Sorry for the long wait peeps! I went away on holiday for a few days and when I came back, randomly became a little more popular than usual... probably because I had to cancel all plans from last week because I was grounded and the people I'd missed out on seeing all wanted to see me at once... anyway, all good, back now. Here I am and here's the next chapter. Thanks to everyone who reviewed ;) Remember, five (5) reviews, or no update.
So, read, review and most of all, enjoy! ^_^
15. Location
As soon as they figured out there was no way to track down Jun the bounty hunter on their own, Zuko spoke to some authorities.
"She was a bounty hunter, which means that she goes to the authorities with whichever crooks she catches so she can claim her gold. If we can find out where she last was when she caught the last bounty, we'll at least have a starting point," Zuko said, trying to convince himself more than the others that they'd actually end up getting somewhere with this. "Anyway, if we're lucky, they might even be able to tell us who she's after next and where they might be."
"Good job, Firefly," Toph smiled.
While they all waited for word from the authorities about the possible whereabouts of Jun, they sat in the kitchen in a very strained silence.
"So..." Sokka started.
"Sokka, please don't talk, I still have a headache from earlier," Hakoda complained.
The Water Tribe boy huffed indignantly and muttered something under his breath.
"What was that?" Bato asked harshly.
"Nothing."
"No, Sokka, do come on and tell us," Bato prompted.
"I said –"
"Look, I don't care what you said or that he wants to know! I'm the Fire Lord and I say shut up!" Zuko growled in frustration.
Suki, Ty Lee, Sokka, Hakoda, Iroh and Bato all blinked at him in shock. Toph snorted.
"Jeez, talk about P.M.S-ing..."
Zuko's forehead made contact with the table and he groaned.
Admiral Shang and Long Feng had a synchronized walk. They put the same foot forward at the same time, stood straight and tall with their shoulders back and their faces tilted upwards in arrogance. The only difference was that Long Feng folded his hands in his sleeves when Shang did not.
Shang let Long Feng enter Aang's holding cell first.
"Avatar," Long Feng greeted him.
The boy lifted his head up to peer at the man. There were dark rings under his eyes and his face was pale. He was malnourished and dehydrated. It hurt to move and it felt like his arms had come right out of their sockets, and considering the way he was hanging from the ceiling, it didn't look like they'd be positioned back into the sockets any times soon, unless Shang and Long Feng intended on releasing him... which Aang doubted.
"What do you want?" he asked bitterly, looking the man dead in the face.
Long Feng smirked. It took a lot of courage to do something like look him in the eyes. He had to admit, the kid had guts.
It was a shame they would rot in due time.
"Just thought I'd let you know that the two young ladies we plucked from amongst your friends back in the Fire Nation are starting to wonder why they are here."
These two young ladies caught Aang's interest. "Who have you captured?! Let them go!" he shouted, face contorting in pain as he threw his weight against the chains. He choked as he cut his own airways off momentarily.
"Now, now, Avatar. It's just the Water Tribe girl who married the Fire Lord," Shang said. "Unfortunately, there was another girl with her when our servant went in to capture her, and we ended up with both of them... you're familiar with Lady Mai, yes?"
Aang gasped, "You've got Katara and Mai?! Let them go!" Aang shouted, his voice ringing in his own ears. The two men before him remained indifferent. "What do you want from us?!"
"We want the world at our hands," Long Feng answered, smirking. "We want to be in control of everything."
"With you and the Fire Lord's wife in our hands, we are so much closer than we've ever been before," Shang said.
"Unfortunately, it seems that your friends have a little bit too much information on our servant and it is possible that they know who he is, which means we can no longer use him for the part of the mission we were using him for earlier – that was kidnapping you." Long Feng rolled his neck smoothly, letting the joints crack before her returned his gaze to Aang. "Do you have any suggestions as to who we could hypnotize instead of Windu?"
As if on cue, the Water Tribe boy they had made their slave strode into the room, eyes on the ground and completely void of thought or emotion. It was as if he was a zombie, and Aang cringed at the thought, remembering Joo Dee and Jet when they had been hypnotized.
"Yea, I suggest you let us all go – you have no idea what you're doing!"
"Actually, that is quite incorrect. We know exactly what we are doing," Shang smirked. "We are looking for someone we can hypnotize who can get into the North Pole and assassinate the Northern Water Tribe's Chief without being suspected or caught. We are also looking for someone to keep tabs on Chief Hakoda and wait for an opportunity to take him out too. We're also looking for someone to kill King Bumi. Along with a number of other officials and nobles we'd like to have eliminated."
"You'll never get away with this," Aang hissed.
"So far we have been pretty successful. I don't think it's going to go downhill anytime soon."
"You'd be surprised."
"So would you. Did you know that Fire Lady Katara carries the child of Fire Lord Zuko?" Long Feng asked, looking right into the young monk's eyes.
A wave of jealousy washed over Aang momentarily and he looked to the ground and squeezed his eyes shut so that he could calm himself.
On the mention of pregnancies, a flicker or pain crossed Admiral Shang's face. But Long Feng wasn't paying him any attention and it went unnoticed. When he recovered his composure, he looked at Long Feng, slightly curious about how he knew.
"How do you know?" Aang asked. Shang tried to zone out.
"Vibrations are a very unique thing. You can learn a lot about a person through them." Aang stared worriedly at him. "Of course, nobody here is as good at it as your dear friend Toph. But we're practicing."
"You're ... you can't... I mean, you..."
"What's the matter, Avatar?" Long Feng mocked, bringing his face right up to the young boy's.
Aang didn't answer. He pressed his lips firmly together and glared daggers into the other man's face.
Smirking, Long Feng turned to walk away and Admiral Shang followed him. At the door, Long Feng turned around again. "Oh, and one more thing," he said. "What do you think we should do with Mai? Shall we just kill her, because we do not need her, or should we keep her for our own... pleasures?"
Aang growled in frustration and disgust and struggled against his chains again. But Long Feng and Shang disappeared unharmed.
"Fire Lord Zuko," a messenger from the police bowed as he entered the room. "The authorities have found a lead on the whereabouts of Jun, the bounty hunter."
Zuko stood up and smirked, "Finally. Tell whoever sent you I will meet them to collect details immediately."
The man scurried away to fulfil the Fire Lord's orders. Zuko turned to the others, "We're going to find them."
When the walls shifted to create an opening in the cave, both girls were on their feet and in fighting stances immediately, despite the fact that they were unarmed.
"Well, it has been a long while since I have seen either of you girls," Long Feng greeted them, stepping towards them. Admiral Shang followed closely behind him.
"What do you want, Long Feng?" Katara demanded, glaring at him.
"We just wanted you, my dear Fire Lady," he laughed mockingly, spreading his arms as if he would embrace her. But he did not get that close to her.
"Why?" she asked coldly.
Long Feng chuckled lowly, "Because having you here, along with the Avatar, will send the world into chaos. And it puts me in a position where I can manipulate quite a number of people and use them to my advantage." He stopped for a moment and his smirk widened. "I know that having you here will bring Fire Lord Zuko here. I'd like to use him to help me take over the world before I kill him, and the rest of you. I mean, I could do it all on my own, but why make things difficult when they could be so easy?"
"You're sick. And your plan won't work!" she spat, her voice raising an octave.
Long Feng smirked, feeling satisfied, "You don't even believe your own words, Katara."
The waterbender shut her mouth and swallowed at the dry lump in her throat. Long Feng chuckled quietly – he'd won.
"As for you, Lady Mai," he said, turning to the other woman. "I have absolutely no need for you. You were only brought here because you were with Katara when Windu attacked her and we couldn't afford to have you running off to tell the others and give our game away. What do you think we should do with her, Admiral?"
Long Feng did not turn around to look at Shang, but the Admiral answered with a perfectly straight face, "Allow me to suggest that we keep her for... pleasuring purposes."
It was evident that Mai's body stiffened at the thought – she knew exactly what he meant. And she didn't like it one bit.
Much to her surprise, Katara stepped in front of her defensively, "You'll have to go through me if you want to touch her!" she hissed.
Admiral Shang smirked widely and let a laugh escape his lips, "And you think that will be terribly hard?"
Katara did not move, but both of the men knew they were terrified.
With a click of his fingers, Long Feng had summoned Windu to the room. His eyes, void of anything human, bored into Katara's and she shook her head slowly, pitying what had happened to him – what they were doing to him.
Windu had a club in one hand. Swinging it towards her was enough to make Katara step back to avoid letting it make contact with her head, but she had moved enough for Shang to grab Mai and Windu kept his place between them.
"Get your hands off her!" Katara shouted. Mai did what she could to fight Shang off, but it wasn't enough.
"You return her after you've had your fun, Admiral," Long Feng drawled. "I'll retrieve her when I feel the urge."
"As you wish," Shang smirked, dragging the girl away.
"Mai! You sick bastards! Let her go!" Katara tried to get past Windu, but he was far too strong and pushed her back so that she fell to the floor.
By the time Katara was on her feet again, she was alone.
As much as she didn't like Mai at that point in time, she could never wish for something as horrible as what that man was about to do to her.
"No..."
Panic was coursing through her body as she struggled against the grasp of the man who had, once upon a time, raped one of her best friends, and was about to do the same to her. Fear blocked out her logical thinking and tears of fright came to her eyes.
Mai was use to being able to remain at least seemingly indifferent to the goings on around her. But this situation was too extreme to be taken lightly.
As hard as she tried, she could not get away from him. He was far too strong.
Agni, help me...
Jun had last been seen in the Northern regions of the Earth Kingdom. Once that had been confirmed, the group came together to decide how they'd get there.
"I can arrange for ostrich-horses or komodo-rhinos to get us from here to there, but that might take a bit of time, so –"
"So forget it – we've got Appa!" Sokka reminded him.
"Oh... right."
"But we can't all fit on Appa!" Ty Lee pointed out.
There was a silence between them as they all looked around at each other, hoping for the resolve to the problem to jump out at them.
"We won't need to," Iroh began. "We can't all leave. Somebody has got to stay and take care of things here."
Zuko's eyes widened, "Uncle –"
"Go on and save your beloved, my Nephew," the retired general smiled. "You can win your heart back while you're at it."
Sokka, Hakoda and Bato stiffened at that and Sokka cleared his throat loudly.
"Win their trust back too."
"I will, thank you, Uncle."
"And Hakoda and Bato will stay behind with me," Iroh explained.
"We will?" the two said men asked in union.
"Yes," Iroh nodded. "These kids" – Iroh looked at all five of them – "are capable of finding Fire Lady Katara, Lady Mai and Avatar Aang on their own. They have already accomplished great things. Our time to shine ended long ago – let us let them continue!"
After a moment, Hakoda and Bato nodded.
"Alright, you guys can take care of things yourself," Hakoda nodded. "Good luck."
"Come on guys!" Ty Lee cheered enthusiastically. "Let's go!"
They all rushed to get their bags together quickly, only taking the essentials so that they could survive. Within the hour, they were all gathered around Appa in the large stable on the edge of the city which Zuko had had constructed especially for the Bison. Zuko and Sokka (grudgingly) worked together to get his saddle on is back and secure it. Then, everybody piled on and with a map handy and the three older men waving them off, Sokka said, "Yip-yip!" and the Appa soared up into the sky.
Okie dokie, and there you have it, my peeps! Chapter 15. I do apologize, once again, for how long this took to write – on top of going away for a few days and then having friends hassle me to hang out with them, I had a bit of a writer's block and lack of motivation. But there you go, I did it ^_^
Let me know what you thought and remember, I need five (5) reviews before I can update. Love ya's all. ^_^
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