There was a story of the end of the world – Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods. Then, the whole earth would be covered with the scent of death, the mountains would tremble, and the stars would fall from the sky.
Ozai stood at the peak of the volcano, watching as Sozin's Comet appeared over the horizon. "It's time for this world to end in fire," he announced as the entire Fire Nation air fleet rose from behind him, "and for a new world to be born from the ashes."
As they rode on Appa, Katara noticed the look of worry on Zuko's face. "Zuko, don't worry, we can take Azula."
"I'm not worried about her, I'm worried about Aang. What if he doesn't have the guts to take out my father? What if he loses?"
"Aang won't lose. He's gonna come back. He has to."
(Line break)
The three teens on the eel hound watched as the comet appeared on the horizon behind them. "It's weird to say," Suki said, "but the comet actually looks beautiful."
"Too bad the Fire Lord is about to use it to destroy the world," Toph replied.
(Line break)
The Order Of The White Lotus stood on the outskirts of Ba Sing Se. "Only once every hundred years can a firebender experience this kind of power." Iroh said calmly.
He took a deep breath, then unleashed a massive fire blast that demolished the Outer Wall.
(Line break)
Aang stood on a tall stone pillar, facing Ozai's assault. "Momo, time for you to go," he said to the lemur perched on his shoulder, who chirped in reply and flew off. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then launched chunks of the pillar he was standing on towards the head airship.
A last great battle would be waged between good and evil, in which all would perish alike, slaying and being slain, and the world with all mankind would be swallowed up by fire.
Aang absorbed the lightning shot by Ozai, then proceeded to redirect it back at him. As he pointed at his target, he saw Ozai's expression of fear. He hesitated, but then an image filled his mind: Gyatso's skeleton at the Southern Air Temple. Rage surged through his blood veins, and he shot the lightning directly at Ozai.
As the Fire Lord fell, he suddenly winced in pain. The sensation was like a blade slicing across his heart, and it was also vaguely familiar. Memories flooded in his mind: walking on a bridge toward a giant him, then having the bridge collapse under his feet. In his hesitation, he had also been struck by the lightning.
He fell backwards, and everything went blank.
(Line break)
In the Fire Nation palace courtyard, Katara finished tying Azula's chains, then rushed to Zuko's side. She gasped as she realized that he had been struck by lightning on the left side of his chest, close to the heart. She reached out her hand, but his stopped her.
"It's no use," he whispered. "I'm not gonna make it."
"You have to. Who else would be the next Fire Lord? Your uncle was right: the Fire Nation needs an idealist with a pure heart to take the throne. It has to be you."
"There are other people like that here, and I'm not even sure I can do the job as well as I should. They need a leader with a strong mind, and I'm just not that kind of person."
"It's not just that; the world needs you too. We need you, and," she stopped, for she had never admitted her feelings for him until now. But if she never told him, it could be too late… "I need you too."
He smiled faintly. "It's alright. The others will take care of you, and I'm sure one day you will find true happiness. But for the record," he held her hand tightly, "I've never regretted joining you."
With that he breathed his last, and his hand slowly loosened its grip on hers, and fell to the ground.
"Nooooo!" From behind her, Azula firebended from her mouth, having a sort of fiery seizure while being tied down. Katara knelt beside Zuko for a few silent moments, then she abruptly stood up and turned to face the princess.
"You killed him!" she shouted at her, and for a moment Azula calmed down enough to face her in the eye.
"Like I've never done anything to him before," she said sarcastically.
"Why would you do that to him? He was your own brother!"
"He was never my brother. He was a coward and a traitor, who always went crying to our mother when things got bad." She faltered for a moment, as the memories of the night at Ember Island filled her mind. "He always had her attention, and I… I had none."
"No matter what, he was still your own flesh and blood! And you just murdered him without a second thought!"
"I never meant to hit him. If you haven't realized by now, he was struck when he was trying to save you."
No sooner had the words escaped her mouth than her blood froze in her body, then slowly coursed backwards towards her heart. Her face turned into a grimace of pain, and her limbs were blue-black from lack of blood circulation.
"What… what are you doing to me?"
Katara stood before her, her arms outstretched. "You were right; he died to save me, and now I'm avenging him.
Azula coughed out some liquid, which turned out to be her own blood. "You… filthy peasant…," she rasped.
Katara just smiled coldly at her victim. "Call it a waterbender's version of deadly bending, but one thing is clear… you're not meant to survive."
Her victim's body contorted in pain, and she was coughing blood at an alarming rate. "Why… me…?" she managed to utter.
"Why not you? Do you know what you and your people have done to me personally? You took away all the waterbenders of my tribe! You killed my mother!"
She raised her hands even higher, causing her victim to have a feeling of her insides turned out. "I can't let you take away everyone I loved. But then, you probably never knew what it was like to love someone."
Azula was now coughing out blood rapidly. "Curse… you…," she gasped as her hand crept into the folds of her sleeve to pull out a small dagger. Mai wasn't the only one among the trio who was good with knives.
With a feeble movement she thrust the dagger away from her, then her body went limp.
Katara slowly picked up the dagger from the ground where it had fell beside the body of its owner. As she stared at it, a feeling of dread enveloped her, and her heart skipped a beat.
Aang's gone, she realized. He's dead too.
It was as if something inside her had died along with her friend. Without hesitating, she lifted the dagger to her neck and made a deep, lethal cut, cutting her mother's betrothal necklace in the process.
As the necklace fell to the ground with a 'ping', she fell onto the ground like those before her. As the blood cursed down her neck, she reached for her lover's hand. Holding it close to her, she closed her eyes and waited for death to claim her.
(Line break)
Suki burst into the controls room where Sokka was standing while leaning against a set of crutches, his left leg bandaged. Toph sat near him, staring blankly into space, although technically she couldn't see anything.
"Sokka, the boiler room's caught fire, we have to do something!"
"How bad is it?" he asked tensely as Toph stood up, ready for action.
"Not too good. The whole ship might blow up any minute now!"
"But we can't land here, it's too dangerous! And anyway we can't give up now, Aang's up ahead and he needs our help!"
Suddenly Toph crumpled to the floor and slumped against the wall. "Toph, what happened?"
"He's gone…. it's over."
They couldn't see it because she was partly turned away from them, but tears were rolling down her cheeks for the first time in a long time. She had always had a crush on him, but was too stubborn and shy to say so, and now it was too late…
"How would you know? You can't even see!"
"I can feel it, duh," she snapped out of her sadness to retaliate.
They could feel the heat increasing; the boiler room was truly in a bad state, probably due to the 'airship slice' earlier on. The atmosphere in the controls room was no better, and there was a moment of hopeless silence.
"What can we do now?" Suki asked her friends helplessly.
Toph was still facing the wall, and Sokka was looking into the distance, still digesting the fact that all they had worked for was in vain.
"I think we'll have to cut the engines," he said at last.
"What?"
"It's the only way to avoid being blown up in mid-air. In any case, we'll either suffer a fiery death, or be captured by the Fire Nation and thrown into prison for life."
"I think it's a clear choice," Suki spoke up as she held his hand. "At least we'll still be together."
He nodded to her, then turned to Toph. "What about you?"
She stood up too, and they could see the marks of tears on her cheeks. "I won't be a coward. I'm coming with you."
They stood together holding hands. Sokka took a deep breath, then reached out his hand and pulled a lever. With a cry of despair, they plunged to their death.
(Line break)
The Fire Nation soldiers just kept on coming, and now there were the Dai Li to aid the forces. No matter how strong and skilled Iroh and The Order of the White Lotus may be, they were still a bunch of old men, and slowly they were weakened.
Iroh could only watch bleakly as his fellow Pai Sho mates fell, one by one. He himself was slowing down, for he was a man in his sixties, and most of the enemy were younger and more able-bodied than him, putting him in the disadvantage. He tried all kinds of maneuvers, but in the end there were too many Earth Nation soldiers to contend with. As a last resort, he surrounded his body in a shield of fire. As his pain and rage grew, so did the shield, until it was a ball the size of an iceberg. The comet strengthened his energy, and the firebenders retreated in shock. The Dai Li were no better, as the rocks and boulders they were using to attack incinerated from the heat. They started to run. The ball of flame grew even in larger, hotter, and more pressurized until even Iroh could not stand keeping the shield up any longer. He knew what he was doing. The dangers of this bending form were well known to him, as his teacher Mako had once told him before.
Iroh let out a long chain of fire whips, fire balls, and fire blasts, sending out as much as he possibly could. When he had no more left in him, he looked up at Mako and his jaw dropped. The old man was standing there calmly, with a ball of deep red fire the size of a human head suspended in front of his chest.
"This ball is all the fire you just launched at me. Take it back." Mako sent the fire back at Iroh. Iroh could sense that, amazingly, Mako was not conjuring up new fire at all, just decompressing the ball. Iroh took the fire and tried to hold it in front of him while keeping it at a small size. As more and more fire was squeezed into a smaller space, the orange flame turned the red of a dying sun. Just as Iroh thought he could not control it any longer, the stream of fire stopped, and Iroh had a ball in his hands exactly like the one Mako had originally had. Mako inclined his head. Iroh sent the ball of fire into the forest surrounding the glade. To his surprise, it exploded as soon as he released his control of it, incinerating several trees.
"And that is both the greatest weakness and greatest strength of this technique. It is a strength because you can turn your opponents power against him, not only shielding yourself but hurting him. But it is also a weakness. As soon as you released your control of that fire ball, it exploded. If I had added more fire to the stream I sent at you, so much that you could not control it, it would have exploded in your face."
Iroh looked thoughtful and then said, "Master, why couldn't one just surround oneself with a ball of flame, with oneself at the centre? Any attacks launched would be absorbed by the ball. Because the ball is being constantly pushed outward, wouldn't the explosion also be pushed away from oneself and into one's enemies?"
Mako's eyes suddenly looked wild and angry, "Wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong! The larger the surface area of a ball of flame, the farther it is away from the bender. The farther away from the bender, the more independence it has. Oh, aye, the explosion would not harm oneself. In fact, there would be no explosion. The fire would just collapse under its own weight, and the bender inside would be consumed like any man, along with the people nearby. Iroh, you are the only person I have shared this technique with. Do not make my mistakes! Keep the flame small, and manageable. Dismissed."
"Master, I-"
"Dismissed!"
It was until later that Iroh learned why his teacher had reacted so angrily. Many years ago, the same mistake had caused three quarters of the 15th division, which Mako was general of, to perish with the enemy. It had ended his military career abruptly, and scarred him for life.
Now Iroh was going to use the same bending form to destroy the enemy. He knew now that they had no hope of winning, so perishing with the enemy was the second best choice. "I'm sorry," he whispered softly, apologizing to his fellow warriors. He then released the energy, and Ba Sing Se went up in flames.
Then, however, a new age would dawn, a new leader would rise and a second earth would rise bright from the ashes of the old.
"Where am I?" Aang asked bewilderedly as he found himself surrounded by clouds. Just then the clouds in front of him started changing shape, and Avatar Roku appeared before him.
"Roku!" The younger Avatar's joy at seeing his mentor was quickly replaced by sadness at his defeat. "I failed – again."
"No, you did not, Aang. You may have made some mistakes, but on the whole you are not to blame. You did end the war."
"But I sacrificed so many people, my friends, my beloved…" Tears welled up in his eyes as he thought of Katara.
Roku smiled benevolently at him. "One of the great advantages of being the Avatar, Aang, is that you will forever remain connected to the world, even when you pass on. That is why we are reincarnated, time and time again. We always believe that our next lives will do something even better than what we have done, and our legacy lives on in the hearts of those who love us."
"But my friends… they would be gone forever."
The old man smiled again. "Not really. Our memories and experiences remain in the minds of those who came after us, and if you look deep enough, you can still find them there. They will be always there, as a reminder of who we once were, and who we are now."
Aang closed his eyes, and suddenly he could see what Roku meant. He saw many things from the past: Roku at his wedding gazing lovingly at his new bride; Kyoshi celebrating with her people after Chin the Conqueror was defeated; Kuruk surfing on a tidal wave with his waterbending mates; Yangchen standing in the middle of a paddy field, feeling the wind blowing in her face. With those memories of his past lives were his own, from the time Katara and Sokka found him in the iceberg, to his first meeting with Toph, to the acceptance of Zuko in their group, and more. Each memory was stored carefully away in his mind, and in them he found inner peace.
He took a deep breath, then let out a newborn's wail.
My first tragedy: how was it! I'm intrigued to know what you think of it, so click the button down there and write a review telling me how great/bad it was!
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender (if I did I wouldn't make it so tragic). Also the bold italics are snippets from the Children's Britainnica volume 12, while the plain italics are from The Bookemist's "Neutral Jing" (it hasn't been updated in a while, but it's still worth a read). Lastly, sorry for substituting the line breaks with the lousy phrases (apparently, my software hasn't learned about line breaks yet) and thank you for reading!