Avatar the Last Airbender: The Spiritbender War
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender. OCs do belong to me
A/N: It is best to read Ozai's Choice first, before reading this, even though they start at roughly the same time, and then beyond.
Previously: The Outside World (that is outside of the Temple)
Panic rode through the prison guard's face. He had been guarding the prisoner, the former Fire Lord Ozai. Everything was still normal. The pathetic man was in his cell. And then the world had turned black. Now the cell was empty, the cell door was open. He ran through the passageway and saw all the other guards were also unconscious. We have to tell Fire Lord Zuko, and the Avatar. He thought, as he went to raise the alarm. Getting outside, he saw an air bison flying through the air in the distance. No, it can't be the Avatar's. But he was the only one with an air bison that the guard knew of. He rang the alarm
Fire Lord Zuko and his wife Mai were sitting in the drawing room, their nightly ritual during the last year, which had been hard on everyone in the Fire Nation, with war reparations, and rebuilding efforts, when the message came in. Ozai has escaped. The message went. Shock rode over the new Fire Lord's face. Mai gasped when she read. He dismissed the messenger and mulled over what to do. "Double the guards around my sister," he ordered.
"Yes, sir." The man left. Zuko took a deep breath and turned to Mai. "This is disturbing. But why Ozai? He can't bend."
"But they can still use him as the rallying point," Mai replied.
"Wouldn't Azula be better," Zuko asked.
"Perhaps," Mai answered, "perhaps not, Ozai is probably easier to control without his Firebending, Azula is a bit deranged you know."
Zuko turned away and gazed out into the night sky. He sighed heavily. Mai put her arms around him. "But I know, what's more, he was your last chance to find your mother," Mai said, as she kissed him lightly on the cheek. "I think we need to tell the other Kings at least."
"Yes," Zuko said. "I will compose messages to King Kuei, Chiefs Hakoda and Arnook and Aang. We will all be on the lookout for Ozai. But he is most likely to be held in the Fire Nation, right here. There must be some sort of plot to replace me and restart the war. I will need to talk to the Head of Internal Intelligence as well." Mai nodded. The messenger hawks went out that night. Team Avatar would have to meet again and join the hunt. He was sure that Ozai was guarded well by firebenders if not others who sought to restart the war he supposed.
In the Fire Nation capital, the newly appointed Imperial Advisor Ginra smiled. This is good, he thought, the last person who could recognize me is gone. Even though he had the look of a man in his fourties, Ginra was in fact a lot older, having been around the time when Fire Lord Azulon had ruled, though he had been the Palace Tutor at that time to the then Fire Lord's youngest child, the recent escapee. He had liked the time he had spent in the Fire Nation, watching over the world or so he had thought back then.
Since Azulon's death, though Ginra had changed sides, so to speak, to the side which favoured intervention, and taking direct rulership of the world no matter what the cost, to stop the wars between the four Nations, no he corrected himself, three nations. The world had suffered enough from Sozin, through Azulon and finally to Ozai. Inevitably, someone would start another war, and the world would suffer once more. That was why he was here now, to help depose the rulers of the three remaining nations, to combine them into one nation, one world, so that there would be no more war.
There were others that believed that with the ascension of Fire Lord Zuko, that things would change and argued against intervention, but if it was not Fire Lord Zuko starting the war; it could be the Earth King, or the Water Tribe leaders starting the wars in the future.
But first, he needed someone, a puppet ruler, for the while at least, to give the nations a chance to transition into new rulership and into a government that would span the world. He had the perfect candidate in mind, and with more than one hundred years experience in seduction, he knew he could get what he wanted.
The city of Omashu was a wondrous place where the lively Earth Kingdom populace hustled and bustled all day and most of the night. Recently, Bumi had gone into retirement, leaving Omashu without a ruler. Into the void had stepped Ji Liu, a minor noble, or so they said from one of the small kingdoms in the high reaches. No one knew how exactly he had taken the throne, but it was widely thought that he was the compromise candidate between two powerful factions within the Earth Kingdom.
Ji Liu, stood on the palace's balcony overlooking the much of the city. It had taken him a while to get to this place, and he wasn't about to let anyone get in the way of what he and his associates had planned. He saw his advisor, Li Fu, come in and give him an update. He was sure that Liu Xin was working her magic in Ba Sing Se.
In the North Pole, Chief Arnook lay on his death bed. Age had caught up to him, and he had no heir. It was left up to the Council to decide who would be the heir, and who would take over when Chief Arnook passed on. It didn't help that Master Pakku was in the Southern Tribes with his wife Kanna, helping them to rebuild their waterbender numbers.
Hana stood in the Council, watching. She fervently hoped that Hahn would be elected the next Chief. He was a powerful warrior and ex-fiance of Arnook's daughter Yue. He had matured during the last year, but he still retained some arrogance. And he was Hana's boyfriend. With his ascension, she would become the Chief's wife, and that was the one thing that she wanted, more than anything, for that would fit perfectly into her plans. She continued to observe.
Aang and Katara were sitting in the Jasmine Dragon tea shop in Ba Sing Se, when the message came in. Iroh, Aang and Katara read the note, "we have to do something," Iroh said. "My brother is a dangerous man. Even without his firebending."
Chief Hakoda and Chief Arnook and King Kuei were all worried. The escape of the former Phoenix King, Ozai was something that was not desired. They sent their elite troops to find any sign of the escaped prisoner but nothing was found. They swept through the tunnels and caves of the Earth Kingdom, the outlying islands of the Fire Kingdom, the abandoned Air Temples, and anywhere else they could think that people could survive.
A/N: Here's the beginning of a multi-chap fiction. Hope you enjoyed it.