Disclaimer: The following chapter is entirely fictitious. Any similarity to the history of any person living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional, except when specifically noted otherwise in the cast and crew credits. All celebrity voices are impersonated and no celebrities have endorsed any aspect of this fic.

Chapter Nineteen: House of Cards

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"You got lucky, Sokka. I wish I could have gotten to this sooner, but it looks like you're going to be okay."

"So… how about my arm? With some earthbending mending and a little water action—"

"No, Sokka. I'm really sorry, but before she cut it off, she completely disintegrated the bone inside. I mean, even if I managed to fix it I can't fix it perfectly, meaning the bones might be smaller and I just might mess it up… think about it like reassembling a vase that's been shattered into thousands of pieces. I might bend something into a place it shouldn't. I'm sorry, but I can't save it." Tsuchi pulled the rubber glove off each hand and tossed them into the bowl of warm water on the table next to her. "Take it like it is, Sokka," she sighed heavily while digging through one of the various bags she had brought with her. "Firstly, you're alive. Secondly, you're lucky I managed to get into med school at all! Thirdly, even though losing your arm is bad, at least she pulled on the arm before she completely cut it. The veins stretched enough they closed themselves, so you don't have as much bleeding as there should be."

"Yes, I should be forever grateful that she ripped my arm off," Sokka grumbled angrily under his breath.

"Hey, after Katara heals most of it there's enough skin that I can stitch this sucker up," she smirked. She finally found what she was looking for which appeared to be a plastic baggy with string and a needle in it and a thick stick, flat on both ends but one end with a glass circle. She flicked the button on the side of it and from the glass end flashed light on and off every time she hit it. "When she's done with Zuko she can wash you up. Suki, may you please just apply pressure? Just mildly." Suki, who had woken up only minutes after Kurogane had left, did not need to be told twice. She quickly took the position Tsuchi's hands had on the gauze and did as she was instructed. "If… you want," Tsuchi continued while she tore open the bag with the string, "I can get started with stitching up Awinita if you like."

"How is she?" he quickly asked upon mention of his daughter's name, nearly causing him to fall off the bench he was reclined on.

"Sokka, I told you, she's fine!" Tsuchi scolded the novice amputee. "She's going to be fine. That lady barely nicked her. It's nothing a few stitches can't take care of."

"I swear if anything—"

"God! Can you trust me? Geeze, you're just as bad as the people back home. Aang, bring her over." Aang had been in the corner with the bandaged up child while Suki was tending to her husband for the time being. Unnatural for Aang be quiet, he had not said a single word since the assassin had left. It concerned all of them. Tsuchi took the baby from his arms and Aang retracted back into the corner. "Are you okay?" she asked him but it garnered no response. She rolled her eyes when she still received no response and turned back to Sokka and asked him, "Do you think you can hold the bandages? I need Suki to hold her."

"It isn't going to hurt her, is it?" Suki frown while taking the child from Tsuchi.

"I could give her some local anesthetic," she shrugged hesitantly. "But let's face it, if her face goes numb she's going to be crying anyways. And with all the stuff that can happen if I do give it to her… Well, it's probably better for her to just have a few minutes of discomfort." Suki was concerned but she nodded reluctantly. Baby Awinita had finally stopped crying and almost did not seem to notice the laceration on her face anymore, but Tsuchi already explained it had to be done, especially if they wanted it to heal properly. "How's Zuko coming along, Katara?" the girl asked while exchanging her light stick for a headband with a parabolic reflector on it.

"I'm fine," the bitter Fire Lord mumbled. And he was. While Sokka had lost an arm, Zuko managed to slink away with only several puncture wounds in the shoulder, arm, and lower thigh. Still, he was mortified he had passed out in front of what were essentially strangers, and the fact that one of those strangers felt the need to take care of him. "I hope you people believe me now about the severity of what's going on. You saw how she controlled you. She didn't even need to touch you."

"Okay, I get it," Sokka snapped. "I think watching myself cut my own arm off is enough evidence to take this thing seriously."

"It's disgusting," Katara grumbled when she drew the water away from Zuko's shoulder to place it in the bowl next to her. "How can someone just reach into another person's body like that and control them? It's just so… ugh! It's wrong." Katara's anger was disrupted by Awinita's crying since Tsuchi had begun stitching up the baby's face. Sokka grimaced, clearly in pain but it was undetermined if it was from his arm, the wailing, or if it was more emotional.

"The important thing is that we're all alive, and almost unscathed," Tsuchi sighed over the little girl's cries. She grabbed a pair of scissors from the black bag she kept digging though and snipped the string from Awinita's face. "Guess what, buppas?" she said to the infant in a lighthearted voice. "We're done! We're all done! You were such a good girl!" Tears were still continuing to stream down her face but Awinita stopped crying to look at Tsuchi in confusion. "Put some aloe or prickled pear cactus on it twice a day until it starts going away, it should soften the scarring. Suki, you've done first aid as a Kyoshi, right? You can use your best judgment when to remove the stitches. A few healing sessions with Katara and the pear cactus and it should be ready in a week, week and a half, two at the most." Suki squeezed the infant and thank Tsuchi with a nod before taking the spare spot next to Sokka's feet. "Katara, if you're finished with Zuko over there can you clean Sokka out so I can suture him?" Katara heaved histrionically and headed over to her brother, still angry, but not because she did not want to help but that she had to in the first place. Her brother should not have had to lose his arm.

"How's your stomach?" she asked Tsuchi who was again digging into her bag, searching for more string.

"It was just a flesh wound, calm yourself," the girl chuckled. "Although my book would beg to differ." She motioned her head to the fairly large black book on the table with a gargantuan hole though the center with just a tiny bit of dried blood on the gold cross that was on the cover. "It sucks! I just made it into part two! Damn it, now I have to get a new one." There was silence for a while. No one wanted to say anything and anything to settle the mood would have been forced. But they all knew what had to be asked.

"So what are we going to do?" Suki finally spoke softly. "How do you fight an enemy that can break you without touching you?"

"You can't," Sokka grunted while his sister was healing what she could. "I'm wondering if even with the Avatar if we'd be able to do anything. You saw how she took us all on. She narrowed us down without even trying. And she still managed to take three of us on at once."

"But that was when she was manipulating us," Suki argued. "We already know what's going on, so we'd be able to know her tricks. They wouldn't use it again, would they?"

"Who knows," her husband replied. "They already did this to us once, and they almost did it again. And who knows how many times it happened to Zuko, it could happen again. Frankly, I don't know what we can do."

"We can't do anything," Zuko answered for them. Those who were not doing anything shot their heads in Zuko's direction in an almost abhorrence that he would suggest that it was hopeless.

"Zuko, no offense, but we don't need your negativity," Katara snapped at the Fire Lord.

"But he's right!" Sokka agreed with the person before Katara. "We have to face that we can't do anything. The best thing we can do is to try and stay on guard and make sure they don't sneak up on us."

"For the rest of our lives? Sounds like a major plot hole, Sokka," Tsuchi uttered in sarcasm.

"Would you stop interrupting me?" Zuko barked at them. "The last time you did that to me you lost out on precious time, which by the way, could have saved your kid from a lifetime of disfigurement!"

"Who the hell are you to be speaking of disfigurement?" Sokka screamed, jumping to his feet and nearly losing what little balance he had.

"Sokka, get back on the couch," Katara ordered him and managed to push her brother back on the bench with little effort.

"Zuko has a point," Tsuchi said softly. "We kept interrupting him. Had we just listened to him we might have been able to save you guys from this."

"Despite what he said," Zuko said spitefully with emphasis on Sokka, "I know exactly how the stigma of disfigurement is, and had you listened to me you could have avoided this. Listen to me now. There is a way to stop them, but we personally can't do anything."

"We could take their bending away," a little voice mumbled from the corner. It took them a while to realize who it came from but the only other person it could have been was Aang. He had not lifted his head to speak but it was certainly from him.

"Aang, what do you mean?" Katara asked concernedly.

"You saw what she did," the young monk responded. "I saw what she did. She made Suki pass out with no effort. She bended you two like puppets. She used Zuko as a human shield without trouble. Those knives that stabbed him were bended away from herself and into him. She manipulated Sokka and made him cut his own arm off. You heard what she said, there are waterbenders who can drain your blood with just a simple nick, firebenders that can make you so cold you freeze… and airbenders… that are even still alive… I can't imagine what they can do. They could kill us. They're worse than what I've had to deal with. These people cannot be trusted with their bending. Even if we could, somehow, possibly, come close to… being… able to… kill them, I would never do it. Still, these people are much too strong. The easiest thing to do would be to take their bending away. It's the only thing I can do."

"Aang, you can't be serious?" the concerned waterbender gasped.

"Aang raised a point, Katara," the woman's brother concurred.

"No, he doesn't," Katara snapped. "Aang, don't you remember how you were after you took the Fire Lord's bending away?"

"I was fine," Aang replied curtly.

"No, you weren't. You slept for two days after. We tried to wake you up but you wouldn't get up. And even after that you were too weak to do much else! This isn't just one person we're talking about, this is a lot."

"So what am I supposed to do? Just let them continue to kill innocent people? Should we stay on our guard for the rest of our lives?"

"Hey, remember how we said we were going to listen to Zuko from now on lest we get our limbs cut off by our own hands?" the sarcastic lady doctor asked the group. "I think we should listen to him now."

"Thank you," Zuko mumbled, though he was unsure if he should. "We don't have to take anyone's bending away. We just need them to destroy themselves."

"And how do you expect that to happen?" Suki queried roughly.

"Yeah, they aren't exactly going to fall anytime soon." Tsuchi scooted towards Sokka and began to sew his shoulder.

"It doesn't matter," he said adamantly. "They've all been brainwashed. We don't need all of them to fall, just one. They're all so united with each other, they don't think any one element is stronger than the other, not because it's true, but because they've instilled it in them."

"Wait a minute, I think I get what you're talking about," Tsuchi muttered slowly. "It's like a house of cards. Every card plays its part, no question. But the moment someone removes a card or even blows on it…"

"The whole thing comes crashing down," Katara finished. "So you're saying they need to take care of themselves?"

"What, that it will collapse on its own?" the amputee asked. "How would we go about doing that?"

"We already have. The only way to defeat the Resistance is with the Resistance." They were fixed on Zuko in anticipation, unsure of what he was getting at, at least those who did not follow. The Resistance was ready to fall, he implied, but how was what most of them did not understand. In the brief stiffness of the room Sokka's arm suddenly swung across his chest and halted seconds before it hit the opposite side of his ribcage, his hands arranged into a fist as if grabbing the air.

"Sokka, what's wrong?" Suki huffed in bewilderment, fearful that the sudden movement meant the horrible woman was back. Sokka stared blankly where his hand was and almost seemed embarrassed.

"Nothing," his voice cracked in disappointment and despair, still frozen in the empty space next to him. "My arm… was just itchy."

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BTW, just so you know, Tsuchi isn't all preachy with the Bible, and neither am I. I'm a Christian, yes, I won't force my beliefs on you, but let's face it, everyone and their mother in the 1950s was a religious freak. Tsuchi just has to go with the flow. And she doesn't quite get religion, she's reading the Bible the same was you would read this fanfiction. Or Harry Potter. And so you know I'm serious, she's a MarSus shipper (Mary Magdalene x Jesus). Blasphemous? Absolutely, but Tsuchi's an idiot when it comes to other people.

Updates are going to be slow again. I just started school last week and my days are super erratic. We're talking Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. As you can see, random. And I know a lot of you will be starting school as well (or already have), which means absolutely no reviews (which makes me sad on the inside T-T) but it's okay, I forgive you. For now… As always please at least try and leave a review, I have a deviant art page, and any suggestions or ideas for drawings are always nice. Until next time, Signing Off.