In a cold wet graveyard on a cold wet day, a hundred people gather to mourn. A random priestess is standing over the grave as the casket is lowered into the ground. At fist nothing looks out of the ordinary, until one takes a second look at the casket. It is wrapped in steel plating and chains.
"Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. We deliver one Jade Knight to eternal slumber."
"I'm not dead! LET ME OUT!!!"
"He was so young!" cried on little Avatar fan.
Richard snorts. "No he wasn't"
"Younger then you, old man!"
"Dead people don't talk," Richard shouted, throwing his umbrella drink into the grave. A new one appeared out of no where.
"All you had to do was update," said someone in a sad voice. "IT;S ALMOST BEEN A YEAR!!!"
"I was busy, but I'm almost done!" The sounds of a pen frantically scribbling could be heard coming from the chained casket.
"HERE!" boomed a voice, as a green gauntlet broke though the top of the casket, a bunch of papers held tight.
Cheers and merry making followed the funeral procession out of the graveyard.
"Is someone going to let me out?"
"Probably not," Richard mumbled as he walked out and locked the gate behind him.
Written and read best in 1/2 format (centering seems to be broken today... sorry)
Sokka: Master of the Black Sword
Author: The Jade Knight
Co-Author: Richard Caine
-The Resistance Saga-
Chapter 19
-
The Story of Sokka
The Rushing Dawn
-
We slipped back into the Lotus Garden, all sneaky-like though the same back door. It was about a quarter after twelve and since they were just starting to move lunch out we had to cut our way between dozens of cooks and waiters. Toph held my hand tightly in her own and laughed madly as she lead me through the labyrinth of people. I couldn't hold in my own giddy laughter so we drew more then a few dirty looks as we ran. My heart was beating a blissful rhythm against my chest while I followed my little Warrior Toph as she battled her way through the vile forces of the appetizers.
"Hey, your not supposed to be back here!"
"Sorry," I shouted back over my shoulder.
"I'm not," called Toph.
"That not nice," I said breathlessly as we rounded a corner and stopped for a second as a convoy of waiters with the lunch rush went back into the dining room.
"You can take care of the nice," she said waving her hand at me. I caught her waving hand and now I had her trapped. I don't know what I planned on doing but I was still running on the highest adrenalin high I had ever had and it didn't matter. "What are you doing?"
"I don't know," I said honestly. I was just toying with a few ideas when she went up on her tip-toes and gave me a little kiss. All my thoughts went into the soup and I was putty once again.
"I am never gunna get tired of that," she said mischievously. I nodded my agreement and she pulled me along again. I was vaguely aware that we had gone back into the dining room and we seemed to be looking for something.
"Having fun?" I turned around and Piando-sensei was standing right there smiling knowingly.
"Yes," I admitted, still unable to remove the perma-smile. Wait, I was forgetting something. I was supposed to be doing something right away and I don't think it involved Toph. Too bad, I'm sure it would be a lot more fun with her there. And besides she just said hells yeah! I don't want to go anywhere else right now.
"Did you forget our meeting?" Piando asked kindly. I frowned at him for a second before it fell back together.
"Oh, right." A few hours ago I had wanted nothing more then to go talk with this other Incarna; but now? Now I wanted to go where Toph was.
"What, oh right?" asked Toph suspiciously, still holding onto my hand.
"Uh," I mumbled. "I kinda have to go with Piando-sensei. He's supposed to be helping me to get some answers about this Incarna stuff."
"I see," she said slowly.
"I really did just want to lazy around today, but it doesn't look like were going to have the time. I need to go talk to … someone like me, and then we all have to sit down for planning how we are going to deal with those iron-clad ships on their way here right now. And then we have the Earth Jenkotsu to worry about later."
"Alright," she said letting go of me. Cold air rushed into the space where her hand had been and suddenly I wanted it back. "But you have to promise me you won't bottle everything up again, no matter what you might find out, okay?" She pointed a threatening finger at me.
"Okay, but you have to promise me that also. No more beating ourselves up. Agreed?"
"Agreed," she said with a strong nod that splashed her black hair around.
"I'll see you later," I said as gathered up my courage and reached out and pushed her hair back behind her ears, letting me see those pretty mist eyes. I grinned widely what she flushed before I followed Piando back through the doors to the back of the Parlor. "Could you find out Katara and Aang went? I shouldn't be too long and we need to get planning right away."
I went through the doors and lost sight of her. I forced my focus back to my own footsteps as we made our way back through the maze of waiters and cooks. Pots and pans boiled with all kinds of soups and gravies on top of every oven we passed. A few men who I assumed had seen me and Toph make our great escape glared at me, or at least they started until they saw who I was following.
"Where are we going?" I asked. I was really kind of curious. He had hinted that I would have to enter the Archive to meet Vashti, but how the hell was I supposed to do that. I didn't expect that their was a marked door to the deepest reaches of the Spirit Realm in the back room of the Lotus Garden …
Piando stopped suddenly at a blank wall and wrote out a few shaping glyphs. I watched his hands move and recognized a very complicated unlocking charm. A portion of the wall abruptly began to shimmer and he just walked through what appeared to be a wall.
What the bloody hell was this?
I looked up and down the hall quickly for any lurkers, but I suppose Piando took care of that before because there were none. I turned back to the blank wall that was apparently only pretending and tried to force myself to walk through it. Would I just splat on the surface? I hoped not. Well, Piando-sensei has never lead me wrong yet. I closed my eyes and stepped forward. I felt a tingle roll over my body that meant that I had just passed through a shielding, and opened my eyes again.
I was now standing in a landing made of cold gray stone. Piando was smiling in the Gel-Hassad way again holding a burning torch that he got from the small line on the wall. There were still four more burning in the brackets with a further five empty. I had to laugh a little at myself. "Everyone has an interesting reaction the first time they go through," he said, obviously enjoying it too much.
"Yeah, alright I freaked out," I admitted grudgingly, "can we continue on now?"
"Its fine with me," he said, that little hint of amusement draining from his voice quickly as he began to descend down a staircase that had been behind him. I follow Piando-sensei down the narrow spiraling stairway. I'm not sure how far down we're going, but I don't think it can be too far. Every step we take on the damn stone echo's up and down the stairway and off the walls, making it impossible to guess how many there are. I run my hand over the scarred stone walls as we descend; I think this place was fairly old – not ancient mind you, but it very well could have been built about the same time as this Vashti was alive.
Almost as if reading my thoughts Piando speaks up from in front of me, backlite by the torch he carried. "This place was build around the same time that the Lotus Garden was, by an all Gel-Hassad construction force of course. It has had various names and purposes over the years and the ownership has also been passed around the higher ranking members to throw off suspicions. In addition to that, it also has a great many very complicated and rare protection and seclusion spells over it. We have gone to many lengths to keep this place secret. I doubt even your small friend knew this place was under her very feet"
"I dunno," I said, speaking just to throw of the creepy atmosphere – was that a spider! "She's very surprising sometimes."
He laughed at that. "I look forward to seeing that side of her. In a time like this we need as many surprising people as we can get."
"Yeah, I suppose we do," I said, letting the weight I felt on my shoulders pass into my voice. Very soon things were going to all come together and then who knows what will happen.
"We have arrived." I looked up and saw a flickering golden light just around the last curve. It was painfully bright but it also might mean that I was close to the answers I needed so badly. I had to stop myself from stepping on Piando-sensei's heels as we got closer, and closer. Finally Piando moved to the side and I could see our new surroundings.
I hadn't felt much more then a little anxiety on the way down. I was only excited about getting some clear answers, but now that was the farthest thing from my mind. I couldn't bring myself to utter a sound in this room. The air was warmed and scented with burning incense. I walked though the doorway, my footfalls almost offensive to the tomblike silence.
It was a room made of immaculately white marble; floors, ceilings and all. There were sixteen pillars spaced at prefect intervals around the large round room, and standing between each set were people dressed in long concealing robes. I knew an unseemed Gel-Hassad body when I saw it, elegant black and white robes or not. Eight hoods cast shadows over eight faces; their black skin highlighted by the red flames burning in sixteen oil lamps above the pillars.
I walked forward into the room, my breathing sounding unnaturally loud in the silent space. Eight sets of crossed pupils followed my every movement as I stepped down into the slightly inlaid floor. There was something here; something that pulled at my very core.
Before me, in the dead center of the room was a black lotus made of unrefined hassad yavim laid into the floor. It was plain in its design, but clearly cut with much care. It felt like this room was suffocating, I wanted to get as far away from it as possible, but there was also something pulling me forward.
Written in the intricate and flowing script of the old ones in the black stone was a name; Vashti Ghin. I stopped before the black lotus and knelt as a wave of … something I could never hope to describe flowed through me. I could remember her when she was a little girl; the way she loved daises and had a crush on the blue eyed boy next door. She lived in a small town – barely a population of a hundred people, most of them Gel-Hassad. She went to a one room school house, and then ran to her grandmothers house every day.
I gently ran my fingers over the dates written there, an empty feeling in my stomach like I had gotten to the top of the staircase before I thought I should have, and that last step that was supposed to be there was just gone, letting me fall.
She met the man who she would one day call 'husband' when she was forty seven, still a young age for a Gel-Hassad. Their first date was a walk by a river and then a ride on some of his ranches' horses. They married in the spring six years later and lived together without too many bumps for a further hundred. It was the year of the scorpion when she awoke one night, visions of Genzou and Mouretsu in her dreams.
Fifty four days later Avatar Yasuragi killed her.
I don't know how long I just knelt there, reading those words over and over again. 'Let all who consider themselves of the People, know that Lady Ghin gave her life to give the world the possibility of a future.'
It was not everyday a man sat before his own grave.
I knew it wasn't exactly my grave, but on another level it was. I could remember watching the sunrise through her eyes. I could remember how she felt the first time she rode a horse or found out that her mother had passed. I could remember so much about her it made sitting here surreal.
"Sokka, are you alright?"
I looked up and saw Piando kneeling across from me, his head also bowed slightly as he read the words there. I was getting pretty good at reading Gel-Hassad emotions, and I think he looked very … solemn sitting there. He must have known her in some manner.
"Is she really..." I couldn't fine the right words and my voice sounded so sharp in here I was afraid I might be disrespectful.
"This room is her tomb," he said softly, as though used to speaking in here. "We were afraid to lay her to rest anywhere unguarded. The hate we personally saw in Yasuragi and her followers as well as the few shrouded details that she told us about the Master made us think that anywhere else might be targeted."
"She would have agreed." Piando nodded and a little of the tension in him seemed to have left him, as if my answer settled something in him. We knelt before the black lotus quietly for another long minute in respect, and then got back to our feet at the exact same time. I said a short prayer that was supposed to tell the spirits of the deceased that we would be fine, and to move on. I didn't even bother wondering about how I knew it, I just accepted it. "So, why are we here? I thought I was supposed to meet with her in the Archive or something."
"You will," Piando said. "The People behind us are all here to assist you in venturing into the Archive for the first time. You are too much for us to bring into the spirit realm ourselves, so you will have to do that part yourself, but we will be able to guide you."
"Alright, when do we go?" I asked. I wanted to get away from this room as soon as I could. There was just something about standing over this tomb that unsettled me very much. Almost as soon as I asked that question the eight robed figures around us began to speak in the old tongue, their voices meshing together perfectly and lowering itself to a low buzz as their hand formed the glyphs for the spell.
"Sokka, before we leave there are several things you must know." Piando spoke with none of the youthful wisdom it usually held, now it was just subdued. "For one thing, none of us will be able to join you. This is a sacred pilgrimage for you alone to embark upon."
"Yeah, I expected something like that." I still felt a little queasy though... or it might be that we we're still standing over my – Vashti's memorial stone.
"And, I feel I need to make an amendment to what I said before concerning how you appear in the archive."
"Oh?"
"Yes," he said as thirteen glyphs activated around us and the flickering light of the room was beginning to swirl as though going down a drain the the middle of the room … right where I was standing. "I told you that you appeared as what you were as opposed to how you looked, and that is the truth. But you must also understand that you appear in the most pure essence of what you are, everything all at once and not one piece darkened or faded. It is up to the people who view you to make an opinion of what all of that means, and not everyone understands what they see."
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked suspiciously.
He smiled at me for real again and clasped a green glowing hand onto my shoulder. "Wisdom only comes with age, so the young sometimes act without thinking." The world twisted away much like it had when I had fallen through it when I escaped from Yasuragi. The people, the white marble and even the black lotus all bent around me for an instant before I felt like something had opened up below me. "Go now Sokka, and seek your answers."
I wanted to press him for more about what he had said, but the bit of me that I had come to call the wolf was telling me that if I didn't go right now the spell would fade and with the amount of energy they were pouring into it, this was a now or nothing deal.
I reached out in a way I couldn't even begin to describe and felt around for the tunnel they were creating. Normally one would have to go through extensive meditation and preparation before they could enter the Archive, but since I was all super and awesome I just pulled myself into the portal.
It felt like I was slipping sideways through the world, drifting down through the layers of reality one at a time. I was wrong, this wasn't like the 'step between' crap at all, it was something new. Oh boy, I don't do well with new things lately.
"Eww," I mumbled as I clamped my hand over my nose. It smelt really weird here, almost musky but not something I had ever been around before. The visuals weren't that appeasing either. The walls were curved and black, looking like they had been burrowed out rather then built. I hope whatever built these isn't still around. I almost sighed in relief when I knew that they weren't, the Old Ones had been extinct for … oh.
I looked up and down the short hallway, but it turned on both ends not far away. I stepped closer to get a better look at this material. I was a curious guy and I was the first human here in … had there been any humans here before?
I wasn't to know that yet.
Hurray. I'm already getting tired of this new info stuff. Don't get me wrong, I like how its clearer now, but if says that I'm 'not ready to know that yet' one more time I will smash something. The wall with a pulse distracted me before I could dwell on that thought any longer. Gross, the wall was pulsing. Veins of black and green spiritual energy ran along the walls, crossing themselves many times. It was the blood of this place … it was alive.
Nothing dead could exist in the spirit realm, it was impossible to have a structure of simple materials just plopped right down in the middle. The Old Ones hadn't build this place, they had grown it. It had started out as a small little godseed in the middle of the neutral realm and it had grown into this gargantuan organism over thousands and thousands of years. I reached out through the space between us and tried to touch its mind.
I felt something. I reached a little further, slowly, afraid of scaring it when I got quiet a surprise.
At first I felt … not so much a consciousness, but more like a will. A will to live and grow, to defend itself from predators and it explore its surroundings. It wasn't exactly alive in the sense of possessing a mind of its own – but it was alive; there was no doubt about it now. Just as I was figuring this out, it reached back out to me.
The consciousness felt me looking at it and moved ever so slightly in my direction reaching out one impossible long arm across dimensions to greet me. For an instant I thought about pulling back and running, but the wolf in me said that this thing was just curious. I still wasn't fulling trusting the wolf, but I was willing to give it a chance. I raised my own hand and laid it gently on the wall. It pulsed and moved beneath my fingers, all slimy and gooey before I felt it touch me back.
It wasn't friendly or hostile, it was something less and more then those things. I almost jumped when a connection between us snapped a little. Well now, so this was the thing that made it possible for me to access the Archive anywhere. This being was connected to the Archive – a symbiotic relationship – and when I needed information it acted as the go between. I think I sent a greeting between us and smiled when I felt the wall hum beneath my fingers.
"Do the Gel-Hassad know your alive?" I asked, mostly to myself. This thing was pretty amazing, and I hadn't even gotten to the archive yet.
A second, lower more mournful hum echoed beneath my hand and I frowned. It was in pain, great pain. Someone had hurt it a very long time ago and it hadn't healed properly. It was asking me to help it. How could I not, but I didn't know how. Something almost seemed to nibble on my fingers. My eyes shot open, but I calmed when I realized the slimy wall wasn't eating my hand. I think it was asking me for something.
I opened myself to it a crack to see what it would do, and I felt a little of my void … stuff being drawn into the wall. From beneath my fingertips a smooth, almost skin-like thing started to spread out over the wall. It was a deep rich blue in colour and it gently crept over the vainy open wound looking walls, covering them over faster and faster. I withdrew my hand and began to follow it along. I had to go this way anyway, so I might as well follow this skin I had somehow brought into being.
I turned the corner and found a long almost endless hallway with archways dotting each side at seemingly random intervals. My shoes started to click on the now hardening and not squishy blue floors. I passed a few archways and saw the skin rushing in and out of countless arches fading into distances unknown.
And at the far end of the hallway a single person stood. He was a Gel-Hassad without any kind of seeming up. I stopped and watched, just to see what he would do. I looked down at myself again and I thought I looked like I always do, but if what Piando-sensei had said was true, I should look really weird.
The man turned to face me, his thin swishing robe not covering a whole lot of his black exo-skeleton. His eyes widened as his lips parted slightly in surprise. By human standards he seemed to take it well, but I knew he was thinking about the state of his sanity. He stumbled backwards a step before he took off at a full run, his knees bending at weird angles to make it someone else's problem. Hmm, sweet.
I continued down the hall way for a time, seeing no one else the whole time. Either pretty much no one was in here, or they were avoiding me. Since I couldn't think of a reason why anyone would want to avoid me I assumed the former. But why would they do that? My train of through was derailed when I stepped up to a closed door.
This was the first door I had seen here.
The walls on either side were still all vainy but as I stood there the blue skin raced past and disappeared around another corner. The door before me was wet looking before, and it almost seemed to be breathing. But now it was a gleaming white, almost like the enamel people have on their teeth. It had no door knob or even obvious hinges, but I knew those didn't matter. I let my hand raise and trace a glowing green glyph in the air just in front of the door. It had just faded when a click echoed into a large space behind the door, and the door quietly swung in. I entered the new space and again I was stopped by what I saw in front of me.
The blue skin spread across the endless ceiling, hiding the pulsing gristle. Hundreds of doorways, some a brilliant white like the one behind me and others waiting to be changed ringed the impossibly huge room. It was nearly a full mile from one end of the room to the other, and the floor, if it could be called that was made up of innumerable platforms of black and white stone, each raising and lowing in a rhythm that escaped me before they flashed and shifted colour again. And right in the middle of it all a sphere the size of a building, made out of silvery swirling liquid held in place by nothing; it just floated there.
"Wow," was all I could get out. Ahh, there we go, that explained it. Floating in the air around the sphere was a warning written in glyphs. It basically said that the archive was unstable right now and anyone wishing to enter should use a team. That's why the place was so quiet.
You could get into that silver thing? What the hell for?
In the quiet of the room I could detect the content hum of the superbeing as it's wounds healed over and changed into … whatever it was now. And above it was the sharper sound of the old language being spoken by many voices in a raised and strained fashion. In an open doorway halfway around the huge room several Gel-Hassad seemed to be arguing about something. I would almost be concerned, seeing as I had very little contact with them so far. But they were all the way over there and I had no intentions of staying here long enough for them to get over here.
So, where to now? The sphere? That seemed to be the only logical idea.
I was just trying to figure out how I was supposed to get down to it when the front of blue rolled past me and down into the maze of columns between me and the sphere. The black and white platforms turned a deep black and pulled apart into smaller steps before they started to shift. They all leveled out into a gentle slop with steps a more manageable six feet across leading down the the sphere. I liked the way this was going. I just hoped there weren't many surprises coming. They usually turned out bad.
Looking back over my shoulder I saw that the Gel-Hassad had stopped squabbling and seemed to be staring amazed as I descended the newly crafted steps. What? It wasn't like I was doing this on purpose. I just gave the being a little energy, it was doing all this on its own. I walked down those bloody stairs for what seemed like forever until I was almost at the sphere, but like before the changes got to it before I did.
It shuddered for a moment before it stretched upwards, pausing to shudder a second time, and then it spread out into a towering cylinder rocketing toward the ceiling. I tiled my head back to watch it as it touched the blue ceiling far above my head and then it gently touched down the the floor. It had become a solid silver cylinder going from the ceiling to the floor. Pretty, but I still had no idea what to do with it.
Okay, now what?
I was to touch the Archive.
Alright, but … was this silver tower the Archive? I hadn't an idea what it was supposed to look like, but I suppose it must be. After all there wasn't much else here.
From far behind me the Gel-Hassad standing there seemed to have gained their courage again and were shouting down to me, no doubt making their way down too. I hadn't any time to deal with them, I needed to see Vashti now. So, it was with that thought that I closed the remaining distance to the silver tower, raised a hand, and touched its swirling surface.
I was pulled into the silver so quickly I didn't have time to even gasp. I floated in the black, no sense of up or down. My sense of time was going completely psychotic. Time means little to nothing in the Archive, and I had just fallen down into one of times cracks. I glided silently though the darkness of time, tumbling over myself a hundred times before everything righted itself and I seemed to be raising out of the black.
-
-Story of Arckon-
-
I stood before a window on the ninth floor of the hotel we were using as the base for the Resistance. I was far enough back from the glass that anyone directly below couldn't see me, but I could still see the city. The sun was high in the sky and the entire city was crawling with movement as the time rolled closer to one o'clock. I winced a little as a sharp pain sparked through my head, originating where my eye once was and I reached into my pocket for the bottle of pain killers I carried with me all the time. I popped two and chewed.
The Green Daggers were working out well; I had taken a half dozen of them as well as lieutenant Heida with me this afternoon on the food raid. They had followed my orders without a seconds hesitation and moved with the rest of the team like they had always been together. I would be the first to admit that a food run was not the best time to break in new additions, but we were really pinched for time and … I was getting the feeling that the climax of our resistance was near.
I still couldn't shake the memory of watching the Incarna fighting.
He was so fast. There were times when I could barely follow him with my eye, almost as if he were crossing space without actually traversing it. I knew that there was a technique that the Gel-Hassad had that could allow them to do that. I never knew the name of it, as my whole family had been massacred long before I had taken up the scroll; but it was mention in the writings and I had heard my father speaking of it once.
It was supposed to be an escaping technique; but it was very costly. I did not know what, if any special training or requirements were needed, but they must be vast because I have never personally seen Gel-Hassad use it. In the scroll it described the unnamed technique as punching through the world into the void and using that un-space to reach their destination in a instant. But the amount of spirit energy it needed meant that it was designed as an escape route when you know you are defeated even before the fighting starts. It drew so much from the person preforming it that expending the energy for even a single attack or defense would not leave enough for the technique.
But he had not escaped, he had stuttered though the air like a needle threading in and out. He must have invented or known of some variant of the technique. Even if he was to be a hundred times more powerful then the average Shaper the spells he used against the Avatar would have already used an astounding amount of spirit energy. It was conceivable to think that he had used some basic version of the escaping. But I did not know of any other Shaping that could allow him to move like he had.
Unless the scroll was incomplete.
I was under no delusions. I knew that there was much more within the discipline of Spirit Shaping that the Jenkotsu had never heard of. But this was the twice damned Incarna! Any and all of his abilities should be described in some detail. We had been fighting him and his kind for forty thousand years. It was perfectly possible that we had no knowledge of the smaller or weaker techniques; and in the right combination they could still be very dangerous. But we were talking about a man moving through space without walking it!
Those explosions had shaken a wall that had stood for a hundred generations! How had he done that? Where had he gotten the Hassad Yavim? I have only ever seen fragments; how did he acquire an entire gladius made from it?
I forced myself to calm, taking slow and deep breaths. If I allow the Incarna to impair my judgment I would made hasty decisions; I would get people killed.
Make every move without haste or hesitation.
He had fought the Avatar.
I had been told the last, and current Avatar's were a small male Airbender who bore the tattoo's of the older generations. How could it be that it was an Airbender for two cycles? And the woman I saw had been a Firebender from the ease of which that element came to her. But Roku had been the Fire Avatar last. Fire was not supposed to be next in the cycle either. There was much I still did not understand about what was going on. But that had been the Avatar; I had felt the call. And if I was to ever meet him … or her again I would know instantly.
I pushed all of those thoughts from my head. Thinking over unanswerable questions would only cloud my mind. I needed to think clearly if I was to help lead the Resistance in the days to come. I cleared my face of the turmoil in my head as Suki was about to open the door. No need to worry her.
"Oh, Arckon! I've been looking for you," she said from the doorway. I turned around and managed a small smile at here.
"Have you?" I asked. There was something wrong with her. She still wore that disguise of the old woman and she was still hunching over slightly but her eyes behind the large glasses and shadowed with the shawl were a little red. I frowned slightly; her costume makeup had also been reapplied recently. "What happened? Does it have something to do with that man I left you with?"
"No," she said immediately. "Well, yes."
I felt my face twist a little as I took a step closer to her, examining her further for anymore damage. "What did he do?" I asked, my voice rough even to my own ears.
"Arc, he did the right thing," she said, allowing herself a small smile. "He's a very gentle person and he did it to protect me from being hurt later."
"What did he do?" I repeated, finally going right up to her and pulling up her sleeves to inspect her arms for any signs of bruising.
"Arckon he didn't hurt me!" she said forcefully, allowing me to continue to hold onto her arm. "He didn't touch me other then to comfort me and he was a perfect gentleman, just like I knew he would be."
"He hurt you." I trusted her and she was quickly becoming one of my few friends; I would not let her be hurt like I was. "I could see it on your face when you walked in here."
"I was hurt," she admitted, but cut me off before I could respond. "But! He didn't do it on purpose. He told me some things about himself, and although I may not like it I can understand what he meant."
Something was off here. I could not say exactly what, but there was something I was missing about this, something important. "He scared you?" I asked, and saw the answer before she even opened her mouth.
"Some of the things he said; yes, they did scare me a little. But I know him, and I know that I have nothing to fear from him," Suki said as I let go of her arms. "I trust him and although it hurt, I know he only did it to protect me. He's a chivalrous, thick skulled idiot at times; but his heart's in the right place."
"Alright," I conceded with a small nod. For the time being I would take her word for it, and trust this 'Sokka'.
Sokka … there was something about how he looked that bothered me now – A long pony tail running down his back. "So, what did you want to find me for?" I asked, getting her mind of the subject that was clearly bothering her. I may be trusting her on this man, but I would never let my guard down around him completely.
"Sokka asked me to meet him at the Festival this afternoon, and well," she said, fidgeting a little. "I'm alright and all, I just would rather go with someone. Bee and Longshot have to stay back here to do something and I was hoping you'd like to come with me. That is if you can get the time off? I was just thinking that I never see you relax at all, so I thought it would be good for you."
As she spoke, rambling on I felt the slightest smile edging its way onto my face. "I suppose I could use an afternoon off," I agreed. I didn't have too much planned this afternoon and it looked like Suki just needed some time away from all of this. I didn't see the problem with helping out a friend. But her friend, this Sokka, the man with a sword – obviously not a bender from the way be moved– who came into the Resistance with grandmaster Haiyahi was really bugging me. There was just something about him...
"Okay," Suki said, glowing happily. "I'll go tell someone to pass the message onto Red May and then we can go. I promised to meet Sokka there at four; he wanted to show me something."
I nodded and made to follow her out. So we were to meet her sword-wielding friend at four – a friend with a sword that would look a lot like a gladius from a bit of a distance. I stopped at the top of the stairs. From below I could still hear Suki saying something, totally unaware I was not following her anymore. It was rude to let someone continue talking when you aren't there, but I was held fast by a trickling coldness running down my spine.
The image of a man in a pony-tail, stuttering though the air, swinging a black gladius replaying over and over inside my head.
-
-Sokka-
-
I followed Piando back up the stairs and through the kitchens. The dozen or so people that had helped me into the archive just nodded respectfully before they parted company at the top of the stairs and went their own ways, their seemings back up.
Well, that has to have been the strangest conversation I had ever had. I met Vashti, and she was nice enough, but I couldn't talk to her. At first it was like I was a ghost trapped in a memory, watching her searching though the archive, looking for a suitable human host; then I managed to break though completely, but …
What the hell was that? At fist it was as like I was a cloud.
Gods, it sounds insane just thinking about it. I was a cloud? I suppose that's the best way to describe it. I felt weightless, and I could touch every wall in the archive at once. I drifted around near the ceilings until I felt like I needed to step in. I called a bolt of lightning from within me to strike the archive, and when it touched the floor, a wispy spectral version of the White Wolf came into being. Then my cloudyness cracked, and I begain to rain down. I could see like every drop of water was an eye, feel like they each were a finger, and when they had all falled, I pulled myself together and reformed.
Uh, my head hurts. I was a cloud, and then rain. Yeah, I am really just waiting to wake up in a padded room somewhere.
I kept chancing looks at Piando. What was I supposed to say now? I had just gotten back from yelling some sense into him two hundred years ago. What do you follow that with?
My thoughts must have shown on my face again as Piando-sensei spoke up. "I would like to extend my much belated thanks to you. I had much doubt in me back then, and it very well could have gotten me or many others killed."
"Yeah, no problem," I said as we pushed through the double doors, walking back into the main parlor. The now familiar clicking of tiles and glasses was almost soothing. "You helped me out when I was in the same situation."
"I believe the saying is; thats what friends are for," he said smiling in that Gel-Hassad way again.
I nodded my own agreement just a we spotted the gang sitting at the table I had seen Katara and Aang at earlier, their lunch long since gone. I caught a waiter with a hand and asked him if he could bring some ginseng tea to the table.
"Hey Piando-sensei?" I asked quietly. "Do you think you could do some calculations and maybe a spell for me?"
"I shall try. I assume you have something in mind?"
"Yeah," I assented. "When I was in the Archive I noticed a little something addressed to me."
"Oh?" he asked interestedly.
"Yeah. Apparently you have an agent in the Fire-Nation that managed to get assigned to the maintenance team on one of the Airships on their way here. He knew a guy who knew one of the clan heads or something long winded and confusing, any way he had a connection in that conclave you called a little while ago, so he was told enough to know that it would be beneficial for me to know the exact whereabouts of Azula's armada."
"I see," Piando said softly in a conspiratory tone. "That would be beneficial."
"Indeed it would," I said sagely. "He just so happened to have managed to put that little bit of information into the Archive with an address listed right to me. So when I was fumbling around – I mean easily finding my way out I happened to stumble upon it as it was unsorted. Since the Archive was so … wild before when I did whatever it was I did to it, he could only put the information into it and hope I found it. There was no way he would be able to get a team together to file it properly."
"I assume it was important?"
"Oh yes," I said nodding. "He managed to activate a spirit beacon in the three hundred and thirteenth mark four hundred and two ion-byte frequency, with a spiral cypher on it."
"Brilliant," Piando smiled, "in that frequency all the standard scanning devices would be useless. But since that beacon is typically used as a baited trap for capturing spirits it normally would not be useful as a homing beacon unless it was calibrated to something only we have?"
"Specimen 99-543," I said as though it was nothing.
"There is no specimen 99-543," Piando said, allowing a little mirth.
"Really?" I asked in mock disappointment. "Then whatever will we do with the pulse the beacon is sending into the spirit realm on the 67-Y range in the Orhanas pattern?"
"We might be able to trace it back – if the Archive was accessible?" he asked speculatively.
"It just might be," I said offhandedly. "Someone might have just made friends with the Archive and any friend of mine would be a friend of it's." Piando nodded understandingly when I said that. I supposed being the Architect of the Archive gave him the insight he needed to see that the Archive was indeed alive.
"I will see what I can do. Do we have a time frame?"
"Later this evening," I said. "About five or so I think."
Piando gave one last nod and walked away. I could already see a thousand thoughts kicking themselves around behind his eyes and knew that I would have my window when I needed it.
Now to deal with the Jenkotsu that wanted to make me into a people-pretzel.
I began to weave my way though the parlor over to where I had seen the gang. As soon as I got close enough Toph looked up, seeming to have just noticed me and leaned over to tell my sister. I frowned when I noticed that Aang seemed to be cowering in his chair, trying his best to get away from the two women.
O-kay? What the hell was that about?
"Hey guys," I said cheerfully as I pulled a chair away from an empty table and sat down next to Toph. "How's it going?"
"I didn't tell him!" Aang cried out in a panicked voice, before diving under the table.
I lifted up the table cloth to see Aang hiding under there, seeming to be figuring his chances at a run to the door. "Is he okay – like in the head?" I asked a little worried.
"He is right now," Katara said with a little edge in her voice that brought a whimper from beneath the table. Ha, that's what I liked to hear. Well, if anyone but us tried to make Aang whimper they would be nine kinds of broken faster then Toph could level a building – which wasn't that long – but we were all acting like ourselves. Moral was high. Sadly it needed to be today more then any other.
I grinned when I noticed Toph's hand creep across the table to mine. Her soft hand threaded with mine and Katara let out a little squeal. I glanced over at my little Warrior Toph and found that same wicked smile that always promised mischief and mayhem.
"So Sokka," my sister asked, smiling so wide her face looked about to crack, "is there anything new you think I should know?"
"I don't think so," I said slowly. "Can you think of anything?"
"Nope," Toph said gleefully. I can honestly say I was a little surprised – but happily so – when she pulled me over to her by our clasped hands and kissed me again. I fell back into my chair feeling like my head was full of puffy little clouds. I could definitely get used to that. "I can't think of anything."
"Think who?" I asked dumbly, before my mind caught up with me again. Never let it be sad that Toph couldn't be forward and go for what she wanted. Sure, she had taken a round about way dropping clues for me, but she had been following Katara's advice. "Oh yeah, nothing."
Toph cackled. "I know I said it before, but we are going to have to do that much more often."
"Okay," I agreed happily.
Jade Knight - Richard Caine
