Chapter 42

The day of the big challenge had dawned bright and glorious, Ji-Fu thought to himself as he stood in the huge open bending grounds of the exhibition stadium.

A little sheen of frost still hung over all the boulders and glistened on the wooden seats of the stands as he looked about him. It all sparkled like the jewels in a king's crown—in his crown--he thought to himself.

He walked back to the palanquin that waited to carry him back to the military compound. He had to dress for the occasion. Something workable, but still splendid, he thought to himself. He didn't expect to meet much of a challenge in this Jet character. Once he was pounded literally to death, it would be Ji-Fu's time. Omashu would belong to him completely.

Ji-Fu looked around the grounds once again, breathing in the morning air. It was a beautiful day, bright and glorious.

Jet woke late. His mouth tasted vaguely metallic and his left eye was a little blurry. He blinked several times to try to clear it, but it never really got better. That wasn't good, he thought to himself. He considered going to see Katara, but decided against it. Any fix she could give him would only be temporary.

Then he thought, really thought about what it meant for him to fight Ji-Fu that day. He would win. That much he was sure of. Another night of dreams had only reinforced the overwhelming certainty of that fact. He was destined to be king of Omashu.

But for how long? Would he win and die within minutes of an unstoppable bleeding in his head? Would he live long enough to make any of the changes he'd envisioned for the city? Would he be able to at least get that fountain fixed so the people in the old neighborhood would have access to clean water?

And if he died, who would rule in his stead? Ji-Fu would be defeated, but who could hear the earth to reign in Jet's place? Would Ji-Fu manage to take the throne anyway? Would Aang and Toph somehow manage to keep order?

There was one thing he knew—he couldn't back down from this. He had to fight Ji-Fu. Only someone highly placed in the military could make sure that all the bandit activity and corruption went unnoticed by the trade council and the advisors.

Only someone with plenty of power could keep things running on the surface while the infrastructure crumbled. Jet was convinced that Ji-Fu currently ran the city. Now Ji-Fu wanted to run it openly as well.

That brought him to consider yet another question—what to do with Ji-Fu once the contest was over? Did he remove him from his post as general? Did he investigate him and try to prosecute him? He needed to be just and impartial. Otherwise it would look like he was just trying to get rid of his adversary.

Jet sighed and rubbed at his eye again. It focused a little more clearly and that gave him hope. But as he walked into the huge bathing room, he realized he needed more than hope as he passed out on the tile floor.

Some time later, he awoke to Katara's cool blue waters. "This is getting to be a regular thing with us, isn't it, 'Tara?" he murmured.

"Hush and be still," she said sternly.

"Tara?" came Aang's voice in the background. "Since when do you have a nickname for my wife?" he asked in mock severity.

"Since she became my personal healer," Jet replied smoothly.

"Let's see that she doesn't become any more than that," Mai's deep voice interjected. "I'm the only one who gets nicknames from you."

"Sure thing, sugar," he replied from his place on the cold tile floor. He reached out to it. He could feel the individual tiles, the grout, the metal pipes running beneath them. "Hey, this floor has a hot water pipe grid underneath it," he noted. "Get them to turn on the heat. It's cold down here."

"You be still and be quiet," Katara instructed again, frustration in her voice. "I'm trying to work here."

However, someone must have heard him because a warm glow of heat began to flow in the metal pipes, warming the tiles beneath him. Through the fog in his brain, he realized he could hear. He could feel the heat. But he couldn't see. This wasn't good.

"Tara," he began sweetly. "Why is it so dark in here?"

"How many fingers am I holding up?" she asked in response.

Realization hit him like a ton of bricks. He was blind. He could not see a thing. The only problem with that was that if the rest of the crew knew he couldn't see, they'd certainly keep him from fighting Ji-Fu. So he called on all his earthbending abilities to bring the world into a new kind of focus.

In a subtle, shimmery way, Katara became just visible enough kneeling beside him that he could say with almost full confidence, "Two."

"Good. You had me worried for a moment," she replied then she stood and reached out a shadowy hand for him to take. He reached back to take it, glad when his hand met hers solidly. He wondered if this was how the world looked to Toph.

"How did you guys find me?" he asked, making himself glance around at them, even though his bending sight told him where they were in the room without his ever turning his head.

"Your valet came up to see if you were ready to dress and found you on the floor. He called us and we called Mai," Aang explained.

"Well, I'm going to finish getting ready," Jet said, very business as usual.

Aang and Katara left the room without another word, but Mai stayed behind. "Jet," she began, and though he couldn't see the expression on her face, he could tell that her heart was beating fast and that her breathing had gone ragged. She was going to cry on him.

"Hey, hey, sugar," he said, pulling her into his arms. The solid feel of her body against him gave him courage enough to speak. "It's okay, sugar. I'm going to be okay. Do you hear me?"

She didn't answer, but instead wept hot tears against his shoulder. He stroked her hair and talked to her soothingly for a while.

"I'm so sorry," she said after several minutes. "I'm sorry I haven't been what I should have been for you. I should have been better. I should have loved you more."

"What are you talking about, sugar?" he asked sternly. "You're talking like you think I'm going to die."

Mai burst into tears again, this time hysterical tears. She did think that he was going to die. Then again, when it came right down to it, he pretty much did too. The thought sobered him. But it didn't change anything.

He led her back to the bed and sat down with her in his arms, holding her, kissing her, but he couldn't speak. The room looked very strange to him. All the wood and fabrics had vanished. A stone urn on a shelf in the corner seemed to float in the air without its wooden support beneath it. But the carvings on the urn were even more detailed to him than when he used his eyes.

Mai stood out to him though. He could see her better than he could see the others. She had substance to his sight, not shadow. She was real in every way.

"Don't do this, Jet, please," she begged him through her tears. "Please stay with me. Don't leave me to be here without you."

"I'm not leaving you, Mai," he said with a certainty he didn't feel. "But I have to do this, can you understand that?"

"No," she cried. "I can't. Why can't you just let it go? Just let it go and be with me. Be okay."

He embraced her for a long moment before he spoke. He wasn't exactly sure how to say what was on his mind. "It's me," he began quietly. "It's my job to do." He paused and brushed at her hair with his fingertips. "It's my destiny."

"You don't believe in destiny," she whispered.

"My higher purpose then. You told me yourself that when I looked outside myself to what others needed I'd find my higher purpose," he recalled. Then he leaned his face against her shoulder. He didn't know quite how to say the next part.

"I have to do this because it's what I have to do," he said at last. "Even if it kills me, I have to do it."

"Are you so sure this is it?" she asked him. "I mean look at all the bad things that have happened to you since you decided to do this. Couldn't they be warnings? Signs?"

Jet thought for a moment. It had been a very rough few weeks, he had to admit. Then he shook his head. "No, sugar. Those things weren't warnings. They were guideposts," his voice was quiet but sure.

She held him for a few more quiet moments. He could feel her breath come in little shudders as she tried to compose herself again.

"I want you to know something," he said to her at last. "Ever since I met you, ever since that first night in the swamp, I haven't felt alone. You have been the best thing that ever happened to me and I love you more than anything."

"Then please be careful," she whispered urgently. "Please don't leave me."

"I'm not going to do anything today but kick Ji-Fu's ass and come back here with you. And I'm going to ask you to marry me and you're going to say yes, do you understand?"

"Ask me now," she replied, her voice soft. "Jet, please ask me now."

"Nope," he answered, setting her on her feet. "After I kick Ji-Fu's ass. Not before. Now I've got to get cleaned up and dressed. You are welcome to stay if you want to."

He saw her nod her head and he went into the bathing room, shucking his clothes as he went. He had a moment of panic when he realized that he couldn't see the fabric cord that signaled the hot water crew below to pump water into the bath. He absolutely did not want Mai to know that he couldn't see.

Then he caught sight of the little metal trim on the tassel that decorated the end of the cord and gave it a pull. To disguise the fact that he wasn't sure when the water level was high enough, he periodically stuck his finger into it as if checking the temperature. When it seemed deep enough, he cut it off and slipped into the water.

Mai sat on a little chair across the room and watched him bathe. When he'd begun to strip, she was at first embarrassed, then decided to take advantage of the opportunity to watch him. He was paying no attention at all to her, so she memorized the muscles of his back and legs, noting even more scars than she'd seen so far.

He was gorgeous. She watched him flip the wet hair back out of his eyes as he scrubbed. Then he stood up. At first she averted her eyes in shyness, then she just looked at him, watching him as he toweled off. He seemed so perfect—so healthy, so well. She began to gain heart that maybe everything was going to be fine.

Jet wrapped a towel around his waist and walked to the sink to shave. He picked up the razor, then put it down again, opting instead to just brush his teeth. He decided he didn't really want to use a straight razor by feel alone. He'd just have to face Ji-Fu scruffy today.

He walked out of the bathing room aware that he was in trouble yet again. He couldn't pick out his clothes if he couldn't see them. "Sugar," he called casually. "Come grab what you think I ought to wear to this."

While Mai picked through his closet, he pulled out the drawer where his underwear should be, glad his valet was such an organized kind of guy. She passed him his trousers--he could tell they were trousers from the buttons at the fly. Then his shirt, vest, and overtunic. It was a cool morning.

She'd changed her mind though on the overtunic, taking back the first one she'd held out to him for a second option. Somehow, he'd managed to get himself dressed by feel to the point where Mai could put the finishing touches on him.

"How do I look?" he asked.

"Wonderful," she answered. "But you can't see a thing, can you?"

"What makes you say that?" he asked, trying his best to play it off. "Because of that first jacket you tried to get me to wear? I was just messing with you."

When she laughed, he knew it had been a trap. She was suspicious. So he walked over to her and ran his hands over her hair, careful of the metal pins he could see holding her hairstyle in place. Then he ran his eyes up and down her as if they could see just as clearly as his bending vision could.

But his eyes couldn't see her heart beat. They couldn't see that pulse in her throat, couldn't watch her breathe. He couldn't read her expression, but he could tell so much about her by how her heart jumped a little when he kissed her, how her breath caught when he ran his tongue lightly over that little pulse in her throat.

Vision was overrated, he decided, as they walked down the stairs, her arm tucked in his.

Toph sat in her room at the window, also unable to see with her eyes what went on below her. Her advanced earthbending vision, however, was sharp enough to see Jet and Mai walk arm in arm out of the courtyard. Jet was headed to the grounds.

She'd heard from Katara and Aang that Jet had another spell that morning. Ji-Fu was going to kill him. That much was certain.

And there was nothing anybody could do about it. "Please tell me you've uncovered something new in the avatar state," she'd begged Aang.

"Not really," he said, "just that opening the skull is the only option—just not an option any of us have any experience in."

"What about one of the healers in the city?" Toph asked. "Surely one of them has some experience in this kind of injury."

"We've got requests out," Aang said, "but so far no one has replied. By the time someone qualified finally gets here, it may be too late."

"Surely there's some way we can manage this," Toph sighed.

Katara just sighed with her. "I just don't have any training at all on doing something so extreme," she admitted. "The whole idea of making a hole in someone's skull terrifies me."

Zuko shrugged. "I wish there was some way to get him to the North Pole," he said. "How fast could Appa make the trip?"

"Just the two of us, in probably five days," Aang replied. "And that's hard flying. It's over three thousand miles away."

"That may be the best option. I don't think you'll get him out of here before the contest, but if he makes it through, you might have to just grab him and run," Zuko offered.

Toph shuddered. He wasn't going to live through it. She could feel it in her bones.

"I wish some avatar in my past had taken the time to learn some advanced healing. The body is made up of all the elements—surely there's a way to heal using the avatar state," Aang sighed. "Maybe that's a nice side project for me to work on. That way the avatars to come will know something that could help them in a time like this."

"But it won't do Jet any good though, will it?" Toph commented bitterly.

"No," Aang replied, "it won't." And the Avatar and his waterbending healer wife walked out of their apartments to go watch Jet die, she thought sardonically.

"Are you ready?" came Zuko's voice at the door much later, startling her from her dark thoughts. "I've been waiting downstairs for you."

"I'm not going," Toph answered, her voice flat and emotionless. "I can't watch him die, Zuko. And he's going to die."

"Sweetie, you don't know this," he said reasonably, sitting on the little sofa beside her. Below them, Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Suki all walked out of the courtyard.

"Can the spirits know?" she asked.

"I suppose so."

"Then I know because Lian Shen has spent two nights telling me in my dreams that I'm a murderer. That I've set Jet up to die," Toph retorted harshly.

Zuko sat back in surprise. He knew her dreams had been bad. But he'd not realized just how seriously she was taking them. He wished there was some way he could throw himself into the spirit world. He had a few things to say to Lady Lian Shen about upsetting his wife.

"Then she laughs at me and says Katara bends blood but not bone," Toph snapped. "I hate her."

Zuko sat there with his arm around Toph for a while, not really knowing what to say. The timepiece over the fireplace showed noon. The contest would already be starting.

In the stands of the exhibition stadium, Eun Min shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She wanted to help Jet, she really did. So she kept her eyes peeled for any sign that the tattooed man would appear. Then she could identify him to Aang and the Avatar could make sure justice was served. That's what the Avatar was supposed to do, right?

But though she watched and looked, she didn't see him. Finally, she watched Ji-Fu alight from his palanquin at the end of the stadium and walk onto the grounds, waving at the crowd as if this was just another exhibition.

Jet still had not appeared and Eun Min was both worried that he couldn't make it and hopeful that he wasn't going to. She liked Jet and didn't want him to get hurt.

Katara, Aang, Sokka, and Suki joined them in the stands in the section where Jet had reserved their seats. Eun Min slid down a little closer to The Duke to make room. She didn't mind. The Duke offered her some popoats from a paper box he held, but she shook her head. "They only make me thirsty," she replied.

"So let's go get a drink," he suggested and pulled her to her feet to find the concessions vendor again.

As the two young people headed out into the crowds, Jet and Mai made their way into the stands. "King Bumi here yet?" Jet asked Aang quietly.

"Just up there," Aang replied curiously, pointing above them.

"Oh, yeah, didn't notice," Jet answered, making his eyes follow Aang's finger as if he were looking up into the stands.

Aang couldn't help but wonder how Jet missed the gigantic banner and silk draperies framing the king's box seat just a few rows up. He must be really, really nervous.

Out in the center of the field, a herald began to announce the contest. Jet only half listened as Ji-Fu's name and many lengthy accomplishments were called.

Out in the midst of the gigantic boulders and sand, he could see a vague figure—Ji-Fu, he presumed—make its way out to position on the far end of the field. The wood of the stands interfered badly with his ability to see. He hoped it would be clearer once he was on the grounds. Otherwise he really was in trouble.

"You better go, Jet," Mai said quietly. He gave her a thorough kiss, then pressed his forehead to hers for a long moment, cradling her cheek in his hand. "I love you," she whispered.

"I'm counting on it," he whispered in return, then carefully made his way down the steps, one hand on the rail to be sure he kept heading in the right direction. The herald began his extremely short announcement of Jet's name—only. No accomplishments, no offices. Just him.

Instead of making him feel inadequate, however, he felt purified, stripped of everything but his earthbending sight. Everything he was stood right before the people, he thought to himself as he stepped out to the grounds.

The moment his feet left the wooden stands and landed on the earth of the grounds, he knew something was wrong. The earth wasn't solid. It wasn't just boulder and sand. There were things underneath. He could feel metal and possibly wood.

He shifted his attention to the huge boulders. They were the same. They weren't solid. They were rock on the outside, but the insides were things like metal or wood. They'd be heavier or lighter than expected.

Even the sand held obstacles. For instance, he stood on a narrow ledge of truly solid rock with sand stretching out before him for probably twenty feet. But the sand was only a cover. Underneath was another ledge of rock, jutting up just high enough to stop anything sliding that way through the sand.

The course was laid out as a series of traps and ruses. That's why the one who could hear the earth would win.

A horn sounded, breaking through his thoughts. He hadn't really prepared any kind of defense, any plan of action, he realized as Ji-Fu attacked, shoving one of the gigantic boulders across the grounds at him.

But Jet knew from the moment Ji-Fu pushed that the boulder was too heavy to reach him. It would never be able to cross the hidden ledge of rock. Didn't Ji-Fu realize that?

Jet just stood there and watched as Ji-Fu tried again. At the distance, he couldn't tell much about Ji-Fu's expression or heartrate, but he knew from his attack that Ji-Fu had miscalculated again. This rock was light and fast and easily deflected with another boulder he tipped into it.

Certainly the man knew how to shove earth around, Jet thought. But he couldn't see the things Jet was seeing. It felt like cheating.

Up in the stands, The Duke had just found the drink vendor when Eun Min suddenly pulled at his arm. "That's him," she whispered urgently.

"Who?" he asked, taking her guavapecan juice from the vendor.

"The tattooed man—he's over there," she cried, dragging The Duke back down the steps to find Aang.

Aang sat watching the match but was a little confused. The wood of the stands interfered with regular bending and it would be a little suspicious of him to enter the avatar state right there in front of everybody. But he could tell that something was not right with the grounds.

Ji-Fu's first two attacks should have just smashed Jet where he stood, but neither of them reached him. Jet had only barely bended at all to deflect the second boulder. Aang could see the frown on Ji-Fu's face.

"Bumi!" Ji-Fu called angrily. "What are you doing? Why are you interfering with this?"

"I'm not interfering with anything, Ji-Fu. Any bender in the stands can attest—the only bending being done is by you and young Jet here," Bumi called back. Then in an undervoice he added, "And you're not bending too well, are you, Ji-Fu?"

Ji-Fu turned back to Jet and launched a massive attack of boulders against him. Under normal circumstances, Jet wouldn't have had a chance, but as it was he was only a little hard pressed to get out of the way of the few that made it through the maze of metal spikes, quicksand, collapsing floors, and hollow interiors.

One particular boulder got close enough that Jet had to shove another heavy boulder against it, the momentum of the big rock pushing him back to slam against the wall.

That was it, he thought to himself. That was the jolt hard enough to kill him.

Eun Min made her way as fast as she could through the crowd to Aang. He could stop it. She could tell him about the tattooed man and he could stop the match. But the crowd was yelling and standing to its feet as Ji-Fu blasted boulder after boulder across the field. They couldn't get through.

The Duke tucked her behind him and said, "Hang onto me!" She put her hands on his waist and grabbed his belt as he began to push his way through the crowd. He soon made a path for them up to where Aang and Katara sat.

"I've found him!" she said breathlessly. "I found the tattooed man! Tell the king to stop the match!" Unfortunately, Aang had no idea what she was talking about.

"I can't ask King Bumi to stop the match if I don't know why," Aang tried to explain to the distraught girl. So Eun Min took a deep breath and began to tell all she knew about Jet's kidnapping.

Out in the field, Jet felt okay. Still blind, but the hard jolt hadn't seemed to do any more damage. So he kept going. Ji-Fu was screaming that the grounds were rigged—that they were cheating.

"Be quiet, Ji-Fu!" Bumi snapped at him. "I told you that a requirement was to hear the earth. Apparently, you know nothing about listening to your element. You are only capable of shoving it around!"

Ji-Fu stormed back to regroup, preparing another major attack.

Jet just shrugged and listened carefully. Then he felt something. Something in the center of the grounds moved—something small, something metal. Where was the bender who moved it?

Ji-Fu hadn't done it; he clearly wasn't a metal bender anyway.

Jet hadn't done it.

Jet cast his awareness up into the stands—Bumi.

It had to be King Bumi.

He tried hard to see the king's expression, tell something about him, but it was too far.

Aang however, looked up at Bumi. He too had felt something from him, something no other bender in the stands would have felt. Metalbending. But very small and subtle.

Bumi was smiling.