardened, "Humanity happened".
"I think that's a rather unfair assessment of the situation".
The two turned to the source of the statement, seeing a man approaching in his own voidsuit, having just arrived from his own (rather expensive) rover a short distance away where his driver still sat.
"Hao Zhi, how kind of you to join us" Yue said politely as she bowed slightly, but with steel behind her words.
"Yes, apologies for the wait. Getting out this far in the boonies on short notice is no small feat" the man noticed Azi, "Ah, Avatar! I did not know you would be here. Hao Zhi, vice president of Apex Dynamics. It's a pleasure to meet you!"
"Uh...same" Azi said as the older man grabbed her hand in a firm shake, "I'm uh, Avatar Azi. But, yeah. You knew that already. Of course. Duh". She groaned at her own flustered misstep—smooth, Azi. Real smooth.
Hao smiled, then looked around in mild surprise before his expression morphed into a polite but predatory one, "...No White Lotus detail? I wasn't aware you did much of anything without their input".
"Er..."
Thankfully, Azi didn't have to answer as Yue did for her, "The Avatar is here at my behest, as a neutral arbiter". Hao, noticing that Azi had her helmet off, prepared to do the same. Yue however put up her hand, "You may keep your helmet on".
Hao frowned at the obvious power move but relented, "A bit petty, don't you think?" He glared at the Avatar, noticeably less warm than before, "How am I to assume you're going to be a neutral party when it's clear you're in her camp?"
"Er..."
"Because the alternative is that I kick you and everyone else off my world" Yue replied coldly.
Hao scoffed, "And threaten the entirety of extra-planetary civilization? Not even you would be so brazen. We need the Moon as a staging point, or risk being cut off from our colonies! The economy would bottom out, whole colonies would go under!"
Yue was unamused by the vice-president's theatrics, "Hardly, it's just more efficient for you than launching from Homeworld itself. Don't pretend you care about anything other than your profits" a cold smile formed, "...Maybe I should just ban your company".
"And how do you think the United Republic would feel when the supply chains of one of their biggest corporations suddenly dries up and triggers a recession? We have friends in the government".
Yue managed a dark smile as she dismantled his empty threat, "...And what? Do you intend for the Republic to declare war on the Moon?"
Hao sputtered at that.
"Er..." Another confused and lost squeek from Azi.
"What do you think, Avatar?" Yue asked her.
"Uh..!" Azi snapped to attention, "I don't...this isn't...I don't really know what's going on" she admitted, sheepishly scratching the back of her head as Hao leered at her. She knew the general gist of things; she'd been given a brief primer by the White Lotus before embarking. But it had been so quick and sudden and Azi hadn't been keeping track of the news before this, so most of what she'd been told had gone in one ear and out the other.
Yue let her facade crack a bit in mirth as she realized she hadn't really set the stage for Azi; how rude of her as a host, especially after she'd brought her here in part to test her.
So she did.
Azi got the whole story; how she and Azi's predecessor, Avatar Jianguo, was instrumental in orchestrating the original deal between her and the United Republic during the early days of space exploration. The deal was outwardly simple: Yue would allow humanity (under the guise of the United Republic of Nations and no one else) to establish bases on the surface of the Moon in safe areas she designated with the understanding that they would have minimal impact on the Moon itself and its native ecology. Humanity would have an easy low-gravity forward base to expand into the rest of the system, and in return Yue wouldn't have to risk an increasingly perilous diplomatic situation.
And it worked! It kicked off a golden age for humanity and spirits alike. It was one of Jianguo's biggest achievements in a long life full of them.
Jianguo, the stout. The paragon. The mountain. The Hero. An earthbending natural who had grown up in the shadow of the Second Great War and pulled humanity back on its feet and gave them the stars. Azi knew this story, she knew all of his stories. The White Lotus had done well to drill them into her and she always felt insignificant thinking about him and all the feats he'd performed during his long life. Even gone his shadow loomed over her; even when just talking to his spirit was imposing and his advice was always equally unreachable. 'Be strong', 'be honorable', 'be noble'. He was a knight in shining armor almost to the point where he didn't 'get' other people, yet somehow had enough charisma that anyone would follow him anywhere.
Korra usually just rolled her eyes when he got going.
Azi could feel both of them right now; her presence on the Moon left her closer to the Spirit World and it almost felt like they were right next to her.
...Oh, right. Yue was still talking.
Most of it was stuff she kind of knew; over the last few years more and more breaches in the contract had occurred. An accident here, a loophole exploitation there...Apex Dynamic's screwup here was just the latest (and worst) of the lot, and the proverbial straw that broke the lion-camel's back.
...It wasn't helped by the fact that they'd been experimenting with spirit energy, something that was outright banned.
Hao was of course quick to point out that only direct harvesting was banned; his company had been experimenting with ambient energy, using the same technology they used to build the portal network in an effort to create a clean and infinite energy source. It wasn't his fault Yue's spirits attacked and ruined the experiment.
And around and around the two went, arguing. Needless to say it was a mess.
Azi knew most of this, so why did she still feel like she knew nothing? She shouldn't be here, she shouldn't be doing this. This was way beyond her skill level. It wasn't fair she was being relied upon here to judge the future course of human history.
It was then she remembered Shi's advice to her: her past selves were right there, waiting for her to call on them for help. And being on the Moon, they would be easy to call on. Even now, she could feel them. A surge of relief washed over her; maybe this would be okay after all.
"I...should I summon Jianguo?" Azi asked hesitantly, "I should summon Jianguo. Of course, right. He knows more about this than-"
Yue shook her head, "That won't be necessary".
Azi blinked in confusion, "...What? Wait, why?"
The Moon spirit looked at her expectantly, "You're the Avatar, the bridge between worlds. This is your duty, so you must attend to it".
Huh. Azi was not feeling this. Panic bubbled up as her hope slipped away, "Yeah but...Jianguo was the guy who set all this up, right? Wouldn't he the best person to ask?"
Yue frowned. This was not going the way she'd intended; she'd wanted to get a feel for the new Avatar, test her on something small to see if she was ready. By this point Aang had stopped a century-long war, Korra had prevented an apocalypse, and Jianguo had been in the process of stopping the border wars of the southern Earth realm. But Azi...Azi was not measuring up. No taking charge, no particular insights or wisdom, no sense of duty. She seemed almost eager to throw her responsibility onto someone else.
"If I had wanted Jianguo I would have summoned him. I asked for you. You're the Avatar now, not Jianguo, and I want your opinion on matters".
"But Jianguo-"
"No" was Yue's curt response, becoming somewhat agitated, annoyed that Azi seemingly wasn't even trying.
Having been shut down, Azi felt her mouth go dry. This was unfair; she was being forced into a diplomatic debate over something she hadn't even been alive for when it had been signed! Hesitantly, and with both parties glaring her down expectantly, Azi fumbled over words, her thoughts racing a million miles a second. Damnit, say something!
"...Sure, make the whole situation harder than it needs to be" Azi muttered dejectedly under her breath.
"What?" Yue asked, her face suddenly cross.
Azi's eyes shot wide open as she realized Yue had heard that. Shit! Say something else!
"Uh...reparations?"
"...What" Yue blinked in surprise.
"Uh...yeah" Azi coughed, trying to summon any sort of confidence against the stares she was getting, "Reparations. Apex Solutions-"
"Apex Dynamics" Hao corrected her, his opinion of the girl quickly diving off a cliff.
"Right! Sorry. Uh, Apex Dynamics uh...pays for damages rendered…?" Azi trailed off. An uncomfortable silence descended. It was deafening.
Yue spoke first, "Avatar, I'm a spirit. Material wealth stopped mattering to me the second I took up residence here".
"...O-oh. Right". Duh. Stupid Azi. Stupid stupid stupid. The scant few classes she'd taken on spirits and politics that she hadn't cared for just sort of melted away under the weight of her inadequacy.
"I wouldn't pay for compensation anyway" Hao grumbled, quite annoyed at the direction the topic had taken, "We didn't do anything wrong! We abided by all the rules of the treaty!"
"The letter of the law, not the spirit" Yue spit back. The discussion was getting ugly.
"Then uh...why don't we fix the loophole?" Azi asked, "If you don't want anything from him-"
Yue cut her off with a frustrated look. This wasn't going at all how she'd planned; this was supposed to be a fairly easy test for the young Avatar, but she wasn't performing even remotely well. Was she just inept? No, no, there was definitely intelligence somewhere deep in there. Was it that the White Lotus simply hadn't prepared her for this? That didn't make sense, though it was becoming understandable why they kept her close and 'handled' her. Was Azi intentionally trying to throw this because she didn't want to do it? Irritation bubbled up inside Yue at the thought of someone, especially someone as important as the Avatar, being lazy and shirking their duty. "Want? It's not about 'want', it's about making sure they don't do it again! If we let them walk away free then they'll just find another loophole and the same thing will happen a year down the line".
"Then you admit this entire charade is just an excuse to bully others" Hao retorted to Yue, "A naked power move".
Yue looked like she was ready to squash a bug, "Hundreds of spirits are dead because of you and you have the audacity to call me a bully!?"
"Dead because they meddled where they didn't belong!"
"You should not have been performing such an experiment!"
"We abided by the treaty! It's not our fault you keep coming up with new, arbitrary rules!"
The conversation was imploding on itself and Azi had been more or less thrown out of it. She stood there like an idiot as the corporate executive and Moon goddess shouted at each other, unsure of what to do. Except if she did nothing, Bad Things were almost certainly going to happen.
She didn't want to be here. She didn't want to be doing this. She hated this.
But she sucked it up and gave it one last, college try.
...Or at least, that had been her intent. All that really came out of her mouth was a hesitant and unconvincing "I—I don't think-"
"Shush, girl" Hao curtly told Azi. He was quite done with her nonsense; she was clearly not cut out for this job and was simply a child being used as a pawn, "The grown-ups are talking". Azi flinched.
"But-"
"But what?" Hao asked in exasperation, "Do you actually have anything to add here? Anything at all? Because so far you've only succeeded in making things worse for everyone involved".
Azi moved to open her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. Yue looked at her expectantly, but Azi saw that disappointment was written all over her face. Azi just sort of stood there, humiliation starting to seep in.
"Go home, girl. Let your White Lotus masters tend to you" Hao said with a final harrumph before turning away from her. Azi looked at Yue who just looked at her with a mix of doubt and disappointment. But when Azi said nothing more, shook her head with a sigh and turned back to Hao. She'd given up on her.
Her hands clenched, Azi looked down at the ground as the argument started up again and then just sort of...broke. With her feet feeling like lead and almost feeling out-of-body, she turned and walked away. She gave up.
She wasn't cut out for this. She could feel the disappointment from her former selves radiating. Even Korra, who always had her back. Korra, who no matter how much she messed up would tell her with that grin of hers that it would get better, that she'd get the hang of it...could only sigh with a frown.
It was crushing.
Six steps into her walk, Azi felt her body slipping from her as Jianguo took control and turned back around—no longer the eighteen year old nobody, but the imposing six foot two mountain of a man with a thick gray beard and a high-ranking White Lotus uniform.
And then? Then he solved the whole situation within minutes, effortlessly.
It wasn't that Azi had anything against the Avatar, far from it. She just wished it wasn't her. Especially not right now.
Especially not right now.
She'd gone to the Southern Air Temple on Homeworld once. The monks there had showed her the Hall of the Avatar, where they kept the statues of all her old selves. Azi had asked Korra and Jianguo why she couldn't talk to any of the others, to which Korra had simply given a pained expression and said something about being the start of a new cycle. Azi hadn't asked further; it was clear Korra hadn't wanted to talk about it.
She wished she could though. Korra and Jianguo were great, but they didn't really 'get' her. Korra tried, but...she'd only ever seen the Avatar as a good thing; for both her and Jianguo it had been the core of who they were, they'd jumped at the chance. But from what Azi had read, Aang wasn't that way; he'd been reluctant too.
Heh, right. Aang. The twelve year old kid who had ended a century of war and built the United Republic. Yeah, she should compare herself to that Aang; 'The Legend Himself' who made her look like an ant. They were all that way really; Korra had stopped an apocalypse and halted more than one war. Kyoshi had altered the geography of the world itself to stop a tyrant. Roku's name was still whispered among the fire sages. Kuruk…
Well okay, maybe not Kuruk.
All these heroes immortalized, and she was just some useless, inept girl who liked to draw things and play VR games. Zhuang always told her being the Avatar was destiny. Well, she couldn't help but feel like destiny made a mistake.
She didn't wantto be the Avatar. She wasn't even good at it. Azi wasn't even a good bender; sure she'd technically gotten all four elements under her belt, but no matter how much she trained or how much work she put into it, she couldn't lift nearly as much rock or shoot nearly as much fire as her teachers felt she should. And everyone, even Shi, just thought it was because she wasn't putting enough effort into it.
Not that it mattered since she was mostly kept away from any potential trouble areas anyway.
"So how'd it go?"
Azi was pulled from her internal thoughts by Shi's sudden voice over her helmet's comm. She looked ahead, realizing she'd made it back and that Shi and the other White Lotus guards stood at the bottom of the hill waiting. Shi waved to her.
"It..." How to even explain this? Azi hadn't even thought about what she'd say to the others. She didn't want to deal with this. She just wanted… "It...it went fine". Technically not a lie, she supposed. Jianguo put everything right, even if she herself was a complete screwup.
"Yeah?" Shi asked excitedly, happy his best friend's first real mission had apparently gone off well. As if there had been any doubt. "Congrats! Ready to go celebrate?!" as Azi got closer he saw her somewhat slumped posture and somewhat less-than-happy face behind her helmet, "...Hey, what's...are you okay?"
Azi realized she wasn't convincing enough and put on a pained smile, "It's nothing. I'm just...tired. Really tired". Really tired, "Can...we just take a raincheck on that celebration? I just wanna go home".
"...Oh" Shi said, doing his best to hide his disappointment. There was a really neat rotating arcade diner above the town they'd landed in which gave a great view of the nearby Bulls-eye crater forest that he'd read about on the way here. But if Azi wasn't feeling it then he wasn't going to push it. After all, she'd been the one doing all the work here, and it made sense she was probably frazzled after all that; especially considering she wasn't exactly the most extroverted person to begin with. He waved her off with a smile, "That's fine. We can go home and hang out, yeah?"
"Uh…yeah" Azi said, suddenly very worried. Yeah. Home. Where Zhuang and her parents were. Where she'd have to explain what happened.
Yeah.
Home.
Oh boy.
The trip back to Mao's Port was mostly silent, thanks in large part to Azi pretending to spend most of it asleep.
...Actually, she was pretty sure she had dozed off at some point.
Anyway, she was still fairly quiet when they made it back and she entered the airlock locker room and switched out of her voidsuit. She was actually rather grateful she was the only female member of the group; it meant she'd had a few precious moments to herself. Well, and Tenku, but aside from the irritated look he'd given her when she'd let him out of the bubble carrier, the old bird had mostly left her alone.
Cold shoulder, much?
Exiting her booth once back in her normal clothes (and already being watched over by Li Han), Azi spied a group of Fire Nation girls a year or two younger than her giggling to one another about something as they entered another booth—clearly a school project or field trip or something, judging by the uniforms. Idly, and not for the first time in her life, Azi wondered what public school would have been like. What hanging out without a secret service detail would have been like. What being a normal kid would have been like.
What not having to deal with any of this would have been like.
It's not like she could complain; she'd had the best education, she'd wanted for nothing growing up, she had loving parents and a best friend. And usually it didn't bug her all that much but...at the same time…
Hm. Maybe Yue's words had hit a nerve.
"Whatcha thinkin' about?"
"Ah!" Azi jumped slightly, to Shi's amusement.
"Hah, wow. Didn't expect that. What's up with you? You've been out of it since you got back".
Azi looked again; the girls had left. She rubbed her eyes, "Nothing. I'm just tired, like I said". Yes, just tired. Never mind the abject failure she'd been today, forcing her former self to pick up the slack and do what she couldn't like it had been no trouble at all. Never mind the pained, awkward conversations waiting for her at home between the White Lotus debrief and her own parents who were expecting her to tell them all about it. Never mind just...everything. Her existence.
Yeah, she was tired. More than she'd realized, maybe.
"Tired enough to apparently be in deep thought" Shi replied, unconvinced. He looked up; on the far wall was a holo-banner for a travel agency—in this case, the banner presented the frozen ice-capped peaks and warm, geyser-ridden hot springs of Shuixing, a world in the mid-system. A small village of cabins rested on a hill, surrounded by the planet's famous 'ice forests'; mazes of tree-like crystal growths. Shi nodded, understanding, "...It'd be cool to go there, huh?" he asked. Azi looked at him in confusion, before glancing up at the banner herself.
...Yeah. Yeah it would. The holo-banner switched; gone was the icy waterworld of Shuixing, and in its place was Shengxing, the planet closest to Homeworld. A red desert canyon peppered with evergreen forests, a crystal blue sky, and a peaceful town on the riverbanks below leading out to the ocean. Just a nice little town.
"Unfortunately, reality doesn't take vacations, and ours is a twenty-four-seven job" Li Han said, "Come. We should report back".
Azi lingered for a moment, giving the holo-banner one last good look before turning and leaving.
Normal people got to take vacations.
The group re-entered one of the main plazas of the settlement. Mao's Port, like most older lunar colonies, had been built around the original modular settlement, and its extensions had reflected that. While newer towns often had the advantage of domed exteriors, the hap-hazard construction of Mao's Port had left it with nine separate plazas separated by numerous hallways and residential 'districts'. The plazas were like some bizarre in-between between the downtown main street of a moderate-sized town and a shopping mall food court.
People came and went, the entire plaza busy with throngs of people. One crowd however, seemed more agitated than the rest. Azi noticed the cameras, microphones, and other hardware with a sickening dread.
Oh, spirits. Reporters. She'd been hoping to be whisked away by her detail before the press found her, but no such luck. Today was just full of disappointments.
"Avatar!" voices called upon seeing her, her guards moving to protect her as the crowd flocked towards her, "Avatar Azi!"
Azi had never been good with the press, or crowds, despite all the classes Zhuang had put her through. It was why the White Lotus had only allowed limited exposure, and even then only when she'd been properly rehearsed. And this was definitely not rehearsed; this was open mic night.
Oh boy.
"Avatar Azi, what can you tell us about about your meeting with Princess Yue?!"
"Avatar, can you tell us what happened?"
"Is it true the Moon spirit plans to evict humanity from the Moon?"
"What do you have to say about the statement Apex Dynamics just put out?"
Oh boy. Azi stole a look at her guards for guidance. Li Han gave her a hesitant expression but gave her the go-ahead anyway; normally she'd allow the White Lotus to speak for her, but since she'd been the only one with Yue, he was in the dark. Shi meanwhile gave her covert thumbs up in support.
Azi cleared her throat and, while doing her absolute best to clamp down on her stomach butterflies, spoke to the growing crowd as by now numerous civilians had begun flocking to the area to see the Avatar, "I uh...yeah, everything's fine! I uh..." don't panic, don't panic, don't panic, "I talked to Yue. The Moon princess. Moon spirit, I mean. But you know that, right. Uh" Ignore all the flashing cameras and just focus on the topic at hand, "What I mean is, it's fine. No one has to leave, they—I mean, we figured everything out" she was stumbling over her words bad and she knew it.
"Both the Apex Dynamics statement and satellite imagery suggest it wasn't you that brokered a deal, but Avatar Jianguo. What do you have to say about that? Can you confirm?" Wait, they knew about Jianguo's appearance? Uh oh.
"Your approval ratings have been sitting at around thirty-seven percent for about three months. How do you think this will effect them?"
"I...I don't..." Azi stammered as the reporters began asking more and more questions she wasn't even remotely prepared for. Apex Dynamics had let the crococat out of the bag? Shit, that wasn't good.
"Avatar! Avatar! Considering current events and the proliferation of Apothi-tech and your own inexperience, do you believe you still have the authority to continue acting as the sole bridge between spirit and human?"
"What do you have to say to your critics who say you're nothing more than a figurehead for the White Lotus?"
Azi's mouth was going dry. This was...she couldn't do this. Her mind was still frazzled from her confrontation with Yue and Hao, she wasn't in a good state of mind, she just wasn't built for-
"Avatar, do you intend to let former Avatars do your job for you?"
"What is your opinion on-"
"Do you think-"
"When are you going to-"
"Why is it-"
"Avatar!"
"Avatar!"
"Avatar!"
It was too much.
To their credit, the guards saw that the situation was going south fast and stepped in, putting themselves between Azi and the crowd and pushing aside cameras, "No further questions! The White Lotus and the Avatar will issue a joint statement upon debriefing! Please, disperse!"
Seeing that she was mercifully off the hook, Azi bolted, fleeing the scene as fast as she could and ignoring everyone, even Shi as he called out to her in alarm.
She'd found the public restroom easily enough, though it had taken far more effort to convince the others to leave her in peace.
...Well, 'convince'. It had involved a lot of yelling about how she knew how to go to the bathroom by herself. In retrospect not her proudest moment, but then again today had been a rapid succession of those. Right now only Tenku was in the room with her, perched atop one of the stalls in a silent vigil.
And so Azi sat on the floor of the empty bathroom outside the stalls, leaning against the wall as she dreaded going back out there. She knew she had to eventually, she couldn't stay in here forever. But she just didn't have it in her to stand back up and walk out. She didn't have it in her to do much of anything.
Running from a crowd of reporters was almost certainly going to bite her in the ass. In retrospect, again, not one of her proudest moments.
She should be streaming right now; she'd been hoping to get through at least the Sui Protectorate questline in Dai Li 3 tonight. She didn't have a big channel, but it was hers and she could be who she wanted without airs. Azi always made sure to obscure who she really was; no one watching her play VR ever knew she was the Avatar—to them she was just HiddenLightNexus, her account name. It was named after something Zhuang had tried to impress upon her—that no matter how little she thought of herself, she was still the Avatar. Deep down somewhere she housed the light spirit itself, and by that act alone she was worthy.
...Even if she didn't particularly feel that way right now.
Sigh.
...Well, might as well check the damage.
Dreading it, Azi activated her phone she'd been fumbling in her hand like a stress ball. She extended it outwards, pulling the hard-light display from the physical generator until she had a decent-sized screen. News stories popped up on the screen and...yep, yeah. The press was just running with it. Apex Dynamics' statement (almost certainly drafted by Hao himself) had been polite but clearly stated it had been Avatar Jianguo who had the one to orchestrate the deal. Videos of her bolting from the impromptu press conference were already trending.
The comments were not kind. A sigh escaped Azi lips as she rubbed her hand through her hair. Why was she even looking at this? It was just making her feel even more like curling up and never leaving the bathroom.
A queasy feeling in her stomach churned as she thought about how Zhuang was going to react to this.
...And that's when the phone started ringing. Azi let loose a startled "EEP!" as she almost dropped the device. She shrank the screen size down as she saw Zhuang's number appear. Crap. Crap crap crap. Her breath shortened as her pupils shrank. He knew. Of course he knew. Her hands clutched the phone; she didn't want to have this conversation right now. She couldn't have this conversation right now. She-
...She'd just pressed the 'decline call' button. On Grand Lotus Zhuang. Oh shit. Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh shit. A panicked squeal emerged.
This was gonna cost her.
Azi wanted to be anywhere, anybody else than herself right now. She just wanted to curl up and stop existing.
"Hey". Azi's attention shifted as she heard Shi call out to her. He sat down at the entrance to the restroom on the opposite side of the dividing wall from her as she wiped away her budding tears.
"...Hey" she replied somberly.
Shi debated his next words. He hated it whenever Azi got sad or discouraged and always tried to keep her head in the game, but right now he wasn't really sure what to say. "...Do...do you wanna talk?"
"...Not really" Azi admitted.
"Oh". Shi frowned, looking down. After a moment of thought however, and unsure of what else to say he added, "...You're better than you think you are".
A text alert from Zhuang popped up on Azi's phone. Her stomach did another churn and she didn't open it. "...No, that's the problem. Everyone thinks I'm better than I am". Despite years of training and knowing the stances and fighting styles, her bending was subpar and lacking. She couldn't perform her duties as world balancer, she couldn't talk to the spirits or the heads of state. And most of all she…
Azi blinked, looking up. There was another holo-ad banner above, again showcasing the crimson rock world of Shengxing. She thought about those schoolgirls back at the airlocks, having fun on their school trip.
...She'd been lying before, maybe. Perhaps she did resent the Avatar, just a little.
"That's not true" Shi said, at first making Azi wonder if she'd said that last part out loud, but no, "You're just...still new at this".
Azi's hand clenched as Shi carried on despite the fact she'd just said she didn't want to have this conversation. She just wanted to be left alone right now, and Shi's relentless optimism wasn't doing her any favors, "I don't want to talk about this right now".
"Azi, I'm serious" Shi pleaded, "You're way better than you give yourself credit for. You're the Avatar!"
And that did it. Shi had said the 'A' word. Azi snapped as she shot to her feet, "I said I don't wanna talk about it!"
"I'm just trying to help!"
"Well you're NOT!" She wasn't in the mood right now for relentless platitudes that didn't do anything to help her.
"Azi-"
"Just leave me alone, OKAY!?"
There was a brief pause in the conversation, as what Azi had said caught up with her. She'd stepped out of line, "...Shi..."
Shi cut her off, his voice subdued and hurt, "...Fine. I just wanted to tell you, we gotta go soon. The civvies are getting annoyed they can't use the bathroom". He walked away, leaving Azi to stew.
"Shi!" he didn't respond, "Damnit!" she cursed at herself for her own continued stupidity. Her fist slammed against the wall and uh...oh. Uh oh. Azi's eyes widened in shock as she created a sizable impact crater, rubble falling down to the tile floor. She let out an "Eep!" as she gripped her hair.
Oh, sure. Her bending skills sucked but somehow could still cause mass property damage on the fly because the universe hated her. That made sense! Panicking, she scooped up some of the wall material and tried to put it back right, "No no, go back in. Come on, come on, just…" It was a bit like a child trying to fix something before mom came home though, and instead of making it work Azi had left a hodgepodge of shattered brick, broken tile, and metal reinforcements (the latter she couldn't bend at all) in a half-stuck together mess and probably a bigger problem for any poor earthbending janitor fixing the wall than if she'd just left it alone. Mason, she most certainly was not.
Well. So to sum up: in the span of about two hours she'd managed to mess up a mediation between the Moon spirit and Apex Dynamics, fatally fumbled a press ambush, chased off her best friend, and committed property damage. Oh yeah, and people outside were waiting to use the bathroom. Azi leaned her head forward against the wall, groaning at her sheer ineptitude.
"Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid..."
She didn't want to be here. She didn't want to deal with this. She just...she just…
Azi turned back to the holo-banner, still showing that wonderful red vista. She could almost imagine being there; the cool evening breeze, the sounds of trees rustling. Her sitting on a clifftop drawing the scenery before her.
She loved drawing; places, people, Fire Nation anime characters...and she was actually kind of okay at it! Maybe. Sorta. Azi just found that as her training ramped up, she hadn't had as much time for it lately—not that she'd really had too much to work with in the first place, always being cramped up in the White Lotus base when not being carted out for a mission or training or public appearance.
A thought occurred. It was silly and stupid and childish and not worth real consideration. She'd, just for a split second entertained leaving. Just...taking a transport to the outer system and laying low somewhere far away from all this. Not forever of course but just...a vacation, she supposed. Something to get her mind off things. It wasn't the first time she'd thought about this; it was an errant fantasy she'd occasionally indulged in.
But it was dumb. It was childish. It was dangerous. She'd never been off on her own. What if she got in trouble? What if something happened while she was gone? What would her parents say? What would Zhuang say? Spirits, what would the press say?
She couldn't do it. She'd just have to go home and deal with the consequences of today. Get scolded by Zhuang and her other teachers. Deal with Shi's hurt feelings. Deal with the negative press. And then...do it all over again tomorrow. More training. More political stunts. More not being good at what she was apparently born for. More round peg in a square hole. More endless repetition.
The holo-banner continued to sit above her on the opposite side of the bathroom.
She couldn't. She didn't dare.
...Could she?
No.
...Maybe?
No, no. She couldn't. She…
Her phone buzzed again; another text from Zhuang that she avoided reading. Eep. Tenku gave a small, grumpy squawk, and as Azi looked at him found she couldn't get an idea out of her head as almost against her will, pieces of a puzzle started effortlessly coming together.
...This was really stupid.
"Avatar? Avatar Azi" Li Han said, daring to peak around the corner of the bathroom. They'd waited as long as they had been able, but now the plaza administrator had requested they be on their way. There was a line outside, and they all looked quite cross. But looking inside, he and Ozaki saw and heard nothing.
"...Avatar?"
Still nothing. Not brave enough to open the stalls, Li Han got down on his knees and looked underneath. Huh, no legs. No Tenku either for that matter. Immediately both guards were on alert.
"Avatar!"
"...Could she have left?" Ozaki asked.
Li Han shook his head, "No way in or out; we would have seen her".
"Her bird's gone too" Ozaki mused.
This didn't make any sense. People didn't just...Li Han noticed the grate to the air vent had been ripped off the wall. It was small but… "...Over here".
"Holy...could she have fit in that?"
"I...guess? She's not a verybig girl" deciding to confirm something, Li Han took out his phone. His suspicions were quickly proven correct, "...Her GPS signal's on the move. Come on!" Somewhat frazzled that he apparently had a usually-docile Avatar on the lam, the guard grabbed his companion and they rushed back out into the plaza, "This way!"
"...You're serious?" Ozaki asked, stunned.
Li Han shook his head in disbelief, "Girl plays too many video games. She could get stuck, or worse". Ugh; that was just what the White Lotus needed: 'Avatar dead at eighteen; body found suffocated in colony ventilation shaft'.
A few precious moments of dead silence passed in the bathroom, only to end with the faint thump of shoes hitting the floor after standing on the toilet.
People were already trickling in so they could finally and mercifully relieve themselves. One woman prepared to open one of the stalls when suddenly it inched open on its own and the head of the Avatar stuck out to make sure the coast was clear.
"...I can't believe that actually worked!" she said to herself, terrified, giddy, and in disbelief all at once. Then she noticed the woman standing there, "Oh, sorry! Excuse me, all yours" she said sheepishly, handing the door over to the very confused woman, "Don't mind me".
Azi was about to leave but as the woman prepared to close the stall door behind her Azi suddenly had another idea. She re-opened the door.
"Woah, what?!" the woman spun around in alarm, relieved she hadn't dropped her pants yet.
A blushing Azi mentally smacked herself for what felt like the millionth time today, "Sorry! Sorry! So sorry! Just...weird question, how much for those sunglasses and hat of yours?"
The woman looked at her like she was crazy, "...What?"
Shi raced down the hall, the other guards in tow. Azi's GPS was heading for one of the residential sectors. Why? Why had she just up and left? Where was she going?
...Why hadn't she wanted to talk to him? Shi couldn't help but feel he'd failed somehow. Azi was his best friend; they did everything together. He always kept her aloft whenever she was feeling down. None of this made any sense; she never did things like this! Why hide from them, why run? Why trick them?
He just didn't understand.
Stamping down on the feelings of abandonment and betrayal, Shi turned the corner. They were closing in on Azi's signal and he'd be able to ask her then—if she wasn't just going to bite his head off again, anyway.
One last sprint down the hall and Shi arrived at Azi's location and…
...And she wasn't here. What? How? Shi and the guards looked around frantically, but there was no sign of the Avatar. A squawk however alerted them to Tenku, sitting atop a sign and looking very pleased with himself as he preened his feathers.
"...Tenku?" Shi asked, confused, "Wait, where's Azi?"
It was then Li Han saw the note tied to the messenger hawk's leg. He groaned, "...Oh no".
Tenku fluttered over to the guard, attaching himself to the guard's arm so that the message could be received. The guard untied the note and immediately out came a small chip.
"...Her GPS tracker. Of course" Li Han sighed. She must have taken it out of her phone, "It was a wild hawk chase all along". The girl hadn't crawled through the ductwork; she'd been in the bathroom all along and he'd been played for a fool. Zhuang was going to have his hide for this.
Ozaki blinked, slowly putting the pieces together, "Wait...where is she then?"
At that moment, a public transport ship outside the window began to lift up off one of the landing pads until it was eye-level with the group, turning about as it prepared to leave.
"...She wouldn't" Li Han said in disbelief, his brow furrowed.
Shi meanwhile had opened the note, seeing the single hastily scribbled word inside: 'Sorry'. He swallowed, hurt that she'd left without so much as an explanation as the ship flew off at ever-accelerating speeds until it vanished in the pitch-black sky, "...Yeah. She would".
"...Do we have any other way to track her than just security cameras?" Grand Lotus Zhuang's booming voice drew everyone's attention to him. The graying, bearded old man stood in full uniform at the front of the holo-map of the solar system that dominated the middle of the room. Opposite him was a large communications screen, and flanking all around were numerous stations and consoles both on the ground level and on a raised platform that encircled the central war room of the White Lotus headquarters. "Why haven't we triangulated her phone's connection?"
"That was the first thing we tried, but her phone is turned off" Li Han said from the vid-window, plainly nervous as his career was now on the line.
"She withdrew a large sum of money from her personal account from an ATM here onto a burner card" Shi added, shrugging, "I doubt we'll be able to track her that way either".
To Zhuang's left Asahi laughed, "Girl's way smarter than she gives herself credit for. Oh, she got us good!" Only in his forties and still looking quite youthful, the Fire Nation national was unusually young to be part of the White Lotus's inner circle, but his skills and talents had brought him far.
To Zhuang's right, his second in command Dorji spoke up, unenthused with what Asahi found so amusing, "Damn girl's costing us a fortune in public relations today". The air nun was usually dour and all-business, but today she was especially cross as she typed on her console, "We're going to have to go on an immediate damage control spree. Ad campaign, everything".
Zhuang grumbled, "It figures now is when she decided to have her teenage rebellion phase".
"I mean, she's eighteen. Is it really still 'teenage rebellion' when you're old enough to vote?" Asahi asked.
"...Should have had her chipped for real" Zhuang grumbled idly.
"That's illegal" said Dorji, matter-of-factly.
"He's just joking" said Asahi, "...I think".
Zhuang shot him a tired look, "...Am I?"
"So what do we do?" Shi's image on the viewscreen asked, antsy and anxious.
"We could send Yu after her" Asahi joked with a grin. Behind him, a water tribe woman in her mid-fifties who had so far remained silent shifted her position against the wall.
Dorji abruptly stopped talking and turned her full undivided opinion on a suddenly withering Asahi with a sharp glare, "I think we have blundered into quite enough PR shitstorms today, thank you" she turned to the woman in the back, "No offense, of course". The woman shrugged silently and Dorji continued, "On her own the Avatar is a liability. She has no advisers or protection. We need to handle this quickly and discreetly. Security footage has her boarding a flight to Shengxing, so we at least have somewhere to start".
"We'll mobilize the White Lotus; cast the net wide enough and we'll find her" Zhuang said.
Dorji repressed the urge to roll her eyes, "Discreetly, I said. The only silver lining we have right now is that no one other than the Avatar knows she's on the run. You think today has been a PR disaster? Just wait until the press notices we've summoned a manhunt on the Avatar".
Zhuang grimaced at that ugly thought.
"...More than that, it'd risk putting Azi in danger" Asahi agreed, "Red Lotus, pirates and merc bands looking for easy money...never mind that Shengxing's been having problem with underground cults lately. If it gets out that Azi's alone then she immediately becomes a target".
Zhuang sighed. The old man could feel a migraine forming. They couldn't go after Azi because it was too risky. But the longer she remained on her own the more risk that provided too. It was a no-win scenario.
"...Let me go" Shi said suddenly. Zhuang looked up at his grandson on the screen, "I...I think this is my fault somehow. She and I got into a...fight, I guess. I don't think she's okay right now, and I think the last thing she needs is an army of White Lotus hunting her down".
"There's another flight leaving for the same port on Shengxing that the Avatar's did in six hours" Dorji said, working quickly on her terminal, "We can follow her as long as she's somewhere with security cameras. After that..." she trailed off.
"Just...let me talk to her. Please" Shi said.
Zhuang let out another sigh, unhappy with the situation but seeing no real way forward. One discreet agent was definitely better than alerting the entire system to the situation. Reluctantly he nodded, "...You have a go. Find Azi, talk to her, bring her home. Be as discreet as possible".
Shi's eyes lit up with pride and determination as he let off a salute, "I won't let you down, sir!" He was being entrusted with a mission all on his own! His grandfather was putting so much trust into him right now and he was going to make sure he earned it.
Zhuang couldn't help but smile at his grandson's enthusiasm, "...I know you won't. You've become a fine, capable young man. Your parents would have been proud".
"...Thank you" Shi said with a blush, suddenly feeling warm and very self conscious. He hesitantly let the salute go after realizing it had been up for a few seconds too long and now he looked weird. He cleared his throat, "I uh...I should go now, huh?"
"Be well, Shi" Zhuang told him, "...Oh, and take the bird with you, would you?"
Shi blinked in surprise before a look of dread took hold, glancing at Tenku who was currently perched atop an idle baggage cart, "...What?"
Asahi grinned, leaning back in his seat, "An Avatar needs her animal companion, doesn't she?"
"But I...Tenku's not..." Shi sighed dejectedly, knowing this was hopeless but not liking it anyway, "...Yeah, okay".
"Good luck, Shi. I expect reports at regular intervals" Zhuang said. Shi nodded and the connection ended, the screen going dark. Zhuang leaned back.
"...Think he can do it?" Asahi asked.
"Shi and Azi have a deep bond, and I trust my grandson" Zhuang stood up and prepared to leave, "Keep me apprised of any updates. Oh, and give me the names of the guards who let this happen. I need to have words with them".
"Already forwarded to your desk" Dorji said, not even looking up from her console as she typed. Zhuang nodded silently and left.
Shi watched the other guards as they walked away, having been summoned back. Now on his own, Shi turned to the bird, "...So I guess it's just you and me now, huh?"
Tenku gave a squawk before lifting himself into the air and coming over to rest on Shi's arm. The young earthbender was somewhat surprised at the seeming civility the bird was giving him, "...Oh, alright. I get it, let bygones be bygones, right? After all we gotta work together to find A-"
Tenku made a loud, ugly noise and upchucked uh...something all over Shi's front.
"Wha—oh, COME ON! What did that even accomplish?!" Shi shouted in exasperated disbelief as the bird flew off again before looking down at his ruined uniform. Thankfully his flight wouldn't be for a few more hours so he had time to wash up in the bathroom but… "...I told Azi that bird was out to get me". He sighed, "...I hope she's okay".
Azi sat in the chair of the public transport ship, gripping her hand bag tightly and somewhat hidden by her new hat and sunglasses. Her hoodie had been pulled off and tied around her waist to further hide her identity in case one of the guards or another informant had seen her. Idly she tapped her fingers on the armrest as beads of sweat began to form on her forehead, betraying the inward panic underneath her calm, if tense, exterior. She'd uh...she'd gone through with it and now that she had a moment to think about it was now silently panicking. Shit shit shit shit shit shit. Why had she gone through with this!? Why had she thought this was in any conceivable way a good idea?!
This was fine. It was fine. It was fine. This was alllllll fine. She totally wasn't freaking out.
And it was waaaaay too late to turn back now; she was going to Shengxing whether she liked it or not. Somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind, Jianguo was very unhappy and Azi did her best to ignore him. Korra, meanwhile, was laughing her ass off.
Azi put her face in her hands, "...I am so grounded forever".