Howdy friends welcome to the next chapter. Sorry there wasn't a chapter last week. Life gets busy sometimes. Hope y'all enjoy it. Don't forget to follow favorite and review!
I don't own ATLA
It has been a week since the gang found out that they were on top of the Western Air Temple and life for them could not be any harder for them. Suki proceeded to pair everyone up so that they could get things done. Ty Lee and Sokka were tasked with going up on Appa to find food. She assigned herself and Katara to get water, as well as assigned Azula and Toph to continue searching the temple. She did not assign anything to Mai and Zuko as they were to assist in anything that they thought they could help with.
Over this time, Katara had been informed of Suki's pregnancy and was a bit taken back by the entire situation. She, like Azula and Suki, wanted to have kids, but found that she was jealous that both of them had found men that loved them and that she was still hung up on a boy who she did not know liked her or not.
It took some time for Katara to genuinely be happy for Suki, but she eventually came round. All the girls now knew about the impending pregnancy and wanted to keep it that way until the very last possible second.
Azula and Toph had been walking around the temple searching for useful materials and equipment when they stumbled upon a locked closet.
"Well, what should we do?" Azula asked the Earthbender.
She scoffed in reply. "We open it, obviously," she said as she started walking towards the door.
"It's locked, Toph. Obviously someone didn't want people in here," Azula spoke after she cautiously approached the door and tested to see if it would open.
"Well, maybe you need to finesse it," Toph then proceeded to spit on her hands and began to experiment with the handle to the door. After a few beats, the handle transformed into a strange blob-like form and pooled onto the floor.
"You know, that really blurs the line between earthbending and waterbending," Azula pointed out as she observed the pool of metal.
"Nothing's blurred if you can't see it!" Toph fired back with a smirk on her face.
"Well, I guess you're right," Azula concluded as she pulled open the door to the room and stepped inside. She held the door for Toph, who thanked her. "Man, it's dark in here." She used her palm to light up the room.
"Meh, you get used to it after a while," Toph smirked as she heard the Princess groan at the attempt at a bad joke.
"I walked right into that, didn't I?" she asked rhetorically, only to soon regret it.
"Blind people do that all the time!" Toph laughed as she patted the young princess on the back.
Azula didn't give a reply as she just shook her head and frowned at the bad jokes that her friend was saying. Over the time that she had known the small but mighty girl, Azula felt that she could finally call her a friend. She was always nice to her and tried to make her feel as welcome in the group as possible.
"What do you see?" Toph asked as she followed the Firebender though the room.
"Well, there are a lot of books and scrolls here, so this must have been a library of some sort," Azula responded as she creeped through the countless shelves that were lining the long narrow room.
Soon, the duo stumbled upon an altar of sorts and found torches lining it. Azula lit one that somehow managed to light the others around it. Amazed, she stood back and saw that there was a very accurate depiction of Avatar Yangchen.
"Why would there be an altar here?" Azula asked as she walked up to it so that she could get a closer look.
"Maybe they were praising some god?" Toph suggested as she moved her hand over the surface. "It feels really...weird."
"Weird how?" Azula asked as she glanced at the altar and back at Toph. She remembered a conversation she once had about Aang wanting to visit all of the temples due to them being a spiritual border to the Spirit World. Maybe this was where he would enter the Spirit World.
"It feels almost...alive," Toph whispered as she walked away from the slab of stone. Hints of fear crept into her voice. "I'm gonna stay over here."
Azula slowly walked onto the altar and sat down. She then crossed her legs and placed her fingers together. Alright, Azula, remember what Aang said. Close your eyes and clear your mind. Unlock your spirit. Make your sprite float away.
She went through all the steps and after what felt like twenty minutes, she finally felt her spirit float away. Embrace the nothingness. And this time, I don't have Aang here to tell me when I can open my eyes. Great, when I need you, you aren't there.
"Well, well, well...look what we have here."
Azula's eyes snapped open. The first thing she saw was a young woman wearing an orange and red robe with gray eyes staring back at her with a smirk. Azula immediately recognized this as Avatar Yangchen.
"You look surprised to see me here, Princess Azula," Yangchen said as she circled the young Princess. "Where's your boyfriend? Oh, wait...he's captured by the Fire Nation." She angrily spat at the poor, terrified princess.
"Avatar Yangchen, it's an honor to see you again," Azula said as she bowed at the waist towards the legendary figure that was standing in front of her.
Yangchen smirked as she eyed Azula up and down. "Looks like someone got knocked up. No, that can't be it...Kyoshi would have told me considering that he's my many-times-over great-grandson," the ancient figure noted.
Azula's eyes widened. "He's your descendant?!" she yelled.
Yangchen glared at her after hearing this. "Of course he is! What, you thought just because I was the Avatar that I didn't have a husband? Most of us had kids! The only one I know of that didn't was Kyoshi because she is a lesbian," she responded with a smirk on her face, which made Azula's eyes widen evermore. "Anyway...you've gotten fatter since the last time I saw you," she added, deadpanned at the girl.
Azula wrapped her arms defensively around her stomach. "It-it's not that bad!" Azula replied while trying to fight the blush that was creeping onto her face.
"Whatever...in any case, where's Aang?"
This made Azula wince slightly. She now knew that Aang was Yangchen's descendant and that made her even more guilty over his fate. She had been the cause for his first capture and she was now the reason for her sacrifice. Just thinking about the fact that she now had to tell his many-times great-grandmother that he was dead made a small part of her die inside.
"Well...he sacrificed himself so that Appa could fly away," Azula confessed, her head down somberly. "He wanted me and the rest of his friends to live, even at the expense of his own life." She began to hear laughter emerging and glanced up to see Yangchen stifling it. Azula's eyes lit ablaze as she glared at the past Avatar. "Why are you laughing?! Your grandson is dead! How could you possibly laugh at that?!"
Yangchen simply smirked. "It's best that you watch yourself, Princess," she replied with a tone of warning. "It's not wise to anger me, especially when it was you who specifically told me that you wouldn't let the Fire Nation get to him in the first place. But, putting that aside, I laughed because I know he's not dead. Trust me, I would know if he's dead."
Azula's eyes lit up with a gleam of hope. "Wait...he's not?" she quietly asked the Avatar.
Avatar Yangchen nodded slowly. "He would be here. All the Avatars come to the Spirit World when they die and, as you can clearly see, Aang is not here."
"Which means that he's still alive," Azula whispered hopefully as she wiped the tears that were threatening to fall from her face.
"Yes. Now, tell me: why haven't you done anything about it?" Yangchen questioned with a raised eyebrow.
"W-what do you mean?" Azula stuttered. The mere thought of attempting to find him had been on the forefront of her brain this entire time. If there was a way to find him, she certainly would have found it by now...right?
"And he says you're the genius prodigy," Yangchen mumbled under her breath. "When you were over at Roku's Temple, what did he teach you?"
"Well, he taught me a...locator...technique," Azula staggered as she realized how dumb she really was in that moment.
"Mhm." Yangchen smirked at the poor girl's oversight. "Now, I believe you have a soulmate to find, do you not?"
Azula nodded her head vigorously. "Thank you, Avatar Yangchen. I am forever in your debt," Azula spoke as she bowed again. "What can I do to repay you?"
Yangchen sighed to herself as she went to wrap Azula in a hug. She smiled at the poor, confused girl and whispered into her ear. "I want two things from you."
"Anything and I will do it," Azula replied as she let the elder woman go.
"Love him," said Avatar Yangchen. "I want you to love him and never stop loving him. When he's carrying the weight of the world, I want you to carry it with him. When he's sad, I want you to cheer him up. I want you to be with him every step of the way. I watched him grow up and he has so much love to give you. I want you to always love him no matter what happens to you both. Now, the second thing...I want grandkids! Lots and lots of grandkids. Do those two things and I will consider your debt to me repaid," she concluded with a smirk on her face as she watched Azula blush.
"I-I'll do my b-best," the Princess stuttered as she began to fade away.
"That's all I'm asking for," Yangchen whispered to her. As she watched Azula fade completely out of the Spirit World, Yangchen turned around and saw Kyoshi, who had a smirk on her face.
"Looks like someone's going soft on me," Kyoshi teased as she walked over to the elder Airbender.
"Someone had to play the aggressive overprotective dad," Yangchen spoke with a smile. "Though, I am glad I saw her."
"I'm glad your conversation with your daughter-in-law went well," Kyoshi said as her smirk grew bigger.
"Oh, shut up, you!" Yangchen stammered, which made Kyoshi laugh even harder as they walked away into the vast open field of the Spirit World.
Azula woke up from her trance-like state with a start. She knew that she had been in the Spirit World for a while, but didn't expect for her body to feel so stiff. "How does Aang do this on a regular basis?" she mumbled to herself as she tried to get up.
"Well, look who snapped out of their trance," chimed in Toph, smirking as she walked towards the Princess, who held out her hand so that she could get up.
"Toph, Aang's alive!" Azula shouted quickly.
The Earthbender stopped dead in her tracks. "Alright, Azula, I know you've been having nightmares about it," Toph started as she cut Azula off from making a retort. "And don't even lie about it!" Azula kept herself quiet at this. "I'm holding out hope, too, but you gotta admit that you're coming out from a four hour long coma spouting nonsense. I think you should see Katara or talk to someone."
"No, Toph, you don't understand!" she pleaded with the Earthbender. "I talked to Yangchen, who was the previous Air Avatar. She said that he wasn't dead! I have a way to find him!"
"No, Azula, I don't think YOU understand!" Toph retorted as she stomped over to her friend. "You're shouting nonsense about talking to a dead person! I really think you need to lie down and get some sleep."
"Toph, do you trust me?" Azula asked her friend earnestly. Toph studied the girl in front of her. She could feel that Azula wasn't lying to her and that she genuinely thought that Aang was alive.
"Alright...I believe you," said Toph, finally conceding to her friend.
Azula beamed confidently. "Good, because I have a plan to bring him back!" she announced as she and Toph walked out of the room to go enlighten the others of her plan.
Two guards walked down a long dark corridor in a mountain, holding torches and a bag of dead bodies over their shoulders.
"Do you think that the leader is gonna be pleased with this new haul of bodies?" one of the guards asked as they continued to walk down the dark damp corridor.
"I hope so! This town didn't know anything about those brats that outran us in the sewers in the Foundation City," the other guard answered. "I just hope we don't have to kill any more children...I hate killing the children."
On their recent mission, they were tasked with trying to find any information that pertained to the Princess or the Avatar's friends. Every person discovered with this was brought back to be burned, and the women and children were to either be killed or enslaved to help further the war effort.
"Yeah, I hope one of the men found something about them!" the first guard said as they made their way to a metal door. It looked very old and had lots of rust on it. There was a door knob that looked to be heavily used. One of the men opened the door and revealed a man who was wearing a large red and black bird mask.
"What have you brought me?" he asked without turning around to see the men.
"We've murdered another town just as you've asked. So far, we personally have not found any information related to the Princess or the Avatar's group of friends," the second guard stated as he lowered the sack full of human remains to the ground.
"That's disappointing. Onto the next town I suppose. I want you to be on standby so that I can find the location for the next town I want you to go to," the masked individual spoke in a nonchalant manner, which unnerved the two guards greatly.
"Y-yes Commander!" both guards saluted and ran out of the room, leaving the man to stand in front of a map.
"It seems that you have eluded both Commander Dai and Captain Zaien, but you will not escape me a second time!" the man spat as he threw a knife at a picture of Sokka's face hung on the map.
"So you have not caught them yet?"
The masked man looked behind him and found Commander Dai standing in the doorway. He wore a black trench coat and red and black pants with a black shirt. He had black metal boots and was holding a folder.
"No, but I assume that you have not had any success either," the masked man replied with a smirk.
"Fuck off, Rumi!" Dai sneered, which made Rumi laugh. "If you have time to laugh, then you have time to be devoting to wherever the fuck they are."
"Relax, relax...I have my best men working on it as we speak," Rumi said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
Dai, however, knew that it was all an act and that the masked man actually had no idea what he was doing. "I have information for you that could be useful to you," he spoke as he slid a folder towards the masked man. The man picked it up and started reading. "I found a report of a fisherman seeing blue fireballs and a waterspout off the coast of some cliffs. The waterspout could be anything, but the blue fireballs?"
"So we know where they are. Or, at least, a general area of where they were," Rumi quietly remarked as he made his way to the map. "Where did this fisherman say that he saw this?"
"Right here," Dai informed him as he circled a large portion of the coastline of the Earth Kingdom.
"Is there anything significant about those coasts that they would want to go there?" Rumi asked as he looked closer at the map.
"Not to my knowledge. I can send Captain Zane's team to investigate them, but until we do recon, we have no clue what we are walking into," Commander Dai advised the masked man.
Rumi nodded his head in reply. "Let's do that and have them meet up with my team of which I was to investigate the next closest village," Rumi responded as he sketched down the orders on a piece of paper.
"And by investigate, you mean ask questions and then slaughter the entire remaining village, don't you?" Dai clarified, deadpanning at the Commander.
"Hey, it's worked this far! Why not keep coming?"
"Hmm...maybe because the Phoenix King wants people to rule over and not the remains of women and children who did not know anything!" Dai yelled at the oblivious man.
Rumi merely shrugged his shoulders. "Hey, it's not my fault they are all dumb!" he said as he shuffled through papers.
"Yes, but you also need not carelessly murder people; especially those who can help keep the War Machine turning!"
"As long as we get the Princess and her friends that is all that matters! And this time, we won't let them escape!" the masked man announced as he finalized the note and headed out of the room.
"Yes," Commander Dai agreed as he took one last look at the map before smirking. "We won't let them get away this time." He proceeded to walk out of the room and down the dark hallway to his quarters where he would prepare for the coming tasks that he and Rumi had laid for each other.