"Houraisan Kaguya," the words had left her mouth like an excised tumour. There was an undercurrent of guilt within Mokou, for she had inflicted a fraction of Kaguya, however small, on these kids. Before, it was a mere name in her head, nestled deep in foggy memories, incapable of terrorising the world. Now, Mokou had just given this memetic cancer of hers a voice. "Putting a man in stasis sounds like something she does."
Sokka crossed his arms, "charming. Any reason why?"
Mokou shrugged, "entertainment, most likely." There was a listlessness to her voice, wrought by resignation. It was a weary acceptance that the princess was simply a glutton of the highest order, and no one could change that. Not Eirin, and most definitely not Mokou. And without a Yukari or Reimu to reign her in, Kaguya was an active threat to the world around her for the first time since the Imperishable Night incident. Mokou vowed to make sure Kaguya was her problem and hers alone. She just needed to find her first. After that, back to Gensokyo.
Aang sighed. He looked weary and very, very tired, "So there's one more person who's as powerful and reckless as you?"
"She's more reckless." The words held a hidden weight brought down by memory. There was a nervous twitch on the otherwise tepid Immortal. It was beginning to sink in that Kaguya was closer than she had thought. Mokou had resigned herself to a decade of searching, but now things were moving quickly.
"That's hard to believe," Aang replied, seeming unusually catty to his friends.
Mokou was getting annoyed. The rivalry between her and Kaguya had simmered, but the Fujiwara still held intense misgivings about the Lunarian. To be compared to her had stung to the point of piercing her numb hide. The Immortal was starting to take it personally. She pointed a finger at the kid, eyes full of malevolent promise, "That's cause you haven't met her." It was a two-sided warning, demanding to stop and to fear.
There was a sharpness to her tone that sliced through the air, worrying Aang. The Avatar didn't like his chances of fighting Mokou without being in the Avatar state. So he calmly brought his arms up in reconciliation.
"Zuko!" Iroh's yell had grounded Mokou's interrogation to a halt. The fugitive prince was lying on Appa's back, sweating profusely. The old man placed a hand on his nephew's forehead, "a fever..."
Toph shifted closer to the duo, hearing Zuko's difficult breaths. The young Beifong didn't care for the prince, but she didn't like hearing the old man's worry, "What's going on?" Toph asked.
Iroh placed a hand on Zuko's throat, feeling the erratic rhythm of the boy's heart, the drumbeat of an internal war. He had seen stress overtake his soldiers when he once led an army. It was an acute and sinister feeling that had frayed older men's minds, leaving numb or wrathful machines. And here was Zuko, sixteen years of age, combating this spiritual sickness. Saving the bison had clashed with his perceived image of who he wanted to be, a complete reversal of his moral compass. That led to a moral injury, and the boy lacked the proper tools to heal from it. The wound in his soul was worsened by the fact that here he was, colluding with the enemy, "a sickness of the spirit, saving your Appa has filled him with great doubt and worry." He turned to the Gaang, "You must bring him to our home so he may recover."
Katara was the first to respond, "So he could come back up and chase us again?" Zuko was royalty, meaning he was partially responsible for the Fire Nation's war effort. She had little desire to help those associated with her mother's killer, let alone their superior.
"Yeah, getting sick over doing the right thing ain't a good look," Sokka added.
"Guys," Aang called out softly, "he saved Appa; that means something."
"And so does invading my home and chasing us all the way up the North Pole." Katara rebuked. Something was bubbling up in her, made worse by the pain of Aang leaving her in Lao Gai. Toph and Sokka chose to sit by; this had seemed to be a personal matter between Aang and Katara. "Gosh, he even kidnapped you! You think that all goes away from the one good deed he's done so far?"
"I can think of several other deeds," Iroh offered.
"No," Aang conceded to Katara, "but it's a start. And what does it make us if we punish those who saved Appa?"
Mokou had passively watched the whole scene and was impressed. The kid was an actual monk and a true turn-the-other-cheek type, cut from the same cloth as Byakuren. This Aang boy really was pure of heart, which saddened Mokou. It even pissed her off; she wanted someone easy to hate, a brat given unearned gifts coasting through his lineage alone. She wanted someone she wouldn't feel bad killing, but Aang wasn't that kind of person. It made what she was about to do hurt all the more.
"Hey, while you two dunderheads were arguing, that Dai Li creep probably found a new safe spot. My bet's on the palace," Toph said, "can we save this for later?"
Aang and Katara stared silently before the latter broke, "fine," Katara said.
"Well, we're gonna need someone to watch over them," Sokka gestured at Zuko and Iroh, "we can drop Zuko off at our place before finding Long Feng," Aang eyed Katara, the group's healer, asking for her help. The waterbender withheld a long-suffering sigh and nodded. Toph offered to pair up with Katara but was rejected. The Earthbender prodigy was needed in the palace raid with the rest of the Gaang. If Long Feng was there, then Toph's truthseer abilities would prove more potent than Katara's bending. And besides, the Waterbender could easily watch over an old man and a cripple.
Then, all eyes were on Mokou, who suddenly felt very vulnerable from the scrutiny until she reminded herself that these were mere kids—powerful kids, but kids still. Aang nodded at Toph before realising the Earthbender couldn't see and called out to her, "Toph?"
The blind girl nodded and jumped off Appa's back, landing next to Mokou with a thud. Mokou placed her hands in her pocket, looking at the knee-high kid with some unease.
"So you have nothing to do with the Fire Nation or the Dai Li?" Aang asked.
"Or Azula!?" Sokka added.
"Same thing," Katara chided.
Sokka shrugged, "Nothing wrong with specificity."
Mokou shook her head, "No."
"She's speaking the truth," Toph said. Mokou's eyes widened. That changed things; she'll need to be careful around that girl.
"If you want us to trust you after everything that's happened, you'll help us against the Dai Li," Aang said, preparing a mental list of points to persuade her.
Mokou smiled, canines in full display, "You had me at Dai Li."
"Awesome!" Sokka commented sarcastically, "Guess we're making friends with everyone we've fought with."
Toph bellowed out a laugh that pierced Mokou's ears, "Yeah, who's next, Azula?"
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jet heaved a bulky man onto a table. Knocking him out had been difficult, but the poor man was finally resting. First, a prisoner of Lao Gai and now an unconscious body, Jet pitied him. But the man had to be stopped; he was causing a ruckus and picking fights with the soldiers rescuing him. Something clicked. It was a piece of a sinister puzzle that Jet was beginning to solve. Long Feng had been kidnapping Earth Kingdom army soldiers and turning them into unwilling puppets. Then they're sent back out to the city and wreak havoc, staining the Military's reputation and giving the Dai Li a blank check to do whatever they want. Jet felt small; he was starting to feel that a lot lately. All he saw were webs upon webs that he could not move out of. But despairing over it changed nothing; he could only focus on what was in front of him.
He heard footsteps approaching the tent he was in. It was Smellerbee and Longshot.
"Jet, you're alright!" Smellerbee yelled.
Jet withheld a tirade towards the two for abandoning him and smiled, "It'll take more than the Dai Li to kill me," it'll take a monster instead, he thought wearily. "How'd you guys find me anyways?" Longshot gave an elucidating look, "Yeah, guess it's easy to put two and two together."
Smellerbee and Longshot came up to hug Jet, to which the resistance fighter accepted. "When I heard the Dai Li got you, I thought I'd never see you again," Smellerbee said, untangling herself from Jet, " We shoulda gone with you, even if we didn't believe you. Make sure you were safe. I had a good thing going, and I was scared that-"
"Don't", Jet interrupted, "it's in the past. It was my fault for pushing you guys away. I-" images of a monster staring back at him and the water threatening to drown him. He thought he would die alone there, a fool suffering the same death he threatened innocent villagers with, "I'm just glad you guys are here."
Longshot looked Jet in the eyes and spoke, "You okay, Jet?"
Jet lacked the energy to put up a front, "No, but I'll be better now, promise. Helping the army against those Dai Li freaks feels real good. You know...Sometimes, I wonder if my parents would be alive today if the army wasn't shackled by them," fury coursed through his veins, tensing his muscles, " just think, this entire time they've been sitting in their little corner of paradise, doing nothing while the whole world burned around them. They're no worse than the Fire Nation. They need to go down before we even think about winning the war."
Smellerbee punched Jet in the shoulder and grinned, "I can get behind that. We're with you, Jet, so long as you don't go around chasing ghosts."
Longshot smiled, like old times.
Jet pointed a finger at Smellerbee, "Hey! She turned out to be a real Firebender, honest! And..." He trailed off, feeling a heat that wasn't there, "and the Avatar dealt with that ash-maker, so thank the spirits for that." That reminded him of the other two Firebenders that remain elusive. Mushi and Lee. But before he could finish his thought, he saw the dark green colours of the Dai Li through the slit of his tent.
In a blur, he ran outside to see the Dai Li agents themselves but shackled and chained. He approached the soldier pulling their chain while his friends caught up to him. "survivors?" he asked the soldier.
"Courtesy of the Avatar. The kid's pet bison spat out a hollow rock full of em." The soldier replied. The man mockingly smiled at the barely conscious Dai Li agent behind him, "The generals are going to love this."
"Is the Avatar still here?" Jet asked nervously.
"Nope," the soldier shook his head, "they hightailed it to the Inner Ring." That made sense; the camp they were in was in the Agrarian Zone, sitting in the middle of the route from Lao Gai to the city proper. "They also brought extra muscle with em, too, from the looks of it. Listen kid, I gotta bring these guys in quick so-"
"-last question, promise. What do you mean by extra muscle?"
"Yeah, they uhhh..." the soldier squinted his eyes in recollection, "there was this old man and a kid with a mean scar on his left eye. Poor guy was knocked out from the looks of it."
"Oh," Jet said, he was pleasantly surprised. That's one more problem of his that the Avatar handled.
"And there was this woman in a white shirt-"
"-WHAT?" Jet's voice rang throughout the camp. Everyone, from camp cooks to perimeter guards, stopped to listen in on the commotion. Jet centred himself; that may have been an overreaction. There was no way the Avatar would allow a monster like that to be free to terrorise the city. "Was she shackled, like these agents here?" That was the only reasonable explanation.
The soldier was getting a bit pissed. He didn't sign up to babysit the kid; he had an actual job he needed to do. "No, she wasn't. Now shoo."
The illusory heat returned. Jet's skin grew slick with sweat while his frantic heart beat against the walls of his chest. Red eyes stared back at him, each pupil a volcano's maw. His friends were talking to him, but their words were but a mumble. The beat grew louder, mixed with screams of the dead and the roar of flame. It threatened to shatter him.
Then nothing. Silence. Calm coursed through his hot blood. Blazing fear washed away by cold rage. There were questions that needed answering. His investigation was not over.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The royal palace in the centre of Ba Sing Se was more than a gargantuan monument to ingenious architects and immaculate stonework. The palace was a symbol to many as a piece of heaven on earth, and the Earth King was its divine tenant. It towered over the Upper Ring with its sky-high spires and mile-long compound. The area was beyond sacred, and to trespass meant death. Thus, it was natural for the Royal Guard to shoot boulders up into the sky to bring down an approaching flying bison.
Aang cracked the approaching projectile with his staff as Mokou blasted a solid beam into the defenders. The others were finding it difficult to hold onto Appa without his saddle under fire, so Aang brought the flying bison down. Katara was left with Zuko and Iroh, so it was Toph and Sokka who assisted the two heavy hitters. Though Toph wasn't a slouch herself. The knee-high prodigy took a wide stance and immersed herself in neutral jing. A contingent of Royal Guard Earthbenders stomped as one to send a massive wall careening towards the Gaang; Toph broke it with a push of her arm and willed the earth to swallow the guards up to their waist.
Aang busied himself, intercepting any attacks going their way, allowing Mokou to unleash crimson wrath from her mouth. The woman followed her own battle rhythm but gave great care not to get in the Gaang's way, focusing on the most immediate threats while everyone worked to defend themselves. It was two songs layered together, weaving the chorus of combat as one through harmony and wrath. Aang could not help but feel a sense of unease as he saw a Royal Guard company scattered by an explosive beam. The Avatar hadn't seen fire so focused before, at least in this lifetime. Her forms gave a glimpse of her inner will, and it was an unbreakable font of hatred distilled into the shape of a woman. But was it hatred of the self or of others? He saw a flash of Mokou ominously watching over him; just what was she going to do to him before Iroh showed up?
Aang felt a sudden force push him down; he swerved his head around to see Mokou take the brunt of an attack meant for him. She spat blood and smiled before wordlessly getting back into the attack. Aang wanted to protect her so she could recover, but a glance showed him that she was fine and without any injuries. Aang narrowly dodged a spike flying towards him, which he redirected with a mix of Earth and Air bending. Right, bad time to daydream.
Deep within the palace itself, Long Feng was sweating bullets. He could scarcely comprehend what was happening; the Avatar had teamed up with that Firebending monster! He rushed to King Kuei with his Dai Li guards in tow, trying to clamp down his rising panic. But then he centred himself and took stock of his position. The Firebender won't kill him, not with the Avatar coming with them, and they dare not harm the Earth King. That meant there was room to manoeuvre. Maybe he could finish what he started in Lao Gai; the Avatar had been willing enough to listen, so he might still have a chance to come out the victor. Steeling his nerves, he prepared to face them. But first, to set favourable conditions for himself.
Feng rushed into King Kuei's throne room with as much dignity as he could muster, giving a quick bow, "My king," he said with deference.
The mild-mannered puppet before smiled the same smile he had when he was little. "Finally, you're here! I was wondering about the ruckus outside."
"My king, The Avatar has betrayed us."
King Kuei gasped as if he had heard a scandalous rumour. Even if what Long Feng said was true, the Dai Li head doubted the King could appreciate the severity of such a statement. Good, that was the intended result of grooming him. "No...but Bosco was starting to like him!" Feng eyed the brown bear leaning on the King's throne, a strange creature.
"It is difficult to believe until you see it with your own eyes." Feng made a grand gesture to emphasise the point to King Kuei, "he is assaulting this palace with a Firebender." He carefully avoided mentioning his suspicions of Fire Nation interference.
King Kuei leaned towards Feng, looming over the Secretariat as he sat on the throne. " What happens now?"
Feng gave King Kuei an intense look, "do you trust me, your majesty?"
"Of course."
"The Avatar will want your forces to assist them on an internal Fire Nation dispute. He will frame it as an Earth Kingdom issue when it is assuredly not. And most of all, I ask you to let me handle them," Feng gave another bow of insincere obeisance.
The great metal doors of his throne room parted with a bang. A cloud of heat and smoke assaulted the throne room. The smoke threatened to swallow them whole. Several Dai Li soldiers stood side-by-side with the Royal Guard and advanced towards the door. Several of the Royal Guard noticed the slightly uneven cadence of the Dai Li's step. It wasn't a mistake usually made by an elite Earthbender who was one with the ground itself.
"Found them!" yelled a voice from within the smoke. A step echoed across the throne room, and Long Feng tensed up. Another step and the Dai Li shifted back to the confusion of the Royal Guard. Then came another as the smoke parted. Bosco bared his fangs; it knew a predator when it saw one.
A wiry woman on the younger side of twenty entered the throne room with a relaxed air about her and her arms in her pockets. She had hair down to her ankles and shoulders as sharp as her eyes. But with her unkempt mane, ashy white top, and muddy red shoes, the King wondered why there was a vagrant in the throne room. But to Feng and his guard, the end times had come. Behind her followed Aang, Toph and Sokka.
"It's over, Long Feng!" The last Airbender proclaimed, "you've got nothing to blackmail us with anymore. Now give up!"
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The sun dipped, evening had come. Katara wrapped her hands around Zuko's warm head. Iroh was right; she started to sense a spiritual injury within the prince. But a rustle of the bushes in the backyard drew her away from her ministrations. She looked around for Iroh before realising he had gone to make tea. Cautiously she stood up, water spilling out of her gourd.
She started to wonder how long will it take for Aang to finish his business with the King. Katara drew herself into a compact yet flexible stance that could easily flow into several forms. Then she heard steps on the grass, drawing ever closer.
The Waterbender squinted her eyes out into the backyard before it widened in surprise. Katara caught sight of an old, hated face, present company not included.
It was Jet.