I have returned, and I'm writing again (though not quite as well as my jaw hasn't healed completely yet, but the surgery went well) Here we return, even after all that they went through a year of trials and struggles and even after triumphing it fell. One person from Aang's past lives remains to hunt him much like Sozin did. The world has fallen around Aang and the others; Zuko overthrown, the Earth Kingdom is under the thumb of Long Feng, and the Southern Watertribe barely escaped being ruled over as well. Now the free people of the world must flee to the one remaining stronghold, the Northern Watertribe, and now they must gather together and strike back against an enemy blitzkrieg. The first question to be answered of whether or not they can fight off this enemy they must first reach the safety of the North Pole.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN Avatar the Last Airbender
This story is the sequel to the FanFic;
Avatar: the Last Airbender, Secret of the Black Vine
If you have not yet read the first part please do so, otherwise you will be completely lost.
Also; this story travels further OOC then the last one did as I am pulling us further into their older selves and the characters are going to grow into the world as it expands so will they!
Now let the story begin… again… kind of… *cough cough*
Avatar: the Last Airbender, the War of Two Titans
Chapter 1: The Edge of the Storm
Aang threw his glider over board; it looped high above him as he dived into the sky and launched into the night before the convoy. As he didn't want to cause Appa more discomfort, as he had been flying for quite some time, he left the bison aboard the ship and continued his patrol solo. He had kissed Katara goodbye again as he had left. She was looking stretched recently, and was beginning to show exhaustion, so he had made Sokka promise to get her to rest. He thought how she would be asleep right now probably, and then he imaged it, her smile still etched in his mind. She had been the one thing he still had after the war was over, she was there for him when it began, and at the end she was there still. Even now with the rest of the world again out of balance, she remained of the world of peace they had made together, technically the others remained as well but she meant more to him than anyone. Suddenly he saw the front of a storm brake through the sky and his train of thought was broken.
He would have to scout out further ahead to determine whether or not this storm was dangerous to move toward with the fleet. He had been flying high at cloud top so now he dived and sped toward the storm at low altitude, checking the wave height and wind at the surface as well as increasing his speed to check the storms size and direction. Aang wanted to check this quickly as he didn't wish to be far from the fleet for long. He didn't trust this area in the sea and definitely didn't want to leave them with lower defenses after what he had found a few days ago. The storm was moving west toward the earth kingdom coast and was too large to steer the fleet around, it was also moving fast enough to mean they wouldn't make it by it before it hit the earth kingdom coast and they would be stuck In the middle of the storm. Aang supposed they could stop at its edge and wait for it to pass without losing too much time but he didn't want to sit still for any period of tie. Again the images from his patrol two days ago played through his mind.
Aang was flying low just like he was now at the mouth of a river that let inland to the interior of the Earth Kingdom. He was checking on another storm then, one they had missed because it was small and fast moving, he had then noticed something just within the storm, several shapes in the water about ten miles off the coast, back grounded by the lightning of the storm. Aang arrived in the darkness of the storms shadow to investigate and the sight he found would haunt him, he knew, for the rest of his life. A small earth kingdom fleet, about a 6 of the size of the fleet Aang had mustered, was there. Or the remains of it were, the fleet was sinking, all 6 of the ships were burned and had signs of bombs being dropped on them. Aang flew in close and found more, the signs of water and earth bending also pocketed the ships decks as they slipped beneath the stormy waves. One of the ships was capsized so he could clearly see several holes in the hull, and then the most important and horrifying clues fell into his gaze. He looked to the middle and largest of the ships, which was sinking slowly backwards, as he flew around he found why. It was one of the ships that were once used by the earth kingdom to move refugees, and as he saw the stern he found its fatal wound. The entire rear half of the ships was gone, separated from the bow as though the vessel had been sliced in half by a giant sword and sent to the depths. He didn't half to wonder how the ships was attacked, or by whom, the next thing he found was that every vessel he could see still had the life boats attached, or at least the majority was. He saw a few empty life boats as well, but they were bobbing aimlessly in the high surf, slowly sinking and splattered with red. He had stopped his thought there and his investigation, he didn't want to continue to gaze upon the clear massacre. He turned away and sped toward his own fleet so as to protect it. The refugee fleet had been attacked barely ten minutes before Aang found it; the Earth Kingdom symbols on the ships had been covered in white cloth to indicate that they were neutral refugees.
Aang was furious and he grinding his teeth as he sailed on the wind toward his friends. He flew through the dark cloud of the storm and came across one final clue that he wished with all his heart, more than anything, he could forget. A white flag sheered from its posting and blowing in the air. A flag of surrender and in an instant Aang's mind played the events out. Ozai's airship was patrolling for signs of Aang, he came across that fleet and they surrendered, unable to fight; as they didn't have Aang Ozai lost interest in them. He saw them as insects and so attacked them and bombed their vessels, and even went so far as to practice his Sun Saber on them, and in the end he made certain to leave no witnesses. Ozai saw them as target practice and training for him troops. Aang was hit then by a thought that hit him like a strike from the fowl demon of a man himself… "If I had been more decisive…" he said to himself as he felt pain and regret and guilt at the same moment.
Aang was snapped back to the present as he came across his fleet, the sight of that massacre to his left about 20 miles west and 50 miles south, was the grave of those many people. He now looked below him and saw the deck of the flagship to his 40 ship fleet that he was escorting to the North Pole. It had grown as they had met about 11 more ships since they had Kioshi Island as they headed north and they had joined the convoy to protect each other. Aang landed on the deck and headed to the bridge to speak with Sokka, Chief Hakota, and the others.
"Hey Aang, how was patrol?" Sokka asked as he saw Aang enter the bridge.
"There is a large storm about 10 miles ahead, it's hidden behind that white cloud there but it's big, really big. I don't think we can out run it and pass between it and the earth kingdom before it would trap us between it and the shore. It's also too big to go around without wasting a lot of time and going way to close to that rumored island." Aang explained, pointing to the map that was on a table in the room, he indicated a rather crudely added marking to the left of the model ship indicating the fleet. And then to the earth kingdom markings to the right as well as pulling a large fluff of cotton in order to indicate an map out the edges of the storm as he had scouted it. "We definitely have to avoid that island at all costs, so I guess we have only two options."
"Stop at the edge of the storm and wait for it to clear, or-"Hakota began
"Continue this course and try to wade through the storm…" Sokka finished as his eyes darted about the map. Toph just huffed; she wasn't very fond of sea travel and didn't like the sound of driving a bunch of tin cans into a storm.
"I don't know if that's wise… Aang how big of waves are we talking?" Teo added from the chair he sat in, steering the ship.
"About 40 foot swells, not something we would normally try, but if we put two water benders per ship we should be able to eliminate that problem. And we have enough to do just that." Sokka pleaded, he didn't like the thought, but he wasn't going to support stopping in their tracks and waiting. "If we sit and wait, we might as well be painting a giant target on our deck…"
"True but we can't just dive straight into that storm; you know that they could hit us in there just as easily as out here. If we do get attacked I say we should at least give them as few advantages as possible." Toph reasoned to them, she was much clearer on what she wanted, which was to be ready for battle that she didn't want to come at all.
"There is one more option…" Aang added, "I could use storm bending to cut a path through the storm for us, I can't turn the storm away completely but I think I can at least make it a lot calmer around us." He had been training instead of really sleeping; he would enter his past and go to train with a few of his past lives that knew the process of storm bending. He couldn't actually practice with them really, as bending didn't seem to work in the spirit world. But he still could get the basics, learning from several various Airbender avatars, even though he was still searching for the one who had created the technique. He was finding it almost impossible to do, as he had reached back only 100 Avatars, and having done so he found that he couldn't go any further. Interestingly, out of those 100 past lives, only 4 knew storm bending, and each appeared in about 25 life increments, each learned it to deal with a special circumstance. He had tried to get them to explain what they meant by that, but it seemed that they all were collectively against telling him anything about what had happened to cause their mastering of this dangerous art. "Even though they are me they won't tell me anything, I still have to learn from them…stupid stubborn Avatars…" Aang muttered silently under his breath, but the others noticed and gave him odd looks. He just laughed and rubbed his bald head, which they took to a queue to chuckle themselves and then get back to coordinating the water benders for the storm run.
"Hey Aang, would you mind going and waking Katara up? We need her to get on deck so we are ready to move!" Sokka waved up to the observation deck where Aang was just starting to meditate o he could begin the storm bending. This however had ended when Sokka's shrill voice echoed through Aang's once peaceful thoughts like an explosion.
"Yeah alright…" he answered after shaking this rude awakening off and he headed down the stairs behind him to go and find Katara. He rounded a corner on the third deck, in the middle of the ship and walked down four doors and knocked three times on the door to the room. He slid the light stone door to the side and entered the cabin. It was modestly furnished and dark with the wooden shutters covering the circular window on the side opposite the hatch. A bed was set against the wall to the right with a chair set across from a couch to the left. The bed was covered in a thin sheet of cloth that formed the silhouette of a person, curled slightly and heaving up and down with the stead breath of the sleeping form. Katara's battle robe was draped over a stand of it like a model dummy, the arms of the stand outstretched so that the blue robes large sleeves fell toward the floor in a flowing way. Aang tip toed past the flowing robe which was very light and thusly fluttered slightly as a breeze entered the room. This same chilled air caused the sleeping mass to shutter slightly and hoist the covers to her chin.
Aang saw a stream of light come through a crack in the shutters and fall over Katara; he thought he was seeing an angel in his mind, especially from her flowing hair shining in the sun that had come from behind a cloud. He stared at her for a moment, lost in thought and memories from the peaceful time they had shared at dust in Ba Sing Se. Ba Sing Se- that was the thought that brought him to the present again- the thought of the city, and of the people, and of the man named Long Feng sitting on the throne. "Katara… Katara, it's time to wake up." Aang whispered into her ear as he bent down and gave her a small kiss on her forehead.
"Hmmm?" Katara opened her eyes slowly, closed them again and smiled as Aang placed a kiss on her head, she opened her eyes again and sat up slightly, clutching with one hand the cover up to her neck line, the other hand brushed her hair over her ear as she smiled up to the young man with the blue arrow on his forehead. "What's up?" she asked as he sat on the edge of the bed looking out into the room, he moved one hand in a circle a pushed forward with it, a vortex of air floating over to the window and pulling the shutters open. The fresh sea air poured into the room as Katara sat up against the headboard, she let the cover fall which revealed her to be wearing only her usual under garments that she used to go swimming and sleep in.
"We need to get ready; we're about to head through a storm and need all the benders we can get." Aang said sluggishly as he was still in thought about Ba Sing Se; Katara however, noticed his distracted demeanor and so turned him around to face her as he sat crookedly on the bed and she threw the covers from the bed. She kissed him like she had that night in Ba Sing Se, wrapping her arms around his neck and drawing him close as she deepened the kiss, biting his lip slightly. She pulled him back as she layed down, his hands on her hips as he lay above her she bit his lower lip and kissed him yet deeper. They were alone in a world of bliss, nothing but the two of them, nothing but their love. And then a roll of suddenly close thunder stirred them both from their stupor. Aang sat up and smiled as Katara groaned and smirked, her forearm over her eyes and her hair sprawled on the bed behind her. "Duty calls." He said as he leaned down again and kissed her lips then stood and went to stand in the corner. Katara groaned again as he walked away and so she too got up and pulled her hair into her usual style. She walked over to the robe stand and pulled the large combat robe over her shoulders, then wrapped the shawl around herself and tied the large ribbon into a traditional knot. She then took a basic stance and raised her arms loosely in the air. A stream of water flowed through the open window and formed a ring of water around her. With another movement like the sheathing of a blade the water flowed into several caps placed about the robe, the areas behind them suddenly inflated with the water which caused her to have a slightly bloated look but also meant she was twice as dangerous.
"So how do I look?" she baited Aang, who was smiling to himself as he watched her from his corner, he stepped forward and chuckled as he spoke.
'Honestly, that robe makes you look bigger when you add the 20 pounds worth of water." He snickered, but Katara's frown cut his laugh off.
"Oh, so now I'm bloated?" she asked warningly, she was laughing inwardly, but was still surprised he had taken that bait which was an obvious moment to say something completely opposite to what he had said. "Is that it?"
"No, I'm just saying it adds a lot of water weight!" Aang backed into the corner and shrank, and again Katara burst out laughing inside but frowned on the outside. Aang was tactless and his attempts and humor were pitiful to be honest. Katara turned from him in a huff, and he took his chance, moving swiftly behind her he wrapped his arms around her waist, leaning his head next to his ear. "You're the most beautiful woman in the world, and I personally can't believe you choose me." Aang began, and then stopped as Katara twisted her head back; placing her hand on his cheek she kissed him. She smiled and turned to him before walking to the hatch and then heading up to the deck. Aang looked out the window before he too headed up to the deck, and as he glance out he noticed the sky darkening, the ship rocked harder, and the wind picked up. Aang headed to the main deck, stepping out of the bulkhead he looked about. Toph and Teo were holding hands as Teo described the storm front before them to them; Sokka was giving orders to a few water benders who quickly headed to the boats on the side of the ship to spread out amongst the fleet. He saw Suki tying her Kyoshi battle armor over her robes from Trio Shu while she motivated the Kyoshi Warriors to stations; they were like the marines of the ship who would repel borders in an attack. Katara was stretching as she gazed out at the storm barreling down on them; she was clearly stiff and a bit agitated at being interrupted a few moments before. He stepped forward into the light as the shadow of the storm loomed before them. All heads turned to him, as if expecting him to make some important speech, and so he tried on the fly.
"This is it, we, um… we can do this and um… huh u yeah…." Crash and burn… Katara and Suki were laughing, Teo and Toph just shook their heads, and Sokka looked understanding, clearly memories of the eclipse had come up. So he rescued the bald guy.
"Ok troops, there are a lot of people counting on us and we aren't going to let them down. Now these clouds may very well be a storm that the Arbiter is bending at us, so we can't trust that it's going to be smooth sailing." Sokka boomed to those on the deck, "We have faced worse before and come out on top, now let's get to our positions people!" Sokka and the others headed to the bow, Aang nodded gratefully and then jumped high through the air and took his place at the top of the bridge, taking a stance he breathed in deeply and push his hand forward, But before he completed the form to break the clouds up the storm front shattered the cloud wall broken by the eruption of three Airships, two at the flanks of a Knoxium like craft. Aang's eyes widened as he saw the fire plume from the bomb cannons and saw the shapes of three cylinders tumbled through the air. He faintly heard Sokka voice below, "Remember what I said about facing worse, I take it back!" Aang knew full well they had faced worse, but three bombs heading for their ship wasn't good. His eyes tracked the first bomb and realizing it would hit Katara, and stepping forward he acted instinctively.
Airship, Observation deck (two days prior)
"My lord, the crews are reporting that they are ahead of schedule and the additional workers from Long Feng are due to arrive tomorrow. We predict that this will make launch possible within a year's time." The man spoke as he bowed to the man in the dark flowing robes. He was gazing out over the railing at the scene below.
"Perfect." Was all he spoke, the ground below parked in the night, lighting up the large structure below as it was pressed Against the Wall of the city, edged into the lake outside of Bas Sing Se in a massive dry dock as the night was lit by the work below, the thunder of the surrounding storm that rimmed the city drowned out by the din of the hammer on steel below. "Send messages to general Ozai… tell him to turn south and head into the storm there, then to wait on the southern edge for a special target."
Hope you have enjoyed the beginning of this story's middle and I hope your review. I know it's not quite as close to the way the original was as other continuations, but it is set further from the end, so it is going to be further from the original. Hope you have enjoyed this and please continue to read this story. Also, i am splitting writing time with this story and my Continuation on the Mortal Instruments series, which if you like my work you should defenately look at.
Next Chapter: Chapter 2, the Eye of the Storm