What If Zuko Won?

Based on events in W.I.T.C.H. in the World of Avatar

Epilogue 10: The Reception To Honor The Nations And Celebrate Peace, or, Dance Dance Revolution

With a throat-gagging name like that, the Reception was just as much...fun...as you'd expect, with staid, old-fashioned music (they wouldn't dare play the type of music the kids enjoyed in the clubs, or have a cool band like The Flameos).

And with hardly anyone around their age in attendance, there wasn't much Aang, Katara, Toph, Will, Irma, Taranee, Cornelia, Hay Lin and Caleb could do about the non-coolness of the event.

Bored, they sat at their table and calmly endured it, all the while acting as if they were really into their meal.

Not that there weren't some...exceptions.

"May I have this dance, milady?" the charming boy with the well-coiffed mane and chiseled chest & biceps asked.

"Who? Me??" the shy Taranee blurted.

"Of course! Who else?? Why, if you dance half as well as you look, we should be the dance champions of the Fire Nation in no time!"

"But..."

"Do it! He's cute!" Cornelia encouraged her friend.

"But what about Nigel?"

"What about him? He's a world away! Like they say, what happens on Avatar's world, stays on Avatar's world!" Irma chuckled.

"Besides, you were going to break up with Nigel anyway!" Corny pointed out.

"Cornelia!" Will admonished her fellow Heatherfieldian's improper comment.

"What? It's the truth!"

"Okay. Sure. Let's dance. I'm, uh...Tara."

"What a lovely name! Pleased to meet you, Tara! I'm Ruon Jian!" said the boy, who didn't recognize Tara the girl, in her unaltered state, as the 'Fire Angel' who gave him his fire bending. Thus, his affection was genuine.

Inspired by the Fire Guardian's example, another one of the girls found the courage to act on her impulse.

"Hey, Aang, want to cut a rug?"

"I don't know, Hay Lin. Won't the Fire Nation get mad if we damage their carpeting?"

"It's an expression! It means 'dance'." Irma helpfully informed the lone Air Nomad.

"Oh! Well, if it's okay with Katara?"

"I don't mind. Have fun!"

"Let's show 'em how air benders dance!" the adventurous Hay Lin suggested.

"Yeah!" the fun-loving Aang eagerly agreed.

The steadily dwindling group was soon visited by another thrill-seeker.

"May I have the honor of this dance?"

"Why not? I always had a thing for older men!"

And that's how Toph ended up dancing with Iroh.

Even the most...unusual...of the young liberators had men come a-courting.

"Ooo-eee! Looky you! You're all woman, and then some! Wanna dance?" one of the Swamp denizens said to Ryoko, she of the sumo wrestler physique and curly blonde wig.

"Hey there, brother Due! I saw her first!"

"You're surely mistaken, brother Tho! Our eyes met across th' room like a coupla swamp bugs!"

"Now, now, men! Look at this exquisite, ample vision of beauty! Surely there's enough for all of us! May we have this dance?" wise philosopher Huu sweetly asked.

"Gakk! I'll never be able to get that image out of my mind!" Irma said, nearly choking on the words, as the massive Ryoko danced with the trio of tribesmen.

"They're still not wearing pants, but at least it's their nicest version of 'not pants'!" Cornelia optimisticaly noted of the three men from the Foggy Swamp.

"I hope my daughter's not too grown-up that she won't dance with her old man?" Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe grinned.

"Of course not, dad!" Katara replied, and joined her father in the reception's dance area. "I'd be happy to dance with you!"

"Looks like everyone's getting down tonight! Will, you've been pretty quiet. Have you thought about hitting the dance floor?" Irma Lair queried.

"Hmm. Maybe later." Will Vandom answered as she drank from a cup of cinnamon cider. "Right now, I'm content to enjoy the show."

"How come you and Caleb aren't out there, Corny?" Irma impolitely asked.

"Caleb, the great war hero and expert at just about everything, says he can't dance!" the Earth Guardian testily replied.

"Two left feet. Sorry!" Caleb shrugged.

"Hey, Cornelia, I just noticed. You went all tall! What's up with that?" the Water Guardian wondered.

"I did? You know, I think I subconsciously do that in public. Because people expect it, what with my rep as the 'Plant Spirit' and all. Wouldn't want to disappoint anyone."

"Oh."

"Plus, that dress looks great wrapped around those long legs of yours!" Caleb smartly complimented his lady love.

"Don't you have the silver tongue!" Cornelia gushed as she leaned over and shared a kiss with her Meridian paramour.

"Ahem."

Cornelia Hale halted her much-desired liplock and turned to see who was interrupting her.

Who would have the nerve to bother her now??

Then she saw who it was...

Zuko!

The recently reformed (but still greatly disliked) Fire Lord was met with angry stares from just about everyone still at the table - Cornelia, Irma and Caleb (Will was busy draining another glass of cider) - yet Zuko persisted in being a pest.

"Excuse me..."

"What do you want?" Cornelia haughtily replied.

"There's a courtly dance coming up, which means I have to dance with a noblewoman, but I can't find Ty Lee anywhere!" Fire Lord Zuko moaned.

(In another part of the Palace complex, a warehouse to be exact, Shen Ming instructed his helper to check a box of supplies perched on a high shelf. The assistant jumped on the shelf above her, flipped her body 180 degrees around, launched herself onto the next shelf going up, then repeated the moves until she was on the uppermost pallet next to the box Shen was pointing to. The girl told Shen what was in the carton, and he responded "Thanks! I never could have done this without you! I sure was lucky I ran into you, Ty Lee!")

"There's no one else I can ask! Please don't make me dance with the Duchess!" Zuko said with a shudder.

"You think I'm of noble blood??" a pleasantly shocked Cornelia questioned.

"It doesn't matter what I think. It's what they think that's important!" Zuko indicated dignitaries from the other Nations of Water and Earth who were watching the possible dancing couple.

"It's a court dance, so it's mainly twirling around and stuff. No big deal." Zuko explained.

"Caleb, aren't you going to say something? You're my boyfriend! You're supposed to protect me from things like this!" Corny wailed.

"Hey, I have no problem with it! It's just some silly dance!" Caleb grinned, amused by his girlfriend's uncharacteristic pouting.

"Please, Cornelia!" Zuko begged. "It'll make the Fire Nation look bad if its Fire Lord can't fnd anyone to dance with! So don't do it for me, do it for the Fire Nation!"

"Alright." Cornelia threw in the towel. "For the Fire Nation. Not you!"

As Fire Lord Zuko escorted Cornelia Earth Guardian/Plant Spirit to the dance floor, Will absentmindedly commented "Talk about fly on the wall time!" before swigging another shot of cider.

Causing a puzzled Irma and Caleb to both utter "What??"

The Energy Guardian had perceptively picked up on the tension between Zuko and Cornelia. Or maybe Will remembered things she saw or heard during her time in the Spirit World.

Either way, she knew sparks were sure to fly!

"Just follow my lead, and we should be fine." Zuko said as the band began to play.

"I know how to dance!" Cornelia snapped.

"Of course you do. Sorry."

Cornelia thought it was bad enough dancing with the guy, but then he had to go and make it worse.

He had to talk!

As Zuko spun the blonde Guardian around, he said "You know, I am really sorry for all those things I did! I didn't mean to hurt anyone."

"Zuko, you tried to burn me to death!"

"Oh, that. Well, in my defense, I knew it wouldn't harm you! And, uh, see, I was right!" he weakly smiled.

"Then you took our powers away and threw us out of a seven-story window!" Cornelia huffily added as she twirled back and forth.

"And I'm really sorry about that! But, once again, I knew you'd make it! You were with that earth bender girl, so I figured she could save you all."

"What was she going to do? Bend the earth from the air? Besides, you took her powers away, too! If it hadn't been for Caleb..." Cornelia ruefully recalled as she dipped low.

"I did?? Oh, man! I'm really, really sorry!! I wasn't, um, quite myself."

Elsewhere on the dance floor, Hakoda danced with his only living child.

"It's great that the war's over and we can go home and be a family again, isn't it?" he said.

"What??" an unpleasantly shocked Katara responded. "I mean, of course it's great! It's wonderful." she added, as she hid her unhappy face from her father.

After returning from a bathroom break, Irma Lair overheard the band's next musical selection, and it spurred her to take action.

"Tara! I need you for an important mission!" Irma said as she elbowed in on Taranee and Ruon Jian. " 'Scuse us, hotstuff!"

"Hay Lin! Can you keep a beat?" Irma asked as she interrupted the Air Guardian's flying dance with the Air Nomad.

"Well, sure, but..."

"Great! Let's go! Sorry, Aang! I'll bring her back later!"

Back on the dance floor, Zuko continued his acts of contrition.

"Cornelia, I'm really sorry for all those awful things I did." Zuko apologetically said as the court dance ended and he and Cornelia bowed to each other. "I know I don't deserve it, but I think it would help both of us to unburden ourselves of these negative feelings. If you could find it in your heart to forgive, I, I think it would really help me with this Avatar thing, and probably you, too. Not that you need to do that. It's just..."

"Stop that!"

"What?"

"Acting like we feel anything for each other! You don't love me, and I certainly don't..."

"Our next song is a slow dance, for all you young lovers out there!" the band leader cheerily announced.

"Ulp!" Cornelia gulped.

Moments later, a familiar beat filled the air.

Bum Bum Bump

"What the?" Cornelia uttered. She recognized the sound. But what would it be doing here? They didn't have music like that in the Fire Nation! And it sure as heck wasn't some 'slow dance'!

Corny got her answer when the singer sang.

I saw him dancin there by the record machine

Bum Bum Bump Bum Bum Bump

"I don't believe it!" she yelled.

I knew he must have been about 17

Bum Bum Bump Bum Bum Bump

"They're playing 'Rock and Roll' " Cornelia squealed and jumped for joy.

"What's that?" a baffled Zuko asked. "Some kind of Earth Kingdom music?"

The beat was going strong

Bum Bum Bump
Playin my favorite song

Bum Bum Bump
I could tell it wouldn't be long till he was with
Me (yeah me)

Up on the stage, Irma was singing, with Will and Taranee behind her on backup, and Hay Lin was on drums! Mr. Lair's headstrong daughter had commandeered the stage to spare her friend the ignominy of dancing close with the annoying and confused Fire Lord (which made him even more annoying! It was easy to hate a bad guy. But someone like Zuko, who wasn't sure if he was good or bad? That was a lot harder!) Irma's goal also was to, as she said, 'Get this party started!'

Quickly, Cornelia ran to collect Caleb.

"Let's dance!" she declared.

"But I don't dance!" Caleb protested.

"I'm not asking! Now move your butt onto the dance floor!" Cornelia commanded.

I love rock and roll, so put another dime in the
Juke box baby

Bum Bum Bump Bum Bum Bump

"What's a jukebox?" a member of the crowd asked the woman with him.

"What's a dime?" she responded.

I love rock and roll so come and take the time and
Dance with me

Bum Bum Bump Bum Bum Bump

"Oh, who cares?" the man said. "Let's dance!"

Virtually seduced by the beat, with music she hadn't heard in months, Cornelia let go of her inhibitions and began dancing around the clueless Caleb, who had no idea what was going on or how to act, so he just stood there in the middle of the dance floor while Cornelia used him as a sort of human maypole.

He said, can I take you home?
Where we can be alone

Bum Bum Bump Bum Bum Bump
And next we're moving on, and he was with me (yeah
Me)

Bum Bum Bump Bum Bum Bump
We were moving on, and singing that same ol' song
(yeah with me)

Bum Bum Bump Bum Bum Bump
(singing)
I love rock and roll

"Thank you! Thank you!" Irma bowed to scattered applause after the song was done.

Many in the crowd loved the performance, but there just as many who were either confused by the tune, or didn't like it at all!

And then there was Cornelia's little 'act', which didn't go unnoticed (not much goes unnoticed when you're the friggin' Plant Spirit!). In fact, Cornelia and Caleb were the very center of attention during the song!

"Dude, you are totally gonna score tonight!" Chan whispered to Caleb.

"What was that, Cornelia?" Jun Yi, Cornelia's Fire Nation friend, curiously asked the natural blonde. "Some sort of fertility dance?"

"Fertility dance? Oh no! What have I done?!" the embarrassed Cornelia cried.

"What's the damage, Corny?" Irma inquired of her distressed companion.

"Some people think I was doing a fertility rite during the rock and roll song!"

"Well, I caught some of what you were doing from the stage, and you were dancing pretty suggestively around Caleb! If you don't watch out, you could invent pole dancing on the Avatar's world!" Irma joked.

"Stop that, Irma! I was not pole dancing!!" Cornelia unthinkingly screamed.

"What's pole dancing?" someone in the crowd asked.

"Eeep!" the supremely mortified Cornelia squeaked. Then she ran off.

"Cornelia? Where are you going??" Cal fruitlessly called after his runaway girlfriend.

"Ah, don't worry about her! She's probably just taking a potty break!" Irma dismissed Cornelia's behavior.

"Dude, you know what I said before about you scoring? Forget it!" Chan said.

"Who the heck are you, anyway?" a miffed Caleb replied.

"More! More!" a small group of mostly younger people began chanting.

"Hmmm. What should we do next?" newfound rock star Irma pondered.

"Oh! I know!" an excited Hay Lin exclaimed. "Let's do that Katy Perry song!"

"You mean 'I Kissed A Girl'?"

"Yeah! Remember, back home, whenever that woud play, all the girls would start dancing! Although the guys just stood there and smiled, which is a little weird, but oh well!"

"Hay Lin, don't you know what that song's about??" Irma asked her innocent friend.

"Kissing? I don't know. I don't really listen to all the words."

"I don't think we can play that song. It would probably start a riot!" Will observed.

"Why would a song about kissing cause a riot?" Toph inquired.

Then Will whispered to Toph and Hay Lin exactly who is kissing who in the song.

"Oh my gosh!" a shocked Hay Lin gasped. "And I said how much I liked the song on my blog back home! What if someone reads it??"

"Seriously?" Toph sniggered. "Your world's crazy! But it's probably a lot of fun, too!"

"Irma, this is a pretty mixed crowd, so I think you better go with a safer choice of song material." Will Vandom advised.

"Mixed crowd? Oh, I get it! Like at a wedding!" Irma quickly grasped the situation. "I'm on it, Will!"

"Okay, a one, a two...You put your right foot in, your put your right foot out! You put your right foot in, and shake it all about!" Irma sang and danced. "You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around..."

In the washroom, while missing Irma's debut as a wedding singer, Cornelia struggled to pull herself together.

But she wasn't alone.

"Cornelia? Are you okay? I didn't say anything wrong, did I?" Jun Yi asked.

"I'm okay. And you didn't do anything wrong, Jun." Cornelia confessed. "It's me. Sometimes, I don't know what I'm doing!"

"You mean your boyfriend? But I thought things were all sparky between you and Caleb?" Jun said, speaking in that almost incomprehensible Fire Nation teen slang of hers.

"They were. They are! I mean, I do love him! Or thought I did. Oh, everything is so confusing!" Cornelia sighed.

Back on the dance floor, things took a turn for the worse when Ryoko fell on Tho during a particularly fast number.

"M' okay." Tho feebly said as Huu and Due strained to lift the mountainous Ryoko off of him. "But what a way ta go!"

Returning to their table, Aang re-joined his girlfriend.

"Have fun dancing with Hay Lin?" Katara nicely inquired.

"Yep!" Aang sincerely replied. "But it'd be more fun to dance with you!"

The idea hit the water bender like a 100 foot high wave!

"You're right, Aang!" Katara declared. "I've been letting myself get distracted and depressed by the past!" she added, as she stole a brief glance at the hated Fire Lord. "But we've got a future to think about! A future where the world's at peace, and we're together. We should celebrate it!" she said, as she looked into his eyes.

Katara took Aang's hand and walked with him to the dance floor.

"That's just what I was thinking, Katara!" Aang cheered.

"Plus, Irma's doing a slow song now. There's no way I could keep up with that other crazy music she sings like you and Hay Lin can!" Katara laughed, and wrapped her arms around the bald, tattooed air bender she loved.

"Thank you, thank you very much!" Irma said after her impromptu concert, imitating the King. "Karaoke - you may not get it, but your descendants are gonna love it!" she cracked.

The applause this time was far greater than before. Irma had won the crowd over!

"Wow, Tara! You're an excellent dancer! The best I've ever seen!" an admiring Ruon Jian told dance prodigy Taranee Cook. "How would you like to..."

Suddenly, security burst onto the scene!

"Isn't that the son of that traitor, Admiral Chan?" a guard yelled and pointed to the fugitive teen. "Get him!"

"Ruon Jian! Help!" Chan screamed like a little girl and ran as fast as his feet would move him.

"Whoops! Gotta go!" Ruon Jian gave the brush-off to Tara and sped away to help his buddy, Chan.

"You did WHAT??" Katara screamed, in a voice probably heard all the way back in the Earth Kingdom!

"But, but, Katara..." Aang punily muttered.

"Don't 'but' me, mister!" a very angry Katara yelled. "How could you agree to do something like that?? How could you want to help him?" she said, pointing to the Fire Lord. "After all he's done?!"

"But, Katara, I'm the only air bender left! Who else is going to train the new Avatar? And Toph thinks it's a good idea!"

"It doesn't matter! We were supposed to be building a life together! You can't go and decide what we're going to do all by yourself!"

"Katara, if you would just listen! Zuko's changed! He..."

"No, Aang! We should have discussed this before you made your mind up! It's too late now!"

Katara turned on the Air Monk and began to walk away, but Aang chased after her.

"Please, Katara! I didn't mean to upset you! I thought you'd understand..."

"Leave me alone!" the water bender barked. Katara pushed the lone Air Nomad away with a whip of water bent from her sack that she wrapped around his chest, and then stormed out of the reception!

"Oh no! What have I done??" Aang cried.

His friends soon gathered around him.

"Aang? What's the matter? What happened to Katara??" Hay Lin inquired.

"I messed everything up!" Aang wailed.

"Give her time, young air bender." Iroh wisely counseled. "Her pain is great. She needs time to achieve the peace she so desperately needs."

"Wow. First fight, huh?" Irma wryly commented.

But all she received in response were angry glares from the others.

"Okay. Not my best material."

Suddenly, the heroes of two worlds were beset by another unexpected intrusion.

"Cornelia. Taranee. I just wanted to thank you and your friends for the wonderful party! I've never had so much fun! The 'Hokey Pokey'! My word! What a joyous feeling!" said the appreciative woman, the Education Minister in Zuko's cabinet.

"You're welcome, Xue Lao!" Cornelia replied with a quick smile. "That Irma, she realy knows how to throw a shindig!"

"We're glad you enjoyed it!" Taranee added.

"Oh, and thank you for introducing me to Chu Fen." she whispered to the two girls. "He's ideal!"

"No problem!"

"It was our pleasure!"

As Chu Fen escorted his companion, Xue Lao, out of the reception for a private rendezvous, he turned and gave Caleb the thumbs up sign.

"At least someone's getting lucky tonight!"

"What's that, Caleb?"

"Nothing."

Next:

More of the Reception.

And more secret revelations!

The war may be over, but the drama with Zuko, Cornelia, Caleb and Mai isn't!

Plus, even more guest stars!

Notes / Comments

Minister Xue Lao first appeared in Chapter 7 and will make another appearance in the upcoming companion piece "Cornelia and Taranee's Adventures in the Fire Nation 1: Matchmakers".

That story is more of a comedy, with some drama, much as these epilogues are.

The Flameos is the band Aang had play at his secret dance party in Episode 302, The Headband.

And here's an extra epilogue.

Epilogue Extra: Iroh & Irma

Irma dug into the festive party food, but when Aang looked her way she avoided meeting his gaze.

"I do not mean to pry, but I could not help noticing. Is there a problem between you and the air bender?" said Iroh, who sat nearby while his 'date' for the night, Toph, took care of business.

"It's okay. I just feel...a little guilty. There was a moment when I could have stopped Zuko, but didn't. Heck, he was practically begging for a fight, but my friends were in trouble, so I couldn't shove it back in his face!"

"It sounds to me as if you did the correct thing."

"Yeah, but it turns out my friends weren't in any real danger. It was just Zuko messing with me! I should have shown that so and so who he was screwing with!" Irma said, punching her fist into her palm. Then she added, emotionally deflated "At least, then, Aang would still be the Avatar."

"Noble thoughts...all. But you said Zuko was goading you into a fight?"

"Yeah. So?"

"So consider this. My nephew, while terribly confused at times, still retains some measure of honor. If you attacked Zuko, it would have given him the opening he needed to respond in kind, to meet force with an equal amount of force."

"You mean...If I had tried to...He would have...And he had that 'power take away thing' going at the time! Omigosh! It was all a trap!"

"Thank you, sir!" Irma hugged Iroh.

"Any time, my dear. Any time."