This is going up a bit earlier than I suspected it would. Chp.14 grew all out of my ability to control it, so I split it.

Angry ranting gave way to grumbling conversation quickly enough, as the understandably riled Si Wongi girl railed against circumstance and luck. It was a stance that he himself had quite a bit of experience with. "You know," Sokka said, "he did say he'd be back."

"And when he left, he said 'I'll be out for a while'," Nila broke off in a growl. "Sharif is simple and while he doesn't lie, he is about as honest as a broken arrow."

Sokka raised a brow at that. "Man, what'd he do to make you this ticked at him?" he asked.

"He died," Nila said.

"You have to forgive Nila," Tzu Zi said warmly from Sokka's other side. "She's been under a lot of stress lately. We almost got killed in a weird storm-thing in one of her nightmares. That's got to... wow, that sounded a lot crazier out loud than it did in my head."

"Trust me, when you putter around with the Avatar," Sokka cast at thumb toward Aang, "that sort of thing becomes 'regular'."

"You've met the Avatar?" Tzu Zi asked, her brown eyes brightening.

"Of course, the Air Nomad child," Nila said impatiently. "Personally, I thought that 'the Avatar' would be more impressive. Taller maybe. And have a beard. Gods, for once it looked like a day was going to end in my favor, and then he has to vanish into sachif air!"

"Um, Nila, what did that second last word mean?" Tzu Zi asked.

"It's... never mind," Nila said. She shook her head. "It figures the first time I meet a boy who isn't a muscle brained lout that..."

Sokka turned back. "My ears are burning," he said.

"Then I suggest you dunk them in water," Nila shot back. Sokka just stared at her back as she muttered angrily to her companion. Sokka just couldn't figure her out. Yes, she was smart, but she was also kind of a bitch. But it wasn't the intentionally hurtful bitch that Sokka had met from time to time. It just seemed like she didn't have the first notion of how to deal with other people.

"You know what, when this whole 'waterbending master' thing is over, maybe you and I should exchange letters," Sokka said diplomatically. "It's not often I meet somebody who can keep up with me."

"Then you've been talking to idiots," Nila pointed out, not even turning to him.

"Sokka, stop flirting with the ball of hate and anger and get over here," Katara called to him. Sokka sighed at an opportunity missed. In truth, there was a lot about the Si Wongi girl which reminded him of Suki; of course, ever since he found himself enamored of a girl who could kick his ass without really trying, his standard for what constituted an appealing woman took a hard shift into territory he would never have predicted. So it was that he and Katara came upon Aang, who was heaving at his Bison as though the Avatar's frail physical form could move the massive, six legged beast.

"Come on, buddy! We've got to go!" Aang pleaded. "I know you don't want to go to the Fire Nation any more than I do, but we've got no choice, now get off your big fat butt and let's goooo!"

Finally, Aang's footing gave out and he slid to the ground. Sokka couldn't help but shake his head. "You know, maybe his big fat butt is trying to tell you something," Sokka pointed out. "Appa's not dumb for a fuzzy magical monster. He knows that if you go to the Fire Nation alone, you're not coming back."

"The world needs you too much to have you throw yourself away like this," Katara said quietly. "I need you too."

"We both do," Sokka agreed, and without sarcasm. "So the only solution that I see is to not go alone."

"But you could get hurt!"

"We're well aware of that," Sokka pointed out. He turned to his sister. "Tell me, little sister. Does it at all bother you to think that we're flying directly into enemy territory on an obviously suicidal mission to help out the Avatar?"

"Not even a little," she primly replied. "If you're going west, then we are too."

"You guys..." Aang said, but he couldn't come up with any way to finish it. "I'm glad I've got you. I really am."

"Awww, it's so sweet! They really do love each other..."

"Tzu Zi, stop commenting on what doesn't concern us!"

Katara giggled at that. "I think we've made our point," she said. But she frowned as she stared to the western horizon. "But how are we possibly going to make it to the Fire Nation by the coming sundown? That's almost a thousand miles away!"

Aang smirked as he motioned the others to join him in the saddle. "I've heard that bison can go two hundred miles in a single hour," Aang claimed. "It'll be a bumpy ride, and it'll tire Appa out, but I'm pretty sure we'll get there on time."

"Then we don't have any time to lose," Katara goaded.

"Avatar, just a moment," Chief Tso broke in. He approached them with a bundle, and handed it up to them. "The seas will be treacherous and wild, and the heat of the West will be stifling. These clothes will keep you from broiling when you reach your destination, and the salts will help your sweat wick in the humidity."

"Thanks, but I don't think we're going to need them. We don't intend on staying there long," Sokka said.

"It won't matter," Tso said. "You'll understand when you get there."

"Thank you, Chief. And I'm relieved that we found a way to calm Heibai before he could..."

"GO!" Tso shouted, pointing west. Aang swallowed, gave a glance back to the Tribesmen behind him, and then gave a 'yip-yip' that brought the beast into the skies.

Left on the ground, Tzu Zi watched as the beast rose into the sky. "I think I want one of those," she declared. "As a pet, you know?"

She turned, and saw that Nila had just slumped on a bench next to a building. "What's wrong, Nila?"

She looked up, and fatigue was clear in those green eyes. "I'm... tired," she said. "I have him, then I don't have him... I'm just tired. And I think I need a hug right now."

"Oh, Nila, don't worry," Tzu Zi said, embracing her friend. "We'll find your brother. Just you wait."

It was a good thing Tzu Zi didn't know the kind of pleasure Nila got from that embrace. That would have been awkward.

Chapter 10

Longest Night II: Sozin's Comet

There was silence in the Spirit World as Sharif walked the paths that few others dared. It was a tricky business walking the Spirit. While it could take you a thousand miles in an hour if the destination and the departure were in the right places, it also had a distinct possibility of getting dead on the way. Usually, Sharif just allowed himself to think as he would in this place, but right now, he knew he didn't have time to flounder about as he often did. He had to stay focused. And if that meant that he'd forget everything that happened in this trip, so be it. He could feel the hairs on his arms raising, and he let out an annoyed grunt, before sweeping the electrical bubble aside. It still gave him an unpleasant zap as he passed, but he had better things to deal with. Like finding the Four-Soul Mind. He didn't need to look back to see the silvery motes prodding him. Not that they'd prod him here. Void was afraid of this place. Rightfully so.

Sharif knew the end of his walk was at hand. He thrust his hands into his pockets, taking a deep breath of the stillness. "More's the pity," Sharif said. "Nila deserves a better answer than I can give."

Some things needed to be said, even if they weren't ever heard. As he clenched his fist, he felt a prick, and extracted it distastefully. It was the shard of metal, still slightly discolored from Patriarch's blood. With a sigh, he tossed it over his shoulder, at the mouth of the hollowed tree in the middle of a forsaken garden. That was what he called this place. The Forsaken Garden. He knew that if he took one 'gate', he could step out in freezing cold and blasting winds, and the other, driving rain and stifling heat. He opted for the latter, today. But he took a moment to look at the quiet, unassuming beauty of this place. Even in death, there was a capacity for beauty. He let out a weary sigh, and then stated sarcastically. "Well, I can't keep farting about. So long, higher cognitive processes."

Sharif stepped through the gate, and as he did, he felt a blood-warm rain beginning to pelt him. The heat went from lukewarm to unpleasant in an instant, as his eyes took in the path before him. Even as his false-brain left him, and he looked upon the scene with the naïvety of a child, he knew the danger here. The driving rains under iron-grey clouds fought an endless battle against the liquid hot stone, ending in stalemate with the magma giving way to mounds of dark volcanic stone and soil, while the waters' dead rose up in a curtain of steam which surrounded the walkway which he approached. It was the World. And from the heat and the rain, it was the Fire Nation. Sharif pulled his hood up, if only to keep the water from drumming his head into insanity, and began to walk up that path. The Avatar's Temple was where they told him to go. They had something for him to see. Something important.

Sharif wanted to know what it was.

"Do you think he's actually going to show up?" the dark complected Child asked.

"Does it matter?" Yoji answered him, keeping close behind Ozai as he glared at the Fire Sages.

"If we had been made aware of your arrival, we would have made preparations," Sage Deng offered.

"And you would have announced my presence to the entire archipelago," Ozai finished, with an unkind tone. "Am I the only one who thinks before he acts?"

"I apologize, Fire Lord," the eldest of the Sages said, bowing down and tapping his brow to the stone of the floor at Ozai's feet. Ozai considered kicking his face purely on the grounds for being an idiot lackey, but the momentary joy and relief from his frustration that it would have brought him was far outweighed by the need of having loyal servitors, even in distant and inhospitable places.

"Don't be sorry," Ozai said. "'Sorry' does nothing to help the Fire Nation remove one of its greatest remaining threats. I came to this place unannounced for a very specific reason, Deng."

"What is it, Fire Lord?" Deng asked.

"Tell your Fire Sages to prepare for a most unwelcome guest," Ozai ordered. "The Avatar himself."

"He will be given the harshest of welcomes," Deng offered without a whisper of hesitation. That was the kind of man that Ozai preferred to deal with. While the intelligent ones had ways of acting well outside and above Ozai's expectations of them, they also had an unpleasant tendency to act against his wishes as well. It was only those rare few who could combine both cunning and zeal that Ozai bothered to trust. And most of those now numbered amongst the Children. He gave a glance back, to the deathly-pale Yoji as she waited behind him.

"What is your opinion?" Ozai asked.

"I don't have enough information to make an opinion," Yoji said simply. Ozai couldn't help but smirk at that. It was odd how a teenager, especially one such as she, could have reached his 'inner circle'. But she did not do it out of avarice. That was why she was useful to him.

"It's good you know your place."

"I am Fire Nation," Yoji answered. "My place is behind the Fire Lord."

"Good," Ozai said. "Do you remember the Princess?"

"Vaguely, Fire Lord," Yoji said, following as he walked away from the entry halls. "She was weak and a traitor to our Nation."

"And you have heard that she is coming here?"

"Of course, Fire Lord. What do you wish of her?" Yoji asked.

Ozai stopped, pondering that question. While killing her was an option, it wasn't one which sat well with him, politically. As much trouble as he would have with an instigator in the family, he would face far more if it became known that he had spilled the blood of his own daughter. Kinslayers seldom ruled long, when their enemies were as strong as Ozai's were. But a notion occurred to him. "Of course, Zhao is the answer," he turned to the greatest of the Children. "The Admiral has an unhealthy fixation on the Princess. I say, let him. If she comes, give her to him."

"She will not go willingly. Does it bother you to chain her?" Yoji asked.

"Why would it?" Ozai asked. "Prepare yourselves. And if the Prince comes... Make sure he comes before me. He and I have... business to attend to."

"As you wish, Fire Lord," Yoji said, before vanishing in the maze of halls and chambers. In many ways, Yoji reminded Ozai of his departed wife, albeit when they had first met. Firebenders, of ruthless personality and a cunning to know whom and how best to serve. Again, Ozai entertained the notion of adding Yoji to his concubines. But as usual, he discarded the notion swiftly. She was much more useful on her feet than on her back. He cracked his knuckles as he stared out the rain-battered window. Zhao had better be right, he thought as the last two fingers of his right glove crumpled on themselves. If he wasn't, then he would find that Ozai was not the kind of man who enjoyed being waylaid.

"I still have to stress how dangerous this is," Iroh said, fretting as he stood under pounding rain. "If they take you here, there will be nothing I can do!"

"We won't be caught," Zuko said. He took a breath, smelling the unmistakable fragrance of the volcano, the sulphur and the ash. The black stone and blacker soil, that stretched along the broken circle which the island comprised. Once, it was said that Crescent Island was much larger, a ring of volcanic cone around a raised pond. Now, half of it was blasted away. He wasn't sure which of the fire Avatars did that, but it was one of them, he was certain.

"You're wasting time, Zuzu! Come on! The Avatar could be there by now!"

Zuko sighed, and turned to his uncle. "Keep the engines ready."

"You said you weren't going to get caught," Iroh pointed out.

"Getting away means not getting caught," Zuko said quietly. "So does being victorious. I just want to have all options open to me for a change."

Iroh let out a sigh, then set his hand on the unburned side of Zuko's neck. "Don't worry, Nephew, I'll keep the ship out of harms' way until you need it. But tell me, and be honest; do you really think this has a chance of working? Do you think you could take the Avatar in battle?"

Zuko turned to where his sister was impatiently pacing around the skiff, muttering to herself as she did so. "Not alone," Zuko said. "Lucky that I'm not, then."

"I have a bad feeling about this," Iroh said. He looked his nephew in the eyes. "Promise me you will err on the side of caution. I have already lost much of my family. I would hate to think of losing rest of it. Not like this."

"Of course, Uncle," Zuko said. He bounded over the low rail of the skiff, and Azula bounded in next to him.

"Why were you wasting so much time?" Azula asked.

"We're probably here ahead of them," Zuko said. "Even if that bison can travel at extraordinary speeds, it still couldn't erase a whole day's head start."

Azula just stared off over the choppy, grey waters. "I just want one of my plans to work for once," Azula said, her voice quiet. "No mistakes or... or..." she shook her head, unable to come up with a better way of communicating her wish.

"This time will be different," Zuko promised. "It's just us and a bunch of old Fire Sages, and all the Avatar has are his Tribesmen. We've got him trapped."

She let out a bitter laugh. "That'd be a change," she muttered. And with a rumble, the skiff's engines churned to life and sent the iron-hulled craft powering along the weather beaten landscape of Crescent Island.

"Tui La, it's hot down here," Sokka muttered, having doffed everything but his vest and pants for the heat as they approached the continent to the west. "How is it so hot when it's both cloudy and raining?"

Aang looked around as the weather pounded at the bison. "It was never this wet when I used to come here," he answered from the beast's brow. "It was this hot, though."

"Are you sure we couldn't just fight them some other place?" Katara asked, leaning over the edge of the howdah, sweating like her life depended on it. Or to put it as she had, melting away into a puddle of salty water. "Like... Whales or something?"

"This is where we have to go," Aang stressed, as the weary beast began to slip lower into the featureless grey. Only above the clouds could they mark the sun, and it had traveled far to the west in their mad sprint here.

"Besides, you've gotta figure that we're going to be bringing the fight to the Fire Nation sooner or later," Sokka added with a casual tone. "Might as well get used to it before something important happens."

"Your fatalism astounds me," Katara said flatly. Appa began to drop all the faster, which made Aang's eyes bug wide.

"Appa! Slow down! We're going to crash!"

Appa must have heeded the words, because short of crashing into the coastline, it flared out its legs, slowing suddenly. There was a grunt behind Aang as Katara got the wind knocked out of her from her stance half-across the rail, but there was no other injury. That was something Aang was quite pleased with. What he wasn't pleased with was how, upon inspection, Appa was blowing foam. "Appa, are you alright?" he asked.

"He just crossed eight hundred miles in a day," Katara said calmly. "He's probably just tired. Aren't you, big fella?" Appa let out a grumble and then rolled over onto its side. "See? Just give him some time to rest, and he'll be right as... well, rain."

"I hope you're right," Aang said. "Get strong for me, buddy."

"Guys, we probably don't have too much time left in the day," Sokka pointed out. "We should probably get moving."

"You're right," Aang noted, then started up the long path to the great, tiered structure which dominated this portion of the island. Oddly, he could see that they were beginning to cut terraces into the slopes. They hadn't done that when Aang flew past before. But, he thought to himself with a nod, that was a century ago. This much fertile soil was begging to be utilized. "Why is it raining so hard?" he put voice to thought. "The Fire Nation was pretty much all sun, all the time."

"Couldn't tell ya," Sokka said. "All I know is that the clouds rolled in about sixty years ago, and they've been here ever since. And good riddance, I say. Let the Fire Nation feel the damp on their necks for a change!"

Aang didn't respond to that as he skirted around the half-open doors leading to the walkway. Once, it had stood over flowing magma. Now, it was a respite from a deluge of steam. Hot did not begin to describe it. But they crossed quickly, passed the place where the hot rock gave way to the rain, and Aang stared up at the temple to Roku, and to the Avatars from the Fire Nation which came before him. "Was it Kyoko?" Aang asked.

"What?" Katara asked.

"The Avatar before Roku?"

"Kyoshi."

"No, the one from the Fire Nation before Roku," Aang asked. The two siblings shared a glance, then both shrugged.

Aang shook his head. It didn't really matter. The courtyard was fairly large, but it had a claustrophobic feel to it; it was littered with various icons and statues and gates. Still, they didn't tarry, because they had a place to be and dead people to talk to. As they crossed, Aang felt like he was being watched. So strongly, in fact, that he called the Tribesmen to a halt, and swept his eyes around the rain battered stone. "What is it, Aang?" Sokka asked.

"We're being followed," Aang said, turning. Behind him stood a figure in a saturated cloak.

"Half right," the Fire Nation Prince's voice came from that figure. "Not so much followed... as surrounded."

Aang turned again, to see Azula slink out of her own hiding place, behind one of the many torii which dotted the expanse. As she walked, cloak hanging wet around her, Aang couldn't help but watch how she moved. Her hips seemed to slide, graceful and smooth and deadly as a venomous snake. He wasn't ashamed to admit that seeing her like that, wet and... mobile... caused some distinctly un-monk-like thoughts in the young monk.

"Welcome to the Fire Temple," Azula said, a smirk on her face. "Ordinarily, there would be a greeting party, but it looks like you're going to have to settle for us."

"That doesn't bother me," Sokka said. "We all know you're getting your butts kicked at the end of the day."

Azula's smirk curdled at that. Damn it, Sokka! Don't antagonize the pretty pretty villainess! "Proud words from the boy who doesn't even factor into the fight," Azula said snidely. "Zuko, take care of... that girl," for reasons Aang didn't quite understand, there was a deep seated and vile hatred in those words, "but the Avatar? He's mine."

With a splat of feet across rain-soaked stone, the royalty charged forward, fire in their fists and in their voices and their intentions. As Aang rushed forward to meet his foe, he hoped desperately, for all she was trying to kill him, that he didn't hurt her.

Zuko, on the other hand, advanced slowly, his eyes narrowed against the blood-warm rain that fell. The waterbender stared back at him. Zuko's eyes flicked to Sokka. To discount him would be done at his peril. The Tribesman had a way of pulling surprises out of thin air. "Don't come any closer, Zuko!" she snapped at him. "I'm warning you!"

"No, I'm warning you," Zuko said with forced calm. "You can still walk away from this fight and not be branded an enemy of the Fire Nation. You can live your lives, however you see fit. But if you don't leave, right now, then I promise you that you will never know a peaceful day for the rest of your lives. Is that what you want, Katara? Do you want to be a criminal with a bounty on your head so large that even your own father would be tempted to turn you in for it?"

"You don't know anything about our father," Sokka shouted.

"Admittedly, I don't," Zuko said. "If he's anything like mine, then I consider it fortunate he's gone."

Fire began to flare behind the Tribesmen, as Azula and the airbender met and began to blaze and blow. "Last chance," Zuko offered. "Walk away."

"Never," Katara seethed. "I will NEVER walk away from the people who need me!"

"So be it," Zuko muttered, then with an angry grunt of effort, he lashed forward with a fist. Zuko had learned much about fire from Uncle, during their time on the ship. How it was weaker in the dark, in the cold. How it lost its focus and its direction in the wet. And he had specifically been training for years to counteract those difficulties. Considering how Azula, from when she was six, dominated the Fire Court, and pushed Zuko to the sidelines, he often found himself training in the omnipresent rain of Sozin City. He wasn't going to be so bold as to claim he was as skilled as the greatest firebenders alive, but when it came to firebending in the most adverse of conditions, he doubted any could equal him.

The flame seared out, slower than he would have preferred, and both siblings managed to dodge it. Sokka hurled that boomerang at Zuko as he rolled to his feet, while Katara began to wheel her arms, the slickness of the stone beginning to pull up to her command. Zuko ducked the flying weapon, then twisted into another blast of flame, before ducking low again so that the boomerang wouldn't clip him in the back of the head. Katara then started to surge out with powerful and swift strands of fallen rain, trying smash Zuko aside, bash him off of his feet. When Zuko cut that strand down, rendering it into steam with his golden flames, she swept low and cast out her hand, and the plane of water on the ground began to leap at him, turning into ice as it went.

Zuko quickly twisted on his feet and sent a fan of fire almost straight down, baking away the water into vapor just as the wave of ice was almost upon him. For a fraction of a second, the ground around and under him was dry. In that fraction of a second, Zuko managed not to get frozen to the ground. "That's a neat trick," Zuko noted with a smirk, as the rain erased his efforts, and began to eat at the ice.

"You should never have given me that scroll," Katara said, eyes locked on his. "Dad always said 'never arm your enemy with a working spear'. I guess you never got that lesson from your parents, now did you?"

"Uncle has said something similar," Zuko noted. Then, he started running. He bounded up onto that ice, and let his momentum carry him toward the siblings. He immediately had to shift to avoid a club to the ribs, and favored Sokka with a hip-toss which sent the Tribesman skidding on the slick stone. He then turned to the waterbender, and when she tried to grapple him with her watery tendrils, he began to cut at them. She was a fast study, obviously, but he had been doing this since he was old enough to read. "You learn fast," Zuko noted as the two of them parted briefly under the rain. "My offer still stands, Katara."

"What could you possibly offer her?" Sokka asked, as he carefully advanced. "All your kind has ever given us is terror and death!" Her gambit with the ice had made the terrain even more treacherous than it needed to be. So it made it quite easy to duck the Tribesman's attack and send him back onto that ice with nothing more than a boot to the chest.

"You don't need the Avatar," Zuko said. "I do. And I can repay you in a bounty the likes of which you cannot imagine."

"Aang is not for sale!" Katara screamed at him, then slammed her fists down, and Zuko suddenly felt himself very cold. And locked in place. His eyes could move, but nothing else. All of the rain, falling and fallen, had flash frozen into a mound of ice twice the height of a man. He could see Katara go limp, and then start to move, as she worked her way out of the trap she had sprung around herself. When she had finally bent a way out of that prison. "You don't know anything about family, Zuko. You don't know what it means. If I cared enough, I'd pity you."

Sokka was now limping back up, and gave the ice casing around Zuko a prod with his club. Confident for the moment that Zuko was stuck, he turned to Katara and pointed. "Come on! Aang probably needs our help!"

And they ran, toward the Fire Temple. But behind them, unnoticed by either, the ice was beginning to crack. Zuko pressed out a breath, despite his brain telling him desperately to hold it in. Fire needed the trinity, and his breath was useless trapped in his lungs. So he forced it out, and set it ablaze. The heat of it pressed out ruthlessly, like Agni himself over Zuko's homeland, and the ice sluiced away in great chunks. When Zuko's chest and head suddenly became free again, he took in a deep breath. "This isn't even close to over, Tribesmen," he swore, under the pounding rain.

The feeling of battle was glorious and clear, and true.

As that sensation, that glorious pressure, that surge of adrenaline and righteous anger flowed through every vein in Azula's body, that clarity returned to her. Nothing else sufficed but honest and open combat. She wondered if she might be becoming addicted to fighting the Avatar, or just fighting in general, but decided it didn't matter. She knew who she was in the fight, and that was the only thing that really mattered. Well, almost.

The other was right in front of her. The Avatar darted around the various detritus in the courtyard, following the inextricable Air Nomad instinct to run away at the first opportunity. Azula felt no desire to allow him. Her feet splashed in the standing water as she threw herself at the cracked, warped, wooden torii that the Avatar had taken behind. With a triumphant cry, she sent forward both fists, and a pillar of golden flames slashed through its structure, managing to ignite it briefly before the rain put that down again. If she made the blue fire, it wouldn't have gone out.

She felt a twitch in her body. Blue fire?

NO! She forced the offending thought down, out of the way, as she caught a glimpse of orange and yellow darting away from the ruin. The clarity settled back upon her like a mantle, and a smirk came to her face as she charged after him. He turned, saw her, and snapped his glider open. Oh no you don't, Avatar, she thought as she blasted herself into the sky, kicking a fan of fire above him, converting water into stinging steam which assailed him from above. When she landed, her sweeping kick scouring the water away from the ground and steaming him from below, too.

The Avatar twirled that glider staff, and a great bubble of air pushed the steam away before it could braise him, and landed on briefly dry stone. "Why are you doing this?" Aang asked. "Why do you want me so badly?"

"You are the way I will show Father that I am worthy," Azula said, advancing. She hated when he talked. It... shifted things inside her. Things she wanted to remain exactly as they were. "You will restore my honor."

"Honor isn't something that needs defending, and it's not something anybody can give you," the Avatar tried to point out. "You're just letting other people hurt you."

That last sentence seemed to hit a lot harder than Azula expected it to. She lashed out with a wrathful cry, and a fiery whip lashed, but did so wildly, without focus or attention to destination. Because of that, he saw it coming, and with a twist of one hand, sent a tendril of water to snuff it before it came close to hitting him.

"So you've already started waterbending, have you?" Azula asked, forcing composure back into her mind. The battle came with truth, and she would cling to that truth. Not be waylaid. Not be confused. "Such a pity, that makes you two kinds of criminal to the Fire Nation. Not that you ever had much chance otherwise."

"Azula, look into your heart. Do you really want to do this?" Aang said, still backing away as she advanced. "I know that there's good in you!"

"You don't know anything about me, Avatar," Azula said, a quiet but remarkable anger flowing into her. "I know exactly what you'd do to me if the tables were turned, if our places were reversed. You'd tear my very soul out without a moment's hesitation, and tell your precious friends that you were in the right to do so. I know your kind. Just self-righteous justification, hypocrisy, and self delusion. You think you're better than us, Air Nomad? Well, at least the Fire Nation never bothered lying about its nature. How many Airbenders have destroyed nations?"

That question, which had appeared out of nowhere in her mind, rattled the Avatar badly, his eyes widening and becoming haunted. His slump in posture, his moment of indecision was all of the prompting Azula needed to take the initiative again, to push with lunatic verve and grasp hard at the truth that the battle gave her. She was Azula, and Azula was going to win.

The Avatar quickly found himself falling back, under the brutal waves of fire which pressed him up the stairs and into the great atrium of the Fire Temple. Finally, free of the pounding rain, she could aim properly again, and had just lashed out with a brutal searing wave of flame, when she noticed something. The lanterns were all lit. The Sages were in. The Avatar managed to cut through that wave, if tiring himself in the process. A clap of sandals against stone drew the attention of both combatants to a passage to their side, where now five elder figures stood.

"Who are you?" the Avatar asked. But Azula was already starting to smirk.

"We... are the Fire Sages," the eldest of them said, his voice deep as thunder.

"Excellent," Azula said. "I am Princess Azula, and you will aid me in..."

"We know who you are," the Great Sage intoned, and then, all five of them lashed out with blasts of fire. Aimed at Azula and the Avatar in equal measure.

It was so surprising that Azula felt a great lurch in herself. No, no no no no, not now, she pleaded with herself, as she stared at that approaching fire like a stunned ox. It was to something between relief and disgust at herself when the Avatar raced between the sages and Azula, and with a great billow of wind, smashed that flame aside. Why? Why would he do that? She felt numb in her hands; they were shaking. Please, not now. Not when he's right there. "Azula RUN!" Aang shouted. But she could as much run as fight. The truth was leaving her. The veil would move forward and she would lose herself again...

Aang obviously noted that she was unable to defend herself, and lashed out with a blast of wind which sent her rolling down a side corridor. As she lay in a heap, the numbness faded. The veil rescinded, and the truth returned to her. No matter what, the Avatar was still her enemy. Nothing would change that. Even the treason of the Fire Sages could not undo that fact. She growled to herself, pushing up off of the floor and looking out at the hall she had been blasted away from. The sages were already in pursuit of the Avatar, save one, who was advancing on her. She growled, fire pooling in her hands, and he, stoic faced, raised up his own to fight her.

And then a door opened directly into his face, knocking him out with a stunning blow. Somebody in a different kind of robe poked his head out, and saw the unconscious Fire Sage on the floor. "Oooh. Sorry," he said. But Azula didn't care. She started stomping toward where the Avatar left. As she did, though, the dark complected youth, who had a remarkably unpleasant looking scar above one eye, stood in her way, an innocent if dim-witted expression on his face. "Wow. How do you keep track of all that?" he asked.

"Get out of my way, moron!" Azula ordered, shoving him hard into a wall and stomping past. The last thing she needed today was the sanction of fools.

Zuko had seen his sister get sideswiped by the flames, and that was all he needed to know about the situation. The Fire Sages were against him. Well, damn them all, then. He would fight the lot of them, if he had to. Of course, by the time he was completely free of the ice, the Avatar and his cronies had gained a significant lead on him. It didn't help that the internal layout of the temple was more a maze than anything else. But Zuko knew where they would head, given time. It was just a matter of getting there before they knew which way to go. After all, as they'd taken to saying after Azula's illness; Zuko lived lucky.

It worked in extremes. He was either lucky beyond all belief, or else so misfortunate that it was a stark wonder he wasn't dead. Much about this situation made Zuko weaker; there was nobody here he could bribe, intimidate, or hire. It was just him and his sister. But she was all the luck he needed. Especially now that he could admit to himself that she was a deserving, and effective fighter. If her target hadn't been the Avatar, she would likely have flattened anybody she came across.

"We've lost him," an older man's voice said.

"Where is Shyu?"

"I don't know, Great Sage. Maybe he tried to cut them off?"

Zuko skidded to a halt, then flattened himself into the arch of a doorframe. The Fire Sages were all firebenders or shamans. At the moment, Zuko couldn't decide which was more dangerous. And having them drastically outnumber him didn't look well with Zuko's luck. "What about the other ones? Is there any sign of them?"

"No. But our orders are clear," the Great Sage answered. Zuko started running options through his head, but none of them ended with him other than a smoking corpse. Sweat began to pour off of him, mixing with the general and absolute wet which he already embodied. This wasn't good. He felt something land nearby, and he cast a fist toward the sconce above the alcove.

A pair of big, green eyes was staring down at him. Zuko took just a moment to stare at it. A lemur? Here? There was a time where lemurs were considered a sign of good luck, if seen in the swelling light of day. Of course, that had been a century ago, and the time of day was much closer to dusk than dawn. And the creature finally made its regards to his luck known by chattering loudly at Zuko as it dangled.

"What was that noise?" one of the sages asked.

"Check it out!" the Great Sage ordered. Zuko took a calming breath, preparing for the worst, as the footfalls advanced on him. But as they reached the corner of that alcove, the lemur bound off of the sconce with a screech, and began to harry the Great Sage, going so far as to commandeer the old man's ridiculous hat. Zuko, never one to give up an opportunity, leapt out after the creature, twisting through the air and using his firebending to blast the other three Sages to the ground, before sprinting away. As he ran, the lemur swooped past him, wearing the Great Sage's hat.

"I guess I owe you one," Zuko noted sarcastically.

"It's the Prince! After him!" the Great Sage shouted, and he was pursued once again. He just had to make it a bit further, and then lose them. After that, it would be a straight shot to the temple's heart, the chamber of the Avatars. He rounded corners, and the sounds of the Sages grew further behind. He might not even need to ditch them by anything but his own pace. He considered, as he rounded a corner, that it was just a matter of keeping his wind; needless to say, with the breath training he received from Uncle, that wasn't going to be a problem.

What was, however, was the sound of crackling which swelled suddenly. Zuko had heard lightning gather that fast only one time in his entire life. He dove forward, sliding on his chest across the stone of the floor, as a bolt of lightning raked along the wall. For just a moment, Zuko's mind utterly rejected what it saw, even as he bolted to his feet, his fists before him, fire begging for release. There was simply no way that this could be. And yet, here he was, staring at golden eyes.

The golden eyes of Fire Lord Ozai. The grown man smirked, and laced his fingers together before his robes. "I see that I have your attention," Ozai said, not even bothering to flick away the smoke that curled up from the first two fingers of his gloved right hand. Zuko's teeth ground. Father and son stared, the distance between them both a scarce ten yards and simultaneously a continent. That smirk darkened slightly. "Well? Aren't you going to say hello to your beloved father?" Ozai asked.

Zuko didn't so much as blink. "What are you doing here?" Zuko asked.

"Such rudeness. I see that your exile has done no favors to your manners," Ozai said smugly. Ozai began to pace. "Of course, that is part of the issue."

"What?" Zuko asked, his fists lowering a hair.

Ozai shrugged, innocently. "Quite simply, my son... I'm here because of you."

"Wait!" the middle aged man said, as he skidded to a halt at the corner, boxing them all in. Aang had his fists before him, a futile gesture, but with their backs to a boarded window, they had nowhere left to run. "I don't want to fight you!"

"That'd be a first," Sokka noted. But to Aang's amazement, he lowered himself to his knees, and bowed his head to the floor.

"You are the Avatar, and I am a Fire Sage. I have not forgotten my duty," he said. He glanced to a side from that uncomfortable posture as he heard voices echoing through the hallways. "Come, they will find you soon enough. You must hurry!"

"Why should we trust you?" Sokka demanded. He answered that question by pulling himself to his feet, then shifting aside a wall-lamp, whence it emitted a click. Triggered, a panel of the wall slid back and away, revealing a path that lead inward and up.

"I know why you're here," the man said. "Please, trust an old man who dared to hope."

Aang looked at those amber eyes, the sincerity in them, the pleading, and his fists lowered. "I think we can trust him," Aang said, as he began to walk toward the opening. After the three of them were inside, the Fire Sage joined them, shutting the path behind them. The corridor was extremely cramped, and seemed to be traveling inexorably upward.

"Why are you the only one not trying to kill us?" Katara asked.

"Because I am the only one left who remembers what the Fire Sages were supposed to remember, and the only one who serves the Avatar, as we are supposed to," he said.

"What's your..."

"I am Shyu, young Avatar," the man seemed to predict the question. "And I have waited for this opportunity for all of my life. We once served only the Avatar, and this place was a testament to the Avatars which came before Roku from our Fire Nation. Roku trained here, many decades ago, on how to master the Avatar State, so that he could slip into and out of it as he willed. His is the only statue of the Avatars that is left, since Azulon had the others destroyed; it's locked in the Avatar's Sanctum. Nobody has been able to unlock it in a hundred years, since the next Avatar... you... disappeared."

"Wow, it must be pretty dirty in there," Aang noted.

"We can only assume," Shyu agreed.

"Did you know Avatar Roku?"

"No, he died long before I was born," Shyu answered. "But my grandfather knew him. And I never gave up hope that one day, I would be able to fulfill the duty that so many others forgot. When you didn't appear, the other Fire Sages lost hope. They turned to Sozin for direction, and he led them down a dark and twisted path. Once, the Fire Lord was one of us. Now, we are his slaves."

Aang felt that weight of unimaginable guilt pressing down on him again. "They were waiting for me all that time? It's my fault that they're trying to kill us..."

"Hey, don't feel bad," Sokka said gamely, giving Aang a punch in the arm. "A century late is a lot better than never, am I right?"

"Sokka..."

"What? it is!" Sokka contended, to the exasperated sigh of his sister.

Shyu shook his head, pausing briefly. "I never wanted to serve the Fire Lord. And I knew that if you ever returned, I would have to betray them. But the world needs you, and I still have my duty, as my father had, and his before him."

Aang bowed to the sage. "Thank you," he said. "For helping us, even though it cost you so much."

Shyu smiled at that, a weary, weathered smile. "If it restores balance to this world, then anything is worth the price. Fire is not the superior element; you will remind them that it is part of a whole."

Shyu gently moved past them, in that passage which pressed in on them, and ran his fingers along a particular stone, which moved inward with a click. The stone slid aside, and emptied into a room which was cluttered with various weapons and armor stands, some of them vacant. Shyu's face dropped a bit when he saw this. "What's wrong, Shyu?" Katara asked.

"These things weren't here before," Shyu said carefully, as the teenagers moved past him. "Something is wrong."

"And that is your first clue?" A smug voice came from the darkness. An orb of light appeared above a palm, casting scarlet illumination. It showed a grown man, with thick mutton chop sideburns, which stood interrupted by an angry red burn over his left eye. And he had a very pleased smirk on his face. "Ah, Shyu. She even predicted your betrayal by name. I am so pleased."

"Stand aside, Zhao," Shyu said, raising his fists before him. "This is more important than you know!"

"Oh, but it is," this Zhao said, casting out his other hand to ignite a line of torches along the wall, if at the expense of singed paint. "This is the day when the Avatar finally falls forever, and the Fire Nation sees the inevitability of its victory."

"You will not harm the Avatar," Shyu said. "Not as long as I draw breath."

"Then we shall have to see about that," Zhao said. And then, he lashed forward in flames. Aang tried to get between the two firebenders, but Katara knocked him aside. When Aang looked up at the pillar of flames which Zhao had produced to slam into Shyu, Aang could see why she had. It would have reduced him to ashes if he just tried to snuff it. It slammed into Shyu and sent him hurtling back into that path, before Zhao twisted the fury down and the teenagers had to scatter before it could blast them as well. As Aang tried to get his bearing and his reflexes back in check, he couldn't do anything but watch in horror as Zhao almost casually picked up a bomb from a rack, ignited its wick, then idly tossed it into the secret passage. Then, with contemptuous ease, he shut the panel, just before the thud of the blast filled the room.

"Now, where were we?" Zhao asked, his tones those of some Azuli serpent, just waiting for the right moment to strike.

"You killed him!"

"Of course. He was a traitor to the Fire Nation," Zhao said conversationally. "Ozai will be quite pleased when I show him what I leave of you, Avatar."

"Aang?" Katara asked, fear plain in her voice.

Zhao let out a laugh as he spun his arms, and fire began to well between his palms. But as he took the aggressive stride toward them, his gait faltered, and his amber eyes went wide with shock as he suddenly found himself falling aside, knocked off his stride by a Tribesman's club. He landed on his side with a thud, and the fire which had been welling vanished into smoke.

"Why does EVERYBODY overlook me?" Sokka asked.

And then immediately regretted it, because Zhao kipped to his feet with a wash of flame blasting away from his fist, which flashed over Sokka's saturated clothing.

"What do you mean, you're here for me?" Zuko asked, his gaze still hard upon his father. His mind still fought with that knowledge. It shouldn't be possible for him to be here. Shouldn't.

"I have had... a change of heart," Ozai said, shrugging innocently. "There is a place for you in the Fire Nation, my son."

"I thought you'd made your position fairly clear," Zuko said, casting a thumb at the left side of his neck. Ozai smirked, and tugged the white glove off his right hand, revealing how the skin of it was mostly reddened and twisted, and the last two fingers of it were either a misshapen single knuckle, or else absent entirely.

"And you have made yours," Ozai agreed. "And that is much of it. You know how... poorly relations with the West have become in recent years. The Coordinator is no doubt fomenting rebellion even as we speak. Come home, Zuko. Return to the Burning Throne as its proper heir, and we can cast this revolt into the pyre where it belongs."

"You never struck me as the forgiving type," Zuko said darkly.

"And I don't remember you being this... sarcastic," Ozai countered, his timber lowering, becoming more gravely. Zuko smirked, that smirk only Azula could mimic.

"Family does that to a person," Zuko offered. His brow drew down. "You cast me out in dishonor, said that I was no longer part of the family. And now you want me back? Well, are you going to offer Azula the same thing?"

Ozai's face twitched at that. "Azula has no part or place in this offer, Zuko. You are the Prince. You were the first born and the inheritor of the Burning Throne. You are the solidity and solidarity that the Fire Nation is crying out for. You must still harbor the love of your nation in your heart, my son? They need you, now more than ever."

"What about Azula?" Zuko stressed, taking an aggressive step toward his father.

Ozai just glared at him. "The offer is for you, Zuko. You alone."

"I will only accept if she is part of it," Zuko dug in.

"Azula is a weakling and an anarchist and I should have strangled her when she was born!" Ozai shouted. Zuko retreated that aggressive step, shock on his face. He knew his father held enmity toward Azula, but to hear it aloud? "She is everything that is wrong and weak about your mother's side of the family. I once held hope that she would be the strength to bear this nation forward, but instead, she becomes feeble and her mind becomes broken. She is useless as an heir, useless as a daughter, and useless as a human being. You would do yourself great favor by simply forgetting her."

"I can't believe you'd say that about your own daughter," Zuko said. Then, his smirk returned, as dark as any expression his father was capable of. "Oh, wait, yes I can. Because you offered to kill her to Grandfather the day before he died."

"You are walking on very unstable ground, my son," Ozai said.

"Really? Am I?" Zuko pressed. "By your own declaration, we – WE – would not be allowed back until the Avatar is at the foot of the Burning Throne in chains. I will hold you to those words."

"You idiot child! I never intended to see Azula come home!" Ozai snapped. "She has been erased from the family records, her figure removed from the portraits. In time, I will make it so that her embarrassing presence as well had never been born."

"What?" Zuko asked, his stomach fluttering.

"You are not stupid, my son," Ozai said. "You are intelligent. You are useful. Your exile has strengthened you, and proved that you are deserving of the cold-blooded fire that you have mastered."

Zuko glanced away. In truth, he had never even attempted to bend the lightnings until that desperate moment, while his skin was still afire from Ozai's nearly lethal blow. Azula's words were still in the air, indistinct for the pounding of Zuko's heart, and then, he twisted his arms up and before him, his fingers clawing out, and the lightning followed them. One near miss begat another. But apparently, not nearly enough. Ozai had marked Zuko, and Zuko had marked Ozai.

"But... the law..."

"I am the law in the Fire Nation," Ozai pressed, forcing Zuko back another step. "Think of yourself, Zuko. Leave that burden behind. She is dead to this family. She will NEVER return to the Fire Nation, she will NEVER be heir, and with Agni as my witness, I will burn my very nation to the ground before I see it in her hands."

Zuko was a stubborn young man. It was one of his basic principles, the central tenets of his existence. Keep fighting, even when you can't. But to hear it said, with such unbelievable irrevocability and spite, it finally, finally sank in. There was no going home. Not for Azula. And he had a golden-bricked path leading him back to the Burning Throne, to power, to glory, to wealth and prestige. But it came at a cost of such betrayal to his honor that he practically vomited at the thought of it. Four years ago, Zuko would have jumped at the chance, even just to get away from his sister. Now? Now, there was no home without Azula. He would be trading his soul for trinkets.

There was no going home.

And despair settled onto the Fire Nation Prince. He looked up at his father, golden eyes so much like his own staring back at him, and there were no words. And no actions. Just numbness, and crushing, crushing weight. His decision was already absolute, but how would he tell Azula? Could he even tell her?

"What is your answer, my son?" Ozai asked.

There were two things about the Fire Temple that Azula loathed. One was that it was built like a maze. The other was that it seemed to conduct sound splendidly; the combined effect was that she never knew where she was, but always had a fairly good idea where her quarry was. She could hear them somewhere ahead of her, fighting Zhao, if her ear for smug sons-of-bitches held true. The purest thought in her mind, which was coming under increasing strain with every moment that she wasn't trying to kill something, was that she was not going to let Zhao walk away with the Avatar. Not as long as she had breath in her body. And since she had plenty of that, she had no trouble sprinting through the halls, following the ghosts of sound which taunted her. Sometimes, she would simply roar in frustrated rage, and smash flames into the walls, and the crumbling of stone gave her a new path. Or else, a new window for the rain to get in. One time, as she did so, she found herself paralyzed. Not by any feat of arms or injury, but by a simple question, that repeated itself psychotically in her mind.

Why was it raining?

It was almost five minutes before she could tear that question out of her apperception, and resume the hunt. In a way, it was almost as bad as the seizures, in that those episodes could come on with almost no warning whatsoever. And she refused to tell Zuzu about them. He already coddled her enough as it was; if he knew of this, he'd lock her in her room 'for her own safety', and she'd never see the sun again. There was a tingling in her, like her body was rising against her but she denied it. Not today. Even Agni wouldn't stop her.

The voices grew more clear. That Girl shouting something in panic to the Avatar. The Avatar... angry? Zhao being a smug bastard, as usual. It didn't matter. If Zhao beat them, Azula would just beat him. She'd done it before. And it would be much more energy efficient than fighting the Avatar and Zhao at once. "I'm coming for you Avatar, and not even Fate can stop me!"

"Convenient," A voice said, nearby. She spun to it, fire leaking from her fists as she glared at a young man, maybe two or three years older than Azula, who leaned on a wall. He was wearing red and gold armor, but it seemed especially crafted, suited for him specifically. She knew armor, as she'd had to have her own made special as well. His glided over him like the scales of a snake. He turned to her, and dark lenses of smoked glass concealed his eyes. "We've never claimed to be agents of Fate."

"Yeah, just inevitability," an answer came from Azula's other side. How the hell had she not noticed two of them? This one was a girl, maybe the same age as Zuzu, but it was hard to tell because she had skin like a three-day-old corpse, and her eyes were hidden behind those smoked-glass lenses. Azula wracked her mind, trying to understand this, but that numbness actually abated for a moment, in her confusion, rather than growing stronger.

"Who are you supposed to be?" Azula demanded.

The girl smirked, and then lashed forward, searing with golden flames. Azula wheeled as she deflected the assault away. A firebender, obviously, but no Fire Sage. Come to think of it, the girl had similar armor to the man. She dropped low, preparing for his gout of flames. But instead, he spun along the wall, and cast out a wide back-fist, and a section of that wall shot away with it. Azula had to throw herself flat to duck that belt of stone which flashed toward her, and then immediately kip herself up, propelled by a blast of flame, over the synchronized attack by the girl.

"She's a quick one," the youth noted.

"Good. I was worried she'd be a pushover," the girl answered. Why did that voice sound... familiar? No, no no no no the numbness was coming back. Push it down, push it down!

Azula was a student of the Sozin school of firebending. It claimed that the only worthwhile defense was overwhelming offense. As long as she kept letting these two... unknown opponents... direct her tempo, she would almost certainly lose. So she twisted and sent out an arcing kick of flame at the girl, before slamming down an ax-kick wave of flames at the man. But even as she did, the girl was bursting through her assault with one of her own, and the earthbender simply ducked into the lee of a barrier he erected as he needed it. Azula turned and bounded, another flare of fire coming off her heel. Not just to keep the earthbender suppressed, but also to give her a measure of velocity as she hurled herself past the girl and further down the hall. Now, they weren't surrounding her anymore. The youth didn't even bother lowering the barrier. He just ripped it from the ground, and cast it out in a fan of large stones, which she furiously had to bend an explosion before her to deflect. But defending from that, itself a terrible idea, meant that she had to hurl herself bodily aside when the girl's twisting rope of fire shot out over his head, as the girl bounded over the stone. Azula rolled up behind a pillar, and pulled herself to her feet.

Damn it all, those who fought like they were one brain controlling two bodies, and used elements together the way that only Avatars were purported to. Azula twisted and lashed out with a short barrage of two-fingered bolts of flame, but the youth spun before the girl and raised his hands. The floor rose to swallow those attacks, even if it did crumble into debris doing so. And just as Azula had come to expect, his defense gave the girl an opening to press her own attack, this time her arms sweeping wide and scouring the walls with seeming wings of fire which soared down and began to fill the entire hallway. She hurled herself backward, and then twisted in mid air, using a blast of her own fire to blunt the attack from advancing, even if she couldn't stop it entirely. As she landed, though, she didn't even have enough time to blink before a block of stone, roughly the size of Azula's head, shot through that conflagration and struck Azula in the center of the chest.

Azula was thrown back, the wind knocked from her. It had struck cruelly at her leather breastplate; while firebenders' armor was typically made to withstand flames, her own had been specialized against air and water, allowing greater mobility in exchange for protection. But that didn't matter one whit, because against a flying stone, even an Imperial firebender might as well be wearing a loin cloth and a decorative hat. She likely broke a rib, but she wasn't done by a half. She pulled air furiously into her lungs, and pushed herself to her feet. This was too much. She'd never seen a fight like this in her life.

Had she?

Damn it, not now, she screamed inside her own head, as her breathing quickened. It wasn't bad enough that suddenly she had to fight opponents that she had never even heard of before, but that they fought together better than any that Azula could believe. The girl fought on a level with Zuzu or Azula herself, and the young man with all the lightning reflex and killer instinct of a Dai Li. And with that, the numbness spread beyond her ability to control it.

Where had she heard of the Dai Li before?

What was a Dai Li?

"Excuse me, Princess?" a very pleasant voice said beside her. She had just enough in her to turn, and behold another – but this one with the darkened skin of a Tribesman – in red and gold armor, and those same smoked glass lenses, idly reach a hand to her shoulder. Her eyes widened when she saw that the hand he extended was swelling with some sort of disgusting, blackened water. The instant it touched her, she felt all of her energy sap away, flowing away from her like water out of a bottomless bucket. Her knees buckled instantly, and a quiet roaring filled her ears as she crumpled in a heap onto the floor. She didn't even have the strength to close her eyes, and could see and hear as the flames snuffed, and the footfalls came closer.

"You sure took your time," the youth said.

"I was making sure I was in the right position," the Tribesman said.

"Bullshit, Kori, you were just being a lazy f..."

"Omo, enough," the girl said. She moved before Azula and stooped down. "She's not harmed, I presume?"

Azula felt something cool and comforting on her neck. "Of course not, Yoji. Just a cracked rib, but he didn't say we had to deliver her unharmed. Just alive. Besides, that's an easy fix."

"Good," the one identified as Yoji agreed. "Have her bound and delivered. Zhao deserves a reward for his foresight today."

"Why do you want me to bind her?" Omo complained. "Get Kori to do it."

Azula felt herself rolled onto her back, her chest propped up from where it rested against a wall. The Tribesman glanced over the top of his spectacles at her. His eyes were very dark blue. "You know," Kori – and what kind of Tribesman's name was that, a fairly calm portion of the chaos that was Azula's mind asked? – said , "it's kind of a pity she's a traitor. She's cute."

"Oh, here we go," Omo muttered.

"What? I'd ask her out, is that so bad?"

"She's royalty."

"...So?"

"Zip it and send her to Zhao," Yoji said. Kori sighed and began to pull manacles from somewhere she couldn't spot, and began to shackle her into immobility.

Inside her own mind, at least, Azula thrashed, screamed and flailed. But in the world, she was as helpless as an infant. Unable even to look away, she could forgive herself for the frustrated tears that rolled down her cheeks.

"Give up Avatar; come out and face me! Your situation is hopeless!" that voice screamed at him, but Aang didn't care. He ducked in cover, his hand clamped over Sokka's mouth as Katara carefully picked the burnt remnants of Sokka's vest off of the burn which now covered part of his chest and arm. It was beyond fortunate that Sokka had been soaking wet when the attack hit. Much of the heat was wasted on the water, but it still looked like it hurt like madness.

"I'm so sorry," Aang whispered.

"Aang, you're running out of time," Katara whispered back. "This is more important than us. You have to talk to Roku before it's too late."

"But what about..."

Sokka pried the hand from his mouth, and let out a low grumble. "Do it, Aang. I'll be... fine."

Aang severely doubted that.

You can make him whole.

"But how?" Aang asked.

"Who are you talking to?" Katara asked.

It is in her blood.

Since Aang wasn't about to cut Katara to find out what the voices of the Avatars Long Since meant, he just took a breath, and pushed aside all of the fear. He simply had to trust that Katara knew what she was doing. It wasn't abandoning friends, it was fulfilling his duty. And if he told himself that hard enough and often enough, he might believe it. "Sokka, stay strong. I'll find something to help you."

Sokka, who's pallor was either burnt red or else pallid grey, just nodded at that. And with that, Aang burst out of hiding, a wave of wind blasting across the store-room and managing to clip Zhao out of the room. Aang by necessity followed; there were no other entrances which hadn't been at least slightly blown up. Aang landed at the threshold, and immediately had to duck a knife-edged chop of flame from Zhao. Aang channeled all of the frustration, the fear, and the anger through his body, and when he did, his roar sounded the chorus.

If his tattoos didn't glow, then he was a fish.

The blast of air which resulted didn't just hurl Zhao away from Aang, it hurled him into a wall. And then through that wall, and across that hallway, before sending him through that wall as well. But Zhao was still moving, even as the structure failed and the hole created began to fill with debris. The glow faded, and Aang couldn't help but wonder what had come of this Zhao's life to make him so unspeakably tough. The Fire Sanctum was close. He just had to get there in time.

"We could not find the Avatar," Great Sage Deng said, his drawling voice dripping with frustration. Ozai didn't care. "Perhaps Zhao had more luck."

Ozai managed to barely bat an eyelash as he heard the great crash of somebody being thrown bodily through a pair of walls. "Luck is a relative term, Fire Sage," Ozai said.

"Were you able to find Zuko?" Deng asked.

"I left him to ponder his decision," Ozai said. "I have confidence he'll see where his long-term best interests lie."

Ozai wasn't lying. He knew that Zuko would be desperate to come home. The world outside was strange and unfamiliar, and poverty would suit him as well as an anvil for a rucksack. It had taken a bit of doing, not all of it legal, to keep Ozai's brother away from the family purse-strings. He wished he had a more compelling reason for resenting his brother than 'because he existed', but when it came down to it, he had hated the man far longer than it had been since the failed siege of Ba Sing Se. It worried him that Iroh might have corrupted the lad. But Ozai knew first hand, that once you conquered the cold-blooded fire, there was no going back. It was a form of ruthlessness which never completely abandoned.

Ozai might not have put it in so many words, but he had a degree of faith in his son. All that he had to do was ensure that Azula was removed from the equation.

The train of thought which had been navigating the sheer cliffs of Ozai's mind abruptly slammed on its breaks, as a figure pelted up the stairs only to come to a skidding halt of his own at the far end of the room and a hundred feet from the great, locked doors of the sanctum. He was small, frail looking. His arms were spindly, his head was over-large. And upon it rested a great blue arrow, pointing straight down at the bridge of his nose. It would have taken a particularly cruel parent to mark his child so, in this day and age. Whomever had done so to the whelp was a true villain, to condemn their offspring to instant recognition, particularly by the likes of Ozai. Big, terrified grey eyes stared at him. Rather, it stared at the overwhelming number of Sages which flanked him. So Zhao was right on both counts, was he? Perhaps he had learned a lesson from his branding, after all.

"And this is the Avatar, revealed at long last," Ozai said smugly.

"Who are you?" the boy asked.

"Your only chance for survival," Ozai answered. "Surrender now, and you will survive the day. Do not, and I promise you, you will die in fire."

"Please don't stand in my way," the boy said, an uncommon courage obviously screwing tight in him. In a way, it was something of a shame that the boy had to be a relic of a dead people, and fighting on the wrong side. Ozai had often considered that turning an Avatar would be a far greater victory for the Fire Nation than killing one.

"Your defiance ends here," Ozai said. The boy glanced back whence he'd come, then forward again, to the doors, which to his perspective would have been blocked by the curving profile of the room. And Ozai could see a decision in his eyes. So when the boy shot forward at thunderous speed, only Ozai was fast enough to keep up with the lad. His fists cast out a pair of fiery waves, which scoured along the stone, baking the pillars which broke the space and held up the vaulting ceilings. The Sages offered their own part in the firestorm, usually in discrete blasts and comparatively guttering columns. But the airbender shot through that maelstrom, growing closer. Ozai started to smirk, and cut off the waves of fire, only to round his hands in a long familiar motion, and a crackle of brutal electricity surged at his command.

The boy had scarce instants before that lightning surged out with a thunderous bang, tearing across the distance and missing the nimble child by inches. It did, however, prove quite effective at tearing a hole into the outer wall of the Temple, and letting the rain start to flood inward in wind-driven waves. The boy ducked behind a pillar, and Ozai wasn't about to let that stand. He twisted his arms again, feeling the energy pulling apart in his body, and the terrible, dangerous vacuum resulting fill with lethal power. He let the power slam into that pillar, breaking it down in a single blow, a feat that even an earthbender would have been hard pressed to replicate. The boy bounded away, once again. So the stories were true about airbenders; they couldn't stay still to save their lives. Or more aptly, in this case, stay still long enough for Ozai to end them.

The Avatar landed with a sweep of his staff, and the billows hurled away quite a few of the sages. Ozai, though, rooted himself, and halted his slide with a rocket-blast of firebending. The instant that wind abated, he kicked into the air himself, and with both of his fists and one of his feet, lashed out with three great, arcing missiles of flame, which converged with deadly intent on the boy. Ozai expected the boy to leap again, and there was only one place that he could land. Ozai counted on it. But finally, the boy did something that Ozai didn't expect. He gave a hard yank on the very air, but it was not wind which tried to resist Ozai's brutal strike; it wouldn't have been able to anyway. Rather, a stream of water hurled itself into his back, casting him away from the impact site, which exploded with such ferocity as to hole the floor. Reacting faster than Ozai would easily believe, the Avatar turned that waterbending self-mutilation into an attack, twisting the water which had shielded him from explosion into an offensive mass in a fraction of a second. The great mass of water struck Ozai, and very nearly knocked him from his feet, but a few undignified and unstable backpeddles later he was furiously flicking the rain from his beard, and using his own natural fire to dry his robes in a flash of steam.

Ozai turned his fists to the boy, and began to wheel around him, as the boy tried to tug, with utter futility, on the great handles of the Fire Sanctum. Despite his best efforts, which involved him bracing himself on the other door with both feet and pulling until his entire body was parallel to the floor, the doors had stood locked now as they had for a century before him. Finally, the boy looked up, from his perspective, at the Fire Lord and the quickly recovering Fire Sages which now formed an arc around him. "So you are so desperate to rejoin your people?" Ozai asked. "Well, prepare to meet them, Avatar. Prepare to die!"

The Avatar dropped to the ground, grabbing up his staff, as the others began to conjure the flames which were their souls. But Ozai's eyes flicked, and suddenly, there was a second youth standing next to the Avatar. Ozai was a fiercely rational being, but his mind told him with sincerity that there had been one, and a moment later two. The second had just materialized out of the naked air. That second bore a struck-ox expression of stupidity on his dark, scarred face.

"Wow. You're the Fire Lord, aren't you?" the youth asked. Then, he winced, and stuck himself on the forehead. "No! Stupid! Focus! Aang, come with me if you want to live."

"Kill them!" Ozai ordered.

"Come with you whe–" the Avatar began.

And when the flames lashed out, there was nothing but the vast, snake adorned iron of the Fire Sanctum doors for it to strike.

Katara was crying. She wasn't averse to crying, like men usually were. If there was a need, she would cry. It didn't happen often, because she'd learned young that she had to be tough for her family. But when her family was at risk? Like when Sokka got a bad case of pneumonia back when he was ten? She cried then. And she cried now.

"Y-you should go," Sokka said, his voice a hoarse whisper. "I'll just slow you d-down."

"I'm not leaving without you," Katara promised. She was not leaving her brother here to die. But she couldn't do anything else! To think she wanted to learn the ways of waterbending combat, when all it had done here was knock Zuko on his butt, when the real threat was a burned man with a brutal lethal streak.

What use was there for a sword after the battle was done?

What use was Katara when her family needed her?

She wept openly, her hands on Sokka's burnt arm, even though she knew it hurt him. She just couldn't bring herself to let go. But Sokka seemed to be enduring it for her sake, even as she tried to endure for his. This wasn't fair! The bad guys weren't supposed to win! She wasn't supposed to have what was left of her family taken away from her!

As she wept, she hoped. She preyed to Tui and La, for strength. To Sedna for guidance. And when that seemed to fail, to Tenger Etseg for vengeance. She just wanted Sokka to be alright. Was that too much to ask of the universe?

And when the sweat and blood and water on Katara's hands began to glow, the universe answered: apparently not.

The scream which came out of the Avatar's mouth was high, shrill, and not a small bit girlish, as he shielded himself from the wash of flames. And then, he opened first one eye, then the other. Flames continued to scour him, but he felt none of it. Sharif was standing next to him, finishing stretching that something across his head, and otherwise utterly nonplussed that there was a wash of flame tearing through his chest. "What... How?"

"They're in the Inner Sphere. We're in the Outer," Sharif said simply.

"But... Actually, I guess that does make sense," Aang admitted, standing contrite as the attack finally flickered out.

"Where did they go?" the Fire Lord demanded. The Fire Lord himself, here! How? That was a question which kept bounding in Aang's head. Wasn't he only supposed to face the Fire Lord at the end of the epic quest? Of course, that led him to the idea that this might be the end, that he could defeat the Fire Lord today and end the war!

"I know that look," Sharif said. "And trust me, this is probably going to get a lot more complicated."

"What?"

"I had a conversation with a dragon a minute ago," Sharif said, and then paused. "Pity I don't remember very much of it. But what I do remember, is that Ozai," he pointed at the man who was now berating the Fire Sages, "wasn't supposed to be here. Something about the entire situation is wrong. And I think I know who lies at the heart of it."

"Who?"

"I need time," he shook his head. "Besides, it's almost dusk, and you need to talk to the Avatar."

"There's a door in the way!" Aang complained, reaching over to rap on it, only to almost overbalance through it when it proved as incorporeal as air. He turned, and beheld that the doors didn't seem to exist. "...What."

"It's... a thing," Sharif admitted. "Most couldn't get in because they aren't good enough to go into the Outer Sphere bodily. I am. And so will you be, when you practice enough. My sister described something called 'superpositioning' back when I had a working brain. Most of it went over my head even then, but I think it's kinda what's going on here. Doors exist in either a state of opened or closed. Closed doors in the Inner Sphere are always open in the Outer. And visa versa. So talk to him."

"You know a lot of this stuff."

"Trial, error, and a lot of luck. You should see the mess that's come to the Spirit World lately," Sharif admitted, walking aside Aang as they entered the sunburst-floored Fire Sanctum. A statue of Roku stood proudly, a great red stone set in its chest, and a lens was set into the roof, obviously to let in the sun. Pity there wasn't any. "You'll be talking to him soon, when the sun would have hit the stone. Time doesn't care about sunlight, after all."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," Sharif said. "I'm not sure why, since I don't remember, but some of what Fang said was... pretty terrible. Like, 'open your wrists and get it over with quickly' terrible. I guess it's a good thing that I literally can't tell you any more about it. Oh, and he also told me to give you this," Sharif pulled something which looked like a petrified lime out of his pocket, and handed it to Aang. "He recognized it, but, once again, I don't remember what it was. At least I got the name right. Jade Toe. Heh."

"What does it do?" Aang said, holding the thing warily.

Sharif answered by wearily tapping the scar on his head. Oh, right. Didn't remember. "I'm going to see if I can talk to your bison and arrange a way out. Good luck, Avatar. You're probably going to need it."

Aang bowed to the Si Wongi teenager, who walked past the wary, watchful Fire Lord and his cronies outside the door. He then turned to the statue. "So... what do I do? I'm here; am I supposed to pray or mediate or..."

Aang was cut off when there was a billow of wind, and Aang could feel himself move. It was like falling, but only both sideways and inside out at the same time. The twisting clouds descended, and Aang found himself standing on a platform hewn from the grey, barren rocks. The sky overhead was black as death, and only a grey, suffusive light bathed the surroundings. But Aang was not alone in this dreadful, dead, lonely place. There was another, his stark red robes an affront to the desaturated grey of this place, his white beard spread down upon his chest. He was tall, and his hair was pinned in a phoenix tail with a double-flame pinion. It was a man Aang had only seen set in stone. "Welcome, Aang. I've been trying to contact you for a very long time."

"Avatar Roku?" Aang said. "Thank the spirits, I was afraid I was too late!"

"You are, in a way. And just in time in another," Roku said profoundly. "I have something important to tell you. That is why I had Fang scour the world to find you. If you hadn't slipped into the Outer Sphere, he might not have found you until it was too late."

"What is it? Does it have something to do with that vision, of the comet?" Aang said, pushing aside the dregs of guilt which clung to him for missing a hundred years he really shouldn't have.

"Indeed," Roku said gravely. "One hundred years ago, not long after my death, a comet seared across the skies of the world. It's great heat and fire empowered the firebenders of the world into a level of power which was unthinkably vast. Ordinarily, it is a day that passes unremarked, perhaps giving rise to legends of battlefield glory. But this time, the Fire Lord of that day, Fire Lord Sozin, somehow knew that it was coming, and used the power it gave him to deal a devastating first strike against the other lands. It was during that attack that your people were struck the wound which destroyed them. Their teachers eradicated, knowledge lost forever. With no teachers, their children, even had they the spark of a glorious airbender, became ignorant, and weak, and vulnerable. You are... almost... the last airbender. And the death of that nation was not swift, but the slow bleed."

"So Sozin used the comet a century ago. How could that," and Aang let out a sigh. "The comet's coming back, isn't it?"

Roku nodded.

"It's coming back soon, isn't it?" Aang asked.

Roku nodded.

"It's coming back... before next... year?" Aang asked.

"It will return to the world at the end of summer, so not quite your worst fears," Roku said kindly. But the kindness crumbled. "If the current Fire Lord harnesses the power of that comet to end the war, then there will be such an imbalance, that not even you, Aang, will be able to correct it. Not even with all of the power of the Avatar behind you. You must defeat the Fire Lord before it arrives."

Aang felt a pang of fear in him. "But how? I've barely started waterbending, and haven't even started earth and firebending yet!"

"You will find a way. Yours is the path of the chain-breaker, and it is a path which the Avatar has walked before. Mastering the elements is supposed to take years of practice and discipline. But you have until the end of summer. And I have faith that it can be done. It has happened before," Roku seemed to bleach, his robes slowly moving through destaturated pinks into white. "The solstice is ending, and our time together draws short. Now that I have contacted you here, I will be able to find you in the future. If you have questions, ask me. I am a part of you, Aang. And I am always with you."

"Thank you, Avatar Roku," Aang said, bowing. When he looked up, Roku was barely a shadow, a wispy outline of the man, like a dusting of flour on an invisible person.

"You will face grave dangers when you leave, and I fear I will not be able to help you. But I have faith in you. Remember, that I always have fai

And then, with a puff of air in that place, the flour was scattered. And there came a loud bang, a groaning of metal across the sky, which started to turn a sickly yellow, rising out in rings before a valley, almost in sight. And then, the mountain was empty. No Avatar, past or present, just the hill, the aftershock of the Blowout, and a dying Spirit World.

The paralysis in Zuko's mind was absolute. If he went back, he might be able to help Azula in secret. But it would destroy her to have him leave her, even just in word. If he didn't, then there was no helping her at all, but she could still hope. And that was worth more than gold. For Zuko, there was a future of wealth, glory and power, but he had to give up family to get it. For Azula... there was no future.

There was a very uncomfortable anger growing in Zuko. He was used to being angry at Father. He'd gotten a lot of experience with it over the last few years. But to be angry with the Fire Nation itself? That smacked dangerously of treason.

Zuko rose to his feet, shelving that thinking for now. It was dangerous thinking. He was Fire Nation. Fire was in his heart, his body, and his mind. But if the Fire Nation wouldn't have his sister, then why should he have the Fire Nation? It was a deadly chain of thought. One he fought to ignore. More and more, it seemed the plans he'd started concocting with whats-her-name, back after Mom disappeared, might actually be more than a mental exercise. He needed to leave the island, to think. And more importantly, he had to get Azula off of the island before Father found her.

Zuko moved to a nearby window and threw open the flap, trying to see where Iroh had left his boat. But it was not the dinky little corvette which graced Zuko's vision, but three of the great frigates that Zhao taunted him with at Whale Tail. Zhao was here? Oh, that suddenly made things much more dire. Zuko broke off at a sprint, through the corridors of the Fire Temple, heading down to where he could safely land a fall. He certainly didn't feel like navigating the entire maze. Thus, at around the third story from the ground, he bounded out one of those windows and took a perch on the rain-coated shingles of the pagoda. He shielded his eyes from the rain as he tried to make out which direction to go, or worse, if Zhao was coming in force. But instead, he noticed something heading away. It was a skiff, not too large by any standard. But he could see something on it. Just a flicker of red and black. Zuko bounded back into the room, and heaved an astronomical telescope to the window, and peered quite opposite its intended purpose, turning it to the waves. The smoke belched up from its smoke stacks, and there were at least two figures on board. One of them was wearing red and gold armor, his back turned. The other, chained to the floor.

"AZULA!" Zuko shrieked, his voice raising to a quite unmanly timbre, but he didn't care at the moment. He hurled away the telescope, careless of its crunch as it broke on the floor. He then hurled himself back out that window, and without a first let alone second thought, leapt from the roof. Only a blast of firebending, an explosion under his landing, preventing him breaking his legs. As it was, it was still a very rude, very rough landing, atop some very hot stone. He raced down the slope, even as his thinking mind told him that there was no way he could beat the skiff back to Zhao's frigate. But somehow, in his heart, he believed if he tried hard enough, it might make the difference anyway.

Pity the universe wasn't listening to Zuko's heart, at the moment.

Zuko came to a halt where the roaring surf could only barely reach up to spray him, compounding the thorough soaking he received from the rain which fell. He screamed Azula's name again, but it was lost in the driving rain and the crashing of waves. He only had one job. One task to complete. One duty to perform. One promise to keep. And he was failing.

With a roar as wordless as thunder, he tore his arms above him, and with them, flowed the lightning. When he brought his hands forward again, lightning arced from his fingertips, exploding across that distance in a lattice of indiscriminate death, a blue reaper that brought down whatever it touched. While the lightning was powerful beyond compare, and utterly impossible to block, it was also extremely difficult to aim, and inaccurate over long distances. The assault he'd hoped would blast the pilot of that skiff into a smoldering corpse instead went wide. Part of it crashed into the ocean. The more relevant part of it scoured along the hull of one of Zhao's ships, holing it just at the water line. Zuko fell to his knees, the water on his face hiding frustrated tears. It was too much. He was spent.

"Prince Zuko? Where are you?" Uncle's voice came through the storm.

Zuko didn't answer. He just bowed down his head, and sobbed, silently.

He failed his sister.

He failed his mother.

He failed himself.

Ozai turned as Zhao limped toward him. His face was already starting to bruise, and his posture wasn't nearly the proud stance he'd held when he first arrived on the island. But then again, considering the amount of damage which the Avatar had no-doubt inflicted upon him, it was a small wonder how the man even bothered staying alive. "You have proven yourself a man of uncanny foresight, Zhao," Ozai said.

"Did he make it inside?" Zhao asked, obviously disregarding his own pain. A worthwhile quality in a man.

"I must assume he did," Ozai said. "And that means, whatever he came here to learn, he did. But you managed to predict him. That is a valuable commodity, to be able to know the enemy's movements before they come."

"We still failed," Zhao noted grimly.

"To catch the Avatar before he got into the Sanctum, perhaps," Ozai said. "But he has to come out eventually. And you've proven yourself a trustworthy agent." He was going to continue, but he heard a loud, rumbling clunk, and when he turned to the door, the great snakes where beginning to rotate, unlocking themselves and the door that they contained. Finally, the last of them spun into place, and a great wave of white smoke wafted through the crack of the door. "Nevermind. Prepare to unleash all Hell upon him!"

Zhao took his place at Ozai's right side, fists out even for his damaged state. The other Fire Sages, besides the one which Zhao had predicted, by name, which would betray them all, reformed the arc toward the door. It swung out with a squeal, and without a word being said, the attacks of more than a dozen firebenders, two of them the greatest in the world, surged through the widening gap and scoured the inside of that room, which had laid abandoned for a century. The firestorm continued, unabated for almost a minute, before Ozai let his gloved hands raise. "Enough!"

The attacks ended in a stuttered line. And black smoke now billowed out of that room. He took a step forward, a smirk on his face as he prepared to look upon the charred corpse of an airbender. That smirk turned to a slight widening of the eyes when he saw a sooty, slightly reddened airbender come streaking past him.

"Gotta go!" The youth said, a level of brightness to his voice which seemed entirely out of place. Ozai lashed his fist down, to smite the enemy of the Fire Nation, but the boy moved with the speed of lightning itself. Ozai slashed as he spun, trying to smash the Avatar with a chop of flames, but the boy kept moving, ducking under them, dodging around them, until their positions had swapped. Grey eyes flicked toward the hole in the wall, and Ozai felt a sinking sensation. Oh, not today, child.

The Avatar hurled that staff ahead of him, and it clacked open into a glider. Ozai twisted his arms around him, lightning gathering as the Avatar bounded off of Zhao's head to grab that glider and soar toward the exit. When Ozai's bolt finally tore free, cutting through the air, the boy had already made it out of the hole, chased after with almost no time to spare by deadly electricity. Ozai ran over to that hole, propping himself atop the rubble with his wounded right hand, and stared into the rain.

The Avatar flew with great difficulty in that weather, but something loomed up out of the darkness and grey. It was huge. It was furry. And it had a saddle on its back. It was a bison, saddled for riding, like the Air Nomads of old. So the rumors were true about this one? The Avatar dropped onto the things brow, and sawed hard on its reins. It turned and vanished into the murk. Ozai could see two others in the back of that thing. One of them, a girl in blue clothes, glared at Ozai as they flew away.

Ozai took in a deep breath, turning away from the rain which soaked him. When he released it, he sent a surge of heat through his clothing, evaporating the rain from them in a puff of steam. He flicked the water away from his strand of beard. "Now, we have lost the Avatar," Ozai said simply. "But you, Zhao, have gained something valuable. We shall... discuss it later."

"Did they find the..."

"We had her delivered to your boat," Yoji said, suddenly at her master's side. She undoubtedly arrived only moments before, otherwise the Avatar would be a burnt corpse right now. Zhao smiled at that. Not a rapacious smile; even Ozai wouldn't have stood for that. But it was smile of a man who had lived long impoverished, suddenly granted a windfall.

Ozai pointed at the hatless Great Sage. "You will contract an artist to sketch that scarred boy who interrupted us. I want a bounty on his head such that even his own mother would turn him in."

"How much?" Yoji's earthbender counterpart asked.

"Half the Avatar's reward should be sufficient," Ozai said, walking away from the holes in the wall and floor. "After all, he did aid him in his treason against our nation."

Zhao forced himself to stand somewhat taller. "May I be excused? I have personal business to attend to."

"By all means," Ozai said, "Lord Zhao."

"Lord?" Zhao asked, his amber eyes brightening. Even the burnt one.

"Of course," Ozai said. "You are a part of a rarified stratum, Zhao. I trust very few to act independent of me. I have stripped many titles from my ilk. I very rarely give them back. Now be ready for when I call upon you in the future. I may yet need your insight again, since the Avatar escaped me."

"I will do as you ask, Fire Lord," Zhao bowed gratefully. Ozai just nodded and looked to the wall again.

The Avatar was an airbender child. That was fortunate. Airbenders were weak; they were pacifists and fools. It was just a matter of time until the North broke, and the Fire Nation roamed Summavut in triumph. He pondered to himself a more proper name for that city. Something more... Fire Nation. It was a pleasant diversion, as he descended the Fire Temple.

Victory, at this point, was just a matter of time.

Aang still held the reins as he hauled his face above the edge of the howdah. "Katara, is he...?" Aang didn't have the heart to finish the question.

A quiet moan from the subject of that unasked question brought a surge of relief to the Avatar which he was in desperate need of. "He's not going into shock anymore," Katara said, "but it's still pretty bad. We're going to need to get to some place with a doctor really fast."

Aang looked the teenager up and down. Sokka's burns had been much more livid before he ran out to the Sanctum. "What happened?"

"I... don't really know how to explain it," Katara said, before falling silent over her brother. While Sokka looked half dead, so did she. For the former, it was a vast improvement, but the latter? A drastic calamity. Aang flopped back down onto the brow of the beast, which was flying with a lethargic, bone-weary path. Aang reached down and patted Appa upon its massive brow.

"I know you're tired, buddy," Aang said, looking east, into the darkness of the rain and the night. It was not for the temperature that Aang found himself shivering, but simple exhaustion. "We all are."

Thousands of miles to the north, a man most of the world from his home smiled, as a cold wind caressed his skin. It had been an unreasonably long time since he'd felt proper cold. Two years in the heat and the storms, and occasionally in the dry. It wasn't a Water Tribe way of living, that was for sure. But then again, of all of them, only Hakoda had anywhere near the experience of living outside their familiar cold and wet, and that was because Bato had spent quite a few years in the world before. Before the Raids resumed. Before Great Whales fell. Before he lost his daughter.

She would have been Sokka's age, by now.

He tried very hard not to be bitter. In fact, he'd even managed to move on from it. She wasn't his last child. Yes, he regretted leaving his second daughter behind, but this had to happen. Somebody had to fight the Fire Nation, and the Earth Kingdoms seemed bloody content to just lick their wounds now that the attention had turned from them, to somebody whom they obviously didn't give a damn about. Bato wasn't a bitter person, but more than once, he wondered what the war would have looked like if Ozai hadn't pulled out of the East, and sent the Navy north? If he hadn't resumed the conquest of the waterbending nations? Would Nahla have been able to meet her big sister, Aalo?

Bato continued to whittle at his knife. It was somewhat counterintuitive to make animal-based weapons when they had access to bronze and steel, but a whale-tooth knife just had a knack for getting through tricky armor. The rationalist in him said that it was a matter of balance, or familiarity. Most others just happily claimed that it was the spirit of the beast fighting for the Tribe. Bato had met spirits. They were seldom so kind. In a way, it was good that Llawenydd went like he did; at least it was quick, and at least it was clean.

There was a silence, where Bato stood on the shores. The night was, gracefully, not storming for once, and a fleet of stars sailed across the heavens. Once again, education and tradition fought, and tradition came up short. So many stars. Different stars than he had grown up with. More proof that the world was... how had Sokka put it? Oh, right; an oblong spheroid. He couldn't afford to get distracted by the stars, though. A different fleet, this of long, Water Tribe boats, had moored here, in the hidden, rocky coves. The craft, far too small to be easily noticed, could sally out and harry any Fire Nation ship that tried to make for the Hengsha River. And when the fight turned, when the Fire Nation called in reinforcements, the Water Tribe would vanish back into the rocks.

A fleet of ghosts, Hakoda had called the tactic. It suited them well. Weeks out here, and not a single Tribesman lost, not a single ship more than slightly damaged. Bato smiled at that. It might not win the war, not on its own, but damned if it wasn't going to make a difference. He turned, glancing toward the north star again. How many days to reach their northern sister tribe? Not many. But they were out of reach, since the fall of Henhiavut. As he considered that, his ears picked up on something. Not the whisper of waves upon sand... but rather footfalls.

Bato reached back, grasping the spear which lay just behind him. He closed his eyes, since he wouldn't be able to spot them in the blackness, anyway, and used his ears to guide him. Closer. Closer they came. Two of them, one great, the other quite small. A teenager at best. When they had reached a proper distance, close enough that Bato could spit them if need be, not so close as to have to fend them with a knife, he stepped around the hull of his ship. "Stop right there, outsider," he said in these lands' tongue. "We don't want any trouble, so don't think to bring it with you."

"Always with the firm tone," an extremely familiar voice said to him. His bright blue eyes widened a bit, and a smile began to crawl upon his face. That smaller figure, which he had mistaken for a child? It could be none other. "I would have thought you would have tried something different by now, if only to break the boredom."

"Sativa!" Bato said, thrusting the spear's tip into the sand. He held out his arms, and moved to give her a twirling hug. "Tui La, it's been far too long."

"Indeed it has," she said with a chuckle. She took a step back, and Bato turned to a glowering thunderhead of an Azuli. "I was going to inform you that I've located..."

"Piandao," Bato said, extending a hand in friendship. Piandao just glared at it until Bato retracted it. He wasn't quite sure what to make of that. "...Anyway. I profess, I'm a bit surprised to see you here. What brings you to the north?"

"Collecting old and trusted friends," Sativa said, her gravely voice quite lively. "You know how things have changed. We must prepare the Avatar for his destiny."

"It's not our place to meddle with the Avatar," Bato pointed out.

"So Piandao has told me," Sativa said.

"Is he not speaking for himself?" Bato asked genially. Piandao just stared at him heatedly.

"Boys, play nice," Sativa ordered. Bato just locked eyes with Piandao, and neither flinched. It wasn't until Sativa cleared her throat loudly that both broke in unison to turn to her. "Better. Bato, we are tired and in need of a place to sleep this night. Surely you can offer us some accommodation?"

"Of course, Sativa," Bato said, waving into the treeline. "We're camped near an abbey up the hill, and you're quite welcome to join us."

"I quite like the sound of that," Sativa said in that smokey way she said just about everything. "And it would allow me to finally properly introduce myself to that friend of yours; Hakoda."

"I'm fairly sure he'll be more interested in meeting you," Bato contended, and began to show them the way into camp. The entire time, Piandao just glared, and brooded. It was better that nobody knew what he was thinking, for all involved.

You can't make Frodo a Jedi without giving Sauron the Death Star. Evocative prose though it is, it's exactly the issue which I had to balance when writing this. While I did love the idea of having Ozai be a constant enemy, rather than a 1990's era videogame endboss, adding him as a factor into the story started shifting things, quite significantly in some places. While the nail certainly allowed for it (a destabilized Ozai needs to take a much more personal hand in many of his activities), it meant that the good guys were actually in a worse position than they had started. I guess I gave Ozai his Death Star long before Aang met Ben Kenobi.

...Wow. It's almost like I don't want them to win.

Alright, that was a lie, but when have I ever made anything easy for my protagonists. Narrative is essentially formed and stylized fictional sadism at the best of times anyway, since you kinda have to do unpleasant things to the protagonists in order to instill urgency into the plot. But if the Gaang is going to become powerful (and bearing in mind the other characters involvements with them, it's gonna happen at some point), then the bad guys have to be even stronger in order to present a credible threat to them. Thus, Aang faces Ozai in Book 1, Zhao uses every opportunity to cleave the Gordian Knot, and Sokka gets barbequed.

Another issue which was raised earlier is the disperate nature of the story as it stands right now. Well, I'm taking a cue from some other stories I've assimilated over the years, the most familiar one to this audience probably being 'Fall of the Fire Empire'. It starts with vastly distant plot threads, but as the story progresses, they join closer and closer together. Now, in Book 1, they're still admittedly far apart. But by the time the Ba Sing Se arc happens (If I reach it, since you have to remember not to get those hopes up), a lot of it will be folding in rapidly. It's a matter of different stories contributing to a whole, until they're all in the same room and bouncing SCIENCE! off of each other or punching a tea-maker.

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