Thanks everyone who has followed/favorited/reviewed/read this story! It was a bran child that sort of wrote itself. Eventually, I will add a Part II to this story, but, as of now, I only have three chapters written. It will (kind of) follow the Korra storyline just about as much as it is followed in Part I. Keep watching for a Part II added on to this story!

Shades of Red

The trek up the mountain was one of the most difficult things I'd ever done in my life—and that included dressing up as a boy and hiding out on Iroh's ship for nine months. I'd never experienced such a coldness before. I'd heard of snow and ice and freezing rain, but, until I had to wade through it and be pelted by it, I'd never experienced it firsthand.

I slipped for the fourth time on the ice and fell on my already-bruised backside. I let out a groan and wanted to lie down and just let the snow cover me. That was too cold, though. I was so cold that I was starting not to feel it. I was thankful, but I figured that it was probably not a good thing that I couldn't feel my toes anymore.

Something nudged me in the face. I swatted at it, but it nudged me again and a familiar plume of smoke was blown into my face. I coughed, trying not to get my hopes up, but the familiar beak in front of me told me that it was true.

"T-T-T-Tag-gon!" I stuttered as I threw myself around his neck. He ruffled his feathers in greeting and let out a little chortle to something behind me. I turned to look to see three female dragon-moose just standing there, looking at us expectantly. "You p-pig d-dog."

He nudged me and I couldn't let go of his warm hide. I'd tried to warm my body with a "breath of fire," but I'd ended up burning my throat and it hurt even worse than it had earlier in the day when I'd almost drowned. It felt so good to be near something that had warmth.

"Can you take me up the mountain, boy?" I asked into his ear. I knew that he couldn't understand me but I was losing strength and needed to get up there. "I need to find Iroh. Can you help me find him?"

Tagon bent his long neck and pushed me up onto his back. I clutched for dear life as he and his herd of female dragon-moose charged up the mountain without a care in the world. I figured that I may have passed out a few times on the ride up but I tried to stay awake.

The sounds of human voices pulled me out of a deep sleep. Tagon bit me lightly and woke me. I shook my head a few times and saw a group of Equalists coming towards me. For a moment, all I felt was panic. I kept seeing the killers wipe out my entire village. But then I shook myself out of it and got angry—I was strong enough to fight back, this time. Iroh had taught me how to protect myself and how to protect others.

"Who goes there?" a voice called out from their group. They must have heard the animals crunching through the snow. "This is a restricted area. Show yourself!"

I'd already disappeared from Tagon's back by the time the Equalists rounded the corner. "Just some dragon-moose. You're paranoid. No one is going to find us up here."

"I swore I saw some footprints earlier."

"Those were ours, you idiot."

I sneaked through the snow as quietly as I possibly could. I kept low to the ground, hoping—praying—that I would be able to take the three of them out by myself. The first one went down without knowing I was even there. The second one had just turned around in time to see me take out the first, but he went down with less than a gasp from his lips. The third one pulled out those electric rods and smirked. I couldn't see the rest of his face, which was a good thing, because it made him less human. I didn't think I'd be able to do it if he looked more human.

Small bursts of fire shot out at him, but he dodged in a way that made me seem inflexible. I kicked and punched and dodged, but nothing seemed to work. I was too scared to get too close—he'd take me out in a heartbeat. He moved too fast for me to attack from a distance.

So I went up in the trees.

"You're hiding, little girl," the man growled in a voice that I thought I'd heard before. I thought that it was too much of a coincidence that he was one of the men who attacked my village. I was just projecting my hatred onto him. "Come out, come out, wherever you are..."

One blast of fire blew right past him, hitting his left bicep. He growled in frustration and put his electric rod to the tree. I felt a literal shock but my body had already been shocked to death so it didn't hurt nearly as bad. If anything, it gave me a jolt of energy.

I jumped down on the man's shoulders and wrapped my legs around his neck. My hands grasped the rods in either of his hands and I tore them from him, ripping them off of his suit. "No," he shouted, grabbing my legs, "you'll overload the generator!"

I didn't know what that meant, but, the last time something had overloaded, I'd been cooked inside and out. I jumped off of him in enough time to see lightening arc across his body. He fell down to the ground, little blue lights sparking off of him every so often.

What did I do? I'd never killed someone before. It felt like my chest was tight and it was hard to breathe. Tears fell down my face but I didn't feel sad. I looked at his body—his dead, lifeless body—and I felt conflicted. I felt angry with myself, but I shouldn't have. I'd just protected myself. The other two men, I'd just incapacitated. This guy, though, I'd killed him. His kind killed my family. What does that make me? Was it revenge?

My conflicted feelings were starting to take over. I turned back and went over to the other two men, deciding to use their uniforms to disguise my appearance into the compound. I'd done something similar, once, I didn't see why I couldn't do it again. Still, stripping two guys out of their clothes seemed a little wrong. Won't they get cold?

I couldn't let myself be worried about them. While, yes, they were human beings, they were also a part of something horrible and evil. They could live without their clothes for a while and I hadn't killed them, just knocked them out for a while. They'd wake up before they froze to death. I hope.

The uniform was too big but the helmet fit well. I took the key ring with me, just in case, and hoped that there weren't any secret codes I'd need to know to get in. I pet Tagon and told him to hide, but not too far away. "I may need you to escape, buddy."

The front of the complex was rather simple—nothing but a guard post up front surrounded by fence posts with no fence. I didn't want to risk sneaking in when there was obviously something wrong with the security. Besides, I had gone through the trouble of undressing the gross men from earlier—I wasn't going to let that go to waste.

"Milkan, you're back already? Did you find the disturbance?"

I cleared my throat and stood straight and tall, figuring that the Equalists trained their men somewhat like a military. Act confident and no one will think the wiser. "Yeah, just a herd of dragon-moose."

"You sound like you're getting a cold. We're set to fly in a half an hour so get some food and tea in you." The man didn't even hesitate to let me in. I sighed in relief and waltzed straight in through the front doors of the Equalist complex. If it's this easy to get in, I wonder how easy it will be to return... I found it strange that I hadn't seen hide nor hair of Iroh or the Avatar's friends.

"...Did you hear?" I heard one of the passing Equalists say, "Sato has a General locked away in hanger B!" Well, that was easy.

I ran to the hanger, ready to save my general, but there was a man in there with a few Equalists. I didn't want to blow my cover. The man was looking into what I assumed was a cell where Iroh was. I'll be there soon, General! Hold on a little longer!

"Good. Annihilate the fleet." My heart raced in my chest when I heard those words. No...not Bumi's fleet! Iroh would have told them to wait at Red Sand Island...how do they know? "That's right, General. I intercepted your message to Commander Bumi. I know exactly where they're hiding."

The old man stepped away and boarded a plane with the few Equalists that had been there. Now's my chance! I darted out of the shadows and bent down to the prisoner's level. Inside, General Iroh as well as two others—an attractive man and a beautiful woman—were being held prisoners with their hands behind their backs.

"What do you want?" Iroh asked in a voice so angry that it physically hurt me. It felt so nice to see his face again after so long. "You've already trapped us, what more do you want?!"

I lifted up my goggles and held up the cell keys, jingling them for effect. "Sorry I took so long, sir. A sinking ship kind of halts a girl's escape plans."

Iroh's eyes widened in astonishment. He was only silent for a moment. In that moment, I tried five keys to no avail. "Huo! I thought...I thought you were dead!" So did I, sir. So did I. "Why did you come back? You're risking your freedom—"

"I'm your second. I'm supposed to risk anything for you." There were at least twenty keys to get through and I'd only managed half. All of the planes were out of the hangar and I was running out of time! "Now stop distracting me." The thirteenth one luckily unlocked the door. I ran in and used a concentrated flame to burn their bindings off. "Move it, people!"

We rushed outside to see that most of the planes had already taken off down the runway. Iroh turned to me and, without skipping a beat, commanded, "Huo, you take the left!"

I smiled over to him. He was treating me like his second again. And, while I shouldn't have taken the time, I couldn't help but feel relieved. I smiled and said, "Always, Iroh."

He met my eyes and smiled in a way that warmed my heart. It only lasted a split second before we took action. We both took off, him flying through the air to jump on an ascending plane and I skating across the ground with sheets of lightening. I reached a different plane before it took off and jumped in. A quick tap of the man's neck and he was passed out from the electricity that flew through his body. I huffed as I picked him up and threw him out of the cockpit.

My only problem was that I had no clue how to run an airplane. I looked helplessly at the controls and then looked ahead of me to see the face of a cliff swiftly approaching. Seeing no other option, I jumped from the plane before it careened off into the vast nothingness below. A second later, I could hear as the plane's gasoline and bombs exploded in the forest below.

I looked up in time to see that Iroh had thrown the pilot of his plane off the side. Then the plane spun wildly out of control. I screamed Iroh's name but nothing I could have done would have helped him. The male from inside the prison, obviously an Earthbender, apparently having stopped a few other planes, came up behind me and stopped me from flying off the cliff in rescue of my commanding officer.

Not again! I can't do this again! I can't go through this again! The world was going white again as I developed tunnel vision. Deep down, I knew that I was having an anxiety attack, but I couldn't stop it anymore than I could have stopped Iroh going down in a big fiery plane carash.

"He'll be fine but we need your help! Big, menacing mechasuits are about to smoosh us all to bits and some Lighteningbending would be pretty great right about now!"

I took some deep breaths and looked into his pretty green eyes. "P-please, tell me we'll go find him after this!"

"I give you the Bolin promise, the best kind of promise there is," he said with a charming, geeky smile. I didn't have time to blush at that cute smile because he bent some earth away from us and propelled us towards the bunker where I could see that the pretty girl had taken control of one of the suits and was single-handedly taking on three other suits.

I pushed my grief down and away. There was a later time that I could worry about Iroh. Until then, I was going to follow his orders. "Bolin, you take the one on the right. I'll take the left. Pretty can handle the other, I'm sure." He nodded and used his Earthbending to propel me upwards and to the left.

Using my height advantage, I came down hard on the mechasuit with a fist full of lightening. It cracked the glass faceplate and indented all of the metal all around it. I ignored the glass lodged in my hand and the blood pouring from it. The man inside looked up at me with a face full of terror, but all I could see was my great-grandfather's face as he bled out in front of me. I could only see Iroh's face when he was about to be killed. I could only see Tagon at the bottom of the ocean, Kojo's father next to him. I could only see Zargo, bleeding out on the shore. I could only see Sakari's vacant blue eyes staring upward into nothing. I could only see my father, one of their metal rods through his stomach, his dead eyes peering up at me and his lips whispering for me to run.

I snapped the belts strapping him down somehow. Everything was fuzzy as I grabbed the man's shirt and pulled him straight out of the mechasuit. I looked into his frightened hazel eyes, pulled back a fist, and...

Everything cleared up and all I saw was a man pleading for his life. A man who had been ordered to attack others whether or not he personally believed in the orders. A man who could have had a family...but had probably killed before. Just as I had. But it was different...wasn't it?

"I'm not like you," I whispered, my fist crackling with lightening. I touched his neck, only knocking him out, and threw him to the side. My heart was heavy and I felt ready to cry, but, once again, it wasn't the time. I pushed every emotion down into the depths of myself and tried to look composed.

I turned around to see that Pretty's mechasuit was in the hangar destroying airplanes. Bolin was still fighting his, but that was quickly over as soon as a giant polar bear-dog ran through and took it out in a single swipe of her paws. I hadn't heard another suit coming up behind me until Tagon's battle cry filled the air. I turned to see a mechasuit being ripped apart by four dragon-moose.

"Good boy." The dragon-moose preened and chortled, smoke exiting his maw. "Hey, Earthbender," I called out as energy still crackled around me, "is there anything else Iroh wanted you to do while we were out here?"

"Nope," he said with a cute, rougish smile. He saluted me. I let his sloppy form pass for the moment. "Mission accomplished, madame Lighteningbender!"

I smiled back and nodded seriously. "Alright, then. Let's go find the General!"

III

Iroh slid down from Amon's banner slowly. He was pretty sure that he had at least one broken rib and two or three that were bruised. His arm was aching where he'd been burned. His fingers were practically frozen in claws from holding onto the plane controls. He was aching and tired...but Republic City was safe.

"Out of my way!" a voice yelled from the crowd that was surrounding him. Most of them were frightened citizens, but some were his soldiers. Others were reporters and first responders from the police department and hospital. But that voice wasn't one of them.

A woman stepped out of the crowd. She was wearing an Equalist suit, complete with burns and scratches and dirt. A burn peeked out from under the neck of the uniform. Her tan eyes met his and her face melted from stern soldier to caring woman. She ran up to him and her arms were around him before he could even think of why he shouldn't let her touch him.

Her face buried itself in his neck. "Iroh," she breathed, her breasts pushing up against his chest and reminding him of who she was, "thank Agni you're alive. I was so worried..."

Iroh's arms wound themselves around her and he allowed himself to melt into her embrace. He realized that she'd saved his life more times than he'd ever be able to repay. What did he care who her great-great grandfather was? Koh, his had almost demolished the Southern Water Tribe and the Earth Kingdom. Who was he to judge on lineage?

The breasts against his chest were what still held him back from saying anything to her. She had lied to him about who she was, from her gender all the way to the lineage that he told himself that he didn't care about anymore. He didn't know if he could ever forgive her for lying to him, though. And still, she was a wanted fugitive in the Fire Nation for everything she'd done.

He grasped the back of her head and hugged her tighter. "Huo...you came back." He wondered why she'd come back the second time—he would have to take her into custody again. She knew that.

She pulled back and he was lost in those tan eyes full of golden and chocolate flakes and tears, Agni, he couldn't take tears. "I have been trained for the last year to protect you at all costs. I wasn't sure if you'd made it when the ships were sinking, but I found you after. And then you flew off in an airplane you didn't know how to fly so what did you expect me to do?!"

Iroh was surprised to see the anger filling her eyes. When Huo the boy had gotten angry, it'd been cute and so very not menacing. Huo the woman's anger, however, had him wanting to take a few steps back to get away from the crackling air she emanated. "I didn't expect you to come back to a prison sentence!"

There was silence for a moment. Iroh noticed that most of the people around him had dispersed. Huo put her hands against his waist and he hissed. She motioned for him to sit down and started tearing pieces of her uniform in long strips. Her small, deft hands pulled his shirt off and she started wrapping his waist so tightly that it ached.

As she tended to him, he couldn't help but look at her. She was smudged in dirt, ash, and some blood. Her hair was down around her shoulders, wild and free. And her face, round but with sharp cheekbones, looked anguished. There were cuts and bruises all over her face and neck, not counting the residual burns from the engine room. She was biting her plump lower lip.

"Equalists killed my father," she said simply, her eyes watering but not spilling over. He took her news in silently so as to let her finish. "And my great-grandfather. My mother died when I was twelve. I never knew my grandparents. I'm all that's left of my line. I didn't know what to do until I joined the United Forces as your ship's boy. I finally realized where I belonged...I don't think that's changed just because I'm a woman." She tied off the end of his wrappings harshly, making him groan. "Sorry." He wasn't sure if she really was. "All I'm saying is...is that you have the power to decide whether or not I really came back to a prison sentence."

Prince Iroh stared at the woman in front of him. Small things she said seemed to always impact him the most. She seemed to always make so much sense. Whether it was helping out an orphaned child or giving some food to a homeless man, she was selfless and always put others first. If she'd wanted to hurt him, she'd had plenty of chances to do so in their many months together.

Iroh placed his hands on the smooth wrap that she'd tirelessly put on him. Everything she did seemed tireless. Everything she did was to help him and just because she'd tried to escape her past didn't mean that she deserved to be in prison for the rest of her life.

He put one hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him with hope in those tan eyes. "Huo... I hereby pardon you of any crime you've been charged with in the past year."

She tried to hug him. "Thank you so—"

"That being said..." He held her back. Her eyes looked downcast, now, but still held a tiny sliver of hope. "You are never to lie to me again."

The smile that appeared on her face warmed his heart ever so slightly. "Does that mean I'm still your second?"

"Yes and no." She waited on baited breath. He thought on Hamin and how he'd gone down with the ship and he knew what he had to do. "You're still my second, but 'ship's boy' doesn't quite have the same ring to it. How about...adviser?"

The feminine squeal that came out of her surprised him, but not as much as the flying hug. He groaned from the pain she caused and she instantly pulled back and apologized. "Sorry, sorry!" Her arms were still around his neck but she looked him in the eye and took her body off of his. "Iroh, you won't regret this. I promise."

The sincerity in her attractive face made him pause. I hope I won't, Huo. Then, a thought crossed his mind. He gently moved out of her arms and stared at her a little longer. Attractive? How... "Just answer one question for me." She gave him a 'go on' look that seemed a little hesitant. "How in Agni's name did you pass for a boy on my ship for so long?"

She gave off an incredibly feminine laugh. "It wasn't easy, let me tell you! It's actually a long story..."

End Part I