Escape

This article is about the The Rise of Kyoshi chapter. For other similar uses, see Escape (disambiguation).

"In the name of Governor Deng, you are under arrest!"

— The Chameleon Bay police captain says to Kyoshi, Rangi, and the Flying Opera Company, before attempting to arrest them inside their teahouse.

"Escape" is the fifteenth chapter of The Rise of Kyoshi.

Overview

Kyoshi, Rangi, and the Flying Opera Company escape Chameleon Bay after the police attempt to arrest them.

Synopsis

As Kyoshi and Rangi are sitting at the table with the daofei, they hear police entering the teahouse. Lek angrily tells Lao Ge that he would never put him on watch again. About twenty officers come in the room, led by the three men who had earlier sat at a table in the teahouse. Kirima mocks Lek's ability to catch spies as Kyoshi thinks the officers have been sent by Jianzhu but then realizes that they are here to arrest her because she admitted to being the daughter of criminals.

The police captain places Kyoshi, Rangi, and the three daofei under arrest in the name of Governor Deng, who Kyoshi remembers as being a close ally of Jianzhu. After the officer tells them twice to drop their weapons, referring to Kyoshi's war fans, she stands up to yank the other out of her belt. The captain interprets this as a hostile act and orders his men to take them. Five of the officers attack Kyoshi but are knocked out when Rangi firebends at them. Wong tosses Lao Ge at the captain, managing to distract him and another policeman. As Rangi continues to firebend at their attackers, Kyoshi grabs the Pai Sho table and swings it in an arc, knocking down the policemen in her vicinity. More policemen enter the room, but they slip on wine frozen by Kirima.

Kyoshi raises her foot and stomps the floor, causing the teahouse to jump into the air again. As the place tilts higher from the back, the policemen fall through the door while Kyoshi's compatriots manage to stay upright, having seen the trick before. Lek tells them all to escape through the other side. They leave Lao Geo behind after Lek claims that he can handle himself, and exit the teahouse through a disguised back door of the kitchen, and though there are two policemen guarding the entryway, they are quickly incapacitated by Lek. Roof tiles come crashing down behind them as they ran along the edge of the town square toward Pengpeng.

The Avatar watches Lao Ge tnagling with a platoon of lawmen by the main entrance and tells the other that they cannot leave him, however, no one else gives the man a second thought. Rangi tells the others to follow her into a passage that would take them to the flying bison. Before they can follow her, earthbenders from the police force make a wall that blocked their path through the passage. Kyoshi watches Lek, Wong, and Kirima run into the air with dust stepping and mist stepping, observing their styles in astonishment. The group follows Rangi on the rooftops, though Kyoshi becomes disoriented and lost. Just as she realizes how turned around she is, Kyoshi notices bursts of fire from Rangi in the sky. She follows the flames, the bursts guiding her toward her friends as the lawmen follow her. Unfortunately, she runs into a dead-end: a large brick wall preventing her from going further.

Kyoshi hurls herself toward the wall and attempts to use the same technique as Lek and Wong, but she trips on the small bumps and falls face-first. Closing her eyes, she does not notice herself reflexively earthbending the wall until she is safe on the other side. Glancing back, she notices a hole in the structure that is her size. Mentally apologizing for the damage, she focuses once more on the fire bursts, still being shot into the air by Rangi. In her haste, she runs into several merchant stalls, and though she damages the structure and some of the goods, she manages to avoid harming anyone. It does not take long for her to break through and reunite with her friends.

Rangi is atop the roofs, along with the daofei. Kyoshi takes a moment to look at her friend, noting how beautiful she looks. As soon as she realizes that she is losing focus, she clears her mind, continuing toward the houses on the outskirts of the town. It does not take her long to make it to the copse of trees in which Pengpeng is hidden, arriving just in time to see her roar and blast Lek backward with wind. Kyoshi tries to calm Pengpeng as she coughs from her effort and the building dust.

Everyone climbs on the bison's back, Rangi instructing her to take off. When Lek is excited to see a flying bison, Rangi tells him that he can meet others near any air temple. Kirima explains that he is happy because they used to have their own bison, Longyan, who had been Jesa's companion. Rangi is confused, knowing Jesa was Kyoshi's mother, but the Avatar winces and avoids the awkward conversation, albeit only temporarily. They pick up Lao Ge, who had escaped the policemen before Rangi asks Kyoshi if her mother had been an airbender.

Kyoshi acknowledges that Rangi is hurt by another secret kept from her and confirms that her mother was an Air Nomad. Kirima and Wong remain silent at the awkwardness between the two, but Lek cheerfully states that they have a sky bison again and the Flying Opera Company is back in business.

Kyoshi, Rangi, and the daofei camp along the bank of a dried-up creek. Kirima, Wong, and Lek fall asleep first, though Rangi and Kyoshi remain awake and in silence. After Kyoshi makes sure the firebender is asleep, she covers her with a blanket before leaving to take a walk along the river bank. Eventually, she finds Lao Ge meditating under a tree. He tells her that her spirit is very loud and that she would cause a typhoon in the Spirit World in her current condition. Kyoshi tells him that she knows his true identity: Tieguai the Immortal. She recalls the entries in her mother's journal, describing an underworld legend rumored to be two hundred years old, but she interprets that as a "tall tale", which Lao Ge confirms by claiming he is a man and not a spirit. At first, following the journal's description, Kyoshi had been looking for someone with an actual wooden crutch or injured leg, but then she saw him leaning on his earthbending during the fight with the police and realized it was him. Lao Ge walks toward her, standing on a root that should not have been able to support even a bird, nevermind a human being. He asks Kyoshi why she would seek out Immortal Tieguai when her mother only called him Lao Ge, and she answers that it was because Jesa was afraid of him, believing that he used her smuggling gang as cover while he traveled from place to place to eliminate targets for his own purposes. She recalls the journal once again, which depicts the man as a shadow that moved across the Earth Kingdom, killing both exalted and lowly people, including the fortieth Earth King; whenever Lao Ge had slipped off from Jesa's gang, death would occur nearby.

The old man asks Kyoshi if she wants to bring him to justice, to which Kyoshi answers that she needs him to teach her how to kill Jianzhu. Lao Ge does not show any surprise by her answer and tells her to "hit them in the head really hard with a rock", but Kyoshi claims that bending and killing are not the same thing, as she needs no hestiation when it comes to taking Jianzhu's life. He tells her to go to sleep as she has already learned the first lesson, though he does assure her that he would teach her if and when the time is right. Kyoshi promises to keep his identity a secret and, in return, he promises to keep her own secret.

Production notes

Series continuity

• Lao Ge tells Kyoshi that her current condition would cause a large typhoon if she was in the Spirit World, consistent with Iroh's remark in "A New Spiritual Age" that people's emotions shape their reality in the Spirit World, especially for the Avatar.^[1]

Character revelations

• Jesa is revealed to have been an airbender who had a flying bison named Longyan.
• Kyoshi is half Air Nomad on her mother's side.
• Jesa and Hark's daofei group call themselves the Flying Opera Company.

References