Avatar: The Last Airbender
A Mighty Flash
A fanfiction by BenRG
DisclaimerAvatar: The Last Airbender, is the copyright property of Nickelodeon Television. This is a non-profit fan work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No breach of copyright or trademark is intended. No claim of ownership is either made or inferred.
Author's NotesOkay, this is a bit of self-gratification but I don't see why I shouldn't. This is my shot at creating a conclusion to the wonderful legend of Avatar: TLA. Those of you who are my age and older may also realise that I have lovingly imitated (i.e. shamelessly ripped-off) the conclusion of a sci-fi film to write this story. Acknowledgement in my profile will go to the reviewer who correctly identifies the source of the plot and events.
This story also has some elements of my fanon universe that I am creating.
Firstly, Ty-Lee is distantly descended from Air Nomads on both sides of her family. Somewhere along the line, she has discovered that she is an airbender, something that she has hid from Azula and Mai. Aang has been giving her some basic training by correspondence and she is well on the way to becoming a formidable airbender in her own right.
Sozin's Comet was deflected when Katara, Zuko, Toph and Ty-Lee focussed their powers through Aang as he was in the throes of the Avatar State. Not only has this increased the base-level of his powers, it has also increased their power levels and, for reasons no one is able to understand, has also given Toph the power of sight, which she was born without.
After the failed invasion on the Day of the Black Sun, Aang found that small groups of Air Nomads had survived Sozin's attempt at genocide. They have continued to maintain their culture in hiding (much like the way the Southern Water Tribe was barely hanging on). Their specialised military force, the Sky Rangers are still in existence and, with the enthusiastic support of Teo, have been integrated into the still-formidable rebel Army of Liberation led by the recently-freed elders of the resistance.
CensorT – Adult themes and violence; not explicit but not for the little ones
What Has Gone BeforeOzai tracked down the Avatar to the Western Air Temple. Fire Nation forces captured Zuko, Toph and Katara as they tried to escape at Aang's orders. Ozai then ordered his forces to obliterate the Temple. All who witnessed this atrocity are sure that the Avatar is no more.
Now, Ozai has announced his intention to seal his victory by publicly taking the Avatar's betrothed as his concubine. Ty-Lee, still at liberty amongst the Fire Nation (if not entirely trusted any longer) has her own plan to turn Ozai's actions into the agent of his downfall.
However, as has occurred many times before in the world of the Four Elements… things are not entirely as they might seem.
The StoryTy-Lee grinned slightly. "There is a reason why Ozai is called 'The Limp Wimp' by the harem girls," she informed Katara. "He has to take a virility potion before claiming a new wife." Ty-Lee reached into the scandalously low-cut bodice of her dress and pulled out a tiny phial of some pink fluid. "Put this in the potion and I guarantee that he will be dead before he can touch you."
Katara looked at the ex-acrobat (and secret airbender) affectionately before reaching out and pushing the phial away from her. "I can't do that, Ty-Lee. I promised Ozai that I would be a good wife to him and he promised that, in exchange, he will release Zuko and Toph and call off the hunt for our other friends."
Ty-Lee was furious at Katara's uncharacteristic passivity. "Ozai has not kept a single promise to anyone in his life! You know that...!" She grabbed hold of Katara's arms, ignoring the smaller woman's wince at the strength of her grip. "This isn't you, Katara! The proud water peasant I know would never give up!"
Katara shuddered, but not from the strength of Ty-Lee's grip, but a far deeper pain. "Aang's gone…" she whispered. "Without him… without him, I don't know how to be strong…"
"If you ever loved him, then you will keep fighting for his sake," Ty-Lee hissed. She looked into Katara's confused blue eyes and was pleased to see her strength still there. There was movement at the archway that led out of the chamber. Ty-Lee suddenly somersaulted over Katara's head, pushing the phial into Katara's cleavage before landing behind her and moving to a guarding position, standing at her shoulder like a good soldier.
Azula, who was wearing a surprisingly feminine dress, strode over to the captive waterbender. She sneered at Katara before declaring loudly: "You are to be prepared for your wedding."
Katara sucked in a deep breath and drew on her strength. Ty-Lee was right: she would fight to the end in Aang's name. She managed to snort and sneer back at the Fire Princess. "From today onwards, I expect you to call me 'my Lady', Azula."
The Fire Lord's heir growled in barely-suppressed fury. "You will find that my father has ways of burning the pride and rebelliousness out of his toys," she spat. Azula sneered cruelly at Katara before turning and striding out of the harem chamber.
As soon as she was gone, all the strength and defiance went out of Katara and she slumped into Ty-Lee's arms. "I'm lost, Ty-Lee. Nothing can save me now."
Hanging below his glider, supported and propelled by his first and strongest element, Avatar Aang shot over the ocean towards his objective, his face set and his eyes reflecting his determination. Ahead, the Fire Nation's capital city, Hong Jing, appeared over the horizon.
Mai was idly cleaning her finger nails with one of her many throwing knives when the alarm horn was blown by one of the lookouts on the watchtowers overlooking the sea wall of the harbour. Mai had been silently cursing Azula for insisting that she stay at the Bastion to command the city's defences whilst all the other nobles were at the wedding (Mai would never admit it, but she loved to party). She had complained to Azula that it was a pointless assignment; nothing would happen. Well, it looked like the joke was on her.
"My Lady Mai! The Avatar approaches!"
Okay, that was unexpected. The Avatar? The same Avatar that Ozai had been ranting about killing when he blew up the Western Air Temple? Mai summoned all her aristocratic arrogance and disdain before replying to the hyperventilating Fire Nation soldier before her. "What do you mean, 'the Avatar approaches'?"
"On an Air Nomad light glider, my Lady. Should I inform His Majesty?"
"You IMBECILE! The Fire Lord would strike you down for interrupting his wedding with this news! Ready the city defences and fire when the Avatar is within range!"
The Fire Nation were, before they were a nation of conquerors, first and foremost a nation of engineers and machine-smiths. Over the centuries, they had developed tools to counter most of the weapons and tactics of the other three nations of the world. This included high-power long-range semi-automatic ballistas (basically huge crossbows) to engage Air Nomad aircraft. These weapons were now quickly rolled out of their casements on the city walls and along the rampart of the Bastion and brought into firing position on the tiny airborne target streaking towards the city.
As soon as Aang came within the maximum range of the weapons, they began to fire, sending streams of deadly iron-tipped bolts flying towards him. Some of the bolts had black powder warheads and exploded mid air, sending out a cloud of shrapnel out in all directions. These weapons would probably be most effective against Air Nomad war dirigibles and massed glider formations. Against a single Air Monk, they were much less effective and Aang was able to effortlessly steer in between the bolts and explosions without even a scratch.
Mai watched the defences singularly fail to score a single hit and felt her face getting redder and redder with anger. Finally, clearly having decided that he was unable to penetrate the wall of metal and explosions over Hong Jing, the Avatar turned back out to sea and shot away, quickly leaving the weapons-fire far behind. Mai scowled dangerously and turned to glare at the Fire Nation Army captain standing beside her. The man cowered away from the glare directed at him by the head of Princess Azula's bodyguard. "He's escaping you idiot! Despatch the warship Iron Hammer in pursuit and tell the captain that he'd better not return without the Avatar's body!"
The Iron Hammer was one of the latest generation of the Fire Nation's iron-hulled, steam-powered warships. Designed in an era when all of the Fire Nation's major foes were conquered it was intended to deal mostly with pirates and local rebel groupings. It was thus optimised for speed and the ability to engage multiple small and agile targets. Its captain was confident in his new command and in his elite crew as they pushed out of Hong Jing's harbour and set off in pursuit of the Avatar.
The ship quickly accelerated to its maximum speed of 21 knots and bore down on the tiny glider-borne figure far ahead of them. The iron upper works of the warship began to fold out as the ship's anti-air batteries were deployed. "The Avatar is within range, Captain," reported his first lieutenant.
The captain looked through his spyglass at the tiny figure and nodded. "Open fire." As with Hong Jing's static defences, the fast-firing ballistas filled the air with a hail of iron-tipped and explosive bolts. Once again, the Avatar avoided the attacks and accelerated away, using his air-bending to further increase his speed. "Engage boost engines."
A feature of this new class was a second set of propulsion engines, basically huge multi-stage steam-driven turbines that would enable a huge vessel to briefly match the top speeds of Water Tribe fast attack skiffs. Everyone held on tight as the turbines unfolded from underneath the hull and engaged, pushing the ship up to 28 knots. "The Master Engineer warns that steam flow is approaching critical temperature," the first lieutenant reported after just two minutes.
The captain was about to shout that he would decide when the boosters would be shut down when, suddenly, the entire horizon ahead was blanketed with fog. The tiny air glider vanished into the fog bank. "All engines back full!" the captain ordered.
"Where did that fog come from?" one of the bridge crew muttered.
"That's the Avatar out there, idiot," the chief of the watch replied. "He can water-bend too."
"Do we go in after him?" the first lieutenant asked.
"We'd never find him in that fog bank," the captain replied. "Charge the Fire Casters and have the crew stand by to fish his body out of the water."
Aang landed agilely on the deck of the Wind Chaser and grinned at Sokka, Suki and Hadoka. "Guys, my trap plan worked! They'll follow me for sure."
Hadoka smiled in a very predatory way. "Good. Stand by my warriors!" A Water Tribesman standing to one side of the quarterdeck raised a horn to his lips and blew a long, low note. One that was answered by the more than a hundred Water Tribe war galleons packed with marines, Earth Kingdom soldiers and even some renegade Fire Kingdom soldiers.
"Fire Casters ready, Captain!"
"Loose the flame!" Chemical fire roared from the six bronze pipes pointing upward and forwards from the Iron Hammer's deck, filling the fog bank ahead with scalding hot flame. Once the Avatar was brought down, the fog would dissipate and collecting his remains would be simple.
"Wow!" Sokka was being erudite, as usual.
"Yeah!" It was strange how much Suki had started to sound like Sokka since their reunion.
Hadoka grinned at the flames exploding in the fog bank that Master Pakku had generated. "They're trying to flush you out," he explained with a dangerous chuckle to a wide-eyed Aang.
"Nothing sir." The first lieutenant winced at the expression on the captain's face. At receiving his commander's nod, he ordered the Fire Casters shut down.
The captain's mind was whirling. The fog bank could be... no it definitely was a trap. He would be a fool to take his ship in there. However, if he returned without the Avatar, either dead or a prisoner, he would not survive his failure. He blew out his breath. He never really had a choice. The Avatar knew that, curse him to burn forever.
"Very well. Engines ahead one-third. Have lookouts stationed around the bow and have our anti-air weapons on standby. If there is anything waiting for us in there, I want to know about it before it does."
The Iron Hammer began to nose cautiously into the fog bank.
"Good... good..." Hadoka leaned forward impatiently as he saw the shadowy outline of the Fire Nation warship appear in the fog. "They're coming through!"
The fog suddenly cleared from ahead of the Iron Hammer... and the minds of all the officers on the bridge simultaneously froze. Ahead was not just one or two but more than a hundred Water Tribe war galleons, with not just a few score but whole squadrons of fast attack skiffs preceding them. The captain un-froze first. "May Agni protect us... Battle stations!"
Hadoka raised his war-hammer to the skies. "First squadron! Attack!"
The first rank of attack skiffs unfurled their sprint sails and the small, blurringly fast and agile boats lanced towards the oncoming metal behemoth. The crew of the Fire Nation warship were good and scrambled to their stations, deploying the ship's huge anti-ship catapults. As the skiffs drew closer, huge iron and explosive shots were being flung into their loose formation.
Hadoka held in an urge to wince as he saw over a third of the skiffs smashed into matchwood, their crews either killed outright or thrown into the water, likely to drown. Somehow, he kept his face impassive, appearing the good admiral who was focussed on the battle not the individual tragedies. To one side, he could hear the Avatar murmuring a prayer to his Air Nomad gods and added a silent invocation of his own. After all, Sokka was out there on a Skiff too. He would not even listen to his father's pleas to remain on the Wind Chaser.
As soon as the first wave had scattered from the oncoming warship, a few volleys of arrows clattering uselessly off of its hull, he raised his hammer again. "Second wave! Attack!"
The second wave shot forwards. Once again, it seemed that the crews were intent on rushing headlong into the maw of the Fire Nation warship's freakishly accurate gunnery. However, the crews were well trained. At the last minute, the agile skiffs began to dodge. A few were still struck by either shot or the shock-waves from the detonation of bombs. However, the majority got through. The skiffs crowded close in to the warship's side, preventing the crew from using their heavy weapons. Strong sailors threw grappling hooks that caught on the Iron Hammer's gunwales and effectively docked the skiffs to the giant's side.
The captain of the Iron Hammer looked at the Water Nation ships around him in concern. These were not the usual tactics used by these piratical renegades. "Arm topside," he ordered. "Tell the marines to get those skiffs cut loose!" He looked up. "Retarget our main batteries on those war galleons!"
"We have to get closer!" the master gunner warned from the range-finder casement just below the bridge.
"Recommend that we increase engines to flank speed, Captain," the first lieutenant. At receiving the captain's nod, he turned to the voice tubes to relay the order to the engine room. At this point, the ship lurched as if she had hit a huge wave. The captain looked up in horror. A whole series of waves were coming straight at the ship from the direction of the Water Tribe fleet. Additionally, ice was quickly building up on the bows. Both conditions conspired to slow the ship to a crawl. Damn it! Those barbarians must have brought waterbenders with them!
Meanwhile, a violent struggle was developing on the ship's flanks as Fire Nation Navy troops tried to knock off the Water Tribe marines scaling up the grappling ropes. Archers on both sides were trying to hit any enemy that showed enough head or body to do so, making the air around the flanks of the warship alive with crossbow bolts and longbow arrows, both shots and ricochets.
Towards the starboard aft of the Fire Nation warship, Sokka checked to ensure that his backpack was secure before jumping up to grab the rope. "Okay," he muttered to himself. "This is it." Sokka swung up his legs to wrap around the rope and began to pull himself up into the maelstrom around the warship. By this point, waterbenders on the skiffs and firebenders amongst the warship's crew had got into the act, adding powerful elemental blasts going back and forth to the already-hazardous environment.
On the skiff, Suki, who was using the unfamiliar (to her) weapon of a longbow, fought desperately to keep her mind on picking off Fire Nation snipers and not on her lover's perilous mission. "Stay lucky, my love," she whispered.
Sokka finally reached the side of the warship and dropped down onto a small ledge running around the sealed gun hatches over the ship's short-range heavy weapons. One of the hatches opened up and a firebender stuck his or her head out (it was impossible to tell the gender of Fire Nation soldiers thanks to their facemasks). The firebender had barely begun to generate a fireball to throw at him when, with a single smooth motion, Sokka drew his sword and impaled them through the neck. Someone pushed the body the rest of the way through the gun-hatch and slammed the cover closed.
Sokka kept moving and was at his destination, nearly at the very aft of the ship, where he could feel the rumble of the engines within the hull. He opened his backpack, pulled out the Mechanist's latest creation and placed it gingerly on the hull, the magnetised lodestones around its edge clamping it securely to the side of the metal-hulled warship just under the line of the ledge.
Suddenly, he heard movement behind him as two Fire Nation soldiers dropped onto the ledge behind him. Sokka turned on the balls of his feet, thankful for the swordsmanship lessons that Zuko had given him. He blocked the first attack and locked swords with his nearest opponent. The second tried to get around to flank Sokka, but fell to an arrow fired from somewhere below (Suki grinned in delight - maybe she could get used to this unfamiliar ranged weapon). Sokka parried a few blows, knocked the other warrior's weapon up and slashed the razor-sharp blade across his chest. There was a muffled cry and the man fell overboard.
Sokka was about to turn back to his mission when he felt an agonising pain in the back of his left leg. He looked over his shoulder to see a Fire Nation sailor leaning out of a hatch behind him, sticking a knife into his calf. Sokka reversed his sword and drove it backward through his attacker's throat. The man gurgled and went limp. Sokka fell onto the ledge and clutched at his wounded leg with a cry of pain and frustration.
Aang somehow heard Sokka's cry and Suki's own scream of combined anger and fear, carried on the air. "Sokka's been hurt! I'm going in after him!" he informed Hadoka. Before the big Water Tribesman could gather his thoughts to reply, the Avatar had unfurled his glider and launched himself on a gust of wind towards the maelstrom around the Fire Nation warship.
"Impetuous boy!" Hadoka hissed. He looked around at Bumi, Jeong-jeong and Iroh, his fellow generals of the Army of Liberation and managed a snort of laughter. "Oh well. Who wants to live forever, eh?" He raised his hammer. "Attack speed!" The Wind Chaser's sails angled into the winds and the flagship of the Free Water Tribes began to accelerate towards the besieged Fire Nation warship.
Aang landed on the ledge running around the secondary weapons hatches and charged forwards. Occasionally, a hatch would open and a Fire Nation soldier would stick their head out. The wise took one look at the Avatar, who seemed to be glowing, and ducked back inside. As for the unwise, Aang would then throw a fireball at them, bend a whip of seawater at them or use a reverse wind effect to suck them out of the hatch and throw them into the ocean.
The Wind Chaser swerved to port to avoid the few shots from the Iron Hammer's main batteries, Master Pakku sweeping others from the air with his water-bending. Then she swept alongside the Fire Nation warship. The Water Tribe war galleon's own ballistas fired a series of scorpion anti-personnel bolts that swept the foredeck clear of soldiers and sailors in a single blood-soaked and scream-filled moment. The Water Tribe crewmen threw grappling hooks and, seconds later, gangplanks crashed down onto the Iron Hammer's deck. Hadoka led several swarms of Water Tribe marines and Earth Kingdom soldiers onto the enemy ship's fore deck.
"All hands to repel boarders!" the captain of the Iron Hammer commanded before ducking to avoid a volley of arrows fired by archers on the fore-castle of the Wind Chaser.
Hatches all over the superstructure opened as further sailors and soldiers boiled out. The wave broke against the rock of the Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom warriors. Hadoka was personally a force of nature, sweeping a half-dozen enemy soldiers away with every sweep of his war-hammer. With each passing moment, they crept closer to the open hatches. Even as some fell to arrows and fireballs fired from within the superstructure, still the others pressed on, as unstoppable as the tide.
Aang knelt at Sokka's side and grimaced at the knife still buried in his left calf muscle. "Sokka! Hold tight; I'm going to heal this right away." Knowing that there was no way to stop or even limit the pain, Aang just yanked the knife out of his best friend's leg, grimacing at his scream of agony, and bent seawater up and over the wound. He was nowhere near as capable a healer as Katara, but he was able to close the wound almost immediately.
"Aang! Behind you!" Aang felt rather than saw the hatch open and a firebender lean out to toss a fireball at him. Acting on instinct, Aang 'caught' the fireball and deflected it away. He slapped a hand against the hull and bent the hatchway closed like it was the mouth of some predatory creature, nearly cutting the firebender in half, the man's dying scream quickly fading into a gurgle. The young monk grimaced and fought to keep down his last meal for a long moment before Sokka's unsteady voice intruded into his horror at so casually ending a life. "Detonate the mine!"
Aang blinked and turned back to the Mechanist's creation. "Right!" He bent a spark into existence on the fuse and pulled Sokka away, pushing him flat against the ledge for cover.
The explosion blew a hole nearly nine feet across into the Iron Hammer's hull. Inside the engineering area, those of the crew that had not been cut to pieces by the explosion looked up at their new 'window' in amazement and disbelief. Disbelief suddenly turned into horror as Aang and Sokka jumped through the gap. Aang sent nearly solid blasts of wind into every man still standing and Sokka's sword made swift work of any still stupid enough to stay on their feet.
On the foredeck, Hadoka pulled himself to his feet with a roaring laugh. Pausing only to smash a foolhardy Fire Nation soldier aside with his war-hammer, he gestured to the smoking hole blown in the rear hull. "Go! Inside!"
On the bridge, the captain listened in horror as reports reached him of the borders pushing deeper into the ship from the breach in the hull. He risked a look at the foredeck and saw that the boarders were now flowing into the superstructure through the still-open forward hatches. No one had ever thought to design a way to close the hatches remotely. No one had thought to design defences against an attack of this size and nature because no one had realised that the rebellion could still amass such a force to ambush a single ship so deep into Fire Nation territorial waters.
"Helm, reverse course," the captain ordered, cold sweat standing out on his brow. "All engines flank. We must get back under cover of the city defences."
At that moment, the hatch leading onto the bridge swung open and a hail of arrows lashed across the deck, slaughtering most of the crew. Aang and a limping Sokka led a dozen warriors into the area, swords and other bladed weapons flashing out to still anyone still moving.
There was a long, silent moment as Aang regarded the slaughter with horrified eyes when, suddenly, an older man with the insignia of a naval captain leapt to his feet and lunged towards the Avatar, flames boiling around his fists. There was a flash of bronze and the man dropped at the Avatar's feet, his throat neatly sliced open from ear to ear. Suki coldly furled her war fan and shot Aang a slightly apologetic smile. "Thank you, Suki," the Avatar said, his smile sad but genuine enough. Sokka patted his paramour on the shoulder and smiled at her in an admiring fashion. If she were not wearing the face-obscuring war paint of the Kyoshi Warriors, everyone would have seen her blush.
Hadoka strode onto the bridge. "Well done, son. We have captured this enemy ship largely intact." He turned to a Water Tribe officer standing at his shoulder. "Signal the Long Voyager to come alongside and put the prize crew aboard. We need to have this ship turned around and under way."
"Next stop, Hong Jing, eh dad?" Sokka said with his easy grin.
"With luck and the blessing of the Spirits, yes," Hadoka replied, slapping his son on the shoulder. "Sokka..."
"Yeah dad?"
"For pity's sake be more careful in future! I don't want to have to explain to your grandmother how you got yourself killed!"
"What do we need this thing for anyway?" Suki asked, looking around the sterile metal chamber in some distaste.
"Hong Jing has a fine natural harbour but it is also heavily defended," Hadoka explained. "The Fire Nation has weapons around their capital city that can sink one of our galleons with a single shot as well as a mobile wall that they use to seal the harbour entrance. However, their weapons are not designed to be effective against their own armoured ships. We will run this behemoth right in, using it as a mobile shield to protect our wooden-hulled ships, and ram it into the defensive sea wall. All that fuel and ammunition going up will blow a hole in the wall and let us sail right into the harbour where we will put our forces ashore and take the city by force of numbers!"
Sokka looked at his friend and noticed that Aang was not listening to the Water Chieftain outlining his strategy. The Avatar was looking in the direction of Hong Jing. Sokka wondered what his friend could sense happening.
The city of Hong Jing was in a festal state with gold and red streamers and bunting everywhere to celebrate the upcoming nuptials of the Fire Lord. That soldiers were enforcing a sense of celebration on pain of death was something that the people, struggling under Ozai's increasingly tyrannical rule since the deflection of Sozin's Comet a few months previously, were becoming increasingly familiar with.
Still, everyone enjoys a party and the wedding was sure to persuade Ozai to allow a little easing of wartime restrictions. Additionally, there was the promise of entertainment in the form of the public executions of the traitor Zuko and his Earth Kingdom mistress.
Inside the grand festal hall of the Summer Palace, beautifully situated on the very harbour front, the great and good of the Fire Nation had gathered to witness the royal wedding. Ozai, looking cool and collected, stood on the dais next to the High Priest of Agni, the fire spirit. Everywhere fire pots burned. This was both to symbolise Agni's presence and to give the increasingly paranoid Ozai plenty of ammunition to use against any would-be assassins.
Suddenly there was a fanfare and the bridal party appeared. Katara was resplendent in red and gold robes, her hair braided through a fire crown. Ozai looked at the beautiful Water Tribeswoman and grinned lasciviously at his latest toy. Katara tried to look fearless and kept her gaze level. She did not react to the six Imperial Guardsmen around her (not to protect her but to prevent her from running). Nor did she react to the knife that Azula, standing behind her, had pressed lightly against the base of her spine.
Somehow the obvious demonstration of coercion made Katara feel better. People could try to fool themselves but only a liar could think that she was doing this completely of her free will. As the bridal procession/prisoner escort marched her up to the dais, she looked at the harbour of Hong Jing outside and idly wondered if she could bend the water from this distance and kill the disgusting old man standing to her left before Azula killed her.
"Tell me more about this Earth Kingdom art of escapology," the blindfolded Zuko asked from where he was chained to the wall in a way intended to prevent him from fire-bending.
Toph snorted in a show of gallows humour. "Sure, Hotshot. What do you want to know?" She was also blindfolded and even more thoroughly chained, suspended in the middle of the room in an attempt to prevent her from bending the very structure of the dungeon around her.
Suddenly, there was movement in the cell. Someone else was there, someone who was moving almost completely soundlessly. Toph was frustrated. What was the use of her miraculously receiving the gift of sight when she merged her power with the Avatar to deflect the comet when these Fire Nation idiots blindfolded her and then suspended her off the ground so she could not 'see' using her earth-bending either? "Hey, what's...?" Before she could say anything, she heard a clatter of chains and a thud from the direction of Zuko. "Hotshot? Zuko?" There was no reply and Toph's heart (and very nearly her mind) broke. "You killed him! You filthy, murdering...!"
Suddenly a hand slapped over Toph's mouth and an urgent (and familiar) voice echoed in her ears. "Shut up, you stupid earthbender!" Ty-Lee! "Hold still while I get the chains!"
There was a strange sensation as the very air around Toph shifted and focussed into a series of concussive hammer-blows that shattered the hooks and eyes that secured the chains to the walls. Toph felt the moving air currents lower her quietly to the floor. Toph focussed her mind (a process greatly improved by being suddenly able to 'see' Zuko, safe and sound) and bent the manacles off her wrists and ankles.
Toph ripped off her blindfold and looked over at Zuko to see Ty-Lee unlocking his manacles. "What...?" Before the Earth Kingdom girl could say anything else, Ty-Lee gestured, air-bending the air from between her lips before she could form a sound.
"Be quiet," Ty-Lee hissed. "I took out the guards but there are regular patrols in all areas of the palace, dungeons and bastion!"
Staggering a little from their long confinement, Toph and Zuko followed the newly discovered airbender outside into the corridor. Various guards were slumped against the walls at intervals, showing that Ty-Lee had not bothered to leave any witnesses to her jailbreak.
"I've got to head back to the wedding," Ty-Lee announced as they reached the entrance to the dungeons. "If Azula misses me there, she'll set the dogs on the scent."
Zuko nodded. "Toph and I are heading for the Bastion."
"We are?"
Zuko tried to scowl at his lover and failed. "Yes, we are. We need to seal the reserves of the city garrison inside before we can move against Ozai. For that, I'll need your special talents, love."
"Aw! 'Tis cute," Ty-Lee said in response to Zuko's little endearment.
Mai looked through her spyglass as the Iron Hammer re-appeared on the horizon. The warship clearly had been in a fight. Even at this distance, she could see the new scars on her prow and the smoke pouring from an invisible wound on her flank. Most interestingly, she was not showing today's pass code flags that should be flown to prove she was a friendly ship.
"She has taken quite a pounding, my Lady," the young army captain remarked, unnecessarily.
Mai thought for a moment. "Stand by all anti-ship batteries," she ordered. "Have the Sea Wall closed."
"Ma'am?"
Mai rolled her eyes. "She is not showing the pass code, idiot," she sighed. "Until we can verify that she is friendly, we must treat her as hostile."
"But... but... that is the same ship that you yourself sent out on her mission...!"
Mai wondered, not for the first time, what it was about Fire Nation military training that robbed the mind of all common sense and initiative. "If you had faced the Avatar, as I have many times, you too would take nothing for granted. Send out the Smoke Hound to verify the Iron Hammer's condition and then close the Sea Wall."
The anti-ship weapons on the harbour and Bastion were rolled out of their casements as the Smoke Hound, a fast anti-piracy cutter, steamed out of the harbour. Behind her, the Sea Wall, a twenty-foot thick static defence, slowly slid closed.
The Smoke Hound drew closer and closer to the Iron Hammer. As she did so, her crew saw a semaphore signal from the bridge of the other vessel, indicating that they had taken considerable damage and that her flag locker had been destroyed. This did much to ease the suspicions in the mind of the Smoke Hound's captain.
He was thus completely unprepared when, suddenly, ice exploded from the sea all around the smaller warship, fouling her rudder and propellers and essentially stranding on her on a newborn iceberg. He was quite surprised as the Iron Hammer raced past and he suddenly saw the Water Tribe fleet in its wake. So shocked were the crew that the boarding party from one of the war galleons faced only scattered resistance as they poured aboard.
Mai cursed under her breath. Ozai was incommunicado for the wedding and its... aftermath. Azula had made it clear that she was not to be disturbed either, as she wanted to enjoy "Zuzu's" execution and every other senior officer and noble was at the wedding. This meant that she was in the position of having to personally handle the repulse of a full-scale assault by the surviving fleet of the Water Tribe. "Open fire when that ship comes into range," she ordered.
"F... fire on the Iron Hammer, my Lady?" the captain stuttered.
Mai finally lost her temper and knocked the babbling fool to the floor of the Bastion's command platform with a single backhanded blow. "Yes, you idiot! Can't you see that the enemy has taken her? Open fire! In the name of the Fire Lord, open fire!"
Hadoka was more than a little impressed by the massive storm of shot being put out into the approach to Hong Jing harbour by the catapults and trebuchets along the walls and on the Bastion. "That's it! Evacuate! Everyone back to your ships!" The prize crew finished reloading the Iron Hammer's catapults and ballistas before running to their skiffs being towed behind to get back to their various war galleons.
"Aang, Sokka! It's time to bail out!" Hadoka called out as he rushed onto the bridge. Aang and Sokka were standing at the Iron Hammer's wheel, watching the sea being churned up into a tumult by the attacks from the shore batteries. One iron shot bounced twice off the deck plates before going overboard. There was a crash as a stone shot hit the bow and shattered.
"I'm sorry, Hadoka but I'm not coming," Aang replied levelly.
"WHAT?!? You'll be destroyed!"
"Look at the weight of fire the shore batteries are sending out!" Aang responded. "She'll never get through to the Sea Wall without someone at the helm."
"He's right, dad," Sokka said. "And a land-lubber like him can't run this ship on his own. I'm staying with him." Aang shot his best friend a look of shock and gratitude. The two young men exchanged a brotherly wrist-grasp. Sokka looked back and shot his father a rather weak smile. "It isn't as if I have anywhere to evacuate to anyway. My skiff was sunk in the last moments of the boarding action."
Hadoka's mind finally recovered and he grabbed his son's arm in an unbreakable grip. "Then you'll come with me on the Wind Chaser. For all the Spirits' sake, son! I've lost your mother, now I might lose Katara! Don't make me have to lose you too! This is just plain suicide!"
"It's not," Aang replied calmly. "It is a rational sacrifice. Two lives in exchange for millions." Hadoka froze and looked at Aang in amazement at the Avatar's words. Aang's face tightened in imitation of what Zuko called a 'Commander Scowl'. "You owe me, you big pirate! Now get out of here, they'll need you ashore!"
He'd heard of this young man's determination and spirit but had never really understood it before this moment. "That must have been a hell of a tribe you came from, boy."
Aang grinned. "It was fair enough, Hadoka. It was fair enough."
"I have to do this, dad. I need to do this." Sokka's face was resolute. "There is no one else that you can put in this place with the skill to do it but who is as young and... and as expendable as I am."
Hadoka was suddenly half-blind with tears. He released his only son's arm and stood back. "Well... Sokka... I guess this is it."
Sokka took a step back too and smiled at his father before giving him a brief, respectful bow. "Don't count us out yet," he replied. The young man turned away and then paused and turned back. "If worst comes to worst... Tell Suki that… Tell her that I'm sorry and that I know it would have been great."
Hadoka nodded once, shot his son one last agonised, despair-filled glance and fled the bridge.
Aang nodded once to his best friend. "Steady on, all ahead flank," the young Air Nomad instructed, his face serene and reassuring.
"Steady on, aye," Sokka said with a smile as he took the wheel. Aang, meanwhile moved to various controls to close the armoured shutters over the bridge windows and prepare the weapons for remote firing.
On the bridge of the Wind Chaser, Hadoka looked through a haze of tears as the Iron Hammer ploughed through the ever-intensifying barrage from ashore. This close, shots were overshooting the metal-hulled warship and were hitting the following flotilla of wooden-hulled warships. As he looked on, an iron shot slammed into the bows of one just to the starboard. The wooden ship crumpled like an origami sculpture and plunged below the waves in a few seconds.
Although Hadoka's heart was breaking, somehow he managed to keep his voice joyful as he continued to shout encouragement. "On my warriors! On! And for as long as there lives a man who is free, let this day be ever known as the Day of Sokka and Aang!"
Sokka winced as a stone shot bounced off the bridge armour. "Aang?"
"Yeah, Sokka?" The Avatar was skidding around the bridge on an air scooter, checking and double-checking that the equipment was in order.
"Aang, you... you've died scores of times, right?"
Aang looked at his best friend in a strange way. "My previous incarnations have died and passed on the Avatar Spirit, yes."
There was a crash as a shot hit the Iron Hammer's deck and tore one of her catapult mounts off. Sokka kept his cool by main force alone. "Does... does it hurt to die?"
Suddenly, Aang was at Sokka's side. He placed a hand on his best friend's shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly. "The pain... it is nothing. In a moment, it is as if the whole world has turned to clear glass and you can see for the first time. The rain clouds of this world part and suddenly you see shores of white sand and the clear call of bells and the laughter of those you love welcoming you home. And beyond the shores there are rolling fields, mighty forests and white-capped mountains."
Sokka managed a grin. "That doesn't sound too bad." There was a crash of another impact. Sokka snapped back to here-and-now and looked at the displays on the helm in front of him. "Trim is good. We're still getting full pressure from all boilers. Rudder and engines still answering the helm."
Aang nodded in approval. "If this is going to work, we need to wait to the very last moment."
The High Priest of Agni was intoning the vows of marriage in an irritating nasal voice that everyone on the dais longed to silence permanently. "Do you, Ozai, Fire Lord and Emperor of this world, take Katara, this unworthy woman of the Water Tribes, to be your Fire Lady of the hour?"
"Of this hour, yes," Ozai replied, smiling in a reptilian fashion at Katara. The water tribeswoman shuddered in disgust at the undisguised way the man, who was old enough to be her grandfather, was stripping her naked with his eyes. She would have broken and fled if it were not for the two Imperial Guardsmen who had a vice-like grip on her shoulders and upper arms. Despite their grip, she continued to struggle against them. Everyone in the congregation could see that this 'marriage' was going to manage to be more legal than rape but by only a very narrow margin.
"Do you promise to use her as you will?"
"Certainly!" Ozai waggled his eyebrows at Katara who managed to choke down her vomit.
"Do you promise not to sear her to ash?" Ozai shot the priest a dirty look and the man suddenly looked panicked. This was a part of the traditional vows but it clearly was not to the Fire Lord's liking. Somehow, Katara restrained the urge to laugh loudly and derisively. "Er... er... until such time as you grow tired of her, of course, my Lord," the priest continued in a high, panicked tone of voice.
"I do," Ozai rumbled with a sneer.
Katara's face twisted with disgust. There was no escape but before these witnesses she would make it clear that the subjugation of her body would not include the subjugation of her will and soul. "I do not!" she cried out.
Mai was focussed entirely on the clearly only slightly-effective attacks on the Iron Hammer when the Bastion suddenly lurched under her as if a giant hand had taken it and shaken it as if it were a child's toy. She turned and looked in horror as parts of the ancient stone building, which had survived dozens of assaults and attacks, crumpled like deflated balloons. All in all, she wasn't surprised when a rock pillar rose into view with the arch-traitor Zuko and his pet earthbender riding on it.
"Hello, 'beloved'," Zuko sneered. Mai gestured and the soldiers on the command platform raced forward, all to be swept away by Zuko's fire-bending. Mai pulled out several knives and was about to charge her former betrothed when the stone below her suddenly thrust up, knocking her from her feet and sending her weapons clattering away out of reach.
Zuko walked over to Mai, grabbed her by the front of her tunic and pulled her to her feet. "Now, 'beloved', you are going to conduct me and my betrothed to the presence of my father, ostensibly as your prisoners, of course. The Fire Lord and I have... business to transact."
Mai shuddered at the determination and focus in Zuko's voice and expression, something that she was not used to from the usually conflicted young man. "I... I am not in the habit of conducting traitors to the presence of the Fire Lord," she grated out.
Zuko ignited a tongue of fire under Mai's chin, making the woman cower back with a whimper of fear and pain, and then extinguished it. Torturing his former betrothed to make her comply was something that his father or Azula would do. He wasn't that person anymore. He released Mai and she dropped bonelessly to the floor. "Fine. We'll just do it the hard way."
Zuko turned to leave. As he did so, Toph felt the Mai's heart rate increase and realised that she was about to attack. Mai grabbed some more knives from the folds of her trousers and lunged towards Zuko. "Zuko!" Toph shouted in warning, preparing to knock the woman aside with her earth-bending. Before she could do so, Zuko turned, making a series of ritual fire-bending gestures. A dart of blue-white fire spat from the palm of his right hand and hit Mai in the centre of her chest, blowing her backward over the rampart, her body catching fire and burning from head to toe like a signal flare. The woman was already dead as she plunged to the base of the Bastion.
Zuko looked at the direction her body had gone and that haunted look appeared on his face. Toph reached out to touch him and comfort him. Zuko looked at her and managed a slight smile. "I'm sorry, Hotshot," Toph said quietly.
"Don't be, Toph. That moment was... a long time coming."
Toph looked up and realised that the constant noise was the city's immense defences firing at something out to sea. "What in the name of the hard earth is going on out there?"
Zuko saw a spyglass and snatched it up. What he saw surprised him. "A fleet of Water Tribe ships is approaching. It must be the Army of Liberation. We need to help them get into the harbour safely, then we'll have all the back-up we need."
Azula thought that this whole situation had reached the stage of black farce. As well as the two guardsmen preventing the water peasant from fleeing, two more were needed to hold her left arm out and force her to unclench her hand. Why in Agni's name did her father not just ravish the girl and have her corpse dumped on the midden heap? Why did he feel the need to make such an infernal ritual of it? Now, just to make things really stupid, her father's attendant had lost the ring.
Ozai looked idly at his hand and ignited a tongue of blue flame. With this motivation, the ring was quickly found and presented to the Fire Lord.
The High Priest of Agni sighed in relief and found the place where he had paused in the Scroll of Fire. "Ah... Ah, yes. Now, repeat after me, my Lord. 'Katara, daughter of Hadoka, with this ring, I thee wed'."
The Iron Hammer was now only seconds away from the Sea Wall. "Get ready, Aang," Sokka warned. "This is going to hurt!" Aang nodded, his face pale as his hands reached for the remote weapons firing controls.
As the ship drew closer and closer to the harbour, shots were now coming in from the beams as well as ahead. One slammed into the side of the bridge and tore the forward armoured shutter off, exposing the front of the bridge to incoming fire. Sokka and Aang both ducked. When they looked up, they saw something was happening. "What is that?" Sokka asked in amazement.
Aang suddenly grinned. "That... that, my friend, is the Blind Bandit at her worst."
On the command platform of the Bastion, Toph had dropped down onto all fours. Never before had she put so much focus into her earth-bending. For a few moments, she was not Toph bei-Fong any longer. She was the earth and the network of stone walls and fortifications around the harbour of Hong Jing. With a strangled cry of pain, the young woman exerted her will. All along the walls, the weapons casements buckled and warped as the stones making them up began to reshape themselves. Powerful weapons were torn from their mountings and soldiers were sent tumbling through the air.
Zuko would normally have marvelled at the power shown by his betrothed but his focus was elsewhere. A huge ball of flame was forming before him as he performed the required bending motions to pile as much power into a single attack as he could. This went beyond blue flame. It went beyond lightning. "Agni... help... me...!" Zuko gasped out as he drove himself further than any firebender had done since legendary times. As his hands were thrust forwards, a blue-white ball of fire was launched forwards. So intense was the heat that the gasses making up the flame had reached a state that, one day, would be called fusion plasma. Surrounded by crackling nimbuses of lightning, the fireball shot towards the Sea Wall, and blew it apart like it was made of kindling rather than ancient stone.
The Iron Hammer, suddenly no longer under attack, plunged through the gap at full power, heading right for the glazed front of the Summer Palace. A few seconds later, the Army of Liberation fleet followed her in.
At this point, Ozai and the rest of the wedding party, indeed everyone in the festal hall of the Summer Palace realised that something was wrong. The earthquake caused by Toph was the first clue and the explosion as Zuko blew a hole in the Sea Wall only cemented the need to look through the windows. What they could see was not reassuring: A burning warship bearing down on the palace at full speed.
Ozai dropped the wedding ring. He somehow knew. "The Avatar is alive?"
The guardsmen released Katara in instinctive fear and drew back. Even Azula took a step away. "Aang?" Katara gasped, her face suddenly filled with a radiant smile.
"FIRE!" Sokka yelled. Aang's fingers found the switches and the Iron Hammer's main and secondary forward batteries fired simultaneously. A half-dozen explosive catapult shots ploughed into the harbour front blowing the flagstones into gravel and exposing the front of the Summer Palace to the harbour waters. Simultaneously, scorpion ballista shots spat out, deploying their razor-sharp lateral spines, which shattered the glass and cut through the metal frames as if they were made of paper.
There was chaos. Soldiers, nobles and servants were rushing towards the exits in utter panic. Katara darted off to one side, completely forgotten. She looked at the oncoming warship, feeling her beloved aboard. "Go, Aang, go!"
The Iron Hammer hit the demolished harbour front at 22 knots and rode up like it had hit a ramp. The whole 5,000-ton mass of iron and bronze tore through the facade of the Summer Palace and plunged in. Ozai had seemed frozen, standing in the middle of the dais and staring at the impossible sight before him. Only at the last moment did he turn and try to flee, directly away from the oncoming behemoth. The Iron Hammer's ram spar, a twenty-foot-long barbed spear of sharpened reinforced bronze caught him in the small of the back and carried him forwards.
The Iron Hammer groaned to a halt. There was a brief pause before the savaged facade of the palace collapsed, partially entombing the warship in the ruins. There was a long, eerie silence.
Outside, the Army of Liberation fleet slowed to a halt all along the harbour. Gangplanks dropped down and waves of Water Tribe marines, Earth Kingdom heavy infantry and even renegade Fire Nation soldiers charged down and ploughed through the few loyalist soldiers still standing.
Linear catapults fired and airbenders called to their elements, causing a cloud of Air Nomad war gliders to ride up into the sky, carrying the remains of the once-famous sky rangers into battle for the first time since Sozin's attempted genocide of a century previously. Amongst them was a young man named Teo, who, for the first time in his life, truly understood who he was and where he belonged.
On the command platform of the Bastion, an exhausted Zuko and Toph hugged. Then they looked into each other's eyes and, at an unspoken word of agreement, raced hand-in-hand towards the ruined palace.
As the invading troops drove forwards, taking strong point after strong point without meeting any significant resistance, the sky rangers dived onto isolated watchtowers and barracks, firing semi-automatic crossbows and dropping explosive packages into the panicking Fire Nation soldiers.
Hadoka, Jeong-jeong, Bumi and Iroh stepped ashore from the Wind Chaser and looked around. All around them, the fleet was busy unloading armoured cavalry and heavy towed weapons for use in the fierce street fighting that the generals had predicted would follow the invasion. The generals took charge of their most crack troops and leading them towards the palace. "When we find Ozai, I must face him alone," Iroh said quietly. Hadoka nodded, respecting the other man's right to his brother's death.
Aang was quite surprised that he was still alive. He sat up in the ruins of the Iron Hammer's bridge and looked around. Sokka was crumpled at the front of the bridge. Aang struggled painfully to his feet and went over to his friend. Miraculously, Sokka seemed unhurt. "Sokka?"
"Down, but never for the full count, Aang," the young Water Tribesman groaned. Aang helped him sit up. "I'll be okay," Sokka continued. "Find Katara!" Aang nodded and stepped to the front of the bridge. He called to the air and had it carry him out of the ruined warship to the floor of the festal hall of the Summer Palace.
The hall had partially collapsed. Between overturned pots of sacred fire and torches, many of the festive decorations had been ignited and several fires burnt out of control. The flagstones below Aang's feet were cracked and tilted crazily from the massive weight of the beached warship. With the collapsed facade and fallen torches, the hall was mostly darkened. Only the fires gave any illumination.
Aang saw movement over to his left. Ozai was impaled through the chest on the ship's ram spar. As the Avatar watched in an appalled fascination, the Fire Lord dragged himself hand-over-hand off of the spar and collapsed to the floor. The man pulled himself up on one knee, tried to rise and failed; refused to fall.
"Ozai!" Aang called out, striding towards the man. With a snarl, Ozai summoned fire from the various conflagrations and flung them at Aang with all his hate. Aang reached out and seized the fire from Ozai's control, deflecting it first to one side and then to the other. Finally, Aang caught the last blast and threw it back at Ozai. The Fire Lord caught it in turn and dispelled it, the effort driving him to his knees.
Aang summoned an air scooter and raced towards the Fire Lord, lashing out with several wind blasts, knocking the man backwards and nearly throwing him on his back. The Avatar landed in front of the Fire Lord and positioned himself for an attack. "It's over, Ozai," he said quietly. "Surrender now and I will spare you life and ensure that you receive a fair trial for your crimes."
Blood was bubbling up from Ozai's lungs and dribbling down his chin, lending the man a horrific appearance as he dragged himself back up onto one knee. He grinned insanely at Aang. "You... foolish child! The... life of the... Fire Lord... is not... yours... to spare or... to take!" The man gestured and attempted to call up a spear of blue flame. The attack petered out within moments, long before it came near Aang. With a sudden look of desperation, Ozai summoned the only remaining nearby fire to his aid. Aang caught the attack effortlessly and began to bend it back towards Ozai. The Fire Lord tried to shuffle back only to run into some sharp rock spines that Aang had earth-bended from the floor of the hall with a brief movement of his feet.
The two benders were now caught in a contest of wills and power. Much to Ozai's mounting horror, he realised that, especially as he was gravely wounded, he was too weak to defeat the Avatar's enormous reserves of power. "Your power is fading, Ozai," Aang said in a quiet, reasonable tone of voice, confirming the Fire Lord's worst fears. With a small gesture, Aang shaped the fire into a blade and forced it closer to Ozai's throat. "All you have left now is time and that is also fast running out. I suggest that you use it while you can."
Ozai looked up into the grey eyes of the Avatar, into eyes too old to belong to such a young man. He looked up and, as only was possible for one at harmony with his element, he realised that this was the moment of his destiny. Ultimately, he was always meant to lose. With a sudden roar of frustration, he reached inwards with all his dwindling might and drove all his power inward.
Aang stepped back in surprise as blue-white flame suddenly belched from Ozai's nose and mouth. In less than a second the man's body was a blue-white pyre of flame. The pyre collapsed inwards, leaving only ash.
Aang sighed and his body suddenly relaxed. At last, it seemed, it was over.
The doors to the hall were suddenly flung open... no metal-bended aside and Zuko and Toph raced in. "Aang!" Toph cried out as she ran towards him, her arms outstretched in welcome. "Damn it, Twinkle-toes but you made it! You're alive! You too, Snoozles!"
Aang turned to see Sokka abseil down one of the cables hanging from the side of the wreck of the Iron Hammer. Meanwhile, Zuko ran over to join Toph in a group hug with the Avatar. He looked up at Sokka and smiled mischievously. "I see that you finally made it to the party, Water Tribe peasant," he remarked dryly.
"Better late than never, Fire Nation wimp," Sokka replied with a grin. The two men grabbed each other's hand and Sokka was pulled into the hug too.
"AANG!" The cry was more a scream from a broken and mended heart.
Aang looked up and saw a figure in a formal Fire Nation dress running towards him. He identified her immediately, the most amazing smile filling his face as joy filled his heart so that he feared it would burst. "KATARA!" The Avatar air-bended the young woman into his arms.
"Oh Aang! You're alive! I... I never stopped hoping! I..." Aang cut off Katara's tearful words by sealing his lips over hers and the two young lovers pulled each other close and tight as they shared a long-overdue kiss.
"Hey! What do you think you are doing with my...?"
Sokka's peevish question was cut off by Toph's hand covering his mouth. "Don't bother, Snoozles. I think they are beyond caring what you think."
Aang and Katara had come up for air as the other three surrounded them again. Katara looked over Aang's shoulder towards the entrance arch and gasped, her body tensing. "Aang! Look out!"
Everyone turned to see five nobles of the Fire Nation walk into the hall. Led by Minister Qin, the five royal counsellors, each amongst the strongest firebenders of their generation, strode towards the five young heroes. Automatically, Aang, Katara, Toph and Zuko took up bending positions. A wind blast, a water whip, a rock barrage and a fireball forming by their respective hands. Sokka drew his sword and took up a guarding position.
Qin stopped and looked at the pile of ash lying nearby, seeming to guess what this meant. He looked up at Aang and smiled in a strange way. Much to everyone's surprise, the five counsellors knelt before them. "Hail Avatar Aang, conqueror of the Fire Nation! You have won the war," Qin declared. The counsellors stood and turned to leave. Qin turned back with a mischievous smile. "Have a nice day," he added before turning to leave.
There was a long silence in the ruined hall. Then Aang leapt into the air. "YEAH!"
Hadoka looked around the audience chamber of the Imperial Palace and shook his head at the miss-matched mass of people standing around. Nobles of the Fire Nation mingled, ill at ease, with Water Tribe marines, Earth Kingdom soldiers, Air Nomad sky rangers and renegade Fire Nation troops. Suddenly, a thrill of noise whispered through the crowd. Hadoka looked up to see Iroh, Ursa and the Avatar's band (known as the 'Gaang' for reasons best known only to that bunch of teenagers) stepped through the archway and out onto the dais normally occupied by the Fire Lord and his counsellors.
Jeong-jeong stepped forward and climbed up to the penultimate step of the dais. "Iroh is the lawful heir!" he declared, his voice echoing through the room. Which was true, in a way. Zuko was still technically a renegade and no one had seen Azula since the Iron Hammer had crashed into the palace (a state of affairs that just about everyone preferred).
The renegade Fire Nation general led his countrymen in the traditional cry of fealty: "Hail Iroh, hail! Hail the Fire Lord, hail!" The Fire Nation nobles in the crowd joined in this chant in full voice, glad to hear that their nation was not facing subjugation now Ozai had fallen.
Iroh looked at Ursa with a wan smile and, perhaps, only Hadoka noticed that the two gripped each other's hands before Iroh stepped forward and raised his hands to bid the crowd to silence. "People of the Fire Nation! Peoples of this world hear me now!" Silence fell. No one was ready for the first words from the new Fire Lord's lips. "We owe everything to the Avatar!"
Into the silence, Zuko and Sokka's voices cried out, echoed less than a second later by the amassed soldiers of the Army of Liberation. "Hail to the Avatar!" Aang actually blushed and only Katara holding on tightly to his hand stopped him from fleeing.
Iroh smiled before continuing. "It has been a long, hard war for us all. We have all suffered grief, pain, degradation and death. Let it now end. My first decree is thus: That all the peoples of this world... should live in peace." Iroh looked at his three fellow generals of the Army of Liberation and smirked slightly. "And in order to preserve this peace, I appoint Jeong-jeong of the Fire Nation, Bumi of the Earth Kingdom and Hadoka of the Southern Water Tribe as commanding generals of my armies."
Bumi grinned in that mad way that Hadoka had (reluctantly) become used to over the past two years and slapped the big Water Tribesman on the back. "Hail Iroh!" someone cried and the crowd burst into cheers.
After order was restored, Iroh spoke again. "Furthermore, it is my pleasure to invite all my allies and subjects to bear witness at my wedding to the Lady Ursa, to acknowledge the love that sustained me to the birth of this new era."
Ursa, despite being a grand lady of the noblest blood and normally in complete control of her public facade, blushed slightly at hearing this and shot Iroh a poisonous look, one completely ruined by her slight, discreet smile. "I love you too, you big goof," she murmured out of the corner of her mouth.
"Furthermore, as I am old and have no surviving heirs of my own flesh, I hereby name our nephew, Zuko, son of Ozai, as my heir in all things." Zuko stiffened in surprise and, from where he was standing hand-in-hand with Toph, shot his uncle a look of surprise, horror and, yes, thanks. Iroh smiled at his nephew as he held out his hand to gesture at the younger firebender. "My son-by-adoption has walked as hard a path as any man twice his years to reach this place and time. I could ask of no more wise or courageous an heir as he."
Toph sighed. In her heart she knew this was coming, but it didn't hurt any less. Ah well, she had some good times with the Hotshot over the past few years. They should be enough to sustain her. Should... but would not. She pulled her hand from Zuko's and turned to leave. Much to her surprise, Zuko's hand recaptured hers. "Where are you going, Toph?" he asked quietly as, in the background, Iroh continued his speech, outlining the reforms he proposed for the Fire Nation and its relationships with its neighbours.
Toph sighed. "Look, Hotshot, you know the score. You're gonna be the Fire Lord in about twenty years time. You're gonna need an aristocratic Fire Nation wife full of airs and graces to be your Fire Lady, not the tomboy daughter of a merchant from the Earth Kingdom." Toph sucked in a deep breath and looked up at Zuko, determined to impress his face into her memory forever, grateful for the miracle that had given her sight. "It's better if we do this now and save us both pain later."
"What if I want the tomboy daughter of a merchant from the Earth Kingdom?" Zuko protested. "What if I don't want some stuck-up wall-flower of a noblewoman as a wife?" Zuko pulled Toph close and grabbed her by her upper arms, glaring into her tearful green eyes. "What if I want the woman that I love?"
Toph winced at the strength of Zuko's grip, feeling his hand pressing the betrothal armband that Zuko had forged with his own fire into the flesh of her left upper arm. She blushed brightly. "Zuko, please," she begged. "This is gonna hurt enough as it is..."
"You have all the qualities needed to be Fire Lady," Zuko continued, not caring who noticed this very public incident. "You have strength, courage, compassion, although I bet you don't see that, and the determination and clarity of mind to see the truth no matter how it is hidden or denied." Zuko smiled slightly, his eyes narrowing in amusement. "That you happen to be a beauty to match any in the Fire Nation and are the woman I love is a big bonus." The feel of Zuko's hand stroking along Toph's cheek made her face burn bright red.
As Toph had feared, they had just become a public spectacle, but not for the reason that she might have expected. Iroh was watching the quiet discussion between his nephew and his love with a slight smile. "Let it be declared throughout the lands where the Fire Lord's word is heard," he announced loudly, "that my subjects, allies and representatives of all nations are invited to the royal city of Hong Jing on the day of midsummer, there to celebrate the wedding of my son-by-adoption, Zuko, and his beloved, Toph bei-Fong of the Earth Kingdom, mistress earthbender and tutor and companion of the Avatar." Iroh enjoyed the look of shock on Zuko and Toph's faces. He continued for only their ears. "You didn't think that I would break the two of you up for political reasons, did you?" The older man's eyes shone with humour. "Agni! The wife would kill me!" Ursa scowled and kicked Iroh in the shins.
The official part of the day was over and all the Gaang streamed over to a grinning Zuko and a quietly weeping Toph (who was hanging onto her now-official fiancée like he was a life preserver). After giving his congratulations, slapping Zuko on the back and daring to give Toph a brotherly kiss on the cheek, Aang withdrew to observe the crowds and meditate on everything that had happened.
There was so much he could think about. He could have thought about his century entombed in ice and of his rescue by Katara and Sokka. He could have thought of his long odyssey to master the four elements. He could have thought of Zuko's transition from sworn enemy to ally-of-convenience and ultimately to brother in all but blood. He could have thought about the many changes of fortune in their long struggle. He could have thought of the deflection of Sozin's Comet, channelling Katara, Toph, Zuko and Ty-Lee's bending through the Avatar State to achieve a level of power not known by any Avatar since legendary times. He could have thought about many things. All he could think about, though, was the beautiful waterbender in his arms, leaning back against him as he hugged her, her shining sapphire eyes, looking up at him with such love, standing out against her brown skin and long, curly brown hair. Spirits, how beautiful she is, he thought. How I love her. How very, very strange this whole thing has turned out to be.
"What are you thinking of, beloved?" Katara whispered with a slight smile. "You seemed to be very far away for a while there."
"Oh, just how no one will ever believe our story in the future," Aang said with a grin. "They will say it is a simple tale made up to amuse children." Then, Aang's voice fell to a more intimate tone. He cupped Katara's face in his hand and traced her lips with his thumb. "And also about how much I love you."
Katara looked away coyly for a moment before her expression turned thoughtful. "Aang... What are we going to do now we've saved the world?"
"Well, we certainly invite you all to stay," Iroh said, the newly acclaimed Fire Lord having come up behind the Avatar and his betrothed. "You will always be welcome here both as allies and as valued counsellors."
Aang looked at his love. "Katara?"
Katara smiled in that mischievous way that Aang so loved. "I'm a Southern Water Tribe girl," she said in a mock tone of regret. "It's a little too quiet around these parts for the likes of me."
"Hey everyone! Heads up!" Suki suddenly called out. She and Sokka were pointing to the skies. Everyone looked skyward. High above, led by Teo (who had been adopted by the sky rangers as a sort of honorary Air Nomad) led scores of rangers on their gliders in formation over Hong Jing. The formation made up a huge flying ideograph, for the phrase "Thank you" before manoeuvring to change formation to the ideograph for "Avatar Aang".
Aang couldn't help but laugh and hug the woman he loved a little bit harder as around him rose the cheers of a world united, a world at peace.
No one had entered the ruins of the Summer Palace since the Avatar and his allies had left it. With the fires extinguished, the festal hall was dark and quiet. Nothing moved in what was now a place of death. Then, the light of a fire dancing on the fingertips of a firebender illuminated the pile of ash that was the mortal remains of Fire Lord Ozai.
A toe nudged aside some of the ash to reveal something sparkling golden in the firelight. The firebender bent down to retrieve Ozai's signet ring and place it on her finger. Somehow it seemed fitting for it to be there.
Alone in the ruined building, Azula began to laugh. Her laughter was too loud and went on for too long. It was the sound of a lost soul, the sound of a woman gone mad. It sounded a lot like the laugh of her father...
The End?