Chapter 24

Outline

 * Nalia insists she has to get something first. Sen agrees to go with her to get mask, cape, sword. and Nightmare. They ride together to the city outskirts.


 * Four rebels go on mission to jail break a few citizens who fought soldiers.
 * Sen gets knocked down, soldier standing over her with spear. Nalia reacts and presses hands to his shoulders and burns him. He falls, smoldering, and Sen shoots a crazy look at Nalia and she sends one back that says Please trust me. I just saved you.
 * Sen confronts Nalia in private
 * Nalia: Look if I was with them, you'd be dead. Why do you think I wanted you out of the cave? They're probably there right now, thinking I killed you because you aren't there.
 * Sen: What? So you are with them!"
 * Nalia: Listen! This goes up so much further than you understand, and I'm trying to bring it all crumbling down!
 * Sen reluctantly believes Nalia, is suspicious.

Chapter
My mind was racing. Everything Zhang had said to me, every reason he gave me to not kill him in that empty bakery just blocks away from a war zone made sense. I wanted to believe him so badly. I wanted to be sure that the vile woman I had impaled with her own nation's flag was just as wretched as she seemed. I wanted to know that there was no way she was truly a Crimson Wolf, but rather the man standing in front of me was.

His silky gray hair, typically pinned in a bun, drooped over his wrinkled face. "You're still not convinced..." he concluded impatiently.

After I responded with silence, he briefly ducked his head out the shattered window and pulled me further away from the street. He first removed a piece of glass that had pierced through his thick sleeve, then he pulled his robe back and revealed the ink on the under side of his forearm.

His flesh bore a tattoo of the Crimson Wolves' infamous symbol, the same insignia I found on the supposedly-planted package in Uma's office.

With a hiss, he pulled his sleeve back down to his wrist and hit me with a pleading glare. "I had this done the day after your father returned to the Fire Nation," he told me, "to remember what he believed in."

"Wait," I could never imagine Zhang in my father being acquaintances, or even members of the same organization. "Was my father a Wolf?"

What I received next was an expression of bewilderment. "Of course he was! You must have known the extent of his loathing towards the war!"

I didn't appreciate being lectured to about my own father. "I never knew he had actually joined the organization." I looked at Zhang again, and a question bursted into my mind and then out my mouth. "Is my father still alive? Would you know?"

Zhang was taken back, his eyes showing confusion and his lips unsure of which words to form. "What makes you say that?"

"Never mind," I shook my head, flustered. "I was just talking to Jirou one day and-"

"We don't have time for this!" Zhang was right, frankly. "Go back and tell your friends I'm dead, and get them out of this confrontation before they're all killed! Get them out of this city!"

"And then what happens to me?"

"All the Shepherds know is that you're still under my jurisdiction. I'll tell Commissioner Long you're on a new assignment. You should know that will only work so long. It's only a matter of time before they want you for something bigger."

I never would've predicted feeling genuinely grateful towards Zhang. "Thank you. I-"

"And Nalia," he wasn't finished. "When that time comes- when they call you again- you'll have to kill. You'll have to kill someone you don't want to, and then later you'll have to do it again. I wasn't lying when I told you there was no light at the end of this tunnel."

My thankfulness was short-lived. What pained me most about what he said is that I knew it was the bitter truth. Without another word, I turned and leapt back through the window.

I was in a full sprint back to the scene of the fight, where I hoped to all the spirits that I was in time to salvage the lives of my allies. There was an immense feeling of relief when, as I ran closer, I made out the figures of Sentoki, Lahn, and Kasar, among others, still taking on faceless Fire Nation grunts.

Sen spotted me first. "Tu Lin!" she called.

I sprung right past her. "He's dead! Let's move! Everybody!"

There was no hesitation in my waterbending friend to flee the battle alongside me. She was followed by the earthbending brothers, and eventually everyone else who abandoned their desire to defeat the daunting amount of enemies to escape combat.

When the handful of surviving rebels had caught up to me, Lahn and Kasar landed side-by-side in the middle of the street. Simultaneously, the stomped their outer feet and raised both arms, suddenly erecting of a rock wall separating us form our firebending assailers. It was the first real earthbending move I had witnessed in my lifetime, appropriately a defensive one. My father always told me he envied the protective qualities of bending in the east.

Our small pack continued to run until we passed through another congested area of the town and crossed over a bridge to an area overlooking the docks, where we stopped temporarily.

The woman I saw earlier fight with her bladed chains was utilizing the brief moment of rest to catch her breath. "We have to get back to Vandham's base outside the city," she suggested.

The shirtless, muscular older man with the hammers shook his head. "That won't work, Irina. After something like this, the government will be fixing to hunt us down and flush us out. We have to relocate."

Irina brought her hand to her chin and looked down. "You're right... but someone has to go get those who stayed behind at your base."

Vandham nodded. "That'll be my job. My youngest boy's there, after all."

Lahn joined the conversation. "In the meantime, Kasar and I will go find Gita and tell her to make her next song a message to anyone who identifies with our resistance to leave the city and join us. We can establish a colony of our own, far enough away from Taku that we won't be seen. Maybe someday we'll amass up a force large enough to affect permanent change."

The older rebel took issue with the proposal. "I'm not on board with that plan," he stated forcefully with his gruff deep voice, "There's no need for anyone else to leave their homes or put their lives in danger."

I decided it was my turn to speak up. "They're already in danger!" I walked closer to the rest of the group. "Whoever takes over is going to unleash Hell on these people. Those who do not wish to stay should get out while they can, and if they want in on the resistance, I say we take them."

Vandham crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at me. "I'm sorry, and you are...?"

"That's the girl who just took down Uma and her replacement," answered an energized Kasar, who then gave me a proud nod of approval.

I nodded back to say thanks, then turning to his younger brother. "And I trust Lahn's judgement on this issue."

"Hmmm..." Vandham wanted to weigh his options, but time was limited. "Alright then, we'll go with Lahn's idea." He let out a hefty laugh. "Maybe I should retire and hand the reigns over to the young buck, huh? Let's get moving!"

With that, he and Irina were off to relocate the faction of the resistance set up outside of Taku.

"Go with them," suggested Lahn, speaking to myself and Sen, "Kasar and I will find Gita."

I shook my head. "There's something I have to do before I leave. Sen, if you wouldn't mind tagging along, we can meet up with the others when I'm done."

"You can count on me," she replied with her trademark faint smile.

If I was going to be leaving Taku to camp out with an unforeseeable amount of strangers who would take great pleasure in murdering me if they knew my birthplace, there was no way I wasn't going to be accompanied by my Fire Nation compatriot Nightmare.

"Is this a stable?" inquired a curious Sentoki.

"Yup," throwing aside the door to the stable barn and proceeding to march to the back.

A startled, familiar voice piped up. "Eh, can I help you?" As the stable master turned from filling a feeding troth and recognized me, an expression of laziness transitioned to one of great discomfort.

"I'm reclaiming my animal," I announced, walking past him.

"And you're gonna pay me for the additional days he spent here, I presume?"

Astounded, I paused without turning my head. "I assumed you had a discount for people you sold out to the Fire Nation government." The man led Zhang to my apartment and tricked me into opening the door and he had the gall to demand payment.

"Hey hey now, I didn't have a choice!" he pleaded as I kicked open the gate to Nightmare's pen and awoke my beast. I embraced him briefly then untethered him and continued to exit the stable as the man went on with his groveling. "He made me do it, and you still have to pay!"

Sen, who was in the meantime gawking at my pet, snapped into attention when I shot her a frustrated look and gestured at the pathetic animal handler. Without missing a beat, she drew water from her pouch and used it to slam him into the side of his barn, freezing him against the wall.

"Hey!" he called after us as we strolled away, "You can't just leave me here!"

"Have your firebending friends thaw the ice," I called back, "your payment is that I didn't kill you."

"So, this animal belongs to you?" The typically composed Sen was clearly out of her comfort zone sitting behind me on the scaly back of my companion.

"His name is Nightmare," I replied with a chuckle, "it's a mongoose lizard. Used to be called a mongoose dragon but that changed for some reason."

There was a sudden curiosity in her voice. "Mongoose lizard? I didn't think those were native to the Earth Kingdom. Aren't they only found in the tropical jungles of the Fire Nation?"

Why does everyone ask so many damn questions? I could have sworn the creature had relatives in the Earth Kingdom as well. "I, uh, bought him off some Fire Nation man a year back. He said the thing was too hard to handle, but I just think Nightmare has an adversarial instinct towards pricks."

She offered the closest thing to a normal laugh I had heard from her yet but remained focused. "And why is Nightmare taking us back to the cave you so desperately tried to get me to abandon?"

"He isn't." Nightmare came to a halt after a tug on his reins, and I stepped off. "He was taking us right here."

Sen didn't bother asking why, as she rightfully assumed she'd find out short enough. A collection of rocks lay at the side of the hill, one of which I pushed aside to reveal a hole I dug the same day I rescued Sen. Out of the pit I first pulled the sword of the Lion, the same one I used to cut down those unfortunate soldiers who executed Sen's comrades. Next was the mask that hid my identity and my father's before me. Last was the cape that served no discernible practical purpose but sure made the whole set look far cooler.

My acquaintance approached me, crossing her arms. "Those have been here the whole time? Just a stone's throw away from me?"

"I wasn't going to let anyone hurt you." The words I spoke actually surprised me. It had been so long since I had been that honest.

"I don't understand," she protested, equally as genuine. "Why would you be so dedicated to saving a stranger? A foreign one at that?"

That's when my honesty ceased. The real reason is that I had done too much harm to innocent people in the name of a wretched war already that I couldn't have another severed head on my conscious, but she couldn't know that. "I don't have a lot of companions," I gulped, "wasn't about to lose a potential friend."

"Well," she smiled, "looks like we're stuck with each other for at least a little while. I don't know where you learned to fight like you do, but I'm glad to have you around."

"The feeling is mutual," I wondered how glad she'd be if she knew Nightmare was only the second most dangerous thing she was traveling with. "So where did you learn to fight like you do?"

She sighed at my inquiry, per usual, then chuckled softly. "You know, my father was long past his days as a warrior, but he was one of the few people in my village who knew the war wouldn't be ending anytime soon. I was only a small girl, and the tribe was mostly only drafting men to defend against the Southern Raiders' attacks, but my father wanted me to be able to defend myself. He would keep me outside sometimes all night under the full moon, and even though he wasn't a bender, he made sure my waterbending forms were crisp and perfected."

I remained silent through Sen's story, stunned at how remarkably reminiscent her history was of my own.

"And even though he passed some years back," she took a deep breath, "I know he's proud of how I've put his lessons to use. To do my part to win this war."

=

Trivia

 * Vandham, Irina, and Gwin are each named after characters from the video game Xenoblade Chronicles X.
 * Nalia notes that mongoose lizards were once known as mongoose dragons. This is a meta reference to the Avatar Wiki's change of the creature's name.