Chapter 12: Four Eyes

When they arrived in the city of Shen's Post, a pitstop on the road to Republic City, Ada dropped them off to make arrangements for lodging while she went to fill up on supplies and fuel. Earthbending lessons were on hold in the middle of the city, so Suda decided to talk about a different topic.

"So, Ada," He began. "What's her deal? You guys are both orphans from the same place. Where'd she come from?"

"She's kind of got a secret society thing going on," Sen explained. "Probably won't want me to go into detail about it without her permission."

"So I'll never know, then. Great."

"Come on, I keep saying she'll get over it eventually. You just need to kick some bad guy butt together and we'll all be friends," Hanjo said. Their only encounter so far had been a sloth spirit, so there had been no real bonding via violence.

"Nobody's kicking any butt unless we have to. Korra said to stay low, and that's what we're going to do."

Sen said that, but he had the feeling the universe wasn't going to cooperate. If they made it to Republic City without at least one major brawl he'd be very surprised. Especially with the Energybender being so close on their tail thanks to Suda's former comrades. Sometimes he held that against Suda, that his men were putting Sen and his friends, even Bolin, in danger, but Suda clearly wasn't involved. He'd even made a desperate attempt to warn them in time for them to get away, despite the fact that Ada had injured him.

"But, well, while we're talking about Ada," Suda began awkwardly. He looked at Sen. "I just want to know what the situation is, you know."

"I just told you," Sen said. He didn't know what Suda was trying to say. Suda crossed his arms and sighed.

"Well, what I want to know is, what's going on between you and Ada," Suda mumbled. "I mean, Sen, it's just you and the one girl. I'm the adult here, I've got to think about this stuff."

Suda had realized not long ago that he was older than everyone here by four years. He was loathe to act as the team dad, but he would probably be forced to. Orphans and teenage spies were not well-acquainted with how the real world worked, and Suda was all too aware of how the world worked. He would probably have to guide the kids through more than a few problems.

"Oh, man, no," Sen said. "She has a boyfriend back home. Dorky looking guy, but they seem to love each other."

Suda sighed in relief. Of all the problems he might have to face, teenage crushes was the one he most wanted to avoid. He knew his way around women, but teenagers in love was the last thing Suda needed to deal with.

"I'm not jealous or anything," Sen said. He could see the stress on Suda's face, and tried to put his mind at ease about any romantic entanglements. "The first time I met her, she made kind of a weird impression. Ada's nice, but I just don't...you get me, right? Not my kind of girl."

Suda nodded. Sen wasn't sure what his kind of girl was, but Ada wasn't it. He had thought about it more than once; after all, he'd almost never talked to anyone, much less girls, back at the orphanage, but no matter how he looked at it, he couldn't see himself being attracted to Ada.

"I think Hanjo's the one you need to worry about," Sen said. "He's been asking about her boyfriend a lot. I think he's jealous."

"Eh, she's not my kind of girl either," Hanjo said jokingly. Suda started to laugh. Sen felt like there was a joke he wasn't getting.

"I should go get us a place to stay," Sen said, excusing himself from the awkward conversation. He found them a decent hotel to hide away at before returning to Suda and Hanjo, and together they travelled to the meeting place Ada had arranged with them earlier. She was already waiting for them there.

"I put in a call to Zaofu," Ada said. Code for she was talking to her boyfriend, but maybe she'd learned something useful anyway. "Su arrived safely and Bolin called in to say he was fine. The Energybender is on our tail, though."

Sen was glad to hear that Bolin and Su were alright. He'd had a feeling that Bolin could handle himself, but it was good to have any lingering fears put to rest. He didn't need anyone getting hurt because of him.

"And how is my favorite accountant doing," Hanjo asked sarcastically. Suda gave him an awkward glance.

"He misses me, but he's surviving," She said flatly, not amused by Hanjo's joking. Better not to encourage him by getting flustered. Sen, still under the impression that Hanjo was speaking out of jealousy, elbowed his friend in the ribs.

"We have a place to stay for the night," Sen said, pointing towards the hotel he had found for them. "Let's just get to it."

"It's barely dinnertime," Hanjo said. "We could look around, maybe find something useful."

"We already have the only thing we need for now," Sen said, pointing to Suda. "We should head for Republic City. We'll either find a firebender there or head for the Fire Nation."

"I thought our plan was to use the Spirit Portals to head for the poles," Hanjo said.

"That was the plan when we started out," Sen said. "Our situations changed. We have the Avatarmobile now, we're moving faster."

"Sen has a point," Ada said. "Using the Spirit Portals to reach the poles is premature, if you haven't learned Fire or Air yet."

"I think we should head for the Fire Nation right away, actually," Suda added. "We're still pretty close to the coast, so we can find a port without wasting time travelling to Republic City."

"We clearly have a lot of options," Hanjo said. "Let's head back to the hotel and talk them over, okay?"

The four of them nodded. It'd be better to talk about this before they headed anywhere else. There were multiple roads leading out of this city, all of them heading for different major destinations. They all headed back to the hotel together, thinking over their plans for future travel. The hotel Sen had chosen was off the main roads, tucked away in a bad part of town, so their rooms were cramped and run down. They managed to scrounge together four chairs that didn't fall apart when you sat on them and sat in a circle. Sen opened the discussion.

"If anywhere is going to be safe for me, it's Republic City. That city wouldn't exist if it weren't for Aang and Korra. The number of supporters I'll have there make it the obvious choice."

"The obvious choice for Energybender spies, as well," Ada countered. "You might have support there, but the Energybender has unknown numbers of forces on his side. We can't risk him catching your trail so soon."

Republic City was just like Zaofu; while they were overwhelmingly supportive of the Avatar, they were also threaded with enemy spies. There was just as much risk as benefit waiting for them in the United Republic.

"Korra's Spirit Portal is still a tempting target," Hanjo said. "Even if the Energybender catches us in Republic City, we'd be able to outmaneuver him in the Spirit World thanks to the Avatar, and when we reached the other Spirit Portals he'd have to split his forces between the North and South to search for us."

"It wouldn't get us any closer to the real target, though," Suda added. "Making Sen a fully realized Avatar is our top priority. Once he's at full strength, he can fight the Energybender and win. The sooner we get him to the Fire Nation, the better."

Sen had an urge to go to Republic City, probably due to it being so familiar to his past lives, but he could see Suda's point. It wouldn't matter where he was if the Energybender caught up to him before he was ready. Advancing his skills as an Avatar should be his first priority, and there'd be more firebending masters to be found in the Fire Nation than in Republic City.

"We still need to go to Republic City one day," Sen added. "But Suda makes a good point. The Fire Nation might be a better place to find a firebending master for me."

"I don't know how I feel about taking a boat ride," Ada said. "If the Energybender were to discover our ships destination somehow, he could have Fire Nation agents waiting for us at the docks. The boat would take weeks while a radio message could be sent in a day."

"Not to mention dealing with Gun on a boat," Hanjo added. Sen nodded. Dealing with Gun was easy on land, when he could just tunnel down and stay out of sight easily, but there wasn't anywhere to tunnel to on a boat.

"We can get our own boat," Suda said. "Bolin gave us enough money to buy a small country, much less a large boat. We'll have room enough for your badgermole and we can land wherever we want whenever we want."

"That's a decent idea," Sen admitted. "But I don't think we can take a ship to the Fire Nation all on our own. Maybe we can hire a private crew instead?"

"Avoiding public transportation is the key element," Ada said. "I have some knowledge of boats, if we need to have our own vehicle. We should head to the nearest port and view our options. There's no guarantee there'll be a ship for sale or a crew for hire."

"But we're all agreed on the boat, right? We're going to the Fire Nation?"

All four nodded. Hanjo had his misgivings about this plan, but he was going to go along with it, seeing as he was obviously in the minority. Ada pulled out her map and they plotted a course to the nearest major port city. They could make it in a days drive if they started early in the morning. For now they had a few hours to rest and prepare. The threat of the Energybender's pursuit would keep them from resting easily, but they could still rest.

Ada pulled out her swords and started digging into the mechanisms. The electric current was a very delicate device, and she hadn't had much time to maintain it lately. Suda saw her swords drawn, made a snide comment about it, and then invited Sen to come outside and do some earthbending practice. Hanjo started to come along, but Suda suggested he stay with Ada instead. Hanjo reluctantly sat down next to her as the two went outside.

"Sen needs to practice without comparing himself to you," Ada said. "A more personal environment might help him address his shortcomings and correct them."

"Oh, you and Suda suddenly understand each other now?"

"Suda's a reasonably clever individual," Ada explained. "I trust his judgment, to an extent."

"I thought you hated him because he was a bandit?"

"It doesn't bother me that much," Ada admitted. "The fact that he hasn't apologized for trying to rob us does rub me the wrong way, though."

Hanjo let out a groan so intense that Ada could feel her chair shake. Not that it took much to shake these awful chairs, but still.

"You two have the exact same problem with each other! Apologies aren't that important! Just suck it up and go say you're sorry for slashing him!"

"Tell him to come apologize to me," Ada retorted. She snapped the batteries in her sword back into place and tested the shock. Worked like it was brand new. She sheathed her swords happily.

"Come on, Ada," Hanjo said. "Me and Sen are sick of the arguing. Just go apologize and end it!"

She didn't want to frustrate Sen, or Hanjo for that matter, but she had her own principles.

"I do what I please," Ada said. "If I apologize, I'll do it when I want to."

Hanjo stomped his foot in frustration, causing a visible crack in the floorboards. He pulled his foot up quickly.

Outside, Suda and Sen were still focusing on Sen's earthbending. Suda had been in this town before, on a less noble mission, so he knew a good alleyway that made a decent escape route, and a decent hiding place for their earthbending practice. They went through a refresher on all the large scale tricks that Sen excelled at, but then they had to go over the smaller, more precise techniques again, and he ran into the same problems. Suda tried to take the Avatars mind off his failures with a little conversation. A topic from earlier deserved some attention.

"So, what's the deal with Hanjo anyway? Why'd you bring him along?"

"Because I did," Sen said. He shot a pebble at the target and groaned in frustration when he missed. "Didn't really think about it, and by the time I did, he was already my friend, so it's not like I could tell him to leave."

"I get being loyal to your friends, but in the long run, what does the guy do? Never heard of a Team Avatar with three of the same element before."

"I figure I'm trendsetting," Sen said. "Korra's team didn't have an airbender. Why can't I have extra earthbenders?"

"You've got a point," Suda admitted. "But, uh, have you noticed anything weird about him?"

"He's weird in a lot of ways," Sen said with a slight smile. "But he's my best friend."

Suda nodded and returned to training. It was clear that Sen only thought of Hanjo as a friend, the only question was what Hanjo was thinking. Suda would deal with that when the time came.

Sen let another stone fly at the target. It bounced off the very edge. Bolstered by the fact that he was getting closer, he tried again, and missed the mark entirely. Suda shook his head.

"I don't get, I just don't," Suda said. "Your technique is flawless, and if it was something spiritual, you wouldn't be so good at the bigger stuff."

"Well find out," Sen said accusingly. "You're supposed to be the master."

"Alright, alright, hold on," Suda said. It was time for a more basic practice. Suda grabbed a chunk of chalk that was hanging around the alleyway and used it to mark three concentric circles on the wall of the building, making a target about the size of his head. With a more definite target than a random tree in mind, Sen would probably be able to focus his mind better. He positioned Sen about twenty feet away and pointed at the target.

"Alright, now I want you to focus on the outer ring first. Ignore the other two."

"There's only two circles," Sen said.

"No, you got ahead of yourself," Suda explained. He pointed at each of the three circles in turn. "This is the one you need to look at. Not this one, or this one."

"There's only two," Sen objected. He walked forward to examine the target more closely, and then shook his head. He tapped each of the three circles with his fingers.

"Huh," Sen said. "That's weird. I guess I was wrong."

A massive grin spread across Suda's face as he realized exactly what was wrong with Sen's earthbending. He took Sen by the shoulder and pushed him out of the alleyway and into the street.

"I know what your problem is," Suda began. "Just follow me and everything will become clear."

"Or you could tell me where we're going beforehand," Sen objected, planting his feet in the dirt. "I'd kind of like that to happen for once."

Hanjo had led him all the way from Beaker Hall to Bolin's house without ever telling Sen where they were headed. Just for once, he would like to know where he was going in advance.

"Come on, just trust me," Suda said as they reached the street. One look told him that trusting himself was a bad idea.

A caravan of unmarked military transports pulled into town. Shrouded figures could be seen through the windows of the armored convoy. It wasn't hard to guess who they were. Sen had his friends had travelled too slowly. The Energybender had caught up with them.

"We're leaving now," Sen commanded. Suda led the way back to the hotel. Hanjo and Ada were halfway through packing the supplies when they arrived. They blitzed through the rest of the supplies and rushed downstairs as quickly as they could. This was all much too sudden. They'd been talking about stupid romance crap not an hour ago. If he'd known all of this was going to happen, Suda would have never wasted the time. He regretted most of the days decisions as he barreled down the stairs.

Having taken the lead already, Ada reached the bottom of the stairwell first, and her suddenly extended arm brought the rest of the parade to a screeching halt. There were already troops in the lobby, interrogating the clerk at the desk. Ada stopped the group to listen to what their enemies had to say. There was a chance they could avoid detection, if they had some intelligence.

"This city is officially under lockdown," The Energybender's minion declared. "People like you have nothing to fear, of course, unless you're sheltering the Avatar."

The cowed clerk listened to everything the soldier said. The troops were wearing full face masks, but other than that they looked more like monks than soldiers. Their robes were loose fitting, and their cut was similar to the style used by ancient airbending monks. The color scheme clearly denoted bending talents; red, blue, green and yellow for each element. Oddly, there didn't seem to be a color for nonbenders.

"Station a soldier at every door to check people going in and out. The rest of you, go join the roadblocks."

Ada dove out of cover. If they were putting up checkpoints, there'd be no hope of getting out of town stealthily. Their only hope was to make a blitz for the highway and hope they beat the Energybender's forces. The rest of the team followed her into action and took out the Energybender's troops as quickly as they could. The element of surprise made the fight one-sided, but that trick would only work once.

They tore out the door of the hotel, dodging a new volley of attacks as they ran. Sen only stopped to slam his foot on the ground once, summoning Gun. They'd need everything at their disposal to make it out in one piece.

As they started up the satomobile and raced it to the edge of town, Gun guarded their perimeter. Diving in and out of the earth like a dolphin breaching the water, Gun tunneled circles around the vehicle, coming out of the ground to bite and claw attackers or send up walls of earth to block pursuing vehicles. Suda cheered on the badgermole as Gun's frantic attacks took them safely to the edge of the city.

Looking ahead, Ada could see the road open and inviting ahead of them. There were a small number of Howler's forces ahead; two squads of four benders each, but they didn't have any kind of roadblock set up. It almost looked like they were going to make it, but Ada knew nothing was ever certain.

Sure enough, the metalbenders among Howler's forces tore apart their own vehicles, rearranging the components into a metal barricade that spanned the width of the street. Suda tried to raise a ramp out of the earth to get them over it, but the opposing earthbenders tore it right down.

Ada brought the vehicle to a screeching halt just short of the line of troops. Sen and Suda dove out of the back seat, combining efforts with Gun to raise up a massive wall behind them, while Ada and Hanjo rushed forward to take out the enemy metalbenders.

"Suda," Ada shouted over her shoulder. "When I signal, tear down this wall!"

Suda shouted back something unintelligible just to let Ada know he'd heard her. He could feel enemy earthbenders tearing at the other side of the wall. Two benders and a badgermole weren't a match for the Energybenders collection of troops. The wall would be coming down eventually.

Whether the wall was up or not soon turned out to be irrelevant. With a surge of rushing air, enemy airbenders sent themselves and other troops airborne, vaulting over the wall. Their landing was a bit awkward, giving Sen and Suda time to launch a very effective opening attack, but that meant dropping the wall. The rest of the soldiers joined in to attack. There were two dozen of them already, and there'd likely be reinforcements on the way.

The masked troops were few in number, but they were all talented benders using some surprisingly advanced techniques, and Suda didn't have much power on his side. His right hand was still nearly useless thanks to his wound. He did what he could, but the pain made it too hard to focus on earthbending. Sen was doing his best, sending massive boulders and rock walls sailing at the enemy, but his attacks were slow and ponderous, easy to dodge. This was exactly the time that the high speed, precise style of bending he'd been failing at would come in handy. Hopefully Suda's hunch would prove correct. He'd been interrupted earlier, before he could get what he needed to fix Sen's problems.

"Hold them for five seconds," Suda said. "Trust me."

Sen grunted in the affirmative, and Suda broke off from his partner. He'd seen a very promising general store off to the side of the street that should have just what he needed. Scrambling through the store, he found what he was looking for, grabbed a pair at random and dashed back to Sen's side before the troops overwhelmed him. With a brief warning to Sen, he slammed a pair of glasses onto the Avatar's face.

Sen stopped for a second, as everything in his world quite literally came into focus.

When the brief shock of suddenly seeing the world as it really was for the first time in his life was over, Sen launched a new salvo of attacks at the enemy. He could suddenly see them all in detail; the whole world had come into focus all at once, including his enemies. Tearing small stones out of the earth, he called his targets as he sent the earth flying. Suddenly it all made sense. Everything had come into focus. All the times he'd had trouble reading, or seeing things in the distance, or bending at small targets, they all suddenly made sense. It wasn't his fault at all; he'd needed glasses the whole time and never known!

Sen bent over and slammed the palms of his hand into the ground. Massive cracks tore open the concrete street and dove outwards at the energybenders forces. The first wave of troops was swallowed up by the collapsing rock, and the rest were forced backwards by the rapidly advancing chasm. Gun gave a surprisingly loud roar and churned the earth along with his master, sending the wave of earthen devastation roaring down the street.

Ada shouted for Suda. She and Hanjo had disabled the metalbenders in the energybenders group, since they had the courtesy to label themselves with green robes, but they still needed to get the roadblock out of the way, and only Suda could do that. Hanjo and Ada kept the remaining benders at bay while Suda went for the roadblock, leaving an ecstatic Sen to his massacre of the enemy forces. The crumbling stones ahead of him kept the bulk of the forces at bay, but reinforcements were starting to come from the side roads and rooftops, and more troops were approaching every minute. Suda didn't have much time. He started ripping apart the barricade as best as he could.

With the street ripped to shreds, the Energybender's troops were forced to make their approach through narrow side alleys. The chokepoints suited Sen just fine. He removed the platinum spheres from his belt pouch and used his newfound accuracy to pelt the enemies as soon as they came into sight. He could occasionally hear bones crack as he sent the metal coated stones flying into limbs and ribs. His defense wasn't perfect, but when combined with the rampage of an irate badgermole, very few soldiers made it onto the street.

Ada was having trouble dueling with the non-metalbenders among Howler's forces. Nonbenders and earthbenders, even metalbenders, had been plentiful sparring partners in Zaofu, but fire and waterbenders were rarer, and airbenders were almost unheard of. The new techniques and capabilities were throwing off her combat routine. Fire was less forceful, but it traveled much faster, testing her reflexes. Water was flexible, able to change directions multiple times in an attack, testing her agility. Air was the hardest of all, being nearly invisible from the wrong angle, pushing her reflexes to their limits. She was fully aware that one wrong step could mean the end of her life.

So she didn't make a wrong step. She stayed light on her feet, rolling to the side as fire roared past her, then diving forward to strike the firebender with a shocking slash to the ribs. Water twisted and turned, one, two, three times and Ada turned faster, closing in on the waterbender before she could change her course a fourth time. With blade still in hand, she watched for the slightest shift in the dust surrounding them. In the corner of her eye, she saw a pebble move, and she leapt forward. The air behind her surged outwards in a burst just in time to add momentum to her jump, propelling her even faster towards her opponent. She tried her best to remember that this was life or death, not an enjoyable excursion, but a smile found its way to her face eventually. She couldn't help herself; she lived for combat.

Hanjo was having a slightly less artistic time with his opponents. His technique was to use gradually larger rocks to hit them. The firebender got taken out by a medium sized rock, the waterbender got hit with a large rock, and now Hanjo was chucking really big rocks at the airbender. They yellow clad soldier leapt around the buildings, using airbending to propel himself round the rubble, evading progressively larger and larger stones, until Hanjo had used the biggest stone he could possibly move.

"I'm going to get you with the biggest rock of all," Hanjo said confidently. The airbender laughed. Hanjo sent another stone flying, and the airbender prepared to leap. Just before the bender made his final jump, Hanjo twisted the angle of the stone he was propelling himself off of, facing it towards the ground. With a rush of air, the airbender sent himself rocketing into the ground, colliding headfirst with the soil.

"It's the earth," Hanjo said to the unconscious airbender. "The earth is the biggest rock."

With the two squads near the barricade taken care of, Suda could finally focus his full attention on taking down the roadblock. With a loud scream of exertion, Suda stopped dismantling the barricade piece by piece and started ripping the metal in two, filling the air with a shrieking sound as the metal sheets tore asunder.

"Hanjo! The gas canister!"

Hanjo whipped the small, rock-covered container out of his belt and tossed it to Ada. He'd been waiting for a chance to use that toy ever since they'd taken it from the Zaofu armory; he only wished it were under better circumstances. Hanjo covered Ada with his earthbending while she loaded the canister. By the time she was done, Suda had nearly torn the barricade down. Ada told Hanjo to start the car and get it ready to drive, while she passed the gas canister to Sen.

"When Suda gives us the signal, start it, bend it in an arc behind us and get in the car."

Suda gave the signal almost as soon as she was done talking. She made a dive for the car while Sen started the gas device, then earthbent the rock surrounding the device to send it soaring through the enemy troops. It left a cloud of greenish-grey gas behind it, enveloping their opponents in the fog. The enemy airbenders cleared the cloud soon enough, but something about it seemed to linger. Energybender troops were clawing at their masks. Sen didn't spare their distress a thought. He dove into the satomobile and slammed the door shut as Hanjo sent them barreling forward, far away from the enemy troops.

Sen felt that had gone rather well, but it wasn't the time to celebrate quite yet. Ada was fiddling with the radio for some reason.

"Now is not the time for music," Hanjo desperately tried to joke. He needed something to take his mind off their mortal danger, and good old humor seemed like the way to go.

"I'm hoping the Energybender is using an unsecured frequency," Ada hastily explained. She focused in on some signal in the static.

"-Afraid there's no chance of vehicular pursuit," a strange voice said. "They tore the main road up before they left. We'll need time to move our vehicles into position. They'll have a significant lead by then."

"Move as quickly as possible," A chilling voice commanded. The radio's sound was unclear, but Sen was sure he'd remember it. It had to be the Energybender's voice. "Do you have any actual progress to report?"

"We have a visual of the Avatar, sir," the trooper said. He then proceeded to describe Sen in detail, right down to the fact that he was now wearing glasses.

"Then we have our target. Did you overhear his name?"

"No sir."

The Energybender paused. Sen was happy that his name was still somehow being kept secret. It made him feel safer, in a way. The Energybender knew his path and his face now, but did not know his name.

"I have been too lenient with failure of late. Show this city the price of defying me."

Sen had time for a horrified gasp before the first building began to fall. He twisted in his seat to watch from afar as Energybender troops tore apart foundations and burned buildings, dismantling an entire city before his eyes. Sen let out a low, mournful moan. His allies averted their eyes from the destruction. Ada shut the radio off.

Sen covered his face with his hands. He'd avoided this for so long. Zang had been kept safe, Bolin had been kept safe, but this town, Shen's Post, had barely even sheltered the Avatar for a day, and the punishment was absolute destruction. He could hear the sound of collapsing stone from here, and he felt like if he focused, if he listened close enough, he could hear the screams of innocent people as their homes were torn apart.

"Sen. Don't let him get to you."

Sen briefly removed himself from his mournful reverie to listen to Hanjo speak. Hanjo was staring intently, if somewhat blankly, forward, trying to keep grief from showing on his face. He winced slightly when he heard the loud crash of rubble in the distance.

"This isn't your fault. Don't ever think it is."

It was hard not to. It was hard knowing that every move he made brought danger to someone or something else. How could he not feel responsible for what was happening to Shen's Post at this very moment, when it was all caused by him running away, and he was still running? Sen wanted nothing more than to turn around and stop the destruction, but some part of him knew that wasn't the answer. Today the best thing he could do was keep running.