Ah, yes, another chapter. Lovely.

And today, I shall write my disclaimer in the form of a haiku:

Outside, raindrops fall;

Though I don't own Avatar,

This story is mine.

~Taidine

Chapter Three : Of Sphinxes and Stalkers

"There are more things on Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Somewhere in the five boroughs; a dockside warehouse. It belongs to one of those internet book companies. Amazon, maybe. The sun is lowering over the water, but inside, fluorescent bulbs are lit and buzzing. They illuminate haphazard stacks of book-filled boxes. But they flicker oddly, not so much from light to dark as from one quality of light to another.

And when they flicker, things change. The stacks of boxes are replaced by tall stone pillars, the corrugated metal walls by more stone, finely carved. The warehouse seems to be sharing space with an ancient temple. It all depends on how you look at it.

Tramping through the boxes is a squad of cops, lead by a girl who looks too young for the job, dark hair tucked under her cap. Flicker. Tramping through the stone pillars is a squad of Fire Nation troops in full uniform, Azula at their head, full lips curled into a nasty smile. They, like the warehouse, are both and neither, not entirely decided either way. The borders between the worlds are thin here.

"Stop," called the policewoman, smirking, as she spotted a bundle against one metal wall: some homeless bum, wrapped in blankets, a cat curled beside him. Flicker. The metal wall became intricate stone; the pathetic bundle was something noble and elegant, a beast with the body of a lion and the head of a man. Azula's smirk widened.

"Sphinx," she said. "We're here for the Amulet of the Four Elements. I heard you know where it is, so you can tell us…" She held out her hand. In the fluorescent lights she held a gun, but in the weird flickers, it was a ball of white-hot flame, licking eagerly at her fingers. "Or we can find out my way."

The vagrant cringed in his blankets. "I don't know nothing," he whined. Flicker. The Sphinx raised its bearded head and spoke in a deep, resonant voice. "I have only the riddles which I am to give to the Avatar."

"The Avatar isn't here right now. How about giving them to us instead?" Azula asked, all fake, saccharine sweetness.

"That would not be proper," said the Sphinx. "It is not the duty I have been charged with."

"I'd start rethinking that duty, then," counseled Azula, her face twisting into a sadistic smile. She turned to her troops. "Attack. And don't let up until it offers us some information."

She spun her hand around. A gunshot rang out in the warehouse; in the temple, a burst of blue fire shot from her palm, carving a line through the air towards the Sphinx.

Meanwhile, back in the heart of Manhattan, Zuko, Katara and I had just about given up. There was no sign of Sokka or the others amongst the happy crowd of students leaving, eager for the coming weekend; maybe they had left, maybe they weren't people at this school in the first place, maybe they had passed without us recognizing them. After all, I don't know how it worked for Zuko and Katara, the genuine Avatar characters, but I only seemed to recognize them when I was expecting them – not until after Azula had done her firebending routine, for instance, or Kat had put her hair up Katara-style. Zuko, of course, was my miracle exception.

Anyway, the sun was getting low, the shadows of the buildings were stretching long and spidery, and we were heading out. I volunteered my house again. I wasn't running out of couches quite yet, although if we found the rest of the gang resources might be stretched. I mean, by Manhattan standards my apartment was fair sized, but it was still an apartment. I was considering logistic problems like this and heading down the sidewalk, towards the train station, when suddenly the air was split by a terrible scream.

"What was that?" said Katara.

I shrugged. Zuko gave her a 'not our problem' look – but this was Katara, and she didn't possess the ability to leave well enough alone. "Come on, if someone's in trouble we need to help," she said, and began to run. Zuko was only half a step behind.

I foisted my heavy backpack, sighed, and followed.

Quick geography lesson. My school is right near Columbus Circle, favorite haunt of skateboarders and nexus of subway trains. Past that is Central Park. My train, however, does not stop at Columbus Circle; I am obliged to walk in very nearly the opposite direction. Closer to my train station than to the Circle, although still well out of my way under normal circumstances, is a middle school, I.S. something or other.

The only reason I have to go near the school is the street between it and my subway station. It's a narrow street; on one side, it is shadowed by the windowless back of a tall brick building, wrought with odd indentations, archways that might once have been openings but now led nowhere; on the other side is a small but amazing sushi place and a branch library of the New York Public Library system. I like sushi and I like books. QED.

I tell you all this because, after a great deal of running and dangerous, madcap jaywalking, we discovered this was where the scream had come from.

As I tore around the corner, the first thing I saw was a lot of great, dark, flapping shapes, like huge bats or small dragons. I pulled up short, trying to take it in; they were fluttering through the air, mostly just wing, but twenty or twenty-five feet of that, and long, whiplike necks, and longer, prehensile tails. "Snakebats?" Zuko muttered, standing beside Katara, in front of me. "What are they doing here?"

They were coming from the windowless building, from the bricked-over arches that might once have been windows. But the thing was – they were still bricked over. I saw one of the creatures crawls out of the indentation; the bricks darkened and rippled behind it like water as it launched itself from the windowsill, spreading its vast, sheetlike wings.

"It doesn't matter," said Katara firmly, "look!"

The snakebats weren't entirely disorganized; in fact, the flock seemed to have a focus, congregating above the building in between the sushi place and the public library – a boarded up storefront, abandoned for as long as I could remember. There seemed, between flapping wing-edges and whipping limbs, to be a cowering human figure amongst them.

"Cover me," she instructed Zuko, and darted forward, raising her arms in a familiar waterbending form. I tried to figure out where she would draw water from, then remembered there was a decorative fountain in the front window of the sushi place. Even as I thought that, there was a shattering sound, and the picture window exploded outward, followed by a long rope of water, shedding ornamental lily blossoms as it snapped towards the lizardbats. For a second they scattered, giving us a glimpse of the person they had been mobbing – a young boy, probably from the nearby school, with softly spiked hair, clutching a backpack. I didn't immediately recognize him, but an unidentifiable look flashed across Katara's face at her first glimpse and she mouthed something I was almost sure was "Aang?"

One of the snakebats noticed her and swung its head – little more than teeth at the end of its neck – around towards her, disturbingly fast. Fortunately, Zuko was quicker; he flung out one hand, sending a jet of fire to catch it squarely on the head.

I was being useless again. I hated it. I pulled off my backpack and began looking for something I could use to help out, but it wasn't much use, my books weren't very heavy and I didn't exactly carry a Swiss Army Knife to school. My pens, laid out neatly in the loops in a front pocket of the pack, made me hesitate; I felt as though they were almost familiar, in this context. Well, of course they were familiar. I used them every day.

Katara whirled, sending her whip of water tangling around a pair of snakebats; they fell to the ground, wings tangling uselessly. Zuko swept a line of fire indiscriminately across the flock; several wing edges caught flame, and the afflicted creatures flapped off towards the Hudson River to extinguish themselves. Katara caught another upside the head; it tumbled towards Zuko, but he swept fire under it, creating an updraft of warm air that billowed its slack wings upward, and then Katara's water came back around, broadening around the end into a racket shape and hitting the creature out of the way.

The remainder of the flock, with soft flappings and creelings, rose into the air and scattered, crawling back in through the not-windows on the brick building or soaring away over the city. Zuko leaned on his knees to catch his breath. Katara sent her water splashing back into the fountain and darted over to the boy the snakebats had been attacking, kneeling next to him.

Feeling a little fuzzy, I zipped up my backpack and walked over to her, in time to hear her speak: "Aang, are you all right?"

"Who…" The boy was on his knees, holding his backpack like a security blanket against his chest. He sounded shaken, edging towards hostile. "I guess. Look, my name's Michael. What's going on? What were those things?"

"Michael?" Katara repeated, mouthing the syllables as though it were the oddest name she had ever heard. "But… why would they have gone after you, then? Did you do anything to them?"

"No, I was minding my own business." Now he sounded downright surly. "Look, I don't know who you are or what you did or what you want, but you're kind of creeping me out."

Katara and Zuko exchanged glances; she gestured, and we all fell back to the brick building, forming a kind of team huddle. "Okay," Katara began, darting a glance over her shoulder to make sure the boy she thought was Aang hadn't run off. He was watching us suspiciously. "Now what's going on?"

"He sounds like Aang," Zuko volunteered. I nodded agreement; the voice was right, if the Avatar were a little more cynical. "And why would those things have gone after him if he weren't?!"

"Exactly," Katara agreed.

I cleared my throat. They looked at me. "Well. I remember talking to Kat about Zuko yesterday," I said, voice monotone.

"Okay…" Katara prompted.

"So she didn't know she was you," I told her, a little annoyed. I wasn't sure whether it was at them for being thick or at myself for explaining things badly.

"She's right." Ah, thank goodness, Zuko was backing me up. Although he didn't sound happy about it. "It must be a side effect of the portal or something. I couldn't remember everything at first. I still can't. So I think this kid is the Avatar-"

"But he doesn't know it yet," I finished.

"So we'll have to watch out for him. He's completely vulnerable if any more monsters show up." Zuko curled his hands into fists and looked up, a stray breeze ruffling his hair.

I nodded in firm agreement. "Got it. Let me call-"

"Not you." Zuko again. Katara nodded.

"What?" I froze with my cell phone half way out. The word came out flat, disbelieving.

"I said, not you. Look, you've been a great help and all, but I think we can handle it."

Katara continued nodding. "It's too dangerous. You're not a bender – if we got into a fight, we'd have to defend you on top of everything else. I'm sorry."

"Maybe I am a liability in a fight," I admitted. "But you need me."

Zuko scowled. "Why?"

"I have an apartment; otherwise you'll be sleeping on the streets or going home to play Kat and Zen, and I don't know how that'll work out. I have a MetroCard. I know this city – good luck getting around without some sort of guide. And unlike anyone else you're likely to pick up, I know your world, too. I don't try to sell myself too often, but I think in this situation I'm just about ideal." I crossed my arms over my chest and gazed at them levelly, willing them to see reason.

"We're not helpless," said Zuko. "That guy, Zen…"

But Katara sighed and shook her head. "We will be. The person I thought I was, Kat. I'm already starting to forget things about her. You must be even worse off. We're going to need someone who really does belong in this world. I don't want to drag anyone into this, but… Liz is right."

Well, this was an interesting stroke of fortune. So Zuko really had been Zen, and Katara had been Kat. That explained their confusion at all the wrong things, why there had been no frantic questioning about electricity and cars – and why they had accepted I knew about them so easily. Kat, at least, knew about the show. That still didn't explain exactly what was going on, though. Were they merely inhabiting these people, and not replacing them at all? Would they disappear back to their world when this was over, leaving Kat and Zen and Michael with odd holes in their memories? Or was something deeper going on, and if so - what?

I couldn't think on it as closely as I would have liked; we had to set up a stakeout on Michael, make sure he didn't get into any more trouble until he realized who he was. As we had been talking, he had regained his feet, and begun cautiously moving up the street, towards the school. Quite suddenly, a group of students around his age had emerged from around a corner, and with many a cry of welcome, he had gone to join their group. One of those annoying groups of kids, the loud ones on the train you just want to shove onto the tracks, but I fought down my distaste and observed them as dispassionately as possible. Michael was clearly a ringleader, and the longer I watched, the more Aang-like he seemed; every action, every mannerism was familiar from the cartoon. Much like Kat had always seemed to me like Katara.

Maybe I was just going crazy.

My offer of an apartment ultimately proved useless; Kat lived in the city, quite close to the school, and her parents were off on a business trip or something, so Katara and Zuko determined to spend the night there. I couldn't stay over, though, my overprotective family would never have allowed it; making them swear to meet me bright and early up in this neighborhood so we could pursue our stakeout over the weekend, I headed home.

I came home tired, hoping I wouldn't have to deal with any questioning from my parents; fortunately, I wasn't quite late enough to warrant interrogation. My erstwhile cousin Emma apparently didn't have gymnastics today, though, and she was being even more obnoxiously cheerful than usual. "Hey, Li," she said, using her truncated nickname for me as she followed me up to my room.

"Hi," I replied, unenthusiastically. I wanted to read, do some quick homework, and go to bed, not converse with an overly chipper cousin. I sat down on the edge of my bed and picked up a book, hoping she would get the message.

She leaned over into a backbend, arched, and lifted her legs so she was standing on her hands. Even for a Level Nine gymnast that was pretty impressive; I stared at her for a moment, her wide eyes and grin, and thought for a moment how much she reminded me of…

I stopped the thought, slumping in my bed and dropping my book in my lap. "I'm seeing Avatar characters everywhere," I complained.

There was a crash, as of someone in a handstand suddenly falling over. "How did you know?" she squealed.

I lifted my head, doing that mental shift thing – expecting it. Sure enough, sprawled on my rug where Emma had been a moment before, long braid curling behind her, was Ty Lee in a state of wide-eyed bewilderment.