Responses to Reviews:
Matheus Bezerra de Lima: Azula losing support was Zuko's plan. If all her henchmen go home, then she's not getting that battle she wants and she stands a much better chance of not getting anything she wants out of this.
RonaldM40196867: This story is going broadly to plan, and now we are beginning to reach the scheduled end. And I don't really hate any character.
As Always, Please Review, and we pick up our story as Azula's sidekicks find out what everyone else already knew about their leader...
Azula whirled to face Zuko, her face contorted in rage.
"You...!" She screamed at him, seemingly at a loss for words.
Zuko just shouted to Aang.
"Get them away from here!" He cried. Aang nodded and snapped the reins, as Appa groaned and began to move away. Azula formed a blade out of blue flames and held it to the Firelord's throat.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you," she demanded.
"The Fire Nation doesn't like regicides," Zuko pointed out. "You'll never rule if you do that."
Azula snarled.
"I'm sure I'll manage," she said, and moved the knife closer when a blast of flame knocked her off her feet and set her cloak on fire. She got up, extinguished the flames with a wave of her hand and looked at where Iroh and Jeong Jeong stood next to Zuko.
"Oh yeah, I lied about them being here too. I hope you don't mind?" Zuko stated nonchalantly.
Azula sneered. "They make no difference."
She lunged forwards, and the two older men rushed to meet her. Suddenly, the room was hotter than Zuko had ever known it, as three master Firebenders clashed.
Appa soared over the tops of the buildings of the Fire Nation capital, the sounds of violence growing more muted behind them. Aang turned in the saddle to his passengers, seeing jets of flame, blue, white and red, shooting out from the Firelord's window.
"Now do you see what we tried to tell you?" He asked.
His passengers looked shaken. One of them nodded. "I can't believe she lied to us!"
"She does that," Aang said. "A lot, apparently. Also, I never caught your names?"
A look of determination came over the younger man's face. "Itsuki," he said. "He's Riku. So what do you need from us, Avatar?" He asked.
"Turn your men around. Convince them to go home peacefully."
"Hold on, it isn't as simple as that," Riku interrupted. "We do still have grievances against your friend."
"And we will find some way of addressing them," Aang promised. "But we can't let Azula engineer a bloodbath here."
"Can't we?" Riku asked. "She may be bad, but so is Zuko. We want him gone."
"Do we?" asked Itsuki. He sounded worried.
"Yes!" Riku shouted. "So will you help us?"
Aang glanced back to see the older man standing up in the saddle, staring at him defiantly. Itsuki was looking up at his friend worriedly.
"Look, this really isn't the time for this!" Aang called.
"I'll take that as a no!"
Riku pulled out a knife and lunged at the avatar.
Aang heard the shout of alarm from itsuki, turned to see him try and fail to grab Riku's knife arm and hold him back, and saw the blade come whistling towards him. Instinctively, he snapped the reins and Appa responded, snapping into a barrel roll.
Itsuki, who was still sat down, was able to grab the edge of the saddle and so ended up dangling from it for a moment, before Appa righted himself and he went sprawling in his seat.
Riku was not so lucky, and in an instant he went from lunging forwards to plummeting downwards with a surprised yell.
The shout receded rapidly, then there was a terrible crash, and it stopped.
Aang felt guilt well up in his chest. "Did I...?" He asked.
Itsuki peered over the side.
"He didn't fall very far," he reported. "And he's moving. He's alive!"
Unfortunately, however, another sound soon reached him; angry shouting. It turned out that a large amount of the mob had seen the Avatar throw one of their leaders off the back of his sky-bison.
"Well that's not good," Aang stated. "Can you calm them down?"
"I can try!" Itsuki promised. Aang brought Appa in to land on the nearest flat ground, and gestured for his passenger to get out. He turned around to see people running towards him. They didn't look happy.
"Good luck!" He shouted, and then "Yip yip!"
Once he was safely back up into the skies over the Caldera, he began to make his way back towards the palace, and the telltale flashes of light that told him a firefight was in progress.
Zuko ducked behind a pillar as a blast of blue flame superheated the air around him. Suddenly, it was gone, and he peered around the corner to see a wall of orange fire in its place, Jeong Jeong silhouetted against it with his arms spread wide. A tiny blue spark appeared in the middle of the wall of flame, and expanded until it had formed a ring through which Azula jumped, eyes burning with rage. She kicked Jeong Jeong in the chest, sprang backwards as his wall dissolved, and stood up pointing two fingers at him, only for Iroh to grab her hand and throw her backwards. The two men took up combat stances between her and the Firelord.
"Hiding behind these two, are you?" Azula snarled. "I never took you for a coward."
"And I never took you for a fool, but here we are," Zuko called back. His sister's eyes flared and she lunged forward, only to have to leap to one side as a water whip sailed through the air where her head had been.
Katara stood in the doorway, glowering at Azula, and brought the water back to her. It hovered just in front of her, menacingly. Behind her stood a few Firebender palace guards, as well as Mai, Sokka, and Suki.
"Your little coup is over," Jeong Jeong stated with finality. "You are done."
"It doesn't sound like it," Azula gestured out of the window. They could hear angry shouts- and see the form of a sky-bison approaching the window rapidly, now with only one person sat in its saddle.
"It is," Katara said. "They just don't know it yet."
"And how are you going to let them know?"
"We already are. Your friends should be out there defusing the situation," Suki pointed out. "That just leaves you."
"My favourite prisoner speaks," Azula replied, prompting a furious reaction from the Kyoshi Warrior. "Still, I know when I'm beaten. You haven't seen the last of me!"
"Oh no," Sokka stepped into the room, brandishing Space Sword. "What makes you think we're just going to let you leave that easily?"
Azula smirked. "Because you're going to be otherwise occupied with the Avatar."
"But the Avatar is fine?" Zuko asked stupidly.
"You really do walk into these things, don't you brother?" Azula scowled. And faster than any of them could react, she turned and fired a bolt of lightning out of the window.
Aang saw the flashing lights stop as he approached, and a calm seemed to settle over the palace, albeit a tense one. The rest of the city was not so lucky, and it had been enflamed with the fall of Riku. Aang watched protestors who had knocked a tree down and were attempting to use it as an improvised battering ram against the gates, much to the alarm of the Palace Guard who were trying to stop them.
Aang watched them slam into the gate, and saw it jolt backwards. The bar holding it shut held, and he let out a sigh of relief.
Then all the hairs on his body stood on end. He didn't have time to look up before his vision flashed blue, and he was almost knocked from Appa's saddle as the beast reeled backwards, roaring in pain. He heard shouts from below, and from the palace window, but he had no time to worry about that.
"Appa!" He shouted, crawling over to have a look. The sky-bison had a large red wound in its flank, and was already beginning to lose altitude. Soon it would crash land.
"Come on boy!" He grabbed the reins and gave them a tug. "Just a little further!"
Appa groaned and responded, turning and flying away from the palace. Aang knew he needed a soft landing, and there was only one place he could think of. Already Appa was starting to lose altitude faster as the edge of the caldera loomed in front of him, and for a moment Aang was worried that they were going to slam headlong into the rocky ridge, but soon they were over the obstacle, and the sparkling blue waters of the bay were now visible.
Appa groaned and their descent picked up speed. Aang tried to tug on the reins but now nothing happened; Appa was just as much a passenger as he was now. The bison groaned feebly, and his legs stopped moving. The Avatar clung on for dear life as the bison plummeted out of the sky like a brick, hearing and feeling the air, his native element, rushing past him as the water came rushing up to meet him. He hoped it wouldn't hurt too much.
He closed his eyes in the moment before impact and thought of Appa, and his friends. The last thing he saw were Katara's brilliant blue eyes, as real as if she were standing right in front of him.
Then there was a tremendous crash, a sudden terrible cold, and then Aang couldn't feel much of anything at all.