Dislcaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender.

A/N: Re-uploaded this. Less weird grammar mistakes, I hope? Enjoy~!

+Katara+

Back home during the frigid winters, Gran-Gran had constantly reminded the two siblings never to slip into a deep dream. Sokka had pointed out that no one could really control the depth of their sleep but Katara would always remember the story Gran-Gran would repeat next.

"Many moons ago," Gran-Gran would begin in her spooky storytelling voice that not even Sokka could ignore, "I knew a village boy called Pukak. He was very daring and so everyone thought him to grow up to be a great hunter. During his fifteenth winter, he volunteered to guard the village from wolves during the night. The villagers trusted his strength and allowed him stand guard with the other men.

But then-" (a pause would be added here for dramatic effect) "-the winter demons got to him. They dragged him into a deep slumber, much too deep. Of course, this meant that he had fallen victim to the deathly onion dream."

At this point, Sokka would always burst into a round of raucous laughter, but Katara knew that he did it to shake off the spine-chilling atmosphere that had nothing to do with the temperature. "Onion dream!" he would crow, wrinkling his nose and fanning his hand theatrically. "I don't I'll be able to sleep tonight, Gran-Gran. The onion dream-" he would elbow Katara unnecessarily in the ribs and wink at her, "-might, I dunno, stink me to death."

"The onion dream is nothing to laugh about, Sokka!" Gran-Gran would scold Sokka while he rolled around on the floor. Katara would be curled up on the furs, still listening with rapt attention. "The onion dream," Gran-Gran would continue, "is multi-layered like an onion. One cannot escape from it for when they think the danger has passed, another dream replaces the first. The victim will soon be unable to tell the difference between the dream and conscious state. They will never be able to wake again."

Ever the skeptic, Sokka denied the existence of the onion dream, telling Katara over and over that it was a little children's story for those few who were dumb enough to sleep in the snow. Katara, however, never failed to notice that the absence of Sokka's snores on those nights that Gran-Gran would retell the story meant that Sokka was more ambivalent of his claim than he let on.

That, of course, had all been in the past. As Katara grew older, she learned to accept the dangers of freezing weather and things it could do to the body and mind. Katara only remembered it because Gran-Gran's stories symbolized the carefree life she had led before the war.

It was an aberration, therefore, when she spoke the term aloud the second she opened her eyes.

"Onion dream." And even as she said the very words, it struck her as odd, even a little crazy.

She had fallen asleep on her side, right arm sandwiched between body and floor. She gingerly lifted her stiff arm along with the rest of her body as she righted herself. Her attention first fell on the television that was still blaring. It was currently playing the end credits to Cooking With The Chef. She had slept through at least an hour of the culinary program and was still feeling a bit groggy.

"Zuko?" she called out, her voice a little slurred from her nap. "Zuko, are you there?"

She got up, massaging her right arm as she did so. She padded barefooted around the few rooms but quickly realized that Zuko had not returned. This troubled her. It usually took him less than half an hour to go down the street to a convenience store, purchase the food and return to the apartment. The fact that he had not returned for over an hour, perhaps more, seemed unusual, if not downright ominous.

'Onion dream.' She thought, though why this particular piece of childhood storytelling should occur to her now, she could not tell.

She sat on the bunk of her bed which sagged underneath her weight, though she was not heavy. She stretched her legs, yawned and slipped into thought.

She had had a dream, a curious one, which featured her, Aang and maybe Zuko? She racked her brains to remember but could not recall Zuko in her dream. But he had been mentioned.

'Katara, you're in danger,' Aang had said. 'You and Zuko both.'

What had he meant by this? And even as Katara asked herself this question, she felt a little silly for taking a dream so seriously, even if Aang had been there.

Perhaps, Katara thought, it was all the stress. The stress of waking up in a different universe and the stress of being hunted by unknown evil were expected to take a toll on even the most mentally solid. The dream Aang's dire warnings might even have been her subconscious mind reflecting upon all these unfavorable circumstances. That might explain things a little better except…

"Crest Hill Avenue," Katara said without thinking. Her hand flew to her lips as though she had let slip a profanity. The words had come out almost as though something had fished them forth with a line and hook.

And yet, she knew where it had come from. The memory of the second dream following the first popped to the surface of her thoughts like a cork submerged in water. She had been standing on the streets of the urban city, looking up at a street sign.

Katara, brow furrowed in concentration, tried to piece her memories together like a smashed vase.

Aang's warning, the street sign, and now Zuko's nonappearance. Was this merely paranoia fashioned by a meaningless dream and coincidence? Or was this a sign, given to her by whatever god it was that controlled fate, foretelling her of certain danger she could prevent?

And then, that voice in her head that was now jumbled up by confusion and worry whispered, 'Onion dream'.

Again with that reference to the childhood story. But with cogs whirling frantically to make sense of everything, a sudden thought occurred to her. The voice of Gran-Gran seemed to reach out to her through the thin veil that separated memory and reality.

"The onion dream is multi-layered like an onion. One cannot escape from it, for when they think the danger has passed, another dream replaces the first. The victim will soon be unable to tell the difference between the dream and conscious state. They will never be able to wake again."

Katara stood up, heart drumming feverishly in her chest. She finally understood the full application of the onion dream. As Gran-Gran had once said, the dream was multi-layered like that of an onion. Peel as you might, there was no end. And in conclusion, though Katara was now fully awake with all her senses alert, she was still trapped in the onion dream and this was just the beginning of another nightmare.

+Zuko+

It was easy getting into the building. There was a back door for maintenance staff. Access was gained by punching in a 5-digit code and a swipe of an identification card. However, this security measure was easily outwitted. Zuko had timed his arrival to match those of three other employees. None of them were already suited up for work but they did not regard him with much suspicion as he joined the group to enter once the door had been opened.

Once inside, the foursome split up. Two headed for the lockers and one wandered off to a bathroom. Zuko went into the maintenance employee lounge where they were expected to take coffee breaks between kicking stubborn fax machines and mopping spit off the floor.

Zuko gave a cursory glance down the large whiteboard that listed where all the employees were assigned to do their cleaning. He quickly located the name pinned to his uniform. Zachary Lo was expected to empty all the wastebaskets on the eleventh floor along with other tedious jobs that Zuko was not about to do.

He slipped out of the room with a mop in hand, just in case someone noticed him surreptitiously wandering around the halls. Of course, Zuko was not going idle around. It was only too obvious that sooner or later, someone would find out, especially since Zuko was going to try to something both conspicuous and illegal.

At 9:00 AM, there weren't too many people flocking around the halls. As far as he knew, most did not arrive until 9:30 and some came as late as 10:00. Nevertheless, this only gave him thirty minutes to snoop around without being caught. He was, however, given hope by the simple fact that all had gone according to plan so far.

He slipped out of the lounge just in time to see the two workers coming out of the locker room dressed in their uniforms. Neither noticed him as they set off toward their stations. Zuko quickly slipped into the now empty locker room. Barely two minutes later he emerged with an identification card safely stowed in his pants pockets.

It had not been an easy task devising this plan. Indeed, it wasn't a perfect plan as far as he knew because a lot of it depended on how fast he found what he was looking for. And if he was honest with himself, he didn't have the slightest clue as to what that might be. He had argued with himself over the past few days whether to actually carry it out or not. There were so many things that could go wrong, not least of all because he didn't have Katara with him. But there was nothing he could do about Katara. He assuaged himself with the feeble consolation that Katara could take care herself but worry and guilt prickled him,

'Though prospect may be dark and black, once begun, never turn back.' He recited to himself, quoting one of uncle's sayings. It did not do away the anxiety he felt.

If worse came to worse, he would have to resort to violence, though this reminded him of yet another saying of Uncle Iroh's: violence as the seed of soil rots the earth with great turmoil. Where the hell was all this coming from? He usually didn't understand a clue of his uncle's advice and now they were spewing from his brain to bite him in the ass when he least expected it.

He reached the elevators, pressed the up button and got in when the doors slid open. As he had expected, there was a card slot above the call buttons. He took the ID card he had taken from the labeled pegs in the locker room and swiped it. Almost at once, the numbered buttons glowed around the edges and Zuko pressed 14.

As the elevator climbed upward, Zuko kept his head down so that the security camera would not get his face. Even if they did get his face, it wouldn't matter as long as he got what he had come for. If he succeeded, all evidence that he had ever been here would be useless.

'I hope this works…' he prayed solemnly as the elevator made its ascent.

+Clivian+

The key to success in any profession was the ability to cope with any situation. Clivian had polished and honed this skill to perfection, landing him on the high-rising pedestal atop the social ladder. But even at that very moment, his ability to cope with failure was being tested.

Salwink, the unreliable bastard, had phoned just 10 minutes ago with infuriating news. The one subject he had been pouring precious money to keep under watch had mysteriously disappeared. Not only had she somehow detached herself from the various trackers embedded in almost all of her clothes, the seemingly reliable watchdog agent Clivian had set on her had also lost the scent. The agent's lame excuse had been that he had been stopped for questioning by the police. In fact, that was another thing. The idiots had failed to dispose of two petty cops who had gotten it into their heads to poke into his business. And now the whole police department seemed to be interested. This day couldn't get any worse.

Clivian stepped into the elevator, boiling to the roots of his salt-and-pepper but keeping his facial expressions in check. No need to alert anyone else that Clivian Beckett was in a foul mood, especially people as clueless as the three who were already in the elevator. One was a pretty secretary laden with a box full of manila envelopes; the second was a lab assistant skimming feverishly down a long data printout; the third was a short maintenance worker who was staring at the floor in apparent thought.

Well, Clivian could care less what that skinny boy was thinking. He had his own problems to sort out and it was far more complex than scrubbing floors. First of all, he would have to find out where dear Katara had run off to. Since the dunces had so cleverly failed in locating her thus far, it would be more prudent to deal with the dilemma his way. If she resisted, he would have no choice but to use force but he was certain his plan would go accordingly well. This time however, he would be the on-set director, watching carefully so that his actors didn't wander off script.

The doors slid open at the fifteenth floor and the secretary got out, heals clicking away as the doors closed again. Another couple of floors and the lab assistant, nearly tripping over his trailing printout, got off. Now it was just Clivian and the maintenance worker.

Clivian was getting ready to get off at level 19 but the maintenance worker stayed back as though he had no intention of ever getting off. Clivian returned to his half-formed schedule. He would have to skip the presentation after lunch. He could feign a migraine and no one would ask questions. No one ever did.

He got off on the 19th floor and the maintenance worker trailed behind. Clivian headed left and the maintenance worker turned right toward the restrooms, dragging the mop behind him. The uniform seemed to be too roomy for him.

'Dreadful. Whoever designed that should be shot.' Clivian thought, and decided to pass it along to whoever managed these trivial things so he could have them changed to crisp, clean white.

Without another thought of the maintenance worker, Clivian entered his office to ponder on how best to lure the unsuspecting waterbender.

+Ethan Jones+

The debris from the explosion thankfully missed Jones's head. But he still had to duck as powdered glass coated his dark hair. Head bent, he kept his eyes squeezed shut because whatever limbs that weren't broken, burned or scraped, would be a bloody pulp on the pavement if he freaked out now. At 5'10, he wasn't considered short but height had never boded well for Jones and dangling by the collar of his jacket twenty-one stories above the ground did not help to calm his panicking insides.

Keeping his eyes shut, he saw the world around him through the heat of the flames, shrieks of the people far below and the ominous groan of metal as it slowly began to bend. As the groan grew loader, his body, suspended in midair, dropped a couple of inches.

"Jones!" Someone's hoarse voice shouted from directly above him. It was Yumi Kim and it was only then that he registered that she must be holding on to him because his cheap jacket probably would've ripped right away if it had snagged anywhere.

"Swing. To. Balcony. Below." She grunted, and with the effort of talking coupled with the fact that he was a lot heavier than she was, he slid a little lower though she did not relinquish her grip.

"NOW!" she shouted, voice ragged from the black smoke billowing from the wreckage above.

He acted instinctively. He opened his eyes after carefully angling his head toward the side of the apartment. His vision was obscured by the brick wall and just below that he saw the balcony with its metal railing. His feet were mere inches from it. He swung, aware that one slip and he would plummet to his untimely death.

"Now!" Jones yelled, and Yumi let go. Momentum propelled him forward, smacked his head on the edge of the ceiling and landed on the balcony with a thud. Relief mingled with the pain of having cracked his head on solid brick almost nauseated him.

But then, barely a second after his landing, a grinding-shrieking-groaning noise stabbed him with fear. He got up, almost tripping over his own feet. Yumi was visible only for a second, suspended in midair as the hand gripping the railing of the balcony above slipped-

Jones flung himself at the railing, nearly toppling over the edge head first again. He managed to grab Yumi's wrist in one hand and handful of her sleeve in the other. Before the railing tore away altogether and fell like a gigantic plane to the street below, he summoned all his remaining energy to haul her up to safety.

She crawled, coughing and gasping for air, toward the sliding glass doors. Jones quickly got up to open the door from her and they entered the apartment from which its dwellers had long fled. The plaster of the living room ceiling was sagging and Jones, eyes watering from smoke, pulled Yumi to her feet and quickly headed for the exit.

Halfway down to the eighteenth floor, they met a firefighter who had been helping a hysteric old lady coax her cat from her apartment. One glance at Yumi and Jones who was supporting her, he and another fireman strapped her in a stretcher and hurriedly carried her down the stairs with Jones right behind them.

Jones left the site with nothing worse than a minor cuts and burns including a sizeable lump on his head. Looking back through the rear windows of the ambulance, he saw firefighters climbing a steep turntable ladder to hose the inferno. This was not what he had planned for the day.

+Katara+

People glanced at Katara's attire as she passed. It looked strange among the other pedestrians who were wearing styling coats and suits. Katara paid them no heed as she raced down the street, a torn yellow page clutched tightly in one hand. She had decided to wear her own clothes because it gave her at least a little confidence. The blue robes felt like warrior armor to her in the battlefield she felt so unfamiliar in. Nevertheless, the bottom of water tucked in her belt was merely a precaution. She was not about to attack anyone just because she was in a hurry.

This, however, did not mean that she was not going to waterbend when she wasn't in a fight. The last couple of minutes had been spent flying rooftop to rooftop on a disk of water. She was sure someone must have seen but the alleyways and streets she had flown over had been reasonably empty and most were sheltering under their umbrellas. Anyways, if Zuko's life was really in danger, what did it matter to her if someone's otherwise mundane afternoon was marred by the sighting of a flying girl? If Zuko was hurt, it would be partially her fault, no matter how irrational the reasoning behind it.

Stopping in front of a bakery, she flattened the piece of paper in her hand. It had been ripped from one of the heavy phonebooks supporting the television set back at the hiding place. On it was a map of the streets of West Verklay which crisscrossed and intersected in so many places that Katara had had some difficulty deciphering where Crest Hill Avenue was. But she was finally there at last. On her left was the unmistakable logo of the treacherous Microbe building and, somewhere inside, Zuko.