Welcome, all… Kinda funny, I've been writing fanfiction going on four years now, and this is the first one-shot I've ever tried at. Together with that, it's my first Avatar-The Last Airbender fic. Hope you like it. Warnings: Spoilers through Book 2 finale. Some mature language.
The Road Not Taken
He couldn't sleep. Dead silence reigned over the Earth King's palace at the heart of Ba Sing Se, and the only light filtering into the room was generated by the distant moon and stars floating high above the city. And yet, Zuko, Prince of the triumphant Fire Nation, could not bring himself into a state of relaxation for even the briefest of moments. He lay back upon his comfortable temporary bed, located in one of the palace's many rooms, with his eyes wide open. He openly stared at…nothing. Nothing save for the blank rock ceiling that stretched an unnecessarily great distance over his head. It was, Zuko reflected, the most comfortable room in which he had spent the night in the past three years, falling short only to that room he desired so greatly to return to…his room.
And yet, was he not on the brink of being welcomed into that room, once again? Back to his own bed, back to the Fire Nation…back to his father? That was what Azula had promised him, mere hours before… "Father will welcome you as a war hero." His choice had assured the Fire Nation's victory, solidified the conquest of Ba Sing Se, and brought he and Azula closer than ever to capturing the Avatar at last. So…why wasn't he finally at rest?
Because of the reason the Avatar had escaped, of course- Uncle Iroh. When he thought on it, Azula's attempts to reassure people were really not very helpful. "No, he betrayed you." But he hadn't really, had he? Iroh had allowed the Avatar to escape, and this was an act of betrayal against the Fire Nation, true…but had he really betrayed Zuko? Iroh had refused to even raise a hand against him once the Avatar had finally escaped, practically turning himself into Dai Li custody, not a very common action amongst those who had directly faced the elite Earthbending secret corps.
But then…Uncle had kept him from his destiny, had had the gall to tell him that his pursuit of the Avatar was not the right decision. What did the old man know of what Zuko had been through? He probably just sided with the Avatar and his peasant friends because of the time they had spent together. Uncle could be overly sympathetic like that... "I made the right choice," Zuko decided firmly, his eyes beginning to drift shut.
"Heh."
Suddenly Zuko was wide awake again, fully alert and hands raised in a Firebending stance-whoever had the nerve to sneak into the room of the Prince of the Fire Nation obviously had never met Zuko's irritable side. But the sight of the intruder made Zuko drop his stance immediately- there, standing against the wall wearing a tight black suit was a man, most of his body almost invisible in the horribly dim room. But Zuko could see him plainly, because of the glinting light reflecting off the handle of the sword strapped to his back…as well as the glaring image of the grinning blue and white noh mask that hid his face. "Impossible…" Zuko breathed, his one good eye opened so wide that it seemed the golden orb within would drop out at any moment.
He heard the intruder- the one who dared to wear his mask- let out another short breath of amusement, before the blue mask shook from side to side, as if in wonder. "Idiot," the intruder said, before looking up to gaze at Zuko with empty sockets, "think you can simply leave everything behind you, just pretend it never happened and it will never come back to you? I really thought from the time we spent together that you were smarter than that."
Zuko's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Don't speak to me like that," he warned darkly, casting the sheets off his form and leaping off the bed to land on his feet, facing the figure. "How did you get in here?" he demanded sharply, once again falling into his stance, "What do you want? Who are you?"
The masked man chuckled, putting his hands behind his head in a relaxed stance. "It's about time you started asking yourself those questions," he commented, "I'm sure Uncle would be proud of you…that is, if he weren't locked in some cell like a common criminal at the moment."
"Shut up!" Zuko yelled, anger rising in the pit of his stomach. He clenched his fists sharply, prepared to burn the upstart alive. How dare he! Zuko was a highly talented Firebender, and Fire Nation royalty! What business did this person have acting so disrespectfully and casually?
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" the masked man said, raising his head to gaze somewhere over Zuko's head. "You'd like the doubtful voices to stop, so you don't have to bother arguing with them. You'd like to just be able to sit back and enjoy your life, just appreciate having finally accomplished your goals no matter what you gave up to get them." Zuko tensed up when he suddenly lower his arms, and stepped away from the wall. But the masked man wasn't making any threatening motion towards the prince, nor even moving towards him- rather, he was skirting the Firebender, with his hands clasped behind his back, in thought. "Sometimes I wonder…" he mused, turning his back on Zuko, "if there's something more that's wrong with your eyes than that big ugly scar…"
"Enough!" Zuko shouted, steam shooting from his nostrils. "Do you even know who I am, you disrespectful bastard!?"
The masked figure paused suddenly in mid-pace, and they stood that way in silence for a few moments. "Yes," he finally answered, calmly, seriously, "of course I know who you are, Zuko. The question I am concerned with, however, is about what you know. Do you know who I am? Do you even know who you are?"
Zuko gritted his teeth, before taking a calming breath and rehearsing, willfully, "I am Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, son of Fire Lord Ozai and Ursa, the heir to the throne!"
The masked man mimicked a blanching noise. "So you know what to call yourself," he stated, distaste permeating his tone, "you know what your title is. In the end, though, that's useless." He spun around, and stared into Zuko's eyes once again, "Yet you place so much pride on it, don't you? What was it Uncle told you? …Ah, yes… 'Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source'…"
Zuko's eyes widened slightly at the quote. He shook his head to wipe the shock from his face, and demanded, "How do you know about that? I demand to know who you are!"
The masked man laughed, practically cackled, for several seconds, throwing back his covered head to the sky. After recovering from the fit of laughter, which only succeeded in further frustrating Zuko, he replied, "Unlike you, I know exactly who I am. But since you love titles so much…" He spread his arms wide, almost striking a strange pose of some sort, "I'm the Blue Spirit."
"Fool," Zuko stated, as calmly as his pent-up anger would allow, "Fine, so you know my secret. In that case, explain how you found out, and where you got that damned mask, or I'll burn you over a spit."
The supposed Blue Spirit sighed heavily. "You really don't understand, do you?" Disappointment. "Very well. To the first…well, you could say I've always known. I'd have to be almost as ignorant as you not to. As for the mask, well…I found it."
"You enjoy swimming at the bottom of lakes, do you?" Zuko countered. He still hadn't dropped his stance.
"Not particularly, thanks for asking," the Blue Spirit's return remark seemed…bitter, for some reason. "No, I found it months ago. I needed something to carry out my actions, and well…it was the best thing available." The Blue Spirit chuckled upon finishing that statement, "Really, for a little while I didn't think I'd need it- I lost it once and made do without it. But then you just had to go back to being a prideful, ignorant-"
"Quiet!" Zuko shouted, cutting off the Blue Spirit's remark. "What do you think you are, some kind of jester!? I'm not laughing at your little insults, fool! Now just answer my questions!"
"I shouldn't have to, damn it!" the Blue Spirit suddenly exploded, leaning threateningly towards Zuko, although he pulled back with no further action. "You hot-headed idiot, think! Did you ask these questions when you sent me to free the Avatar from Zhao? When you sent me to steal so you could feed Uncle? When you sent me to find the Avatar's bison!? No, because you didn't want to think about it! When we worked together, you didn't question me either, because you knew damn well that what we were doing was right! Stop being a blind fool, and just-"
"SHUT UP!" Fire erupted from Zuko's fist, blazing almost as strongly as his angry golden eyes. The launched fireball should have incinerated the Blue Spirit, left him a pile of ash and soot, but it didn't. The masked swordsman had moved already, rolling away from the fire and coming to his feet nimbly. Zuko blasted again, and the Blue Spirit leapt off the ground, dodging once more.
"That's it!" the Blue Spirit yelled at the prince mockingly, "Just beat your doubts into submission when you can't reason them away! Fine, then let's do this your way, you hubris-filled ignoramus!" Steel flashed in the dark room, as the Blue Spirit, perfectly mimicking one of Zuko's techniques, snapped a single sword from the sheath on his back, and flicked it about elegantly in the air before it split in half, one blade becoming two. Then the fight was on.
"I'll make you pay for your insults you bastard!" Zuko promised, punching the air and sending a barrage of literal fire rocketing towards his masked foe. The Blue Spirit's swords flashed, the strong blades deflecting bolt after bolt of flame, all the while charging Zuko and closing the distance between them rapidly. Zuko changed tactics at the last second, dropping his assault and falling to the ground before bringing his right leg in a rapid spin that sent a wave of fire crashing towards the Blue Spirit's feet.
"That's good!" the Blue Spirit yelled, leaping into the air and turning a flip over the prince to avoid getting burned. "You may not be a good thinker, but you certainly have some strengths, even if they are this brutish!" Metal sliced the air then, a whirlwind of blades cutting across the small distance that the Blue Spirit's leap had put between them. Zuko snarled, and fire erupted from his closed palms, forming a set of burning daggers. The vigilante and the prince clashed, metal screeching against high-pressured jets of flame, and the two were even for several seconds. Slash, parry, lunge, dodge, kick, block…and so it went, until…
Zuko stabbed, the Spirit spun and swept both swords around, one countering the strike and the other heading towards Zuko's neck. Zuko whipped his other arm around behind his head to dexterously counter, blocking the strike mere inches from his neck. But then the Blue Spirit completed the spin, leaving Zuko still leaning into his stab and tumbling past while the masked one gracefully retained his footing and stood at Zuko's back to boot. "Just not good enough!" the Blue Spirit concluded, flipping both swords around so that they were blade-down, and drove them towards Zuko's back.
Zuko yelled out in fury, planting a foot in the ground hard and blasting a column of flame up around his body. The Blue Spirit was flung backwards, a single sword falling out of his hand, and nearly fell over. Zuko capitalized by whirling on the planted foot, falling to the ground and sweeping the other around on the floor. The resulting ripple of flame scorched across the ground and would have caught the Blue Spirit's foot if he had not picked it up…unfortunately he did so while the other remained aloft. The result was the masked vigilante suspended, helpless in mid-air for a split-second until gravity took over. Zuko acted quickly, planting the foot he had just struck with and launching a back-kick with the other that stuck a fireball right in the Blue Spirit's mask. The Blue Spirit fell with a yell of pain and a thunk on the floor.
"It's over," Zuko growled, leaping over to the stunned Blue Spirit and planting a foot at his neck. "Now stop hiding like a coward behind that mask!" He reached down and grabbed the top of the blue mask, ripping it off of his assailant's face and tossing it away in the same motion. The sight that awaited him, however, was enough to drive him straight out of anger and into horrified shock. "What…"
The Blue Spirit's clothing was empty. A second passed, before suddenly the clothes fell limp to the ground, with no body to hold them up. "Idiot," Zuko heard the Blue Spirit say, and whirled around to where he had heard it, "I'm not hiding myself- you just tried to hide me away." Zuko stood dumbfounded. The mask was standing on its edge of its own accord, the discarded sword clutched blade out between its teeth.
"How…?" Zuko was almost beyond speech. His righteous indignation, his pride, his anger, all were gone, driven away by his failure to understand. "…What does it mean?"
"It means…" the Blue Spirit said. And then the mask was flying towards him, the sword pointed towards his heart- "You haven't finished making your choice yet."
Zuko gasped and his eyes reflexively fastened themselves shut when a sharp pain stabbed through his chest, a pain so great that he didn't realize for several moments that he wasn't dead. When he finally came to this conclusion, his eyes cautiously crept open, and a hand shot to his chest. No wound. No mask and sword. He looked around the room. No black clothing. No char marks from his Firebending. No Blue Spirit.
"It was…a dream?" Zuko wondered allowed, his only audience the empty room. "But if it was a dream," Zuko pondered, looking at the floor he stood on, "then why am I out of bed?" Suddenly, something washed over the prince, and he realized that he was suddenly very tired, and didn't care what had happened at the moment. His eyelids heavy, Zuko crawled back into bed, replaced himself under the covers, and drifted out of consciousness…
"I suggest you sleep on it," the Blue Spirit stated, as he watched Zuko through his window from a distant rooftop. "Prince of the Fire Nation, son of Fire Lord Ozai and Ursa, heir to the throne…" he said aloud, and paused, "…Zuko." The Blue Spirit straightened up, maintaining his gaze on the prince throughout, and continued to speak to the sleeping Firebender from afar, "You're making me almost as irritable as you usually are, Zuzu. Don't keep me locked up like this…Real men aren't so ashamed of their true selves as to hide them behind a mask. Remember, I'm always here…if you need me, don't hesitate to call me out…" A wind blew across the skyline of Ba Sing Se, and the Blue Spirit's body began to peel away, deteriorating into trails of black dust that dragged behind him. His clothing faded, then the twin swords, until only the grinning blue noh mask remained. "I'll be waiting," were its final words, before it, too, was gone, and the city was left quiet, except for the howling of wind ripping through its alleys…
Wow, that felt good. I've had this idea in my mind for awhile now, and I wanted to write something with the Blue Spirit in it…that persona is just so bad-ass. Give me some feedback, as I'm planning on writing two more Avatar fics in the future…