Aaron felt nothing….

The pain in his stomach vanished alongside his anger, hatred, and helplessness at it all. He imagined he was dead now. Falling unconscious in the presence of Aang in the Avatar state all but guaranteed it. He’d be pulverized in the outburst of emotion before the young bender even realized he was there.

Yet, he was oddly okay with it.

The quiet of eternal rest seemed preferable to fighting alongside a person he could never trust or building a regime much worse than the Fire Nation.

Yet, it eluded him…

Peace.

Despite himself, Aaron wondered what he could’ve done differently. Perhaps he could’ve pushed harder, tapped into his spiritual energy to boost his control over Chi as he’d unwittingly done in the exchange with the lightning bender.

‘I still wouldn’t have seen the metal bending coming though,’ he thought. How could he have? By all counts, it should’ve been impossible.

‘Mark is growing up to be a terrifying bender.’ Aaron would’ve been proud as a teacher if the boy wasn’t such a cunt.

‘I can’t believe he stabbed me! After everything I did for him!

Aaron might’ve acted coy, but he did care about the boy. After all, he was all that was left of his disciple, Igi.

A part of him understood the choice—self-preservation and all, but did he have to stab him in the back? They could’ve figured out something if they really tried.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” A familiar voice hummed from behind. Aaron jumped.

“Betrayal. It hurts the most when you don’t see it coming.”

“Yeah,” Aaron muttered. “Does the pain ever go away?”

“I’ll tell you when mine does,” Dopi said. Her ball of light hovered some distance away from him, and Aaron contemplated.

“I’m not dead, am I?”

“Not yet, but you’re dying,” she said. “The Avatar snapped out of his state fairly quickly, but by the time they brought you a healing potion, you’d lost too much blood. You’re in a coma now. It’s been over a month.”

“Over a month!” Aaron scarcely believed her words. “Did we lose the North?”

She nodded.

The news hit him like a punch to the gut, and the guilt returned with a fury. He could’ve stopped this. If only he was a little smarter or faster or less gullible.

“And what about Samir?” he asked.

“I do not know, Aaron. I can only observe what happens around you. I cannot go beyond that.”

Aaron narrowed his eyes. Why was that?

“You latched on to my spirit, didn’t you!”

“Of course, I did,” Dopi replied with a huff. “I was barely lucid, But I wasn’t going to let the first source of Chi I’ve tasted in decades slip away from me. You would’ve done the same if you were me?”

“Without asking for permission…I wouldn’t,” Aaron snapped but his words came out flatter than he intended. He would’ve done whatever it took without hesitation. It was what the Phantoms taught.

At that realization, his anger seemed to melt away.

“No, no, you’re right,” he muttered. “I would’ve done the same.”

Everything was permitted for the sake of the mission. Well, almost everything.

Aaron would never put his survival above the fate of an entire world. But then again, Mark was never one of them. He just looked like he was one.

‘Somewhere along the way, I forgot that. Maybe, I should’ve never tried being his friend. Maybe I would’ve seen the knife pointed at my back.’

Aaron's face turned sullen and Dopi hovered in front of him, observing him with a curious light until he spoke.

“Please tell me Samir hasn’t killed the Moon spirit?” Aaron asked.

“He hasn’t,” Dopi said. “The traveler had enough sense to keep her around, fearing what might happen if he killed her.”

“That’s a relief,” Aaron’s spirit sighed, then asked. “How is our side doing?”

“From what I’ve heard, not good. They’ve moved you to somewhere in the Earth Kingdom, near the capital, where you’re being tended to. There have been lots of arguments and talk of attacking the capital, but nothing is concrete.”

Aaron figured he must be in the Earth branch of the Air temple.

“What of my cousin and her child? Have they come to visit?” Aaron asked.

Dopi did not answer.

“I have to wake up, Dopi,” Aaron concluded. “I have to help them.”

“And I will gladly help you,” she said. “But not before you hold up your side of our deal.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Aaron balked. “You can’t be serious! My family is in danger. They are—”

“Safe for now,” Dopi cut him off. “And if that changes, I will gladly help you wake up, but I have waited for an entire month for your spirit to gain consciousness, and I am still willing to hold up my end of our original deal, even after you abandoned me." Aaron caught the anger in her voice.

“Besides, you’ll need my help now more than ever. With your current strength, you won’t be able to contend with the boy.”

“Mark?”

“He’s been busy while you’ve been asleep, destroying Fire Nation bases, wiping out entire camps, and sabotaging supply lines. He’s far stronger than you now. It’s all your father talks about when he comes to visit.”

Aaron felt nervous, but he couldn’t help but feel Dopi had carefully chosen her words to pressure him.

Aaron sighed. “Promise you’ll release me the moment you sense something terrible happening?”

“I’ll gladly teach you to heal with your Chi and spirit as soon as you start holding up your end of the deal.”

“How long will it take to heal you?”

“A few hundred years, give or take,” Dopi said.

“What! I can’t wait that long.”

Dopi’s ball of light tilted curiously, as if confused. “Why would you need to wait that long?

“What?” Aaron blinked. “You said you wanted to keep me here for 100 years.”

“I was talking about how long it’d take for me to recover fully. Healing my spirit to the point of recovery should take much shorter. A month, give or take. By then, you can wake up if you so choose and challenge the boy.”

Aaron’s spirit deflated, and he resigned himself to spending an entire month with Dopi. “What else would you be teaching me during that month?”

“I could teach you what I promised earlier,” she said, a bit chirpy. “The basics of spiritual energy manipulation.”

“Wait, really!” Aaron’s eyes were wide as saucers. He’d been excited to be finally skilled enough to learn more complex Chi techniques, but spiritual techniques were in another league of their own.

Spiritual energy, as it turned out, was far more fascinating than Aaron could ever have imagined. So fascinating he almost felt guilty for how attracted he was to the topic. As Dopi had mentioned earlier, spiritual energy was the foundational building block of the universe and the spiritual and physical world. Everything began with spiritual energy and learning to manipulate it was a gateway to the greater secrets of their reality.

The first thing Dopi taught Aaron was to sense Spiritual energy. Aaron already had a rudimentary sense for spirit energy, but her teachings took his senses a step further, showing him how to assess the strength of someone’s spirit and mask his, hiding it from those who could use a connection to spy on him or rely on Chi to see.

The technique was aptly called spiritual concealment, and the technique took up most of Aaron’s time because of how difficult spiritual techniques were to control. First, he had to form the technique with Chi, drawing on pathways he’d forged over months of practicing Chi, then let his spiritual energy flow and simulate the technique.

The world seemed to brighten when he used it, almost like he faded from reality. Aaron's head nearly split in two from the pain whenever he practiced the technique, but he felt that it was worth the trouble.

Not only did it help him gain his second parallel mind, but it also worked his Chi and spiritual energy reserves as hard as healing Dopi did.

The second technique was called White Flash. It was an enhancement technique that dramatically increased one’s control over the element, closing the gap between spiritual and physical, and allowing you to achieve the impossible…or at least that was what Dopi promised.

Paired with Chi flow, it made for a violent explosion of power and energy, but it couldn’t be maintained for too long, which was not an issue in Aaron’s book. As Mark had demonstrated, all you needed in a fight was one good shot.

The last technique she taught was by far the simplest and the most dangerous.

Her spirit dimmed the entire time she explained the technique.

It was called Energy bending. And it allowed you to control the energy of others. A master of the craft could take and bestow bending. But the price for such awe-inspiring power was risking everything that you were.

You needed to be immovable like a mountain when you bent the spirit of others, otherwise, you risked being consumed and your spirit shattered. Given the philosophy of airbending, Aaron wondered why Dopi would even bother teaching him the skill.

"Why teach me this? You must know that phantoms don't take prisoners?"

"I thought you'd like the option of disabling your disciple rather than killing him," Dopi said.

“I don’t need energy bending to do that. I know some Chi-blocking,” Aaron said. “And he’s no longer my student. Not after what he did.”

The fight had been playing over and over in Aaron’s mind for over a month now. Mark’s decision was part of the reason the world was burning. Any sympathy he’d had for him was long gone.

To him, he was just another target he needed to capture. After the war is over, he’d decide what to do with him.

‘I should’ve said, Grandfather would decide.’

Aaron folded his arm. “Even if energy bending was the only way to save him, there’s no way I’m risking my spirit for someone like Mark.” He didn’t deserve it.

Dopi’s light shrugged somehow…despite having no shoulder, and went back to tutoring as if she’d not just watched him have a mini breakdown.

“I don’t know if you’ve figured it out yet, but the technique can do a lot more than help you steal and give bending."

Aaron raised a brow. “What else can it do?”

"The better question is, what can't you do when you can manipulate people's energy?"

Aaron's eyes went wide at her words.

“It’s the root of the Falcon’s powers, isn’t it?” he asked, naming his grandfather in front of her for the first time. At first, he feared Dopi’s reaction. Noting the clear lack of it, he gave her a strange look.

“Of course, I knew he was your grandfather from the moment I met you,” she scoffed. “But that hardly matters. I cannot afford to alienate the only Chi-user I’ve found in decades, regardless of who their Grandfather is.”

“Wait, so you were fucking with me the first time we met?” Aaron asked. “I thought you said you were barely lucid.”

“Barely lucid Dopi is a prankster,” she shrugged again, “and a bit dramatic.”

“All this time I thought you liked me.”

“I like your Chi,” Dopi said. “The rest of you, not so much. I’ll admit though, it’s been nice having someone else to talk to.”

Aaron chuckled. “Well, I’m just glad you finally admitted you like hanging out with me.”

Dopi froze mid-air.

“I said nothing of a sort.”

“You kind of did,” Aaron shrugged with a smug smile.

“You know the lessons can stop if you prefer having a friend than a teacher?”

“Teacher it is.” Aaron raised his hand placatingly, but the smile never left his face.

Dopi looked pleased with itself as it floated higher in the air, above Aaron. “Back to practicing, my student, and don’t forget to keep at least one of your sub minds healing my body.”

“Yeah yeah.”

Dopi had been initially perplexed when he explained the skill, but when he demonstrated it, she was absolutely thrilled and demanded he teach it to her. He, of course, failed spectacularly despite his best efforts, revealing one of the shortcomings of Mark’s skills.

He couldn’t teach skills he’d been taught.

Dopi did not mind, however, declaring that she’d come up with something on her own. In the meantime, he had no problems growing the skill, going from one submind all the way to 2 with improved parallel processing power. Each one was almost as intelligent as half of his mind, giving him more room to practice spiritual enhancement and heal Dopi, and begrudgingly look into energy bending, despite how he felt about it.

These were all he did until he started awake after nearly a month of healing Dopi. She’d woken him up the moment she deemed herself well enough to recover.

When he asked her about her plans for revenge, she simply said.

“I can’t very well have my revenge if the world ends, can I?”

The very moment he awoke, somebody was already halfway to his room.

It was his father, Ren.