Forgotten Words Part Seven: Ultimatum
An Avatar Fan Fiction by Elle Kitty
A/N: Alrighty. Thanks for the wait, if any of you are still reading since y'all didn't leave reviews for the most part. However, I have been checking Reader Traffic and I'm really excited to see how many people are reading, even if you're not reviewing. I was really excited to see that people as far away as Singapore! are reading my fan fiction. So, big thank you to all of my readers, especially since this is going to be the second-to-last chapter of Forgotten Words. I did my best with the fight scene (when I've never written a fight scene in my life); keep that in mind while reading. Thanks all, EK.
Part Seven: Ultimatum
"So, Sokka is your name, right? My favorite prisoner used to talk about you all the time. She was convinced that you were going to come rescue her, but of course you never came, and eventually she gave up on you."
Sokka watched as the world crumbled around him.
Standing alone beside a well in a foreign land, struck dumb by the sudden crash of lightning, Sokka watched stupidly, without making any movements beside the staggered rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, as Zuko leapt to his feet. "She's here," the vengeful Fire Nation prince snarled.
"Who's here?" asked Ty Lee, voice quivering with fear.
"Azula," answered Zuko, not even bothering to comment on Ty Lee's obliviousness. He pointed down an adjourning street. "Come on Sokka. Let's go."
Sokka didn't move. Zuko grimaced. "Isn't this what you've been waiting for?" he shouted, shaking Sokka by the shoulders.
"What about me?"
Zuko turned to Ty Lee. "Help us out… or get out of the way. We wouldn't want a real casualty. Sokka!"
Sokka still didn't answer. Zuko groaned and resigned himself to facing Azula alone. "Ty Lee," he ordered. "Stay with him."
As he sprinted to the mouth of the street, eyes and ears open for Azula, or anyone really, Zuko felt his heart race with adrenaline and anticipation. This was it. He was finally going to face Azula. And, this time, he knew that one of them was not going to walk away unscathed. That was what he wanted, wasn't it: an ultimatum.
Unfortunately, Zuko had other things to worry about.
He stopped in his tracks as Katara came running out from the shelter of the awning of a building. Catching her by the wrists, Zuko looked down into her blue eyes and demanded, "What happened?"
Katara struggled for a moment and Zuko released her wrists. "I need to go back and help Toph! You come too. Hurry!"
"Not until you've told me what's happened. Then, I'd be glad to help you."
Sokka, still dumbstruck, and Ty Lee watched from a distance. Katara glanced briefly at them, breathing a short sigh of relief upon seeing her brother unharmed, and then answered Zuko. "Toph and I left Aang to find you and Sokka. We left Aang with Appa in the clearing, and went to the old palace, hoping that you two were there. You weren't. Azula was, waiting with the Dai Li. We ran… and they chased us here. I need to go back!"
"Calm down Katara. How many are there? I need to know so that we can decide to stay and fight or run."
"Three Dai Li. And Azula herself."
Glancing back at Sokka and judging him useless for the time being, Zuko started walking to the battle scene. "Keep the Dai Li off my back."
"And what about you? What will you do?" Katara ran to catch up with him.
"Leave Azula to me."
"Listen Zuko," her hand caught his sleeve. "I need to tell you something."
"There's time for that later."
"There may not be. Zuko, I've had time to think about what you said, and I-"
"Don't." He broke from her grip and started running.
She said something anyway, but Zuko was too busy racing towards his destiny to stop and listen.
Suki, despite all appearances, was very much awake and had been so for several minutes. Draped under the stranger's cloak (who hand turned out to be none other than the young man who broke Mai's heart), she squeezed her blue-grey eyes shut and, holding her breath, told herself that this wasn't happening. Unfortunately, the second crash of lightning told her otherwise.
Suki listened patiently as Zuko argued with Ty Lee. She knew that both Sokka and Ty Lee had arrived, but she refused to greet them in any way. But, now that it had been made clear that Azula was attacking and at a rapid rate, she sat up and leapt to her feet, casting the cloak aside. She quickly took in the situation: Zuko had taken off, presumably to fight Azula, leaving this Katara behind, Ty Lee stood nervously, shifting her weight from foot to foot, and Sokka still stood, staring into space. She started to run after Zuko, so that he wouldn't have to fight Azula alone, but a hand reached out and caught her arm, holding her back: Sokka.
"I'm not about to lose you again."
Biting back a sharp reply about how he had seemed completely of no use only a few minutes before, Suki said, "Sokka, let go of me. I can handle myself."
"I'm not about to let you go running off to get yourself killed."
Suki shook her head. In her own mind this conversation could be seen as laughable. But the look in Sokka's eyes told her otherwise. She looked down at her pale hands. In truth, she had not idea of what she could do by way of fighting. But she was determined to do all that she could. She looked back up at Sokka. "I know what I'm doing. I'm not going to die."
"Azula's there, waiting for you. Suki, if she sees you, she'll-"
"I know what she'll do! She'll kill me. I'm fully aware of that!" And it made her quiver with fear on the inside, but she didn't say that. She needed to be brave, for Sokka. In order to convince him that she was someone to be trusted. "I won't let her. You know me, Sokka, even if I don't entirely know myself. You know that I won't just lie down and bare my throat!"
"I'm not about to let her even have the chance!" Sokka stared her down. "You know me don't you Suki? You know that I'm not about to let you go!"
"I don't know you Sokka! Don't you get it? I'm-," her voice shook, "I'm not the same person you left behind. Whatever Azula did, she changed me. And I don't know if I can change back." She turned away. "So, take it or leave it Sokka. Just don't play these silly games where you believe me one moment and then doubt me the next. Just don't!"
Sokka looked away. "I believe you. For now."
"No!" Suki shouted. "Take it or leave it! One or the other! No more of these 'maybes' and 'sometimes' and 'if you do what I say's! I am half sick of shadows! Either you believe me or you don't!"
Ty Lee cried out. Katara gasped as Suki and Sokka looked up to see Zuko and Toph running towards them at a sprint. Because Azula and her Dai Li agents had brought the battle to them.
Immediately upon his arrival, Zuko pulled Katara away from Azula's consecutive attacks and, therefore, out of harm's way. Shoving her behind the well, he attempted to put himself between her and Azula. But it didn't matter. While Suki, Sokka, and Toph fought off the Dai Li to the best of their abilities, Azula's attention was all for Zuko.
Leaping nimbly over Zuko as he settled into a protective stance in front of Katara, Azula perched on a second-story porch, leaning casually against a wooden support. "Zu-zu," she said calmly, almost casually, "it's such a pity that I didn't kill you when last I had the chance. It's not a mistake that I'm about to make again!"
As Azula sprung from her lofty perch the way a hawk prepares to descend on a mouse, Zuko yanked Katara away from the onslaught of fire. Together, they raced across to the cover of the porch Azula had just recently vacated. Ducking down behind a hanging tapestry draped over the railing above, Zuko pulled Katara down into a crouch behind him. Peering under the hem of the hanging tapestry, he clasped Katara's trembling hand and pushed her up against the wooden wall, kicking the nearby door open. While Azula still could not see them well enough to attack, he tried to push the waterbender into the house, whispering urgently, "Grab the others and head for the beach. Do your best to signal Aang and Appa somehow and get out of here."
Katara resisted being shoved inside, out of danger (or so Zuko thought), and instead clung to the front of his shirt. "What about you?"
"It's my destiny. Can't I do what I like with it?"
"But-"
"Stop clinging to me Katara. I'm seventeen; older than you. Cut out the 'mother' card!"
"Zuko-"
"Stop! Why can't you go play with Aang or something?"
Katara paled, and looked away. Zuko regretted his words almost immediately. "I mean- Katara- That's not what I meant-"
"So, this is the reason Mai was so heartbroken!"
Zuko froze. Azula's malicious voice began to get louder as she came closer to their hiding place behind the flimsy tapestry. Blue flames began to eat up the material, revealing Zuko as he pulled Katara behind him again, ready to protect her. Katara could see Azula's smirking face as the waterbender peered over Zuko's shoulder and Katara knew that Azula could see her too. Azula's smirk broadened until it was a sick grin. Katara shuddered. She looked at Zuko's tense shoulders as he stood in front of her and swallowed nervously.
"Heartbroken, Zuko. Nothing less. And you and your Water Tribe brat are obviously the cause of her heartbreak!" Azula sighed as though she were bored. "I wondered why she wanted to leave. You drove her off the island, didn't you know?" She paused. "No, I don't think you didn't. I don't think you bothered to know. You're just like that, Zuko, don't you know? So proud, so fearless, so detached, you'd think nothing mattered to you anymore!"
Katara bit her lip in worry when Zuko didn't make any movement, as though he'd lost control of his senses. His frozen stance reminded her of an animal who believes that the predator cannot see him if he stands still enough. But she needed Zuko to move, to fight. To do something! So she grabbed his shoulders from behind and did her best to shake him into awareness. "Zuko, don't listen to her! She's trying to distract you, trying to make you emotional so that she can gain the upper hand!"
"Because of you, she couldn't bear another moment. She's running away from you. You've sucked all of the life from her, haven't you? I remember the distant, smothered torture in her eyes, the way she couldn't stand up quite as straight as she had been able to before. I remember the way she shuddered when I said your name, as if the very reminder of you was painful. And I thought I'd seen all kinds of misery. But now I realize that Mai is trapped in a very… special circle of despair.
"'Why?' I asked myself, 'Why?'" Azula fixed her golden eyes on Katara's anxious blue ones. "Well now, we all know why."
Katara buried her face into Zuko's stiff shoulder. "Zuko," she tried not to sob. "Just- do something." Once again, she checked her water sack. Nothing.
"How does that make you feel?" Azula adopted a condescending tone. "Guilty? Proud? Furious?"
Katara felt Zuko begin to take some deeper, angrier breaths. "Zuko please!"
"No." Azula shook her head with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. "I don't think you feel at all."
Too late. Zuko pushed Katara away and lost the control that he had worked so hard to achieve. He let go of his anger, of his rage and, with a growl at the back of throat, he lashed out with a blaze of scarlet flames in all directions.
Katara fell away when Zuko pushed her. Her loose hair flew up behind her in a dark wave as she fell, landing hard on the wooden porch. As Zuko's fire tore through the air around him, some landing to blaze on the edges of the roof, some on the wooden railing, they caught and began to eat fervently at the wood; the flames caught Katara's hair, singing the ends. The flames gathered around her fallen form, beginning to lick at her elbows and ankles. Zuko tore out from under the awning, running at a sprint towards Azula, already preparing a second attack, without a single glance back at the girl he'd left behind.
Katara began to rise, supporting herself on her elbows. But, as soon as she managed to stagger to her feet, her foot went through the frail wood of the porch floor. She fell again and looked up at the awning above her only to watch as the wood and shingle began to fall around her. She screamed for Zuko, but her cry for help fell on deaf ears. Desperately trying to free herself, Katara found herself buried under shingle and charred wood and then falling into darkness.
As she glanced at Katara's buried form, Azula shrugged, leaping nimbly just out of reach of Zuko's attacks. She leaned up against the railing of the house opposite the one that slowly burned to the ground and cocked an eyebrow. "I suppose she didn't mean all that much to you after all."
As Azula stormed into the square, Suki turned to Sokka and said, "Too late."
Sokka opened his mouth to reply, but Toph cut him off with a "I need a little help over here! I hate to break up such a romantic moment, but these Dai Li aren't about to fight themselves, you know!"
Sokka nodded and said, "We'll be there."
As they ran to Toph, Suki looked around for Ty Lee. "Coward," she muttered.
Hearing her, Sokka attempted a smile and said, "I never did think she was much of a fighter." He looked around and breathed a sigh of relief when he say Zuko spring from some rubble and fiercely attack Azula. "Zuko's got Azula under control, but where is- Katara!"
Suki turned around to see Sokka as he raced against time to the collapsing building, trying to save his sister. Suki followed, as fast as she could, but it was too late. Sokka knelt beside the rubble that covered his sister, trying to uncover as much as he could by himself while the building blazed behind him. Suki rushed to his side, forgetting her earlier anger with him. To her, right now Sokka was just someone who needed help.
She knelt by his side and tried to help him. Sokka, having already uncovered most of the smaller rubble, attempted to lift a wooden beam that pinned Katara to the floor. Struggling to lift the beam alone, his eyes met Suki's and silently asked for help. Wordlessly, she picked up the other end of the beam and, together, they lifted it up and away. Sokka cradled his sister in his arms. Suki knelt beside him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Whispering in his ear, she said, "Sokka, it's alright. She's breathing, she has a strong pulse. She may not have the same long hair, but she's alive. She'll be alright. But this building is going to collapse on all of us if we don't move fast and we need to help… Toph." She smiled as she remembered the Earthbender's name, tears in her blue-grey eyes.
For a moment, Suki thought that Sokka hadn't heard her. But then he nodded and gathered Katara up in his arms. Sokka and Suki ran across the square.
Meanwhile, Zuko and Azula were locked in a battle where it seemed that neither of them could gain the upper hand. Azula had lost her usual calm precision much in the way Zuko had lost his control and both were becoming sloppy, setting fire to more houses. Civilians began to pour into the streets. Zuko shouted, "Why don't we stop this before someone gets hurt!"
In response, Azula sent another flurry of blue flame his way and bared her teeth when he evaded her attack. Deciding to pursue another tactic, she laughed maniacally, "Stop before someone gets hurt?" Still laughing, she pointed. Zuko glanced in that direction, amber eyes widening with shock when he saw Katara's body lying limp in Sokka's arms. His eyes met Suki's and they shared a moment of mutual understanding, but Suki turned away. Presuming the worst, Zuko attempted to run to Katara's side, but Azula blocked his path with blue fire, creating a dangerous curtain that divided the two of them from the others. Zuko turned back to Azula with rage in his eyes. "It's your fault! You did this!"
Azula shook her head slowly, satisfaction playing out on her cool features. "No Zuko. You did."
He began to fight, but Azula leapt away, tantalizingly just out of reach. "You set the building on fire. You singed her hair. You pushed her away. You left her as the building began to collapse! If she is dead, well then, how many causalities are you going to leave in your wake?"
Zuko hurled another blast at her. The fight went on.
Across the curtain of fire, Sokka attempted to engage in a fist fight with one of the three Dai Li agents. Without a sword, machete, or even a boomerang, Sokka had to admit to himself that he was proving to be pretty useless. Toph juggled two Dai Li while Zuko fought Azula off. Even Suki managed to handle anyone who got too close to Katara. Fire Nation soldiers were pouring into the square and civilians were staring. They were creating a spectacle.
"Sokka!" Suki shouted as she threw a cobblestone at an attacking soldier's head. "We need to get out of here! We can't hold out for much longer, and someone else might get hurt!"
And I don't want that someone to be you, Sokka thought. He looked around. "They're blocking off the exits!" Fighting his way to her side, he touched her face gently and said, "I don't think we're going to get out of this alive."
Suki attempted a smile, pulling away only to beat back a soldier with a random stick. "What are you talking about? You're Sokka, the brilliant tactician!"
"I'm beginning to believe that you shouldn't have come for you."
Suki stopped fighting. "What lie has Azula fed you?" she whispered, looking at him.
"You'd have been safe. Oblivious. Living the life of a pampered Fire Nation lady."
"Pampered Fire Nation brat is more like it!" She ran to his side and took up his hands. "Don't regret it," she whispered. "Don't regret any of what you did."
"But-"
"Don't." Quickly, she kissed him. As she pulled away, she smiled and said, "You talk too much."
She pulled away once again and returned to the fight. Sokka stared at her for a moment and then shook his head, fighting once more, this time with more vigor. "No way out," he muttered. "Who cares?"
A roar answered him. A flying bison landed in the middle of the battle. A livid Aang leapt off Appa and yelled, "Everybody in!"
Toph pushed the two Dai Li into a building and rushed to Appa's side. Sokka picked Katara back up into his arms and he and Suki rushed to Toph who then bended a platform up to the saddle. Aang followed and prepared to take off, but Suki shouted, "Zuko!"
Zuko looked up from his battle with Azula to watch as Aang shouted "Yip yip" anyway. Appa began to take off. Running as fast as he could away from Azula, Zuko ran up the stairs of a porch and leapt across a roof. Appa took flight and Zuko jumped nimbly into the saddle, landing next to Katara as she lay on the floor. Moving as far away from Aang as possible, Zuko slid between Sokka and Suki. As he buried his scarred face in his hands, Suki placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Aang looked at each of them. "What happened?"
No one answered.
