A/N: I'm back! There's no reason to explain for my absence other than I got addicted to the Mass Effect series (this is the second time) and that crew season started so I am tired and busy most of the time. I will try harder for you guys to get the next chapter out. Sorry you might have to reread the past few chapters to remember what's going on since it's been a month or so haha. Anyway, I actually rewrote this chapter at least 10 times because I didn't like and then I gave up, so here it is. I know that I'm asking a lot for you guys to review since I made you wait so long but if you could review I would love you because I definitely need feedback, so please review and thanks for still following this.

Revised- 7/21/15

A Terrible Synergy

Chapter 15

She sat across the table in one of his old t-shirts and a cup of hot tea in her hands. They had decided to move into his small kitchen to talk. It was very late now, and the snow was beginning to pile up on the window sills. He turned the stove off and pushed the hot tea kettle to the side on one of the unused burners. He took his seat. His cup was wedged between his hands. The steam rose into the air.

His mind was there and everywhere all at once, and he didn't know where to start, or how to begin; even the words that swam around inside his head didn't seem to fall into the correct order like they always had before; they failed in making a picture of his past because they were inadequate, he was inadequate. He swallowed nervously. He was never as magnificent as he made himself out to be and the idea of what he was far from reality of his actual self. His lip twitched, and despite his insecurities and fears he still wanted to tell her everything. She remained sitting there quietly as she observed him intently.

"I'm just a poor boy from the North, that's all I am," his eyes were at his tea cup, "I was born into a simple family. I had a father, a mother, and a brother. In the beginning, everything was good and my childhood was normal for the most part, you could even say that we were happy for a time. I would spend my days playing with Tarrlok or some of the kids from our small village. Back then I didn't have care in the world, I was just kid being kid, and then one day it was all taken away from me, and everything that I once loved in the world went away. It was when Tarrlok and I found out that we were waterbenders that everything fell apart."

He huffed. A low, almost defeated laugh came from his throat and he scowled, "That's why bending is no good," his face filled up with an emotion she took to be as hate, "It destroys everything in the end. It takes the light in you and just snuffs it out, and all you can feel anymore. The only thing left is the power that runs through veins, not the people around you. Just the power and nothing else."

"How can you say that?" the Avatar questioned calmly trying to understand. Noatak was aware of her stance regarding the practice of bending. He couldn't fathom how she didn't have the least bit of animosity against it since it took her family away from her. A six year old girl left to grow up in a guarded facility and not the warmth of her family's house. She would undoubtedly answer that it was her duty. The noble sentiment angered him. All her life she was controlled by it having to master all the four disciplines and maintain balance, but what could he do? They both were two sides of the same coin.

He firmed the hold on his cup trying to channel his ill feeling, "Because it happened to my father, and it happened to me. The kindhearted, loving man I thought my father to be disintegrated before my eyes. The first name I called him by was Imnek, the great cliff. I admired my father greatly when I was a boy. I wanted to be just like him, and then we discovered that we were waterbenders, and that's when my father showed us who he really was. If I never were a bender none of this would have happened. I would have led a normal life and my father would've died of old age and we'd would never have known his real identity. Nothing would have changed. My mother and brother would've been safe and sated. It because of my father, my awful, awful father that all this shit happened. He wasn't the man that he said he was. He wasn't anything he said he was." He could no longer keep the sheer fury that arose inside him. He should've killed him. He regretted his mercy every day. He shut his eyes and violently clawed the surface of the table until they were fists. It was too hard. He couldn't do it.

Almost lost in the grasp of despair, her fingertips reeled him back. They stroked the top on his hand. She was leaning across the table, "Slow down. Breathe. You don't have to tell me everything at once. Just take your time. We have a lot of time," she eyed the reflection of snow against the pane of the kitchen window.

Never breaking the contact with his hand, she moved behind him. Her arms curled around his shoulders in consolidation. She slowly lowered her body so she was at his side on her knees, her soft eyes fixed on his face silently assessing the situation. She caught his gaze from below and found his pupils floating in something that she never ever saw from him before. It was shame. His body remained slumped over and his features contorted in a knot of troubled tension. He was trying to stay strong, but the feeling rushed back to him, the pain and suffering he felt all those years. What he once assumed to be dead inside came to life. It would've been easier to stay silent and not say a single word, but he didn't want it that way. He needed her.

Everything came back as if it never left him. He squeezed his eyes shut and he could see himself there, standing in that blizzard with the sting of ice against his skin and the burn of his father's orders in his ears. Everything just turned dark and something inside snapped, and he just couldn't take it anymore. On that cold November day, everything holding him together buckled and collapsed underneath him, and all he could think of was to start running. His hands harshly gripped the sides of his face as a flood of memories surged back into his mind. He remembered looking down at his hands as he bloodbent his own father, how it felt to control every single blood vessel in his body; how simple and easy it was to crush his heart with the closing of his fist or stop his kidneys with a flick of a finger, but he couldn't do it. It was pathetic. Why couldn't he just have ended the pain there? He was the root of all the suffering. How could he still have an immovable sway over him, and he looked down again and saw his hands. He held the power, and he looked down and saw his hands. There they were laying out in front of him, cracked and bloody, taunting him, pleading for him to end it but couldn't. He heard the sound of his father's gasps and smiled but couldn't do anything more than that. Maybe it was the little bit of humanity left inside his heart that thwarted his sinister desires because his father was the one that gave him everything and nothing all at once, and then he thought about his mother, the woman who raised and truly loved him. He needed to leave. He needed to get away. Then he started running, as if he actually believed that he would be free from his family's cruse or his father's ghost. He ran away but nothing changed. He would always be his father's son; he would always be a monster.

Korra stayed by his side watching his deep contemplations unsure of what to do. She stroked the bare muscles of his back in attempt to ease the pain that he was experiencing but nothing seemed to bring him out of the state he was in.

"Noatak, I'm here. I'm right here," Korra soothed.

He said nothing in reply. His finger nails dug deeper into the skin at his temples. He squeezed his eyes shut.

He had abandoned his little brother only to turn back, but he couldn't see him anymore; the warm face of his brother was engulfed by the blankness of the storm, and suspended in that moment of desperate hopelessness he had sensed his heart seal shut. That's when he realized he was alone: there were no arms to wrap around him and tell him that it was alright, that it would turn out fine in the end. The snow swirled around him, his own element trapping him in. That day he had abandoned the only people that would openly embrace him no matter the circumstance, and he had left them to live with that monster. The sensation from his memory was so painful and intense that he didn't notice the hot tears crawling down his face. The tips of his fingers grew numb. All those years he had failed to recall how much it had killed him because he forced himself to forget, forced himself to disremember his mother's face, his brother's laughter, and everything that he was because he couldn't be that person anymore. He had to be someone else because he was no good, he was tainted; he was broken. Korra eased her body closer to him; with great care, her hands gently enveloped around his shepherding them to his lap.

The dampness upon his face was a new sight to her because she had never seen him cry before; each tear looked as if it physically cut him as they rolled down his flesh. She was still kneeling beside him, "It's okay, you're not alone anymore," she caressed his wet cheek gathering up his tears, showing him that they were harmless, "I'm here and I'm not going anywhere… and I know… I know how difficult it is for you to share this with me," the waterbender whispered to him no louder than the sound of one's own thoughts. He looked so lost, "but you have to let it go. You just have to or you're going to make yourself go crazy. Accept and move forward. It's okay if you have to take one step at a time. All that matters is that you're moving, okay? I forgive you. I forgive you for everything that you've done because I believe you're a good person, and I won't leave you here, I promise." Her free hand clutched his in a supportive gesture and hard line of tension in face faded. Slowly he laced his fingers with hers and pulled her hand toward his quivering lips kissing it.

She smiled leaning her head against his shoulder happy to have calmed him down. Suddenly, he arms draped around her waist pulling her up from to her feet. He hugged her with a sort of desperation. He was still in his chair and she was standing now. His fingers balled up the loose fabric of her t-shirt in an unrelenting hold and his head pressed into her midsection like a child.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered.

At first she was taken aback. His strong voice came out only in a hoarse murmur. In a second, the shock passed, and Korra instinctively swathed his shoulders in an embrace as she watched over him in his chair. Why was he so sorry? What did he do?

"I'm so sorry," he repeated, "I'm so sorry."

She combed back his dark locks of hair and kissed his crown, "You don't have to be sorry. Just tell me. What is it?" the Avatar coaxed gently.

"You don't understand," he released her and pushed her back from his body but not in violent manner. He was shaking his head, "I'm no ordinary waterbender, Korra."

"Then what are you?"

His eyes closed preparing for the worst, "I'm a bloodbender," but when he opened them she hadn't run away like he had expected she would but stayed there with a patience that was so unlike her.

"So what?" she huffed visibly displeased, "Do you think that's going to make me tuck my tail between my legs and run away? Is that what you were apologizing for?"

"I don't know," he confessed weakly. His attention was cast down toward the ground. What was he apologizing for? For what he is? For what he did? Then she realized something: his mask was simply a shield that protected him from the outside world. It was the tool that made his memories go silent and his emotions disappear. He must've never talked to anybody about this. The waterbender paced back to her chair moving it closer to him as she took her seat. The room had grown silent and her tea had grown cold. She didn't care though, she would stay there for days if that was how long it would take to hear him out.

"Kind of pitiful isn't it?"

"What?" she asked bemused.

"I'm forty years old and I'm tearing up about things that had happened so long ago. It's a load of rubbish," he scoffed and shoved his chair away from the table, "It's pathetic."

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know."

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" she shouted as she jumped to her feet. Her patience with him had worn off, "You always shut me out and keep me in the dark. I can't live that way anymore… we can't afford to live that way anymore if you want any chance of this working out. You promised me."

Hurt was in her eyes. He tightened his fists, "I know. I know," shameful of his weakness. He wanted to keep everything inside. He didn't want to bring it out, but if he wanted her to be with him and trust him, he knew he had to. "I just didn't think I'd be this hard…" he admitted trying to find a way to say what needed to be said, "Remember that day, months ago, when you asked me if people have made me suffer?"

She nodded.

"They have, and I have seen and experienced things that you would never want to withstand in any of your lifetimes. Bloodbending is an awful thing. It steals your innocence from you, your character, and replaces it with gaping hole in your chest because how can you feel anything after that?" he paused and pounded his knuckles so hard against the tabletop that their cups fell over spilling their contents all over the surface of the wood, "And you know what? I loved it, I loved bloodbending. I loved the control. I was like a god. I could stop a heart and start it with a single thought. Nothing was impossible. I could bend anything to my will. I was unstoppable."

The puddles of tea started teetering toward the edge but neither paid any notice. "You can bloodbend with just your thoughts?" she breathed as the familiar sense of fear crept over her. What kind of power was that? If the full moon was present, he could kill her now without even flinching a muscle. He could probably murder the next three people in the neighboring room without setting a foot outside his apartment, but he didn't. He could have killed her the first time they met or anytime for that matter, but he didn't. He told her himself that he didn't kill because he liked it. His heart wasn't that of a murderer's, "You used the word 'loved'… that's past tense."

He lowered his head, "What can I say? I was a pretty fucked up back then," he sighed. The cuss was the only thing that seemed to concisely sum up his past: fucked up, "and I was a serious threat too: a pissed off teenager with an extraordinary power," he stifled a laugh but it wasn't a happy one, "My brother and I were born from the strongest line of bloodbenders in history. I was a prodigy and Tarrlok wasn't. I mastered the element of water by the age of 10 and bloodbending by the age 14 including physic bloodbending."

"So Tarrlok's a bloodender too?"

He nodded indicating that her insight was correct, "The only thing is that we are not average bloodbenders. We don't need a full moon to do it. We can bloodbend at will regardless of the moon phase. I just happen to able to do physically and my brother cannot."

"You're are that powerful?" she blinked trying to process the information, "that's amazing." Katara had told her about technique, and how she used it to save her brother's and Aang's life. She also informed her of the dangers of it, and how she almost did something that she would've regretted the rest of life. In prime, her waterbending master had to be one of the strongest waterbendrs on the face of the earth, but even she wasn't that powerful to bloodbend without the aid of the full moon.

His face dropped, "It isn't a gift, Korra. It's a curse."

The statement hung heavily in the air, "That's how you're always one step ahead of everyone. That's how you best every single bender in the fights against you…" the Avatar connected the dots one by one. Everything became clear, "Is it how you take bending away too?"

"Yes," he took his seat.

"Then revolution is nothing but a lie!" she felt nauseous, "How can you tolerate what you do knowing that? How can you even look your followers in the eye?"

"Because I believed my own lies," he stated honestly, "I believed I was Amon, that man Noatak never existed," he flicked his fingers forward and the spilled tea followed their motion. She blinked registering what he was doing. He was waterbending, "I knew it was useless in the end. How could I ever get rid of this?" He propelled the water toward the sink where it landed in a loud splash. "I thought I could go on living like that. I suppose I thought my sacrifices were justified through my work. My life was worthless compared to my work. I didn't realize how utterly empty I was until I meet you. You know, the day we first met, I told you my real name. That was first time I had said it in nearly twenty years."

"Why'd did you?"

"I couldn't tell you. In all honesty, all I cared about when I first met you was fucking you."

"Geez, Noatak," she huffed at his brutal disclosure.

"That's only time I didn't spend behind the mask, when I needed to let off steam and breathe. I guess a person can't always live like that repressing their true self. I would chase after woman and tell them names that weren't my own. Then I would leave when I was done. I promise I never coerced them, they were always willing."

"Spirits, just stop talking," she wanted to punch him in the face.

"I'm not done. I'm getting to the point, Korra," he folded his hands together, "I told you my name because I wanted you to know it."

"What? So I could scream it out when you finally got me cornered in the alley with my pants down?" She was angry.

"No," he said a bit too snappily, "I can't explain it but something about you compelled me to tell you my real name."

She rolled her eyes, "Stop being dramatic."

"I'm not because it's the truth," he reached for her hand ignoring her scathing comments, "I wanted to believe that it was just lust that I felt for you but it was something far deeper than that. I don't want to go on living like a shell anymore. You make me feel human; you make me feel alive, and you give me the hope that I can make things right when they've been so wrong for so long. Those women I was with mean nothing to me and they never will. I never felt anything for them the way I feel for you, not even close. You took my heart right out my chest, and I couldn't stop myself from falling in love with you. Even after I knew who you were."

A tiny grin stretched across her face, "That was a pretty good save."

He laughed softly from her remark, "It's the truth. Every word I said to you at the island I meant."

Silence encompassed the room again. She deliberated over the new information he had given her and what it meant. There were still a lot of things left unanswered.

"Who taught you how to bloodbend?"

"My father."

"Imnek?" she offered.

"That wasn't his name," he shook his head, "That was just a cover so the authorities couldn't track him down."

"Your father was a criminal?"

"Yes, yes he was. He was one of the worst gang leaders in the history of Republic City. His name was Yakone and he was ruthless gangster. You probably read or was told about him during your time in the White Lotus compound. In any case, it was Avatar Aang who finally brought him to justice. It was hard to bring him trial since he had a finger wrapped around everyone and everything, but your predecessor, along with Southern Watertribe councilman Sokka and police chief Toph Bei Fong, found enough evidence and witnesses to put him away for life under the claims of bloodbending. It's illegal to do so under any circumstances in the United Republic. Your waterbending master was a huge advocate for making the technique banned. My father always despised her for it. Anyway, he was convicted to life in prison. In retaliation of the sentence, he bloodbent everyone in the courtroom and took off. Avatar Aang eventually got to him and removed his bending."

"Why was he so terrible?"

"Because he did whatever the hell he wanted to and no one could do anything about it because he controlled everything. People lived in constant fear because they didn't know if they were going to live to see the end of the week because of him and his Red Monsoons. Like I said, he had a finger in everything, and when he needed something he just twist it. Kill a few there, rape a nice girl, terrorize a couple over here, coerce money from industries and businesses, and then use it to pay the cops to look the other way. It was nothing personal, just business. It was his life. All he wanted was power, and that desire never stopped. He didn't care how many people he needed to kill until he was on top," he exhaled deeply, "He was a bloodbender, a bloodbender like me. He taught me everything he knew including his prized physic bloodbending. After all, he was grooming me.

"I have this vivid memory of my father. I was a small child, three and half years old. It was the day of my brother's birth. I remember my father handing him to me. He was so small. When I was ever retold this story by my mother, she'd always tell me that I was so upset. She told me that I said to bring him back because all he did was cry and sit around. I guess I thought I'd have an immediate playmate," he smiled faintly from the memory, "It wasn't as happy as I make it out to be. Tarrlok's birth nearly killed our mother from blood lost. I was just a child when I walked into that room. I saw my mother, she was sitting in bed. Her face was as white as the snowfall outside and her temples were damp with sweat. The sheets beneath her were red. She was laying in her own blood, and she was going to die," he bit down on his lip. She could see anger stir in him, "My father came up to me and shouted at me to save her. I didn't know what he was talking about. I didn't understand at all. It happened so fast. My mother's eyes were glassy. Even for a three year, I could see that she was slipping away. I didn't know what to do. What could a three year old do? My father was stilling yelling at me. I placed my hand just below her navel because that was where the pain was coming from, and I closed my eyes. Next thing I knew my mother was fine and my brother was alive in my father arms. He wailing in his arms. That was the only time he had ever held Tarrlok. He gave him to me and told me that tarrlok was my mine. He didn't want anything to do with him because he had almost taken the life of our mother away. I guess in my father's eyes, Tarrlok was a weakling, a weakling that almost caused the death of his beloved wife. He patted me on the shoulder and told I did a good job. I didn't even know I could waterbend, I couldn't even recite our tribe's alphabet without stumbling, and yet he knew what I was before I could even walk or talk."

Korra remained silent and he continued talking.

"It's so fitting. I'm exactly like him in the end," he laughed darkly. "You know, I was so afraid to admit that until now, but it's the truth. So many truths tonight. I'm exactly like him, a carbon copy."

"You're not."

He ignored her statement, "I probably look exactly him. Too bad I can never tell. His face wasn't his real one. After he had broken out of prison he had it surgically altered. I never got to see that bastard's face, and look I wear mask everyday too!"

"Stop it," sadness welled up in her throat. There was more left unexpressed to his sad recollection.

"Why should I stop? I've denied myself the truth for more than half my life. I thought I was so different from him, but I'm not. I'm not," he leaned back in his chair, "He decided my fate long before I even understood the definition of the word. How is there any way out? We will be what we will be until we die. There is no possibility of change."

"Shut the fuck up, Noatak."

He was silenced by her sudden outburst.

"You're a real dumb ass for being a prodigy," she grumbled. She was still mulling over his story, but his wallowing was pissing her off, "Why say those things?"

"What do you mean?"

"You say that we can't change. That we are doomed to whatever fate we've been deemed."

"Yes, I did."

"It's a bunch a bullshit. Get over yourself. If we don't have any capacity to change then why are we here together at all? Why did you chase after me? Why are you telling me these things when we could've just been enemies from the start?"

She glared at him. There she was. Always keeping him honest.

"Because I didn't know I could change," a small smile crossed his lips, "And then I met you."

"Spirits," her heated stare cooled as she rolled her eyes, "I turned a pessimist into romantic."

The man chuckled at her reaction, "I guess I have changed."

"You were talking about your dad, remember?"

"Right, I was," he continued with his story, "My father escaped prison and underwent surgery to change his appearance. He moved to a place called Kassuq, a remote village in the Northern Watertribe, where he met my mother. They married and had me nine months later, and then Tarrlok. He want under the pretense of Imnek until he revealed his true identity to us when he took us on over first hunting trip. That's when he started to teach us how to bloodbend. He intended to make us bloodbenders of the highest caliber so we could one day avenge him. At first, we would only go during the full moon but as we matured and our skills improved, we moved to bending during anytime of the day later moved to bloodbending each other. I carried all of my father's burdens and expectations because I was the golden son, the prodigy.

"Tarrlok always got the short end of the stick. Yakone hated him with a passion because he wasn't like me. I was content in knowing that I was protecting him in a way. He taught me everything he knew, and it wasn't long until I perfected everything he had to teach me. All we ever did was train. He was a cruel, unforgiving man. He was manipulative bastard and would beat us. He would beat our mother. I was trapped in my own head. There was no way out. I was suffocating," he stopped briefly, his eyes dark, "I ran away. I was fourteen. We were on a hunting trip. He made Tarrlok and I bloodbend each other. I did it easily but Tarrlok refused to do it. You see, Tarrlok wasn't anything like me; he didn't receive the same kind of frenzy and thirst that I did when he bloodbent. At the start of our 'hunting trips', he puked after every practice when we were only bending the blood of wild dogs. My younger brother never had the stomach for it. Ever since birth Tarrlok was mine. I made it upon myself to protect him because I thought that Tarrlok could walk away from this and make something good out of his life. Maybe he could settle down one day and start a family of his own and be happy. That slim piece of hope for my brother is what made living bearable; it was enough.

"Some nights we would stay up drilling with our father until the early hours of the morning practicing the forms until our knees give out under their own bodyweight in exhaustion, but if our limbs dropped even an inch toward the ground in protest, our father would begin to beat them until they stood straight again. He never tolerated sloppiness. Never once took an excuse for anything but excellence. He would play games with your mind. He was so good at manipulating you. He would have you believing every word he said until you went crazy. He was like that with everyone he met, like a poison seeping through your skin until it was too late.

"In the end, it was too much for me to take. I stopped seeing my friends or venturing far from the house. Many times my mother would ask me about my somber behavior. How I wanted to scream at her, but all I could give her was nod. I knew how much it hurt her to see him that way and not tell what was bothering me, but I couldn't bring himself to care anymore. It just hurt too much if I did, and couldn't pretend anymore for her sake. My mother and brother were the true victims, I had failed in my oath to protect them."

He turned his gaze turned in hands, "Tarrlok was so innocent back then. He was never the weakling my father thought he was because he was strong enough to stay. He was strong enough to not fall into the grip of despair like I had, but his strength only lasted him so long. Now he too has fallen into the same pattern as I have. We are nothing more than puppets of a dead man directing the city toward all-out war," his eyelids slid shut, "That's it. I abandoned them both because I couldn't take it anymore. We weren't his sons. All we were tools to get him something he desired more than loving his own family."

His story was one of the saddest she'd ever heard in her life, "I never know."

"I could you?" he tried to joke.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. It feels better that I told you. I can't do anything about it now, can I?"

"Is that why you become Amon?"

"I guess that's a part of it, yes. I become Amon because I thought it was the only way I could help people- by eradicating bending. I saw what it did to my life and its place throughout history. I wanted to change the world for the better, but in long run I was unable too because I underestimated the influence that my father still had over me. I became blinded by my own power and ambition. I lost sight of what was important."

For hours, he talked about his father and his training, about Tarrlok, and his mother, Anana. How maybe things would have been different if he had stayed. He told her about how he had trekked all the way to the Northern Capitol after he had run away in the blizzard and how a trail of blood marked his path in the snow because the soles of his feet grown blistered and cracked under the mileage of the long walk. At the capitol, he joined the Northern Water Tribe Navy only for the reasons of acquiring a place to stay and a hot meal since he hadn't eaten in days and didn't have any money. He was shipped out on the SS Tonraq-Unalaq to the Eastern Sea, and after a few days on deck he mysteriously disappeared. He had gone AWOL in the middle of the night jumping into the sea. That was the last time he went by Noatak because the Navy would be looking for him. Desertion was punishable by death and he had no desire to die. The ship had only been a few miles off the coast of the United Republic just like he had planned. He ended up in Republic City, the glorious city that his father always talked about, in the following days. Upon arrival in the city, he was shocked to see that the streets weren't paved with gold like he had always imagined; the sun didn't seem to shine any brighter than it did when he was at home in his village. The sky was so dark. For the first few weeks he lived on the streets, eating off the scraps of others and taking up strange jobs. He saw poverty first hand, disease, hatred, bigotry, and gross inequality. In one month, he had shed twenty pounds in weight and his hair was greasy and unkempt reaching down to the middle of his shoulder blades. He didn't have a plan. He was just a lost teenager in a city that had swallowed him whole. Then one day, a curious, elderly nonbender took him in. He had opened his door to him without asking any questions. Noatak liked him because he never asked him many questions. The old man selflessly gave him food and a bed to sleep in, a kindness that he believed didn't exist. The man was known as Gar. He was a very petite framed man with deep set wrinkles and a neatly trimmed beard. He didn't know what the old nonbender had seen in him, but liked him. The man was angry with the world and he knew it had to change. Gar was a very intelligent man. He taught him how to be patient, how to wait. In the back of the man's apartment, there were old books stacked to the ceiling, and in the evening he would educate him about the new discovers in science and principles of speech-writing and rhetoric until he spoke as well as the councilmembers on the radio. He lost his long hair under the old man's suggestion of a shorter, more modern style because he would fit in better. He had even enlisted in a school. Life seemed to going very well and he admired the old man very much for everything he had given him. Gar had been more a father than his ever was. Then one morning Noatak woke up to find him in his bed. His throat was slit; the crimson blood pooled around his body staining his pure white sheets. The old man had owed a debt to the triple-threats that had been unpaid for many years, so the boss ordered him to be killed. It had happened during the night when everything was quiet. The window was broken. Glass shards littered the floor. All his possessions were missing and the walls that once were adorned with colorful artwork were stripped bare. His eyes rested on his friend's lifeless body. That day he came to the conclusion that nothing good could ever eternally exist in the world and his hope faltered once more. A crumpled note was perched in his curled, pale hand. It stated that he knew he would die and he had hidden his most valuable possessions under the floor boards for him. The final statements implored him to use his talents to make the world a better place by bestowing the liberty and equality the he never had to the people of Republic. In the pool of the blood of the old man, Amon was born and the rest was history.

He talked until the mourning rays spilled through the window panes painting the floor in the bright colors of the rising sun, until his deep voice quieted and both their eyes drooped shut from tiredness where they fell asleep in one another's arms. For the first time in years he slept with a heart unwieghted.