Chapter 19: It Ends
As the two bolts of lightning arched through the room, Zuko reached for them with his right hand stretched out to catch them, confidant he could handle a pair of lightning bolts, just like when he had redirected his father's during the Day of the Black Sun. However, these bolts of blue-white energy were different than his father's; they felt more like the one his sister had shot at him during Sozin's Comet.
He remembered all that painful energy coursing through his unprepared body as he had dived to save Katara. It had nearly killed him. This time, there were two bolts of the same power and no Katara to save him if he failed.
Gritting his teeth, he focused his mind purely on directing the flow of energy to pass through his stomach. All of his muscles jerked violently as tendrils of electricity crawled over his body. His vision was starting to blur, but he could still see a point to focus on, a reddish figure standing ahead of him.
With a mighty roar, Zuko swung his left hand at the figure, unleashing the tremendous forces he had been barely able to control. Lightning sprawled from his fingertips in wide arcs, hitting everything in his vision, with deep fissures appearing in the supporting pillars while the far wall was punctured by random streaming bolts. The entire hall groaned and rumbled at the might of the elemental fury. The far wall, which had sustained the most damage, crumbled away, revealing light blue skies, stricken with deep dark columns of smoke.
However, Fu Bai had been expecting another lightning redirection from Zuko, and had brought her hands down at her sides, blasting fire downwards from all of her limbs, shooting up towards the ceiling just as Zuko had swung his other arm around. Up there, she landed onto a grim, almost skeletal looking chandelier. As the chandelier swung from her added weight, while she held onto a supporting chain with one hand, she fired a long burst of enormous flames at Zuko. Zuko, recovering from the vast amounts of energy he had just redirected, barely had enough time to summon a rotating shield of fire. The force of Fu Bai's blast threw him across the floor, with only Zuko's shield preventing him from burning to cinders.
"What the - ?" Zuko started to ask, shocked by the amazing fire power the woman had suddenly gained, but had to roll in order to avoid the swiping blade of flames Fu Bai brought down on him with an elegant kick as she dropped down from the chandelier.
The iron floor glowed red, sinking downwards a little. Apparently Fire Lord Azulon hadn't been big on the idea of acquiring materials capable of withstanding great temperatures on a base where fire was constantly being manipulated… that, or those flames were really, really hot. Zuko decided to go with the second option.
Once again, Fu Bai delivered another enormous slashing wave of fire at Zuko, this time horizontally. When Zuko came out of his roll, he brought his hands together low, unleashing a concentrated fount of fire at the wave. As he poured his fire at a the part of the wave in front of him, roaring flames rushed past him, singeing his arms slightly as the heat they emitted was more intense than normal flames, beyond a firebender's tolerance to fire.
The floor around Zuko glowed and cracked. He spun around, gathering the heat being emitted by the glowing floor, and shot a blast of intensely hot air at Fu Bai. He had learned a great deal from lightning redirection, in time, it had led him to search for other practical uses of energy redirection, and eventually he had discovered and mastered heat manipulation. At least this way, he wouldn't have to use his own energy to attack, since creating fire was rather taxing on the body. A stray thought of resentment for other benders who always had matter around them to bend passed his mind, before he forced himself to focus.
Fu Bai countered the blast of heat with a great ball of fire. As the two forces of heat reached each other, they exploded into a massive shockwave, throwing both of the combatants across the vast hall, into opposite walls.
"Very impressive, Zuko, but I couldn't help but notice you've been holding back on me," Fu Bai said, brushing loose hairs from her sweaty brow as she stood up.
"What are you talking about?" Zuko asked coldly, resisting the urge to scratch at the burning sensation in his scar, as he stood up as well.
"No lightning, or could it be that… Still can't bend lightning, huh? How sad, the greatest firebender in the country, the Fire Lord, can't even bend lightning," Fu Bai said with a smug smirk.
"I don't need to bend lightning to beat you," Zuko replied boldly, as he returned to a battle stance, arms at the ready.
For a brief moment, Fu Bai's eyes flashed dangerously, before she replied with a venomous tone, "Arrogant whelp. You can't possibly even hope to succeed today," the smug smirk returned to her face as she lifted her chin, so she could stare down at him from an angle, "In fact, all of our plans have only been furthered by your ignorant, futile attempts at peace," she chuckled briefly before she continued, "This really couldn't have gone better, if you hadn't intervened."
"What? Have you gone insane? We're here to stop you and end the Fire Nation's idiotic attempt to conquer the world again," Zuko said, allowing his hands to drop slightly. He gave a few short coughs.
"And we wouldn't have had it any other way," Fu Bai said, with her smile spreading even wider. The wide grin opened and revealed perfect white teeth, resembling, in a certain way, those of a shark as it approaches its next unsuspecting meal.
Fu Bai stood up as straight as she could and strode carelessly towards Zuko, with her arms clasped together behind her. "I was worried I'd have to put up a show of actually trying to fend off the approaching enemies, as to not make it too easy and obvious, but you and your comrades have provided a great excuse to leave the Fire Nation's armies leaderless as they are utterly destroyed. You'll make the perfect scapegoat… The dethroned Fire lord returns with a vengeful heart, seeking his former position and glory, to only plunge his nation into oblivion. Mmmm, how delicious."
Zuko stared at her with a raised eyebrow, mouth agape, before he coughed again. He was about to say something, but Fu Bai interrupted him.
"Still confused?" Fu Bai asked as she continued to slowly advance on Zuko nonchalantly, "Well I guess I can explain a thing or two before the real fun begins. Remember when I said we were feeding the pirates false information? Well, that was true on the first account, except the information wasn't false. It will lead anyone with half a brain here. Next thing we had to do was make sure our "enemies" received this information, and that an allegiance was suggested, nudging them in the right direction. Knowing how deeply the other nations had been hurt by the Fire Nation in the previous war, we were certain they would all leap at the chance."
Zuko coughed again, more roughly now than before, but he ignored it along with the sudden tiredness in his legs, dumbstruck by the new information, a morbid fascination urging him to listen further.
"We were slightly worried when we heard the Southern Water Tribe decided to take the more peaceful solution, but luckily, we could count on the Northern Tribe and the Earth Kingdom to make sure no more harm would come to their damaged nations. Massive fleets are on their way, to crush the threat of the Fire Nation for good."
"Y-you" – cough – "planned this? All of it? You wanted them to attack you?"
"Why yes, Fire Lord. I really was worried I'd have to try and fight them, but now that you're here, they can easily destroy our army with the lovely bit of chaos you lent to us. Our soldiers won't know what hit them, thanks to you, as they try to stop the base from sinking and help their injured comrades. Thank you, Zuko, I really mean it. Because of you, we're so much closer to our goals"
Zuko stood in silence as he stared at her in shock. He coughed some more. "But… why?"
"The tides of war have changed. The world will never be the same. There was a shift in the power balance of the world. The Avatar failed to bring balance to the world. Power merely shifted to another place. The Fire Nation is obsolete, a dying beast. It, like the rest of the world, needs to be brought under control. A new order will rise, but not from the burned remains of the Fire Nation."
"So… what? You're going to destroy the Fire Nation's army and… conquer it? With outside forces? You wanted to take over the Fire Nation? Why, so you could build some stupid empire?"
"Exactly, my sweet. It's a lot easier to try it with the vast forces of the Earth Kingdom and its allies than trying to accomplish it with the weakened, 'evil' Fire Nation. The world will applaud us as we seize control of all of the people, completely oblivious to the fact that their nations are just as evil as ours. We'll go down in history as liberators and harbingers of peace."
"I won't let you, I'll stop you. No more people will die here today," Zuko said determinedly, although his knees shook terribly as he coughed loudly.
"How cute, you think you're still in control. Wake up kid, none of us are. Most of us just go through the empty motions, ignorant of the pointlessness of it all. But my Master has a solution, an end to the futility. Something so grand, it'll wash this world clean and usher to us a new paradise. The old broken values need to be destroyed so the new ones can be created. And I'll be there, at the forefront, redefining what it means to be alive," Fu Bai said with overwhelming zeal in her voice, now only a few paces away from Zuko, before she added rather offhandedly, "Oh, by the way, the mist we inhaled, it was a poison. You'll be fainting in a matter of minutes, just after the excruciating pain sets in."
"But y-youh breathed it t-too."
"But I also drink a neutralizing antiserum every day, just in case. I guess I'm just paranoid that way," Fu Bai said, closing the short distance between them swiftly and pushing Zuko down. Zuko tried to stop her, but his hands felt heavier than lead. He fell over limply while colored dots swam across his eyes.
"Master?" he wheezed with his remaining strength.
Fu Bai knelt down next to him and caressed his check tenderly, until she reached his scar. She brought her face close to his, golden eyes staring deeply into each other. "Why waste my breath on a dying man? But don't worry, I am not without mercy."
She kissed him tenderly on the lips, as her free hand reached past his head. She grabbed one of the hitherto unused swords strapped to his back and pulled it out of its sheath, with a gentle, terrifying screeching sound, filled with the certainty of oblivion. Their lips parted, and she smiled down at him. "Goodbye, Zuko. So sad it had to come to this, you could have been a great asset to the new order, bringing about that peace you always longed for. I really did believe in all that crap back when you and the Avatar defeated Ozai, but I think it had more to do with that infatuation all of us Fire Nation girls had for you after your glorious return."
She brought Zuko's sword around to his throat, ready to cut it open in one fell movement.
"This is the end," she said with a calm certainty.