Disclaimer: I don't own ATLA T.T
Fire. Air. Water. Earth. These are the four elements. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. But that all changed when the Firelord attacked, wiping out an entire race and beginning a war that lasted for a hundred years. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements has the power to restore peace, but even he has limits.
"I know." Zuko bowed his head. "But I can't go home. Not yet."
"We thought you'd say that." Ty Lee replied as she cartwheeled by. "So Mai and I are gonna break us out of here."
"What?" Zuko's head snapped up. "How are you-"
"I managed to pry a hinge from one of the doors." Mai held up a metal bolt. "I can do the same with the others, and we can make our escape then."
"And then we'll go home, and you can be with your family again!" Ty Lee finished.
"Guys, you have it all wrong." Zuko groaned. "I'm not a prisoner."
Ty Lee and Mai exchanged a look, and Zuko heard one of the two girls mumble something about "Zhaquan Syndrome."
"I haven't been brainwashed either!" Zuko shouted. "Look, I didn't want to believe it at first, but we're not the good guys in this war! Think about it, all the history books say that the Airbenders were a barbaric and warlike race that were wiped out because they were building an army. But they're alive, and here! And they didn't kill you! You were captured by them, you know how powerful the Air Warriors are! If they had been an army of them, we would have been the ones wiped out, not them!" He stopped, breathing hard. "Sorry for yelling, but the point is, everything we were taught was wrong. It was all made up to make my great-grandfather and his war seem good."
"Oh, we knew all that, already." Ty Lee shrugged. "Personally, I'm against war on principle, but-"
"What?!" Zuko's eyes just about popped out of his head. "You knew?!"
"Azula told us before she sent us here." Mai looked at her fingernails distastefully; she had broken one while prying out a hinge. "She found out from her father when he made her the heir to his throne."
Somehow, it didn't surprise Zuko that his father would tell Azula but not him. "And how is Azula?"
"Same as ever." Ty Lee giggled. "Sets stuff on fire, shouts a lot, you know."
"She never believed you and Lord Iroh were dead." Mai shook her head at Ty Lee. "I believe her exact words were 'They're dumb, but not dumb enough to get killed on a camping trip.'"
"I'm flattered." Zuko said flatly. "And even knowing the truth, you're still on the Fire Nation's side?"
"It's not always about right and wrong, Zuko." Mai said softly. "Sometimes, duty and honor come first."
"There's no honor in this war." Zuko replied firmly. "And my duty as the Avatar is to all the nations, not just my native one."
"Sounds good to me!" Ty Lee exclaimed. "I'm in!"
Zuko stared at her. "Just like that?"
"I don't much care about civilized duty, or whatever Azula called it-"
"Civic duty." Mai corrected her friend.
"Yeah, that. It's pretty clear to me that Zuko's got a point." Ty Lee did a little cartwheel, nearly kicking Zuko in the head as she passed. "Besides, do you really think the Fire Nation can beat the other three nations and the Avatar?"
"We've managed to do it for a hundred years just fine." Mai crossed her arms, though she sounded unsure.
"Have you though?" Zuko asked. "The Fire Nation hasn't managed to gain much territory beyond the outer edges of the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes. They didn't even succeed in wiping out the Air Nomads. The world naturally wants balance, and the Firelord is fighting against that. You can't win a fight against the universe itself."
"What choice do I have, Zuko?" Mai replied softly. "My family... everything I know is the Fire Nation."
"There's always a choice." Zuko stepped forward to embrace Mai. "I know it's hard, giving up everything you've ever known for people you've been taught are the enemy. But you're not alone. I made the step, you can too."
"And you're sure that they can be trusted?" Tenzin's eyebrows were knit together so tightly that they looked like a single long, bushy caterpillar perched above his eyes. "Just like that?"
"On my honor as the Avatar." Zuko nodded. "Most citizens of the Fire Nation do not know the truth about the war. When Ty Lee and Mai found out the truth, they agreed to join me in ending the Firelord's campaign to take over the world."
"Well, if Zuko trusts them, that's good enough for me." Rohan yawned. "I don't mean to be rude Dad, but why am I here?"
Tenzin, Zuko, and Rohan were sitting around a tiny table in a small, cramped room normally used for meditation. Following Zuko's meeting with Tenzin, the High Councilor had summoned both him and Rohan to the room for an emergency meeting.
"Rohan, you said Zuko is ready for the ceremony, yes?" Tenzin sighed.
"Yup! Taught him everything I know." Rohan grinned. "He's a master airbender now."
"Not yet." Tenzin smiled. "There is one thing he, and you have left to learn."
"Wait... You don't mean?" Rohan's face lit up.
"Yes. It is time for the two of you to learn the thirty-sixth level of airbending." Tenzin nodded.
"Hold on." Zuko looked back and forth between his airbending teacher and the leader of the Air Warriors. "I thought you had to be sixteen to learn the thirty-sixth level."
"Yes, but under the circumstances, I believe an exception can be made in your cases." Tenzin rose from his seat. "You are the Avatar, Zuko, and Rohan is the youngest master of airbending in history. Follow me."
Zuko and Rohan hurried to follow the tall bearded man as he glided silently through the halls and stairs of Mt. Chomolungma. As the three of them made their way to the deepest levels of the Air Warriors' home, Tenzin continued to speak.
"As you two know, the first thirty-five levels of airbending are primarily concerned with the movement of the wind around you, as well as manipulation of it into tools and defenses. The thirty-sixth however, is fundamentally different from the rest, in that it is, or rather, was the only attack used by the original Air Nomads."
"So only adults are allowed to learn this level because of tradition?" Zuko asked.
"Not quite." Tenzin shook his head. "Despite the advances the Air Warriors have made in the use of wind as a weapon, as well as the creation of sound bending and rediscovery of flight, the thirty-sixth level remains one of the most difficult and dangerous techniques that an airbender can learn." Tenzin stopped in front of a large door with six funnels set into it. The main gate of the fortress that was Mt. Chomolungma, the door had only been opened twice in the year that Zuko had spent with the Air Warriors. "Ready?" Tenzin nodded to the two boys beside him.
As one, the three of them bent the air outward from the palms of their hands, which they held facing outward from their bodies. The wind rushed through the six funnels, and slowly, the door creaked open.
Tenzin led Zuko and Rohan out the door and to a hidden clearing within the thick forest that surrounded Mt. Chomolungma's eastern side. "Air is all around us, but it is also within us. You know this from your training, from when you learned to expel the breath from your own lungs. But what if I were to tell you that it is possible to use the air trapped within something other than your own body?"
"You mean, like sucking the air out of someone else's lungs?" Zuko shuddered as he remembered the first night he'd spent on Mt. Chomolungma, and how the very oxygen had been ripped from the air around him by the Air Warriors who had found him and Iroh camped on their mountainside.
"Yes, but not just from other living creatures." Tenzin said gravely. "Observe." The older airbender stretched out his hand, and almost immediately, a large boulder the size of Zuko's head lifted up from the ground and began to vibrate. With a violent explosion, the rock shattered into thousands of tiny stone shards. Tenzin swept his hand up quickly, and all the pieces of rock shrapnel that came toward the three were scattered by a large gust of wind. The bits that had gone in the other direction however, shredded the landscape, splintering the bark from thick trees and decimating a number of bushes.
A/N: Wow. It's really been a while, huh? Sorry about the long wait, but this story being one of my best AUs created thus far, I didn't want to rush it and compromise my own planning, hence the long months without an update. Don't worry, even if it takes another three or four months for the next chapter to come out, I won't ever abandon this fic. I've put too much time into planning the story of this to do that. Anyways, let's do something different, and talk about my thought processes when writing this chapter.
This chapter in particular was difficult to write, because it was the real introduction of Ty Lee and Mai to Flames of the Past, and I'd like to avoid the shipping wars if possible. I've already had one person ask me not to pair Zuko with the usual suspects, to which I respond by saying that whatever will happen, will happen. This was planned to be an adventure story from the very start, and romance will play a very small part, if it is even present at all.
And then there was also the concept of the thirty-sixth level of airbending, which Aang never had to actually complete thanks to his invention of the air ball. It was always planned for the story to feature Zuko and Rohan learning this level from Tenzin, but I hadn't thought up what exactly this thirty-sixth level would be. In the end, I took some inspiration from Zaheer's murder of that horrible Earth Queen and came up with the technique of stealing air.
Normally, I don't like people trying to tell me what direction my fanfics should go in unless it's specifically done on a request, but a friend of mine told me I ought to listen to my readers more. So, leave a review about whether or not you want to see Rohan and Zuko practice (and spectacularly fail multiple times) stealing air, as well as anything else you want to see in this alternate universe where anything might happen.