TeaMeiya stared up and around the entrance hall with awe. It was a colossal and intricate place, with every icy detail chiseled to perfection. Giant pillars of ice lined the hall, each one completely covered in some sorts of symbols. Icy crystals that seemed to supply their own light hung from the ceilings, but these crystals seemed to be a little broken, as they were flickering erratically.

At the end of the giant hallway was a giant mosaic painting of a blue woman, standing over a restless ocean. Her white hair was long, curly, and foamy, like stormy waters, and around her eyes, she wore a seaweed blindfold. She was dressed rather scantily, with only two seashells on either breast. Her long hair seemed to wrap around her waist just enough to conceal her more personal space without hiding her smooth, long legs.

"Who is this..?" Zuko murmured, unable to take his eyes off of the woman. Ischi scowled, then pinched Zuko roughly on the ear, bringing him back to his senses.

"Don't blame Zuko." Kaizu started, putting a hand on Ischi's shoulder. "Any man who had not already seen her image would be entranced by her. That is Orcas Titania, Nereid Queen, and mother of all Water Elementals."

"What did you mean by what you said?" Ischi asked.

"Orcas can manipulate lesser beings with her beauty. Her powers are so potent that even an image can have a similar effect. It is said that no being alive can look Orcas Titania in the eye without falling in love with her. Man or woman."

"Hence the blindfold?" Meiya guessed.

"Exactly. But this is a testament to Orcas' true strength. Her powers are diminished with a blindfold, and diminished even further when it is only her image. But a blindfolded image can still capture a man's heart."

"It's the seashells." Meiya said.

"Er… Maybe." Kaizu said, instinctively looking at the image's 'seashells', then quickly looking away again.

"I don't like this Orcas girl very much." Ischi said.

"You have nothing to worry about, Ischi." Zuko said, pulling her close.

"Let's keep moving." Meiya said sourly, walking up the hall. "Ugh, the closer I get, the more I want to touch those seashells…"

When TeaMeiya reached the end of the hall, they had come across a three-way fork. One hall on either side of them, and another hall directly in front of them.

"Uh… Ziro said 'Map left, journal right', right?" Meiya asked.

"I think so. But she didn't say anything about this middle path." Kohi pointed out

"Knowing Ziro, the middle way is probably the right way and the other two are traps. Should we split up?"

"This place is huge, and it seems like there's no one home. Maybe splitting up is the best option." Zuko said.

"Yeah! I'll go right with Meiya, and Zuko can go left with Ischi." Kohi suggested.

"Yeah, no. I'm going right with Ischi. You go left with Zuko." Meiya said, pushing Kohi away and pulling Ischi along toward the left passage. Kohi sighed and walked down the right path with Zuko, who also sighed, leaving Kaizu standing by himself.

"Guess I have the middle path." Kaizu said with a shrug, walking forward down the center path.

The path led into a deeper and darker part of the Icecrown, without windows to let light in. Instead, the only thing illuminating the big room was the group of flickering ice crystals set all about the room.

It looked as if Kaizu had stepped into the actual library wing of the 'building'. Curious, he pulled one of the books from its shelf, and tried to read the title. It appeared to be the same strange symbols that coated the pylons in the entrance hall.

"What an odd language…" Kaizu murmured to himself. "I wish I had some sort of cipher so I could read this. Maybe there's one in here."

Kaizu walked around the hall of icy shelves and icy slabs that these Elementals apparently used as literature, looking for anything that may help him to decipher this odd language. Something crackling in the back of the room caught his eye. He walked up to the crackling lights, stumbling upon something odd.

Icy wires were gathered together in a small square compartment. There were two wires in this particular compartment. One was almost completely broken, hanging on by just one strand, while another one had broken completely.

Kaizu scooped a small wad of snow on his finger and pressed it against the wall, pulling away quickly. The snow began to run down the icy wall, but mere moments later, it had frozen solid.

Kaizu scooped another wad of snow between two fingers and pressed the two halves of the badly stripped wires together. He pulled away, and after a few moments, the wires had been frozen together again. Another second later, the flickering light crystals around the room became steady, and glowed brighter, giving the room a much nicer, calmer feel.

With a smile, Kaizu did the same thing with the completely broken wire, but as he pressed the two halves together, a small bolt of blue-looking lightning jumped from the wire and hit Kaizu in the face, knocking his glasses off and causing him to stumble back. His glasses crackled with blue energy for a couple of moments before settling down again.

Kaizu shook his head and picked up his glasses, adjusting them and turning back to the wires. All of a sudden, a female voice sounded from somewhere in the air.

"Diagnostics in progress. Damage received: heavy. Damage repaired: minimal. Attempting to recover."

"Wha.." Kaizu groaned, confused. There was a chilly silence for a few seconds.

"Recovery failed. Attempt 2."

There was another silence. Kaizu looked around, wondering what he had just done.

"Attempt 2 failed. Attempting to salvage any system settings to an online state… Attempt successful. Defensive systems online."

"Defensive?" Kaizu asked himself.

"Voices detected; Floor 1, Biographical Wing. Floor 1, Kiosk. Floor 1, Historical Wing. Scanning."

"Uh oh…"

"Voices not recognized. Scanning the premises… Five unknown entities detected. Intruder alert! Defensive measures are now being taken! This is not a drill! All citizens are to quickly report to the bosom of Our Queen's Chambers in a safe and orderly fashion!"

"That doesn't sound good." Kaizu murmured.

000

Meiya and Ischi exited their hallway and entered a large, circular room. All around the room, shelves upon shelves of what appeared to be books were lined against the wall. In the center of the room was an engraving of a map of the whole first floor.

"Well, would you look at this…" Meiya murmured, walking up to the map. A spinning crystal floating a little ways above the map seemed to denote their current location.

"How are we supposed to take this with us? Even if we could rip it out of the icy stand that it's on, it's way too big and inconvenient for us to lug around." Ischi whined, frowning at the big slab of ice before them.

Meiya thought for a moment, before slapping her forehead.

"Duh! I'm a Waterbender. This place is a playground for me." Meiya said as she pointed her hand at the floor, bringing up a square slab. She studied the larger map for several second before breathing in deeply, then glaring hard at the slab she had raised. A smaller-scale replica of the map had pressed itself into the ice slab.

"Wow! Katara really taught you well!" Ischi said, clapping.

"Katara didn't teach me that. I just tried it to see what would happen. I'm honestly surprised that worked, myself." Meiya laughed. "Alright, so we're… here. Zuko and Kohi went right, which is another dead end, and Kaizu continued forward. It looks like the forward path leads to-

"Diagnostics in progress. Damage received: heavy. Damage repaired: minimal. Attempting to recover."

"What the-" Meiya gasped, surprised at the sudden interruption, followed by an ominous silence.

"What was that?" Meiya asked Ischi. She opened her mouth to speak, but the source-less female voice spoke up again. Meiya noticed that as the voice spoke, the glowing crystals around them resonated in tune with the voice.

"Recovery failed. Attempt 2."

"M-Maybe we should leave. I'm starting to get scared." Ischi said with growing concern.

"Attempt 2 failed. Attempting to salvage any system settings to an online state. Attempt successful. Defensive systems online."

"Defensive systems? Now I AM scared.." Ischi stammered. "We have the map, Meiya. Let's just-

"Voices detected; Floor 1, Historical Wing. Floor 1, Kiosk. Floor 1, Biographical Wing. Scanning."

"Meiya! They heard us! We have to go, now!"

"I'm with you." Meiya nodded, hurrying toward the exit.

"Voices not recognized. Scanning the premises… Five unknown entities detected. Intruder alert! Defensive measures are now being taken! This is not a drill! All citizens are to quickly report to the bosom of Our Queen's Chambers in a safe and orderly fashion!"

Before Meiya and Ischi could exit, giant icy doors closed them into the room.

On the ceiling, a small icy port opened up, and what looked like sharks made entirely of water came down from the port and swam through the air toward Meiya and Ischi.

Ischi quickly hit the floor, covering her head. Meiya wasn't as cowardly, and dodged to either side to avoid the sharks.

"I can't reach this far! Ischi, can you break down the door?" Meiya called.

"I-I'll try!" Ischi stammered, standing and kicking at the doors with all of her might.

Meiya continued to evade the water sharks, but one came up from behind her and swallowed her whole, carrying Meiya up toward the center of the room. All of the sharks that had emerged melded together with the shark that captured Meiya, suspending the drowning Avatar in a big bubble of water.

"Meiya!" Ischia gasped, unable to do anything for her.

Within the bubble, Meiya clutched at her throat, trying as best as she could to hold her breath. It was only several seconds later that she couldn't bear it anymore and open her mouth to give a big, water-seeped scream.

000

"Ooooooooooooh…" Kohi purred as she and Zuko entered a giant hexagonal room. The entire room was very shiny, lit up by various crystals throughout the room. Circular ports lined the entire room on each side. On the back wall was a bookcase, lined with several thick-looking tomes.

Zuko walked up to the bookcase and picked out the last book from the shelf, frowning as he flipped through the pages of the book, which seemed to be made entirely out of ice and snow.

"I can't read this… Any of it." Zuko said. Kohi took a look at it and developed the same frown.

"Try another book." she suggested.

Zuko shrugged and grabbed the next book down. The language looked the same.

"Nope. Can't read any of this."

"Well… what do we do?" Kohi asked.

"There's got to be some way we can translate this. Let's go find Ischi and the others and see what they found."

Zuko put the second book back and carried the first one to the doorway. They were about to exit, when the crystals around them began to glow brighter, and began to flash and resonate as a female voice rang out.

"Diagnostics in progress. Damage received: heavy. Damage repaired: minimal. Attempting to recover."

"Whoa, what was that?" Koi asked, jumping in surprise.

"Recovery failed. Attempt 2."

"Recovery? What kind of place is this?"

"Attempt 2 failed. Attempting to salvage any system settings to an online state. Attempt successful. Defensive systems online."

"Ah, crap. Of course…" Zuko groaned, slapping his palm to his forehead.

"Well, wait. Maybe it won't-" Kohi started, but was interrupted by the voice again.

"Voices detected; Floor 1, Historical Wing. Floor 1, Kiosk. Floor 1, Biographical Wing. Scanning. Voices not recognized. Scanning the premises… Five unknown entities detected. Intruder alert! Defensive measures are now being taken! This is not a drill! All citizens are to quickly report to the bosom of Our Queen's Chambers in a safe and orderly fashion!"

Suddenly, icy doors sealed them inside the room.

"Zuko? What's going on?" Kohi chattered frantically.

"How would I know?" Zuko asked with concern, looking around. Suddenly, all of the circular ports on the walls opened at once, and torrents of water began to pour from them. More ports on the ceiling delivered raging cascades of water upon the room, and it was quickly flooded, almost to the ceiling.

Kohi flailed around in a panic for several seconds, before Zuko grabbed her arm and stared hard at her, as if telling her to calm down. She did so, and focused enough to use Airbending to create a helmet of air, maintaining her breathing by drawing oxygen from the water around the helmet.

Kohi sighed with relief, then flinched as Zuko punched her on the arm. She nodded and made an air helmet for him, as well.

"How are we going to get out of here?" Kohi tried to ask Zuko. He furled his eyebrows and held his hand to his ear.

Before Kohi could respond, a giant splash from up above distracted her. A giant glowing blue crystal fell from a large port in the center of the ceiling, drifting down to the bottom of the room. Moments later, the water became extremely frigid. Zuko and Kohi gasped at the sudden rush of biting cold, which intensified with each passing second.

000

Kaizu leaped quickly out of the way upon looking up and seeing a giant object falling from the ceiling toward him. It hit the ice with a loud clang, rolling off for a few feet, then falling flat. Upon closer inspection, Kaizu saw that it was a giant crystal ring of some sort. No later than a second after coming to this realization, a cascade of water fell from the same place, surrounding the giant ring and lifting it up into the air, creating an orb of water around the ring. The water distorted, stretched, and morphed around the ring, forming the body of a humanoid-like water creature that wore the ring like a belt.

Kaizu took a defensive stance and backed slowly away from the creature who simply stared after him. After carefully analyzing him for several seconds, the creature, threw one arm at Kaizu, sending a wave of water straight at him.

Kaizu quickly responded by sweeping his hand in front of him and sending a wave of violet flames to counteract the attack, blowing up a huge cloud of steam. He retaliated by launching his own assault, a pillar of purple fire.

The attack hit the monster's arm dead on, blowing it off in a cloud of steam. It only flinched for a moment, then began to absorb the ice on the floor under it, using that water to regrow its arm.

Kaizu stood, stunned at how easily his attack was defied. When the water creature saw an opening, it swung its arm again, sending another wave of water. Kaizu had no time to react, and was plastered to the wall by the wave, which froze and stuck him there.

Steam rose as Kaizu tried to use Firebending to melt his way out, but the ice barring him was thicker and a lot more resilient than he expected. He clenched is teeth and glared at the Elemental as it approached him.

000

"Meiya, Meiya! Don't panic!" Ischi screamed.

Meiya tried to hold what little breath she had left, flailing her arms and trying and failing to swim out of th churning bubble.

"Okay, uh… Um… Oh! Try using Firebending to evaporate the water!"

"Meiya nodded and extended one hand, blasting a small pillar of flame inside the water sphere. Steam began to rise out of the sphere, but bubbles vigorously began to disturb the surface as well. Moments later, Meiya's eyes widened and she began to flail her arms even more frantically.

"Ho-o-o-o-t! Ho-o-o-o-t!" Meiya gurgled.

"Okay, that was a bad idea!" Ischi screamed apologetically, a small sweatdrop forming on the back of her nape. "Um… Ooh! try freezing it!"

Meiya extended both arms and yelled out. Suddenly, the entire sphere froze solid, then fell from the sky and landed with a thud.

Ischi gasped and placed a hand over her mouth, walking up to the frozen ball. She rapped on the ball with her knuckles, which was met with 'angry' rattling and muffling from within the sphere.

"Sorry, Meiya! I thought it would break when it hit the ground!" Ischi said. "Don't worry, though! Zuko can probably fix this!"

Ischi returned to the sealed door and resumed her kicking, until the ice finally gave out and shattered.

"Here we go, Meiya." Ischi said, getting behind the orb and aiming it at the door. "Hold on tight! Oh, wait…. Nevermind."

Ischi began to rapidly roll the frozen orb out the door and down the hall. She stopped and gasped, turning around and reentering the room, leaving Meiya to roll uncontrollably on her own. Ischi picked up the engraved map that Meiya had made, then ran down the hall again, picking up her speed when she saw that she had let Meiya roll on.

000

As her body temperature lowered, Kohi's vision began to blur. Her mind had slowed down, but she was able to think hard enough to find a way to counteract the cold. Inside her air helmet, she breathed in as hard as she could, then blew, expanding her bubble to surround her entire body.

Knowing that she wasn't done, Kohi breathed in hard again and made an air bubble that surrounded Zuko as well. Both were painfully shivering, and they could barely talk through their chattering teeth.

"Z-Zuko, I-I-I c-can't hold this b-bubble forever. Wh-What do w-w-we d-do?"

Zuko was silent for a few seconds, before speaking up. "C-Can you move th-this thing?"

"I th-think so."

"M-Move us to the door. I-I'll try to melt it so we can get out of h-here."

Kohi nodded and pushed her hands on the bubble's surface facing the door. The air bubble cruised slowly toward the door, pushing the water away from it. When Zuko's feet were on the floor and not thin air, he walked up to the door and put his hands on the door, heating up his hands so that the door would melt.

"Could you melt that a little faster? My arms are getting tired…" Kohi panted.

Zuko frowned, straining to increase the temperature as much as he could, but the frigidness of the water left him mostly powerless. After about a minute, the air bubble around them began to get smaller.

"Hurry!" Kohi yelled, in a panic.

Just a few moments later, and just as the bubble became too small for the both of them, Zuko had pushed his hands forward, creating a hole just big enough for him to squeeze through.

"Kohi, come on! Quickly!" Zuko yelled.

Kohi frantically leaped into the hole, but stopped suddenly when she was halfway through.

"Zuko, I'm stuck! My jacket is too thick! I can't- AH! COLDCOLDCOLD!" Kohi screamed as the bubble completely disappeared and her lower body was once again exposed to the frigid waters.

Zuko grimaced, then grabbed Kohi's arms and began to tug hard.

"Ow! OW! Stop, you're gonna rip my arms off!" Kohi complained.

"Then I'll just melt a bigger hole." Zuko said, putting his hand on the icy door. "This should only take a minute."

"ZUKO! WE DON'T HAVE A MINUTE! LOOK!" Kohi yelled with a frightened voice.

Zuko looked behind him and saw a large ball of ice rolling toward them. It was still pretty far away, but there was no way Zuko would melt enough ice before they were both smeared against the door.

"Are you KIDDING me?" Zuko yelled in frustration. He looked at Kohi and saw that the waistband of the lower half of her garbs had escaped with the top half of her body. Zuko reached around Kohi's waist and grabbed both ends of the waistband, stretching them apart.

"HEY! What do you think you're doing?" Kohi loudly protested.

"Wriggle out of your pants." Zuko said as seriously as possible, trying to keep his composure.

"WHAT? Are you crazy?"

"Do you want to become a big red stain in the hallway? Then get your ass out of these pants!"

Kohi groaned to herself before placing both hands solidly on the floor and twisting and shaking her body. She progressively began to come forward, and after a few seconds, she came completely out of her pants and hit the ground, rolling to one side to avoid the rolling ball of ice.

A torrent of water escaped the fresh hole in the door. Zuko pulled Kohi's pants out of the column of water and scrambled out of the way, himself. The ice ball hit the door hard, causing it and the door to explode into a bunch of shards. The broken door released a giant wave of water which swept up Zuko and Kohi, and also Meiya, who mysteriously appeared with them. The giant wave of water thundered down the hallway.

000

Ischi had all but lost sight of Meiya's ice ball. She stopped and put her hands on her knees, panting and looking at the floor. She looked up when she heard rumbling and saw a massive wave of water coming straight at her. She had just enough time to gasp and hold her breath before the wave swept her up, too, carrying all four of them down the hall and back into the main room.

The wave had dissipated a little once it had other places it could go. It diminished enough to stop TeaMeiya's ride, and they lay, sprawled out in front of the image of Orcas Titania.

Ischi sat up first, shaking the water out of her hair. She looked up and saw Meiya glaring at her.

"Thanks, Ischi, for all of those HELPFUL suggestions!" Meiya pouted, wringing her hair out.

"Sorry…" Ischi murmured. "What was that wave? And where'd you two come from?" Ischi said, looking at Zuko and Kohi. "And Zuko, why do you have Kohi's pants?"

like that again!" she said as she put her pants back on.

"H-Huh? What did you two do down there?" Ischi asked.

"It… It's a long story." Zuko said, scratching the back of his head.

Ischi gasped and covered her mouth. "Y-You didn't- You two didn't…"

"No! I'm not a homewrecker, Ischi; I'd never do that to you and Zuko. I was just stuck in a hole, and getting me out of my pants was the best way to get me unstuck."

"If only you could hear yourself…" Meiya said. "Did you guys find the reason why the Icecrown is here down your path?"

"I… don't know. I can't read any of what this thing has to say." Zuko said, picking up the ice book.

"Well, we were met with success. I got a good rubbing of our first floor map. Seems everything else on this floor is down the same path that Kaizu took."

"Let's go find him. Things should be easier if we all stick together." Ischi said.

"Best idea of the night." Meiya joked, rolling her eyes and walking toward the center path, with the others following.

Meiya gasped as she entered, immediately noticing the giant water monster lumbering toward Kaizu, who was frozen to the wall from the neck down to his thighs. The monster turned around and stared at Meiya, before smothering Kaizu with one hand and freezing his entire body against the wall. The monster then began to approach TeaMeiya. All of them braced themselves and prepared for a fight.

(A/N: It's official: school's back in. Chapter circulation has clearly slowed to a crawl, but bear with me. The chapters WILL come, no matter how long it takes! -fanfare-

Who was your favorite to follow in this chapter? Ischi and Meiya, Kohi and Zuko, or solo Kaizu? Answer in your review!

Also, let me know what you think of Orcas Titania. What do you think she's like, and what do you think she can do? REVIEW!

On behalf of TeaMeiya and the hostile residents of the Icecrown, this is SH10, defying Hurricane Irene! Stay strong, East Coast! Till next time!