A/N: It's here, it's finally here. The long wait is over. We can finally enjoy the Legend of Korra: Book 2!
On a microscopically less important note, this story is finally in Season 3. Unless something drastic happens there should be an update shortly after each new episode of Korra.
Chapter 27: The Deception
Near the mountains west of Ba Sing Se was a permanent Fire Nation military outpost called Minara, from which the majority of military campaigns for the eastern Earth Kingdom were launched. A small city in its own right, thousands of civilian colonists provided many essential services for the soldiers. A low wall surrounded the military buildings and defined the outpost's official borders, but many rows of tents spread out from the walls to house the civilian population. At the very center was a metal tower that overlooked the outpost, intended for the generals that managed the campaigns.
On a balcony in the tower, Prince Zuko gazed upon a gathered crowd below filled with soldiers and civilians alike. Everyone was required to hear the announcement Zuko was going to make, as there were many rumors about the Air Nomad that Zuko had brought with him. "Attention!" Zuko said, making his voice as loud as possible. "Our new guest is currently in isolation, to help ease his transition. And when Aang emerges, he is to be shown every courtesy." Zuko paused to let the message sink in, seeing many of the people whispering to each other. He held up a hand to tell them he wasn't finished. "And the first to address him as Avatar Aang, will have their tongue burned off."
That warning silenced the entire crowd, until Zuko turned around to walk inside the tower. Just inside the doors was Princess Azula, leaning her back against the wall after listening to her brother's little speech. "This is a bad idea, and you know it," Azula warned.
"I'll admit it's risky, but the payoff should be worth it," Zuko said, walking past Azula. He heard her start walking behind him. "Is the evidence ready?"
"Yes," Azula answered, following Zuko into a stairwell and headed down. "But are you certain he must know about the massacre?"
"He's going to find out about it at some point," Zuko reasoned, walking down the stairs into the basement. "I'd prefer that Aang hears a version that puts us in a good light."
Just outside the bottom of the stairs was a long hallway that composed the basement, having several rooms behind metal doors. Walking from the other end was a Fire Sage, summoned from one of the temples in the Fire Nation. Like all sages he wore red robes with a red cap covering his hair, leaving only his face and a short brown goatee exposed. The sage was carrying a large bag filled with various items, on his way to return them to the Fire Nation for safekeeping.
"Prince Zuko, Princess Azula," the sage greeted, making a polite bow.
"Sage Shiyu," Zuko greeted back. "Have you tested our new airbending friend?"
"I have," Shiyu answered. He carefully set down his large bag and opened it, letting Zuko and Azula see many different toys and trinkets inside. "The Air Nomads tested their young by having them all play with the same collection of toys, taking notice whenever a child would choose a relic of a past Avatar."
"And those relics are among those toys?" Azula asked.
"Indeed," Shiyu said, nodding his head. He reached into the bag to remove four specific toys, a clay turtle, a wind-up propeller, a wooden monkey, and a hand drum. "These belonged to past Avatars."
"Get to the point," Azula ordered.
"Aang chose wrong," Shiyu answered. He put away the relics and took four new toys out of the bag, a stuffed tortoise, a wind sock, a stone ape, and a finger trap. "These were all made within the last five years, and Aang chose them instead of the relics."
"What does that tell us?" Zuko asked.
"If his identity wasn't obvious, I'd say we have the wrong Air Nomad," Shiyu answered, putting away the toys and closing the bag. "This is only a theory, but what you did in Ba Sing Se might have severed his connection to his past lives."
"Is that even possible?" Azula asked.
Shiyu shrugged. "Honestly, I have no idea. All I have to go on is speculation. There's no record of anything like this happening before."
"I see," Zuko said. "That will be all Shiyu."
"Of course," Shiyu said, picking up his bag and walking away.
Zuko and Azula resumed their walk down the long hallway, heading for a room at the end and entering it. That room had thick metal walls with cushioned insulation, preventing any sound from getting in or out. Inside the room Aang was lying back on a tilted chair and next to him was Mai. She was sewing on Aang's sleeve, adding the Fire Nation insignia to the shoulders.
"Welcome to the winning team," Mai said when she was finished.
Aang saw Zuko and Azula entering the room. "Hey there Ku… I'm sorry… Zuko."
"Don't be," Zuko said. "It's not your fault that I resemble the friend you lost."
"So what have I missed?" Aang asked, getting up from the chair.
"First, let's start with the last thing you do remember," Zuko suggested.
"Well the monks wanted to see me in private," Aang answered, remembering how they interrupted his attempt to show the other airbenders how to use the airsphere technique he invented. "It was just me in that room with them, and they were going to tell me something very important." Aang tried to remember what happened next. "Then nothing, nothing at all."
Zuko put a hand to his chin and thought about Aang's last memory. He guessed that the monks had told Aang that he was the Avatar on that day, and found it odd that the memory loss would start at that exact moment. "The monks must have seen it coming."
"Seen what coming?" Aang asked.
"Come," Zuko said, turning towards the door. "There's something you need to see."
Together Zuko and Aang left the room, leaving Azula and Mai behind. They climbed up the tower's stairs and entered a corridor halfway up it. Zuko slowed his pace to a leisurely walk as he led Aang around the tower. "A lot has changed in the world, you've been gone a very long time," Zuko explained.
"How long?" Aang asked, not liking where Zuko was going with the conversation.
"A hundred years," Zuko said.
"What!" Aang shouted. "That's impossible!"
"And yet, here you are," Zuko reasoned. He didn't go into any details about how Aang could have remained a kid after all this time, as that was something that he didn't know either. Down the hallway he saw the evidence set up for the ruse, an old tapestry on the wall currently covered behind a curtain. "You were hidden away all this time."
"Why?" Aang asked.
"Because the Avatar's careless actions led to this," Zuko said, reaching the tapestry and pulling off the curtain covering it.
When Aang saw the revealed tapestry he gasped in shock. It depicted the sky ablaze in the presence of Sozin's Comet, and the four Air Temples burning. "No…" Aang muttered.
"Avatar Ong started a war with the Fire Nation, seeking to expand the Western Air Temple into our territory," Zuko lied. "For betraying his purpose in the world, the spirits sent the comet to give the Fire Nation the power to defend itself."
Aang dropped to his knees, fearing what had happened to his people. "Why would the Avatar do this?" Aang questioned. "War isn't our way."
"The Avatar is the ultimate authority to the nation he's born in," Zuko said. "He forced your people to fight to the last airbender, forcing mine to do the unthinkable. We had no choice but to wipe out the Air Nomads in self-defense, and we've been trying to atone for that sin ever since."
"Where is Avatar Ong?" Aang demanded, sorely tempted to abandon his beliefs for vengeance.
"He died fifteen years ago and reincarnated in the Water Tribe," Zuko answered, setting up the next fabrication courtesy of Azula knowing an enemy's name. "That girl you saw in Ba Sing Se was Avatar Katara, and she leads the other nations against the Fire Nation."
Standing up straight, Aang took one more look at the tapestry and the destruction it represented. "Zuko, I promise I will do my part to stop the Avatar's war of aggression." Aang raised one fist and held it over his heart. "I swear it, with all my spirit."
A week later Azula and Mai were walking through the streets of Minara, heading towards the low wall on the northern end closer to the mountains. Zuko had given Aang his own small house there, and Azula wanted to check up on the Air Nomad. She didn't trust him at all, suspecting that his memory could return at any moment. Mai just wanted to be with her friend, having nothing else to keep her attention occupied.
"So what does your brother have Aang doing?" Mai asked as she walked beside Azula.
"Remember in school how we were taught that everything in the Air Temples was burned to the ground?" Azula asked.
"Seemed like a waste," Mai commented.
"Well it wasn't entirely true," Azula said. "Some parts of the Air Temples survived Sozin's Comet, and the army salvaged many texts from the ruins."
"Sounds boring," Mai said.
Azula slowed her pace as they approached the wooden house a few blocks from the outpost's northern wall. "Most of it was, but there are some tomes and scrolls written in a text that we couldn't decipher."
Mai only needed a second to guess where Azula was going with that train of thought. "Which an Air Nomad from a hundred years ago should have no trouble translating." Mai stopped in front of the house, observing that it was unguarded. "Shouldn't there be more security around here?"
"Zuko thinks that Aang will perform best if he doesn't feel confined," Azula answered. She gestured to the buildings around the house that Aang resided in, one of which had a pair of soldiers in front of it. "But he also made sure that Aang's new home is right next door to the logistics warehouse."
"Which is under constant guard," Mai observed. "Well played."
Azula opened the door into the house and stepped inside with Mai. They saw Aang sitting at a desk with a book and a piece of parchment in front of him, one hand tracing his fingers over raised bumps on the book's pages while the other hand held a brush that wrote on the parchment. Aang heard Azula and Mai enter, so he got up from his seat and faced them.
"How's your project coming along?" Azula asked.
"Slow," Aang admitted, gesturing to the parchment he had been writing on. There were only a few pages worth of translated text on it. "I was never very good at braille."
"But you can read it, right?" Azula asked, walking over to the table and looking at the book. How anyone could think that reading with fingers was a good idea Azula didn't know.
"I just need to take my time with it," Aang said.
Tracing her fingers over the raised bumps on a page, Azula wondered what knowledge it possessed. "What is this book about?"
"It appears to be a journal about the sky bison," Aang guessed. "During the fall months we would allow our bison to graze with the wild herds."
"Wild herds?" Azula questioned.
"Well I never got to see them, but we didn't have enough room at the temples to domesticate all of the bison in the world," Aang explained.
"I see," Azula muttered, thinking about the possibilities. "Well we should let you get back to your project."
Before Azula and Mai could leave Aang had one a question, being a little curious about something he'd noticed over the last few days. "Hey Azula, I overheard some guys talking about someone important going missing, something about a Minister Qin. Who is he?"
Not expecting that question, Azula made up a lie on the spot. "Sadly, Minister Qin is dead."
That night a former Fire Nation officer was lurking in the forest near Minara, using moonlight to see where he was going. Minister Qin had tried to return to active duty after revealing the giant drill to the enemy, but that treachery had quickly been discovered. Now on the run as a traitor with a bounty on his head, Qin focused on surviving more than anything else. But he needed food and money to continue running from the Fire Nation, and Minara was the only place in the immediate area to get it.
Qin's old uniform was stained and ragged from being in the wilderness, he only wore it because it was the only clothing he still had with him. Sticking to the shadows Qin snuck through the tents that civilians had set up around the outpost's wall, trying to be as quiet as possible. On his way Qin stole a spare tent pole and used it to pole vault over the wall and land on the other side.
The interior of the wall had ladders spaced out every dozen feet, to allow troops to deploy in any direction without needing to pass through gates. Qin planned to use them to leave once he acquired the supplies he needed from inside the outpost. He headed towards the northern end of the outpost, where the logistics warehouse contained rations and money.
Finding the warehouse protected by two guards, Qin dusted off his uniform and approached them. On sight the guards assumed firebending stances. "Qin!" they shouted.
"That's Minister Qin," he corrected, walking as if he had every right to be there. "Stand down, immediately."
"Sorry sir, Prince Zuko's orders," one guard said. "You're under arrest for treason."
"Well in that case," Qin muttered. He slipped a dagger out from his sleeve and stabbed one guard in the chest. When the other started firebending at him Qin used the dying guard as a shield, then threw the body at the attacking guard. Before the guard could get back up Qin retrieved his dagger and slit the guard's throat.
With no time to waste Qin raided the warehouse, filling a bag with preserved food and another with gold and silver coins. But when he was finished Qin heard soldiers moving towards him, and looked for a place to hide until the soldiers could pass. There was an unguarded house nearby, which Qin found suitable for hiding inside. He hurried to the door and opened it, getting inside and closing the door without bothering to see what was inside the brightly lit room.
Hearing someone else inside, Qin turned around. He could not believe his eyes. "Avatar Aang?"
Aang jaw hung as he gasped, shocked by Qin calling him the Avatar. "Why did you call me that?"
Confused, Qin hesitated for a moment. "Why wouldn't I?" Qin said.
"Because I'm just Aang, I'm not the Avatar."
Only then did Qin notice the Fire Nation insignia on Aang's shoulders. "Oh I see," Qin said, wondering what kind of game Aang was playing. "You reminded me of someone I once knew."
"You're Qin right?" Aang asked, recognizing him from a poster he had seen in the outpost. "Azula said you were dead."
Qin chuckled at that claim. "If she had her way, I would be."
"Why would she want you dead?" Aang asked.
Qin couldn't help but laugh. "You really are being kept in the dark."
Suddenly the door was thrown open by soldiers outside. "Qin, surrender!"
Instead of obeying the demand Qin made a panicky scream before grabbing Aang's arm and throwing him into the soldiers. Under orders to not harm the Air Nomad, the soldiers had no choice but to allow Aang to slam into them. Qin ran for his life, forgetting to grab the bags of supplies he had stolen. Dodging firebending from the soldiers Qin headed straight for the wall, climbing up one of the ladders.
Running through the maze of tents around the wall Qin thought he was going to get away. But one fireball struck his left shoulder, making Qin scream in pain. His left arm hung limp as he continued running, getting out of Minara and into the forest beyond. Soldiers stopped at the tree line, refusing to weaken the outpost's defenses just to pursue one man.
Once Qin felt he had lost the pursuit he slowed his pace, clutching the limp arm. Not far into the forest was a hideout Qin used, a small ravine hidden by fallen trees. Qin sat on rocks inside the ravine, trying to suppress the pain in his shoulder. But without medical attention the burn could take his life. To Qin's side was a cage containing a single red messenger bird, stolen from an outpost closer to the giant drill. Qin knew just who to send it to in order to get help.
Prince Zuko was not happy when he was woken up in the night by his guards, learning of the breach in security. Immediately he left his room in the Minara's tower and headed for the house Aang was given, intending to rectify any damage Qin may have caused. He found Aang inside the house, sitting in a chair while a medic examined him for any harm.
"How are you doing?" Zuko asked when he entered.
"I'm fine," Aang answered, watching the medic finish and leave the house. "But why would your sister tell me Qin was dead?"
"Because he is dead to our cause," Zuko answered, walking over to Aang's desk and looking at translated text. "Qin was once the Fire Nation's best idea man, creating many inventions that allowed us to prosper. Until he turned traitor and joined the Avatar."
"I see," Aang muttered. He grabbed a nearby scroll and tried to read the braille on it, but was having trouble focusing on it.
"Did Qin say anything troubling?" Zuko asked, noticing Aang's discomfort.
"No," Aang lied. He was thinking about how Qin had called him Avatar Aang, but wasn't about to admit it. "I'm just feeling a little strained from everything going on lately."
"Maybe it would be best to just forget about the incident and focus on your project," Zuko suggested, turning to head out the door.
Aang set the scroll aside and got up from his chair, wanting something else to do. "Hey Zuko, is there anything fun around here? It would really help me feel better."
Zuko placed one hand on his chin and thought about that request. While he wanted Aang to only work on translating the Air Nomad texts, a small bit of entertainment could make Aang more cooperative. There was also an event coming up that Zuko wanted to see, which would be convenient to keep the Air Nomad in line.
"As a matter of fact, there is," Zuko answered. "I believe the circus is coming to town."