A boy whose joints flared was working in the field. He wondered what happened to his older brother all those years ago.
As they traveled to the recently-conquered Omashu, Ty Lee explained everything in her hyperactive way to Nightcrawler. He nodded as they rode along in their palanquin. By the time they arrived in Omashu, Nightcrawler could have sworn he knew everything about Azula and Zuko, including his love for turtle ducks and that Zuko loved his mother Ursa. As the palanquin was set down, Ty Lee bounded out and a gloomy girl with fingernails sharp as knives greeted them.
"Please tell me you're here to kill me." Azula and the gloomy girl then laughed.
"It's great to see you, Mai." Nightcrawler never saw Azula laugh before. It sounded almost genuine.
"Who's the blue fuzz ball?" Mai asked. Nightcrawler stepped forward.
"The Incredible Nightcrawler. Ty Lee and I worked together in the circus; we were both acrobats."
"Which reminds me; I thought you ran off to join the circus, Ty Lee. Said it was your calling."
"Yeah, but Azula called a little louder."
After Azula explained the situation, Mai couldn't help but wonder how this blue boy fit into Azula's plan. After all, she didn't choose weaklings.
In a Fire Nation colony, a platoon of fire benders were found. All of them had been crushed or skewered by metal.
Sokka took a step back as Nightcrawler bamfed next to him and grabbed the baby out of his arms, and knocked him on his feet. Sokka got out his club and swung and Nightcrawler. He bamfed away again, this time landing on Sokka before he could strike. Sokka threw his boomerang at Nightcrawler, knocking him away. It was then Appa arrived, blowing the girls and Nightcrawler away with his gigantic tail. In order to keep from falling over and possibly hurting the baby, Nightcrawler bamfed to Mai.
After Sokka and Katara left, Nightcrawler handed Tom-Tom over to Mai. She had to keep her brother from reaching for Nightcrawler's spaded tail.
On a Fire Nation Island, there was a beautiful woman. Many soldiers and some civilians never lived after she served them tea.
Zuko had split up with Iroh. However, Zuko had made a mistake; he forgot to have enough food for the journey through this town. It was only through luck that he met Lee and was fed. No, he was not starving, but the town had the bad luck to not have any food. The story of his life; all the luck seemed to be with Azula.
A few months ago, Zuko would not have cared about Lee or his family. A few months ago, Zuko was chasing the Avatar on a ship to regain his honor. He had changed since then. He began to fight for Lee.
In the audience, Sying was watching as best he could without opening his eyes. He heard the tell-tale sound of fire bending. Hearing the sound of hammers, he blinked his eyes open for a second. The guy with the mallet- Shin-fu- was hit. Zuko was surprised by this, but he took advantage of it and pounded him yet again. Shin-fu was down for the count when he asked; "Who are you?"
As Zuko gave his long-winded explanationabout who he was, the Earth Kingdom villagers made a semicircle around Sying. They had seen what he had done, and they thought he was a weird type of fire bender. They glared as the banished prince approached the little boy, and Sying knew that even though he had lived there for the past few years, he was done for. He followed the banished prince out of the town, stumbling along. He just wished he could open his eyes without anything blowing it up.
A boy who had lived with the swamp benders for years jumped into a tree and caught a fly with his abnormally long tongue. A swamp bender loudly commented, "Woo-ee, that was a big 'un."
They had been chasing the Avatar all night. Nightcrawler secretly wondered why they changed their mission from capturing her traitor brother and uncle to the Avatar. Then he remembered that the two people tasked to capturing the biggest threat to the Fire Nation had died or were being hunted themselves. After that, Nightcrawler decided not to think about why Azula was doing things and just find a way for him and Ty Lee to get out of that mess without the implied threat to his loved ones at the circus getting in the way. If he flubbed the battle, Azula would realize that and they would be punished. Escaping wasn't an option either.
"Well, it's time to get up, everyone. The Avatar and his friends should be tired, and they have foolishly stopped to fight. Now's the time to strike." At Azula's words, everyone got up and got on a mongoose-lizard(1). The door went down, and they rode out.
Nightcrawler had never realized what 'all terrain' meant for their mount before. He then found out when they avoided earthen road blocks quickly and crawled up the gigantic stone wall. They then got on Appa and flew away, avoiding Azula's lightening.
A girl accidentally touched a boy with her bare skin. He collapsed. She had his memories in her head now.
"We could have taken them!" Toph announced.
"Are you crazy? The one with the pink can block your bending, and that's really scary" Katara retorted.
"And the fuzzy blue one can disappear and reappear anywhere" Sokka added in. Everyone else looked at him in shock.
"That's not possible" Katara said in a flat voice.
"He did. That's how he got that little boy out of my arms in Omashu. But that can't be as weird as anything you guys can do."
"Sokka, you can't bend space. It's easier to bend metal than to do that. You're probably just remembering things wrong because you're so tired; we've been up all night" Aang added.
A girl had a nightmare about falling. She woke up in the food cellar.
(1) Info on the name courtusy of audio commentary.
Alright. Tell me if using mutants discovering their powers as scene breakers is annoying or good. Please. And cookies to anyone who guesses who each mutant is in the breaks. And the main reason it's so broken up at the begining? I really don't want to write canon over again, but some details are more important. It will flow more and more as we break from canon more and more.
Oh, and I probably will not use Nightcrawler's ATLA name that much, but Sying and others may have their names I choose used more often. If confused, I may just resort to their original names for the rest of the fic. Just say the word, alright?
If you don't know who Sying is yet, you will next chapter. Oh, and he's sort of like he was in that one episode of Evo.