1. Chapter 1

A reed of a man wandered up the steps of the Hannapin Air Citadel. He was clad in drab brown and grey robes half hidden beneath a thick cloak. He looked timid in his grubby clothes and long hair which hid half his face. Almost immediately a pair of Storm-Templars descended from the highest level of the spire on a gust of their own wind, held aloft by their strange glider spears. They were serene, polite, and absolutely deadly. It was obvious that they were prepared to strike at a moments noticed behind that practiced calm.

One of them stepped towards him with a small clatter of his metal armour and the rustle of his thick cotton robes. His pallid face was slim and overly pointed with a deep black arrow that reached down his shaven head barring a pair of long brownish braids growing from the base of his skull. He was tall, at least six foot and well-muscled much like the other behind him and carried himself with the confident calm of a warrior monk. He stopped just out of arms reach of their visitor and loomed over him in silent intimidation.

"This Citadel is sacred ground, only members of the Storm Hegemony and its invited guests are permitted beyond this point." He explained, tapping his staff against the flagstones.

For a moment the young man simply looked at him, almost past him towards the high spire of bone white rock capped with a curved and tiled roof and surrounded by a small enclosure leading off to the Hannapin Canyon. He seemed dazed and confused, most likely one of the messengers belonging to one of their allied Earth-Holds in the Kolau Mountains carrying a letter he couldn't read. The Templar tried his hardest not to register disgust at the dirty little commoner stood upon their sacred stone. His dull brown cloak was scruffy and his feet were barely covered with only thick leather greaves and foot wraps around his ankles to keep them 'protected' as earthbenders were prone to.

"Oh, yeah….that… of course…" He answered like a confused fool as he reached into the split of his tattered cloak. By the time the Templar had registered the hilt of his shamshir he had drawn it and in one swift strike swept it across the larger man's neck. "Some invitation, huh?"

It was a beautiful sword, made from laminated spirit-steel that had been folded over months of effort with a bold illustration of their patron spirit, Wan Shi Tong. Its curved hilt was wrapped in a lattice of smooth leather and the pommel was shaped like a fox mid bite. It had travelled the length and breadth of the world, crossing blades with many a strange warrior. And it would again.

As the Templar fell croaking to the floor the one eyed man stepped over him and dropped the tattered cloak over his corpse as a dark mockery of an air-nomad burial shroud. Without the cloak the rolled up sleeves of his so called uniform's black uwagi beneath a dull grey poncho revealed sinewy but muscular arms fit to wield such a sword.

The second, single braided Templar leapt into the air and came roaring down with the point of his glider spear at the ready. Before he could land the killing blow the one-eyed man leapt to the side. He evaded the spinning strikes of the Templar's staff and caught it with the edge of his sword as it struck low to the ground. With his off-hand he punched him straight in the mouth, hard enough to bust his lip and send the monk reeling. He ducked out the way of a rippling scythe of air that cut mere inches from his scalp and came up to deliver a finishing stab straight into the Templar's stomach only to slice nothingness as the monk leapt back into the air. He came back down shooting another blast of air that the One-Eyed man overcame with a hunk of flagstone that dispersed it almost unfazed before smashing into the Templar's chest. His left shoulder, chest and flank were all crushed bruised and bloodied as he landed a fair distance away. In his last, dying seconds he gently closed his eyes and formed a little smile as he prepared for the spirit world.

By the time reinforcements could arrive they found nothing but a pair of corpses and a crater in the otherwise prim and proper stone. The world was silent again aside from the subtle ringing of a wind chime.

The one eyed man was busy climbing up and around the rear of the temple, careful to avoid any windows save for the one he desired. A new handhold creaked out of the white brickwork one after the other as he clambered up the twenty story tower. He thought for a minute as the wind whispered in his ears, there were no maps of the citadel and whilst he prided himself on his deductive abilities there was every chance his target wasn't there. All normal paths of escape were blocked and his meagre bending wouldn't be able to take on an entire Citadel of airbenders and their hirelings all around the southern rim would be hunting for him.

Eventually he clambered over the balcony overlooking the deep gorge at the back of the tower. He pushed open the heavy stone door and walked in with an almost proud swagger.

A Fire Clan woman roughly his age was kneeling in meditation. She was clad in ominous black plate and deep red spider-worm silks. Beneath the long tresses of her hair she possessed the symbol of the light chakra on her forehead like a third eye and the sound chakra on her throat. Her chamber was clean and tidy, almost forcibly so. Despite that he could see the scorch of firebending on one of the stones beneath a carved table and noticed a lack of anything remotely flammable. There were similar scratches and scrapes half hidden by the stark white paint and hanging tablets or chiselled statues. The slit-like windows had bars and the brickwork was likely steel reinforced at the very least. No matter how much the Templars tried to deny it she was their prisoner, their weapon. A few candles of incense burnt oddly reassuring ether that clouded his mind and made him feel sluggish.

"Avatar Zhen , my name is Akir and I-"as he stepped in he felt a horrible agony as all of his muscles seized up as if held in the grip of a thousand arms. He tried to force his limbs to move and accomplished nothing, merely thrashing his head about enough to shake off the effects of the incense.

Entering through the opposite door was a woman clad in a mix of thick wool robes beneath decorations of leaves and vines common to the Foggy Swamplands though there was a notable absence of wood. Hanging from her necklace of prayer beads was a stone medallion, decorated with the symbol of the water tribes. Her clothing was impeccable, her hair was well—a direct contradiction of all the muck covered Foggy Swampers he had ever met as was her prim and proper posture as opposed to their 'laid back' attitude. She was a slightly aged woman, as her crow's feet attested, notably her tattoos were unlike most Foggy Swampers, rather than a series of thick curling tribal styles hers mimicked the style of veins either in leaves or in people he was unsure but the effect was eerie enough regardless. With a small gesture of her hand Akir's muscles almost tore themselves apart forcing him to the ground in a mockery of prayer.

"I am sorry " The swamp woman began in a heavily accented voice that was entirely devoid of the usual Foggy Swamp enthusiasm. "But Avatar Zhen is required here…. to serve the Balance." She explained as she put a hand on the Avatar's armoured shoulder.

Akir struggled to hold his mouth shut as he fought the urge to scream in agony, too stubborn to give her the satisfaction. He could barely breathe and he felt a horrible pressure and a pain like strained muscles all across his body as he contorted on the floor.

"Mother Ao is correct, I am sorry you had to come here." Zhen said politely, though her tone was even Akir could just about make out the downward twitch of her lips and a slight regret in her voice. Whatever had….altered Mother Ao had not yet been inflicted upon her yet. There was still hope.

"I don't know what they did to you…." Akir groaned unevenly between his half caught breaths. "But I have….studied hundreds of your lives…. You are a force of nature…not an airbender weapon."

"Do you not understand flower? The Avatar is fulfilling the purpose we have found for her, to help us balance the world." Ao explained, cutting off whatever Zhen was about to say. With a subtle twitch of her hands she forced him to stand and shamble towards her, half pulled and half 'walking'. "Come flower, we will find you a place."

"Perhaps we could just let him go Mother Ao, he only wanted to help." Zhen protested almost like a child pleading to keep a stray fox-dog.

"My child this is not your concern."

For a moment Zhen looked over her shoulder at the older woman, her whole world for almost as long as she could remember. Every day as the Airbenders trained her and sparred with her she was there, the day she had her abdomen scorched during firebending practice she had been the one to heal her wounds. She also remembered every time she so much as muttered a disagreement and the pain of her own blood twisting in her veins forced her into silence. And she was sick of it. In one smooth motion she stood up, turned around and hurled very nearly a miniature hurricane into the Mother's face, slamming her through the doorway she had entered.

"So….Want to take my dragon?" Zhen asked almost casually as she pulled a limp and tender Akir over her shoulders with surprising ease.

"Sure." He responded as she bounded towards the balcony he had entered through. Already the loud footsteps of Templars were echoing through the tower. "Where are you goi-"His panicked question was cut off as Zhen vaulted over the marble railing.

"Bao!" Zhen shouted at the top of her lungs as the wind threw around the mess of her long black hair. There was a long gap as they plunged downwards below the edge of the gorge. Akir closed his remaining eye and tried not to imagine what smacking into rock would feel like.

A deep groaning roar resonated throughout the canyon and they looked up to see a small, twisting dragon smash its way out of the Citadel and plunge down beneath them. Zhen landed on its saddle with a pained grunt before sliding Akir gently onto the back seat.

"So do you know where we're going?!" Zhen shouted over the wind.

"I didn't think I'd survive this far." He yelled back with a small smile that he didn't quite understand.

She looked back to say something with a wide, almost triumphant smile that told him she was enjoying the beginnings of freedom right before her little grin sank. Sat on the back of an armoured sky-bison was a half dozen Storm-Templars already leaping off in swarms of gliders as they took up attack formations.

"Get down!" She ordered as she pressed him against the rough leather of Bao's saddle.

Immediately Zhen stood confidently on Bao's undulating back and shot a plume of scorching blue fire straight at the nearest Templar. He fell screaming into the canyon below as his glider burnt to tatters and ash around him. Eventually he went silent either smacking into the bone white canyon rock or simply burning to death.

The Bison bellowed an almighty blast of wind at them that would have ripped the flesh from their bodies if not for a boulder Akir had thrown in its path. The massive rock came apart in a whipping storm of dust that reminded him of home as he lay panting on Bao's back. He was never that strong a bender and lifting more than his weight in rock had always been an exhausting effort.

A second one swooped down and then caught an updraft. He rose above them with his back to the sun and leapt out of its glare with the spearhead his staff pointed straight for them. Bao swatted him into a passing rock spire with the powerful club of his scaly tail. Of his own accord the dragon swept low into the canyon, weaving between the numerous pillars of rock that made up the Hannapin Canyon. The bison was too large and cumbersome to manoeuvre through them at speed forcing it to swoop overtop with its rider trying to find a clear shot that wouldn't also kill his comrades.

The nimble gliders however were more than capable of darting in between the rocks but compared to the wave of convection Bao rode they were being thrown around in the turbulence as they tried to make their way there. Already one had ploughed into a rocky outcropping. Truth be told the effort of flying with his wings flushed to his body was rapidly wearing Bao out, there was no way he could keep it up for very long.

A large hunk of stone tore out of the Canyon walls and into a pursuing Templar, sending him and his wingman crashing into another column and disappearing into a cloud of dust and shrapnel.

Another Templar glided up above them and came down in a dive bombing profile. A gout of fire knocked him out of the air, scorching his lower body to cinders. As he fell silently into the canyon he bitterly threw his spear straight at Zhen. The spear harpooned her in the left shoulder through the chink in her shoulder armour and stuck her into Bao's flesh eliciting growls of pain from both of them.

As Bao's guttural roars filled the canyon a pair of Templars descended onto the Dragon's squirming back as he struggled to stay aloft. Almost immediately Akir sprung up and swung his sword at the first of them, forcing him to stumble a step up Bao's back. The second airbendender slashed the point of his staff straight downwards and forced Akir into blocking it and holding the damned man off. Rather than retreat he pressed forward and kicked the larger Templar in the shin. Though his greaves took the brunt of it the blow still knocked his leg from under him and caused him to lose his balance on Bao's twisting hide. He tumbled over the side into a large mess of rock and gore.

The second to last airbender, a higher rank judging by the three braids of hair stemming from the base of his skull charged at him and would have impaled Akir straight through the heart if not for a quick parry that pushed the tip of his spear off to the side. The Templar caught him with a spinning strike from the blunt end of his spear. He staggered about his slim footing as stars flittered in his eyes. Defiantly he leapt forward swinging the edge of his sabre. The Templar dodged narrowly, though the string of his prayer beads and the half robe that covered half his chest fully exposing his metal breastplate.

Snarling he jabbed with the blade of his, staff which Akir sidestepped, and then blew him away with his gusting war cry.

Zhen saw the little earthbender go flying and began melting through the well-made steel of the glider spear slowly melting away the part of the spear sticking through her back. She winced as she felt the shaft of it begin to heat up around her skin until it finally came free. She repeated the process as she sat up and removed the long obtrusive pole sticking out of the front of her shoulder as she fought the urge to pass out as the searing metal sat in her body.

Akir maintained a death grip on the frills at the edge of his flicking tail. The waves of buffeting heat and wind scalded and battered his underside as he tried to hold on with his off hand. Before he was forced to consider the matter further the Templar appeared looming over him and went to strike him down. Before he could a bolt of lightning blew out a fist sized hole in his chest. He looked down in shock at the gaping, bloodless mess of blackened flesh and slagged steel before he fell to his knees and tumbled to the ground far below.

Zhen appeared with her legs wrapped around Bao, extended her good arm and yanked Akir by the scruff of his robe and hauled him onto a more stable perch as they edged back along the segmented leather plates that ran across Bao's back until they were sitting at the reigns.

"Bao, let's take the bison." Zhen claimed as she took her grips and tugged them. Bao shot almost straight up and then twisted back around in a furiously fluid motion. He snapped open his fearsome bat-like wings that hid the sun behind his leathery wingspan. Twisting around he dodged blasts of air until he swept up inches from the Bison's hump. The Bison's rider was stuck in his talons with six knife sized claws stuck through his body before he was dropped tumbling to earth. Without his spurs digging into her neck or his reigns yanking at her horns she had no wish to harm her fellow beast and released a small, almost pleased groan before slowly floating off.

"I don't suppose you've come up with any places for us to go yet?" She asked as she held her hand over the wound in her shoulder. With time to study it Akir noticed the inch thick shaft of the spear still sticking out of her body, having been cut to a more manageable size judging by its glowing edges. Her silk coat and padded under-armour were coated in blood though the trickle was slow enough to get to help. Bao was no doubt feeling the effects of his injuries as well judging by the occasioning the periodic rumbling groan.

"Omashu, there's a pretty strong resistance movement in effect." Akir explained. "We should be able to find a healer that'll work on you and Bao." He added.

Ao roused into waking, tended by a doting Templar, and weakly whispered a single order to her attendee. "Send for Master Kitsune."


	2. Chapter 2

Mother Ao limped towards Hannapin's courtyard with an air of trepidation. Descending slowly from the clouds was a sky bison in the most regally decorated armour she had ever seen. Tassels beads and medallions hung from the shimmering silver armour embellished with golden characters of strength and faith emblazoned across the carapace of plates. It floated gently to the ground and deposited a single rider.

Bedecked in full laminar armour etched with murals of swirling wind and crashing waves a rather decorated Storm Templar stepped down. A full seven braids hung over his shoulder marking him as one of the highest of their order despite his relative youth. Clinging to his pauldrons was a pygmy shirshu that snarled and grumbled as it sniffed the air.

Wordlessly Ao fell kneeling to the ground as protocol dictated in the presence of such a high and sacred figure.

"Mother Ao" He began. His voice was deep, rumbling and infectiously commanding. "I received your messenger hawk, how could you lose the Avatar to a mere man?"

"No one was supposed to know the Avatar was here Preceptor Kitsune." She protested. "We felt that presenting a small force would make us less suspicious." The dozens of Templars and Priors as well as their subordinate Acolytes and Adepts stood at attention looked over towards him for his response.

"A reasonable precaution, the White Lotus has been launching raids on the area." He answered evenly. "You may rise." He added as he walked past her and through the main gates with his half-cape fluttering behind him.

"Do we know how the intruder got to her?"

"We found handholds on the back of the tower; they must have earthbent their way in." She explained.

"Probably from an Omashu cell, Master Kato has been struggling to get that wretched heap under control." Kitsune theorised as he and his shirshu were lead through the twisting corridors at the base of the tower to reach the basement access. The cramped and gloomy candlelit corridors were lined with racks of glider spears, and a variety of non-Airbender weapons for mundane Adepts.

As they passed the Acolytes, converts from every nation and every discipline of bending fell to their knees in respect to the Preceptor. As they neared the door at the end of the basement hallway Kitsune's shirshu perked up as he caught the scent of…something.

Mother Ao presented them with a large black cloak, thick and sturdy to keep out the cold of their lonely mountain range. Almost immediately the shirshu leapt at it, rooting through the heavy canvas as it caught the familiar sent. It leapt back out and emitted a small chirping noise.

"Does he recognise it?" Ao asked as she set the somewhat ruffled garment back down.

"The Seeker…." Kitsune rasped as he looked off distantly. "The Desert didn't get you I see." He mused bitterly as he rubbed an old scar that ran deep into his jaw.

"Preceptor?" Ao asked as she noticed the mix of pain and fury on his face.

"An old enemy from the Si-Wong campaign. Make your preparations Mother we leave within the hour. He answered

Bao gently lowered himself down to the edge of the Kolau Pit which surrounded Omashu.

"Aren't we going to fly into the city? Zhen asked weakly as she clutched at the wound in her shoulder. Akir had done his best to keep the wound well-tended with the meagre healing knowledge he possessed but all the same the blood had been mixed with the foul yellow of festering pus around the metal shaft and her left arm hung limp and numb after their five days of on again-off again flight through the empty mountains. A permanent sheen of cold sweat covered her pale skin. Bao had fared better; after they yanked the tip of spear out his wound had closed over in a day and a half.

Despite that she had an almost mirthful smile as she gazed wide eyed at the cake shaped city dotted with the specks little green roofs and its spiralling mail chutes. Compared to battlefield after battlefield it was just so beautifully…quiet.

"The city proper is crawling with Templar spies, we're going to have to go to Lantern-Town." Akir explained as he pointed to the base of the massive mountain Omashu was built out of. "It's a series of old, forgotten catacombs and mausoleums so large that we've lost people in it and older than the Avatar Spirit itself….So you know pretty secret"

Slowly Bao lowered them down the massive gorge until they juddered gently to the ground. Trapped water and excrement of all kind had collected in the crater and the parts of it that had not yet tumbled down the incline at one end formed a permanent, squelching muck. Slowly they trudged on dragon back until they reached a small grate barely large enough to fit a human much less Bao's mass.

"Don't go far Bao." Zhen ordered, calmly but firmly before hopping the small gap from the dragon's head to the grate behind Akir.

From the tunnel, which was now clearly some sort of drainage pipe they wandered in, single file lit only by the meagre light of a gemstone pulled from Akir's pocket and a flickering blue flame Zhen managed in her good hand. Even then they were lucky to see more than three feet ahead of themselves as they wandered through the labyrinth of disused pipes. Eventually they came to the entrance they sought. A rope ladder hung from an impromptu manhole that allowed a single shaft of brilliant white light through to them. Akir clambered up quickly and Zhen pushed herself upwards on a gust of air.

She came to immediately regret that. A pair of burly men built like battleships and just as armoured levelled a waraxe and mace at them respectively. "Airbenders! We've got Airbenders!" The older one shouted through a scarred and ragged lip.

"I am **not **an Airbender!" She shouted as she pushed Akir behind her and then winced as she felt the cold steel lodged in her body. She flashed a sphere of cold blue flame in her good hand and she looked up at him with harsh yellow eyes.

"The-the Avatar?" He asked almost terrified as he backed away. The mace-wielding one nearly tripped trying to back away. They knew that in truth they weren't there to turn back any real force they were there to deter wanderers, hold back skirmishers and alert the rest of the base with their screams if a serious threat showed up.

"It's okay." Akir interjected as he stood between them and pulled back his hair and the eye-patch below to reveal a rather unusual object. It was a false eye with a rather large symbol of a lotus etched into it rather than a pupil. "I'm a Lotus, I rescued her."

"H-how do we know she won't turn traitor and kill us all?" The younger guard asked.

"Because I saved him as well." She answered as she allowed her flame to die out.

"Fine, let's take 'em to the Five." The Axe-guard answered dismissively.

They wandered through more tunnels, this time purpose built from stone and painted with directions instructions and floor plans. Admittedly they were all purposefully wrong but it was still an improvement. Between the spacious corridors there were even more expansive crypts housing both indoor farms lit by sunstones and a whole host of support staff and down through staircases, some ancient masterworks and others rickety nightmares bashed together in a half hour. The old coffins of past Earth-Hold nobles were used as the bartering tables and bars for the humble foot soldiers of the White Lotus, grim and weary warriors of all races and all bending disciplines or none. Even a few airbending arrows poked from beneath mops of dark hair. Despite that she caught the odd glare from people who knew all too well what she was. Even in a room of outcasts she was ostracised.

Eventually they branched off towards a massive stone and metal door designed with a massive etching of a Lion-Turtle's head. Slowly the two guards pushed it open.

Sat beneath a massive golden frieze of two badgermoles overlooking a lotus were five grizzled looking men and women ranging from a sixty-something man near the centre to a middle aged woman but all of them were bound by the weary looks on their faces and the way each turned to the opening door with an ire that said they too busy doing things they didn't like for a meeting they didn't want. They were deathly pale, even the water-tribe member, most likely from spending so much time in Lantern-Town but either way it made them like strange spirits as they hunched around a boomerang shaped table. The dozen guards stood around them turned in sharp formation pointing steady flames, floating rock, tentacles of water and blades of air alongside more mundane swords and pikes.

"Li-Tan, What is the meaning of this?" The old man said as he stood up furiously. His long white beard and lion's mane of hair followed behind him in a threatening cascade. He was clad in full armour bedecked in scratches and dents in the same measure as medals and decorations and a mantle made from sky-bison pelt, no doubt a trophy. He was tall and muscular without an inch of fat and he moved as though his heavy steel were nothing.

"I'm sorry Shogun Kai-Shek but-"

Sensing her moment Zhen forced herself through the stouter if shorter men with surprising strength despite her wound. Akir followed through the gap she had left.

"I'm the Avatar and I'm here to help!" She proclaimed proudly.

"Zhen?" He asked, his voice was almost instantly softer as he looked at her confused. "The Sages always thought you were something special."

Setting aside the many scrolls for his section of the table he walked across to her fast enough to cause a gust of wind with his slightly battered cape. From under the fur of his mantle he pulled out a small symbol of a flame as was often worn by Fire Clan citizens.

"We are so sorry we let you go." He explained with a warm smile.

"Hold on Shogun." A rogue Airbender woman said in a dry, educated voice. She was growing old with crow's feet forming around her wide set eyes and flecks of grey in her long black hair. "I realise that she's important to you but my people are quite….effective at manipulating our captives."

"She saved my life! How can **you **question her intentions" He aimed archly at the Airbender.

"Lieutenant Akir that is quite enough." A grizzled old Earth-Hold Shogun rumbled back.

"The Avatar Spirit always transfers into a worthy host; we must have faith in that." An old woman of indeterminate nationality swathed in layered black robes answered back.

"How do you know me?" Zhen continued obliviously.

Kai-Shek simply continued. "I was a Fire Sage, before the Templars took you we were your guardians."

"Again, Shogun I hate to interrupt." The Airbender began. "But if you insist on keeping her here perhaps we should do something about the shaft of metal sticking out of her shoulder." She observed sharply.

"I can have one of our top healers ready when you're done here." A short, muscular water-tribe man from one of the Polar Territories interjected as he stood and gestured to his fellow Shoguns to leave. One by one the guards, the Shoguns and their aides proceeded out of the chamber before closing the massive doors again.

"I suppose you'll want to know what happened." Kai-Shek answered as he sat at the edge of his table.

"Around seventeen years ago you were given to us by a peasant family when you were three. You were too young for training so my wife and I volunteered to look after you." He looked down sombrely. "But that all changed during the day of the Black Sun. Every Firebender was powerless and the Templars took that as opportunity to attack." He explained bitterly. "The Templars invaded Crescent Island and took you before we reacquired our bending. If it hadn't been for the Liberation Comet later that year the Fire Clan would still be under their control."

"So…. What happened to your wife?" Zhen asked hesitantly.

"When the Templars invaded Ziara was trying to shore up the defences around your room, she died fighting them off."

"I-I'm so sorry." Zhen answered back, embarrassed that she had asked. She could see the way his broad shoulders drooped and his thin lipped frown grew as he spoke.

"Maybe we should just get you to the healers, that wound can't be getting any better." Akir interjected as he put a hand on her shoulder.

"I think maybe that's best." Zhen answered as she went to walk away.

"Here." Kai-Shek said standing as he handed her a small necklace. It was cheap, weathered and tarnished metal and the tips of the flame were bent but as she held it in the palm of her large hand it still managed to feel special. With a sharp, tremoring breath she departed quietly and left the old Shogun to his thoughts.

"What was that Airbender's problem?" Zhen grunted in frustration as she tried to force away the fact that she had just made contact with two potential families.

"Shogun Seiko, she's responsible for Intelligence and Counterintelligence. She wouldn't be very good if she wasn't completely paranoid."

Akir lead them through the lantern lit corridors as they made their way towards the medical wing. It was a grim place with the dying and the ancient dead stuck in one room, with wounded warriors sitting atop the old stone coffins of the Shian Dynasty and left with nothing to look at but old funeral murals. All of a sudden the blacks greys and whites that the Lotus wore seemed more and more like mourning clothes than a ramshackle uniform. The flickering lanterns in the medical ward were dimmed and weak casting long shadows over tired faces. Zhen had fought in wars before, the Battle of the South Pole, the Siege of Mount Makapu, the Taku city campaign and so many more since she had turned sixteen. It was only here, seeing the broken half-limbed bodies of soldiers like the ones she had cut down with scythes of air and scorched away in blue fire that she realised the gravity of it all. She saw a few families, refugees in grubby clothes come up to embrace wounded fathers, mourn for dead mothers and parents prayed for unconscious sons and daughters.

Walking out of a storage cabinet was another man from one of the Polar Territories. He was clad in a dull black seal skin parka decorated with a necklace of wales teeth and wolf fangs as well as the white-tipped black feathers of a snow raven and lined with soft white polar-wolf fur and sashes of dull blue cloth. A single strip of hair ran the length of his scalp bound back into a warrior's wolf tail. His features were sharp and harsh and slightly handsome she supposed.

"Zhen." He began with a plain cold voice. "I'm Lieutenant Shaman Massak, Shogun Tonraq told me to give you priority treatment." He explained curtly. He pulled open dingy curtains to reveal a worn mattress over an old crypt belonging to Lord Tau-Lai the Fifth according to the characters at the foot of the 'bed'. Take off your armour I'll be with you in a moment. She drew the curtains back and clanging metal plates fell to the floor like massive metal raindrops.

Massak dragged Akir by the arm over to his medicine table in the corner of the ward. The doting nurses did their best not look.

"What in the spirits are you doing Akir?" Massak asked in seething voice as he leaned in ominously. "What is this, some power play, figured you'd bring in the Avatar for a nice big promotion? For all we know she'll kill us as soon as we patch her up"

"She saved my life and we are **not** letting that go unrewarded." Akir countered determinedly.

"Great I bet all the soldiers will just love working with some psycho superweapon." The sarcasm practically dripped from his tongue.

"You have your orders,_ Shaman_, follow them." He answered as he walked back towards the Avatar's bed.

Zhen looked back to him lying on a lumpy, coarse mattress with an itchy blanket drawn up to her midriff. The shaft of steel sat in a festering, half cauterised wound streaked with a messy mix of blood and pus. Faint traces of blackish veins crept out from the wound and traced almost all the way to the tattoo of the air chakra over her heart.

"Has anyone been tending to this?!" Massak asked angrily.

"We rubbed in a bit of dragon-leaf, it was all we could find." Zhenanswered.

"Can you save the arm?" Akir asked almost desperately.

Massak signalled her to twist onto her side so he could get a better look and studied the wound for a moment before looking up. "I can save the arm, don't know how good it'll be afterwards." He answered bitterly as he pulled over a wheeled medicine cabinet. He quietly hummed a small Polar rhyme as he mixed in powders and potions into a large bowl of water. He handed her a strip of crumpled leather.

"What's this for?" She asked as she ran her good hand over it.

"Bite down on it this is going to hurt. A lot." Massak explained. No sooner had she wrapped her teeth around it than a pair of metal forceps began yanking the spear loose. The cauterised flesh stuck to it slowly tore loose. Blood and puss flowed from the wound as freely as tears streaked down Zhen's face.

"Almost there, you're through the worst of it." Massak said cold comfort.

She felt the uncomfortable wedge of metal finally slide free with a horrible shuddering. Bending water through the gaping wound Massak quickly and painfully cleaned out the mess around the injury. Content that he wouldn't have to deal with reinfection problems he began bending in the mixture of potions. Blood flow ebbed and the pain subsided as the mixture took on a minty green glow. Zhen gasped as she felt the relief of the pain passing and her chi-flowing freely. Muscles and sinews began to knit back together and veins sealed themselves. The bleeding was stopped but the wound was far from gone. A sterile needle and medical thread pierced through both sides as he stitched the hole closed and repeated the process on her back.

"I'll have to do follow up sessions but she won't die." He muttered quietly.

At his shirshu's snarling direction Kitsune pulled his bison down to land. Hopping off with a small lantern in hand he found the small weak glow of a dying ember. The Seeker had made camp here.


	3. Chapter 3

In the middle of the night Zhen was fast asleep, the mix of herbal teas had sent her into a practical coma for the past two and a half days as her wounds healed.

She awoke in the Shian ward. It was the same as she had seen it last but it felt cold, silent and empty. She did not feel weak or ill and hopped out of bed with a newfound energy. She went to pull the curtain open and found that her ghostly blue hand passed straight through the sheet. Turning in a whirl of long hair she saw herself, perfectly still with a dim glow coming from her tattoos and beneath her eyelids. She stumbled and fell backwards out of her section of the ward. All of the room was suffused with a blue aura and long black shadows that cast an even gloomier mood than a high-priority ward in a city of graves normally would. Looking up a sturdy Earth-Hold man was staring back at her. As she righted herself she felt a strange familiarity when she came to look into the smaller man's eyes. She recognised his deep brown mutton-chops and the long ponytail lying over his simple robes.

"Hello Avatar Zhin" He began in a deep, pleasant voice. "I am Avatar Timur, you're predecessor."

"Why speak to me, why now?!" She asked as she backed away angrily.

"I'm dying aren't I?" She asked grimly as she looked over to her body.

"Well aren't we all dying?" he as ked with a self-amused chuckle that merely elicited a contemptuous scowl. "I am here because your mind is freer now than it ever has been." He explained more seriously. "You have finally rebelled against the Templars and asserted yourself as a true Avatar." he explained.

"Well thanks for that….can I go now." Zhen answered as she walked through her curtain and began bumping her spirit head to her real head in an attempt to re-enter the mortal plane.

"No, I've been gone for the last twenty one years, we're going to have to sit down and have a very awkward conversation." Timur responded as a pair of rather extravagant looking chairs materialised behind them.

"Talk then." Zhen answered as she took her ghostly seat.

"I am here because I died in this war and the world cannot afford for you to do the same." Timur explained as his emerald robes reshaped into the apparel of an Earth-Hold General before her eyes. She noticed the large wound exactly through heart and out the back. This was the form he died in.

"What does your failure have to do with me?" Zhen asked.

"Well if I hadn't died at just the right time you would have been a peasant married to a fisherman's second son by now." Timur quipped. "You could stand to be a little more grateful. "

"Grateful?! I lost two sets of parents and a bunch of fanatics tried to brainwash me!" She yelled back as she tossed her chair away to wisps of smoke and snarled at Timur mere inches from his perfectly, infuriatingly calm face.

"Perhaps but that suffering was not without results, it has tempered you into the Avatar this era needs. It has given you the drive to sacrifice for the greater good." He explained before his voice grew more tender. "But it has given you the sympathy not to become the monsters you will face." He explained resting a hand on her shoulder.

She yanked her arm away and stared at him huffing and angry. "Don't you dare feed me that nonsense!" Zhen yelled defiantly. "The Storm Templars used the 'greater good' as an excuse to torture the world."

"The Storm Templars began as a force for freedom and unity. They have become evil only by believing that they should decide the balance of life rather than fate."

"Good I don't believe in fate." Zhen shot back.

"Fate is a guiding part of the cycles, of the elements, of the seasons, of life and death, it is vital for an Avatar to understand that." Timur explained. "Besides it's pretty relaxing once you get used to it." He explained with a small smirk that still proved to be more malignant than infectious.

"Well then I guess I'm predetermined to ignore it and go my own way." Zhen quipped.

"You cannot run from your destiny now more than ever." Timur 'explained' as he wafted away into mist.

Zhen opened her eyes again. In the deep underground constantly lit by lanterns she had no idea what time it was exactly but she could hear footsteps and people murmuring. Probably morning, it felt at least like a morning as she stretched stiff muscles and listened in on sluggish voices. There was still a dull pain like an aching void in her shoulder and it flared to a full agony as she pressed an ugly scar over her wound. A definite improvement from near death she supposed. Even so she couldn't push herself up with her left arm and she felt a weak….hollowness too it as. She also noticed fingers no longer coiled into a fist quite properly. Nevertheless she took a deep breath and a wick of blue flame appeared with an audible 'whoomp.'

"You're awake." Massak observed as he walked in briskly. "There's no firebending in here by the way." Glowering Zhen allowed the flame to die to orange and then flicker way to nothing. "Good. Now then, **Commander** Akir has been advising the Five on what to do with you."

She stood up gingerly at first, she hadn't moved in around three days and the sudden shock of supporting her own weight caused her legs to nearly buckle at first. After 'depositing' three days waste into a chamber pot she did a few of her morning stretches and tried to shut out the almost pleasant memory of morning yoga with Mother Ao. She pulled on her freshly cleaned layers of war-silk now died a funeral black, dark leather strapping and black volcanic steel now trimmed with white and the new addition of a silvery chainmail tunic. Combined with the new White-Lotus buckle and the white sash she had been provided it seemed she had been inducted. She pulled back the bangs of her long black hair and placed her small hair clips at her temples and with a practiced co-ordination tied the remainder of her bangs into a topknot behind her head. Last of all she held within her gloved hand the small necklace Kai-Shek had given her and swiftly tucked it beneath her breastplate.

Her escort, an earthbender judging by his emerald green sash led her through Lantern-Town's twisting network of tunnels, corridors and junctions. Eventually the great gates of the Five's chambers were present again.

"What's going on?" Zhen called from across the room.

"We have a situation, The Templars know you're here and we have reports of them searching the Omashu sewers for a way into Lantern town." Akir explained with a tense but measured tone.

"If this cell falls the Templars will be able to commit entirely to Ba Sing Se, and its surrounding territory, the Polar-Territories and the Fire-Clan." Shogun Seiko explained accusingly.

"We knew this day was coming." Shogun Kai-Shek began. "It is time to retake Omashu." He continued sombrely.

Almost immediately the other Shoguns began arguing amongst themselves before Seiko silenced them with an indoor gust.

"We have the avatar, whether they expect that or not with the backing of our armies and the element of surprise I believe we can oust the Templars. There was an almost unnatural silence as the rest of the Five looked at her. For years she had proposed assassination attempts and capture missions against the Avatar. Suggesting an alliance felt more alien than anything within the Storm Templars arsenal.

"We have plans." Shogun Namira, the old woman swaddled in robes explained. As chief of logistics for the Omashu cell she was tasked with squeezing men money and metal wherever she could. "We have a thousand of us hidden around Lantern-Town and as many stationed in safehouses around the city."

"Seiko, how many others do you think we could get on our side?" General Gue of the Earth-Holds asked. As the Shogun tasked with Internal Security he almost never dealt with the outside world.

"The King and the Guard-Captain can barely stand the Templars. If I have one of my agents in the Guard tell them about our odds they'll probably side with us." Seiko explained. "And most of the public doesn't think much better, there are plenty of angry veterans on the streets. Including our forces we're looking at around four thousand. However I've been testing the waters with the Dynasties and they refuse to be associated with either side"

"That's nowhere near enough, the Templars have six thousand."

"Akir." Shogun Kai-Shek called commandingly. "Tell the King about this. We'll need him to lead the attack from his palace and the upper tiers, when the Templars are stuck there we shall rise out of the sewers and sandwich them between our forces." He explained.

"We should also send immediate recall notices to all of our patrols Akir suggested. "Taking the city is one thing. Keeping it will be another."

"Agreed, I'll have our finest messengers sent out immediately." Yun La observed.

"Excuse me." Zhen piped up. "But you've kind of left me out of the plansh, what should I do, just go flying around yelling 'I'm the Avatar bear witness to me and despair'" She chuckled. It was awkwardly clear from the slight slurring in her speech that she hadn't quite shaken off a three day coma.

"Actually yes, that would be one way of doing it." Kai-Shek suggested. "If you were to go with Akir and bolster the City-Guard we could keep the pressure off our own forces until we've secured the lower rungs."

"That's a bit much, I'm just one….embodiment of the planet….oh you know what I mean." She answered a tad dazed.

"The Palace is on the upper tiers, the same place as all of the rich dynasties and their private armies. If you scare the money into following you we can get their mercenaries to work for us." Kai-Shek explained bluntly.

"That's got to be around two thousand more men all together." Shogun Namira interjected. A small smile crept across her wrinkled lips. "The Storm Templars won't know what to do with that."

"We have our plan." Kai-Shek began with a hopeful voice as though the weight of his command was sloughing away. "Make ready, it is time to liberate Omashu."


End file.
