a/n: Okay, I've been fangirling all over the place since the Legend of Korra online premiere but I'm going to refrain from doing that here out of respect for my readers. I know some of you are waiting until the official TV release (April 14th, 2012) so I won't spoil anything for you. Anyways, enjoy the chapter :)

Chapter Twenty-One: The Odd Friends

Three Years Ago

A man wearing a black coat hurried along the empty streets, passing swiftly underneath the bare-bulb street lamps like an alley cat, quick and wary. This particular street reeked of sewer water and garbage, most of the brick walls tarnished with layer upon layer of old peeling posters and graffiti. The man turned a corner, not even pausing to examine a particularly large poster in relatively fine condition which depicted the enlarged face of a white mask with a large red circle painted on the forehead. The letters running along the left-hand side read "Equality".

After several more minutes, the man arrived at an old brick building with boarded up windows. The door itself bore signs of vandalism, a sizeable chunk of wood missing from the place where the door-knocker would have been. The man knocked on the door and waited.

Two minutes passed before the door creaked open slightly, the hallway beyond completely dark. The man didn't hesitate to slip inside and made sure to shut the door behind him. Inside, he was all alone, no sign of whoever had let him in. Unperturbed, the man continued his way down the hall with no light to guide him.

At the end of the hall, there was niche in the floorboards one could pry lose to reveal a secret door leading to the basement where another door awaited. This door, unlike the previous one, was made of metal and had no handle. The trick was to slide the door to the side using the grooves hidden along the edges. Once inside, the door slid back to its original place, awaiting the next visitor.

The man stood in a spacious room filled with perhaps fifty people, all of them facing the other side of the room. He blinked slowly until his eyes adjusted to the glare of lights coming from the center stage. Electricity had become commonplace in Republic City but the power grid was so outdated in this part of the neighborhood that a separate electrical generator had been brought in. It sat humming in a corner, a silent witness to these secretive meetings.

He joined the throng of people, mostly men, some looking nervous, but all gazing fixedly at a raised podium on which a masked figure was standing. This figure was in the middle of delivering a speech, his tone confident and rallying.

"…for far too long, we non-benders have been treated like second-class citizens by the bending community," the masked figure was saying and several people cried out in agreement. "We will not tolerate such unfairness, such injustice!" Again, there was a collective mutter of agreement, some nodding sagely, others shaking their fists in indignation.

Roughly half an hour had passed when, through the noisy cheers and cries of the audience, the arrival of a second late-comer went mostly unnoticed. The man standing in the back of the crowd, however, sensed the late-comer's approach before he even spoke.

"Can you believe these people?" whispered a low voice behind the man, barely audible in racket of the crowd.

The man did not turn around, did not even acknowledge he had heard anything until, under the cover of a particularly loud chanting of "Amon! Amon!" he muttered in an undertone, "Largest rally we've ever seen, isn't it, Tal Hae?"

Tal Hae chuckled as the cheering died down and the masked man, Amon, continued his impassioned speech. All were silent as they listened closely, drinking the phrases that repeatedly contained words like "equality", "justice", and "revolution".

Amid another deafening round of applause, cheers and chanting, Tal Hae seized the opportunity to speak again, making sure to keep his amber eyes trained on Amon.

"So, Shadow, what have I missed?" asked Tal Hae, barely moving his lips.

The man named Shadow considered this for a second and had to refrain from shrugging as he replied, "Not much. Amon's speeches are normally all the same, aren't they? He hasn't mentioned anything new."

"Seems a bit crazy to have such a secretive meeting with this many people just for a pep talk," mused Tal Hae as several people in front of them started pumping fists into the air. "Perhaps this is all he is: talk."

Shadow's face was inscrutable as he mimed enthusiastic clapping along with the others. Finally, he replied, "Don't get your hopes up. You know how dangerous he is."

There was a long stretch of silence from Tal Hae as the familiar chanting started up again. The crowd was one voice as it called out, punching the air with every repetition of their leader's name. Shadow soon found himself chanting along with them, mimicking their frenzied adoration of the mysterious masked man. It wouldn't have raised too much suspicion just to stand quietly in the back but the enthusiastic atmosphere of Amon's followers was overwhelming, almost contagious.

For the first time, Shadow wondered if he was really just pretending, or if this was really how everyone else started out: a half-hearted bystander who then gradually turned into a complete Equalist zealot. Perhaps, he thought, there really was no difference either way.

Although Shadow trusted Tal Hae with his life, the two friends never met in the outside world. When they weren't conversing front-to-back during an Equalist rally, the men led two completely separate lives where the other's existence was momentarily set aside, forgotten while they went about their daily lives, socializing with their family and friends, never once mentioning the other's existence. This was something they had agreed upon during their first rally together, back when Shadow was unsure of where his loyalties lay. For Tal Hae, it would have been a no-brainer as he was a pro-bender in real life, but for Shadow it could easily have gone either way if had not been for Tal Hae.

"Now that," Tal Hae had said during their first ever (Shadow's second) rally together, staring up at Amon, "is what I call a lunatic."

Before those words they had been strangers, two completely unrelated people who happened to be standing in the same proximity at the same time. Hearing those words, which pretty much summed up Shadow's small yet nagging suspicions about Amon, they immediately struck up an unusual yet unbreakable friendship. Together, they planned to stop the Equalists revolution before it got out of hand. Admittedly, it was two against often-times dozens of followers but it was a new era, a time to stand up for what you believed in.

Although Tal Hae and Shadow were against Amon, both understood the extent of his cruelty better than others. What might have been passed off as a freak accident or mysterious disappearance by most people could be usually traced back to the Equalists by those who knew the signs. It took only two or three rallies for Shadow to start picking up allusions in Amon's speeches of recent crimes that had occurred in odd circumstances. Amon was careful never to confess outright but there was no doubt in Shadow's mind that the Equalists were behind the "accidents". Sometimes Shadow and Tal Hae covertly attempted to communicate Amon's involvement in such crimes to the police but it was tricky. The Equalists were adept at covering their tracks and never hesitated to cut off a loose end whether or not it was one of their own people. Such was the brutality of the Equalists and, therefore, the necessity for discretion between allies.

Despite the fact that the two men hardly ever looked at each other when they did meet, it didn't take long for Shadow to figure out Tal Hae's true identity. Tal Hae, of course, was a codename as was the name "Shadow". Even so, Shadow continued to call his friend Tal Hae in his mind, mentally noting his real identity in the brief margins. It didn't matter that their backgrounds were so different; that Tal Hae was actually a well-known pro-bending captain with a wife and daughter whereas Shadow was an orphan and worked at a circus. The important thing was their friendship and their mutual goals to bring down the revolution.

Neither could have predicted the tragedy that was to follow.

Present Day

Cold and shivering, Mako came to, blinking wearily in the half-dark. Night had just fallen, the bright moon submerging the surroundings in its lunar light. He was kneeling in the shade of an oak, perhaps a few feet from where he last remembered standing, not too far from the river's edge. For some reason, his clothes, hair and shoes were damp, not quite dripping wet but still uncomfortable against his skin.

Mako tried to get up but failed. It was a few moments before he realized what was holding him down was not merely fatigue but a coil of thin rope tying wrists and ankles to the tree behind him.

"Finally awake, Mako?" whispered an eerily calm voice from just behind him.

Mako tried to crane his neck around to see who was talking but it was useless. Strugglingto loosen the bonds, he was about to shout out for help when he heard the figure stepping out and into the spotlight of the moon.

"Shadow?" breathed Mako incredulously, squinting at the figure standing feet from him.

It was indeed Shadow though it was hard to tell without the signature white makeup and black diamond drawn over the eyelid. The hard features of the ringmaster were still visible in the moonlight, however, and the suit he was wearing were evidently one of his less ridiculous circus costumes although not lacking the frilly cuffs.

"What… what're you doing here? What's going on?" asked Mako, staring up at the ringmaster in surprise.

"I think the real question," said Shadow, his black eyes glinting, "is why you're here, Mako. Care to explain?"

Mako was silent for a minute. The honest truth was, he was having trouble remembering how exactly he had ended up tied to a tree in the middle of the night with no less a person than Shadow as his only company. He seemed to have developed a headache out of nowhere, and he could feel a bump of unknown origins forming on the back of his head.

"In interest of saving time," continued Shadow without waiting for a reply, "I'll answer that one myself." He cleared his throat theatrically and said, "You failed."

The words sounded almost comical the way they were pronounced so off-handedly like it was meant as a joke, a minor jest. But a few seconds later, something in Mako's brain clicked, the gears slowly grinding back into motion, speeding up with every second. And then he remembered. Everything.

"I… I don't know what you're talking about," he said evasively, dropping his gaze to his feet.

"Don't you? Oh, you're right!" exclaimed Shadow, slapping a palm to his forehead, "Then it must've been some other fellow I wrestled into the river – here!" A sharp object was thrust at a spot inches from Mako's feet, the point sticking into the soft soil.

Mako couldn't speak. He recognized the letter opener he had stolen from Mr. Noh. The horrific realization of what he had attempted sent shockwaves up his spine.

After an interval about half a minute which seemed to stretch on for quite some time for Mako, Shadow spoke up. "I'll say this again, Mako," he said quietly while the teenager hung his head. "You failed." The last word was barely a whisper and yet had a tangible hardness to it.

Mako was suddenly freezing to his core yet it had nothing to do with his damp clothes or the subtle night breeze that gently stroked the nearby bushes. The pit of his stomach ached with a sharp stabbing feeling but this too was not a physical sensation. Turbulent emotions of fear and anger escaped the boundaries of his mind and nestled in every part of his body like a spreading tumor, causing him to imagine shooting pain all over.

Evidently unaware of this, Shadow continued baldly, "The sad thing is that you don't even know why you did it." He paused slightly, leaning a little to on his right leg. "Tell me, Mako, why did you?"

When no answer came, the ringmaster sighed dramatically, pacing back and forth in front of the tied-up teenager.

"I understand what you're going through," said Shadow patiently. "And I can help –"

"You don't know anything about me," snarled Mako, struggling against his bonds. "Untie me!"

Shadow contemplated this, watching the teenager's angry face with an expression of polite interest. It was only when Mako had tired himself out that the ringmaster continued.

"I know everything about you, Mako," said Shadow plainly. "I know how you feel responsible for your family's financial problems –"

"Stop," interjected Mako.

"I know you feel hopeless about your future–"

"– I said stop!"

"I know you secretly hate your father for leaving you in order to pursue his own dreams. I know –"

"SHUT UP!"

The sheer force and rage that accompanied this outburst caused several birds to take off in fright. As Mako sat there, seething with fury, Shadow again observed him, much like a butcher observed a piglet in a cage before slaughtering it.

And then, when it seemed that the two would stare at each other until sunrise, Shadow asked one last question, the final blow.

"Do you really blame yourself for Iriah's death?"

The question itself wasn't a real shock even if it was coming from a stranger. After all, hadn't Mako asked himself the very same question over a hundred times already? But for a while, he gave no answer; there was only silence save the sudden rustling of the forest beside them, almost like a small animal scurrying in fright.

All the fight leaving his body, Mako replied in a defeated yet resolute tone, "Yes, I do."

He kept his head bent low, chin to his damp shirt. Somehow he was refraining from shedding tears, lest this torture become any more humiliating. It was a while before he realized that Shadow had approached him and not until the ringmaster was kneeling, their eyes level, did Mako looked up, taken aback at the sudden proximity.

Up close, Shadow looked older by several years. His hair appeared much grayer in places, the lines of his face more pronounced without the white makeup. In a steady, solemn voice, Shadow said, "No, it wasn't your fault."

Mako didn't answer, half-expecting some follow-up sarcasm which never came. Strangely, the older man's dark eyes, deep and bottomless in the half-light of the moon, felt somehow soothing, forgiving and patient.

"How do you know?" asked Mako quietly.

"Because," said Shadow, his eyes filled with sadness, "if there's anyone to blame for what happened... that person… is me."

a/n: For the record, I'm totally in love with the series so far :D If you missed the release, the episodes are available online so go watch episodes 1 and 2 of Legend of Korra. You won't regret it!