Chapter 81: The Devil's Bargain
The high of his triumph over the ventilation system lasted for a glorious, uncomplicated hour. Sokka felt like he was walking on air, a feeling entirely separate from Aang's airbending. He had solved something. He had used his own brain, his own unique way of seeing the world, and it had worked. The Mechanist had looked at him not as a kid, but as a peer. It was a heady, powerful feeling.
But as the initial buzz faded, Sokka's natural-born skepticism, the part of him that was always on watch, began to reassert itself. He wandered the workshop, now seeing it with new eyes. Not just as a place of wonder, but as a place of… excess.
His gaze snagged on a stack of metal plates leaning against a wall. They weren't the rough, hand-hammered iron the refugees used for their own tools and repairs. These were perfectly rolled, uniform sheets of high-quality steel, the kind produced only in the massive forges of the Fire Nation. A lot of it.
A cold trickle of doubt started in his gut.
He moved to a rack of blueprints, his eyes scanning past the designs for water wheels and improved pulleys. One large vellum sheet, half-hidden beneath others, depicted something else entirely: a complex, armored vehicle on treads, with a massive, snub-nosed cannon mounted on its front. It was labeled, "Mark IV Land Assault Vehicle (Armored)." Another showed a detailed cross-section of a massive drill head.
These weren't tools for a peaceful community. These were engines of war.
The trickle of doubt became a flood of icy certainty. His heart, which had been so light, now felt like a stone in his chest. He remembered the sheer quality of the materials, the advanced nature of some designs he'd glimpsed but hadn't fully processed. This wasn't just scavenging. This was a supply line.
He found the Mechanist in a secluded corner of the workshop, hunched over a smaller, more intricate drawing. He was so absorbed he didn't hear Sokka approach.
"These are Fire Nation designs," Sokka said, his voice flat and hard, all the previous warmth gone.
The Mechanist jumped, his hand flying to cover the blueprint. He looked up, and the guilt that flashed in his eyes was all the confirmation Sokka needed.
"What? No, my boy, these are just… theoretical concepts," the Mechanist stammered, a terrible, transparent lie. "For… for defense."
"Defense?" Sokka's voice rose, cutting through the workshop's hum. He grabbed the Land Assault Vehicle blueprint and thrust it forward. "This is a tank! This isn't for scaring off wolf-bats! And that steel? That's not from some Earth Kingdom mine. That's Fire Nation forged. You're building weapons for them?"
The few assistants In earshot had stopped working, their faces pale and tense. The friendly, collaborative atmosphere shattered, replaced by a thick, terrified silence.
The Mechanist's shoulders slumped. The energetic, brilliant inventor vanished, replaced by a tired, frightened old man. "Sokka, please, you don't understand the situation," he pleaded, his voice low and desperate. "You have to be quiet."
"I understand that you're helping the people who are wiping out the rest of the world!" Sokka shot back, his anger fueled by a crushing sense of betrayal. "I understand that you're a traitor to everyone who isn't Fire Nation! How could you? These people look up to you! Teo thinks you're a hero!"
"Don't you think I know that?" the Mechanist's voice broke, a raw, pained sound. "Do you think I wanted this? Do you think I enjoy creating these… these monstrosities?"
It was at that moment that the main workshop door swung open. Aang, Katara, and Teo walked in, their faces still flushed with the joy and freedom of their flight. Teo was in the middle of animatedly describing a complex aerial maneuver to Aang, his laughter dying in his throat as he took in the scene.
The air In the room was frozen. Sokka, trembling with fury, standing over the Mechanist, who looked utterly defeated. The unrolled blueprint of the Fire Nation tank lay between them like a declaration of war.
"What's going on?" Aang asked, his cheerful expression melting into one of confusion and concern. "Sokka? Why are you yelling?"
Teo rolled his chair forward, his brow furrowed with worry. "Dad? What's happening? What is that?" His eyes fell on the blueprint. Even he, with his limited knowledge of war, could see it was a weapon. A terrible one.
Sokka pointed a shaking finger at the Mechanist. "Ask him! Ask him what he's really building here! Go on, tell them! Tell your son what you do when everyone else is asleep!"
The Mechanist looked from Sokka's furious face to Aang's confused one, to Katara's growing horror, and finally, to his own son's wide, trusting eyes. The weight of his secret finally broke him. He sank onto a stool, his head in his hands.
"They found us," he whispered, the words muffled. "A year ago. A Fire Nation scouting party. They saw the smoke, just as you did. They climbed the peaks, just as you did."
He looked up, his eyes red-rimmed and full of a bottomless grief. "Their commander, a man named Ryo, stood right where you are standing, Avatar. He gave me a choice. It wasn't a choice at all." His voice trembled. "He said I could put my genius to work for the Fire Lord, or he would burn this temple to the ground with every single man, woman, and child inside. He would have done it. I saw it in his eyes. There would have been no mercy."
The horror that dawned on their faces was a physical thing. Katara brought her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide with disbelief. Teo stared at his father as if seeing a stranger, the color draining from his face.
"So you just… agreed?" Aang's voice was small, disbelieving. "You help them? You build weapons they use to hurt people? To destroy other villages, other families?"
"What else could I do?" the Mechanist cried out, his plea echoing in the silent workshop. "Let them all die? Let Teo die? Was I supposed to be a hero and let my son be murdered for a principle? This was the only way! The only way to keep everyone safe! I hate it! Every gear I turn for them, every design I sketch, it feels like I'm carving a piece of my own soul out. But I do it. Because the moment I stop, the Fire Nation returns, and they will show no mercy. We are alive because I agreed to become their slave!"
He turned his agonized gaze to Teo. "Do you think I wanted you to grow up in a place like this? A beautiful cage built on a deal with a monster? Everything I have built for our people, every comfort, every innovation, is just a pretty cage. And the price for this cage… the price is my conscience. The price is helping the very nation that would have killed you without a second thought."
Teo was crying now, silent tears tracking through the dust on his cheeks. The image of his brilliant, kind father, the man who built gliders to give him the sky, was now superimposed with the image of a collaborator, a man who designed machines of death to buy their lives. The cognitive dissonance was too much. He looked shattered.
Aang felt the world tilt. The fragile peace he had just found, the connection with Teo, the acceptance of this changed home, it all crumbled to ash. The Fire Nation wasn't just a distant enemy. Its shadow was here, in this sacred place. It had its claws deep in the heart of his sanctuary, and it was using the kindness of a father to fuel its cruelty. The horror was so profound he couldn't even find words.
Katara found her voice first, thick with tears and rage. "You think you're protecting them? You're feeding the beast that will eventually come for everyone else! You're helping them become stronger so they can do to other families what they threatened to do to yours! How can you live with that?"
"Because the alternative is watching my family die!" the Mechanist roared, finally breaking, his composure shattering into a thousand pieces. "What would you have me do? What would any of you have done? Would you have chosen death for everyone you love?"
The question hung In the air, monstrous and unanswerable. There was no good answer. There was only the devastating reality of the Mechanist's bargain, a deal made in hell to keep a sliver of heaven alive. The joy of the day was dead, replaced by the chilling, inescapable truth of war, and the terrible, soul-crushing choices it forced upon good people.
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