The fish was taunting him. Lee didn't know how many times he had thrown, stabbed and lunged with his make-shift spear at the slippery creature, but every time he had missed. His prey didn't even have the decency to swim upstream to escape him in fear. Instead, it would dive in and out of the water, showing off its silver scales, or else just swim around him in circles. It was infuriating, but it was also humiliating. The Blue Spirit could take down four firebenders with his swords without breaking a sweat, yet here he was unable to catch one measly fish.

"Just stay still!" Lee growled, raising his spear to strike.

The fish weaved in a diamond-like pattern around his legs and then paused. Quick as lightning, Lee brought the sharpened point down to impale his would-be dinner. A silver tail flicked out in retaliation and the stream rose up to meet him, splashing him in the face and drenching him from head to foot. He spat out the water that had got into his mouth and scowled as droplets dripped from his hair and clothes. Looking far too pleased, the fish darted to his left and then waited as if daring him to try again. Lee made a strangled noise of frustration.

"This is impossible!" he groaned, throwing the spear on the ground.

Clearly, he had not been much of a fisherman in his past. Just like he had discovered, much to his dismay, that he was not good at starting fires either. It had taken him hours to get his campfire going the first night he had headed out on his own for Omashu. After two days of travelling, he thought that he was finally beginning to get the hang of it, but it still took him at least ten attempts before he could create a flame. The action of striking the rocks together just felt so foreign to him and the rocks themselves seemed so clumsy and awkward in his hands. It didn't make sense, but then he was beginning to realise that there were a lot of things about him that didn't make sense.

Lee sighed. It looked as if he was going to be eating stale rations again.

Voices drifted towards him. Snatching up his belongings, he ran into the trees and dropped to the ground so that he was completely hidden. A group of men in Fire Nation armour appeared a few seconds later.

"So then I asked her if she wanted to join me in the back room," one of the soldiers was saying, who stood out for the ridiculously large moustache drooping from his upper lip.

"And what did she say?" the spearman on the left responded, kneeling by the stream to fill up his waterskin.

"She told me that she would on one condition. I had to get rid of the moustache." The soldier shook his head with a feigned sigh. "Well, naturally I had to put her straight. 'Sweetheart,' I said, 'I don't care if you are the Red Peony and the most beautiful dancer in the Fire Nation; I've been grooming this moustache for three years and I'm not about to cut it off for you.'"

The group of men laughed and continued filling up their waterskins, still chatting among themselves about old conquests and the pretty Earth Kingdom women they'd met during their time abroad. Lee scowled and wondered when they were going to leave. This was not a conversation he wanted to hear, especially since Moustache Man loved to go into lurid detail about all the adventures he'd had behind closed doors. Lee's cheeks flooded with heat just thinking about it.

A man sporting the armour of a higher-ranked officer marched into the clearing. "What are you all doing sitting around like a bunch of gossiping women?" he demanded. "Hurry it up! We've been ordered to join the blockade in the pass to the Kolau Mountains. There are rumours that the Avatar is heading for Omashu."

"The Avatar?" Moustache Man exclaimed, dropping his waterskin.

"Are you sure, Captain?" the spearman asked, looking a bit alarmed.

"Of course I'm sure, you idiots! Now get your act together and move! I'm not having my regiment be labelled as a—" The captain frowned as he knelt to examine something on the ground. "What's this?"

Lee's eyes widened as he saw the captain pick up a familiar dagger, which glinted with a black sheen in the afternoon light. The knife must have slipped free when he'd been running. This was not good.

"What is it, Captain?" Moustache Man asked, moving to stand beside his superior.

"This is not an ordinary dagger." The captain removed the blade from its sheath and turned it on either side to read the inscriptions. "Only someone of very high rank would carry a dagger like this. The quality of the materials used is extremely fine, and the craftsmanship itself is the best I've seen. Not even our most prized blacksmiths in the Fire Nation could do better."

"Seems odd that the owner would just leave it here," Moustache Man observed. "You'd think a person would notice losing something like that."

"Unless the owner never left."

All the blood seemed to freeze in Lee's veins. He realised that his footprints were still visible on the ground and led straight to his hiding position. His heart thudded against his ribs and he closed his fingers around the sheath encasing his dao blades. There were only two options he could take in that moment: flee and hope the soldiers would not follow, or fight and hope that he could win. Since Lee was not about to lose the only item he had that he knew personally belonged to him, he decided to go with the latter.

He slipped the blue mask over his face and gripped the combined hilts of his swords. Instinct told him how to remove the blades without making a sound, and it was with equal quietness that he rose to his feet and strapped the scabbard to his back, freeing up one of his hands. He'd have to be quick if he wanted to do this without getting hurt or captured. There were seven men in total: three firebenders, including the captain, three spearmen, and a long-range fighter specialising in a crossbow. The odds were not in Lee's favour, but none of the soldiers had noticed his presence yet, too busy discussing the dagger and the whereabouts of its owner. In that, he still had the element of surprise.

Crossbow first. Lee noticed that the long-range fighter was standing a little apart from the group and that none of the others were paying much attention to him.

He darted out from the trees with cat-like swiftness and clamped a hand over the archer's mouth, pulling him back into the shadows before anyone could notice. There was a brief struggle before he got the man down, now barely conscious, and pinned his arms with his own armour and used a ripped bit of his shirt as a gag. There, that should hold him for now.

Sheathing the blades, Lee picked up the fallen crossbow and quiver. He slotted a bolt into the correct position and took aim at one of the firebenders, knowing that he had to get this right the first time. He released the catch and watched the heavy arrow soar through the air before it buried itself into the man's midriff where the leather armour did not cover.

Shouts echoed in Lee's ears as he fixed a new bolt in place and fired. This time he hit one of the spearmen in the chest and knocked the man to his knees. Now, he only had one more shot before he would have to switch to close-range combat. The crossbow was too slow to be used effectively for long and it was much harder to deal out an incapacitating blow in one hit. Even still, the wounds created by the weapon would at least help to even the scales for him, if only to impair his opponent's fighting abilities. But he would have to be quick. Some of the men were already heading to his position, having guessed the general direction from where the arrows had been fired. He also knew that the rest of the regiment could not be far away. The last thing he needed was for one of them to call for reinforcements.

Exhaling deeply, Lee aligned the crossbow with the closest soldier and released the catch. He missed his target by several inches, thrown off by the man's movement, but there wasn't time to curse his poor aim. He dropped the crossbow without a second thought.

The familiar song of steel rang in his ears as he unsheathed his blades, then charged through the trees towards his opponents, letting his instincts take over as he let go of the boy with the scar and became one with his mask. Duck, slash, parry. He moved like a whirlwind of steel, guided by the memories of past battles, which whispered words of advice to his mind in shadowed echoes and images. He was the Blue Spirit, and he was not going to lose this fight.

Two spears rose to stab him in the chest. Lee swung his swords around in a sweeping arc and knocked the spears aside, then counterattacked in a swift, outward thrust that sent both men sprawling. Heat brushed his back. He moved just in time to avoid being struck by a fireball. Breathing hard, he turned to see the three firebenders closing in on him. He sensed rather than saw one of the spearmen get up to flank him from behind; the other two were still lying on the ground, too wounded to move.

"Think you can take all of us down?" Moustache Man taunted, holding his palm up as if he were about to unleash a stream of fire.

"Careful, Nianzu," the captain warned. "You should not underestimate the Blue Spirit. He might be just one man, but he is known to be very dangerous."

Lee stared at the men warily, his eyes flickering from one face to the next to see who would make the first move. He paused when his gaze came to rest on the firebender standing on the left. The man was slumped forward slightly and had blood spreading in a dark stain on his midriff. Lee's eyes narrowed as he realised that was the one he had shot with the crossbow. He knew it would be easy enough to take the wounded firebender out, but the other soldiers would be bound to attack if he tried to make a move. That was a risk he wasn't willing to take when he was surrounded.

I need a distraction.

Suddenly, he remembered how the fish had diverted his attention when he had been trying to catch it earlier. He kicked hard at the gritty dirt and grains of sand and mud flicked upwards. There was a grunt and the three firebenders brought their arms up in reflex to shield their eyes. Already running, Lee lashed out at the wounded soldier with his blades, incapacitating him with a controlled slice to the man's torso and legs. The sound of wood whistling through air had Lee dodging to the side, just missing being impaled by the tip of the spearman's weapon. He growled and brought his leg down in a ruthless axe kick, snapping the spear clean in half. The spearman's eyes widened. A second later, he was joining the injured firebender on the ground, rendered useless by a swift thrust to his side.

"Stop him!"

Lee didn't know who had shouted, but he didn't wait to see. Swinging his swords back into an offensive stance, he ducked a fireball and then lunged for Moustache Man, breaking through his defences to knock him down with a hard kick to the stomach. Grimly, he brought the hilt of his blade down against the man's head. The blow had either knocked him out or killed him, but Lee hoped for the former. It wasn't like he wanted to kill these men. He just couldn't afford to be gentle either.

Arms suddenly latched around his middle. He struggled, but the arms clamped down harder and trapped his swords to his side.

"Got you!" the captain grunted in his ear. "Now drop the swords or you'll soon find out what it means to be embraced by fire."

Heart pounding, Lee released his grip on his blades and relaxed just enough to make the captain think that he was completely subdued.

"Good. Now I want you to—"

Lee rammed his head back against the other's face. Bone crunched and the man cried out. A vicious kick to the shins did the rest. The arms that had been trapping him disappeared and he quickly snatched his swords up from the ground and spun in a flash of steel.

The captain slumped to his knees, clutching at his stomach where blood trickled out in ribbons of red. Blood was also splattered over his face from where his nose had been broken. "H-how?" he choked out.

Lee brought the dao swords together to form one blade, then reached down and removed the dagger from the man's belt. He paused. "You should get a healer to look at that wound," he said, gesturing to the gash on the captain's stomach. "I tried not to cut through any vital organs, but it's possible I miscalculated with that last strike."

The captain's eyes widened. Without waiting for a response, Lee sheathed his blades and headed for the trees to gather up his belongings. If the rest of the regiment had not already been alerted from the sounds of fighting, they would no doubt be along soon to discover what had happened to their captain and fellow soldiers. It was best to hurry.

Scrambling into his boots, he slung his pack over his shoulder and then turned to leave when he spotted the crossbow and quiver of bolts lying on the ground. A frown tugged at his lips. The crossbow was not his weapon of choice. He had instinctively known how to use it, but he had realised rather quickly that he was not an expert at hitting his target. Still, it had come in handy, and there was no saying what other dangers he would face during his passage through the Kolau Mountains, especially if it was true that the Fire Nation was forming a blockade.

"Better to be safe than sorry," he muttered, snatching up the crossbow and quiver.

He fastened the weapon to his pack and then did a quick search of the other soldiers' pockets for anything useful. There were a few money pouches—too light to hold many coins—and some dried meat that would serve as extra rations. The coil of rope attached to the archer's waistband also caught his eye. He decided to take that too and shoved the lot in his pack, which he then slung over his shoulder. The quiver of bolts soon joined the bag, but he did not begrudge the added weight.

A crunching, cracking sound told him that heavy machinery was approaching, snapping through branches. Lee checked to make sure that he had not forgotten anything and then headed deeper into the trees. He would have to get far away from the stream if he wanted to avoid being pursued. However, as he ran, it was not the thought of being chased that troubled him. It was the one sentence that he had overheard the captain say to his men.

"There are rumours that the Avatar is heading for Omashu."

Lee frowned and ducked under a branch, wondering why that name had struck such a chord with him. There had been no rush of memories, no faceless voices, just an odd urge to follow, as if it was the Avatar who had been calling him to action all along. No matter how hard he tried, however, he could not connect the pieces to explain the feeling. His mind was a jigsaw puzzle of broken echoes and shadows, and nothing he did could make the segments fit. It was frustrating, but no more than any of the other times he had discovered a gap in his memories that he was unable to fill.

Shrugging off the matter, Lee increased his speed and focussed only on getting out of the forest. He still had a lot of ground to cover before he reached Omashu and he could not afford to be distracted with so many Fire Nation soldiers crawling around. Right now, he just had to concentrate on surviving.

oOo

It was dark by the time he reached Omashu. He had been surprised to discover a red Fire Nation flag fluttering from the city wall, but he had come too far to let it stop him. Regardless of who was in control, he had to get inside the library and see if he could find something about the path of the ancient ways.

The wall did present a problem. It was a huge mass of stone that looked far too smooth to have been crafted with anything but earthbending, nor were there any nearby cliffs or trees to help him ascend. Lee knew that he could just wait until the gate opened to sneak inside, but there was no saying how long that would take. Fortified cities only opened their front gates to welcome in new supplies or visiting officials. Since he was neither, it looked as if his only option was indeed to climb.

"There has to be a way," Lee muttered, folding his arms and zeroing in on a more shadowed, secluded part of the wall.

If he timed it well, the soldiers guarding the perimeter wouldn't notice if he climbed that section. The question that remained was if he'd be able to scale a wall of this size. He moved closer and ran his hand over the stone. It really was too smooth—no ridges or anything to provide a good enough grip to safely climb a wall of this size. He'd risk breaking his neck if he tried.

That was when he remembered the crossbow and rope.

He removed one of the bolts from the quiver slung over his shoulder and examined its sturdiness, testing to see if it would be able to pierce through stone and how much weight it could carry without dislodging. The bolt seemed solid enough. His brow creased and he stared back at the wall. His plan was dangerous, very dangerous, but if it worked...

Lee tightened his grip on the bolt. He had to try.

Removing the rope from his pack, he tied one end to the bolt in a complicated knot and then, after making sure the rope was not going to come loose, slotted the bolt into position on the crossbow. He exhaled deeply and raised the weapon. This time, he could not afford to make mistakes.

"Please work," he murmured.

He released the catch. The bolt soared through the air and buried itself into the topmost part of the wall. Lee held his breath as he watched the rope uncoil like a snake and dangle against the side of the stone in a thread of silver. His jaw clenched. The rope had stopped just under halfway and would be impossible for him to reach from the ground. Just perfect.

Forcing himself to calm, he fixed a new bolt into place and shot the projectile into the stone just within reaching distance. A second followed a little higher up from the first, and then another and another. Sometimes he misjudged his aim, sometimes the arrows ricocheted off the stone, and sometimes he just had to wait so the guards he could see patrolling the wall would not be alerted to his presence from the noise. By the time the quiver was almost empty, he had created a zigzagging-like line of bolts leading to the bottom of the rope, like a ladder without rungs. It wasn't his chosen method of scaling a wall, but it would have to do.

Lee tucked away the crossbow, quiver and his pack into a small alcove near the precipice, which surrounded the city like a giant moat. All three were not exactly heavy, but they were still bulky enough to hinder his manoeuvrability. Best just to leave them here for now. He could come back to get his belongings later. Though he did remove his waterskin from the pack, which he stuffed into his tunic to join the Pai Sho tile and scrap of parchment. The dagger was safely tucked into his boot.

Satisfied that he had everything he needed, he turned to face the wall. "Here goes nothing," he muttered, and jumped to grab the first bolt.

The climb was not easy. It took all of his agility and strength to make it up his make-shift line of hand-holds, especially since his right shoulder kept twinging at inopportune moments and one of the bolts decided to slip free, almost sending him tumbling to the ground. But Lee was not to be deterred. He trusted in his instincts and soon made it to the rope, which he was able to scale much more quickly.

He paused when he got close to the top; soft footsteps alerted him to the fact the guard patrolling the section had come back. He gripped the rope and stuck close to wall, praying the guard would not look down. The seconds felt like hours. Sweat gathered on his brow behind the mask. Wasn't this guy ever going to move?

Eventually, the tap, tap of footsteps retreated again. Lee exhaled a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. He waited a moment longer before he clambered up the rest of the rope and landed in a crouch on the rampart. No shouts or alarms sounded. So far so good. He quickly untied the rope from the bolt and gathered it into a loop, which he then tied to his belt. It might come in handy again. There was nothing he could do about the bolts, but that was fine. Unless someone looked down from this particular spot on the rampart, they wouldn't even notice the metal spikes jutting out from the stone.

Now all he had to do was find the library.

Ducking low so as not to be seen, he headed away from the outer wall and towards the main part of the city. A few patrol guards got in his path, but he skirted around them so they wouldn't notice him. His instinct for stealth was really coming in handy; unfortunately, he had no clue where he was going. More often than not, his mind supplied him with an instinctive map of places. This time he had nothing. It seemed he had not made a habit of visiting Omashu in his past. He would just have to search the old-fashioned way and hope that he could find it before he was discovered by the Fire Nation.

So it was that Lee made his way over the rooftops, grateful for the compact nature of the city that allowed him to leap from building to building without any of those patrolling the ground noticing him. He frowned as he wondered why no one else but soldiers seemed to be wandering the streets. Perhaps there was a curfew in place. That would certainly explain the quiet but tense energy that emanated from the city.

He was just making his way past some scaffolding when he heard a strange rumbling noise. Turning in alarm, he saw a boy wearing an orange cape knock an avalanche of rocks away with a blast of wind. On the plaza below, two females—one who was holding a baby—and a group of soldiers stood watching in surprise. All of them would have been crushed had the boy not stepped in to help.

"The resistance!" the woman holding the baby exclaimed, pointing her finger at the boy.

Lee was stunned to see the younger girl in the red dress step forward and fan out her arms, releasing a flurry of small, arrow-like darts. The weapons headed straight for the boy with the staff. With rare grace, he dodged them all and then gestured at something behind him. Only then did Lee notice the other boy and girl, both clad in blue. A frown creased his brow as he watched the guards climb up the ladders to pursue the trio. The blue-clad girl managed to knock some of the guards off with waterbending, but then the same female in red rushed onto the platform with fresh weapons clutched in her hands, already aiming to attack.

Perhaps it was the fact that Lee knew Orange Cape had only been trying to help. Perhaps it was simply because he wasn't used to playing spectator. Either way, he found himself jumping down from his perch just as red-clad girl made to unleash another volley of darts. In one quick lunge, he grabbed her wrists and twisted her arms up, making the projectiles shoot harmlessly off to the side. Tawny eyes glared at him as he held her subdued, and for a moment he was struck by the familiarity of her angular, almost cat-like features. Was it possible that he had met this girl before?

Before he could ponder the matter further, she slid her foot between his and yanked back hard, shaking his balance. He recovered in an instant, but by then she had already slipped free of his grasp and was firing a hail of knives from the mechanisms tucked in her sleeves. His eyes widened behind the slits of his mask. There wasn't enough time to dodge the attack. She was too close, her weapons too fast.

"No!" someone yelled.

A wall of ice came up between him and the knives. He stepped back in surprise and then a hand latched around his wrist and started tugging.

"Come on!" the waterbender urged. "We have to get out of here!"

Lee didn't argue and followed her to where he could see Orange Cape and the other blue-clad boy fighting the last of the guards. Soon, it was just the four of them on the platform.

"You!" Orange Cape exclaimed, taking a step towards Lee. "Is it really—"

"Aang, we don't have time for this!" the waterbender interjected. "That girl with the throwing weapons is still coming after us."

As if on cue, a red-tinted knife flashed into view in the corner of Lee's eyes. He reached forward on instinct and pulled Aang out of the way just as the knife embedded itself into the scaffolding directly where he had been standing.

"That was close," Aang gasped, still leaning against Lee's chest.

Lee narrowed his eyes and released the boy's cape. He brought his swords out with a ring of steel. The girl in red was not going to give the trio a chance to escape if she could help it. She was determined, and she was ruthless too. Still, he'd immobilised her once. He could do it again. So he gestured for the three to run and stepped forward to meet his knife-wielding opponent.

"No, wait!" Aang exclaimed.

Before Lee could respond, the kid rushed forward and brought his staff around in a sweeping curve, creating a gust of wind that surged forth and crashed against the scaffolding to their right. Bits of metal and stone fell down in front of them. Debris and dust quickly blocked the path. Lee thought he might have heard the whirring sound of darts shooting through the air, but he didn't get the chance to warn the others. As he opened his mouth to speak, the ground opened up from underneath them and then they were plunging into the earth.

Someone yelped—maybe that boy in blue—but Lee was too shocked to even make a sound. It felt like he'd left his stomach back up on the surface. Then his back hit the ground with a thud and he realised the drop had been quite small. A second later someone landed on top of him. All the breath was knocked from his lungs. Groaning, he sat up and saw Aang sprawled on his lap. For a moment they just stared at each other: Lee irritated while the young boy was wide-eyed. Then two scrawny arms wrapped around Lee's chest, pulling him into a tight hug.

"It really is you!" Aang exclaimed, still clutching Lee as if his life depended on it. "I was so worried! I didn't know what had happened to you, and then I started hearing rumours that you were dead and I—"

A man cleared his throat. Lee would have been amused by how quickly Aang froze upon noticing the four earthbenders, but in that moment he just felt too shaken. It was one thing to sense that there were gaps in his memories; it was quite another to have some random boy hug him and babble on in a bewildering rush of words as if they had always known each other. Even now, Lee could feel his mind throbbing in twinges of pain from the effort of trying to make sense of it all, yet there were no images to help him connect the pieces. He was just ... lost.

Lee barely noticed when Aang got off him, though somehow he found himself back on his feet. Strange. He didn't remember standing up.

He rubbed at his temples, trying to ease the headache that scattered his thoughts. He felt so disorientated. Voices echoed around him in a buzz of noise, but he couldn't make out the words. It wasn't until he became aware of an insistent tugging on his sleeve that clarity returned, allowing him to focus on the young boy standing beside him.

"You okay?" Aang asked.

Lee stared at the arrow tattooed onto his head. "You're the Avatar, aren't you?"

Aang blinked. "Uh, yeah."

"And we know each other?"

"Of course." Aang nudged him in the ribs. "You're the Blue Spirit."

Lee let out a breath that he didn't realise he had been holding. "Right," he said flatly. "The Blue Spirit."

Aang scrunched his face in confusion. "Is this some kind of game or something?"

Lee was about to respond when they were interrupted by the blue-clad warrior.

"Hey, Aang, I know you're happy to see the Blue What's-His-Face again, but Yan says he's not going to wait any longer. We need to keep moving."

"Sorry, Sokka," Aang said with a sheepish grin. "We're coming now." He glanced back at Lee. "You are coming with us, right?"

Lee nodded. Not that he had much of a choice in the matter. It wasn't as if he could earthbend his way out of the tunnels.

Aang beamed in approval and darted ahead to join the waterbender and the four earthbenders. There was a lemur flying in circles above their heads, chittering in a loud, irritable way as if to tell them to hurry up. Lee frowned. He didn't remember seeing the creature earlier.

"Hey."

Lee glanced back at the warrior. Sokka, did the Avatar say his name was?

"I know Aang thinks the world of you," Sokka said in a low voice, "but we've had people help us in the past only to turn on us a second later." He leaned forward, pointing a threatening finger at Lee's face. "I've got my eye on you, Blue Mask."

Not waiting for a response, Sokka stalked away to join the rest of the group. Lee repressed a sigh before following. In truth, he was not surprised that Sokka had tried to intimidate him. He probably would be just as mistrustful. Still, Lee did have to wonder what he was getting himself into by going with these people.

Hugs and now threats? He hated to think what would be next.

If you're wondering why I have allowed so much time to pass before Aang and co. reached Omashu, here is my explanation:

1) Azula meets up with Zuko and Iroh. Then she dithers around on her boat for a while before she decides to ditch the royal procession and find Ty Lee; however, even after all of that she still somehow manages to make it to Omashu around the same time as Aang and the others. Unless she has some secret powers of deduction and speed going on, that's not going to happen in a couple of days.

2) Aang and co. are travelling via a flying bison. This suggests to me that the Earth Kingdom base was a lot farther away from Omashu than the show lets on, for the same reasons I explained above.

3) If we're to believe events are happening simultaneously, Zuko suddenly having hair in the Cave of Two Lovers episode suggests at least some time has passed, otherwise he'd still be sporting his monk hairdo.

4) Nothing to do with canon, but I really just wanted to have the Blue Spirit run into the Gaang in Omashu.