Yagoda the healer had taught her a little about the northern tribe's techniques for healing the mind, and so she had decided that, when one of them had a nightmare, the others would sit and listen to them without interrupting with their own thoughts or opinions.
It had been a little awkward at first, but after that initial hurdle they'd all begun to find it quite nice to get things off their chest.
...
It had been impossible to miss how often Tanya played a prominent role in all of their nightmares. It was her laughter that echoed out at Sokka from the darkness, her face Aang's monsters wore, and it hadn't taken much soul searching to figure out why.
Zuko, Zhao and all the other servants of the Fire Nation they'd met so far had been a threat, and sometimes quite terrifying, but never something that they couldn't overcome with strength, courage and ingenuity.
Tanya had been the same at first, back when she was just the little girl with the strangely coloured hair trailing along at Zhao's side. But not anymore. During the siege of the north Tanya had proven that she was capable of breaking an entire nation, and was willing to murder not just her enemies, but even her own allies, to get what she wanted.
All their courage and effort hadn't been enough to even delay her; the only reason they'd managed to escape was because Zuko had surprisingly chosen the good of the world over his own obsession. Who knew if they'd get so lucky next time?
For the first time since their journey began they'd encountered someone who was just too powerful for them to overcome, and knowing that person had sworn to hunt them to the ends of the earth made them paranoid that she could leap out from the darkness at any moment.
"How do we stop her?" Aang whispered miserably, huddling a little more into himself as the memory of those cold, golden eyes flashed through his memory. He felt so naive to have once believed that maybe she could have been a friend.
Katara hummed gently, continuing to rub soothing circles on his back. "Together. Maybe she is too much for us right now, but that won't be the case for long. Look at how quickly we mastered waterbending. Once you've mastered all four elements we'll face her again, and we won't be alone."
"Besides, nobody is invincible." Sokka chimed in, nudging him gently with his shoulder. "Even the big bad Tanya has her weaknesses. We just have to figure out what they are."
Weaknesses? Someone Aang struggled to reconcile the girl who'd made the moon itself bleed with any sort of weakness. "Roku warned me about her, back at the fire temple.
He said she was something from outside the natural cycle of reincarnation: the agent of an invasive spirit from another world. What if she really is a demon like people say she is?"
Sokka snorted derisively. "Sounds pretty accurate to me."
Katara shot him an unimpressed look, but didn't speak up to deny it.
"But demon or not, Katara's right that you won't face her alone." Sokka continued, pulling him into a one-armed hug. "We'll be right beside you all the way."
Together. That was a comforting thought. Katara leaned into the hug as well, and the three of them enjoyed a brief moment of companionable silence as the last of Aang's tension untangled itself. No matter if the future held Zuko, Tanya or the Firelord himself in store for them, they'd face the enemy together.
...
"… report that Agna Qel'a has fallen, and with it the Northern Water Tribe's connection to the wider world. Although some resistance remains, it is not expected that…"
Long Feng, the Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se and leader of the Dai Li, folded the letter up and dropped it on his desk, his face an impassive mask. The loss of yet another ally in this war was a problem, but also an opportunity in disguise. With the Water Tribes now truly out of the picture, only the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation remained.
If the Fire Nation exhausted itself against the Earth Kingdom's defences, then the Earth Kingdom could at that point counter-attack and regain all the territory they'd lost, then go on to take over the Fire Nation in the process. There was no obligation for them to return the other territories captured by the Fire Nation to their original owners at that point.
The Earth Kingdom could become the one and only kingdom in the world, and all under the excuse of protecting themselves against the Fire Nation's aggression.
Yet this Admiral Tanya could prove to be a huge thorn in that plan. If she could conquer the greatest city in the north on the night of a full moon, perhaps she might also be capable of breaking through the walls of Ba Sing Se? General Iroh had managed it once after all, and by all accounts this girl was just as clever a strategist as him, although far, far more ruthless.
A countermeasure against her was needed.
Long Feng stood and left his office, striding down the dark corridors of the hidden base beneath Lake Laogai.
He passed row after row of heavy metals doors, many of which had flickers of lights and the muffled sounds of chanting spilling out from the cracks at the bottom, until he reached a door bigger than any other. Above the door hung a simple wooden sign with one word painted on it in bold red letters.
PROJECT BERSERKER
Years ago the military had stumbled across a miracle: a young earthbender girl with so much raw power that she had literally split a mountain in half before she'd even had a lick of training. To see her in action was like witnessing a natural disaster, a feat of strength only The Avatar could match. With discipline and guidance she could have been the Earth Kingdom's new superweapon.
Yet, to everyone's great dismay, the girl hadn't shown so much as the slightest interest in learning how to control her powers, only how to unleash them against the Fire Nation. She was a walking wrecking ball of hate and fury; a mad berserker who just wanted to wildly throw her powers around and destroy whoever stood in her way.
Long Feng had been patient for a year, given her time to realise the importance of proper discipline, but when the girl had still proven unwilling to even try to control herself he'd been forced to take extreme action.
The girl was a double-edged sword after all: a walking disaster that could easily break open a hole in the walls with one of her temper tantrums. If she would not control herself, then for the good of the nation someone else would have to do it for her.
And so one day one of his agents had slipped a sleeping drug into her drink, stolen her away to Lake Laogai, and Long Feng had covered up her disappearance with a story about her being sent away on a top secret mission.
Ever since then she had been confined to treatment within this room. Progress on her treatment had been unusually slow due to her stubborn nature, but recent reports had claimed to have made a breakthrough recently. Long Feng pushed open the heavy doors and stepped inside.
The room was pitch black, devoid of any illumination, save for a dimly lit lantern that slowly spun around a metal track, revealing the room to be coated entirely with metal. Within the metal track sat three Dai Li agents dressed identically, and just outside, chained to a heavy iron chair, was a teenage girl with messy brown hair, her face pale, gaunt and covered with sweat.
"I'm Joo Dee. Welcome to Ba Sing Se." The brainwashers intoned in unison.
"I'm-… I'm Joo Dee. W- welcome to Ba Sing Se…" The girl repeated.
"We're so lucky to have our walls to create order."
"We're so lucky to have our walls to create o-… to create order."
"There is no war in Ba Sing Se."
"There is no war in-… no war in-… no-…" The girl stumbled over her words, blinking rapidly as a flash of fury danced across her expression. "War-… WAR! TANYA! I HAVE TO KILL HER! I SWEAR I'LL KILL HER! I-…"
"I'm Joo Dee. Welcome to Ba Sing Se." The brainwashers repeated.
"NO!" The girl roared. "I'M MARY! I'M-…"
"I'm Joo Dee. Welcome to Ba Sing Se."
"I'M-…" The girl's voice broke into a sobbing gasp, and she shook her head.
"I'm Joo Dee. Welcome to Ba Sing Se. I'm Joo Dee. Welcome to Ba Sing Se. I'm Joo Dee. Welcome to Ba Sing Se." The brainwashers chanted over and over again, the lantern spinning ever onwards around them.
"I-…" The girl went still, her head dipping down like a puppet with its strings cut so that her messy hair covered her face.
For a moment she was deathly still, but as the lantern rocked past her face she slowly tilted her head up again, revealing an eerily wide smile fixed across her lips. She stared back at her captors with glassy, vacant eyes, and when she spoke her voice had an emotionless, robotic tone to it.
"I'm Joo Dee. Welcome to Ba Sing Se."
...
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