In Times of Crisis
By Deep Roller
Author's Note: I am a fan of Avatar. Well, that's kind of a given, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this. Sadly, as someone who works far too much for her own good, I cannot keep up with all of the episodes and resulting canon as much as I would like. Therefore, I beg the indulgence of my fellow fans for all of the inaccuracies and deviations from canon. I just want to also mention that this story leaves off after the "Blue Spirit" episode and that the majority of chapter one was written under the influence of Pirates of the Caribbean techno music. That is all.
Disclaimer: Nickelodeon owns my soul. And Avatar. If you don't recognize it and you feel an urge to throw something at it, it's probably mine. Except the land whales. They belong to LG. Don't hurt them. Save the whales. Thank you.
"You know what would go fantastic with this?" Sokka asked morosely as he stirred the sludgy contents of his bowl. "Real food."
"So when do you think we'll be able to be back in the air tomorrow?" Katara asked Aang, completely ignoring her brother's lament.
"I don't know, that west wind was worse on Appa than I thought. He braced against it for a good two hours and I think his shoulder's hurting."
"He flies all the time, doesn't he? He should be used to it by now." Sokka said with a shrug. "I bet if there was a good looking lady bison around here, he'd be in the air in seconds. Am I right, Appa?"
The flying bison in question merely snorted at Sokka before turning and meandering toward a patch of beach shrubs with a decided limp. "I guess there's just no joking with some people," Sokka muttered before returning to his previous occupation of bemoaning his cold, unlovely dinner.
"Anyway, what's your hurry, Sokka?" Katara asked. "You were complaining the entire time we were flying today."
"I was not," Sokka grumped.
" 'This wind is messing up my hair! Are we landing yet? Boy am I HUNGRY! I sure could do with stepping on ground right now. I've had enough with the wind.'" Aang imitated, popping up over Sokka's shoulder and scowling deeply. Katara laughed, which caused Sokka to scowl exactly as Aang was mimicking. "It's not funny, Katara." Sokka said through his scowl.
"Yeah, Katara, stop laughing at how messed up the wind made my hair." Aang supplemented in his best grouchy Sokka voice. This, of course, did nothing for the laughter and Katara doubled over in the sand, giggling helplessly.
"All right, I have had about enough of this picking on Sokka business."
"Yeah, especially since I'm so darn easy to make fun of, because all I do is complain and eat."
"That's IT, arrowhead, you are DEAD," Sokka growled, turning and locking an arm around Aang's neck. Aang wriggled away in protest and pushed Sokka down with a short blast of air. Striking an arm out for balance, Sokka knocked his bowl to the ground, distracting him for a moment. "My soup! I'll go hungry!!" He wailed over the contents sinking into the sand, his voice colored with very real anguish. His attention diverted, he didn't see Aang sneaking up behind him again until the Airbender leapt onto Sokka's back as though he were an errant penguin. The boys continued to scuffle in the sand as Katara fought to regain her composure.
A sharp series of splashing sounds made Katara's laughter die quickly in her throat and she looked ocean-ward with wide, alert eyes. Appa, disquieted as well by the noises, rumbled his displeasure and scooted further up the beach. Rising from where she had been kneeling in the sand, Katara jogged to the shoreline and peered out into the dusk. The ocean was darkening, but the waves seemed peaceful and undisturbed. She stared hard at the rolling water, positive she had heard something. Several somethings, in fact. But after a few moments she had to shake her head and return to the small circle of camaraderie that had welcomed the three travelers every night since they had set out on their journeying. Another noise made her startle again, but this one was easily identified.
"What do you need, Momo? Not enough fruit for you on this beach?" She asked the flying lemur indulgently as he leapt from the rock he had been perched on and landed on her shoulder. He chirred in answer and held out his hand, palm up, wigging the fingers briefly. "Well, the soup's all gone. Actually, there is a little left, but Sokka spilled it." She pointed to the overturned bowl and Momo was off her shoulder as quickly as thought and crouching beside the bowl, sticking his fingers into it and lapping at them hungrily.
"I don't think he got enough to eat today," Aang remarked, brushing sand from his clothes as he stood up and watched the lemur. Sokka, still crumpled rather dramatically in the sand, kept scowling. After a moment he sat up and began to brush the sand off as well.
"Didn't get enough??! That lemur eats more than any of us combined! He never stops eating!! He's not a lemur! He's a platypus bear before hibernation!!"
"It takes one to know one," Katara said, flashing a winning smile when Sokka glared at her before squaring his shoulders and speaking with a decided note of condescension. "Well, I suppose one of us has to be the responsible one and start setting up camp."
"Oh, don't be such a grouch, we'll help too!" Katara said, giving him a good-natured shove. "Won't we, Aang?"
Aang, who had been busy building a sand fort, whirled around quickly and nodded emphatically.
"Remind me again, Uncle, how wandering through the woods is going to help us." Zuko muttered as he pushed branches out of his face for the umpteenth time.
"If we follow this trail for another twelve feet, all signs point to us finding what we have been searching all day for," Iroh answered wisely, stepping around the branches with ease.
"But when we saw the Avatar earlier today flying east, you told them to veer the ship away. Are we going to come upon them and take them by surprise?" Zuko asked. "You'd better be right, Uncle. These branches are getting on my nerves." So saying, he snapped a branch that had smacked against his chest and threw it behind him with a growl of disgust.
"Shh!" Iroh, suddenly stern, stopped in his tracks. Surprised but respectful, Zuko stepped up as quietly as he could beside Iroh and looked at him questioningly. Iroh beckoned silently to Zuko and then began to creep forward. Zuko mimicked him, peering eagerly over Iroh's shoulder for a glimpse of their quarry. All Zuko could see when he looked, however, was an empty stretch of beach with a large cluster of rocks nearby. Iroh, however, peered around with stealth before walking forward, and scraping a handful of the seaweed draped languidly over one rock. Zuko blinked in surprise as Iroh returned and held out the handful of seaweed to him.
"I don't want that. Is that a sign that the Avatar has been nearby?" Zuko said, eyeing his uncle's strange pleasure dubiously.
"The Avatar? I don't know about the Avatar. This is sweetweed, and it's just what we need to solve our problem!"
"Our problem? Uncle, our problem is that we have not found the Avatar and we've been chasing him all day. What is this seaweed going to do for us?"
"Well, you well know that some of the soldiers make a habit of not bathing. And on a ship that can be disastrous. I can barely drink my tea without smelling it." Zuko growled and clenched a fist against his brow, willing patience with his uncle. Through clenched teeth, he spoke.
"Does all of this have a point?"
"If you dry this sweetweed like so, it smells like flowers!" Iroh said happily, dangling a strip of the sweetweed over his open palm, the strip drying quickly with a small flicker of fire beneath it to aid it. A rather pleasant aroma drifted around them and Zuko shook his head and sighed in frustrated defeat.
"Uncle, it's getting late. We can't get back to the ship tonight, it's too dark. Let's just-" Zuko stopped, the sound of voices beyond the rock cluster reaching his ears. He raced to the rocks and climbed them swiftly, peering over the edge at the dark, almost indistinguishable shapes below him and trying not to be seen.
"I want four of you to search the northwest quarter, and another four to search the easternmost. The rest of you are staying with me," a familiar voice ordered. Zuko grit his teeth, snarling silently at the armored back of the man striding across the beach with a handful of troops walking steadily at his heels.
"Great," he muttered under his breath, "of course Zhao would be searching this beach, too." Zuko slid down the rocks soundlessly and returned to Iroh, who was patiently collecting more sweetweed from the surrounding rocks and the shoreline and putting the strands in a basket. "We'd better head someplace else, Uncle. Zhao is here."
"Why should we be the ones to leave, Prince Zuko? We were here first." Iroh said, cocking a quizzical eyebrow at his nephew. "Besides, there is nothing we are hiding from Admiral Zhao. And if Zhao is here, that means the Avatar must be on this beach, as well. They must have seen him land. I suggest we keep going the way we had intended. Who knows? We may find what we are looking for."
"More seaweed?" Zuko asked even as he saw the sense in his uncle's words. "Come on, then." Both of them took up large pieces of driftwood and set them ablaze before heading on down the beach, away from Zhao's men.
Katara struggled into wakefulness when she smelled smoke, propping herself up on her elbow and calling into the darkness . "Aang," she spoke thickly without opening her eyes, "could you put out the fire?" Without waiting for an answer, she sank back into her bedroll. But then her eyes snapped open again in sudden, wakeful alarm. Fire? They hadn't even had a fire that night because of the chance of it being seen from the water. In fact, they had moved their campsite back into the forest so they wouldn't be out on the beach, so closely had they been pursued that day. Fully awake now, Katara struggled and kicked out of her bedroll and was on her feet. She stumbled over Sokka's canteen, which had been strewn in the dirt near her bedroll. The area surrounding their campsite had been burned and flames were still licking hungrily at the branches nearby. The fire had not had time to do more than lap at the branches, whoever had caused it could not be far. There was no sign of Sokka, or of Aang.
Katara stared at the fire, hypnotized as it grew hungrily. She realized she couldn't let it get any bigger, or it would be out of control. She looked wild-eyed for anything to put it out. Of course! Gathering up Sokka's abandoned canteen, she felt the reassuring slosh of water within. Hurriedly and almost unthinkingly, Katara lashed water at the burning trees, bending the spray to extend to the trees beyond the reach of the canteen. She had time to feel a moment's elation when she heard the hiss of the fires going out. If she had woken much later, there would have been little hope. With the fires out, their true meaning stole over her and she looked wildly around her again. The fight had been very recent, even moments ago, and there were other signs of a struggle. She ran swiftly, following the singed earth and praying she wasn't too late.
The sight that met her eyes on the beach was a discouraging one. Sokka lay facedown in the sand, his hands bound behind him. Aang was cornered by a group of Firebenders that was getting larger by the moment. He was whirling and kicking up sand and giving it everything he had, but they had him completely surrounded. She knew that she had to give him a chance to get away, any chance she could. She glanced from where Aang was fighting to where her brother lay bound and unguarded. Aang could hold his own a few more minutes while she got Sokka free and they made a plan. Sokka raised his head and glanced in her direction as she dashed to his side to undo his bonds.
"Ka-" Sokka began to say before her palm slapped over his mouth.
"Stay quiet, they haven't seen me, they're all too busy with Aang. When I get you free, we're going to distract them so he can get to safer ground." Her hands worked feverishly fast and she stifled a cry of triumph when she finally got him loose. She held a finger fiercely to her lips and gestured for him to follow her.
"Katara, what are we going to do? Those Fire Nation guys will sear us in a second if we call out! They were talking about turning me in as a war criminal. And they singed my hair!" He added, brushing a hand over his head experimentally.
"We're going to distract them," Katara answered, never taking her eyes off of the fight going on on the beach. "I don't know how yet, but we have to. I don't think Aang can hold up much more. There's too many of them."
"What can we do?? They won't even look our way, not with-"
"HEY!! Get away from there!!! That's my Avatar!!!" Another familiar voice rang out on the beach and Katara and Sokka stared at each other wide eyed before turning their eyes back to what looked to be Prince Zuko and his uncle running down the beach toward the fight.
"What do you think you're doing?!" Zuko roared angrily as the Fire Nation soldiers blasted haphazardly at Aang. Aang scrambled up a shaky tier of rocks and drafted another bout of air at them. When they heard Zuko shouting, however, the soldiers all turned to regard the prince with puzzlement. One of the soldiers turned his aim toward Zuko and was reeling back a moment later, his armor ablaze. The other soldiers realized what Zuko was doing and rushed to the aid of their comrade, blasting jets of fire at Zuko. These were met with return fire, and when Iroh finally caught up to Zuko, he fought as well, turning to throw a slapping blast of fire at a soldier who would attempt to strike at Zuko's back. The prince and his uncle stood back to back, holding off the same circle of Fire Nation soldiers that Aang had been dealing with a moment before. From their hiding spot behind the rocks, Katara and Sokka watched in wonderment despite themselves at the fast, ferocious battle that was going on.
"I hope they don't set the beach on fire," Aang commented behind them.
"Oh, there's nothing to burn out here, I don't think. It's all just rocks and…Aang!!" Katara shrieked in relief. "Aang how did you-" Aang put a hand over her mouth, much as she had put one over Sokka's earlier.
"Shh, they'll hear you! I got up on that rock pile and they all forgot about me when Zuko showed up!" He explained.
"You didn't need a distraction from us, then." Sokka said with some disappointment. He had been hoping to be heroic, though he had to admit he had had no idea of how to distract the Fire Nation soldiers. "We had a good distraction, too. It would have worked beautifully! But now what? We can't leave, they'll see us!"
"Maybe we don't have to leave, maybe-" But Aang didn't finish his thought because the attention of all three of them was turned swiftly back to the drama on the beach. Admiral Zhao strode leisurely toward the face-off occurring on the beach, two Fire Nation soldiers at each side. His other men had completely surrounded Zuko and Iroh, and all fighting came to a standstill when Zhao spoke.
"Prince Zuko! What a surprise to see you in our neck of the beach!" Zhao said pleasantly, grinning at Zuko's black look. "And what brings you here?" Zuko remained silent, glaring at the admiral with naked loathing. "Speak up, boy, you're talking to the Admiral, you know. Wouldn't do to not show respect. Your father wouldn't approve." Zhao fairly growled.
"We're here for the Avatar. He is mine by right and you know it. You couldn't hold him even when you did have him, so it's my turn." Zuko said coldly, noting that Zhao's eyes widened when Zuko mentioned Aang's escape.
"How did you know about that?" Zhao asked softly, stepping very close to Zuko and staring hard into his eyes.
"Who doesn't know?" Zuko responded smartly, hands balling into fists at his sides.
"I ought to have you arrested, you treasonous little brat. In fact, I think that's what I shall do. Yes, for harming fellow Fire Nation soldiers, I shall just have to have you both imprisoned. For life sounds about right. Exiled, stripped of your rank. No, I don't think that will do, that's already practically happened. We want to leave you with some little sliver of hope and dignity, after all. It's more fun that way, when that dies, too." Zhao fairly beamed at the two of them before gesturing curtly to his men to bind them up.
Katara watched the entire drama, her fingers clutching at the rock and her breath held. They might escape after all! She felt her knees begin to tremble with relief, but then they continued to tremble for long moments. Her hands trembled as well, where she clutched at the rock. She exchanged puzzled looks with Sokka and Aang, who seemed to be shaking as well. Suddenly, the splashing sound she had heard earlier returned, and doubled, trebled in volume and in quantity. The ground beneath them began to shake, and when she looked out at the sea, it was positively frothing, whitecaps shining in the gloom of the night. Shouts from the soldiers filled the air as shaking filled the ground. Katara thought she heard Zhao shouting, but it could have easily been Sokka, for he was much closer. Aang called for Appa, and she heard the bison crashing through the forest. Unthinkingly, she stepped out from behind the rock to better see what was happening.
Immense black shapes with luminous white eye patches and underbellies were charging out from the water as a high, keening noise filled the air. Their tall dorsal fins sliced through the water like knives as they slid onto the shore. Short, broad, powerful forelimbs propelled the first creatures forward. A panicked soldier dashed in front of the creatures and it turned its blunt-nosed head to the side and casually scooped up the soldier, swallowing him down in one quick movement. In the motion, Katara had gotten a glimpse of the creature's long sharp teeth, and she yelled. "Land whales!! Aang, Sokka!! Run!!" She needn't have given that instruction, as Sokka went racing down the beach in the opposite direction, the direction a few of the Fire Nation soldiers had gone. Katara began to race unthinkingly after him when she came eye to eye with one of the giant creatures. It reared back onto its haunches, jaws open wide.
"Katara!" Aang shouted, shoving her out of the way. The motion completely unbalanced her and she flew forward into the sand, teeth clicking together painfully against her tongue. Aang darted around the land whale, distracting it, while Katara struggled to her feet for the second time that night. She happened to glance further down the beach, and a noise of dismay erupted from her. "Katara!" Aang shouted again, from the back of the rearing, frustrated land whale, "RUN!! Now! I don't know how much longer I can do this!" Instead of running away, Katara ran further down the beach toward a slumped form that had been trampled by several panicked soldiers. A land whale, also noticing the rather easy prey, propelled itself forward. Gathering beach pebbles, Katara hurled them at the creature, trying to divert it as she advanced on the body in the sand.
"Go on! Go away! Get out of here!" She shouted at the animal, striking it on the rostrum with one pebble. "This one's mine! Leave me alone! Go on!" The land whale stared at her with an eye larger than her hand before deciding the small, noisy creature was too difficult as prey. It propelled itself back into the waves with disappointment. Several others further down the beach, however, had taken notice of her. She had to leave, and soon. The person curled at her feet had his face half turned into the sand. Katara rolled him over by one shoulder to get a better look and gasped in surprise when Prince Zuko looked blearily back at her. But he merely groaned and went slack again. Backing away in surprise, Katara looked around for Aang. When she spotted him balancing on the domed head of one of the land whales, she shouted and beckoned. He leapt deftly to the sand and raced toward her. He too looked down at Zuko and then back at Katara.
"We can't leave him here!" She shouted above the roar of the waves and the roar of the advancing land whales. "We have to help him!" Aang nodded and motioned for her to help pick him up. Katara grunted as she lifted Zuko beneath his shoulders and Aang hoisted him by the legs.
"Fire Nation armor is heavy!" Aang called almost cheerfully. When one of the land whales slid unexpectedly and swiftly forward, mouth agape, Aang jumped in surprise and nearly dropped his end of the carrying. "Let's get someplace safe and figure the rest out later!!" Katara, straining under the unconscious weight she was carrying, only nodded fervently and began running after Aang. In an offhanded way, she felt rather sorry to see Zuko's head jouncing and nodding bonelessly along with each step they took.
The sounds of the hunting pod of land whales carried out across the beach for a good long time, and it was almost dawn before the animals slid back into the water and headed for the depths once more.