-Ascension—

Lin sped across the city through the barren streets, the note from Korra in her hand. Lin needed to know what was at Mount Ozai. She tried to see if Bolin would answer his radio, but she found no luck so maybe she'd have to do this alone. Bolin had his hands full protecting this girl. She wanted them to be safe. Lin would have to meet her at some point.

The file from Korra, as well as Korra's notes, contained a brief explanation for everything. Lin had seen Korra, disguised as Oni, deliver it to her, and she believed the things that were written. Graft had a bigger role in all of this than anyone knew. It all started with him. Whatever waited for her on Mount Ozai would be proof.

Lin looked at her map to see how to get to Mount Ozai, and she nearly hit the young man walking on the side of the road leading up to the mountain. She had reached the limits of the city at this point and was getting to the country roads. She got out of the car.

"Mako, what are you doing out here?" She asked, yelling through the wind that was biting her exposed face. It was getting dark and it was freezing. Mako ignored her question for a few seconds. Lin had a short fuse today, so she angrily asked him again.

"I'm trying to find something. Cabs wouldn't go this far out of the city."

"Looking for something on a highway to the mountains?"

"What do you want, Lin?"

Lin thought for a second. She realized she probably should have made Bolin come with her. This might be a dangerous mission. "You wouldn't happen to be heading to Graft's?"

Mako looked at her.

"Get in, Mako. I could use the help of someone I trust." Mako listened to her and got in. They continued to drive. "So what was the plan, just going to wander up the mountain until you freeze to death?"

Mako had spent the course of that day narrowing down possible locations of where the lab was. "How do you know what's on this mountain?" he asked.

"The police station has records on certain people in the city, and Graft was one of those people apparently. Several photos indicated that something of his was on Mount Ozai. You seem to know of this as well?"

"I learned recently that a job I held when I was younger was for Graft. Before he came to Republic City when he was just some nobody doing crazy experiments. I had to sort files because he had so many and they were so disorganized. I didn't know who he was or what he was doing. Everything was very confidential. The person who drove me there worked there too, but I was a kid so I barely paid attention to how she got there. I took a bus through the city and got off when I recognized some of the buildings. I found the street where she usually picked me up. I got to this road and I knew it was right, so I guess I just kept going."

"There must be something here, then, if you were that impatient to get there. Some kind of remains of his lab that will tell us something."

"There has to be. And if there is, I'm going to use it to expose Graft. I know you are trying to do that, too so don't try and stop me."

"I'm glad we are seeing eye-to-eye Mako, but it isn't going to be that easy even if we have evidence. The government is unpredictable and they will probably do a lot before they give up Graft."

"Then we'll just have to go and take him ourselves."

"You sound like a terrorist, Mako."

"I'm just trying to do what is right."

"The difference can be unclear to many."

Lin had a point. Even if they found proof of the corruption that Graft had introduced, it wouldn't be enough. Exposing Graft is one thing, but making an entire city believe what you want them to believe is harder. It would not be instantaneous. This whole time, Mako hadn't even considered the thousands of people who think that their safety depends on Graft.

"Lin, do you think anyone in the city would believe us? I never even considered the fact that we would have to convince so many people. We would have to start a rebellion."

"That is why we can't become terrorists, Mako. We would just be another target that people would fear and the government would thrive off of. Will these people believe us? Perhaps, but will they follow us? Will they choose to continue believing what is not true, and depending on the people that hurt them? Well, let's worry about that after tonight."

Out in the country there were no lights. All the two could see were the few meters in front of Lin's car illuminated by her headlights. The snow came down fast and heavy. The road twisted around the mountain as they went up. To their left was the mountain. To their right was a dark abyss where the mountain dropped.

"I definitely remember this. If you lose concentration for just a second, you could drive right off the edge of this road and into nothing," Mako said. Behind them, the city became a puddle of brightness.

They continued to drive around the mountain, increasing their elevation, until the road was barely visible under the blanket of heavy snow coming down up there. Mako became tired sitting in the warm car, especially after walking a long way up the road. He started dozing off but tried to snap himself awake again. He looked out into the darkness on his right as they ascended. He kept thinking he saw something, but he just attributed it to his sleepiness. Perhaps his dreams were starting to interfere with reality. Some hallucination. He couldn't tell. He thought he saw red lines in the darkness. The red moved with the car. Mako jolted himself awake and saw the red dots in the darkness for an instant before they disappeared.

The red eyes. He had seen those before…

"It's snowing too hard up here. I can't see the road under all this snow. Do you know if we are far? We might have to walk the rest of the way," Lin said, got her coat, and got out of the car. Mako followed. They began to walk up the road, hiding their faces from the cold.

Mako easily kept himself warm with his fire, but he realized that he was breathing harder than usual. He was slowing down.

"What's the hold up, Mako?"

"Firebending to keep warm. Over the last day I've found it to be a lot more difficult than it used to be," he looked around. "I think we are close."

The two battled the strong winds. Ahead they saw an area where the mountain plateaued. "I think it's up there, but, I don't remember there being that big antenna. In any case, that's it."

A huge antenna towered on top of the hill. Red lights lined it. It was active. "Mako, do you think there is someone there?"

"I didn't expect anyone to be here. Last time I was here it was an abandoned, trashed building."

"Let's check it out."

They could barely feel their extremities anymore. They needed to get out of the cold. Stumbling up the hill, they reached the top which overlooked the plateau. The antenna was connected to a large facility. A few smaller buildings surrounded a large, metal windowless tower. They didn't see any signs of humans.

"Mako? This wasn't here when you were here."

Mako spotted the building he remembered. It was a boarded up building next to the central tower.

"No. None of this."

l-l

Bolin looked out the window. He was hoping Lin didn't find out that he hadn't done any work today. He hadn't left his apartment since Shiva told him about her newly acquired memories. Luckily, Lin never tried to contact him, and after a few hours Bolin just switched his radio off. He wondered what she was up to.

It was late now. He looked out the window and saw barren streets. Empty except for the police cars that strolled through the block periodically. Driving in the new automobiles fashioned by Graft's company. More fiends were breaking loose and wreaking havoc across the city. The television was blaring news of fires, murders, and raids all day. Even if he had tried to do any work, going outdoors would place him at so much risk as Lin said.

Additionally, he didn't want to leave Shiva alone at his place, and she was gradually recalling more and more memories. He spent the day letting her concentrate while he looked out the window to make sure no fiends tried to kill them. Things seemed quiet for now.

Snow was coming down and sticking to the window. The view became blocked by a sheet of white. Bolin hadn't even changed out of what he slept in. He heard movement from Shiva.

"Shiva, everything okay?"

"I'm sorry, Bolin. I'm trying as hard as I can to remember."

"Hey, listen it's fine. Don't rush yourself you've been under a lot of stress."

"It's hard. It's hard to remember. And if I remembered faster I could be helping us quicker."

"Shiva, don't worry about that, please."

"And stop calling me Shiva!" she yelled angrily. Bolin was taken aback.

"I'm sorry."

Shiva calmed down. She was sweating and panting. She ran her hand through her hair and grunted. "This isn't even my hair color, ugh, this is such an ugly color." Her emotions were all over the place.

"Please, talk to me. Tell me what is wrong? What is making this so hard for you?"

She looked at Bolin, then around the room, collecting her thoughts for a few seconds. "I don't want to go crazy, but some of these thoughts I have, some of these things about me…they aren't me. This isn't my hair. I'm not a waterbender. My name…", she looked up, "I know it's in my head somewhere. But there are so many memories I don't recognize. I know that they happened, but I don't feel they ever involved me. The memories that return are of places I've never been. Places with glaciers and water and ice. And I know those aren't right, but there are other memories. And I was sure those were mine, but now I'm not and I can't tell."

Bolin approached her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Those are yours. Focus on them and filter out the untrue memories. Focus and tell me what you see. Tell me who you are."

She struggled with this, and began talking in broken sentences, "The experiment…was called Shiva…and they gave me food to make me be able to bend ice…no, water. Okay, yeah that is correct. Bolin I was just a regular girl before that…I don't know what I had done or why they took me, but I had… brown hair…I had brown hair, then. Yeah. It was long and beautiful. And my eyes…my eyes weren't blue like they are now. I was part of a family…a family that loved me," she closed her eyes, repeating the words "loved me", and seemed to go into a trance, a peaceful trance, almost euphoric as she had some remote idea of who she was before. She kept saying "loved" like it was a mantra.

"You remember them, your family?"

She was silent for a while, smiling faintly, then said, "I do. They…loved me. They raised me. I went to a school. I knew people. I knew…bad people," her smile started to fade. "I knew people that did bad things. I didn't want to be a part of it, I didn't! I swear! I never wanted to have anything to do with you!"

She wasn't yelling at Bolin, she was yelling at a memory, but she at least knew it was her memory.

"I didn't, Bolin," she said, crying. "I know it. I wasn't the one doing it, I was hurt by someone. And I was taken somewhere that wasn't a hospital. They said that I was going to die. But I didn't. The last face I saw was his," she pointed to the television flashing Graft's face.

"Graft? You saw Graft?"

"I was of use to him, and they fed me, and I got better, but something else came with it. I was going to be some kind of weapon but it didn't work the way they expected. They were trying to make these weapons called…called Drones. That is what they called them. I had never seen one, but I think I would have become one if I had kept eating. I would have become their killing said, before I broke out, that I was a failed experiment, and they wanted me…to be brought to an animal."

"They were going to feed you to an animal!?"

"No, it didn't sound like that. They referred to it as if it could talk. It was at a place they said I could stay and be left alone by the world. So no one would ever find me again."

Not an animal. Not a beast. A person. "Animal. They were going to bring you to Pratt Street." Bolin thought about what Shiva had looked like when he first found her: A bloody face, failure to remember who she was, unstable emotions-if Bolin had found her on Pratt Street, roaming around mindlessly, he would have figured her to be nothing more than a fiend. "You were…his experiment. Shiva." Shiva. Animal. Steel. Pig.

"But I'm starting to remember. I'm starting to remember who I was. I had a family. I had a normal life. I had a name. I was…Sydney."

Sydney. She wasn't an experiment. She wasn't some piece of waste to be thrown onto the streets. Graft used her as one. Graft saw commodity. But Bolin saw a girl. A girl whose life was ripped away from her. How much of her life did Graft destroy? What series of events led her to be a part of all this? Bolin didn't know, but he wanted blood. Graft's blood.

"Sydney, I'm going to find the one that did this to you. I'm going to make sure nothing happens to you, even if it means everything I have, this man has taken from you a life you didn't have the chance to live."

"Bolin," she grabbed his arm, "please, don't go. Not yet. I've been able to remember all of this. I remember how I've felt in this life before. This life that seemed so distant before, and I gave up trying to remember it. But I can now. I can almost grasp who I was because of you."

"But I didn't do anything. The only thing I can do is take away what that man took away from you."

"But he didn't take it away, you see? He tried, he really did and he almost succeeded…but it's too powerful, this thing, and you've helped me realize that. You've helped me…rediscover something I thought was lost."

"But how?"

"You…cared."

Bolin's hatred for Graft was subdued, locked away temporarily within him. He would find Graft and he would make him pay. But now, Sydney was what mattered to him. He couldn't move. He didn't want to. At that moment Bolin was overcome by a feeling that took anything else he was feeling at the moment and dissolved them into a storm of fiery passion.

Sydney wanted to speak. She wanted him there. She may have been selfish, but she had found Bolin, a source of something she thought was dead, something that reminded her of the good in the world: love.

Bolin didn't leave. He took Sydney and embraced her in a passionate kiss. Even if she was rediscovering herself, she was still infected with Clasma. It could continue to destroy her from the inside. She had wanted nothing more than to spend what might have been her final moments with someone like Bolin.

Their clothes were soon on the floor, and the snow on the window melted from the heat in the room of the two young lovers.