Book 3: Fire-BOOK 4: AIR (The Tale of Susani)
Chapter 312: The Awakening at the Western Air Temple
(This takes place right after the Avatar the Last Airbender episode: The Day of Black Sun Part 2 (The Eclipse) and follows the old spoiler for episode 12, before it was changed, but I did keep the temple below the hillside, but this time it's along a canyon that has a big river running through it.)
Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, Haru, The Duke, Teo, Appa, and Momo all drag their feet along the dust road of defeat and seclusion. Their retreat resulted in the loss of many loved ones and their grief dragged alongside the road. "My feet are killing me! Are we there yet?" Sokka whined. His humor had faded along with his calluses on his feet. They had been walking aimlessly in no particular direction for hours and everyone was convinced that Aang had gotten them lost. Finally, as the sun began to set, a cry of joy was let out by Toph when she announced that they were there. "You're lying! There's nothing there, just a big canyon and a huge flowing river WATER!!!" Sokka ran and jumped right off the cliff. Everybody stared at the crazed Sokka as he took a dove for the water. To his surprise, however, he was deceived by the long vines that grew out of the side of the cliff, which he got entangled in. The other ran to his rescue, but it was too late. Sokka was fine, but they had disturbed something that shouldn't have been disturbed: a fire navy patrol ship.
It was a prison ship holding several hostages from the war and the solders overheard Sokka's screams. They looked up at the noise to see the end of a shoe being tugged back onto the top of the cliff. Aang and his refugees were lucky because the soldiers mistook the moving foot for a small animal that dwells on the top of the hillside. The gang thought they were lucky, but they still weren't. In the midst of Sokka's struggle with the vines and being so high up, he knocked down some rocks, which accelerated into a cave far below next to the inverted temples which the female air nomads used to live in. The rocks hit hard and stumbled into the cavern, hitting and awakening a beat of great magnitude. Sokka had not idea of the trouble that he caused, he was just happy that the fire nation hadn't discovered their position. "Wow! That was a close one!" Sokka said.
"That wasn't funny, and if you try anything stupid like that, I'll have to freeze you to Appa so that you don't cause us anymore trouble! Got it?" Katara yelled. Her big brother froze in terror and then slowly turned his head when he heard the rumbles coming from below. He looked down to see other rocks from along the cliff, falling down into the river. The soldiers were bringing out the prisoners to bathe them and then torture them with whips and fire. The gang stood and watched and planned. They did have an advantage of having the higher ground, but they were clearly outnumbered 200 to 7. Aang became angry and frustrated with the fact that he could not do a thing for those poor people, but just as he was starting to lose hope, the earth rumbled more and the foot of that noisy cavern came to life just as the fire nation brought out their special prisoner. It was Suki! Sokka saw this and leaped from his position, giving all of them away, but he had forgotten one thing: it was a long, long way down to the bottom of that cliff until he hit the temple ground and he wouldn't survive the drop.
As his fall began to turn hopelessly bad with certain death coming at him when he reaches the bottom, just then, a rock shot out of the ground and projected him back up in the air. Then the most amazing thin happened, the awaken cavern took to flight and picked up Sokka in mid-air. It was an Air Dragon.
"Oh my GOD! It's an Air Dragon! They're supposed to be extinct!" Aang screamed. He leapt from the edge of the cliff and flew up to the dragon and then dive-bombed towards the ship. Katara, Toph, and Haru all led a full attack on the fire navy soldiers and came to the prisoner's rescue. They created a short diversion for Aang to come in and rescue a few of the prisoners. The dragon dived in with Sokka on its back and led him to rescue Suki. The dragon swept down with it's fury and blew half the soldiers back into the river. They all swam away at the fright of the beast. It roared and screamed and let out a furious call, threatening the lives of every fire navy soldier.
"If you DARE step foot on MY territory again, I will ring your necks out and eat you for supper. Your intestines will be served up on a silver platter and your skeleton will line the insides of my cave. BE GONE FROM THIS PLACE!" He screamed. The voice seemed almost unisex. Aang and Sokka were very confused why the dragon hadn't attacked them, but the kept on fighting anyway. They drove the fire nation away, but with threats of them coming back for revenge, the capture of the Avatar, and the re-capture of their freed prisoners. The dragon came to a halt along the edge line and bowed in front of Aang. It surrounded and hid himself underneath his wings. When he unveiled wings again, he was a she wearing some pretty interesting clothing.
Traditional air nomad clothing was worn, but with added gray arrows along the pants leg and the extra arm protection was missing. Instead, it was replaced with arm gauntlets with similar grey arrows painted across the back of it. Her forehead and arms had grey arrow tattoos embedded into her skin, just like Aang, but her hair was put up into a similar style to Toph's. A headband of orange with the air nomad symbol in the center held back her dark-brown hair. Her eyes sparkled a mysterious blue and her voice was deep and raspy, like Aang's when he is in the Avatar state. She spoke and announced her presence as if she, herself, was the devil here to proclaim the fate of the world.
"I am Yoesi! I am the last Air Dragon in existence! You, air nomad. You know the legends of the air dragon, do you not?" Yoesi asked.
"Yes. They used to tell us when we were little and take us to the ancient writings of your history." Aang replied. As he did so, she revealed white ears sticking out from behind her human ears. Her white wings spread back out and her eyes began to glow purple. A deep booming voice, similar to Aang's Avatar state voice spoke. It was Yoesi's Dragon form.
(Note: I did not put the legend of the airbending dragons into this story. To read about them, I have written a separate part entitled: The Element Dragons and to learn about the airbending dragons, then look under the "Air Dragon" section.)
"Then you know of my powers and reputation! You will bow before me or suffer the dire consequences!" Yoesi roared.
"Yes oh powerful being." Aang said as he gave a low bow of respect and admiration. The others followed his lead until Sokka stood back up and began to ask questions of suspicion.
"Yeah, so Aang has told us stories of who you are and what you are, but why did you help us?" Sokka asked.
"Because long ago, the Fire Nation cam and took my home away and killed my worshipers! They must suffer and pay for their crimes. I have pledged to fight them until the last of them are dead!" Yoesi roared.
"But why haven't you gone to the Fire Nation and killed all of them with your great powers that you say you have?" Toph asked. She was curious on who Yoesi was.
"Little FOOL!!! I HAVE VENTURED OUT INTO THE UNKNOWN!!! I have been to places that no human has ever seen! I know more than all the books in the world! Who are you to question my wisdom!" Yoesi roared back at Toph!
"You are talking to the world's GREATEST earthbender! Toph Bei Fong!" She screamed. The dragon roared and began to struggle with herself. She began to mumble and then she whispered in a totally different voice, "Let me take care of this!" Then the roaring voice whispered back so softly that only Toph was able to detect and hear, "Susani, if you mess up one bit, I will slowly kill you until your soul has imploded in itself!"
"Okay then! So, I'm Sus…..Yoesi and I am here to help you Avatar!" The soft and cheery voice said. The new voice had a similar tone to Toph's just with a bit more of a grown up ring to it.
"Wait, where's the great boomy voice?" Suki asked. She laid in Sokka's arms in much confusion and pain.
"Well, when I am not a dragon, I am in this state! Why, do you have a problem with that?" The voice suddenly got intimidating. They all leaned back in fear, except Toph. She walked up to her and slapped her right across the face.
"What the HELL is your problem? You have NO idea who we are and what we're fighting for! You think you are soo cool busting in here and stealing our act, I mean, what kind of a dragon are you? Do you like the spot light? Do you like to hog all the action?" Toph's intentions were unknown to the rest of the gang, but she managed to get Yoesi pissed off.
"Why are you egging her on? She'll explode on us!" Sokka screamed.
"Well GOOD because we are going to need all the rage we can get because there are hundreds of pounding feet headed towards us at a high velocity, and I think they're after us!" Toph yelled. Yoesi looked up into the sky to also see a Fire Nation blimp. It's steel frame and colossus flew and blocked out the sun. Toph could not see any of the air attacks coming, but she leapt up on top of the cliff and engaged the oncoming soldiers. To Toph, those oncoming soldiers were so easy to knock over like knocking over dominos and enjoying the patterns in which they fell. Most of those soldiers ended up halfway into the ground and the other half ended up hung upside down by a rock avalanche.
Meanwhile, Aang, Katara riding Appa, Yoesi, and Teo took to the skies to attack the blimp. Azula was on top waiting for them. The three landed on top and began to attack her. They completely forgot about the helpless prisoners, Sokka, Suki, and Haru who were left on the ground. Toph soon joined that group, but even with her they were still outnumbered. In the skies it was on thing, but on land, attacking air from ground leaves each side with it's disadvantages. Suki attacked incoming mini blimps and was able to commandeer one. She flew it up towards the main blimp in the hopes of ramming the ship. Her escape plan was to get one of her flying friends to help her out, which was a bad one to begin with. Sokka had protested her actions since she jumped onto the blimp.
Sokka was so upset that he forgot about the aerial attacks that were bombarding the ground. Toph could not see and needed Sokka's guidance to fight. He was in tears because the one he loved had run out on a suicide mission. Toph began to scream at Sokka and he slowly turned his head towards her. He saw Toph's face and remembered what he was supposed to be doing, but it was too late. A fire blast was headed right towards Toph and there was no time to tell her to deflect it. He dove for her screaming to "look out." Sokka grabbed Toph in his arms and slid her and himself behind the safety of a rock and survived the blast. Toph looked up at Sokka's silhouette, "Oh Sokka, YOU saved me this time!" She leaned in to kiss him, but being blind, she completely missed her intended target: the cheek, and ended up kissing him right on the lips. They were locked for a minute or two and then Toph realized what was going on and pulled away. "Ummmmm. Sorry. I…." Toph tried to explain.
"Let's just go and save Suki!" Sokka said with much more confidence than usual in his voice.
"You really love her don't you?" Toph asked.
"Yes, and after this is over, I am going to make sure that this time, she doesn't get away from me!" Sokka said. Toph realized that Sokka was going to ask Suki to marry him. She had seen Sokka working on a small project, but because of her lack of actual sight, she had no idea what he was making, but it all made sense to her now.
"Yeah, let's go and save everyone!" And just as she said that, disaster struck. An anchor for the hovercraft was launched as an attempt to destroy the surviving temples of the Western Air Nomads. Instead of major property damage, Suki had taken her blimp into the path of the anchor and sacrificed herself to prevent the anchor from hitting the temples, which by coincidence was the spot where Sokka and Toph were standing. The anchor shot off to the left and it pierced through the ship and through her body. It made Sokka burst into tears seeing her hung aside the cliff like an ornament. His sorrow brought the attention of Yoesi and another familiar face.
In the midst of battling Azula, Aang and Katara began to lose greatly. Azula had shot Katara with a bolt of lightening and she fell off of the blimp. Appa came to her rescue, but Aang was left alone with a much more powerful foe. He was hopeless and overpowered until an unsuspecting character came to his rescue. Zuko, who had been following Aang since the invasion, popped out from a nearby blimp and knocked Azula off of her feet. "I'm here to help you Aang. I've changed. I want to join your team!" Zuko asked. Appa had shot out of the starboard side of the blimp and Katara barely stood up and shot Zuko with water, taking the rest of her strength away from her. In her midst of anger she also implored,
"Not in a MILLION YEARS!!! Not after all the pain and agony you've caused Aang and me!!" Zuko was determined however, and just got up from the puddle Katara had placed him in. He began to attack Azula furiously, but Aang attacked both Azula and Zuko. Zuko did the best he could to make sure not to get anywhere near Aang, but to try and get Azula, but in the end, he decided that he had to end his sister's misery. He shot a ball of fire directly at the ship and it began to blow up. Aang saw what Zuko had done and began to escape. Zuko begged Aang to take him with, but Aang ignored him. Azula jumped onto Aang's back and distracted him from flying properly, and his current course had him headed straight for the explosions. Zuko shot a few fire balls at Azula and she flew off Aang back onto the exploding ship and got what was coming to her. After seeing the little bit of good in Zuko, Aang decided to give him a chance and saved Zuko.
When everybody regrouped, they all froze at the sight of Sokka holding Suki in his arms. Toph had apparently gone and helped him take her down and he insisted that she would have a proper warrior burial ceremony. Toph saw the sadness in his eyes and wept with him. Yoesi, however, felt the most loss because another part of her was feeling grief for the loss of a loved one. The dragon ran off into her den before anybody could talk her out of it. Screams and sobs emanated from the cavern for the rest of the night.
The burial ceremony was beautiful. Sokka set it up so that it was flawless and under the moonlight he would commit Suki's body to the grave. He requested that everybody be present for this sad but important event. Everybody agreed without any arguments or complaints except Yoesi. She had run off into her den for the rest of the night and did not want to come out. They decided to send Toph to investigate what was going on with her.
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Chapter 313: The Legend of Yoesi
Since Toph knew nothing about Yoesi, it was like walking right into the lion's mouth.