Author's Notes: Welcome to Run Ozai Run, my first Avatar story featuring everyone's favorite bad guy hauling ass across the world, along with all the major characters of the series on his tail, and some minor ones as well. It starts off pretty serious, but will become more comedic as the story progresses. Also I would definatly recommend watching the episode 'A Cave of Two Lovers' to fully understand all the characters. Enjoy
Run Ozai Run Chapter 1
Cheers and cries of celebration echoed throughout the elaboratly designed high-class streets of the inner circle of Ba-Sing-Se. Streamers and confetti seemed to follow a large parade of white horses, and soldiers clad in green armor, while in the center of the crowd of elegant spectators a chariot was being carried by the finest of citizens.
Behind the white veils of the palletkeep, the Earth King smiled and waved to his loving people as the parade progressed further into the inner circle, its destination the glamorous palace of Ba-Sing-Se.
However unbeknownest to the serene citizens of the post-war eutopia, two men clad in the darkest of green armor and headgear clung silently to two of the tallest pillars of the city, overlooking the parade with cold eyes. As the parade passed by the pillars and disappeared down the street, the two Dai Li agents slid down the pillars and seemingly vanished.
It was moments later that a hatch appeared in the middle of a lake, and the two Dai Li agents wasted no time jumping in and covering their tracks. The agents then quietly and majesticly paced down the decrepit halls of the once mighty Dai Li headquarters located underneath the city.
The rooms once held with political prisoners and Debees, were now clouded with somber reminders that they had failed in their mission to control an entire city, and were now fugitives in the very eutopia that they once governed.
Coming up to a seemingly insignificent wall, the two Dai Li agents quickly got into an earth-bending stance, and using their skilled hands pried open the concrete revealing a silver metal door.
On the inside of the darkened room, a pair of stern eyes watched in silence as light flooded into the dusty room, followed by the two agents who both got down on one knee as a sign of respect for their leader.
"Report" the man demanded from his place on a brittle stone throne. The two men kept eye contact with the floor as they spoke, "Mr. Long Feng, the Earth King has returned to the city on schedule, it seems that ambassadors of the Fire Nation have arrived with him as well" the member on the left muttered.
The member on the right lifted his head and made eye contact, "What shall we do Long Feng sir? Mistress Azula has been defeated, the city has been returned to the Earth King, and the Fire Nation seeks to ammend relations with the Earth Kingdom...what will become of us?" he asked somberly.
Long Feng seem to stare off into the distance as he pondered the information given to him by two of his increasingly diminishing roster of skilled Dai Li agents. Then suddenly, as if a lightbulb had risen over his head, the older man smirked, "So the Fire Nation seeks to make ammends do they? Well the 100 years of war and tyranny will take a 1000 years to forgive, all we need to do is remind the citizens of the Earth kingdom of all the attrocities that befell them because of the Fire Nation."
Both agents stared questiongly at their leader, "But how sir?" Long Feng laughed darkly, "Why with our beloved leader of course. That fool is just who we need on our side to regain not only our city, but the entire kingdom and then even the world!"
As their leader continued his laugh, the two agents exchanged worried glances before asking awkwardly, "How do get the Earth King on our side? He won't forget quickly about our attempts to overthow him."
Long Feng calmly reached his hand out towards his right and flipped a small switch on a circular table. As a bright lantern began to rotate around the table in a hypnotic pattern, the lord of the Dai Li grinned, "Oh I believe he will forget anything we tell him to forget."
The two agents both smirked at their leader's cunning before Long Feng suddenly scowled, "However...we must keep the new Fire Lord and the Avatar busy while we attempt to rise up from the depths of our destruction, just like the phoneix-" Long Feng suddenly haulted as he uttered his last word, a grin slowly spreading across his tired face.
"Lee...Chou...I think I know of the perfect distraction for the Fire Kingdom" as the two members waited patiently for their sovereign to finish, Long Feng arose from his chair and began to walk towards the door, "Gather a few more of our members...you are going to pay the ex-Phoneix King a visit, hehehe."
Inside the depths of an old prison, within the area of the Fire Nation's palace district, was a cold, darkened cell, occupied by a man with long black hair which hung in a mess around the owner's chizeled face.
Ozai gave a sigh, his hundreth of the day as he leaned against the cell's dusty concrete wall, staring defeated at the brittle, black tiling of his new home.
It had been a little over four weeks, maybe a month since his defeat against the hands of that damn kid, the Avatar. He could only assume that his daughter Azula had failed him as well, and now he was left down here to rot, the once great Phoneix king, humbled by a kid and thrown into a small concrete prison, pathetic.
He thought back to about a week ago when his bastard son, the new Fire Lord had visited him and demanded to know the whereabouts of his mother.
Ozai chuckled darkly as he remembered giving him the coordinants for a scar-removal clinic, that would teach the punk...however now that he thought of it, where the hell did he stash Ursa anyway?
As he pondered where he banished his wife, voices arguing outside the door caught his attention before the room's door was roughly thrown opened, and five guards staggered in, wrestling with five different people, three men and two women.
"Aww come on maaaan, we were just groovin, you can't throw us in jail for groovin!" a man with wild hair flying out on each side of his multi-colored hat argued as he was pushed into a cell opposite of Ozai, followed by the two woman, and then finally a tall skinny man with long hair, and an obese man with a mustache.
Their 'groovin' insturments were thrown in with them as the guard slammed the cell shut, "Well when your 'groovin' throughout the Fire Nation palace unauthorized, then yes we can throw you in prison you dirty hippie nomads!" one of the guards yelled.
As the five guards began to file out, a female guard turned around and pointed towards Ozai as she grinned at the nomads, "And be respectful, your in the presence of royalty" she scoffed mockingly and Ozai scowled as he listened to the guards receeding laughter down the hall.
Ozai's gaze slowly turned away from the door, and towards the group of nomads who he was sure would be cowering in the very presence of his might. However his golden orbs widened as he gazed upon five very happy and oblivious smiles, "Hey, i'm Chong, hows it hangin Mr. Golden-eyes?"
Ozai stared in silence at the nomads with a death glare, however they either didn't notice or didn't care as he began to point at everyone, "And this is my wife lily. Also we have our big dude Moku, and the remaining two are Shilo and Lilac. We're nomads!"
Ozai wished to the heavens above that they could bestow his firebending back to him, if only for a minute so he could torch these friggin hippies. Then he would be content to wither away in this disgusting excuse for a cell for the rest of his life.
But since he couldn't kill them, maybe he could just scare them, "And I, am the great and powerful PHONEIX KING, the soon-to-be ruler of the entire world and once the great and ruthless Fire Lord! I will-" "Oh ok. Nice to meet you Fire Lord Omai" Chong said non-chalontley as he began to mindlessly strum a few notes on his guitar.
"Thats Fire Lord Ozai you mindless fool!" Chong laughed, "Oh, sorry Fire Lord Olai." the hippie smiled obliviously as Ozai growled in obvious irritation, but refused to press the matter further.
It was fifthteen minutes full of tastless music later, and Ozai was reduced to huddling in the corner of his cell with his hands to his ears, his teeth gritted in pain as he listened to the nomads butcher a classic Earth Kingdom song.
"Laaaaaa!" Chong finished with a sigh as the members put their insturments down. Ozai took this time to grip at his bars and yell at his jail-mates, "Will you kindly shut the hell up! Spirits that was the worst rendition of 'The Earth Shall House Us All' that i've ever heard!"
Chong didn't take the hint as the group smiled, "Wanna hear something else then?" Ozai shook with anger as he gave the bars a death grip, "Why yes I do! I want you to play a song that has the power to tear off this entire friggin wall and free me, because if you can't play that song then why don't you just smash those horrific instruments right now!"
Chong and the group scratched their heads, "Hmn...never played something like that, but hey what the heck" he laughed and began to play a very simplistic tone, accompanied by his wife's flute and backround dancers.
Meanwhile on the outside of the building, at the edge of the prison, five Dai Li agents quietly climbed up towards the side of the cell containing the once great Fire Lord Ozai. Suddenly the group hugged the shadows as a guard calmly walked by.
Two of the agents nodded simultaniously as they both shot out their rock hands, one pair covering the man's shocked mouth while the other bound his hands behind his back.
As the man feebly tried to pry free with muffled screams, the two ran up and quickly kicked him off the side of the cliff and into water below. Then after making sure the coast was clear, the five silently slipped back over to the cell wall, and held their hands out in typical earthbending fashion, "Is it bendable?" one asked the other, and after putting his hand onto it he nodded, "Yes, the base supports are metal but the wall itself is earth, we're good."
Back inside Ozai's cell, the man groaned in irritation as he watched the nomads make fools of themselves, "Oh Mr. Wall, what do I say? I say you open up and free us all today, all today! Woah woah." Ozai couldn't restrain himself from giving a chuckle, "Hmn, stupid nomads. This has got to be the worst idea I've ever hear-".
Sudden rumbling haulted Ozai's whispers before the wall seemingly began to crumble until a final explosion reduced the once proud wall into shambles. Chong and his friends grinned, "Well alright, that wasn't so bad! Lets get going" he said happily as the five nomads took off.
As the group began to disappear, Ozai continued to sit in his cell, his eyes seemingly frozen wide and his mouth agape as he continued to look at the now open space which was once the wall of the room's cells. Suddenly Lily skipped back in and grabbed Ozai's hand, "Come on Mr. Golden-eyes, lets get you out of here" she said sweetly.
Ozai mindlessly rose to his feet and followed the woman, while continuing to stare at the space. Then suddenly reality seemed to hit him and he tore his hand away from the woman and glared at the nomads, "OK! Hold on minute! How the fu-!" but he was cut off when the door to the room was thrown open and the five guards from earlier rushed in.
"No! Stop them!" one screamed as all five simultaniously dropped into their firebending stances and shot five consecutive streams of flames towards the group. Ozai and the others screamed as they began to dash away towards the prison's dock which led out into a peninsula and eventually the ocean.
With his eyes darting around rapidly, Ozai finally settled on a typical fire navy ship complete with catapult and steam engine. Being at the back of the group, the former Fire Lord smirked evilly as he crept away from the nomads and darted onto the ship.
Running up to helm of the ship, he began to press buttons that began to slowly raise the anchor, when a voice next to him made him jump out of his skin, "Ah, good idea Fire Lord Okai, lets take a ship to get out of here."
Turning around he was met with the smiling nomad group, "Yaa! Where in the hell did you come from?" Chong laughed, "Why from my mom and dad of course." Ozai shook his head in frustration and darted over to the engine.
Thats when a sudden realization hit him, "Aw damnit, this model is run by firebending, which I currently don't have. I'm screwed!" he shouted before Lily pulled out a stack of candle-like torches, "Would these help?" she asked and quickly pulled them across the rough surface of the ship, generating sparks.
Ozai watched as the eight candles flickered simultaniously before he quickly swiped them away, "Its not much, but it should get us out of the port if we can find something else to burn...preferably that guitar of yours" he finished in a dark tone as Chong clutched it denfesivly to his chest, "No way man!"
As the nomads scattered to retrive wooden items for the ship's engine, Ozai took the wheel and used the limited steam to slowly pull the ship away from it's place on the dock.
The five guards stood at the edge of the wooden planks that made up the dock, and watched in anger as one of their ships began it's decent out of the harbor. The female guard growled, "Son of a bitch" she muttered under her breath before turning to her breatheren, "We need to make chase immediatly. If we're quick we should be able to stop them before they make it out of the harbor."
All five guards nodded and quickly turned around to head towards another ship before they stopped immediatly at the sight of five shadowy figures standing ominously in their path, their black and green hats adding to their mysterious atmosphere, "I'm afraid we can't allow you to catch him just yet" one declared with venom before charging the group of firebenders.
Back on Ozai's ship, Chong and the others began to drag chairs and tables out onto the deck and chucked them into the furnace. Well all of them besides Moku who was currently leaning over the railing. Ozai noticed this and pointed towards him, "You, tubbie! Why aren't you helping?"
Moku groaned, his face green, "Is this a bad time to mention that I get severe sea-sickness?" he asked and Ozai responded by rolling his eyes and setting a course towards the harbor's exit.
Back on the dock, five firebenders lay either unconcious or writhing in pain upon the rickety wooden boards as the Dai Li members watched the distant ship through the moonlight, "Hmn...there he goes, the perfect distraction. Firelord Zuko will be so distracted making sure his dispised father is found and captured, that he won't see our rise coming."
Another nodded, "Yeah not to mention that he'll send his best warriors to catch him. Lets just hope he doesn't end up anywhere near Bai-Sing-Se." The third member looked down at the guards, "So what do we do with them?" he asked.
The captain of the small group looked upon their victims with cold eyes, "Kill them, but don't use any earthbending. No one must know that the Dai Li is behind this. Two of you rebend the prison wall back, while the other two dispose of these pests."
The group's captain stared silently as he watched the ship begin to fade out into the dense mist of the harbor, "God speed Ozai, God speed" he whispered into the waters as the slaughtering of the guards commenced behind him.
Author's Notes: Well there you have it. I didn't mean to make this chapter so serious, but I promise to had more slapstick and quickwitted humor in later chapters. Also in the next chapter we'll introduce our first group of characters who begin the chase after Ozai, namely Sokka, Toph (future Tokka, if anyone is intrested), and a suprise third character. Thanks for reading, and please do leave a review if you have the time.