Of Mutants and Benders
By: Orionstorm04
Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender or X-Men I only own the original idea and my OC's. Please read and review, hope you enjoy.
A/N: Update time! Well at least I hope it will be. At the moment I'm typing this, there is another hurricane heading towards Louisiana, which can mean a few things. 1) It might mean that I won't get to update things for a few days( even though it's been a month since I updated anyway : P) 2) I may have to evacuate, which means that traffic will be Hell again and to be honest I'm getting tired of evacuating! TT. Not to mention the damage bad weather keeps doing to my house. Oh well no use crying over something that ain't happened yet. To all my reviewers; I love you all, Sakura NedoChan 13 you have been a great help, Young Neil you da best, and its so good to see somebody else from da souf dat I can actually talk to wit a accent and probably won' look at me like I don' los' my mind, it does a southerner' good to just let go of all da preconceptions of what dey should be and be who they feel comfortably as. And I of course have to give a huge thank you to shadow dragon, for she will always be a friend. And anonymous 666… one day I'll find out who you are so that I can give you a proper thank you.
Not Alone…
Waking Zuko proved to be an extremely hard task. It took her over fifteen minutes to get him up, and when she finally did get him to even approach the world of the living, he fell back down on his sleeping mat.
"Give me a break…" N'Dare grumbled.
They didn't have all day to lie around and sleep in, she wasn't entirely sure where they were going, but she knew she didn't want to spend another minute in that cramped cave. She was never what one could consider 'spoiled'; but being raised in a palace with attendants' constantly there to answer your every beck and called tended to make a person a little used to a certain lifestyle. And right now, wondering around in an unknown place with a huge cut on her side, with broken ribs, and sleeping in caves really wasn't fitting the bill.
"Fine… you don't want to wake up huh? Well we'll have to change that." Making her way out the cave and to the nearby spring, N'Dare filled the pouch she was given the previous night by Iroh, with water then walked back to the cave. Standing at Zuko's side with the pouch of water still in her hand, N'Dare gave him one final warning.
"If you don't get your butt out of bed right now, heaven help me Zuko, I swear you'll regret it!"
"Mmmm…" was his only response.
"That's it!" she couldn't take it anymore, her wound was bothering her, she was still a little sleepy herself and Iroh had left with only a vague excuse. Uncorking the water bottle in her hand, she began to pour the icy cold contents on Zuko's head.
"What the… why did you do that?!" Zuko asked with wild eyes.
"Well I've been trying to wake you up for the last twenty minutes, and nothing seemed to be working." She said nonchalantly, she was determined to not get in another yelling match with him; at least not right now, looking around the cave, Zuko notice that his uncle was nowhere to be seen.
"Where is Uncle?"
"He left."
"Ohh… so you know?" Zuko watched as her mood seemed to change slightly; he could see how her shoulders feel a little.
"Yes… I heard you two talking last night. He wants me to stay with you… I guess whatever he has to do was important, because he was up before dawn; I just barely caught him before he left."
"Sooo…"
Having swiftly grown tired of the conversation at hand, and not really wanting to continue N'Dare cut him off.
"It's no big deal… he has to do what he has to do. And so do we, well I guess I mean you; since I'm only your tag along. Now where exactly are we going again; and why?"
"We're headed towards the Western Air Temple…" Zuko began to pick up his sleeping mat, he didn't know what he was going to do once he caught up with the avatar and his friends, but he knew that he at least had to try. He had a lot to make up for, and the first place to start was with the avatar.
"What is the 'Western Air Temple'?"
Zuko looked at her for a while; he knew that it was a long time ago that the air nomads had been whipped out; but to never have hear of them was something entirely different. Come to think of it, he didn't really know anything about the girl that would be traveling with him.
"Where did you say you were from again?"
"I never said where I was from." N'Dare could spot that lame excuse, to get some information out of her, from a mile away, and if he wanted to know anything about her, he would have to do a lot better than that.
"Well the Western Air Temple was once the home of the air nomads…"
"Air nomads?"
"People who were trained in the art of airbending..."
"Oh, okay; kinda like you are with firebending, Wow… so are they friendly or do we have to fight our way in? Cause I can tell you now that I don't think I'll be much help with this." She said while indicating her side.
"The air nomads were killed off a long time ago… the avatar is the only one left."
N'Dare stopped in her tracks, how could an entire civilization be whipped out? Well… she, more than anyone should know what it feels like to lose an entire people; but how could this have happened here, in such a relatively primitive place?
"How were they killed?"
"I don't want to talk about it right now." The shame of knowing that his people were directly responsible in the genocide of the Air Nomads made Zuko sick to his stomach. As a child, he was always taught that the Fire Nation was simply trying to share with the world their prosperity, but know he was able to see that for what it was; a lie. His father wasn't trying to bring the Fire Nation's prosperity unto the world, he was trying to domineer it, have everyone under his rule and his rule alone. The annihilation of the Airbenders was just a way to make sure that there was no one to stand in the Fire Nation's way.
"Come on, we have a long journey ahead of us and if we want to make it there before night fall we have to leave now."
N'Dare could see in his mood change that the subject of the air nomads was a subject that he wasn't too keen on talking about at that particular time. Watching Zuko leave the cave with his sack thrown over his shoulder, and her sack in his other hand and a blank look in his eyes, N'Dare choose not to broach the matter any further, if she was meant to learn about what happened to the air nomads then she would find out in due time. Following him out to the airship that had taken them from the Fire Nation capital, N'Dare tried hard not to make any sudden movements; she was tired of the constant pain that her wound was giving her.
"What I wouldn't give to have Uncle Logan's healing factor right about now." The thought of her recently deceased uncle caused that same dull pain to strike at her heart. True things would be different now and would most likely never be the same; she did just lose everyone and everything she had ever known. Though the one thing she wished she could lose always seemed to be staring her in the face, constantly reminding her of the past. She was constantly being weighed down by her mother's neglect in telling her about her powers, along with her own guilt about not doing more to protect those she loved, or at least dying along with them. The only thing questions that constantly rang loud and clear in her mind was would this pain ever go away, would she ever wake up and not wished that she had died along with everyone else?
When Zuko said they had a long trip, he wasn't lying. It had taken them all day to get to their current location, and according to him it was still a little distance away until they actually reached the temple.
"We'll stay here for the night, and then head out first thing in the morning."
"Why not just continue, that way we won't have to wake up so early?" she really wasn't meaning to complain, but to her it just made more sense for them to get it over with now instead of having to wake up before the sun rises.
"Well for one it wouldn't do us any good tonight because I wouldn't want to approach them at night… we haven't had the best of relationships. Secondly you are bleeding out of your bandages and I don't need to worry about you getting hurt right now."
"Who the Hell asked you to worry?! Look Zuko, I'm trying really hard to not argue with you; but you're making it really difficult. Are you always this brooding or is it something that you reserve only for the brightest of times in your life." She snapped with sarcasm dripping from every word.
"You're right… you're right, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound cruel or to brood. It's just that I'm not looking forward to talking to the avatar."
"Why not… what happened between you two that you can't stand to be around each other?" taking her time, N'Dare sat on a log a few feet away from the fire Zuko had made. It was true, she was bleeding through her bandages, but for right now that could wait; there was a few things that she wanted answered before they did anything else and there was no way she was letting Zuko get off by saying he didn't want to answer, even if it meant that she had to tell him something just as personal in return.
"It's hard to explain…."
"We have all night and I'm all ears."
"You really won't let this go will you? Fine… I really don't know where to start…it's hard to ask someone to trust you when you have spent the last three years of your life hunting them down…" and over the course of an hour, Zuko had told her everything that had happened between him and the avatar. How he had tried on several occasions to capture the avatar so that he could regain his honor and his father's love. He didn't go into too many details about his banishment, only that he and his father had a disagreement, and in order for him to return home he had to capture the avatar.
"Wow… I couldn't imagine going through something like that. I can't even begin to think w what it must have been like for you to be sent away from everything and everyone you knew… it must have been hard."
It was the first time that someone who barely knew him, heard his tale and felt sympathy for him. Normally they would dismiss his obvious pain, claiming that it was just something that happens and then they would move on with their lives not even bothering to take a second thought as to how those events shaped this young man's life. The only person that truly knew or even cared how much his banishment affected him was his uncle Iroh… well maybe him and that water tribe girl that he spent time with in the Earth Kingdom prison.
"It doesn't matter anymore… all that matters is that I talk to the avatar and hopefully he'll let me help."
"Well I'm sorry to burst your bubble Zuko, but I doubt he'll listen to anything you have to say. I mean you did try to kill him and his friends on more than one occasion… be honest; would you listen to the guy that tried to fry you almost every chance he got?"
Zuko began to look at his hand rather than at her, he had thought about that more than once since he decided to help the avatar, at the moment everything seemed hopeless.
"Ugh… your right, why would he listen to me; I'm so stupid, this is never going to work!"
"Geez Zuko, I didn't mean to make you spaz out… calm down, everything will work itself out in the end"
"You're the one who just said that there was no way he would listen to me!"
"True… but maybe I'm wrong. I don't know this avatar guy, but it seems as though, at least from what you've said, he is a reasonable person, I bet all you would have to do is explain how much you've changed and I'm sure he'll give you the benefit of the doubt."
"I doubt it." Zuko mumbled before putting his face in his hands. Hearing N'Dare muffled grunts caused him to life his eyes in her direction. He had forgotten that he needed to change the bandages on her wound, walking to the war balloon; he began to rummage through the sacks that he brought along with him, until he found what he was looking for.
"We need to changes those again." Looking down N'Dare had to agree with him, the strips of fabric were stained all the way though with her blood and the tattered remains weren't really doing much to protect her injured side.
"Yeah I guess so…." She began to lift the tattered remnants of her gown away from her wound; but soon she got frustrated and decided to just rip it away from her body completely, there was no use in wearing it anymore. The once beautiful gown was destroyed; and wearing it now only reminded her of what was, so now all that was left was the top part with the midsection remove.
"Much better, now we have more bandages and less of an obstacle to get to the heart of the matter."
"Oookaayy." This girl left Zuko completely at a lost, he knew that she wasn't from any of the four nations; but still… she didn't hold anything back and always spoke her mind. Like before, neither one of them spoke while he cleaned and changed her wound.
"I was attacked…" her words shocked him into looking at her. "My home was attacked by monsters. It all happened so fast that we didn't really have a chance." It was a offer of trust, she was telling him, in no certain words, that she trusted in him enough to tell him how she got in the state she was in.
"I got this scare from my father… it was punishment for me speaking out of turn during a meeting he was holding with his generals."
"Your father did that to you?! Goddess Zuko, I had no idea, what kind of monster would do that to his son; simply for speaking out of turn?!"
He refused to answer that question, the pain of having his father permanently scare, and banish him, still left a shallow pain in his chest. Even after asking his father during their battle, how he could to that to him, he still had little comfort. His father had shown little to no concern about how his actions affected Zuko. N'Dare couldn't imagine a parent doing something so heinous to their child, she knew for a fact that her mother would never do anything to hurt her, at least not intentionally.
So why was she so upset that her mother hadn't been honest with her about her powers, why did she feel a slight touch of resentment towards the woman who had given her life to protect her? She was able to see Zuko in a new light now, when she first meet him, she simply thought that he was a withdrawn individual with a mood swing problem; but now she could actually see deeper than what lie on the surface and understand somewhat of where he was coming from. There was more to him then face value, he was hurting at the moment and all he wanted was to have his father's approving and acceptance.
"I'm going to bed, you should do the same. Tomorrow we'll head to the temple; hopefully the avatar will still be there." Watching Zuko get his things and lie down next to the fire, N'Dare felt so much sympathy for the young boy. Looking at the moon between the canopies of the trees, she began to contemplate her own situation.
The following morning, Zuko needed no help in waking up. He had barely gotten any sleep the night before because he was so nervous about his confrontation with the avatar.
"Wake up N'Dare…" slowly opening her eyes, N'Dare spotted Zuko standing just beyond her sleeping mat. It was funny how their positions had changed over night; just yesterday she was the one pouring cold water over his head.
"What, no wakeup call with ice water? You are no fun Zuko." She said with a sleepy giggle.
"I didn't want to scare you and cause you to hurt yourself."
"And such a gentleman to, I bet the girls go crazy for you." N'Dare said teasingly. After pulling herself up she began to gather her things so that they could leave soon. "So do you have one… a girlfriend I mean?"
"Umm…" Zuko started to blush furiously; he didn't know why he was so embarrassed by the question, he never had a problem talking about his relationship with Mai before; so now would be no different. "Yeah… her name's Mai."
"Ohh Zuko is a lady's man huh? I should have known; you have that bad boy quality that some girls can't seem to resist." The look on Zuko's face in combination with the extreme blush that he was sporting caused a massive laugh to erupt from the girl, so much so that it jibed her ribs.
"Oww!"
"So how about you, do you have a boyfriend?" the laughter in her eyes had suddenly dimmed, the moment had passed and realization had set back in.
"You ever notice how the most trivial thing enter your mind at the worst possible times? I guess I never really thought about it." looking at his confused expression she continued. "I never had a boyfriend. It seemed as though I always kept myself too preoccupied with other things to even entertain the idea of dating anyone, besides most guys were a little intimidated where I was concerned, since a majority of my uncles would have gave them the third degree if he even began to ask me out."
It really didn't take them that long to get to the temple, and what N'Dare saw completely blew her away. At home in Wakanda, she was used to seeing magnificent pieces of architecture; but this was beyond anything she had ever witnessed. They had landed the ship a few feet under the temple, and looking up she was able to see the temple that was hidden from view while they were airborne. The temple was built into the mountain, but not into the side, but under a cliff of the mountain like stalagmites. It would be hard to try and explain to anyone who didn't live in this world the defiance of gravity; but it would also be hard to explain people who could manipulate element by performing martial arts.
"It's beautiful…"
"Come on."
"We have to walk all the way up there?! Why didn't we just take the airship and fly up there?" N'Dare wasn't unused to physical activities, it was just that walking made her wound aggravated and she would be tired immediately following the trek.
"I don't want them to mistake us for one of the Fire Nation's ships… It would be a lot better if we just got there on foot."
The path to the temple was a rigorous one, but nothing worse than she had to do while she was training with Psylocke, N'Dare was able to recall several times that her pseudo aunt would come into her bed chamber before the crack of dawn and have her and Rachel doing laps around the entire city walls.
"How are you doing… do you need to stop?
I'm fine." She knew that her heavy breathing was a dead giveaway that she was exhausted; but she didn't want to waste anymore time by asking if they could take a break; she would rest later. Zuko's mind was running a mile a minute; the day had finally come, the day that he would confront the avatar not as an enemy but a potential ally. He also remembered coming here with his uncle Iroh when he first was banished, only then he was searching the temple for any sign of the avatar, now he had returned with the knowledge that the avatar was in fact there.
What would he have done for this information years ago is a question he would never have answered. As they drew closer to the summit leading to the Western Air Temple, they were able to pick up the sound of talking. Immediately Zuko was able to distinguish the voice of the girl that he was trapped within the Earth Kingdom prison. The other two voices were a little foreign to him; but he knew that the water Tribe girl… what was her name again… Katara… had a brother and the other voice must belong to the earthbender that was training the avatar. N'Dare choose not to say a word to alert the group they were approaching, since Zuko mentioned his plans to go to the Western Temple he had been extremely anxious about meeting this very same group, and she would not be responsible for any misunderstandings.
"So what should we do now? The invasion plan was a complete disaster and almost everyone was captured by the Fire Nation." That was the voice that belonged to the waterbender, Katara.
"I know… I still don't understand how Azula figured out the day we were going to attack. I had everything planned down to the last detail and still she was one step ahead!"
"Don't beat yourself up about it Sokka, she probably found out when they posed as the Kiyoshi warriors. And we did everything we could to save everybody, it was just impossible to put everyone on Appa."
"Toph's right, there was no way we could have taken everyone out; we just have to come up with another plan."
Zuko had stopped a distance away from the group with N'Dare directly behind him. She looked at the group talk about their attack against the Fire Nation and was slightly surprised, this were kids no older than her… they couldn't have been the ones that led that massive attack against the Fire Nation. Well who was she to say something like that, she knew better than to underestimate someone simply by their age, look at her and Rachel for instance; they were at a level in their fighting skills that they would have left any seasoned battalion obliterated.
She continued to watch the girl dressed in blue try to convince the boy in blue that there was nothing more that could have been done. She also watched the other girl, who was slightly younger, tease the same boy. She then noticed that there was another boy, slightly younger than her sixteen years of age, with a arrow tattooed on his arms and bald head, with eyes a silver as her own, a little distance away from the others, he wasn't saying anything; it almost looked as though he was not paying attention to what the others were saying. He seemed sad, almost depressed, as he placed his chin on top of his arms while he held his legs close to his body, with a small creature that N'Dare couldn't name even if she tried, it looked like a rabbit with its long ears; but it had a body of a small monkey.
"It's all my fault… I was supposed to end the war, and all I managed to do was get everyone captured. I'm the avatar; it's my job to bring balance to the world, not yours. Next time I'll go on my own, that way no one else will get hurt."
He was the avatar?! This young boy was the person that Zuko was looking for and who the Fire Nation was hunting? N'Dare knew not to judge him by his age, but this was a little intense, this boy held the responsibility of bringing peace to a war torn world on his shoulders and he was barely over the age of 14. That was a huge responsibility, and power from what she had been told, for anyone to handle, let alone a child, she couldn't image what he must be going through.
"But Aang, we all agreed to help…"
"I don't want you are anyone else getting hurt!"
"We understand that you want to keep everyone safe Aang, but your forgetting one thing, we want to keep you safe. You're the last hope the world has… and you mean a lot to us… some more than others."
"I know… it's just that… what if something happens again? What if next time we attack one of you guys gets captured, or worse; killed? I don't know what I would do if that happened. Besides I don't even know how to fire bend yet and I have no way of finding a teacher."
"What about Jon Jon? He can teach you." Sokka said thinking that he had solved their problems.
"Who knows when I'll see Jon Jon again, besides last time he didn't seem like he really wanted to train me."
"Who's… never mind I guess I'll find out later." Toph said.
"This is serious you guy's, Aang needs a firebending teacher." Katara said, always to observant one.
"I can help with that." Zuko spoke, having grown tired of simply standing back and deciding on rather or not to approach them.
"Zuko!" the grouped yelled, Katara summoned the water out of the pouches around her waist, while Toph bended a large boulder in front of her waiting to send it hurling towards their enemy. Sokka had withdrawn his sword and Aang fell into a defensive position, waiting for Zuko to attack.
The tension in the area had risen to such a high degree in such a short time that N'Dare barely registered what had happened; Zuko wasn't lying when he said that these people didn't trust him. For a long time no one said anything, they all just stood there waiting for the other to make move.
"What are you doing here Zuko?" Katara asked with venom tripping from every word. She hadn't forgotten how he had betrayed them in Ba Sing Se.
"I've come to help the avatar… I mean Aang."
"Yea right, like we're going to believe that." Sokka said.
"Please… just give me a chance to explain. I know I tried to capture you in the past, and I know it was stupid to send that Fire Nation assassin after you; but I've changed!"
"You sent Combustion-Man after us?!" Sokka yelled.
"Well that's not his name but…"
"You see I told you he couldn't be trusted." Katara hissed.
"He's telling the truth… at least as far as my feet can tell." Toph informed them.
"You will never change Zuko, we trusted you once and you betrayed us, we'll never trust you!" Katara's anger over everything that had happened recently added to the anger that she always felt towards Zuko; caused her to lose her temper and send a powerful blast of water aimed directly at Zuko.
"What are you doing?!" During the entire time N'Dare had remained quiet, she thought it was best to let Zuko handle things; since he had experience with these people, but now all that was out the window. She was not about to stand there and just let them attack Zuko while he tried to make amends, and her wounds be damned.
"Who are you, another one of Zuko's little lackeys?" questioned Katara.
"No, my name is N'Dare. We mean you no harm, Zuko honestly just wants to help."
"You must not know Zuko very well do you? He doesn't want to help anyone but himself; he has been hunting Aang for months." Sokka eyed the girl warily. There was something about her appearance that was familiar to him.
"You're right, I don't know him that well; but I know him enough to believe that he genuinely wants to help the avatar."
"Ha… what kind of lies has Zuko told you that actually make you believe that he is a good person, you would have to be crazy to trust him?" Katara said.
"Well you can consider me crazy cause I believe him." N'Dare stated firmly.
Zuko looked at her surprised. She believed him? She barely even knew him and she would trust him without a second thought, even though there were people who was telling her that she would have to but nuts to believe him. Brining his eyes from N'Dare, he looked at Aang.
"What about you, do you think that I'm lying to? You said once that if things were different we could be friends."
Aang only stared at him, he remembered the day that he found out that Zuko was actually the Blue Spirit and had rescued him from General Zhao. He also remembered waiting for Zuko to wake up, and when he did he asked him if things were different if they could be friends, and he remembered all too well his response. Zuko had proven time and time again that he couldn't really be trusted, and Aang was in no mood to give him another chance to hurt him or anyone of his friends.
"No… I don't trust you, and I would never have you as a teacher."
That was it; all his hopes at redemption were over. The avatar would not take his help and would never trust him. What did he really expect though? That they would all just welcome him with open arms into their little group, and all that bad blood between them would just be washed away? He was a fool for coming here or for believing that a few words would erase all his past evil deeds.
N'Dare looked between Zuko and the young boy that she discovered was the avatar, the younger boy's eyes were hard as stone as he stared down at Zuko. She had hoped that she had been wrong when she said that they wouldn't listen to a word he said; but she didn't hold her breath on that hope. Things couldn't end like this though, they had come too far and Zuko had sacrificed too much to let it all be for nothing.
"So that's it, he apologizes and offers to help you and you turn him away without a second thought? You were right when you said that I didn't know Zuko, and since I don't know him I can't judge him on actions that I wasn't around to witness. I have no idea what crimes he has committed against you; all I can assume is that they were serious. Which one of you is without sin? I do believe I can say that we have all made mistakes in the past that we wish we had an opportunity to make right, and how many of us can say that they were actually given a chance to do that. In his defense, the Zuko that I have come to know is very sorry for what he did in the past and all he wants is a chance to make amends for his sins." Her words floated over the entire group, and everyone was at a loss for words.
On one hand her words held some truth, there were many mistakes in all of their past that some of them they wished they could change, but on the other hand there was the fact that Zuko had always proved their suspicions right, that he was not to be trusted. Zuko was beyond shocked, she was defending him to all these people without know anything about him save his name. Looking at the others though he could see that her words were falling on deaf ears, no matter how true her words were it still didn't outweigh the things that he had done, lifting himself off the ground he walked towards N'Dare.
"Let's go…" he then turned to Aang. "I can understand why you don't trust me; but I just wanted you to know that I really did want to help. My father is a monster and he will stop at nothing until all four nations are under his rule." With those words Zuko made his way to the trail leading down the mountain and back to their camp site.
"But…" sighing, N'Dare watched as Zuko disappeared from sight. "You know, for some reason I thought you would have been a little more open minded to his apology, being the avatar and all about balance. He may have been a jerk in the past; but anyone can change if they really want to, you should think about that." Soon N'Dare was following in Zuko's path heading away from the temple and the people that they had traveled so far to meet.
The Gaang simply watched as the strange girl disappeared down the mountain. No one said anything for a few minutes; all of them were trying to absorb what had just happened.
"Can you believe him?! I mean what does he take us for, idiots? Like we would trust him after all he did." Katara said fuming with her arms crossed over her chest.
"I know, and what about that strange girl, where do you think she's from?" Sokka asked.
"Well I don't know where she was from but I do know one thing…. She was telling the truth, both of them actually." Katara and Sokka both looked at Toph like she just said that she was an armadillo-bear.
"Well maybe she's just lying for him." Aang offered.
"Whatever twinkly toes, but my feet said she was telling the truth."
"It doesn't matter, Zuko can't be trusted, and he has shown us that more times than I can count."
"Finally we agree on something Sokka, we can't trust him." Katara said. Toph jumped down from the broken pillar that she had sat on, annoyed.
"I'm I the only one here who sees how stupid this is? Look, Aang needs a firebending teacher, and when one walks up out of nowhere and offers to teach him, you guys chase him away, he may not have been the best choice but he was the only choice we had. He could have been Aang's last chance to learn firebending, I'm blind and even I can see that."
"I won't have Zuko as my teacher."
Toph threw her hands up in frustrations, no matter what she said; it wouldn't change any of their minds so it was pointless to even try.
When N'Dare made it back to camp, Zuko was pacing back and forth.
"Why did I even tell them that I sent an assassin after them, that was so stupid?! I could have said Azula did that, they would have believed that." He pressed his fist to his forehead in frustration.
"Well lying to them wouldn't have helped your case."
Zuko turned to her surprised; he had forgotten that she was even there.
"I don't even know why I even bothered. You were right; I should have known that they wouldn't have listened to me."
"You tried because you wanted to make up for your past. Don't beat yourself up over this Zuko, these things happen and no matter how hard you want it to be different, you can't change the minds of other, you can only accept it and move on." She said, while she took a seat on a nearby log. Zuko sat down next to her on the log and stared at his laced fingers. Why couldn't things have been different? He knew the answer to that question, and he had no one to blame but himself.
"I guess you're right… I'm going take a walk."
N'Dare watch as Zuko left the camp site once again. She could see in his eyes that the outcome of their meeting with the avatar and his friends left him more than upset, his guilt was eating him up inside. There must have been something that she could do to help him, after all he and his uncle had saved her from that prison. The avatar and his friends just didn't understand that Zuko was actually a good person and that he had changed, well maybe if she told them about everything that he had done for her, and then they would see that he wasn't all that bad. It took her longer this time around to make it to the summit leading to the air temple because she had taken the wrong path several times, and by the time she got there she was exhausted. Toph was the first to notice her approach.
"We got company."
"What are you doing back here, oh let me guess, to tell us that Zuko isn't as bad as we make him seem and that he really wants to help." Katara sarcastically asked. N'Dare was really getting tired of this girl's attitude.
"As a matter of fact, yes, I won't paint some kind of impossible picture to make you understand that Zuko isn't the same person he once was, but I will tell you what I know."
"Well maybe we don't want to listen to what you have to say."
"My god, are you always this abrasive when you meet people? It's no wonder that he tried to take you down, you leave people with little room to do anything else."
"Are you threatening me?!"
"Take it how you wish, but your attitude really sucks."
Sokka thought that right now would be a great time to break up this little cat fight.
"Maybe we should just hear her out Katara, what could it hurt?" Katara relaxed in Sokka's grip, and stared at the other girl heatedly.
"Fine… but don't blame me when she tries to kill us."
N'Dare rolled her eyes; this would be harder than she originally thought."I told you before; I don't want to hurt any of you, all I'm asking is that you listen. I know you guys really don't believe that Zuko has changed, so I'm hoping that you'll believe me when I say that as long as I have been with him, he has not shown one ounce of hatred. When I met him I was a prisoner in a Fire Nation jail, his uncle Iroh took care of me as best he could, considering the circumstances."
"Did he tell you that Zuko was the reason that he was in prison in the first place?" Katara asked.
"I think he may have mentioned it, but I was in and out of consciousness. All I know is, that the day of the invasion, Zuko had planned to break his uncle out, saying that he was sorry for all that he had done. He begged for his uncle's forgiveness, and the emotions that I witness were genuine."
Over the course of the day N'Dare pleaded Zuko's case for him, and on more than one occasion she wanted to give up. Katara was adamant about not trusting Zuko, the only person that seemed remotely capable of giving him another chance was the young blind girl named Toph. Sokka on the other hand was suspicious about why Zuko would want to help, but he wasn't unreasonable. Out of all of them, Aang remained quiet, he made no argument while N'Dare spoke, and he simply took everything in while this foreign girl tried to convince him and his friends to accept Zuko's help.
"Well why should we trust you? We know nothing about you other than your name. What nation are you from?" N'Dare could get mad at Katara for asking that question, honestly she was surprised that the question wasn't asked the moment she stepped foot in front of them. Even though she knew the question would be asked, she still wasn't prepared to answer it.
"That's a difficult question to answer, so I won't even try. I know I'm asking you to take a lot on faith right now, not only concerning Zuko; but also myself. Just trust me when I say that it would be best that we save that question for a later time."
Zuko had been walking for hours, trying to figure out where he would go from here. There was no way that he could go back home, his father most likely declared him a traitor and ordered for him to be killed on sight. He had no clue as to where his uncle Iroh was, so trying to meet up with him would be a wasted effort. It seemed that his only option was to go back into exile; he wasn't too keen on having to run from both the Fire Nation and any other nation that was still free from the Fire Nation's colonizing.
This time would be harder though, this time he would have to live with the fact that he was not sent away; but choose to walk away from his home, his kingdom, and worst of all Mai. He had no idea what he would do when they meet up again. The note that he left for her was a poor excuse of a goodbye, and he knew that she would be furious with him. He also had another complication with living on the run, his uncle had asked him to watch after N'Dare, and he had promised that he would. It wasn't only because his uncle had asked him to do it; he also found that he was beginning to enjoy her company. At first he really didn't like her because all they seemed to do was argue, but after last night and what had happened hours ago, he began to warm up to her, no pun intended.
Sighing heavily, he decided to make his way back to camp. He would have to tell her that they would be leaving soon and that he had no clue as to where they were going. He was a good distance from where he had left her, and when he finally made it back, he arrived at an empty clearing.
"Where is she?" Zuko asked out loud, know that he wouldn't get an answer. But the question still remained, where was she? It wasn't like she knew the area enough to simply walk away, and with her injury he doubted that she went take a leisurely walk.
"She wouldn't…" the idea came to him at the speed of a punch, if N'Dare wasn't to the camp ground, then the only other place she would be is back at the temple. But why would she go back there? Certainly not to convince them to take his help, she wouldn't be that stupid, that stubborn… who was he kidding? He knew her well enough to know that was her personality right down to the last statement. Zuko ran in the direction of the temple, N'Dare didn't know what she was getting herself into. She was going up against two well trained benders and the avatar; he didn't know what they would do to her since she was connected to him. While he was half way up the mountain, something on a nearby cliff caught his attention. It was the assassin that he had hired to capture the avatar, but how did he find them so fast?
"Well that was a dumb question, you hired him because he was the best tracker in all the nations" Zuko thought to himself.
It didn't seem as though anyone had noticed that the dangerous man was even there. He didn't have time to warn them and stop the assassin, so he made up his mind and head in the direction of the older man. He knew that he probably wouldn't be able to fight the guy head on; but he hoped that he could maybe reason with or try and bribe him to leave the avatar alone.
Zuko ran at top speed, praying that he wouldn't be too late to stop the man in time. As he drew closer he could see the man taking aim at the center of the temple, he was aiming directly at the avatar and his friends, and N'Dare was there as well. Just as the man was preparing to unleash his special brand of firebending, Zuko charged at him, throwing off his aim.
Back at the temple N'Dare was still trying desperately to get the others to trust Zuko. She had them all but convinced, all that is except Katara. There was something more to her hatred of Zuko than she was letting on, and N'Dare wasn't sure if she would ever truly trust the boy; but she was at least willing to listen for the time being.
Everything was going decently, that is until N'Dare felt something change. I was a felling that she had never experienced before, it was almost as if a small voice was whispering in her ear, telling her that something foreign was passing in the air around her. That didn't make any sense, was she going crazy? Without warning an explosion sounded less than five feet from her, sending debris and water cascading over everyone around. The blast caused her to fly across the room and land on her side, sending a blinding pain through her. Lifting herself from the floor, she looked to make sure that everyone else was okay.
"Wait…stop, I don't want you hunting the avatar anymore." That voice... that was Zuko, looking up; her silent question was answered when her eyes fell on Zuko trying desperately to dissuade a rather large man from attacking them again.
"I'll pay you double for you to stop and forget that you ever found us." The man was no longer paying attention, which was one of the reasons that Zuko chose him to hunt down the avatar, because he knew that the man would never stop until his target was taken.
"I don't want to hurt you, but I will if you don't stop." Zuko knew that his threat was basically a bluff, but he had to do something to get the man's attention off of the other until they had a chance to get away.
"Did he just say what I think he did?" Sokka asked helping Toph off of the ground.
"I think he did." Aang responded. Combustion-Man used his superior strength to push Zuko away so that he could have another clear shot at his target. With no more interruptions, Combustion-Man took aim again, this time determined not to miss; but while Zuko had him distracted it gave Katara time to act. Running towards the fountain resting in the center of the temple, Katara waterbended the water causing it to create a massive wave heading directly towards the assassin, and at the last minute she froze the water and sent shards of sharp razor like ice hurdling at him.
Combustion-Man managed to dodge the attack, Zuko got back on his feet and soon he and the assassin continued to fight one another. Combustion-man sent a focus shot of firebending aimed at Zuko, who only had a split second to try and counter the ferocious attack by sending a barrier of fire between him and the 'fire bullet'. The force of the attack was more powerful than Zuko was capable of keeping at bay; it sent him flying over the edge of the cliff and seemingly to his death.
"Nooo!" N'Dare yelled.
This couldn't be happening agian, Zuko couldn't be dead. This was the attack on Wakanda all over, innocent people were getting hurt and there was nothing that she could do. She hadn't known Zuko long; but she didn't want to lose him, at this point he was her only friend. The pain and loss started to gnaw at her heart, she wouldn't allow anyone else to get. Almost on its own, her hand lifted itself from her side and was directed toward the man that was bringing this new pain into her world.
A power began to course though her and it felt as natural as breathing, it was almost as if an old friend had been returned to her and that joy left her beyond comprehension. The silver of her eyes began to slowly fade away and all that was left were milky pools. Her vision began to change, she no longer saw the world as she once did, and all that was left were colorful patterns of energy.
She was not only able to see the colorful energy patterns; but was also able to feel them, she soon realized that those patterns were actually the winds themselves. It was amazing, all the sensations she were feeling lift her in awe, could this have been the power that her mother told her they shared? If that was true, than she should have been able to affect those same patterns, reaching out with her mind, she felt the winds react to her touch.
She was at a loss to what she was to do next; but instincts would guide her from that point. Her thoughts screamed for some way to end this before someone else got hurt, and soon her thoughts became action as her powers did as bid. The air around Combustion-Man began to swirl until a micro cyclone had formed around him causing a vacuum that sucked the air straight from his lungs.
The Gaang was shocked, they were being attacked by the same assassin that Sokka originally decided to call 'Sparky Sparky Boom Man', Zuko was trying to save their live and was knocked off of a cliff, and the strange girl named N'Dare, who was trying to convince them that Zuko was not all that bad, had managed to do something that they thought that only Aang could do, she had bent the air around her.
No one was more surprised at what the girl was doing than Aang, for so long he had thought that he was the last airbender left. Now here was a girl whose appearance into their lives was just as mysterious as her origins. This was unlike any airbending her had ever seen, she didn't need to use any kind of fighting stance, all she did was throw her hand in front of her; but it didn't matter, now he was no longer alone as an airbender.
The stress from using powers that she had, up until that time, didn't know existed, caused N'Dare to grow weak. She really didn't even know what she was doing, let alone how long she could keep it up. Soon the stress and pain from her ribs won out and she felt her control slipping and her vision began to go dark. Then all at once the cyclone that had formed around Combustion-Man disappeared, right along with N'Dare's consciousness.
Snapping out of his distant state, Aang seen the assassin catch his breath and prepared himself to deliver the final blow to everyone involved in his pain. Without thinking Aang ran to the unconscious girl who lye bleeding on the ground a few feet away, he had just found another airbender and he was about to let her die by some maniac with a vendetta. He carried the girl behind a large pillar where the others were hiding.
Things began to look bad for the Gaang; Combustion-Man's attacks were relentless. Every few seconds a new explosion would rock the temple and cause pieces of the ceiling to come crumbling down on their heads. Soon an idea struck Sokka, if he could pinpoint the positions by finding the trajectory of the attacks, then he could use his boomerang to try and knock the guy out, at least until the escaped. Once he found the path that he thought that the attacks were coming from, he removed his boomerang from its casing on his back and gave it a kiss for good luck.
"Good luck boomerang." With that he sent his most prized possession on its most important mission.
He would kill them all, who cared what the Fire Nation prince had paid him to do, these little kids had been a thorn in his side for the past few weeks. Every time he would get close to taking out the avatar, he and his friends would find a way to escape; but not this time. That one girl though was different, to his understanding the avatar was the only airbender left, but that weird girl had managed to bend the air around him and take the air from his lungs without even doing any real type of bending. Combustion-Man was so caught up in his thought he didn't notice the metallic object headed directly towards him until it was too late. After colliding with his forehead the boomerang made its way back towards the pillar and once it got close enough Sokka rushed from behind the pillar to catch it before it passed him.
"Yeah, boomerang!" Combustion-Man grabbed his head in slight pain, before he regained his sight and stared below him. "Aww boomerang…" Sokka headed back behind the pillar to take cover, upset that his boomerang had done the job of taking out the big man.
Focusing his chi, the assassin prepared to end the lives of every single person in that temple, but something backfired. His firebending wasn't working right, sparks of fire popped around his head, instead of heading towards the temple in a focused beam of energy. He wasn't able to stop the effects of his bending, and all to suddenly his powers turned in upon their master and caused a massive explosion causing the platform that he was standing on to break away from the rest of the mountain, sending Combustion-Man into oblivion.
"Is it over?" Toph asked after the explosions ended. Everyone waited to see if the attack would start over again, and once nothing happened, Sokka peaked from behind the pillar. When he didn't see the assassin he drew a sigh of relief, everything was fine now.
"Hey… there's Zuko, he's alive." He informed the others.
"Hurray…" Katara murmured. After pulling himself over the edge of the cliff, Zuko made his way to the half destroyed temple, and when he got there he was relieved to see that the avatar and his friends were not hurt. That is until his eyes feel of the prone body of N'Dare lying in Aang's lap.
"What happened?"
"We don't know… one minute she was airbending and the next she just passed out." Sokka told him.
"What… she can airbend?"
"I take it you didn't know she could do that either huh." Toph remarked.
"We don't have time to make jokes, I think she's really hurt." Aang said, worry permeating through his every word. He then noticed that his legs, where the girl was lying, were wet. It was then that he and everyone else noticed the wound on her side was bleeding immensely.
"She's bleeding really bad you guys." He told the others.
"She was hurt since before we got here." Zuko said, he knew how much it took him to get out of her why she was bleeding, so he didn't think she would like it if he told everyone else what had happened to her.
"Katara… do you think you could heal her?"
"I don't know Aang. Her wounds look very serious… maybe if I had water from the spring in the Southern Water Tribe, but I'll try." Passing her hands over the top of her water bag, Katara bended the water to coat her hands in a glowing sheen, passing her hands over the wound, she watched as the cut began to slowly heal. The cut didn't disappear completely, but it was enough to stop the bleeding.
"What now?" Zuko asked with a little bit of anxiety creeping in his voice.
"We wait… I've never healed a wound like that before, well other than the one Aang got back in Ba Sing Se; but at least then I had the spring water."
"Is there a place that I can put her to rest?" Zuko asked as he made his way over to Aang, and slowly removing the girl from his arms. At first Aang wanted to resist giving the girl up, she was his only connection to his past and he felt like Zuko was a threat to that connection. Soon he decided that he had no reason to protest, Zuko had known the girl longer than he did.
"Yeah, we can put her in the temple." Zuko followed behind Aang as he lead the way further into the temple, this wasn't how he wanted to be brought before his ex- enemies, but right now he needed their help to make sure that N'Dare made it through this alright.
To be continued…
A/N: Yeah… I finished another chapter! Also Gustav didn't destroy my home, isn't it great? Oh a few more notes here, I know there were several things in this chapter that wasn't considered canon, but if you do remember in the beginning, I told you that I might diverge a little. For instance is said somewhere in her that Aang was barely over the age of fourteen, when in the show he is only twelve biologically. I did this so that I wouldn't have to worry about any adult situations that might arise in the future that would conflict with the rational of a twelve year old. Also if you would notice that is didn't add any of the other survivors of the invasion plan into this story, I thought that it would be too difficult to do background and character development on so many people in a relatively shot chapter, and besides the show's writers didn't feel like it was important enough since the pretty much neglected them in the episode that I based the chapter off of. I thought that I would finally end some of your misery by giving a slight hint as to the nature of N'Dare's abilities, though trust me when I tell you that I am far from over explaining how she will develop. Things will start to heat up in the next couple of chapters, and friendships will be formed. I would like to apologize to any Katara fans, I know I made her seem more, forgive my language, bitchy; but her character on the show is really no different from my opinion. Oh and how did you like Aang reaction to another airbender, was it good or do you think I could have done something a little better? Oh well, I guess I'll simply wait for the review for any comments or complaints that anyone will have regarding this chapter. Until next time people, live long and prosper. Dammit it, my ADD won't let me leave the chapter with only 9,997 words, I have to either go to 10,000 or over, now I'm done.
