Mark didn't learn the teaching skill until one week into their journey. They did nothing but play Chess during the day, spar whenever Appa needed breaks and hunt at night.

Each hunt was different, the most memorable being at an outpost near a Fire Nation colony deep in the Earth Nation.

The soldiers were relaxed, their senses worn out from a night of festivities and music. A circus had entered the town the night before and held a special show for the townsfolk.

Aaron and Mark crept into town with the masks they'd gotten from the port town and slipped into the darkness like it were a second skin. One by one, they executed the patrolling guards, slitting throats and severing spines before they could raise the alarm. They didn't step into the light until a scream ripped out into the night, interrupting the festivities. Somebody had found a body, but it was too late by then. Mark and Aaron stood in the town square across from the only ten soldiers left in town.

"You've been a little too greedy tonight," Mark said to Aaron as screaming townsfolk rushed past.

"I can't help it if you're too slow," he shrugged as he stepped out of the way of a falling man. Somebody behind had shoved him. "We're on a tight schedule here. Wouldn't want the kids to notice we're gone."

"Still," Mark grumbled. "I'd have levelled up by now if you let me have that guy."

"Who are you!" the man at the helm of the guard demanded, levelling his spear at them.

Mark cocked his head. "Is this guy for real? We're wearing masks. Obviously, we're not going to answer that. But… you'll die anyway, so we might as well tell you," he said, and Aaron tried knocking Mark upside the head, but the boy was too fast.

"Hey!"

"Don't do anything stupid," Aaron said. "Never underestimate your foes, even if they're just fire Nation grunts. You never know who is listening."

Mark rolled his eyes and muttered something about being a joykill under his breath. "Let's just do this," Mark finally said.

"You're ghosts, aren't you?" the man asked, his eyes travelling back and forth between Mark and Aaron.

"What gave it away," Mark laughed. "Don't tell me it was the masks."

Aaron rolled his eyes, then turned to the leader, who was nowhere as terrified as he should've been. None of them were benders, yet they spoke and acted with a certainty that made Aaron wonder if they were elite martial artists for something. They certainly didn't carry themselves like they could fight, though.

"Your die today, ghosts," the man spat. "You will find no prey here. Spread out!" he called out. "Let us give them a warm fire Nation welcome."

Mark threw a confused look at Aaron. "Am I missing something here?"

"Maybe," Aaron muttered. He stepped away and scaled a nearby roof in three smooth movements.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm getting out of your way. You wanted more SP. Now you have it."

"I thought you said we were on a clock!"

"Think of this as a training opportunity," Aaron yelled back. Ten men might've been tough for Mark to take, but they wouldn't be challenging for both of them. He kept one eye on Mark while the other wondered, along with his mind, tapping into One-with-the-world, scanning for threats. It was more than likely that they had backup, and soon, Aaron found out who that was.

It was a Firebender with the brightest Chi he'd seen since General Iroh, and he felt their attention turn to him. Instantly, he switched off the technique and channelled Chi into Airflow, whisking himself off the rooftop just in time.

The Firebender arrived with a thunderclap, shattering the rooftop, sending debris in every direction. Aaron touched down beside Mark, who had stopped mid-attack to look at the source of the attack.

"Stop messing around. Use your bending," Aaron commanded. They'd restricted themselves to weapons whenever they raided towns for obvious reasons. But things were quickly getting out of hand.

"Is that lightning bending?" Mark paled.

"Just do as I fucking tell you," Aaron snapped, and thankfully Mark listened, summoning several spears from the ground. He filled them up with Chi until they hummed, and with a jab, half of the guards were dead.

"Stay strong!" the man at the lead said. "The captain is here."

Chi churned in Aaron's body as his arm and face burst with pulsing veins. Despite the possible side effects, Aaron leaned into the power of chi reinforcement. He knew he would need every last ounce of power he could get for the coming fight. Even with Airflow, he hadn't caught the attack coming. The rumours he'd heard about the true elites of the Fire Nation were true. They were on par with ghosts and Phantoms.

"You must have a death wish," a clear voice called out, and Aaron's skin spilt out with goosebumps. Belatedly, he realised the voice was female. Mark still struggled against the remaining soldiers.

"Attacking the home of a Darkfire!" she announced with righteous indignation.

Aaron swallowed as he realised who the woman before him was.

The Darkfire was Azulon's answer to the Phantoms. So few of them survived meeting with their faction that Aaron assumed they couldn't nearly be as powerful as the older phantoms made them out to be.

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The smoke cleared to reveal a woman wrapped in a kimono with a vicious scowl.

Clearly, he was wrong.

"You're that baby Phantom that has been running around the Earth Kingdom, aren't you?" she raised an irritated brow. "You've made quite the name for yourself. Killing Chen, and now Zhao? You're quite something. It's too bad you ran in--"

Aaron's hand blurred as he unleashed rapid-fire shots of air stingers. The very air vibrated as they ripped towards her. Her eyes widened imperceptibly before they all struck. What was left of the building exploded in a spray of metal and wood. Aaron wasn't one for conversation and posturing, especially against an opponent who might've killed him given a chance. He'd rather attack before the opponent realised just how dangerous he was.

Though he was certain his attacks had caught her, Aaron did not release his hold on Chi reinforcement, his eyes darting around for signs of the bender.

Amidst the falling shrapnel and metal, there was a flash, and he leapt out of the way of an attack that scorched the cobblestone floor he'd stood on, raising a cloud of dust and stone.

"What the fuck!" Mark yelped, leaping back after the fact. The remaining guards died instantly, screaming, as a ricochetting stone shredded through their armour and flesh.

Aaron's eyes swooped to the corner the attack had come from and scrutinised it but saw nothing in the darkness but a pool of blood.

He'd gotten her with the Stingers, but her mastery of lightning made her almost impossible for Aaron to keep up.

There was a second flash from a building on his far right, but it was aimed at Mark instead of Aaron.

"Move!'" Aaron ordered.

He barely got up a stone wall before the explosion rang out. Mark whipped back, smoke billowing from his clothes, but he landed on his feet shakily. He'd become extra durable these days.

Aaron looked at the corner. This time, he caught a shadow move. He sped after it with Airflow, slipping through debris and alleyways until he found her. Her eyes went wide, a bit startled, but she looked undeterred. Her fingers blurred, lightning running through them as she pointed at Aaron.

Yet before she could burn him to a crisp, one of his swords exploded out of its sheathe at unnatural speeds, carrying a wave of air that crashed into the lightning stream.

Wind beats lightning, just as his Grandfather always used to say.

The air seemed to swell before it burst with sparks, and Aaron closed the gap before the woman could weasel away. His kick folded her in half, punting her to the Townsquare, and Aaron landed favouring his left leg a second later. Some of the electricity had ridden up his leg when he struck her.

She spun to her feet before another wind blade came, lunging for Mark, but he was ready for her. Mark sent several chi-enhanced shots at her while raising a slanting wall in front of himself to prevent her from flanking him.

None of the stone shots hit her, but the sudden wall forced her to change paths, following the wall. Aaron peppered her with stingers before she could regain her balance, but none connected. Suddenly, a lightning cloak enveloped her body, and Aaron's world spun upside down.

Aaron gasped in pain as air fled from his lungs with a sudden clothesline from her. He coaxed the Chi and air, quickly grounding himself as the second attack came. He blocked it with the flat of his blade, but the current still ran through him, sapping his already dwindling strength.

"You're more capable than those old foggies at the capital give you credit for," the lightning wielder said with a bloody smirk.

Aaron growled in response.

With every muscle fibre screaming at him, he wrestled back control momentarily and leveraged his entire will on his Chi. It quickened his technique formation considerably, and a wind palm slammed into the lightning wielder's mid-riff, sending her flying.

Mark raised walls behind and around her as she came to a halt, but before he could seal off her improvised cage, the lightning bender shot out at blistering speeds, but this time Aaron kept up with her.

Leveraging his will again, he flooded his body with even more Chi, increasing the strength of Chi-reinforcement and dumped everything broiling in him into Airflow, the air bending technique that increased speed.

He shot off like a canon and smashed into her with a shoulder tackle. Both of them went spinning and crashing into buildings. But when the dust settled, only Aaron remained standing.

Chi reinforcement left him out of breath and hurting, but the lightning bender was worse off. She was bleeding internally. Her hand was broken in multiple places, and her exposed stomach was covered in red welts that slowly turned purple. By Aaron's estimation, she only had a few minutes left, but she was dangerous.

"Mark, hold her," Aaron groaned out, and the young earth bender obliged as they came closer to watch her breathe her last.

Mark shook his head. "She was crazy."

"Hey," she wheezed. "I'm still here. And the name is Jen. Now when you tell the story about how you bested a Lightning bender, you won't just call me the crazy 'lightning' lady."

Mark chuckled. "You got a sense of humour. I like that in a woman."

"Right back at you," she wheezed. "If I weren't about to die, I would've asked if you wanted to get a drink or something. But then again, you're what, 12?"

"11," unhelpfully supplied.

"Meh," she coughed. "I can afford to be shameless so close to death."

"I can't believe you're flirting with the enemy," Aaron said, shaking his head in disbelief. He pulled a healing potion from his knapsack and downed it. It was instant relief.

Mark looked at the bottle with a glint in his eyes.

"Maybe we can have that date after all, Jen," Mark grinned. "How would you feel about switching sides?"

Jen gave him a look like he was crazy.

"That bottle he just chugged can stop your bleeding and buy you time till real healers can take a look at you," Mark said. "All you have to do is agree to answer a few questions. As a show of good faith, I'll even let you drink the potion before you answer my questions."

"You could just be trying to poison me," Jen said, narrowing her eyes.

Mark laughed. "You're dying. You literarily have nothing to lose."

She scrunched her nose in thought and then announced. "I'm not betraying my Nation, Phantom." She was looking at Aaron, who'd done nothing but watch the entire interaction. He knew Mark's plan was a gesture of mercy at best, but he was curious to see where Mark was headed with this.

One-with-the-world told him that lightning cloak had thoroughly fried her body. At best, she'd live a very painful and short life. At worse, the internal bleeding would kill her.

Aaron shrugged. "I am only here to guide him. He makes his decisions. If he wants to reveal to the Fire Nation that he has lifesaving treasures, who am I to stop him."

Mark huffed and produced a recovery potion, shaking it in her face. "So we got a deal or what?"

"You won't harm me after the fact," she said, looking at him suspiciously. "Nor will you expect me to reveal any information about battlefield manoeuvres or plans. You also have to leave my town alone."

"Counter offer," Aaron said, "how about we feed you just enough recovery potion to keep you alive, then hold onto the rest until you're feeling more cooperative."

"Ugh," Jen grunted. "Fine!"

Mark smiled and then tossed the potion her way, but she could hardly move, much less catch and unstopper it. It clinked on the ground, leading to the awkward sight of the boy feeding the woman half of a potion.

"Tell me how you do your lightning cloak thing. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen, and I've seen the phantoms explode people's heads with air bullets."

She blinked, a bit surprised, but explained nonetheless. "We manifest the lightning first, then wrap ourselves in it before we point it in a direction and let it fly."

"Huh," Aaron muttered. "You don't saturate your muscles with lightning?"

He'd just assumed it was something like Chi reinforcement.

"What? No. We don't have a death wish. Lightning is dangerous enough by itself. We don't ingest it like some kind of psychopath."

Mark rubbed his chin. "Fair enough. Next and final question. How many of your people do you think Samir has in his pocket?"

Jen's face grew pale.

Samir hadn't gotten to her with his Chi abilities. Aaron had confirmed that when he searched her body.

"Why would you ask me that?" she frowned.

"Why do you think?" Aaron said. "Information for your life. That is our deal, and your time is running out."

Jen set her teeth. "You're an ass. You know that?"

Aaron just shrugged, then waited for her to speak.

"More than a dozen at least. Most of the Dark Fire were transferred over to him after he gained the favour of Princess Azula. She travels with him now, and despite being so young, she's one of the most powerful Dark Fire members. You need to be careful around her."

The fact that Princess Azula commanded Dark Fire was news. But now that he knew, so did the rest of the Phantoms.

"Why are you back here instead of at the capital or on a boat to the North Pole? You're Dark fire?" Aaron asked.

"I had a disagreement with my commander over an incident. I was demoted to captain. That was why you met me here."

Mark leaned in with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "What incident?"

She looked abashed as she spoke. "He made a pass at me, and I might've shot him down a bit too harshly."

"That'd hardly fair of him," Mark frowned.

"Not to mention inappropriate," Aaron added, but he understood that that was just the way things were in any army, for that matter. People who had power abused it, and if you wanted to survive and climb the ladder, you needed to learn to stomach certain things and bottle your frustrations. Her situation reminded him of his position in the Phantom. The only thing that kept him going on most days was the eventual influence he'd hold.

Aaron planned to pay back his blood debts, help people he'd wronged, and look after his siblings, who were never acknowledged by the Old man.

He glanced at Mark. He supposed that was another reason he got over himself and decided to work with Mark.

Aaron asked for some more information about Samir's plans and his current location, but Jen refused to give direct answers.

Realising they'd get nothing more from her, Aaron nodded. "I suppose this will ll do for now."

"So, about the rest of the potion," Jen asked cautiously, and Aaron raised a brow at the sudden change in tone.

"If you'll do the honours, Mark," Aaron said. Faster than she could blink, a stone bullet penetrated her skull, killing her instantly.

Aaron sighed, wiping the blood from the backsplash off his clothes. "Couldn't you have chosen something less messy?"

"And guarantee she won't pull something out of her ass? No, no, I couldn't," Mark replied as he wiped some blood off his face.

Aaron supposed he did have a point. "You need to come up with less messy techniques," Aaron insisted, and Mark snorted.

"Pot calling the kettle black."