Step, turn, pull, sweep. Rohan repeated the motions in his head as he tried to make his feet comply. Step, pull, turn...

He stumbled suddenly and barely caught his balance in time, scowling at his inability to get the simplest of moves correctly. When Howl and the three other White Lotus members in residence had placed the short airbending scroll in front of him, he had expected it to be easy to replicate. After all, the moves were not particularly difficult, it was just a shifting of feet and coordination of his arms and hands!

But, even after practicing for two hours, he was still unable to perform the simplest of maneuvers on the scroll. When he got the footwork and forms right, the air around him didn't seem to want to comply. And when he felt at one with the air surrounding him, he forgot the steps!

He sat down heavily on the crude, wooden bench in the practice room and scowled, blowing angry air out of one side of his mouth. If he wasn't the last airbender alive and trying to learn on his own, he surely wouldn't be having this much trouble.

It didn't help that he was trapped in a stuffy, underground maze that smelled strongly of mold and must, either.

When they had arrived at the White Lotus base the previous night, Rohan had been largely unimpressed with the setup. When Howl had first mentioned the word "compound," he had expected large, intricate tunnels leading to an extravagant underground lair. Perhaps with fortifications and and huge rooms, spreading out into the mountainside.

Instead, they weaved through a narrow labyrinth that let out into a modest underground space dimly lit by flickering lamps. Small, twisting holes in the ceiling were lined with glass and mirrors, reflecting a little sunlight into the camp during the day. There was one large, central room that looked like it was specifically designed for practicing bending, bordered with intricate drawings and ancient artifacts that looked like they were collected from each of the four nations. But there were only three hallways branching off of it, leading to six cramped bedrooms, two medium sized training rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom.

"Is this the main camp for the White Lotus?" Rohan had asked when they first began descending the tunnels. The Shirshu had been set up comfortably in a series of caves closer to the surface, where a couple broken down Satomobiles also presided.

"No, this is just one of four in the Earth Kingdom. We're slightly north of Serpent's Pass, outside of Ba Sing Se." Howl had looked even older in the lamplight, the flickering candle finding all the crevices in his face. "We have two other bases outside of Omashu and Makapu. Our largest headquarters is hidden in the central Earth Kingdom, in the desert. We also have two stations in the Fire Nation, and one up on the Northern Water Tribe."

"What about in Republic City?"

"Republic City has been under strict quarantine shortly after Amon took power," was the tired response. "Equalists strictly control who gets in and out, and we haven't been able to communicate with the island since the fall of Avatar Korra."

Seina had shifted uncomfortably beside him at the mention of her predecessor, but at that moment they took a sharp turn to enter the White Lotus compound.

Howl had relaxed visibly once they set foot on the base, pressing a button to slide the wall closed behind him. "Here we are!" His voice was a touch too cheerful as he made a grand, sweeping motion with one arm. "What do you think?"

"It's...underground!" Rohan had stuttered at first, trying to find half truths that wouldn't offend the older man. "And...quaint! It looks very comfortable."

Seina snickering beside him told him that he hadn't been quite successful in masking his initial distaste for the place. It was easy enough for her to laugh, he had thought glumly. She was a native earthbender, she practically thrived being underground! He had seen her stroking the walls of the earthy tunnel fondly as they descended down into the ground-which he had found mildly disturbing-but he hadn't laughed at her then!

Rohan sighed and ran a hand through his hair, pulling up the airbending scroll one more time to go over the figures. He was a creature of the air, he thought despondently, it wasn't his fault he couldn't learn airbending fifty meters under the ground. One night in this place with cramped rooms and thin walls, and he was already going crazy!

A soft knock on the door startled him out of his reverie and had him scrambling to his feet and into a bending stance. The two green eyes that met him were sparkling with laughter, and it took him a second to process who stood in front of him.

"Howl wants us both in the main atrium to talk about strategy," she said, one hand on her hip and mouth twitching up in laughter. "Let's go, jumpy."

She sauntered out of the room and Rohan reluctantly followed, eyes focusing on the messy bun on the back of her head. Rohan was usually good at dealing with people-he had some easy friendships within his village and his mother had always sent him to the traders to get the best deals-but he couldn't quite understand the earthbender in front of him. She was proud and stubborn-she had offered to turn herself in to the Equalists to protect her family for goodness sake! But one moment she was laughing and the next she was silent, apparently deep in thought. There seemed to be much more to her, but he couldn't quite get a handle on what.

She however, could apparently read him like a book. His mother had always told him that he wore his emotions on his sleeve, but it hadn't quite bothered him until now.

"Fidgety, aren't you?" Her voice echoed off the thin walls, reminding him of the canyons he used to visit as a child. For a moment he was back there-small, carefree, and feeling completely connected to the wind currents whipping around his hair and clothes. Rohan closed his eyes and tried to capture that feeling. It would certainly help him while he tried to survive underground.

"Just prepared," he shot back. The earthbender chuckled in response and he frowned. "We're all trapped like prairie-rabbits down here. It's not natural."

"I think it was clever to build the base underground. I happen to like it." Rohan couldn't see her face, but he imagined her sticking her nose up in the air. He snickered.

"Of course you do, you're like a badgermole with an infinite supply of dirt."

"Are you calling me dirty?"

"I'm calling you insane!"

"Avatar. Rohan." Howl's voice was low but commanding as they entered the atrium. Seina immediately shut her mouth and arranged her face in a neutral expression, and Rohan ground his teeth. The girl was infuriating!

The two teenagers carefully took a seat at the low table across from the four White Lotus members. Howl was immediately across from Rohan, and to his right was an Earthbender who had introduced herself as Penga. He was embarrassed to realize he had already forgot the names of the firebender and waterbender in residence, but once again Howl came to his rescue.

"Hanook, Reika, please get the map," Howl addressed the firebender and waterbender to his left. The surly looking waterbender rose up, his twin braided dark hair sweeping behind him like two leech-eels. The firebender followed silently, helping him retrieve a large piece of parchment and a transparent drawing, rolled up tight and held together by a twisted wire.

Once the map was smoothed out across the table, Rohan recognized it as a map of the four nations. Ba Sing Se stretched across the east of the Earth Kingdom, and Omashu and the island of Republic City dotted the west.

"We have just gotten updated information from the outpost near Makapu," Howl said, carefully holding the transparent scroll in his hands. Rohan could see red and black markings through the sheer material, but couldn't make out what was on it. He looked over the table at the two teenagers. "How much do you know about the Battle of Republic City and the Equalist Uprising?"

Seina's eyebrows knitted together. "We're here to have a history lesson?"

Howl nodded, ignoring the incredulous look on the girl's face. "To bring the greatest advantage in battle, it is best to know everything you can about your enemy." With that, he unfurled the transparent scroll and placed it carefully on top of the map. Black and red images clustered together, overlaying themselves on top of old markings on the original map. When he realized what it was, Rohan gasped, and he felt Seina stiffen next to him.

Images of Equalist flags criss-crossed over the entire map, clustering around larger cities but extending even into the farthest depths of the Earth Kingdom. Howl brought out two ink pots, carefully adding two flags to the center of the map.

"I had no idea." Rohan breathed, eyes still fixated on the map in front of him. He knew the Equalists had spread far into the Earth Kingdom and had completely taken over the Fire Nation, but to see it in front of his own eyes was chilling. He felt like somebody had dumped a bucket of cold water down the back of his shirt and clobbered him on the head at the same time.

"This can't be right." Seina's voice was soft. "My mother said that the smaller cities and towns were still holding strong against the Equalists."

"Perhaps when Ba Sing Se fell, that was true." The firebender spoke for the first time, and her low, musical voice didn't quite mask the coiling of energy and power underneath the surface. Rohan could feel her breathing and movements disturbing the air around her. "When was the last time you had new information? You think the Equalists will let that sort of news inside Ba Sing Se?"

Seina frowned and looked down at her hands, wrinkles etching into her forehead as she seemed to focus very hard on the table in front of her. "I don't know."

Howl leaned forward with a determined look on his face, but his voice was comforting. "What was Ba Sing Se like, when you were growing up there?"

"It was very...controlled. Our schools didn't teach any history before the Equalist Revolution, and bending was completely forbidden. Many of my classmates discovered their bending in school, and they were taken away to Ba Sing Se for 'field trips' to cleanse them of such impurity." Seina's voice grew softer, and Rohan glimpsed for the first time a vulnerability underneath her tightly controlled demeanor. She was scared, she was just good at hiding it.

It unnerved him, because he recognized that same fear in himself. He briefly felt bad for bickering with her nearly constantly since they arrived at the compound, but banished the thought when Howl started talking again.

"Did you learn earthbending in Ba Sing Se?"

"I did, I snuck off to a master who taught the few of us who were lucky enough to keep our bending a secret. I studied under him for five years, once my parents couldn't help me control my bending anymore." Her eyes lowered. "I hope he's okay. Ho Tun is a big guy, but the Equalists are ruthless when they find someone breaking their rules."

The earthbender-Penga-perked up for the first time. "Did you say Ho Tun?"

Seina's despondent look vanished almost instantaneously. "Do you know him?"

"We were both students together at Toph Bei Fong's metalbending academy. We were part of her very first class." The older woman put a hand in front of her mouth to stifle a laugh, but her eyes still smiled. "I think she got very frustrated with us."

"Ho Tun knew how to metalbend?" The avatar's voice was filled with awe. "Even I didn't know that, and I was his oldest student." Her eyes snapped up, and she eagerly leaned across the table, palms pressing into the sides of the bench. "You know how to metalbend? Will you teach me?"

Penga nodded. "I will teach you everything in my power. You will need to master earthbending first, and then you will start learning the new elements in order. Earth, fire, air, then water."

"That is so cool!"

Howl coughed, looking slightly put off by how the conversation went off track. "We will discuss the avatar's bending training later. First, we must continue the explanation of the first Equalist uprisings."

Seina sat back, her mouth twisting into a slight pout that only Rohan could see. It reminded him of his mother for some reason, and he had to battle the wave of homesickness that threatened to overcome him like a tsunami.

"What do we need to know about the Equalist War?" he asked instead, focusing on the map instead of the empty feeling in his gut.

"It's the Equalist Revolution, not the Equalist War," Howl said sternly. "A war can be bloodier and more damaging, but it is also far easier to battle a war than a revolution. A war has sides and clear principles."

He sighed, and Rohan wondered for the first time what sort of horrors he had seen in Republic City. Whatever happened there, it had destroyed his family, overthrew some of the most powerful benders in the world, and sparked world domination. It couldn't have been good.

"A revolution is not a war," Howl continued. "A revolution is spurred from people, not monarchs or politicians. A revolution is not clear cut-it has good points and bad points. A revolution gives people the idea that the ends always justify the means. Even if the means are the mass genocide of an entire people."

"I thought they just removed their bending..." Rohan started, but couldn't quite finish his sentence. Howl levelled a stare at him.

"You know better than I do how integral bending is to oneself. Did you know anybody who was taken away to Republic City to be 'cleansed'?"

Rohan didn't have to answer. Howl knew that he did.

Howl sighed. "That was the problem. The Equalists splintered an already uneasy world by using what they said was a 'humane' treatment. Benders who disagreed were oppressing non-benders, and non-benders simply didn't understand how hard it was to lose part of oneself." His face darkened. "They arrived on the shores of the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom with this message, and it spread like wildfire. They didn't conquer a nation, they took over kingdoms at war with themselves. They used their message to start civil war, and walked in when it was done to pick up the pieces."

Seina looked like she was about to protest, but he held up a hand. "It wasn't always that easy, of course. Some larger cities still put up a fight." He looked at the avatar then. "I know Ba Sing Se fought valiantly, but you must understand that their numbers were already greatly reduced by internal disagreements. WIth those disadvantages, the cities were still no match for the mechatanks and electric weapons of the Equalists."

"What are we going to do, then?" Rohan looked at the map and felt a sense of hopelessness at the sight. How were they supposed to reverse the damage of a nearly twenty year revolution and oppression?

The waterbender, Hanook, spoke then. "We still have a stronghold in the Northern Water Tribe. Turns out an island built of and completely surrounded by water is more than a match for their electrical tanks." His smirk made him look younger, and Rohan tentatively smiled back. "We are waiting for a strategic advantage, and then we will mobilize an attack."

"What sort of strategic advantage? An attack where?"

"Well," Howl spoke again, looking distinctly uncomfortable. "Our strategic advantage is you. Both of you."

Rohan felt his jaw drop in disbelief. Beside him, he heard Seina shake her head. "You can't be serious. What on earth can we do to turn the tides of this war?"

Howl straightened up and spoke in a tone that left no room for questioning. "You are the avatar, and you alone have the power to stop Amon. And you," he turned to Rohan. "You are an airbender, the only type of bending Equalists have not seen or dealt with before. The Equalists are strong, but their greatest strength is also their point of weakness. Their leader is the only one who can take away bending. We infiltrate Republic City, we take down their leader, and then we will bring in the forces from the North Pole."

"You're kidding." Seina's voice was flat, and Rohan felt himself agreeing with her.

"I'm not," How's voice was gentle but firm. "We have a much larger force than the Equalists know. We've fed them false information about the tribes, and some strategic truths to throw them off our trail." He smiled, but the humor didn't quite reach his eyes. "Many of us are registered as dead or as Missing in Action. The minute the Equalists spread their war, we started recruiting. We don't have the mechanical advantage to take them on head to head, but with you two we may be able to knock them down from the knees."

It seemed half baked. It seemed absurd. It seemed completely impossible for two teenagers to be the key pieces in overcoming a decades long war.

But somehow, it gave him hope. They finally had something to work towards, to strive for.

"Alright," Rohan felt himself say slowly. "What exactly do we need to do?"

For the first time, Rohan saw a real smile on the older man's face. "First, you must train. You must learn to master airbending, since your attacks will be most likely to incapacitate Equalists untrained against airbending. The avatar must master the four elements and the avatar state before she can face Amon."

Seina's eyes lit up. "Do I get to learn metalbending now?"

"So eager, young child." The older earthbender smiled. "First, we must start with earthbending."

Earthbending didn't take long. As Rohan sat at the edge of the room reading scrolls and histories of the ancient Air Temples, Seina and Penga went through the basic earthbending stances and the older lady remained impressed. Once in a while she would laugh and say that she recognized a stance or move from her old classmate.

"Oh, Ho Tun. He hasn't changed that attack in years. He used to use it on me when I annoyed him-he would pull the earth to restrain me without hurting me. He was so much larger than me at the time."

Penga was more optimistic than most about this war. She smiled and chatted with the Avatar as they went through bending exercises, and talked about everything from the compound to earthbending to shoes.

Especially shoes.

"How can you survive wearing such footwear?" She was saying to an uncomfortable looking avatar. "Those boots look so large and uncomfortable!"

"Umm," Seina had a slightly pinched look on her face, but she hid it well enough when she looked down at her feet. "These have worked well for me for a long while."

"Yes, but it's tough to sense in thicker shoes." She grinned. "Or shoes at all for that matter."

"Sense?"

"Yes, sense. Toph Bei Fong perfected the unique talent of seismic sensing to overcome her blindness. With it, she could use her earthbending to see through her hands and feet." Penga put a wrinkled hand on the wall. "I am not as good at it as she or her daughter was, but I can tell that this wall is about two feet thick." She stomped a foot covered by a thin slipper on the ground. "And I can tell that Hanook is in the kitchen sleeping, when he was supposed to be cutting vegetables."

Rohan snickered and Seina looked impressed. "Can you teach me that?"

Penga nodded. "You will have to learn it if you wish to be able to metalbend. You will need to be completely unbendable, and sense everything around you as if you are the center of it all. Everything is made up of some particles of earth, the trick is being able to see them."

"Okay," Seina moved into a bending stance as Rohan sank lower on the bench, immersing himself in the scrolls. "Let's do this."

Two hours later, Rohan was just finishing up the scrolls he was given and Seina was still in the middle of the atrium, practicing her sensing and metalbending and trying to move a small disc a couple of feet away. Penga had left some time prior, sauntering towards the kitchens to harass the napping waterbender.

"Augh, I can't do this!" she growled out in frustration, sinking down to sit cross legged on the ground. She bent up a piece of earth and shredded it into a fine dust, scattering it out in front of herself and huffing.

"Can't do what?" Rohan sat up and placed the last scroll next to him, careful to keep the ancient texts from falling on the floor.

"Can't metalbend!" She sounded so upset that Rohan immediately knew that it was not borne solely out of her inability to master difficult bending moves. Like him, she had just left her entire life and family behind only one day prior. He made to open his mouth, but she continued. "Can't sense the earth. Can't be unbendable!"

"Well I know that's not true."

Her head snapped towards him then and he swallowed, regretting not thinking his words through before speaking. Oh well, too late for that now. "I mean, you stood up to me and Howl when we showed up at your door, even when you thought we were Equalists. Then you threatened to turn yourself in to the Equalists to keep your mother safe. I think that's pretty unbendable to me."

The expression on her face morphed from frustration to confusion to something else that Rohan couldn't quite place. He found himself staring as her mouth narrowed into a thin line and she gave him a small nod, standing up again.

She widened her stance into a common earthbending pose and raised her arms, palms outward and facing the small disc. She shifted her feet and twisted, moving more like a waterbender than the rigid punch-and-thrust techniques so common with earthbending. Her hands moved back towards her middle, as if calling the earth to meet her.

Sweat broke out on her brow as she shifted to the other side to mirror her movements. Rohan found himself completely transfixed, unable to look away. Finally, the disc quivered and jumped, rolling over to Seina's feet and promptly falling back flat with a loud clunk. She stared at the disc, reaching down to run a finger around the rough edges.

Suddenly, a huge grin broke out on her face. She turned to Rohan then, still beaming and her eyes bright like orchid buds during the first spring dew. He noticed how green her eyes were-his mother had told him once that he was born with green eyes, but they had faded to gray by the time he turned two. He had never thought much of it before, but the absolute joy in her expression had his stomach twisting with something akin to jealousy.

But after their arguments and constant bickering during the ride from Ba Sing Se and at the White Lotus compound, it made his heart feel lighter that they had finally bonded over something. Instead of the tentative conversations of two people thrown together by chance and circumstance, this was something real.

And it made him think that maybe, just maybe, another couple of months in this compound wouldn't be so bad.

A/N: Yay long developmental chapters! I'm sorry this story is slow to get going, I promise it won't stay that way for long. I have a lot of exciting things planned, and I hope you stay along for the ride :)

Penga and Ho Tun are both from The Promise Parts 1 and 2. They were part of Toph's original metalbending class.