Big thanks to Ashley Barbosa, Gabriella Gonzales and Dilletantism for all their wonderful encouragement. I am so glad you like the Gameshow fic, too! I am in the process of drafting an epilogue per a friend's request.

CH 27 | The Fall of Azula [Part 1]

"ENOUGH."

Somewhere in the listless melee, both Katara and Azula were vaguely aware of a harsh gust and their separation across the hallway. Katara's face was still soured in pure rage, sweating, and out of breath from her efforts as she looked up at Aang, who had now wedged himself between the two women. Azula made a feeble attempt to sit up but instead flopped back down unceremoniously. Her eyes were already purple and rapidly swelling shut. Most of her jawline was smattered in sticky maroon blood and spittle spatter.

"We're not finished here." Katara growled as she made to stand up. Her wounds were mainly self-inflicted—fists ground to mincemeat and certainly a dash of broken fingers. Aang could tell her eyes were scanning for a water source. He buffed her back once more, but gently to get her attention. "Yes, you are" he said succinctly. Looking up as she stood, Katara was finally aware enough to take in Aang's person—his body language, voice, and face were now an almost unfamiliar mask. She realized suddenly that she was no longer gazing upon Aang. Instead, she was getting her first glimpse of The Avatar.

"Sokka and Toph. Can you take Katara home?" There was non-verbal assent from both friends as they moved in to usher the waterbender towards the door. Katara watched with mixed horror as Aang stooped down to help Azula up. "You're coming with me. We need to talk" she heard him mutter. It was as though someone had doused kerosene on her already flaming temper.

"AANG. Are you SERIOUS?!" Katara yelled incredulously. All her rage, all her insecurities bubbled to the surface watching him hoist Azula by the elbow, guiding her towards the empty classroom next to where they'd fought. Azula fixed her eyes gleefully on Katara, who was seeing red. "Bye Sweetie…" she cooed wickedly. She didn't get a single punch in but had somehow won.

Aang steeled himself and allowed a brief gaze. "Go home, Katara."

He didn't want to make the situation worse—if anything he hoped getting them separated and out of each other's sight as quickly as possible would be the best way to do damage control. He was wrong, of course. Toph and Sokka seemed to get the message though, and steered Katara quickly into the quad before campus security could see her.

"Both of you grab on to me and don't let go" Toph whispered once they'd made it to the grass. Seizing the siblings, the ground opened beneath the gang and sealed behind them with hardly a noise.

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"You dig your own grave better than an earthbender, it's just too easy" Azula managed through her victorious chuckling. She wobbled onto a lab table, dabbing at her bloody nose with a sleeve. "I could say the same to you." Aang retorted acidly while handing her some damp paper towels. He hadn't stopped to look at the princess yet, but instead walked to the back of the uninhabited lab room to the storage freezers.

Azula realigned her broken nose with a sickening crunch that made Aang shudder and dabbed at her pillowy eyes as they watered in response. "What a Hellbeast…such a waste in a waterbender. I'd respect her if I didn't also want to see her burned at the stake."

The Avatar returned—and he was, The Avatar- his knit, serious expression had not changed, nor had his unyielding posture. Aang was a person she'd never seen before as he handed her two packages of frozen dissection frogs, "there were no ice packs, but those should take the edge off." He put his hands on his hips and surveyed Azula with a wary expression. Still somewhat unsettled by his stance (she was so used to the way his shoulders would cave at the sight of her) Azula decided to press a frog into her swelling eye without further complaint.

"Are you going to press charges on her?" Aang asked quietly. His gaze was sharp, pupils dilated. He was probing her response for lies the same way Azula herself had taught him.

"Hmm…that depends…" the princess sighed in predictable fashion. She waited for his inevitable response, "depends on what?" One thing she could always count on in these encounters with Aang was that he would follow her lead and agree to virtually anything on the table in the name of settling a dispute.

But the anticipated reply never came. Instead, she glared back as he nodded and texted something into his phone. She decided to relay her demands regardless: "I want you to find somewhere else to live and stop seeing her immediately."

"No." Aang replied, not looking up from his phone. Anger flashed as Azula made her best attempt at screwing up her puffy face. "I WILL report you. I know you did City Hall." Aang finished his text and locked his phone, finally meeting her eyeline. His expression was half business, half amusement. "Do it."

"I-…what?" Azula sputtered, positively whiplashed by this new man.

"Do it." Aang reaffirmed. "I'm going public. About everything. Scrape your brain for all I care- find whatever you can that I don't plan on putting out there myself. Tell your dad, too. Because I'm coming for him."

Ignoring her gobsmacked silence, he continued. "What we really need to talk about is what you're going to do. Because I'm going public and it's going to become apparent very quickly that you've known the Avatar was alive and well for over six years…" If there were smugness in his mixed feelings, he didn't show it. Instead, he towered solidly, seeming to take up more space than usual, and forcing the princess to look up into his face.

"This is how it's going to go—when we leave this room, you're going to have two choices. You can continue what you've been doing: hating everyone and everything that has ever harmed you. You can report Katara and have a warrant out for her in a blink, you can go public about me, and you can stay loyal to your father even though you and I both know it will still come at a cost." Aang paused for a moment, not easing up on his intense expression.

"Or…you can go home and get some rest. Meditate. Choose the path you wanted so many years ago. I'll tell you this much—the imbalance caused by the existence of Fire Nation colonies is now enough to warrant my attention. I will not allow it. The development of apartheid policies and the targeted discrimination of "non-citizens" is an atrocity. I will not allow it. I am sanctioning the rise of the White Lotus and the recruitment of temporary, non-Master members who will dispel the colonies of all Fire Nation satraps and return the public over to regional governance. None of this is secret—I want him to know."

Azula's heart hammered in her chest and her complexion had taken on an unpleasant grey hue as she realized he was vaporizing all her bargaining chips before her eyes. He continued.

"Azula, you're one of the most powerful benders I know, and you are the heir to the Firelord's throne. If your father refuses to relinquish the colonies peaceably- and we both know he will refuse- you will inherit this throne when I remove him." Both Aang and Azula hid the shudders they garnered at his implication.

"But you are at a cross-road when it comes to whether or not I allow you to sit that throne. I will not replace a tyrant with another tyrant. Renounce your father's prejudices— I know you're not an egalitarian by nature, but you never led me to believe you supported what they're doing in those camps. I'm not even asking you to take an active fighting position in the Order—denounce your father's policies and promise you'll cede the colonies—that's more than enough for balance."

"Have you lost your mind? Who the fuck do you think you are?!" Azula finally managed to hiss.

"I'll tell you what I'm not" Aang replied. "I'm not your toy. I'm not someone you can hurt anymore. I spent this past year letting you hurt me." His face smoldered with accusation, enough that Azula actually gulped. "You hurt me badly, and I let you because I believed I deserved it. Sometimes I still feel like I do, but I don't have time to wallow in my self-pity anymore. I'm the Avatar. You gotta deal with it."

Aang finished by reaching into his pocket and pulling out a Pai Sho tile. "There's going to be a meeting. Show me you're on the right side by showing up. Whichever choice you make, you should leave Yu Dao. And take Zuko with you."

The Avatar said no more—he strode out of the lab leaving behind his burdensome guilt, his avoidance of responsibility, and a slightly concussed fire princess with too much to think about.