Korra's Point of View

I really think Zuko is impressed by my awesome stealthy-ness. I am really rocking it. We had slipped off the ship after sending an official letter to Admiral Zhao requesting an audience the next day. And here I was now, jumping over the walls surrounding Pohuai, dark brown boots and pants plus a dark robe thing, and a red mask. Why the mask, I don't know. Zuko is kind of a drama queen.

"Where did you learn to move like that?" The voice beneath the blue mask whispered as soon as my feet touched down.

"That is why you wish you were me." I smirked, but he couldn't see it under my mask.

"I'm rolling my eyes, water peasant."

"Thanks for the info." We stopped talking as a guard came around the corner, Zuko cut him off before he could shout with a quick thrust of the sword into his stomach.

"You're killing them? They're your own people!" I stopped suddenly, right beside the now- dead guard.

"They are Zhao's men. And I was banished from the Fire Nation." What the flipping firebenders? He thought that this was justifiable? If I had my Avatar powers…

"No more killing. Giving them a painful bump, sure, but no killing."

"I'm not putting the mission at risk for some peasant's misguided sense of empathy." He was arguing full out now or as full out as one can while whispering.

I just looked at him, not moving an inch, and he sighed. "Fine. No killing. Unless they are about to kill or capture us." I started running forward, and Zuko caught up to me, swiftly pointing out directions to the center of the stronghold.

It took ten minutes and three unconscious guards to get to the center room, and I nearly started crying when I saw a beaten and bruised Aang hanging on chains five feet above the ground. Poor kid. He groaned and looked up as we entered the rooms, and Zuko and I positioned ourselves on both of his sides. He looked up at us fearfully , and when I raised my sword, synchronized with Zuko's, he flinched away. What the? Mask. There we go. I brought my sword down, flashing, on the chain that bound him to the pillars, and Zuko caught him after the fall. He jumped to his feet, his bright grey eyes flashing curiously, and started after us as Zuko left the room, I followed Aang. We were scaling the inner wall, the first of five, when a nasty sounding bell went off. Damn!

Aang and Zuko started fighting the Fire Nation guards that we just beginning to pour into the wide courtyard. I stayed back, and started scaling the wall again, using random metal handholds and getting all the way up, where I was met by three guards. I remembered what Zuko told me, the swords work together as one. I unsheathed them as dramatically as I could, and the guards gripped their spears visibly tighter; I was scaring them. I remembered a waterbending move that involved raising the water and thrusting it forward, and a firebending move that was similar. I raised the blades above my head as they charged, and spun with the two blades, catching a guard by the front armor and flinging him off the side. The other guards were still advancing, and I held both swords at my side, now unsure of what to do. I remembered the other thing Zuko mentioned. If all else fails, use it as a pointy saber. I lunged forward blindly, hitting the soldier's armor, and having it deflect. I hit his helmet with the flat of my blade, and he fell unconscious the ground. Pretty good for a beginner, two down, one to go.

I heard a yelp from behind me, where the other guard was supposed to be, and found him stone cold under a pile of limbs belonging to Zuko and Aang. They got up and Aang smiled up at his mortal enemy. Zuko must not have shown his face yet.

When we were on our last wall, we got cornered. Zhao and his cronies had us as trapped as we could get, stuck between a rock (the wall) and a hard place (the wall of spears).

"Take the Avatar alive, in fact, take them all alive," Zhao called to his minions, "I'll send the masked ones with the Avatar as a gift to the Fire Lord."

I took a step forward, trying to challenge the advancing spearmen, but was pushed back quickly. Then Zuko did something incredibly stupid.

Aang started choking, and I turned to see Zuko with his swords pressed up at Aang's throat, and Zhao's extremely pissed off face as he muttered the words, "Let them go."

One soldier was stupid enough to question him, "What?"

"I said, open the gates!" There was a creaking noise as the gates cracked themselves open enough for Zuko and I to slip through, with Aang being towed behind the Prince of Idiots himself. Yea, we were out, but Zuko was not making himself out to be a nice guy.

We walked away slowly, step by step by step, until we saw movement on the top balcony. At that point, Zuko turned and ran, with me close on his heels, and Aang pulling up a dust cover for us to slip through. An arrow whistled past my ear, and a jumped, but kept running. We didn't stop until we reached the woods, and found a nice tree to hang out on the uppermost branches.

"Well, thanks guys!" Aang sounded winded, but cheerful, despite his bruised appearance.

Zuko said nothing, and I sighed loudly, "We'll be off, Aang." I spoke to the boy, and to the man in the blue mask, I said, "And you'll give us an hour."

He reached up and took off his mask, relishing the look on Aang's face. "Your hour started fifteen minutes ago."

"Shit-head." I murmured as Aang and I slipped out of the woods and out of sight.

XXXxxxXXXxxxXXX

"So what was the deal with that?" Aang asked as we waited in the lonely cave for Sokka and Katara to recover from the strange disease thingy that had taken them over. After letting them suck on frog butts, possibly the grossest thing I've ever seen, we had retired to the fire where we could talk.

"Well, Zuko gets extremely jealous," I paused and smiled, "He actually is a really funny person when you get him to stop worrying about his honor," my smile turned wry, "Which is never."

"Okay, and how does that correlate to you and the blue-mask guy?" That silly kid still didn't get it.

I sighed, "Zuko didn't want anyone else to turn you into his father, so he freed you. That was Zuko in the mask." His eyes flew wide open, and open his mouth to say something, which I cut off by continuing my statement. "He couldn't do it alone, so he said he'd give me an hour. He's probably on his way to the north pole right now, because that's where he thinks we are, or traveling to right now."

"So, Zuko was the one who busted me out?" Aang looked as me incredulously.

"Yep." I yawned, "I'm gonna hit the hay, wake me up when it's my watch."

I walked over to my sleeping bag, and flopped down, asleep as my head hit the seal hide.

I woke to the rays of sunlight hitting my face, and Katara shaking my shoulder.

"Wake up, sleepy-head. We're heading for the coast."

I groaned, "What time is it?" Everyone else was already packed. Sokka snorted. "What?" I snapped.

He smiled, "And I thought I woke up late!" I scowled and threw my pillow at him. He laughed. "We really did miss you, Korra." He smiled again, and we finished cleaning up the camp in the cave.

Once we were safely up in the air, I allowed my thoughts to drift to Zuko, and his terrible past. And to my bending, my lack of it. A surge of panic swelled up in me, but I didn't know why. Something about not having bending scared the old me. With a sigh, the new, non-bender me put my head down on the rim of the saddle and looked out on the endlessly moving ocean on all sides of us.

Back in Republic City

Bolin's Point of View

"Mako, bro, Tenzin sent us a letter from the Air Temple." I called out to my brother.

"Good, it's probably telling us when Korra'll be back." He set down the frying pan with our supper in it and turned around. "And it had better be soon, like in the next month, or the Fire Ferrets won't be able to compete in the next tournament." He came over and pulled it out of my hands. He is such a control freak, and I'm pretty sure it's all unconscious.

The look on his face went from curiously amused to disbeiliving after reading the first bit of the letter, and from disbelieving to shocked and angry as he finished it up. "What?" I asked, "She's not staying there for forever, is she?"

Mako threw the letter on the table. "Pack your things, and any spare change you can scrounge up. I'm calling Asami and getting us a boat to Kyoshi Island."

"Kyoshi? Are we going to the Air Temple?"

"Just read the letter." Mako stomped off, leaving me alone in the kitchen are.

Mako and Bolin,

I'm sorry. I'm afraid Korra had been called away for her Avatar duties and will be back at an undetermined time. I'm sorry if this disrupts your tournament times. Thank you for everything you've done for her.

Tenzin

Airbending Master

Republic City Council: Air Nomad Representative

It's not like Korra to leave us. This is really worrying. I ran and packed my stuff. It was time to head to the Air Temple, and drag Korra kicking and screaming back to the city, where she belongs.


Sorry it has taken so long to update… I was kind of to busy reading fanfiction to write any… (*looks guiltily at floor*) Sorry…

If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them, PM me or leave it in a review.

Some people have had concerns involving me being a Zutara fan, and wanting to alter the course of history, and, unfortunately for all you Zutara fans out there, it won't be. Sorry. This is forcibly Kataang, just cause I love Tenzin too much. Well, that and the whole altering the course of history isn't really my thing.

Thanks for reading!