Fluke

It would have been nice if things had become at least a smidge easier those next few days, but reality was far from that naive desire. The weight I was carrying on my shoulders and in my gut had only grown heavier and all the more unbearable.

To every side of me as we trained now in our firebending dojo were people who, according to Raava, I could no longer trust. These were people I would be fighting with on a battlefield in only a month or two of time, or date of departure brought closer, and apparently, I couldn't rely on a single one of them.

So this is what Raava meant when she said I was running out of time?

The language of the announcement had been subtle, but complete malarkey all the same. They'd stated that we'd proven ourselves well, that we'd shown our potential as soldiers, and that we'd learned all there was that needed to be taught to us. It was all bullshit, of course, and I had a damn good feeling that the real reason had something to do with the news that'd come in from the front–our latest victory. No. Not 'our' victory. If it was viewed that way, we wouldn't be getting prematurely deployed as we were now.

I couldn't deny that we were good. We were far better fighters than what we'd been months ago, but the fact remained that time was low for me, if what this Raava said was true. My window to get the hell out of here had just become that more narrow.

'Trust nobody,' she'd said as I wondered while going through the movements of my form, producing a lively flame at each point, just who that included.

Near the back corner of the room, off to himself, Match practiced Wǔyì against an immobile target dummy. Not being able to trust him was hardly any surprise, but my eyes moved then to Mykezia, who practiced with Fahin, or, more accurately, using him as a punching bag as her Liánhuán form remained unmatched even with his size and strength. I supposed that I shouldn't have been surprised that I couldn't trust her either. I only knew her vaguely, but enough to identify that, from the slums as she was, her loyalty to the Fire Nation was one borne out of gratitude not only for a chance at survival, but a chance to explore an ability she never otherwise would have discovered. It was disappointing to come to that conclusion, but I couldn't take any risks now, couldn't be an idiot lest I be found out for who I was.

Not that I know that information myself.

Then there were Danev and Aden, not present here, but by far the closest people to me by shared history more than anything else. Can I not trust them either? Why would they ever go against me? Even if Aden were to learn about what'd happened in Citadel, about the mess that I was responsible for, he would never stop hating the Fire Nation more than me, I wanted to think. As for Danev, it was him who'd already been with me in my secret, who had been the first to tell me to trust nobody and say nothing. Why could I not trust him? Why was I supposed to trust instead some formless entity I knew nothing about, who herself hid things from me, as opposed to somebody I've known almost all my life, who's saved my life more time than one?

And why too was I supposed to trust him of all people?

My eyes wandered towards Jeong Jeong where he prowled through the ranks of his practicing protegees, eyeing each one at a time, forcing me to return to my training lest I draw any unwelcome attention. Or is it attention that I DO want from him? Is that what Raava wants? Is that what will help me?

I didn't have time to consider an approach to perhaps get a better watch on Jeong Jeong before a third party to all this melodrama entered through the dojo entrance, and proceeded to bow towards the master. Jeong Jeong did not exactly eye the small boy, just a messenger by the looks of him, kindly, no doubt not too fond of having his training session interrupted in such a manner.

"Chuānxīn!" he called out, now to us students indicating the form he wished for us to practice with. "Pierce the heart!"

His orders given, his focus shifted to the messenger while us trainees, familiar with the drill, sought out new partners to spar with as was customary when switching forms so we may not grow complacent with the same double.

I considered my options. A part of me was tempted to just keep to myself, but as I normally didn't do so, I found myself concerned that I would stand out more than I already had for the day, and I hardly needed any more attention being put on me with how things were. As such, my next proposed solution to myself was Mykezia.

I'd been pondering my choices for too long, however. She'd already found another–Sheshin. Damnit. It hardly took any time, however, for Fahin to decide to pair up with me instead, which, by all metrics, had far worse fates. It ended up working out to as Sheshin was somebody I was at least capable of matching, not needing to worry about being terrible overwhelmed, if anything reaching a stalemate with him most of the time. The time we had to do so here, however, was cut short.

Somewhere near the front of the room, Jeong Jeong had been handed something by the courier, a small scroll judging by a brief look.

It wasn't too long until, just two or three minutes after telling us to begin with Chuānxīn, that he called out again, "Stop!"

That caught the room by surprise, myself included. Did we do something wrong? Does it have something to do with the paper he was given? Is it something to do with me? I found that my heart began beating that small bit faster, eyeing him inquisitively as did the others until master Jeong Jeong raised his head from his paper to actually look at us now, and say, "You've practiced enough for today. You are dismissed!"

We'd only been here for about three quarters of an hour. By all merits, we still had another hour and fifteen minutes to go. We were still in the first half, so what was he doing dismissing us then?

"Master?" Mykezia spoke up, seemingly to voice that exact concern. "We've just begun for the day. Are you sure-"

"I said you are done for the day! I will not repeat myself!" His stern eyes created a conclusive sense of fear in the entirety of the room. The only times his voice had ever flared up as so, and merely for the purpose of instructing us in his usual strict manner, had been when reprimanding Penar for nearly burning the entire dojo to a crisp because he'd set fire to a banner on the rear wall.

The students gradually broke from their trainings positions, as did I from Sheshin, all of us doubtlessly wondering what it was that'd caused the interruption. The messenger had already left. Jeong Jeong seemed to be going nowhere, so it wasn't as if he'd been called to something important.

Could this be the best time to talk to him? I considered, sure as hell not able to identify when else might be a chance to at least try to approach him.

He was rather invested in the piece of paper that he held, eyes clearly scanning over it once, twice, thrice, but he was occupied with no others. I hardly felt the most confident about even taking a step closer than I needed to him, much more as it was to talk to him about something that could very well compromise me, but those had been Raava's words: 'Find the master who has taught you thus far.' That had to be Jeong Jeong. Who else?

I couldn't help but wonder who else that possibly could have implied, but no other names came to mind. I wondered too if there was something or somebody I wasn't thinking about–something in my past that I wasn't presently aware of, but I would have liked to think that Raava would have clued me into them if such was the case.

Because she's been so helpful so far.

All the same, it was a risk I had to take, especially when, supposedly, there were none others I could trust.

All others had left the room, leaving only me behind to approach Jeong Jeong. He didn't notice me as I did, completely undetected as I was, only three or so feet away.

I cleared my throat, and his eyes finally turned towards me. "I have dismissed you from my dojo," he said. Why are you still here?"

I considered my response, wondering just what in spirits' name I was going to say, but decided to push forward while I was still here with even the slightest semblance of will to speak.

"Master," I said. "There was something I was hoping to talk about."

"And you choose now of all times to do it," he commented. To that, I had no immediate response, frustrating enough for him to continue in saying, "Say what you wish to say then."

Jeong Jeong scrunched the parchment he'd been holding in his hand and let it rest still in his grip as his arms fell to his side and he awaited what I had to say. Just enough of a view of the paper was afforded for me to see who it had been sent from–somebody by the name of "Zhao," his signature ranking him as a lieutenant in the Fire Navy.

More war reports? I wondered. Bad news perhaps?

I looked back up at Jeong Jeong, wondering what even to say. What can I say? That I got contacted by the Avatar spirit and was told to trust him alone? Trust him for what? And what if it isn't even him I was meant to go to? A hint from Raava around that point would have been appreciated.

I had no choice but to play it safe, and so I did, saying, "Master, I'm concerned. The Fire Nation they're…sending us to war in just over two weeks and…I'm worried."

There was a pause from him. I'd thought what I'd said to be nothing, but that seemed far from the case as Jeong Jeong simply narrowed his eyes and asked, "Why?"

Why?

"'Why,' sir?"

"Yes. Why? Why are you concerned? Worried?"

"I don't," I stammered. "Sir?"

"You do not still question your abilities? Your gifts? The power you hold?"

"No, master."

"Then what are you afraid of? You hold the power to defeat your enemy, to kill your enemy, to burn cities to the ground, to kill, to slaughter. That is the gift that you and I have been given, and I have done my job and teached yet another killer how to do so more effectively!"

He calmed. Relatively, though that was not saying much.

"I have taught you all you need to know. I have done my job. You are dismissed."

And it was clear enough too that my dismissal that time was not one to be challenged. I backed away as Jeong Jeong turned once again the eye the parchment in his hand, and I did not overstay my welcome.

I left.

Thanks a lot, Raava.

Danev

I'd already known that lieutenant Aozon had it out for me from early one, but the extent to which he sought to take out his grievances against me on the rest of my squad were becoming frankly ridiculous.

Even with Oreke next to me, the two of us looking over what had been my battlefield for the last few weeks, now just a standard park open to anyone as the weekend had finally come, it was impossible to not feel a hint of resentment.

"You okay?" Oreke asked, by no means blind to the look I was giving the field, hardly a kind one.

I appreciated Oreke's presence in the inner city and in my time here for a number of reasons, but even I had to admit that her attentiveness to me was something of both a blessing and a curse. She could see what it was that was bothering me even before I was aware of what it was.

We walked the route through the park that, by happenstance, was precisely the same path we'd fought along just the day before.

My mind had naturally been wandering to my last war game here. Naturally, lieutenant Aozon had gone out of his way to ensure we would be facing ridiculous odds once again. This time, we'd been acting on offense against squad 5. The only catch was that we'd also been given two secondary objectives of hitting both squad 1 and 2's positions along the way. The odds were ridiculous, Amazon's only excuse being that we wouldn't need to face them all at the same time, which was hardly any solace when any casualties that we suffered when hitting the first two targets would remained downed even for our final objective.

I'd managed to lead the 3rd rather successfully against the 1st's position, camouflage amongst the trees. The scout I'd sent forward had managed to find their locations and a dual pronged attack to either flank, attacking with gunfire, had managed to draw them out, taken off guard, at which point we'd attacked them with swords, managing to catch their ranged fighters by surprise, eliminating them with only a single casualty.

It'd then been the 2nd's position, camped along a stream crossing. I'd have ordered my men to go around, knowing the terrain easily enough to easily take them from the side, but we'd been given only half an hour to finish our objective. We'd thus been forced to cross. I left 4 men on our side of the river to provide covering fire with their hand cannons. They'd fired in teams of two, extremely inaccurate, but enough to scare the enemy into pinning them down, while the rest of our squad, including myself, crossed. While none of our cannon fire struck, the cover had worked, and we'd managed to cross, eliminating squad two, but leaving only myself and one other attacker alive.

At that point, we'd been at half strength, forced to engage squad 4's entrenched position. We did not survive. We lost two from the start to arrows, at which point the three remaining of us managed to reach their foxhole perimeter, only managing to take out as many of them as there were us before we were eliminated.

"Well fought," their commander, the new girl named Mykezia said, shaking my hand. It wasn't a false peasantry either. Whether it was her, her men, or those of the other squads, I wanted to think they realized the odds I was being put up against, and commended me for making it as far as I did.

That was little solace to the others in my command though, still with less victories under their belt than any other squad of any other platoon.

And this coming week was our last. It would be platoons fighting one another now, Amazon's Dragon against whoever was chosen for us, and I already knew that it would be my squad leading the way, absorbing the ammunition of the enemy before the rest of our men could emerge triumphant if even we did under our lieutenant's idiotic command.

And in spite of all that, all I could think to say to Oreke in response to her question was, "Just taking in the view."

She never was going to believe that, especially as I narrowed my eyes at the sight of the stream where so many of my men had been gunned down. They're alive now, but if it really comes down to it, they won't get so lucky.

I sighed. If even it comes to that.

We were supposed to head out to war by the end of next week. Four months I'd been here and not yet found a way to get out, hard as I'd tried to think and find an opening, none had come my way. There were options, sure, but the guard we were kept under, the life comparative to in the slums, what was the point? We'd heard about a few escape attempts early in recruitment, and they needn't even be punished. A month in, we had come to realized that we had roofs over our heads, warm meals in our stomachs, and soft beds to sleep in. Why escape back to the slums of all places when so many already made it their aim to get to the inner city?

To escape death.

The war was coming, sooner than expected. I had no misillusions about my chances. I'd fought for my life in the slums, but I wasn't so naive to think that I would be a victor on an actual battlefield.

"You're going to be alright, you know," Oreke said, breaking me out of my trance where we sat on a park bench as I mindlessly fed the turtle ducks that wandered up to the shore of the pond.

"What?" I asked, so lost in my thoughts that I hadn't even heard the extent of what she'd said.

"Just…," she didn't finished. I wondered if even she believed it, or if she had said it just to make me feel better, knowing so well where my mind had wandered.

"It's just one more week," I said, the crumbs falling from my hand as the puffy little ducklings poked their heads out from their shells to nibble at the bits of food while they mother pulled each away one at a time, fearing my boot as though it was some encroaching predator. Just one more week before I ship out. "With a commander that despises me and will try to kill me at the first chance possible."

I need to get out. We need to get out. If not to the slums, just somewhere that wasn't the Fire Nation. Even as of late, Fluke had started talking more about the chance of leaving. I wondered if it was just to appease Aden, or if maybe the whole 'Aegis' situation had started getting to him more than before. Either way, it was worrying, and most because I still couldn't think of anything.

"I'm going to die out there," I confessed.

"Don't say that."

"I just…I don't want to die…for this."

And then she paused. I let the rest of the crumbs fall out of my hand–a feast for the small family whose mother even couldn't pass up on the opportunity of. They gathered at my feet, nibbling at what I'd left like vultures to a corpse on a battlefield. A grim thought.

"I know I sound like a coward," I said, wondering just what she would think of me for that, 'her brave soldier' fearing for his life. Not the most attractive image.

"No,-" she started, pausing for a moment as though considering how to continue before saying, "You're one of the bravest people I've ever met, Danev."

Now she's just trying to make me feel better. "You don't need to save that."

"I'm not kidding," she said, asserting herself on her point. "I met you because you and your friends tried robbing a Fire Nation army of their supplies."

"That makes me an idiot. Not brave."

"You did it, and nearly gave your life doing it, so your friends could eat for a few more weeks. The people I've treated have been those who got hurt in drunken brawls, misfires, training accidents, but you're the only person I've met who has actually fought, and fought for others at that." She put a hand on mine where it rested next to me on the bench. "You're not a coward."

"So why do I want to run?"

"Because you're worried about your friends. About Fluke and Aden."

And what about the others? Raosem, Hilan, Mano, Shozi, and so many others too that I'd spent the last months training beside, fighting with and fighting for over the course of all this time. What about them? I couldn't just leave them.

"And the others," I confessed. "The 114th. Other slum kids."

"You're afraid of leaving them behind?"

Am I? I wanted to think it was just that, a sense of loyalty towards them and nobility that kept me from running. I wish it could have been something as honorable as that, but I was afraid more than anything, of failing. Of failing the old Hornets, and now too, the others. The 114th. She wasn't wrong. I nodded. "I don't want us to die for their war. It's not our country."

"It is, Danev."

I scoffed. "You tell them that."

I guessed that in spite of my scoff, the discomfort was apparent to her. The truth was that the Fire Nation had only ever made things worse for me, whether it was taking over this city, striking a deal with the Hornets, or conscripting me. We may have been wearing their uniforms, bearing their insignia, and fighting with their weapons, but it was apparent that they didn't view us as their people.

If that were to change however-

I stopped that thought before it could grow. That'll never change.

I felt Oreke's hand clasp around mine where it rested on the bench, and I realized just how apparent that I was that I had absolutely no idea what in spirits' name to do.

"Whatever you do," Oreke said, looking at me now, "I'm sure you'll do the right thing. You're smart, brave, and a good person. Don't find that just anywhere."

She leaned over then to kiss me, and I kissed back.

I appreciated her at times like this, but the facts remained the same that between Aden attempting to break out on his own, certain to get himself killed if he tried, Fluke believing the entire world was after him, and five hundred kids from the slums about to walk blindly into cannon fire, I had no idea what I was doing.

But Oreke was right.

I'll figure something out.

Fluke

I questioned if any of this was actually a good idea.

No, that was being too generous. I was positive that returning to Jeong Jeong's dojo was a terrible idea. In spite of the fact that he'd summoned me.

After what'd happened earlier, I doubted that he would be in any better a disposition now. I wondered if maybe I was better off leaving this to another, but the number of days I still had here were dwindling with each passing day. We were entering our final week of training and, after that, we were off with only the most basic fundamentals of combat and our role specialties.

I have to get out.

I'd tried talking more with Danev about it, but he was positive that trying to leave now would only get us killed. Of course, Aden advocated for us getting out regardless of the risk. He'd been elated when I brought up my willingness to do so over a shared meal during the weekend. We'd taken our leave together, went out to a small restaurant in the inner city civilian zone that Danev recommended. Shocked as we'd been by the arrangement of how food was 'ordered' and distributed, it was a good place to talk.

"We already are out of the base," he said. "Can see the wall from here. Just need to slip through."

"You not notice how many soldiers they got watching us? All of us?" Danev said.

"We sneak past them! Done it before, yeah?"

"And nearly got killed for it."

"But we got Fluke! He's a firebender!" Aden said as he motioned towards me. I'd been silent the whole time, only raising my voice near the beginning to suggest, "Maybe we should leave." I regretted it instantly. I imagined the change in tone from me had been a surprise to them both, though Aden hadn't questioned it, just glad to have me on his side.

Danev on the other hand…

"Fluke alone won't keep us alive."

He was right about that.

He looked towards me then, asking over my rice bowl, "Why the sudden change anyway? Thought you didn't want to go back to the slums."

I never had, and still didn't, but that voice in my head, Raava, she'd made things clear enough. It was leaving, however possible, or death. I'd told neither of them about what I'd seen or heard. Much as I trusted them, Aden not to go to the Fire Nation and Danev to stick by my side, the spirit had made herself clear.

Danev had shaken his head then and said, "Slums would get us killed anyway. Fire Nation would find us."

"Won't matter if we go to the Hornets," Aden said. "Strength in numbers, and with a firebender now too, we can get the rest of the slums with us. Fire Nation won't dare come after us."

I would have said something then, about the truth of the Hornets, but as he'd been doing for the last few weeks, Danev shook his head, and put that thought aside.

I couldn't go to Danev with the truth, partly because I knew he would act rash if he believed it was urgent, and we needed him to keep his head on his shoulders. Aden, already rash, would make his solution an escape to the slums which would doubtlessly kill us all. Especially when there was nothing else to go back to, and telling the truth of such, as Danev put it, would result only in my death.

I still wasn't sure if I completely believed that theory, but all the same, it left one option left–Jeong Jeong.

The least I could do was apologize. Make sure that, after this morning, things weren't cut off between us.

I knocked on the door to his dojo, not knowing if he was even inside, and, on the off chance if he was, whether or not to expect a response.

It did indeed take some time for one to come as I found myself a spot of relative comfort leaning against the adjacent wall. In time, however, it did indeed come, and I was greeted with a stoic face devoid of emotion staring back at me. His eyes registered nothing if not the immediate reconsideration of summon me and a desire to turn me away, scarcely hidden beside the stark scar that lined his face, but in spite of it all, he stepped back inside, and left the door open for what I assumed was meant for me to enter in after him.

I'd been entering in by this same route for around three months now, alongside a few dozen other trainees like me who possessed a unique ability that never otherwise in our lives would we have been able to harness. Most of us would have died by disease, gang war, or starvation before before coming to learn the power that we held, but the Fire Nation had given us a chance to do otherwise.

A part of me felt thankful, but I had to remind myself it was only so they could throw us at their enemies. Jeong jeong though, I would have normally thought he was no different, but Raava vouched for him, for some unknown reason. Because now as I entered into the deathly quiet dojo that was lit only by a scattered assortment of candles gathered in a circle around a small meditation mat that the master had been seeming to use.

There was no noise in the room but the flickering of the flames, though something about it felt odd, as though in the corner, hidden somewhere, was another, almost as though it wasn't the two of us alone. But the silence persisted all the same. Even Jeong Jeong himself made no noise as he walked across the width of his dojo, not saying a single word, as though pondering what he even had to say.

"Master," I said, taking the initiative. "About earlier. I never should have spoken up as I did. You called for us to enter, yet I-"

"Yet you defied my orders, and stayed."

Well, at least there was no confusion about this morning's events. I nodded my head. "I stayed because…" I paused, not knowing just what to say. What was safe to say.

She said I can trust him.

If ever I'd seen a man who deeply desired a bottle of something stronger than the jade tea that the military academy served, it was him. Master Jeong Jeong had the look of somebody who needed to see the bottom of a bottle as quickly as he could, yet here he was, shockingly sober, and so I spoke up again, finishing with "because I need your help."

He was silent. I expected that much, but what I hardly expected were the words that came next out of his mouth.

"You remind me of my last student," he said. "He wasn't a slum rat like you however. He was born into a prominent family, served in a Fire Nation academy, and came to me as an adult, seasoned in battle, experienced, but desiring more."

I failed to see where the similarities lay.

"But he was afraid," Jeong Jeong continued. "His family had a reputation to uphold and he was their firstborn son. He was afraid of failing them. His academy had accelerated his education and placed him in a position of junior leadership in the Fire Navy with the expectation that he would rise through the ranks. He was afraid of failing them. And I was his firebending master. I do not accept payment for my services. I am not a mercenary. I do not go where my nation orders me. I am not a soldier any longer. I go where I see potential, and I demand excellence." He closed his eyes. "He was afraid of failing me too."

When he opened his eyes again, they were trained directly on me. His brows were furrowed. There was no mistaking the intensity of his statement as he said, "You are afraid too."

Is that hardly any surprise?

All the same, even if that was the case, it did at least partially put me in a state of unease to see how things had shifted to me now. "I don't," I started, not knowing particularly how to continue. "I-"

"You have been afraid since you walked into my dojo. Afraid of your past, your peers, of me. It's how you draw your strength."

On that front, he wasn't wrong. I knew what I was, the kinds of things that got me moving. Fear was an excellent motivator, especially when it came to forcing me to stay light on my feet back in the slums, survive from one day to the next. "Served me well so far," I said. "Good a motivator as any."

Jeong Jeong didn't seem to take kindly to the joke. "Maybe in the moment," he said. "But fear is a fragile thing. With fear, anger isn't far behind. Then it is hate. From hate, there is only suffering. For you…and for those around you."

His voice trailed off.

Does that…have to do with what happened earlier? His anger at me? Because of what it was that motivated me? What is he talking about?

"Why…are you telling me this?" I asked.

"As I said, you remind me of my last student. In the time since I had trained him, he has lost his fear, and instead he orders the deaths of thousands under his command. You asked me to help you? Then do not make the same mistakes that he did. That I did."

"Then help me get out!" I said. "If it's so dangerous for me to stay…if you're worried about what will happen if I do, then help me!"

"You think running can save you now?!" he asked, his voice rising. "You already possess the power to kill, to destroy your enemies, to burn cities to the ground and you believe it is running from the Fire Nation that will save you!?"

He took a step closer to me, equal to the one I took back.

"Escape from the slaughter to come if you can, but it will not save you! What you know, what I have taught you, you already possess the ability to create death from life! That is the curse of our nation, our people, and you cannot escape from it!"

Another step forward from him, and another back for me.

"I cannot save you! Only you can do that for yourself!"

One more from each of us, and his voice lowered.

"I have taught you all I can. The burden is now yours to bear as well, and for that, I am sorry."

And so that was it. The candles across the room went out, and all in the room was dark. I could have had my eyes shut for all I knew, and so I blinked a few times to see that nothing had changed. I closed them tighter then, for longer, and when I next opened them, there was light again, and I was alone. Not in the dojo of Jeong Jeong, but in the hallway outside. The door to it was shut, and there I was left to myself.

The walk back to the barracks was a quiet one. With every day, more unease. With every day, my chances of getting out of this all alive slimmed, and I was running out of time. I wouldn't sleep that night, or for many of the nights to follow. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling as the others settled into their nights.

He still doesn't know who I am, I realized. It'd never come up, but it made no difference. I'd found the supposed 'help' I'd gone looking for, and it was clear that it wasn't much. Like he said, the rest was up to me. If there was one thing that I had understood from my encounter with Jeong Jeong, it was that there had been no single point at which I'd gone over my head. I'd been screwed from the start.

Jeong Jeong

Had I made the right choice?

No. I knew I was beyond the point of being able to ask such questions anymore. I sighed, hand still on the knob of the door that I closed, that last student behind it, no doubt unawares of what'd just transpired in this room seconds ago.

He'll remember enough.

I hoped so at least.

I turned from the door, and navigated deeper into the obscured room that was my dojo, finding my way by instinct to the centerpiece, stepping easily over the circle of candles that still smoldered, though the smoke that rose from them was near impossible to see in my blackened dojo.

In spite of that though, I knew where to look to see the vague outline of my desk. I knew what lay atop–a letter I must have now read a dozen times over. The contents of it, a report from the Nip Sea–of settlements burned to the ground, Fire Nation victories, the reports of which written by a man who I'd known as a young man I saw something in–a spark.

And I'd been right, as it was that very spark that, if the reports were to be believed, had killed over a thousand in the latest siege.

A great victory, he'd called it.

The city he'd burned to the ground, one small settlement called Taifeng, I'd heard of it before, been following the news of its siege, knowing my protege waited on our lines. It's military garrison was only of 200. Four times the number of civilians had died, if not more.

'A great victory.'

I'd created a monster, and now so feared that I had just finished in creating dozens more.

I sighed, and turned to look back at the room that bore no light within.

That remained the case, at least, until I allowed myself to sit back down, and once again, flames rose from the candles, lighting the room. The heat picked up in the room with a raging intensity, left so lifeless and cold with his absence when the boy had been here. That changed now as the flames from the candles swirled together, bringing to life his image.

There stood he once again, amber brown eyes staring down at me, white hair indicative of his older age, flowing down by his sides in spite of the topknot and royal headpiece that adorned his head, bearing the mark of a nation that has since come to only whisper his name out of spite for the man they viewed now as little more than a traitor.

"You have done well," the said upon his arrival, bestowing unto me a compliment that, in light of everything, I was not deserving of.

"Have I?" I asked, snapping, having been holding my composure for too long while the boy had been here that I could hardly hold it any longer. "You see what I have done. I've created soldiers, killers, monsters who will be sent to bring destruction in our nation's name! What have I succeeded in? I have only helped tear apart this world further!"

"Do not take upon your shoulders the weight of mistakes that are my own. It is my own indecision of the past that has ensured our gifts could be misused this way, used to bring death rather than peace as was intended."

"There is no peace in our curse!" I spat. "The spirits have seen fit to damn us for our transgressions, and we deserve them."

He went silent. If anybody knew better than me of the curse that our abilities bore, it was him. Him who pioneered the learning of fire, merged his understanding with that of the world's other elements and mysteries. Who am I to talk to him this way?

"I cannot stop you from seeing it this way, but your work isn't over."

"It is! I will no longer train killers to bring ruin to the world! I will no longer insult your legacy in this way!"

"That is not what I am asking of you," he spoke again. I looked up at him, pondering his words as he said this. "You are not alone in your quest for balance, Jeong Jeong. You have done what you can here, but the winds of change take you elsewhere now."

"Where?" I asked, begging. I knew what had to be done, and I knew well enough that it would leave me with nothing, render me an enemy of the state, a fugitive from my nation, my family, from anything. Soon enough, I would have nothing, be nothing. All I asked for was a direction, but it was never quite so simple as that. "If I do what I plan to do, what I must do, there will be nowhere safe for me. Command me. Please.

"It is not my place to tell you where you must go, only tell you that hope is not lost for you. You will find your way."

I closed my eyes, grimacing. I had to know…I had to know that I'd done something right. At least one thing at the very least before all was said and done.

"The boy," I said. "The one you told me to see. Is it him? Is he the one?"

There was a silence, only the cracks of the flames of candles to be heard. And the answer that soon came was not the one I'd have liked.

"No," he said, and my heart sank. "The Avatar lies in wait. It is not yet his time to return, but for now, the boy will carry the flame of life for the world until the time is right."

"And when the time is right? What of him then?"

"Then the world will have its Avatar and savior."

"You damn the boy to protect a legacy that isn't his own?"

The man, no, more than that, the master went silent yet again. It was a cruel fate, but I hadn't been wrong in my reading of the situation. Kindness mattered little. Not above the truth of how it was. "It is his duty to the world. He is our protector, Aegis, and your actions have helped to ensure he may yet find his way."

I prayed he was right.

"You have done well, Jeong Jeong, but you must find your own path now, wherever it may take you."

My head low, I was already knelt on my knees, bowing to the man who knew the price of giving his life more than any other. I knew what was to be done, and I was ready for what I must face. The choice had already been made, but soon enough, when the 29th left, I would have my chance, and I might finally begin to atone for my many sins, and so I answered him one last time.

"Yes, Avatar Roku."