Aang was stewing in wrath. Bing had kidnapped hundreds of animals and kept them in inhumane conditions; only so he could mount their heads on his already cramped walls. And without the slightest veneer of style at that! The lord's actions were starting to vex him more than anything Zuko had ever done. He couldn't demand Bing's abdication or him stopping the poachery, given that safeguarding animal welfare was not part of the Avatar's job description; but without having even met him, every fibre of his body wished him stripped of his wealth and confined to a desolate mountaintop until he learned to behave.

He rubbed his eyes, and the red-tinted birds, ground, cage and air around him returned to their regular colours. It was not going to help exploding into a ball of Avatar-state violence. It was the last thing he wanted, especially when he was looking so closely into the innocent eyes of his likely victims, their screeches now almost deafening to him.

It was too much. Aang covered his ears again, much more fervidly than before. Before he knew what he was doing, he had cast a sphere of revolving, densified air around his head; the kind he would often conjure on the ground and ride. It took a few tweaks to the airflow to prevent his collar from fluttering too much, but it resulted in a sound-proof barrier around his face. The violent ruckus was reduced to a whispered choir. He grinned in satisfaction, and with his auditory sense protected, he would have a much easier time searching for Momo. Easy being a relative term; the cage was still overfull and no animal would sit still. Picking out his lemur would be like finding the last cube of cheese in a bowl of pea soup. He looked for Sokka and Katara behind him, to see if they had had any luck from the outside.

But there was nobody outside the cage. His cage, he steadily realised as he scoured the surroundings for his friends. A burst of orange light came from besides the wall; and as he turned his head he just saw the source, Zuko, flee inside. Was he responsible for his imprisonment? He was being pursued down by a whole platoon of soldiers, making it unclear who had started the scuffle.

But he quickly found out the result: his door had indeed been locked. This was an ambush. Three dozen earthbenders now stood outside; each wearing clothing akin to Guge's outfit, but with hardened plates in the place of satin, and helmets that did not reveal any more of their face than a sliver of their eyes. The ones not chasing Zuko had positioned themselves in a circle around him, standing still as statues; but all with a solid, intimidating pose, one which he had last seen used by The Boulder. These guards meant business, but part of their business was a show of intimidation, and they were good at it.

With a sigh of relief, he discovered his remaining teammates; though the feeling was of short duration when he discovered their situation. Katara and Sokka had each been transported to one of the three smaller cages, containing predators. Sokka was trapped with a baby goat gorilla, and Katara shared her confined space with a temperful crococat. A third one held just an animal, and he figured Zuko was supposed to have been put there; but he had noticed the trap before any of them, and escaped it in time. He cursed the shrieking birds, who had kept him from noticing what had transpired behind his back.

There was movement in the people behind him, but Aang ignored it - he could barely hear them anyway - in favour of finding a way to reach his friends, who were in much more immediate need of attention. He thought for a moment, and then carefully conjured a tube of air, curving and reaching for them like the tendrils of the uncomfortably animate plants they had encountered in the Foggy Swamp. With some effort and a great deal of concentration, scrunching up his face and biting his lip, he reached both their heads and formed an enclosed space for all three of them; sparing them from the ear-aching clamour outside and enabling communication.

"The crococat doesn't bite unless provoked; give him space!" Aang shouted to Katara, who quickly curled herself into a corner. It was easier said than done; the cage was not nearly tall enough to stand, and not much wider than it was high. "Just be nice to the goat gorilla; remember Flopsy!" Aang added, projecting his voice more in Sokka's direction. Sokka nodded, remembering Bumi's pet, but he seemed not at all at ease with the horned, long-eared primate confined with him.

Aang could now hear tapping and resultant clings; his metal confinement rang in a tone so clear and attuned that he considered the thought that Bing had, purposely, made his poaching equipment double as a musical instrument. He elected to ignore it completely; his friends needed him more than some Earth Kingdom mogul. He could not hear much of what was said behind him anyway; probably something about honour and world domination, if he continued the trend set by his previous captors.

"I cannot get out!" Sokka used his right hand to rattled the metal bars in their sockets, his left carefully stroking his furry cellmate, but they were each as thick as his thumb and would not budge. "We were right behind you, when the ground opened up and swallowed me whole; and where it spewed me out, I was made prisoner."

"And I did not bring any water," Katara added with composure but not with confidence. There was no liquid near them, and nothing they could use to saw through the cage.

Suddenly, Aang was lifted by the earth on which he stood, launching him at the roof. He narrowly avoided hard impact with an airblast and a feat of acrobatics which would have guaranteed him a place in any circus had this been an audition. "What!?" he bellowed at the new figure standing between his captors, amplifying his voice for good measure. He was trapped, but he could make clear how little he appreciated that.

-0o0o0-

Could one even hide from an earthbender? Even after a hundred year of war, the Fire Nation army treatises disagreed with one another about the extent of their heightened senses. Mun Kai's Lecture on the True Art of Self-Defence patiently debunked every such story about the luggers of dirt - its preferred term for the bending citizens of the world's largest kingdom. Soldier's Companion by Fu Piandao - the estranged father of the legendary bladesmith - was more respected among many scholars, and it regarded the precise capabilities of the earthbenders, specifically the more advanced ones, with more respect and caution. It noted that some of these benders might be able to sense the tremor of a heartbeat and find their prey in pitch darkness from a league away, with the addendum that the average soldier of Omashu would probably be lucky to feel a giant rhinoceros beetle's footsteps before the giant creature showed up to bite his head off.

Different generals trusted different books, but Zuko favoured Piandao's interpretation. Most of the first edition of his book had been suspiciously lost, and evidence indicated that it had been purposely destroyed by Earth Kingdom agents. The information the enemy did not want you to know was likely to be closer to the truth; so Zuko held his breath and every other part of his body he had control over. He could not stop his heart from pulsing, but tried everything he could to be perfectly quiet until the soldier passing by his hiding place was out of sight.

Zuko's body was right against the ceiling, kept in position by the pressure of his hand and feet against two beams keeping the roof up. He tried to ignore his muscles going sore, and counted eight people running inside and back out of his room, followed by two more careful fellows, who opened every closet and looked under the table for the missing member of the Avatar's party. But they did not look up.

Or were they looking for the Fire Prince? His scar was as famous as Aang's arrow; whatever ransom Bing intended to net for the Avatar, he could hope for another small fortune for himself. Hope in vain, at least. Ozai would not pay a single silver coin to have an honourless son returned to him.

The eleventh guardsman was older, his scalp balding - which Zuko could only see because the man strangely lacked a helmet. But he recognised the wrinkled forehead and calm gait, even from the unusual angle, and when he was certain this man in his ill-fitting uniform was all by himself, he expelled the smallest flame from his mouth; like a drop of saliva, a tiny bolt that went before the man's face and barely reached the floor before being snuffed out from exposure.

The fake guard did not even look up. He stayed in the room, rummaging with the sparse furniture and taking his time to even open every drawer, ostensibly looking for Zuko. Once someone opened the door, and he asserted that there was nobody to be seen, followed by an excuse to be left in the room for a little longer. After a whole minute of silence, Zuko let himself drop to the wooden floor, and wasted no time to embrace his uncle.

"Something has gone terribly wrong, Uncle," Zuko said. "I do not know his precise motivations, but right as I had managed to lock the Avatar in the most inviting cage; Master Bing beat me to it."

"Or Bing was responsible for leading him to said cage in the first place," Iroh whispered. "I must tell you about him, now that we have a moment to ourselves."

He opened a shutter, and they were looking over at the collection of cages, some of them holding Aang and his friends. "I did not recognise his seal right away, but after I followed you to the mansion and saw his handwriting on the wall, it was obvious."

"Where is the young girl?" Zuko asked. "The earthbender; she could be real useful now."

"Spending the money we got for your ostrich horse," he said with a chuckle, one which Zuko deemed audacious, given the circumstances. He frowned at his uncle, who quickly responded: "Honestly, I did not expect this welcome, even after recognising the name."

"Then who, is Lord Bing?"

"A collaborator." Iroh sighed and looked at the gnarly oaken wall. "Five years ago Neibeo Bing struck a deal with Colonel Tagawa, my then-subordinate, as we were planning the invasion of the eastern Earth Kingdom." He turned and searched the room in honest, after having been faking it for the last few minutes.

Zuko raised an eyebrow, and he ceased. "Sorry, I was going to draw it out, had I found a map, but I suppose it is of little importance." He instead leaned against the wall, keeping one eye at the door and the other at his nephew. "Tagawa was sent as part of a special exploratory and disruptive force ahead of the fleet. Black clothing, sneaking from shadow to shadow, you must know the type. She was not even their leader at the time; but the goal was to prepare the ground for the arrival of the main force. Sabotage messaging stations, poke holes in boats, small-scale terrorism; anything to allow for the navy to make a successful landing, the Earth Kingdom's response to be delayed, and a new Fire Nation colony created."

"But Tagawa got captured!" He waved his hands in a threatening manner, and for the moment seemed to have lost awareness of their precarious situation, even if he was still speaking in a hushed tone. He had gone from General Iroh making a report, to Uncle Iroh telling his little nephew a war story. Zuko allowed the hint of a smile on his face.

"Her commander and most of her colleagues slain in the skirmish, she was at the mercy of Lord Bing, whose own security force had seen them release his flock of ostrich horses. Yet to our surprise, he was more than happy to work directly with her, and with us. Bing owned so much in the region, had such an extensive network of fiercely loyal field agents - it was almost silly. He did everything Tagawa's squad had intended to do, and better. Bridges not just sabotaged, but rigged with blasting jelly to be triggered by one of his agents right as an Earth Kingdom squadron crossed. He emptied the harbour, letting our fleet empty their vessels at the same pace as they had boarded them, and with no casualties. In one night, Bing handed us the entire province, allowing us to march to Ba Sing Se unopposed."

He sighed, and the exciting part was over. "We know how that turned out in the end. A siege of two years and the army was no more. Every conquered territory was retaken, and Bing? We never heard from him again. I had assumed that he would be taken care of by the local authorities; rather than show up here in the other part of the country."

Iroh slumped his shoulders, and Zuko wondered why. Nothing about this story seemed to describe Bing as a horrible person; he would interpret this as a happy coincidence that their paths had crossed once more. "Do you know why he betrayed his country?"

"He always said it was the tax rate." Iroh smiled a weak smile that still served to make his cheeks as grooved as the furniture around them. "But honestly, nobody knows. Maybe Tagawa does, and she retired after the expedition, to become governor of one of the resort islands. Which is remarkable in itself; she was in the prime of her career, and set to be made flag officer for her role in the invasion."

Zuko glanced outside again, detecting a new presence among the private army: one that was looking quite upset with his captive audience. "And Lord Bing; how old was he?"

"Just as young and vigorous. I would say in his thirties; why?"

"Then we've got the wrong Bing after all - this guy looks to be my age."