The final chapter and, yet again, the chapter title derives from Resistansen, only this time the name of the song itself. I suppose now is as good a time as any to quote the lyrics from Drøm Hardt that made it the title for this fic, "Tomorrow you must take the final steps, and I understand if you ask: was this life? Was this all?"

Where, if anywhere, will I go from here? I'm not sure. I don't even know if there's any interest in a continuation. But this has been fun to write, and I didn't work half as much of my fascination with the possible politics and social movement that is Equalism into it as I might have wanted to, so there is that.

Once more, the fic earns that M rating, by the way.

I'd almost given up when he finally showed up to one of my fights.

A month and a half had nearly passed, forty damn days of chasing a ghost in between trying to earn my keep with bruised ribs, but all I had found were the same stories I'd gotten from Sangnam and old Kyoshi.

He appeared at random. Disappeared for long stretches of time. Spoke in nonbender bars and, as of late, outside the factories, more out in the open and in danger the more followers he got. And that number, damn it all, was growing with each story I dusted up.

Amon was making waves in the city's underground, subtle but persistent. Wouldn't be long before someone tried to pick him off.

So I admit it, I was preoccupied when Jiro shoved me into the ring. The scrawny man in front of me had the glazed look of too many punches, or too much poison, and the jitter of someone willing to take a lot of beatings to come out on top.

Wasn't gonna be a pleasant fight.

I cracked my knuckles, all nicely wrapped up in a few strips of cotton, and got into my stance, waited for the ref's call to begin.

And there, in the corner of my eye, at the edge of a crowd, a white, white face, smirking like nothing human, distracted me.

The ref called, I snapped to too late and got a fist to the face, staggering back three steps.

Shit.

I brought myself back, slammed into a bony chest with my shoulder, drove the side of my hand into his stomach.

I was not losing this. I was not getting knocked out by a scrawny junkie and letting Amon slip away again. He was there, mask hovering at the edge of my vision, and I was going to fucking win this and be on him before he knew what hit him.

My opponent took a gasping step back, tried to get out of range. I didn't let him.

I hounded him, raining swift and shallow jabs at his head and gut. To his credit, he managed to block most of them.

Didn't matter. I was throwing him off balance.

He stumbled, danced awkwardly to stay upright, and I took the chance for a haymaker at his face.

He was quicker than I'd thought.

Ducking under my fist, he surged at me, driving a knobby elbow into my stomach, and on the edge of the crowd that white face was watching, smirking.

I wove back, dodged his follow-ups, regained my breath enough to get my head back in the game.

Fighting junkies is a goddamn chump's game, but I didn't have a choice.

Skinny would keep going till he physically couldn't any longer, so that's where I'd have to get him. Preferably fast, too; I had to see a man about a mask.

A quick spit, half saliva and half bile, and I threw myself into it. No easing up this time, and no big moves to let him duck away.

It had to be at about the third jab at his shoulder that I felt the adrenaline rush in earnest.

My heart pounded in my ears, drowned out the crowd, made me think of savagely beating drums. Bloodlust lurked at the edge of my vision.

It felt fucking good.

It was a rush, pounding him back.

It was a thrill when he kept coming back for more.

Every hit I landed, every one he missed, the way his head flew back, or he curled in on himself, it tasted like triumph in the back of my throat.

I would have played with him, almost kind of wanted to, but there was the mask in the corner of my eye.

He could barely stand, anyway.

I finished him off with a roundhouse kick to the side of the head. He fell and didn't get back up.

Good.

The noise of the crowd came back, hitting me like a wall, but I had only one thing in mind. I turned on my heel, marched towards that masked spectre, ignoring Jiro screaming behind me, demanding an answer to where the fuck I thought I was going.

Over the rope, shove aside two people who suddenly surged together as if to protect Amon, and I grabbed his arm hard. "Come with me," I ordered over the roar.

He didn't struggle, only let himself be dragged along as I elbowed through the masses. I knew where to go; a dingy little room, more of a closet really, where I'd been allowed to stash my spare clothes and other vitals. It had a door; that's what mattered.

I slammed that door behind us once we were in and shoved him against it, one hand clamped on his shoulder. Hell, part of me was probably afraid he'd vanish into thin air if I didn't hold onto him. "What the hell game are you playing?"

"Game?"

"I've heard about your little sermons," I spat, "I know what you're doing-"

"That's no game, Lu Ten." His voice was sharp, angry; I stopped short, staring at him. Waiting. He didn't disappoint. "I'm not the one fighting my brothers and sisters for the scraps thrown to me by my oppressors! You want to talk about games? Look outside!"

I let go of his shoulder, took a step back. His words made me feel more uncomfortable than I wanted to admit, for reasons I didn't even understand. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know perfectly well! Benders run this city, they run the police and they run the underworld. The only thing they can't run is people like you and me unless we let them, and you are. Is it worth it? Your dignity, your humanity?" He took a step towards me. I retreated, burned by the intensity of his shadowed eyes. "Being made to fight like animals for their entertainment; we're better than that! I told you I came to this city for a reason, and now you know what it is."

He calmed marginally, drew back again, but he was still nearly trembling with energy. "If you want to stay here, beg at the feet of the Triad, by all means, play your games. I have a higher cause."

"Fine," I spat. "okay, so, you're right; but that's the way things are! Your mask isn't spooky enough to change that."

"I don't need my mask. I need followers. I need you."

"Enough to ditch while I'm sleeping."

He was silent. The light was good enough for me to see his eyes were focused sharply on mine.

I shifted, crossed my arms defensively at the dawning understanding in that look. "Fuck you, I'm not sentimental, but a simple goodbye would've been-"

"I'm sorry," he cut me off, so quietly I shouldn't even have heard it, but it made my spine tingle and shut me up immediately. How did he do that? "I didn't realise you wanted me to stay. I didn't want to take advantage of your hospitality."

'Hospitality', he called it, and there wasn't the smallest fucking trace of irony in his voice. Who the hell was this man?

I looked away, couldn't meet those eyes that somehow burned with fervour, with naked honesty, despite the mask. "And where do I fit in?"

"Wherever you want," he said without hesitation. "Our movement could use a man like you."

"Your movement," I echoed, a little dully, pretended not to feel struck by the impersonality of it. "Bullshit. I'm not- I'm not you. I can't do the grand speeches, and I don't gather up followers or disciples or whatever the hell they are like flies."

He grabbed my arm - his hand was cooler than I remembered - and dragged me to the door, not to open it, but to let me hear the roar of the crowd beyond it. They were making noise to shake down the roof.

"You did that!" Amon told me in a low hiss. "That wasn't me, Lu Ten. You did that, and that's what you're capable of. I fight with words, yes, but you show them that the fight can be won! You kindle a thirst for justice, for equality!"

"Sounds more like cryin' out for blood," I stammered. The roar of it was humbling. Frightening. And Amon was so close that I could hear his quick breathing, hissing on the edges of the mask.

"Sometimes that's the same thing," he said. "If you went out there now and asked it of them, they would tear this city to the ground!"

The growl in his voice had me staring at him, something like realisation unravelling in the back of my mind. "Is that what you want?" I asked; couldn't help asking.

"The city is rotten from the bottom up," Amon said. "That's for the future, though. For now... for now there are benders who set you and me and others like us against each other for their own gain. You could teach them the fear they heap so carelessly upon us."

"Oh, not a revolution," I almost laughed, feeling breathless, shivery, "just a riot."

Slim fingers cradled my face, cupped my jaw, and his voice was a current through my mind as he said, "You would be glorious in both!"

I didn't know what to say, could only stare at him in mute wonder. The roar of the crowd became dull background noise, the flickering light became unbearably bright, I heard my blood rush in my ears, my heart pound in my chest.

The tension drew taut, like a string humming, and then snapped. I wanted him. I wanted him. I curled his collar in my fist, drew him close sharply.

"Yes...!" His voice hissed and prickled up my spine, and before I knew it, I had him against the wall, hands tugging at his coat, his belt.

It wasn't until cool air hit my stomach, my hips, that I realised he was returning the favour.

Then he was bared, and I was bared, and I pressed him more firmly into the wall with a jerk of my hips. His breath hitched, deep in his throat, in a way that had me grinding out, "Fuck." When his fingers, thin and warm and clever, snaked around us both, I slammed my palm into the wall at his hip, just to keep from tilting over.

It wasn't right, the things this man did to me. It wasn't fair.

I wanted to kiss him, taste him, wanted to claim his mouth and bite his lips till he begged, but there was only cool porcelain and the gasps of breath from behind it. When his hips rocked up against mine, and the friction made my knees weak, I buried my nose behind the corner of his jaw and inhaled him instead.

He smelled like metal; coppery. Like blood. Somehow it suited him.

His other hand was everywhere; curling in my tank top, trailing over the skin of my stomach and chest, drawing little paths of fire as if the mere touch stirred blood to the surface. Clenching at my shoulders, raking short nails over my bicep, fisting in my hair.

I made a sound, a low whine pressed against his throat. I could feel his pulse beneath my lips, hear the way his breath went from silent hiccups to low, gasping moans. It was the most arousing damn thing I'd ever heard.

My climax caught me by surprise, or I would have fought it off; I wanted to enjoy this for longer, the warm, desperate friction, the sound and smell and feel of Amon against me, the press of cool porcelain against my cheek and warm skin on my lips. But, insistent and sudden, the world faded into nothing but Amon, and I clung to the pleasure while I could.

I've never known the smell of copper to linger in my senses like it did then.

Amon's breath whistled out through his false porcelain mouth, teased over my ear, and I only noticed his hand was still wrapped around us when he pulled it away.

Spirits, I wanted to kiss him.

Instead I drew back, reached up, ran slightly trembling fingers through his hair. He might have smiled at me, behind the mask; couldn't be sure. I realised dimly I was staring. Part of me was sure, strangely convinced that he'd fade away if I took my eyes off him. I wondered if it was the mask that made him seem so ghostly to my mind.

It was starting to displace any curiosity about his real face in my thoughts. I didn't care.

He reached out, grabbed a discarded towel, looked at me. It took me a dazed moment to realise what he was asking, and I nodded sharply. "Of course, sorry, go ahead." He cleaned his soiled hand methodically. My throat closed up strangely at the sight of our combined spend, even as it was wiped away.

I couldn't stop myself, stepped close enough to brush my lips over his ear. The closest I could get to a proper kiss. I was rewarded with a short huff of breath; a gasp or a chuckle, I guessed.

I leaned back, caught those eyes (I thought I could make out a pale iris, but still no colour), and smiled. "A riot, huh?"

I imagined a grin spreading slowly on his face; his eyes glittered. "If you wouldn't mind terribly."

No answer; I didn't bother. Simply turned on my heel, doing up my pants, opened the door and stalked out. I was greeted with a roar of approval, and a stiffly smiling Jiro whose hand wrapped so tight around my wrist that I expected bruises in the morning.

"Where the fuck were you?" he hissed, his voice barely carrying through the din. "They're going crazy for your next fight."

I glanced back, saw Amon - once again collected, like a statue in the door - watching me, his mask bright like a beacon. "I'm not fighting again," I said.

Jiro stopped short, looked at me as if he suspected he was going mad. That he couldn't possibly have heard what he thought. "What?"

I freed my arm, drew back, raised my voice to roar above the crowd, "I'm not fighting again! I'm done!"

The place hushed in a wave, spreading out from me, till even the Triad mooks at their own little accounting table fell silent, just to see what had shut everyone else up. I took the chance, leapt onto a table and, looking out at all the faces turned to me, thin and scarred and starved and hungry and cunning and cruel and broken, all looking at me in expectation, in bloodthirsty admiration, and I let loose:

"I'm not ending my life like this; a fightin' dog for entertainment. How many of us are here 'cause we're not given any damn choice? How many of us flock to the gangs because they took everything else from us?"

I could see a wiry firebender get up from the accounting table, his face twisting. Tough shit.

"And if it ain't the Triad, it's the Monsoons or the Agnis! Well, I'm fucking done! I'm not going to fight people like me, normal people, when it's the benders like them stomping me into the shit!"

"Benders take everything and leaves us the dregs!" someone called. I recognised one of the people who'd drawn protectively in front of Amon, but there was a low mumble of agreement spreading in the crowd.

"You want my fucking sob story?" I demanded into the air and, to my honest surprise, there were a few called answers. So much for rhetorical questions, anyway. "I was born poor and grew up poor, because nobody's got any time for a halfbreed who can't even throw a spark or call down a drizzle. I worked the shit jobs, 'cause nobody needs someone who can fight when a boulder does the trick!" I threw out my arms, mocking as much as indignant, but they called out in sympathetic anger none the less.

"What was I supposed to do?" I snapped. "Spend my life selling newspapers, sweeping floors? 'cause that's all they'd give me! How many of you are in the dead-end because they'd rather have a firebender than a man who knows how to work with his hands, a waterbender rather'n a woman who knows her way around pipes?"

The crowd roared. That firebender was starting to look a tad bit nervous, and so was his compatriots.

"How many of you are they running a racket on? How many times did they steal half your earnings on payday, 'cause no one fucking stopped them? And do the cops help?"

"No!" someone called, as I'd figured they would. What surprised me was that more throats took up the word in echo.

"We're not important!" I cried, and I could feel bitter anger in the back of my throat. I wasn't an orator, I didn't gather up disciples like Amon, but the low, dismal undercurrent of my world was simmering to a boil, and the whole room was steaming. "We're not supposed to be strong, they know we won't defend ourselves, and the law sure ain't lifting a finger to do it for us! Well, you know something?" I looked dead at the Triads, straight in that firebender's wide, piss-yellow eyes, and spat, "There are more of us than there are of them. And they can't fight all of us."

Chaos erupted. The wanting, hungry, bitter faces surged up in anger and turned on the benders in the back of the room. I'd never seen a Triad - or an Agni, or a Monsoon - turn sheet-white with fear, but oh, it was the sweetest fucking sight of my life when I did.

I looked back over my shoulder.

Across the room, I imagined that the smirk on Amon's mask could almost be real, and in the roar of the crowd, the fear and the triumph, I saw the first, delicate seedling of a new world.

The end.

Like I said, despite what the notes may have given the impression of, this was written not to the soundtrack of Kaizers Orchestra, but to general noir-style jazz and Marlango's Shake the Moon. If, none the less, you are interested in KO, dear reader, I can only recommend them. And while you may come away with the impression that Resistansen is my favourite of their songs, it really did only get such heavy use because it fitted, being about, well, the resistance. My personal favourite would be Fra Sjåfør til Passasjer.

It concerns Dominique, a mafia enforcer, who fell from grace when he failed to protect Tony Fusciante, the son of Mr. Kaizer, the boss. Tony tried to go the distance in Marcello's cellar but, as these things happen, lost at Russian Roulette. The song is Dominique's sad lament as he's taken on the last ride of his life.

So I'll end this fanfic about the Lieutenant meeting Amon for the first time with Dominique's words:

"All I've done, I did for him."