Okay, I've made you guys wait long enough . After getting two requests for a Jetzula, I decided that it was time to inject some of this into the much deprived FanFiction world. As well as feeling the need to wait a bit so as to not come out of my usual rut of waiting forever, I've managed to come up with a way to write Jetzula without making it an AU. (I don't like writing those, but reading them is so much fun!) Enough of my blather now. Here you are!
Disclaimer: Use your head. That's all I must say.
PS: This site's title is FANfiction.
Oh, hey, I did use a quote from Pirates of the Caribbean in there. Kudos to anyone who's half as obsessed as I am and can find it (and tell me).
Jet hopped across the branches, landing nimbly and swiftly on the top branches of another tree near by. He knew the war was soon coming to an end, and it would be up to him to fight his part, and if need be, go out with a bang, taking out as many of the vile Fire Nation as he could.
On the plus side was that there was no Avatar or friends to stop him this time. Whatever it took, he swore to himself that this area of the Earth Kingdom would soon be free of disgusting, despicable pests in red.
A low bird whistle came to his ears, and he answered with his own signal. It was nearly time. Lithely, he hopped out of the tree, landing thirty feet below with the softest of thuds.
This was his master plan, with no obstacles, nothing to stop him from accomplishing his task. The one plan with not a flaw. It was perfect, and all they needed was time, of which they had a vast supply.
Creeping across the shadows, Jet looked down into the city, where people, both Fire Nation and not, were bustling about in their normal state. He just knew that the innocents down there were terrified, and the soldiers took their pride and strength from their fear.
He knew, because he had been there, in that city once, and no one had helped. He had watched his parents, his family, his friends, his life burn and crumble to ashes to be blown away and forgotten by the wind. This memory sparked in him a rage that hadn't visited him since he saw the Fire Prince and his Uncle walking in plain sight within Ba Sing Se – the safest place on earth.
He shook his head to clear the red haze that had filmed over his vision, and noticed that his lips were drawn back in a snarl, face contorted in such a way it would have scared anyone. Jet took a deep breath to calm himself, closing his eyes momentarily.
Releasing the breath with a huff, accompanied by another whistle, Jet signaled to the others the approaching night. He thought of the succession of the steps in his plan, while readying his weapons.
Unsheathing his tiger hook swords silently, he listened and waited for the final signal. All but his part would have been completed smoothly. Suddenly, without even a rustle or a whisper of a breath, his hooked swords were yanked out behind him, and something collided painfully with his shins, throwing his buckling form to his back.
Lying with his arms pinned beneath him, he faced the sky, and saw in the edges of his vision, a girl with a lethal smile, and not a hair out of place. She looked about his age, and he heard her say, "That's not the best way to do that, you know."
Her accent was impeccable, voice sharp and clear. She didn't flinch as Jet jumped back to his feet, frowning at her. "What do you mean, and who are you?"
Her answering chuckle scared him more than he would ever admit. Resisting the urge to shiver, he repeated his questions, more forcefully: enforcing his inquisition with the tip of his sword to her neck.
Waving it away from her face without even a passing glance at it, she rolled her eyes at him, and said, "You'd want to fix this problem of yours by organizing a coup from the inside to get the people on your side. They would help you in your quest to overthrow whomever you're overthrowing. Rather than this half-brained scheme of blowing up everything. If that's what you would call this. I call it simply foolish."
He glared, and growled through bared teeth, "You haven't answered my second question." His mistrust was mounting by the moment. Another plan, to be foiled by a girl at the last moment.
She folded her arms, and leaned on one hip; a classic move of displaying lack of concern. "Who I am is of the least matter to you. All I shall say is that I am not quite welcome here either." He could trace no scent of a lie in her voice, yet he found it hard to seek help so desperately needed from a stranger who took him down without getting a scratch upon her.
"Don't believe me? Alright, that's completely fine, only I want the same thing you want, and I will have to stop you if you continue in this foolhardy manner." She stared him in the eye.
His scowl did not lessen as he asked, "What's your purpose in destroying this city? What's it to you?" The final whistle came and went by unheeded, as the leader of the plan was too confused to concentrate upon sounds in the air.
Yet, before answering, the girl smiled something that resembled a grimace, and answered the whistle with the perfect code to commence the countdown. Ignoring Jet's gasp of surprise and suspicion, she answered, "Oh, it's all to do with the weeding out of the mistakes of this world. If you'd like to enlist in my help, you would do well to slow that countdown of yours."
"Why'd you start it in the first place if you wanted me to stop it?"
"I initiated it to stop the arousal of suspicion in you friends up in the trees. I would much rather not fight and kill all of them, it might get my hands dirty." She displayed to him her perfectly manicured nails.
"Fine. What do you propose now? The fire has been started already." He clicked his tongue between his cupped hands, and it hit the trees in the exact right spot, resonating magnified through the forest. "Gao Shing can't really be saved either way now." He added as an after thought.
"I am aware of that. But time will suffice. If you will," she gestured at the canyon's base at which the third largest city of the Earth Kingdom lay unaware of its imminent doom. Shrugging at his raised eyebrow, she stepped back from the edge of the cliff's lip, to run back and throw herself off with a flip.
"What are you doing?" he screamed, racing after her, both freefalling in the air that screamed in their ears. This jump he had never even contemplated, fifty feet higher than any he had ever attempted.
Noticing the girl below roll over in mid-air, he was quick to copy, and noticed with a grin that she knew exactly what she was doing. There was a huge boulder, sharpened by the biting winds that he had just avoided by this stunt. He was careful to watch her plummeting form for more tactics.
At this point, he noticed something strange. She was not wearing the colors of any nation, but a warrior's outfit fitted in all black. Her hair was yet not out of place, and she had a calm, collected air about her, even falling without a parachute for more than a hundred feet. Coupled with her attitude and strangely colored features – her eyes were gold as it were – this inspired in him a blazing curiosity the likes of which he had never experienced before.
"What's your name?" he shouted, barely hearing himself over the screaming wind. After perfectly executing another flip and just avoiding a sharp obtrusion on the cliff face. Jet, not nearly as graceful, hooked his sword onto it, and spun himself in an arc around it, rather than being impaled.
Turning back to the ground, which was close now, he noticed the girl land on her feet for half a second, and roll over her head to reduce the shock of the impact on her feet. He copied her to the best of his abilities.
Wincing at the jarring impact, he resisted futilely the pressing urge to rub his feet which had landed under the full weight of him, his swords, and his pack filled with explosives. He turned up to look at the trees from which he had jumped. His heart leapt to his mouth, seeing the height from this far below. It was at least three hundred feet high.
A face poked out from the edge, looking frantically around. A face framed by a scraggly, bushy silhouette of hair. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouted upwards, "Smellerbee! Down here! I'm alright! Tell them not to blow yet!" He knew she heard, because, in the next moment, a whistle meant only for him filtered down. It affirmed his request, but was filled with worry, and something else…pride?
Not bothering to wonder about it, he turned to face the girl once more, only to see her rising from her crouch behind a boulder. "I do not make my presence known to all." She said coolly.
"What is your name?" he asked again. She turned away, seeming to stare out into space. With an exceptionally convincing tremble in her voice, one that even fooled the master liar, she said, "My name marks me as what I am not. Call me by what you want. I answer to many names."
Either she was an amazing actress and had done her research on his Freedom Fighters, or she was telling the truth. Taken aback by her statements, however, Jet knew by instinct it was the latter. The same instincts that drove him to lead the Freedom Fighters in such raids and fights such as this one. "Ah…What did your parents call you?"
Her face turned noticeably red, convincing him further. "My mother once called me 'Princess' that's the last I remember of her." She alone knew there was not a lie out her mouth the entire time. Something compelled her to take interest in this rogue, to help him blow up a city conquered and renamed after a Fire Lord – New Azulon. Yet, her lie faltered when she spoke of her mother, so slightly that the boy did not notice, but enough to curse herself. Her voice broke in anger when she spoke of the woman she had unfortunately been born to.
He paused. "Princess. Er… how about I just call you Pyra?" She stopped short, her hands balled into fists. "What did you say?"
"Er…Pyra?" She whipped around to glare in his face, hardly an inch away. Backing off, afraid he'd done wrong, he asked timidly, "Wh-why?"
She steeped forward and caught him by his collar. "It is I who should be asking that of you. Why did you say that? I demand, no, order you to tell me why."
"I – I don't know. You remind me of fire, that's all. Why…why don't you like the name?" He put up his hands in defeat, a completely new, yet thrilling feeling for him. Here was a girl who finally managed to clear his head a bit, and he was making a fool of himself!
"It is a long story that we do not quite the time to share around a campfire in a tree right now. That city is about to blow because of your foolhardiness." She let go of his collar and began to run towards where he had set up a line of explosives, supposedly hidden from every angle unless you knew where to look.
After a moment, he regained his senses and began to sprint after her. "What do we do now, if it's too late?" he called, ashamed at his dependency. He was supposed to be the leader, not some stranger who just popped in and took control.
"You will see." She did not break her stride.
"Why are you so mysterious?" He threw the casual question at her, hoping to catch her off guard.
"That is for my own reasons. Perhaps you will learn one day." He grinned involuntarily. She was going to stay around, as it seemed. There would indeed be time to talk.
She reached the explosives, where five of the Freedom Fighters were doing everything possible to stop the fire from reaching them. "Step back," she ordered.
They turned and looked up at her, shock and amusement on their faces. Who was she to order them about? Longshot stepped forward, an eyebrow raised.
Jet came up behind the girl, and said, "Do what she says. She's fine." Faces of shock turned to their leader. "Don't ask questions, but we've got to stop this fire. Step back."
They wouldn't dare disobey their fearless leader, but they had a doubt in their minds. "You must step back, too." The girl turned fierce golden eyes on him.
"No, I can help." He shook his head firmly. Unused to being disobeyed, the girl hid her shock and fury by turning back to the explosives. "Your funeral," she muttered.
Suddenly, there was a flash of blue and an explosion. Before any of them knew it, they were severely burned and the city was in flames, people running in all directions in panic. Not a single Fire Nation guard was singed in the least.
"What did you just do?!" Jet screamed at her, cradling his burned and nearly useless arm. Smiling evilly, she turned to face him, unscathed and holding blue flames in each hand. "All Fire Nation outpost guards are Firebenders, and they wear fire-proof armor. And my name is Princess Azula of the Fire Nation." She examined her fingernails, not heeding his shock.
Suddenly, Smellerbee leapt on top of her, kicking the Princess to the ground. Longshot followed close behind, also wrestling the squirming girl. He wrenched her hands behind her, and Sneers locked them in chains resembling handcuffs.
Jet, completely frozen, watched in alarm. Azula rolled to the side, throwing off all three of them, and leapt to her feet, hands still chained behind her. Knowing more than she let on, she forced her hands under her legs, until they were in front of her, rather than behind.
Jet pulled his hands up in front of him to fight her off, as did his fellow Freedom Fighters. She chuckled at his idea of fighting her, and threw the chain around his neck twisting it tight. Smellerbee, Longshot, and Sneers reached out to stop her, while the other two, Skillet and someone called only Z pulled out their weapons of choice.
"Let him go," Z growled, her voice dangerously low. Recognizing an opponent, Azula smiled. She twisted the chain harder, poking two fingers by Jet's temple. "No. Try this. You – all of you step away, and I think about not burning his brains through, or you don't step away, I burn his brains through, and kill the rest of you as well. Take your pick, I can wait that long," Z's brows came down, contracting hard in anger.
"Or perhaps we can do this – you let him go and we think about not killing you, or you don't let him go, we kill you and let the gore-vultures deal with your remains. Take your pick, we can wait that long, too," She crossed her arms.
Azula smiled. "You've got an instinct that is so Firebender – like those Dai Li at Ba Sing Se. It would be a pity to kill you, but I don't mind."
Z frowned, watching as Jet grabbed the chain at his neck and grinned at her. "Z," he choked, "Duck!" She returned the grin and ducked immediately, knowing what was to come next.
Jet kicked the ground hard, and flipped around to chain, hitting Azula's shoulder in the process. She fell to the ground, but was up in a split second, chain broken by the force of Jet's impact. "Longshot," he told the next-in-command, "get them out of here! This fight is between me, and her."
He did not budge his eyes from the girl standing in front of him, poised to pounce. Longshot, with a curt nod, ushered them a ways back, but not far enough away that they couldn't help if Jet was seriously hurt.
Azula laughed. "What chance does an Earth Kingdom ruffian non-bender have against the crown Princess of the Fire Nation, lightningbender and master Firebender?"
Jet didn't answer, but swiftly turned and rammed his tiger-hook sword into her right shoulder. Azula buckled a moment, but retaliated with a lightning bolt of her own, which Jet dodged. Without waiting for a counter-attack, she threw a fireball at him, which hit his stomach directly.
Bent over, Jet felt the rage return, and the red haze covered his eyes again. He felt the adrenaline pounding fiercely through his veins as he straightened to face her smirk. "Still think you have a chance?" she chided.
"Yes." He flipped around, catching her shoulder again, dislocating it. "This is it." She growled and shot another lightning bolt at him, hitting near his heart, and making his left arm useless. "There are no chances when fighting Crown Princess Azula."
Eyes watering in pain, Jet clutched at his shoulder and said, "What happened to Hothead, the real Crown Prince?" Dodging her kick, he whipped around and punched the small of her back, paralyzing her as effectively as Ty Lee could – and entirely by accident.
Azula fell to the ground, all bending blocked and all fight immobilized. There was no one to save her now, either. She looked up at him and snarled, "Kill me now. I demand it."
Jet smirked and pushed the tip of his sword to her neck. "I can comply with that. Any last words?" She stared up at him, but something had changed in her eyes. It was not fear, nor pity, nor anger, but something altogether implacable. "No," she whispered, voice full of whatever had changed in her eyes.
The rest of the Freedom Fighters came up to the remains of the fight, where Jet was badly burned and had a broken rib, and the Princess was immobilized with a dislocated shoulder. Smellerbee and Longshot lifted up the Princess so she would face her death standing, while Z and Sneers glared icy daggers at her. Azula glared back, eyes filled with icy hate in return. Yet, when she turned to Jet, the iciness was still there, but the hate was softened to something potentially even more dangerous. Something only Smellerbee was able to place.
To afraid to speak aloud her realization, Smeller backed away slightly, seeing the same emotion in Jet. It was one she saw when Longshot looked at her or her at him. This was oh so very bad.
Jet, unaware, stared across at the Princess, who had been leaned onto the remains of the wall she had blasted away. She stared back, and neither moved for a long time. The sword was still pressed to her neck, a single drop of blood welled around the tip. "Just kill me now," Azula pleaded in a whisper.
Jet looked past her face, out at the smoldering city, where he saw villagers helping each other up – a family torn and grieving here and there, a couple broken and lost. He had pinned her to the wall with the butt of his palm against her good shoulder, and both were contemplating the consequences of his choice – whatever it may be of yet.
He caught sight of a woman slowly helping a man up from where he lay wounded. Two small children ran to their father, who was mourning the sudden loss of his young wife. Another child screamed aloud and alone at the sight of his entire family lost to him forever. No one was alive enough to calm the poor orphan – no one was left unscathed from this mistake.
Jet closed his eyes against his follies. A moment later and he would have noticed the twitch of Azula's head and the signs of regaining mobility she showed. Jet spoke with his eyes closed. "Smeller, Longshot, Z, Sneers, Skillet, please, go back. I want to talk to her alone. Don't worry about it. This was my fight, and now it's mine to end. Gather the firewood and the dinner. I will be there soon."
The Freedom Fighters knew well not to disobey this wish, and they trooped back to their tree house hideout. Z, upon reaching the other side of the canyon's edge to climb it, stepped away from the rest of them and hid behind a rock. When Smellerbee had backed off, she knew what the younger girl had seen, and wanted to make sure.
Jet opened his eyes. Looking into Azula's, he whispered sadly, "This was my mistake today. Not yours. Because of me, so many have died gruesome deaths, and the people I wanted gone have remained unscathed. Never before have I been forced this way to see the pain I have cost." He lowered the sword. "I know not why you are here, but I do know this – what happened today would have been inevitable, with or without your interference. And it would have been, as it is now, my fault and none else's. You are free to go – making me see this, you have changed me, and I cannot kill you."
He let go of Azula's shoulder, and she slid slightly down, but caught herself on her slowly recovering feet. Jet did not miss this. She did not move further, either. "You take full credit for this plan?" She shook her head in mock-sadness. "If it were not for me ordering the guards away from this area today, these explosives would not have been here. If it were not for me jump-starting the bombs with pure lightning, do you believe they would have even ignited? You forgot to douse them in oil and burn the outsides! I came to do this and nothing else…but there is something else of importance now, which I cannot speak of."
"You are… remorseful?" Jet asked of her. This ignited her anger, and she kicked off from the wall. Grabbing the swords hanging loosely in his hands, she crossed them around his neck, choking him as she had earlier. "A Princess is ruthless. She feels no remorse. Ever. This is…is something else."
Jet did not fight back. "There was another reason I let you go," he said to the best of his abilities. "And it's the same reason I ask you now not to kill me." Z crept slightly closer to hear, silent as the breaths of wind that stroked the smoky outline of the once-great city behind them.
Azula tightened her grip, and Jet coughed from the sudden extra constriction of his trachea. "And what might that be?" She asked in a dangerously smooth and soft voice.
Jet looked at her from the corner of his eye. "Because you and I are very alike, and you're going to want to know what it's like. To do what's right. Now you've been given that chance, this opportunity to prove that. And I dearly hope you will."
She smirked. "I like to shoot those moments down as they pass by, as you might simply wave. Because you and I are so very un-alike, and we want different things. I am a crown Princess and you are a simple ruffian who doesn't think these things through." She slammed him into the wall behind, making it crumble further.
Wincing slightly, he said with a hoarse, strained voice, "But you and I are alike – we are both willing to do anything to get what we want. By any means we will win in the end. There is no compromise, and no second-guessing or self-doubt. And that's why you won't kill me now."
She arched an eyebrow, intrigued at his explanation for her dallying. Normally, he would have been long dead and her long gone, but something had stopped her when she was fighting him, and here he stood, alive, if not perfectly well. "Oh?"
"Because you love me, and I know it, same as you. And…it's…the same reason I didn't kill you before, and the reason I made them leave. As hard as that is to say or believe, we both know it's true. I can see that in your eyes." It didn't matter to him that he was being cocky and probably angering her. This was his show, and his time to tell the matter-of-fact truth.
Azula's eyes widened for a moment, and she flinched, her hands coming slightly closer in the process. Jet saw the world through tunnel-vision as he began to black out for lack of air. The last bit he saw was Azula dropping the swords with a clang to the ground in complete shock. He knew that no one might have ever told her what he had not a moment before. Nobody had ever told her they loved her in any way. What a terrible fate.
Z watched in horror and fascination as Jet fell to the ground unconscious, and Azula stood above him, confused and shocked. She herself was more confused than ever. Jet never truly loved anybody – he had never let them get close enough to do so, for fear they would be obliterated by the Fire Nation. She supposed it may have been some stupidly fairy-tale-like love at first sight that just so happened to work the way it did since no one would ever dare to double cross the Princess of the Fire Nation. Not even her own father – that news had traveled the war torn world to reach everyone.
Now, there was nothing that could come from her mistrust of the girl's intentions. She knew that the Princess was pure evil, and nothing would ever change that. But if her leader decided to follow her, she knew she would go with him, as would most of the Freedom Fighters – they'd travel to the ends of the world and back for their fearless, revolutionary leader.
They might not be so willing to tail behind one of the leaders of the opposition, the ones who erased their old lives into ash to be blown away, the ones who killed and murdered everything and everyone they held dear, the ones who were the cause of the fight left inside them to survive and return the favor. Z had to calculate quickly and make that decision.
Before she had the chance, Azula had recovered from her complete frozen, petrified shock. "You will not have to make any such decision. This place is wrong. I…I will leave it for good." She looked directly at where Z had been hiding, completely and totally invisible to them. "I heard you gasp," she offered simply. Without waiting for an answer, she looked down at Jet sadly and said, "Tell him…tell him that he was right, but it was an unaffordable option for me." She knelt and put a hand to his face for a sliver of a moment, after which she curtly stood and walked into the horizon.
Z didn't know what to do, so she did the only thing she knew – she challenged the Princess. "What about all these people? What are you going to do now? Kill more, that's obvious, but what's your next real move? You will always be hindered by the fact that you had a choice right here, waiting for you, in the form of Jet, and that you chose the path that he – we – fight against. This is a war, Azula, a cold and bloody war. Win or lose, it's the fact that our side will never, ever lose hope. It's the only thing we have left, and it's our greatest weapon against you. It's something your side knows not, and it's something that can never die inside us, as your drive may. One day, I know, this war will be over, and in one way or another, our side will win. Not yours. The side which has hope for a new, better beginning, the side which knows love and compassion instead of ruthlessness and anger. The one th-"
"The one side that is weak, in short, as you describe it." She stopped for barely a moment – the old, cold, calculating Azula was back in charge. No more lovey mush to be ever heard from her. She chuckled. "Maybe one day I will come back to finish the rest of you and your hope as I have finished so many nameless, faceless people. You have hope only because of us. The Fire Nation is the real creator of your foolish hope. Without us, without this war, what would you hope for?"
Z interrupted her. "There will always be hope for a better tomorrow, as old and over-used as that may sound. It's true. There's always some way we can better ourselves and the ones around us, however trivial it may be. You are stuck with hope on your side too. Jet is your hope and inspiration, like he is ours. You will always find yourself hoping that nothing has happened to him, because face it, you obviously love him, and you've even admitted it. You're an enigma – a total hypocrite who will always be thinking something else than what's expected of her. You're stuck with this now, because you came here to destroy this city on your own, rather than let our foolish mistakes do it. Your guilt may not even be the same as ours, because you're wasted. You are the weak one, and I challenge you. It's a fight or flight choice – one that will describe to me perfectly just how cowardly you may be, and just how much truth you speak about your supposed love."
It had the perfect effect on the Princess. Z's goading and cajoling had worked. The girl turned around and strode directly back to where Jet lay and Z now stood. The two girls stood facing each other, one calm and controlled, the other livid, but far more experienced. "What can you do, now your great leader obviously failed?" Azula asked, poised to attack.
Z grinned at her in what proved to be in the most annoying way. "I may not be the Avatar's teacher…but I am a pretty darn good Earthbender, if I do say so myself." Without a second glance, she had Azula flying into the air when a huge boulder unearthed beneath her feet. But overconfidence always came with a price. Azula still had a perfect head in the situation – many feet into the air. She whirled in mid-air like a cat and fired flaming balls of pure fury towards the other girl.
By this time, Jet had recovered as well, and he jumped up in a bolt of adrenaline when one of the fireballs hit the ground near his face. He was conscious for barely a second when he saw the Fire Princess flip an arc and land lightly on her feet. He turned to see she was fighting Z, one of his favorite Freedom Fighters. Torn, he stepped in between the two. "Stop, please stop," he begged in a pained voice.
Z looked at him a moment, angry that he got in the way, but she remembered her place. Azula, however, was not one to give up a fight, no matter who asked her to. She pushed him aside roughly, whirling on the spot to send a devastating volley of blue fire at the other girl. Eyes widening, Z buried herself in the ground in the nick of time. The fire spattered, scorching the earth where it touched, directly above Z. A wind stoked the flames higher, and Azula, taking no care of them, whispered, "Come and fight, you coward!"
Z, fury overtaking her senses, blasted out of the ground under the Princess's feet. Jet knew that this time, this fight would end in one of them dead, and there was no other choice but to do something about it, or let it play out and end up with a loss. When both girls landed, he stepped in between to parry their blows. Looking between the two, he asked, "What are you fighting for?"
It was Z who answered, while glaring daggers at the Princess. "She's a Fire Nation swine, who walked in here and decided she's going to rule over us, too, as if she hasn't ruined our lives enough. It's your choice, Jet, not mine. There's no possibility she can stay here and expect to live more than a minute. No possible way at all. She can't change, no matter what she says. I can see that in her eyes. She's a liar, and she will connive and twist what we do until we end up murdering the entire Earth Kingdom for her."
Jet listened, watching both their faces for signs of truce. He knew it was the truth; what she spoke could not be truer, but he didn't want to believe it. It was then that Azula chose to say what she meant by going. "I am not who you think I am, nor am I wanting to stay here with peasants such as yourselves. There is nothing that can change that for me. Nothing at all. I came here to get a job done, but I got…deterred. That's over now. I am the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation, and nothing anybody can do can stop that. I may never forget what has happened here, but I will always know that I chose right when I chose to leave this nothing behind. Goodbye," she added, ever fierce.
Jet had no idea what to do. On an impulse, he caught her wrist and pulled her to him. He kissed her, making her go limp, and Z to wince in disgust. It was all she could do not to retch. Azula pulled away quickly, surprised and even more confused. "Stop," she commanded breathlessly. She had only done that once in her life, and that time, she had scared away the poor guy. Only, that time, he'd had no idea whom he was kissing. This one knew, and this one didn't care. That was strange.
Jet looked down at her, a most serious face on. "Why?" he questioned. That was a question that defeated Azula. She had no idea. She turned to glare at Z instead. Z shook her head with an "Ew," and turned away. She was in way over her head. She would have to ask Jet later.
He was still holding her wrists. "Don't go," he pleaded, grabbing her attention again. She looked away, unable to bear looking at him. "I…I can't. I barely know you, and what would the people think? I'm not someone who can choose this for herself. I'm told I can, of course, but my choices are…limited. You're not a Fire Nation Noble, and this is all wrong. I don-" she was cut off as he kissed her again.
It was him who stepped away this time. "Please?" he added. She shook her head, looking up at him this time. "I don't know. I honestly have no idea. This is the first and last time anyone will ever hear me saying that. Truthfully, that is. Jet…when this war is over, which it will soon be, then maybe I can come back, or you can come to the Fire Nation, but now…now is just the wrong time. I'm so sorry. You changed who I am. I've never apologized to anyone before, and no one has ever told me they love me. Not even my parents. My brother once did, I think, but what does he matter? He's a traitor and a betrayer. That is not something I am willing to be, no matter who dares to try and change it." She leaned upwards to kiss him again.
After a minute, she pulled away, and whispered, "Goodbye," She didn't wait to hear his piteous cry of "No!" With a sudden flash of lightning, she was gone. Jet grabbed the air futilely where she had been. "No," he repeated, to no one. He felt a hand o his shoulder, but did not look up. The hand tightened around his shoulder and forced him up.
It led him away from the city, and to a special part of the hideout, where he often spent time sitting alone, listening to the voices of the world, and watching its miracles. He watched days turn into nights in a spectacular show of oranges and reds, and nights melt away into day with pinks and golds; he watched the passing of various people, of animals and birds, of time. The hand had a voice attached, one that sounded vaguely familiar in his numb loss. The voice told him something that awakened him for a moment. It said, "She wanted me to tell you something. Before, when you were unconscious, she said to me, 'Tell him…tell him that he was right, but it was an unaffordable option for me.' She wanted you to know that." The voice was gentle, but reserved, and as the hand left his shoulder, and the voice left him to his thoughts, he felt a little more alive.
A voice whispered to him in the wind, "Win or lose, it's the fact that our side will never, ever lose hope. It's the only thing we have left, and it's our greatest weapon against them. It's something the other side knows not, and it's something that can never die inside us, as their drive may. One day, I know, this war will be over, and in one way or another, our side will win. Not theirs. The side which has hope for a new, better beginning, the side which knows love and compassion instead of ruthlessness and anger." Those were his words, being repeated back to him, and he knew, that when the war was indeed over, hope would win over, and he would see her again, after the world had mended. He looked up to see the sun rising, and decided that he would take his words to heart and live by them. He would give himself another chance, and he would reawaken instead of lying dead until the time came. He would indeed live. And he would wait for her forever.
For she would one day, come back. The bond of a first love is truly unbreakable. It raises within a person hope for the future. A hope, that though it can be concealed, it can never be diminished.
Well, an overused plot of course, but I had to find a way to make Jetzula work, without a "four years after the war" theme, or an AU as usual for this pairing. It's not the prefect ending to a shipping one-shot, but it leaves much to be said and imagined by you. Perhaps if requested, an epilogue will be written.
I welcome requests and reviews, as does any other author, and I urge you to read the Tokka one-shot which lead to the writing of this. If you want to, that is!
I will also write a one-shot for anyone (who asks,) but also anyone who can guess the quote from POTC, the idea from The Devil Wears Prada, and/or the bit from Harry Potter.
--iamtheblindbandit--