A/N: Next round then... here we go... have fun. :)

-11-

PAINED SOULS

Working in the kitchen and serving the guests of the inn's restaurant was a tiring job, as the place was busy around the clock. The flood of refugees that needed a warm meal or accommodations never seemed to stop, nor did their pile of work. But at least they had a place to live now and didn't have to worry about food or money anymore. Thus, Sureen tried not to complain. It was pretty obvious, though, that Zuko hated their newfound jobs and that he was not happy at all with their situation.

"This city is a prison. I don't wanna make a life here!" Sureen couldn't even remember how often he had grumbled like that in the past few hours.

"Well, but at least we HAVE a life. And we need to do something with our time, whether we want to or not," was the only more or less suitable answer that came to the girl's mind... although, inwardly, she had to agree with the prince.

All of a sudden, the front door of the restaurant flew open and a young man stormed in, a blade of grass hectically jumping up and down between his lips as he pointed at Zuko and started to speak.

"I'm tired of waiting! That man is the Prince of the Fire Nation! I can prove it! And I know he's a firebender! I saw him lighting up the oven!"

"Well, he works in the kitchen…" one of the restaurant's guests hurried to reply. All eyes focused the man standing in the doorway and the guest in question - luckily. As this was the only reason no one noticed Zuko's and Sureen's faces turning pale and their eyes growing wide with shock. No… please no… how had he found out…?! And why did he have to destroy everything like that? Sureen just didn't get it. Ba Sing Se was meant to be a fresh start for him, they were meant to be neighbors again… they were supposed to… talk to each other, to build some… whatever, just make that little something grow… whatever it was that had been between them that night on the ferry deck! She had been so sure there would have been a way if they had just had the opportunity to be around each other for a while. So WHY was he acting this way now? Why couldn't he leave his former life behind like he had told her he would?!

"He's a firebender! I'm telling you," Jet snapped back at the guest and determinedly unsheathed his swords, adding real steel to his words.

"Drop your swords, boy…" This time, the guest sounded pretty alarmed. But Jet wasn't paying attention to the man anymore. Instead, he turned to the prince, ready to attack him. "You'll have to defend yourself. Then everyone will know! Go ahead! Show them what you can do!"

Zuko glared back at his opponent. Alright then, "You want a show? I'll give you a show." With the same angry determination, the prince put down his dinner tray and unsheathed the dao swords that he always carried with him on his back.

Eventually, Jet attacked. Both boys were impressively skillful with their weapons, So the pace of the fight steadily increased.

The boys whirled around each other, quickly changing their positions and even jumping on the nearby chairs and tables to attack or block. In the meantime, the restaurant guests hastily left their tables. Some of them were hiding in the corners of the room, hoping there was enough distance between them and the fighting men. Others had left the restaurant and run away from the fighting scene.

Jet's attacks became more desperate with each new clash. He needed to maneuver the younger boy into a position that Zuko couldn't get himself out of without firebending! However, that was easier said than done. Jet hadn't expected Zuko to successfully repel each of his strokes. Besides, there was no question the Fire Prince had pretty solid martial arts skills, as he could easily defend Jet's attacks with some well-placed sidekicks that made the older boy lose his balance.

But Jet wouldn't give up that easily. So he tried to tempt his opponent. "You must be getting tired of using those swords. Why don't you go ahead and firebend at me?" but it was pointless.

"I'm far from tired. YOU'RE the one who needs help!" With that statement, the prince whirled around once again and cut off Jet's blade of grass right in front of the man's nose. Jet's breath caught in his throat. A hint of a smile flashed over Zuko's face. He had wanted to do exactly that ever since he had found Sureen curled up on the floor in a corner of the ferry to Ba Sing Se.

"You see that?! The Fire Nation is trying to silence me!" Jet cried to the guests.

"Drop your weapons!"

Everyone froze for a second as the door was flung open again and three Dai Li agents – or "the police" as Jet would've called them – entered the restaurant. With a mixture of triumph and relief, Jet did as he was told and stepped back from his opponent. Finally, the time had come. His thought of revenge was about to become reality. He took a deep breath and turned to the agents.

"Arrest this man. He's a firebender. And what's more, he's the Prince of the Fire Nation. A wanted villain. I can prove it. I can show you the… Wanted… post-" WHAT!? Wait… where… how?! It had been there, in his right pocket! He was sure of it! "Um… seems like… it's somewhere else… wait, I'm sure I'll find it in a sec…" Jet added, stuttering. The scroll was gone. Unfortunately, the Dai Li weren't amused.

"Come with us, son," one of them replied. A second later, the agent grabbed Jet's wrists, crossed them behind his back, and forced him to move forward.

"You don't understand! He's Fire Nation! YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME!" Desperately, Jet tried to defend himself.

The moment they started pushing him towards the front door, Sureen's mind snapped.

"NO! DON'T YOU DARE!" Jet's head spun around when he heard the girl's words. His eyes met hers for a second. Both friends stared at each other with the same look of horror. Not again. It was happening again. He was being taken to prison. They would… NO! NOT AGAIN!

Never before had Zuko heard Sureen yell like that. Her tone of voice was threatening and as sharp as a knife… it made his blood run cold. "LET HIM GO! RIGHT NOW!" The Dai Li agents threw confused looks at each other and exchanged some short whispered instructions. Then one of them turned towards Sureen, ready to arrest her as well. But the girl didn't care. "I WON'T LET THIS HAP-"

No way. Quick as lightning, the prince grabbed her from behind, pressed his hand on her mouth, turned her around, and kneed her in the back to force her to move towards the kitchen. With relief, he noticed that the agents weren't following them.

Jet's eyes widened with shock. That bastard! He had kept Sureen from stopping the arrest! That jerk didn't want him to be rescued, he was taking Sureen away from him, there was no escape, he would go back to prison… they'd take him back… no, please no… he didn't want to go back! He felt his heart racing. As if in a trance, he stumbled towards the front door, steadily pushed forward by the Dai Li agent.

The kitchen door slammed closed. The moment Zuko stopped pushing her forward, Sureen finally managed to shift her head to a suitable position. Without hesitation, she bit Zuko's hand as hard as she could. Taken by surprise, Zuko cried out with pain and let go of her.
WHAM! Before she knew it, the prince had dealt her with a ringing slap in the face.

"Are you crazy, yelling at them like that!? They were about to arrest you, too! Moron!" Furiously, Zuko clenched his throbbing hand to a fist. Drops of blood seeped out of it and fell to the wooden floor.

Sureen, however, didn't look at him, let alone respond to his words. As soon as the girl became aware that the prince had let her go, she whirled around, rushed through the kitchen door and ran through the restaurant and out of the front door. When she finally got outside, Jet had just been pushed into some kind of vehicle and the thing was starting to moving.

No! No no nonoNO! She wouldn't let this happen, she wouldn't let him go, they wouldn't capture him again, she wouldn't let him go to prison a second time! RUN! FASTER! But she couldn't catch up to the vehicle… the distance just grew greater and greater. Eventually, Sureen stumbled and fell to her knees. NO! She hardly felt the tears that welled up in her eyes. "JET! I'LL GET YOU OUT! I WON'T LET THIS HAPPEN! WAIT FOR ME, I'LL COME AND GET YOU OUT, I PROMISE!" she yelled at the vehicle, as it disappeared into the distance.

She was too far away to see how the figure in the car grabbed the lattice bars of the back window and pressed his face against them. How he tried to blink away the tears. He was going back to hell again. And once again, the only reason for him to not lose his mind was a certain girl.

And as he slowly lost sight of her, he finally realized how much he loved her.

-x-x-x-

When Zuko got outside the restaurant, he found Sureen on her knees, facing the street that led away from the inn. Her shoulders where slumped, seemingly unable to carry the weight of her head which was bent forward.

"Sureen!" When the prince called her name, she got back to her feet but didn't turn around. Zuko got closer to her. "What the hell are you doing?"

The girl still wasn't looking at him when she eventually replied, "They captured him. He's going to prison again. I let him down again. I- I couldn't…" Her voice cracked. She took a shuddering breath before she continued, "Back then, in the Fire Nation prison, Jet… he… they- they hurt him. They broke him. They made him feel how small and powerless he was. Just for their sick pleasure. And he was fuckin' alone 'cause I had let him down. And now he's all alone AGAIN and I let him down AGAIN!"

When the girl finally turned to the prince, he saw the tears running down her face. "But I won't let this happen again," she added firmly. "Zuko, we need to get him out! We need to go after them! We need to free him!"

"We- WHAT?! Are you fucking kidding me? MAYBE you can remember that your Jet tried to send ME to prison just five minutes ago? He was SO CLOSE to revealing everything! And now you seriously want me to save that guy's dumb little ass? What the…? Are you CRAZY?!"

"Yeah… but, but… I just… I CAN'T let this happen! PLEASE! C'mon, Zuko, PLEASE!" The girl looked at him with pleading eyes.

Zuko sighed deeply. That Jet-guy really was nothing but trouble. He had known it right from the start. "Damn, AGNI… and WHAT do you want to do now? We can't just run after them right now! In the first place, we need a plan! We need to find out where they brought him. There's nothing we can do tonight! We need to figure out the entire thing tomorrow."

The prince wanted to rush back inside immediately. Fuck... if his father knew this - he'd kill him right away. Redeeming his honor would be over. HIS LIFE would be over. Why couldn't he simply focus on his given task - which was capturing the Avatar!? The moment Zuko turned around, he felt Sureen grabbing his sleeve – "Thanks." Her voice was hardly above a whisper, but for all that, there was no doubt she really meant it. When the boy looked over his shoulder, he saw her sheepishly smiling back at him. Quickly, he averted his eyes.

Just WHY did she always find something good in the way he reacted? Only a few minutes ago, he had pressed her hand on her mouth, kicked her in her back, forced her to come with him, even slapped her in the face. She hadn't deserved to be treated that way. And now he was about to make the most stupid mistake ever by helping her to get that idiot out of prison. In fact, he was acting like an idiot here! And that girl smiled at him and was… grateful. Damn, why didn't she hate him... be mad at him... instead of putting up with him like that? He couldn't… he didn't know how to-!

Hastily, Zuko pulled his arm away from her and hurried back to the inn.

-x-x-x-

They had blindfolded him and brought him to a strange room. Jet noticed that the air was dank and smelled moldy. As they removed the blindfold from his eyes, he found himself in the middle of something like a cave. The only sources of light were the torches that lined the corridors and the walls. Bathed in dim and flickering light, the large room seemed to have no particular shape. Just where in the world was he? Where could there be enough space for a tangle of corridors and caves like that?

They didn't give him the time to think about it, though. They forced him to take a seat. The chair was surrounded by rails arranged in a circle. A weird apparatus with a lantern had been placed on the rails. One of the men who had brought him there lighted up the lantern and got the thing going. Soundlessly, the lantern-apparatus-thing began to move around him in a circle, again and again, round by round.

What the hell were they doing? Where was he and why were they circling him with a fucking lantern? What was this about? What kind of torture was this supposed to be? He tried hard not to panic.

"You have to believe me, that man from the restaurant is a firebender! He won't stop until the Fire Nation wins the war!" Anxiously, Jet looked around… but all he could see was that fucking lantern that, for some weird reason, caught his attention.

Suddenly, he heard a voice from outside the circle. He couldn't make out the man's face, as the speaker seemed to be standing somewhere in the dark. All the boy perceived was his deep, calm voice.

"Calm down. You're safe now." And again, the lantern moved by. "There is no war in Ba Sing Se."

"What are you talking about?" Jet complained. "Where do you think all the refugees come from?" But the man's voice didn't stop.

"There is no war within the walls..." As the man spoke, the lantern circled Jet another time. He couldn't help but stare at it. He had to focus on it. "… Here we are safe…," the voice spoke on. "Here… we are free."

The voice resounded in his head, repeating the same words over and over. And finally he realized that the voice spoke the truth. There was no war. No one had ever destroyed his village. No one had ever taken him to that Fire Nation prison. No soldier had ever slipped into his cell at dead of night and ripped off his clothes. What soldiers? What prison? What village? The memories began to vanish. Eventually, there was nothing but emptiness. It felt like a pained part of Jet's soul was being covered by a comforting, ever-so-peaceful nothingness. There was no war. He had never lived in a village. Sureen had never… that girl… wasn't there a girl he was in love with? Wasn't there… someone… he should remember? For some reason? Anyone? No. there was no one. He was free.

He couldn't tell why those thoughts made him feel so relieved. For all he knew, he had always been on his own, he had always been free, and there had never been a war. Everything was just like what the voice and the lantern were telling him.

So he stopped fighting back. Willingly, he opened his mind and let them take away the memories that had never stopped torturing him… let them take away the pain and hatred that had filled his soul… let them make him forget his identity and his past. Leaving him with nothing but a sweet unsubstantial peace of mind. As the minutes passed by, eventually, it felt like everything Jet had ever heard was that voice, the only thing he had ever seen was the lantern… and nothing else existed anymore.

The only thing he couldn't quite understand was why his heart felt so broken. Like he had forgotten about somebody. Like... he had lost somebody. No. Impossible. Oh well. Hurriedly, he shrugged off the unwelcome thought.

There is no war in Ba Sing Se. Within the walls, we are safe. We are free.

Yesterday I died, tomorrow's bleeding
Fall into your sunlight
The future's open wide beyond believing
To know why hope dies
Losing what was found, a world so hollow
Suspended in a compromise
The silence of this sound is soon to follow
Somehow sundown

And finding answers
Is forgetting all of the questions we called home
Passing the graves of the unknown

... ...

And I've lost who I am
And I can't understand
Why my heart is so broken
Rejecting your love

Without love gone wrong
Life, less words, carry on
But I know, all I know
Is that the ends beginning

Who I am from the start
Take me home to my heart
Let me go and I will run
I will not be silenced

All this time spent in vain
Wasted years, wasted gain
All is lost, hope remains
And this war's not over

... ...

[TRADING YESTERDAY - SHATTERED]

LINK TO THAT SONG:
w w w . youtube . d e / watch?v = EjioyPrRYQY (remove the blanks I added here!)

-x-x-x-

I know I'm pretty close to the "real" canon at the moment. But it won't stay like that! We're somewhere in Part II of my fic right now... and the entire 3rd part that I'm planning will have (almost) no connection with the "real" Avatar story line.