Code Avatar: Lelouch and the Airbender

By: C.C.

*I'm trying to get some new updates in as soon as I can, and I'm sorry for any late updates that I might get anytime soon; it's getting more and more hectic and things keep on coming up at me, so I'm trying my best! Please enjoyXDXD!

Chapter 37: The Death of a Liar and a Traitor

Aang stared at the burning embers and living flames with disbelief, eyes wide with shock. His heart sunk as soon as he heard the explosion. The first assumption, the same as everyone else, was that they were both dead, but he didn't want to believe that. No one did.

He took his glider and started to fly over the damage. Nothing but scraps and flames.

"No," he said as tears of fear started to fall from his cheeks. With this confirmation of his death, he was now scared of the plans he had in mind. He was scared to face the Fire Lord, but he wasn't the only one who was scared from any result that might happen while he was dead. Kallen stood nearby in her Guren Knightmare, staring with wide eyes that had tears falling from them as well. She was more connected to him on a different level, though. She was in love with him, though she would never admit it to anyone. She could feel her heart breaking in two as she saw that he was most likely dead in the flames.

"That should've been me," she said, wiping the tears from her face. "He started to fight in my place. That should be me dead!"

"Kallen, hold yourself together!" said a voice over the microphone that she knew as Deithard. "He's Zero. He probably had a reason for doing this. For all we know, though, he could still be alive."

"I doubt it. Do you honestly think that he could escape an explosion like that?" said Kallen, unintentionally demanding.

The thing is, he knew that she was right.

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Schnizel suddenly started to hear his phone ring while he was speaking to Katara, trying to convince him to join the Geass side.

Now, many of you are probably thinking, why doesn't he just use his Geass on her? Well, as you all know, his Geass is to change the person completely. He changes their personality, their memories, their way of thinking, etc. The thing is, he values Katara's personality too much to change it. He likes her string will, her determination, her bending abilities, her kind heart, and all of the above. He doesn't wanna change that, so he's trying to get her over there without using his Geass on her.

He picked up his phone and saw the caller ID. It was Suzaku.

"Hello?" he said, flipping it open.

There was a pause that let the person on the other line speak.

"Hmm, that's quite interesting news. Thank you, Suzaku." He then shut the phone and looked up at Katara with sorrowful eyes. "I truly am sorry, but it appears that Lelouch is now dead."

"What?" said Katara, bewildered. "But- no, it can't be!"

"I'm afraid so, my dear," he said, placing the phone back in his pocket then looked back up at her. "The person that just called me was the killer. Apparently, the Knightmares collided and he perished in the explosion."

"No, no, NO!" she said, putting her hands on her head. "No, this can't be happening!"

Schnizel sighed, then gracefully looked at her with his soft eyes and charming smile. "There is obviously no longer any hope of you winning any of this anymore. The only person who even had a chance, who could have been an equal match to me is now dead. If you join me, however, there is hope. The Fire Nation will go down and the War between you all will be over. I can assure you that."

Katara could only look up at him with teary eyes while she actually considered his offer.

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The battle was over. None of the New Knights could figure it out. They just all of a sudden got up and left. Aang was relieved, as were the rest of the New Knights, though most importantly they were devastated. The last thing that they needed was the death of their leader.

"Everyone alright?" asked Aang as he landed, swirling his glider around and changing it back to a staff, eyes narrowed a he looked at them all with a serious face.

"Yeah," said Kallen, jumping out of the Guren as she walked over to Aang. "Deithard and Rakshata are back inside the base, so they're fine as well."

"Do you know anything about Jet?" he asked, stepping closer to her.

"I saw him figthing with everyone else. I haven't seen him since the retreat. He's probably fine, though. He's strong."

"Yeah, but he was taken over before by them. Who's to say that it's impossible to happen again?" said Aang in a bit more of a demanding tone.

Kallen wasn't sure of what to make of that. She's never seen a demanding side of Aang like this. She cold only figure that he was upset about Lelouch's death. Yeah, he was upset, but who wasn't? That's not the reason that he was acting like this. He was scared by what would happen as a result of his death, as I said earlier.

"Aang!" yelled a familiar voice from behind. Kallen looked up and Aang turned around to see Katara coming up behind them with a smile on her face. It changed Aang's mood partly, making him forget about the death of Lelouch for a single moment.

"Katara!" he yelled as he went over to her, giving her a caring hug with a partial smile.

They backed up and looked at each other for a moment while Sokka, Toph, Zuko, and Ohgi came up behind them.

"Are you guys alright?" asked Aang as they came up, eyes lit up from the excitement of seeing them again and also full of relief from knowing that they were okay and unaffected by the battle.

"Yeah, we made it out alright," said Sokka, "though we were captured by the enemy!"

"It wasn't that bad, Sokka," said Ohgi. "We were caught by Suzaku and the Lancelot and thrown into a cell for a while, but as soon as they retreated, we were let go."

"Though it somewhat weird that they brought Katara out to talk to, though," said Toph, suspicious. "What did they talk to you about?"

All eyes were now on Katara. She looked around at all of their curious faces as she tried to think about what had been said there, and what she had found out. Then, she knew that she had to ask...

"Lelouch...is he-," she asked, cutting herself off as she was scared of what she thought the answer would be.

Kallen suddenly looked down at the ground as tears started to swell up in her eyes. She pulled her arms into her and hugged herself as she fought back the tears. Aang also looked at the ground, trying to avoid the simple fact that Lelouch was dead.

In Katara's eyes, this comfirmed the fact. She knew that she disagreed with the philosophy that he used as well as his methods and his Geass abilities, but now he wouldn't be there to fight off Schnizel and the others. She now saw that she had only one path that would have the largest chance of success and for the downfall of the Fire Nation.

"You guys," she started to say as she wiped tears out of her eyes only to look up at them all with a serious look and determination written across her face, "I have something I need to talk to you about."

Aang narrowed his eyes. "Does it have something to do with Lelouch or what Schnizel talked to you about?" he asked, gripping his staff.

"Both," she answered.

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Katara had told them all about what she knew. When they were in the cell, she had almost told Sokka, but then changed her mind after re-thinking it. Now, they knew everything. They knew about the Geass, about Schnizel's plans for her, and about how the entire army that he led was in fact a Geass army. She explained how the Geass was how he was able to manipulate people into doing what it was that he wanted, how he was winning them the War, how Long Feng killed himself, how he's been getting all of this information, and how he's been able to do so much that none of them could ever do. All of that along with the fact that he's a mad genius that knew the strategies of War and was willing to make sacrifices equals a great leader of War, that is if you agree with his methods and philosophies. Katara and the others did now.

Kallen and Ohgi did now know what to make of this. In fact, they denied that it was true at first, but after thinking it all through, they realized that it all made sense. This made them all even more depressed.

"I can't believe that he lied to me like that, to all of us," said Kallen, sitting with her arms on her legs and her forehead resting on her palms, holding her up. "We all trusted him enough to where we would have given our lives for his cause, and yet he kept the Geass powers from us?"

"Well, this defiantly changes things," said Ohgi, fist on the wall as he was tempted to hit it but decided not to.

"You guys," said Aang, "we all trusted him, but we can't sit around here and wallow in our own self pity. He's dead now, and that's that. We have to take the matters into our own hands, without the power of Geass. Katara, what was it that Schnizel said again?"

"He guarantees the downfall of the Fire Nation. He said that he has other plans and that he was just using them to fulfill. He just wanted Lelouch dead and the downfall of the Black and New Knights, which he believes will happen real quickly with his death. That's why he wanted him dead so badly," Katara explained again.

"Then we should take his deal," said Aang. "There is no more of a reason for the New Knights to exist if there's no cause. We're now both going after the same goal if he plans to do what he says he says. Our whole reasoning for the New Knights existing was to help us being down the Fire Nation, but if Schnizel said that he only wanted Lelouch dead and the downfall of the New and Black Knights, then he's pretty much getting it. The Black Knights may want the downfall of Britannnia, but that's a War that does not belong here. We need to think about the New Knights at the moment."

"What about Ohgi and myself?" asked Kallen, looking up. "We're New Knights and Black Knights."

"You probably need to fight for the needs of your own people, but the needs of our world causes for the New Knights to join the former enemy. You don't have to go with us if you don't want to," Aang replied.

"I think that something's up," said Ohgi. "From everything I've learned, one thing is that you can't really trust the Royal family. Schnizel is cunning, one of the few that had a chance to take down Zero. He's probably got some sort of trick up his sleeve."

"Then what is it that you think we should do?" asked Zuko, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed.

"I think that before we make any decisions that we should wait and think about this. We need to figure out and look at all of our options," he suggested, looking at all of them.

Aang looked over at Katara, Sokka, and everyone else who nodded their heads in agreement.

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Katara couldn't sleep. She could only lay in her bed, thinking about the horrors that the day had brought. She tried to look for all of the options that might be open and she just didn't see it.

Right in the middle of her train of thought, she heard a noise outside her bedroom. Footsteps maybe, but who would be up at this time of night?

She sat up and listened hard for the noise again, and she did hear it, but it was fading. She decided to get up and follow it.

That's when she heard Kallen's voice.

"Lelouch!" she said from maybe a few yards from her room.

At the sound of that, she jumped out of her bed and ran out to find Kallen running out of the base, as if she were following someone or something. Concerned, she followed behind until she was outside the base right next to Kallen.

Kallen was crying on her knees, so the first instinct that came from Katara was to kneel beside her and try be her aid.

"Kallen, it's alright. Now, what's wrong?" she asked, wiping some tears from her face as she tried to get her to talk.

"L-...Le-Le-...Lelouch is-...he's-...he's alive," she finally said.

Katara didn't know how to react to that, but when she looked around it wasn't Lelouch that she saw. It was Aang on top of Appa, taking off to fly in the night sky. Though she was curious about the reasoning for Aang to be going for a flight at this time of night, she was looking for one person and one person only, who was not in sight. The best conclusion that she could come to is that Kallen had dreamed the whole thing for he had to be dead from the explosion that had occurred later on that day.

TBC? Please R&R!XD

-There are a lot of changes that are about to take place; I hope that you're all liking itXDXD ~C.C.