...
Near the center of the warehouse the long outer wall exploded inward. That impenetrable mass of masonry suddenly slammed open in two sheafs like the wings of a double door, spraying the warehouse with the spitting shards of shattered bricks. A lone human figure in the dark green robes and a cloth wrapped around his face darted inside through the dust.
Now a single second had passed and nationalists began to turn their heads towards the sound. The intruder ran forward and his fists jerked up in simultaneous upper-cuts, causing a huge stone block of the floor to shoot up towards the rafters in sympathetic magic. The man followed, launched into the air by a sudden spike of stone from the floor until he floated to the apogee where the flying slab was deciding to begin its descent. There, hidden behind that airborne shield, the man began to blast the rock apart with lightning jabs, sending fragments hurtling down as projectiles towards the assembled nationalists.
All this was a matter of seconds. Even the man in the blue and yellow mask only had time to turn his face towards this attack. The veiled earth-bender then finished with a mid-air double kick, propelling himself back up to land on a rafter beam and rocketing the remaining slab down to turn his masked target into a crater.
"Bender!" One of the other protesters yelled quite unnecessarily over the rising screams.
Ayika and Mizumi were frozen in the midst of their confrontation with Tian as they turned to watch this new attack. The earth-bender was terrifying, a demonstration of incredible power that could snap any normal human like a twig. The crowd of angry protesters, men and boys, was instantly broken, huddling against walls and behind crates, shielding their faces from flying debris. Only a brave few were still standing and some were lying sprawled on the ground groaning from injuries. Several lanterns had smashed and spilled their burning oil across wooden crates. The strangely enhanced fire lapped hungrily as the flames danced.
Then the dust cleared and man in the mask still stood in its center. He stepped loosely and easily from the newly formed pile of rubble, brushing his knuckles with his other hand. Somehow he had dodged every bit of that explosive attack. It was almost as if he had punched his way through that block of stone, used pure strength instead of bending. To Ayika's eyes the man's outline wavered and swelled around the mask on his face or perhaps that was her own imagination explaining this impossibility.
The Mask looked up at the bender who was perched atop a rafter beam like a hawk preparing to stoop, amid the growing plums of smoke. The Mask tilted to the side in the manner of the bird whose face he wore.
"You look like a Public Safety agent," he said. "You fight like one. But you're not. They would not attack alone. You're the one who has been harassing us and you have no authority here, bender!" The Mask spread his legs into a fighting stance and flexed his fingers like claws. The cool, seductive voice he had spoken with when the meeting started was gone. Beneath the mask his jaws rang out with the snapping of teeth. "Our power is greater than yours, for ours is the true holy power of our culture! I can feel its strength growing here and now!" Around him, the advancing flames spread from oil to wood, dancing in strange and energetic patterns.
The earthbender dropped down from his high perch and the stone floor inflated to catch him. As he hit the cushioning stones one foot made a stamping motion and the mask man found his own feet and lower legs swallowed by the living earth. The attacker's face wrap had loosened during his first lightning assault but he was now too focused to catch it as it slowly slid down to his shoulders. Xinfei peaked over the box he was hiding behind to see the bender's scarred face look up as he flowed into his next bending stance, preparing for a killing blow without saying a single word. The earthbender was Ma'er the gardener. They had gotten this conspiracy very wrong.
Ma'er clenched his fist, there was an explosion of breaking stone, and the masked man was gone. But Ma'er showed no triumph, and instead jerked back whipping his head around in a frantic search of the warehouse past the spreading fire.
That voice from behind the mask range out again from somewhere in the vast room. "Yes, that trick of yours has worked on brothers before. But we are the voice of the city, and we now grow stronger every day!" The man in the mask had gotten behind Ma'er, moving faster than any opponent should. He burst through a growing wall of flames and his fist splintered the side of a wooden crate where Ma'er had been standing until a second ago. The mask whipped back to focus on Ma'er, eyes gleaming, just as the gardener shot two dark projectiles out of the sleeves of his robe. The stone bracelets fastened to each of the masked man's wrists and froze them in place, pulling back to counter the mad energy of the man forcing them forward. Ma'er clenched his teeth and brought his fists together with great effort. The masked man's arms were wrenched back behind him, the enchanted stones at his wrists fastening into crude restraints as they forced him to kneel. Behind him, the flames still spread.
The air was growing hot from the dancing fire and Ayika coughed on the building smoke. "Holy hell," was her reaction to that fight. Mizumi said something foreign that Ayika had to imagine was even fouler. Well, it looked like Ma'er was not the Mask. She looked back at the young assistant Tian still trapped against the wall at the end of the lane of stacks. He was still terrified and shaking despite his master's victory.
Ayika said, "That bird faced man was an amazing fighter. And there was something about him, something about that mask; power. Freaky, but it still couldn't beat a trained bender, so why were you so worried about the Mask? You work for the guy who just beat him!"
Mizumi opened her mouth to say something but stopped. The rest of the protesters were getting to their feet, stretching shirts over their mouths and noses to try and keep out the smoke. For the most part they looked just as out of their element as Ayika felt. Fire bloomed into the air as a suitable backdrop this final meeting between Ma'er and the Mask. The university boys futilely tried to beat out some of the nearby blazes, and were indeed joined by several other uninjured protesters however the fire grew and evaded them as if it too was alive. It was beyond their power to stop.
Over the crackle of the flames she thought she could hear Zhangyi and Xiaobao yelling for people to get out of the building. Ma'er stood silhouetted in front of those unnaturally spreading and blooming fires as he walked towards the restrained man in the mask who was thrashing and straining with his arms clamped in stone behind his back, roaring and hissing more like an animal than a human. The flickering light sent his shadows dancing so at times Ayika thought it looked like they were pulling at his limbs like a puppet's strings. Ma'er was tired, breathing heavily but he kept the stone cuffs magically held in place and as he reached the captive his hand snaked out to rip the mask off. As soon as it was gone, the captive man collapsed panting. Ayika recognized the well dressed man with the mole above his eye. Xinfei had set him on fire outside the school. Four of the other protesters who were not yet trying to flee took a few steps foreword, blank faced and listless at their leader's defeat.
Tian looked wearily at Ayika and Mizumi. His hand continued to twitch towards the bundle of two objects he held. "Ma'er can defeat one. For now. But the name of the society is not The Mask. It is The Masks."
In one motion the four advancing men reached inside their robe, their jacket, or their satchel. As one they drew forth painted wooden masks, wild and snarling in their different faces. Ayika heard a sound beyond the range of her hearing and felt waves of pressure both before and behind her. As each mask came down the men's posture changed. Instead of shrinking back they leaned forward, flexing their hands like claws. They stopped looking at each other and focused solely on Ma'er. Then they raced forward with a roar like a charging army.
Ayika saw Ma'er spin to meet the new threat and instantly launch into the offensive as the four men leaped into their attack. Ma'er smashed the floor into a rippling wave but the masks avoided it with expert speed. Beside her she heard Mizumi yell, "Ayika!" as she threw an arm to shield her from the flying debris. The flames were racing up the walls, burning across wood and brick with equal unconcern as the ceiling vanished in roiling black clouds. The fire was spreading with unnatural rapidity but its abnormality made it no less dangerous. Distantly, Ayika wondered if there was a firebender around.
"Right. Time to go." Ayika said. She gestured behind her back at Tian. "Grab this guy now and we can..."
As she turned back her voice fell away. The aisle was empty, there was only a tall empty wall before her. The gardener's assistant was gone. Nothing remained.
"Where is he! Where'd he go! We have to find him! Get back here!" She screamed out at the tall stacks of crates on each side of her.
"Ayika, we must run!" Mizumi grabbed her shoulder. Ayika pulled back. There was a small window four meters up the wall. It was broken but no one could climb that distance in seconds. There was no where Tian could have gone. Had an earthbender taken him through the bricks? How could she let him get away? She had failed and was now stuck in a burning building rocking with the combat of five deadly fighters and no answers to her questions. A scream of pure frustration tore its way out of her throat. No one but Mizumi could hear it over the sound of the fire.
...
The neighborhood fire bells rang out into the night, the clanging peals of metal resounding off the large buildings of the waterfront and on to fade out over the river. Inside the warehouse, the tinny noise could only dimly be heard over the crackling of splitting wood and the fury of the flames. Somewhere in the confusion, the sounds of smashing stone and shattering crates signaled the bender Ma'er's fight with the members of the Masks.
Amid all this danger Ayika could do nothing but whip her head back and forth, looking at every impossibly small nook for where Tian had gone. He had known something about Lizhen's death! He was going to tell her something!
Mizumi pulled hard on her arm. "Ayika, come on! We must get out of here!" She coughed into the crook of her own elbow as she tried to look for a path of escape through the smoke. Ayika was torn away from her vigil and together they ran back towards the center of the spreading flames, looking for an open way to the exit.
"Ayika!"
Someone was calling her name in the stinging smoke. She pressed close to Mizumi, neither could see well past the light of the fire and the toxic haze that pressed their eyes nearly closed. But ahead Ayika spotted someone through a gap in the stacks of merchandise, bare-chested save for a swath of bandages and with a dirty shirt wrapped over his mouth and nose.
Xinfei spotted the two of them and urged them on. "This way! Xiaobao's holding the door open! Come on!"
Groping in the haze, Xinfei found Mizumi's reaching hand and the three hurried off in the direction Ayika could only hope held the exit. This part of the building had not yet taken aflame and as they turned a corner she could see around the edge of the last stack aisle, past a tall pile of thick dark wood planks, to the wall where someone of comfortably familiar height and bulk was standing in an open doorway apparently struggling with someone outside. Ayika and the others ran forward towards Maolin but suddenly there was a shattering cacophony behind them. Something hit Ayika hard, several somethings, and she went down. Mizumi's fingers slipped out of her hand as the stack of lumber burst out towards them, sliding down like an avalanche of giant game tiles. Ayika screamed. The blows had bowled her over but she gritted her teeth as she tried to get back to her feet, lifting up a slab of wood destined to be an expensive table or wardrobe so she could free her leg. That was when she saw a man in a mask pulling himself out from where he had landed in the middle of the lumber stack. The fire was spreading and warehouse's exit was no longer visible in the smoke.
The carved visage of a long nosed daemon was worn by a pudgy older man, dressed in clothes that suggested someone who nowadays lifted pens and papers at most. But as Ayika watched, the man sprawled across the floor flexed his back and with a swing of his legs flipped up to his feet with the grace of an acrobat or expert fighter at odds with his physique. The stinging haze of smoke made it difficult to see and to Ayika's reddening eyes the man's form was blurring and doubling. Then the mask swung around and met Ayika's gaze. That is why the man almost didn't dodge the two bricks that flew through the air to smash together in the space his head had occupied half a second previously.
The masked man jerked back with feral speed as Ma'er landed heavily from somewhere high above. The 'gardener' sank into a well-grounded attack stance. He spun around, fists raised, eyes searching the smoke and fire as beside him Ayika staggered to her feet in the pile of toppled lumber. Ma'er's steely eyes passed over her and dismissed her in a bare second; for good reason. In that moment a shift in the flow of superheated air swept away some of the smoke and revealed a semi circle of four masked figures standing atop the parallel rows of crates and other imports.
Beside Ayika, the so-called gardener sighed with deep and furious weariness. His face was bruised and his bared teeth showed the blood stains of received punches. "Well, let's have it then!" Ma'er yelled out, sinking lower as he bent his knees and clenched his fists.
The masked men did not look as certain. The animalistic ferocity that had governed the motions of their defeated leader and these four when they had first started their attack was now seeping out of them. They did not seem to relish continuing the attack against this trained and desperate bender.
"There is nothing to be gained here," the first said.
"We should have long since been gone. The strength is now diminishing."
"The guards will be here soon, we must not be caught."
Nodding together, the four of them bent down and jumped back into the fire and smoke. They moved impossibly fast, like lightning, and now they were completely gone.
Ma'er swore, but he did not give chase. Ayika huddled back against a pile of broken chairs as the bender thrust his fists at the ground in frustration. The floor rumbled in commiserate anger. Ayika turned and looked for some way to escape. This man could kill her with a flick of his hand. The ground could open up and swallow her whole. The bird-masked man had said Ma'er was not Public Safety but at the moment that made him no less terrifying. He was an earthbender unbound by law or regulation. Ayika inched to the side, trying not to flinch at her own bruises. The false gardener's head jerked up and his eyes fell on her. Her eyes stung and her lungs burned and she saw no path of escape.
The door to outside was now blocked by a large and awkward pile of collapsed wood but Ma'er turned to a blank warehouse wall and with a few gestures of his hands the bricks parted to form a small door. He reached out his arm to grab Ayika with calloused fingers. She was still pressed back against the stack of crates. Her choices were him or a wall of rapidly growing flame. "Up, girl. You're coming with me." Ma'er pulled her through the opening out into the alley beside the warehouse.
Ayika struggled against him and yelled back inside for Xinfei and Mizumi, not knowing if they were still trapped in the burning building. She screamed for them to get out. For one blissful second her captor's rough fingers loosened their hold on her arm and she tried to run back inside and help them. Ma'er caught her shoulder and spun her. "Idiot. You go back in there and you die. And all for some stupid cause that you don't even understand..." He suddenly stopped and grabbed her chin in a painful grip, raising her face to meet his eyes. "What...?" he said softly. "You're that girl from the school yesterday. And today, I saw you outside my house." Ayika struggled but his grip was stronger than any person she had encountered before. Any person except the white masked man in Lizhen's office. Ma'er continued, "What are you-?"
"Ayika!" A cry sounded out of the dark.
Mizumi came running down the alley, followed shortly behind by the two Bao brothers. When she saw Ma'er's hold on Ayika she turned profile and raised her fists in a striking stance. "Let her go!"
"If you think..." Ma'er began darkly, but then he stopped in surprise once more. "Miohuito's daughter?" He stared at the group of them in redoubled confusion. "But why would he-"
The bells of the fire tower ringing out its alarm were now joined by the approaching sounds of smaller bells and the swell of yelling voices from an approaching crowd a few streets over. Ma'er's head quickly swiveled to the direction of the sound. He growled deeply but when Ayika tugged at her arm he let it go.
Free, she quickly turned and backed up towards Mizumi as she said, "All right, I've got questions now too! First, what-"
Ma'er made a quick motion with his hands and the ground rippled up under their feet. In a split second the bender was launched far away into the dark night air, the reverberations of his earth magic sending Ayika and Mizumi stumbling together into a wall and Xinfei bowled over on the unsettled alley floor.
Xinfei propped himself into a sitting position with his arms behind him, groaning as his old bruises once again insisted on themselves. "Well," he said. "This night went great."
...