Jet

It was never supposed to happen like this, never supposed to go this way.

I don't know what had happened, how it had come to this.

It was supposed to be a distraction, nothing more. It was only supposed to draw attention away from our main force, nothing more.

Supposed to save lives. Not take more.

I had done horrible things, that I knew. After it had begun, I did what I believed I had to, horrible as it was. I burned down homes, cut down civilians, did all that I believed I needed to do in the service of my country.

For the Earth Kingdom, is all that had echoed through my mind that night as I'd tried to justify the things I was doing.

And for a while, it even seemed to work.

We'd driven back the Fire Nation. They were surrounded, teetering on surrender. It was going to be over.

Then everything had changed when the sky began raining fire, and all at once, we had turned on each other like a pack of wild animals.

I tried, I knew. Tried to turn our attention against the Fire Nation. It was what we were here for, to fight them, not each other, but as the hours had rolled by, I had begun to believe that we had died more at the hands of one another than by those of the Fire Nation.

The hours had gone by as a slog as I'd wandered through the hellscape that was Shibi, searching for anybody I could gather, succeeding in some facets, but failing miserably in others.

We passed through the streets, coming upon no shortage of bodies I recognized, and we had continued, praying to find those we knew could change this tide, or simply put, those we knew we could trust, yet they were nowhere to be found.

It was impossible to know who was alive or dead. Was Kiu dead? Boss? Hell, was Cholla dead as well, this entire invasion force having lost any semblance of leadership. It would explain the direction that things had taken, but still, I couldn't believe it to be true. I refused to.

I thought it a miracle when I'd found Cholla's combined force. I even allowed myself to believe that things were finally on track once more. A combined force of Separatists, Earth Kingdom, and Revanchist Tribe, it was the proper invasion force.

I'd surrendered myself to his orders more than willingly alongside the few disparate allied forces I'd managed to gather, and we had been given our assignment—we were to destroy the final Fire Nation holdout of Shibi, and then, it would be over.

I hadn't known then, when I had eagerly accepted my orders, that the Fire Nation capital building was not a final military holdout manned by zealous and fanatic Fire Nation soldiers, but rather, a civilian haven inhabited and defended by our own people.

Of course, I had only learned that once the deed was done.

The red moon had come, and Cholla's forces had seized the moment.

Now, the building just sat there, dead in the night, with me just watching it from our offensive perimeter where our defenseless waterbenders held back, no longer of any seeming use whatsoever, pulled back immediately when the moon had struck, Cholla quick to realize what it was that had transpired.

The others, those who had defended that capital building, they had been less fortunate. Their entire defense had revolved around the moon, and once it had gone red, that had been it for them.

It didn't last long from there. They held the line, as valiantly as they could for traitors of their nations, but it would end up amounting to little, the fighting over only ten minutes later.

The fighting had stopped what seemed like an hour ago, but truthfully, had only been a few minutes. It was only when I'd been brought out of my trance like state and back into the present by the sounding of a horn that me, and those Separatists who seemed attached me, began to move forward. Of the 47 of us who yet lived, I was considered the most experienced, the one that, somehow or another, was considered most veteran here. It won't last, I tried to convince myself. We'll find Kiu, and he'll fix this. He'll make it right.

And it was with that hope in mind that I took that first step toward the capital building, knowing that, whether I liked it or not, I may find what I looked for there. So we moved forward together, and the Earth Kingdom, they began to move in the opposite direction.

As I neared the building with my Separatists in tow, the remaining Earth Kingdom and loyal Revanchist Tribe soldiers would begin fleeing in the opposite direction, myself asking a passing soldier by the shoulder as he ran, "What's happening? Where's everyone going?"

"Commander Cholla has ordered a retreat," he answered, suddenly solving the mystery of what that horn had meant.

"A retreat?" I asked, looking beyond towards the building, inspecting it for some invisible resistance that yet held. "But it's over," I said, bewildered. "That was their last holdout! Why the hell are we retreating after all of this?!"

"The Fire Nation has reinforcements. On the edge of town. They're starting to come in!"

Reinforcements? A tremor erupted from the crowd of Separatists gathered around me, transferring questions of what had been said, what was going on, if everything was alright.

I turned towards the soldier again, to ask him at least a fraction of these questions on behalf of my men, but before I could even open my mouth, he shrugged my hand off of his shoulder and said, "Sorry, but I need to go. You should too if you know what's good for you. Transports are heading out."

They're leaving?! I would have yelled at the man, demanded what he meant by 'heading out', but he was gone before I was given the chance to do so.

So there we were gathered, around the 3rd trench line from the capital building, a rising calamity in the crowd of Separatists gathered behind me, as I looked of helplessly behind me towards Cholla's retreating line of men.

No. No, no, no, no. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be true. They weren't retreating. Not after all of this. We had to hold the walls, stop the Fire Nation from getting in. We'd won! Shibi was ours, damnit, and we weren't going to hold it!? Thousands were dead, and we were just done?! Throwing in the towel?! Just like that?!

Everything I did, everyone I had killed, everyone we had lost, it can't all have been for nothing.

I looked down at the bodies lining the trench, a combination of ours and theirs. Enemies who had failed to retreat in time, and allies who had had died to take it.

They can't be dead for nothing. They can't-I can't let that be the truth.

But it was. The Earth Kingdom was pulling back, and I could already hear the talk within our ranks of leaving with them as well, of following them to their transports while others argued the contrary, saying we clearly couldn't trust the Earth Kingdom. That we had to stick together.

No. No, please. Not this too. Not after everything. We can't break apart. Not now.

Over three quarters of us were dead, no shortage of whom, I was sure, had been lost in the fight for this stupid building. And now, we risked all falling apart. I should have been more attentive to the bickering behind me, but my attention was transfixed on the building before us all even as my mind wandered. I wondered just who waited inside for me.

"You think?" Kai started, walking over to my side. "You think they're inside there, don't you?"

Maybe, I thought. Maybe they were, but which side of the line would I find them on? Would they have died as heroes of their nations, or as traitors?

I think that was what kept me there, standing motionless, even as the tension behind grew into yelling. They were still here, I realized. They were here because of me, even as the Fire Nation advanced. The fact that they hadn't left yet, there was no explaining it.

Why? Why are they still here for me? If they waited much longer, the Fire Nation would catch up. They had to. It was the only certain outcome. They could die here because of me, and I…I couldn't allow that.

So finally I turned around, facing Kai. "All of you," I said, "get to the coast. Signal the Patriot to come ashore."

"You don't want us going with the Earth Kingdom, sir?" Geshen asked.

"Of course he doesn't!" Shen exclaimed in response. "We can't trust them! They're not us!"

"Quiet," Kai exclaimed, turning back to me to continue. I was thankful for him in that moment. He was hardly my closest friend, but he certainly was the most vocal. I couldn't attribute that same quality to the mute archer who stood behind the rest of the crowd, but I knew would undoubtedly leave last, if even he would leave at all.

"We're not going with them," I confirmed. "We stick together, only us. Now get to the beach. Kai will take point!"

"And where will you be?" Kai asked to me alone, quietly, turning away from the others.

"I'll be there soon," I answered. "I just need to look inside."

"You don't even know if they're in there. And if they are, well, you might not like what you find."

"I know," I admitted. "But I need to know either way."

He nodded, clapping his hand on my shoulder before leading to escort the others away. I wish I could say I trusted him after today. When all hell had broken loose, he had left my side. His mind had been on more 'important' concerns, and I'd borne witness as he embraced the opportunity to exact revenge on the Nation that had wronged him so long ago. He lacked compassion as well as humanity in those moments, and when I'd seen him again at the Earth Kingdom line, over an hour later, I had come damn close to killing him thinking he would take me as his next target, perhaps not even capable of recognizing the difference between friend or foe anymore. But he had been his normal self again, which I suppose was what worried me most as I came to realize the difference between his two selves was more minimal than I had ever thought it. However, if I knew one thing after today, it was where his loyalties lay, and I knew, beyond all doubt, that I would never have to worry about him turning his back on his home.

As I took another step towards the building, and the others began heading in the opposite direction, I was unsurprised to find Longshot unmoving, still just standing there.

Which brought us to him. Unlike Kai, he had been there throughout everything. Never once had he took a step away from my side. Never once had he loosed an arrow from his bow unless it had been his life or mine on the line. Still, after all these years, he remained ever-dedicated to me in a way that was almost frightening. I would have thought that, with the years between the present and me saving him, his devotion would have waned, but it never had. And it still showed today as he remained there standing, not leaving.

"You go too, Longshot," I said, turning my head back to him. "Go with the others. I'll be there soon."

He only shook his head.

Yet as amazing as it was, his devotion also carried with it its faults, and this was one such. "Damnit, Longshot, just go. I promise I'll be there soon."

He only frowned and shook his head again.

Damnit, Longshot! The Fire Nation is coming! Can't you see that?

Yes. Of course he can. That's why he won't leave.

I sighed. "Fine, but stay outside and over the building. I'll be out soon."

Then, that time, he did nod, much to my appreciation. I had to go in there, and I had to go alone.

So I did.

I walked through the threshold that led within, small fires still burning across the building, but no longer nearly as fiercely as they had before during the thick of it all. Contrary to the shared belief, the building still stood strong. That's Fire Nation engineering for you. And to think it could have been ours if only we'd held out, if we'd been able to stay. I tried not to think on it. That hope was long blown to dust.

Beyond the doorway lay a pile of corpses bearing the uniforms of the Revanchist Tribe. I wondered if they were our own, but among them were far more bodies, them in both Earth Kingdom and Separatist attire. No, I realized, especially as I finally made out Chief Karnook's face from the crowd. They weren't.

So Karnook had joined the enemy, I realized, a pang of pain shooting through my abdomen upon the realization, made no better in seeing how many he had taken down with him-how many loyal had died while fighting he who demonstrated no loyalty at all.

It was all I could do not to dwell on it, and just move along, past the pile of corpses and deeper within.

Little solace was granted to me, however, as all I ended up passing proved to be more and more bodies, belonging to fighters, but, even more, civilians. Civilians the enemy had been protecting, and, consequentially, our wayward allies as well.

A part of me, it understood. It was wrong, I knew, but it was for our Nation. In the long run, it would have been for the better. It would have worked out. But they were weak, they let their conscience overtake their allegiance.

It was a weak defense, I knew, but it was all I could put together as I made my way past the first story, and upwards toward the second and the numerous bodies that lined there. No shortage of Separatists I had known for so long lay there alongside the fallen. Harick, Shemun, Kalev, and at the top of the stairs, Shohe, his throat torn to bits, metal fragments of a crossbow bolt resting within.

I proceeded down the hallway that was littered with the dead, past the small fires that still burned, experience their slow decay into nothing but mournful cinders.

And then there was Keerick where he rested on the ground, half of his face torn off, but still recognizable, but only barely.

So many dead, and so needlessly at that. Why? I asked again. Why did it have to have gone this way? We could have done it, I knew. It could have worked. But we had lost our course, we had messed it up, and if that wasn't all, the fates themselves had forsaken us. The red moon was sign of just that. It was over. We had tried, but we had lost, and now all there was yet to do, was to rise that last stairway leading to the third and final floor and brace myself for the possibility I was too afraid to face.

Perhaps my fears had seemed unwarranted. Indeed, the odds were great that he would have just fallen at any other point in the chaos that had transpired here, but as I'd watched the traitors defend that capital building until the very end, something had seemed strikingly familiar in the way the defense was organized.

And so no, I did not believe my fears unwarranted, yet I prayed they were unsupported. Still, I rose that final staircase, and braced myself for what may lay ahead.

I had known ever since it had begun that there was a possibility of it, but I'd tried not to entertain the notion.

I had known when the siege of the capital building began, that it was more than just a chance, but a horrifying likelihood.

And now, stepping into that final office chamber, it was more than potential of likelihood, but reality.

The room was filled to the brim with corpses. At the entrance, no shortage of friendlies, Earth Kingdom and Separatists alike. Rana, I identified the body by the door, looking further in as I made out both Laniro and Foshu among the dead.

With them, what must have numbered over a dozen bodies of other fallen allies, or perhaps enemies…it was impossible to know. Even as I'd walked through these halls in my passage up here, what had remained impossible was knowing where everyone had stood. Whether they were heroes, traitors, it was impossible to discern.

I tried not to focus on the cluster of deceased women and children by the corner of the room, tried not to think on who it was that was responsible as I was afraid I knew the answer.

By the Separatists rested the body of a firebender. He hadn't done this alone. One way or another, some of the others in this room, they had fought beside the enemy.

They were traitors.

And as I looked ahead, I saw those who, much as I tried to deny it, I knew to be responsible.

Surrounded by bodies of true soldiers of the Earth Kingdom, lay Kiu on his side, and next to him, Boss on his back.

No.

No, no, no, no. They couldn't be, no, it wasn't possible. They weren't dead. I refused to believe it.

I rushed to Kiu's side, desperately placing a finger down on his neck in an anguished attempt to find my pulse. I kept my fingers there, waiting for a beat, no matter how long it would take. I just needed a sign, a single pulse, that was all I was asking for.

You can't be dead, Kiu. You can't leave me like this.

"No, no, no," came from my lips, whether I willed it or otherwise. "Don't be dead. Please, please, don't be dead."

I need you. Please! I still need you. You can't be gone. You can't leave me. The others. They still need you. They need you there to lead them. You can't just leave them like this! Damnit, Kiu! Get up!

"Get up!" I yelled to him, my hands against his shoulders, shaking him as though that would be the miracle that would raise him from the land of the dead, but he was unflinching. "PLEASE!" I called out in a pained yell that I was sure must have mimicked that of a wounded animals.

But no. I could search for a pulse however long I wanted, shake him however hard I wanted, yell however loud I wanted, but the truth was there, right in front of me.

Kiu, he was dead.

"Please," I let out again, in one last desperate attempt.

But it did not good, and I let go of him. He fell that last inch or two to the ground with a soft thud, and I knew there was nothing more I could do for him.

There he was, surrounded by those they had taken to the grave along with them—my allies.

No. Stop it, Jet, it's not true.

My head still couldn't wrap it's way around what it was observing. I couldn't believe it. I refused to acknowledge it as fact.

They're not traitors, no, they can't be.

They didn't fight against my men, no. They stormed this building, from behind perhaps, that's why I didn't see them. They stormed this building, and they fought against those who had betrayed their Kingdoms.

That had to be it. There was no other reasonable explanation. Kiu's blade, bloodied, the nearest dead man an earthbender who lay beside Boss, it had to have been an earthbender who had fought alongside the Fire Nation.

It wasn't possible that it had been otherwise. No, no, he wasn't a traitor. He hadn't died a traitor! He couldn't have. He couldn't! That wasn't him, I knew him.

For years he had led us against the Fire Nation, shown us that the war we fought was to take back our home, to make it whole again.

We fought to liberate it from the Fire Nation. This wasn't possible. He hadn't joined them. Of all the possibilities here. That wasn't one of them.

He hadn't died a traitor, damnit!

Stop it.

Around me. Those were the traitors. Those were the ones that Kiu had died fighting.

Jet, stop!

He was our leader! He had shown us what it meant to be soldiers! He wasn't-

Jet, stop it!

And I did.

What am I doing? Why am I kidding myself this way?

All it took was a single look at the scene around me. Why am I lying to myself?

There Kiu and Boss were. They had stood their ground, against an unrelenting enemy, and they had fought to the lost breaths.

It had been a valiant fight to the end.

And they were traitors.

Why? I asked myself, a tear rolling to my eye that I quickly swept aside. Why would you do it? After so long, we finally had what we had fought for? We were sending the Fire Nation out. So why…why did you do this?

Why did you betray everything? Everyone you ever knew?

But Kiu was dead, and I would get no answers from him. He was gone from this world, and so my pleas for answers fell upon deaf ears.

It was complete and total silence then. The rain had come to a stop, and the cackling of fire had died down to no more than faint clicks and clacks. There only was the creaking of the structure's fragile support beneath me, and a shallow breath to my right where I sat beside Kiu.

No. No, it wasn't possible.

I turned my head over to face from where the noise had come, and sure enough…

No. That's no possible.

Boss's chest heaved up, stayed there, then down again. The bastard. He was still alive. How? How is he still hanging on? How is he still fighting it-that cold, tight embrace?

Why? Why was he still alive? Of the two traitors before me-Kiu and Boss, why was it the latter who got the chance to survive?

Why was it the real traitor who had the chance to live?

Why was it the man who had done this, who had been whispering into Kiu's ear ever since the beginning of the end began, that had the chance to live?

Of all the people who deserved death, why not him? Why was he still alive? I turned to face him, a hand still on Kiu's still chest.

It was him. Him all along, I knew to be true. Kiu, he knew where he stood, once upon a time. He was steadfast in his beliefs, knew right from wrong. We never should have taken the others in. That was where it had all begun. Where it had all started to go wrong.

Boss whispering in his ear, the others sewing dissent, they were just waiting for today, weren't they?

No. Don't lump them in with Boss. I'd seen them fight, seen them battle the Fire Nation. They fought at Jingping. The man here, however, he hadn't. For an Earth Kingdom soldier who'd served at Ba Sing Se, his loyalties had always been unclear. And that was precisely what had steered Kiu astray.

Kiu was no traitor. Of course not. How could I ever have believed he was? Damnit, Jet! Think! Of course he would never betray us! He was a father to us all! He was family! He would never.

But this man. I rose to my feet and found the grip of my knife where it rested behind my belt. This man was the real traitor.

It was an excuse, I knew, a feeble one at that. It would not last. I could do whatever I wanted, say whatever I wanted, but it wouldn't change reality.

I knew what the truth was, that both men here, they had turned against their nations, turned against us.

All I could do in that moment was sell myself the lie for however long it would last, which wouldn't be much anyway. Perhaps only a few minutes, but still, that was all that I would need. All that I would need to do what needed to be done.

He was still breathing. His eyes were closed. He was going to die anyway, I was fairly sure, but I couldn't take that risk. And if he did die, I wasn't going to let him go out like this, on his own terms, at peace. He didn't deserve it.

He deserves a traitor's death.

He would die here, yes.

And it would be by my hand.