Zhao (outraged): "You sunk my battleship!"
LOL.
Hehe, if things weren't looking bad for Zuko and Katara before, they sure are now. How are they going to escape this sinking disaster?
Chapter 5: "A Cooperation"
Iroh gazed in absolute horror as an enormous explosion erupted from Zhao's ship not moments after his last, desperate assault had hit. It felt as though all the air had been sucked from his lungs as he watched the furious mass of flames unfurl from the vessel. Had...had he caused this?
Iroh rushed to the front of the helm. "PRINCE ZUKO!"
Prince Zuko held onto his bed, which was bolted to the wall, in order to prevent himself from being thrown about his jail cell. A quick glance in Katara's direction showed she was doing the same too. They had been sitting in a tense silence ever since their spat after Zhao's departure until several tremors rocked through the ship. Immediately Zuko knew the ship was being fired upon, but could only speculate as to what was happening. Was it his uncle? Surely he wouldn't do anything as stupid as attempt to take him from Zhao by force, would he? Zuko couldn't help but be a little touched by the idea.
However, after feeling three or so hits through the floor's vibrations, some sort of massive explosion had taken place. The ship was being shaken so violently Zuko had to cling onto his bed for dear life, and the resonating "BOOM" that went through the ship was deafening. Eventually the shaking lessened until at last the prince felt safe to let go.
What manner of explosion was that? What could have possibly been the cause of that extreme an impact? The cause, however, quickly became unimportant as several long, low groans echoed throughout the ship and bolts began popping from the walls. Zuko watched, becoming increasingly alarmed, as the walls began to creak and bend and small spurts of water started coming through.
More groaning and creaking traveled throughout the ship, and quite suddenly everything began to tilt in a slight downwards direction. Zuko felt the shift in gravity with a grim apprehension. The ship was sinking.
The waterbender looked around in a panic and shouted, "We need to find a way out!"
"I'm open to suggestions," Zuko responded sardonically.
The girl gave him a piqued glare, then looked around the room. She stayed still for several moments, frowning in concentration. Then she clapped her hands together as an idea struck her. The girl summoned some of the water that was leaking into the brig, and stumbled over to her door. She considered the door's thick lock, shook her head, then moved to its hinges. With careful movements, the waterbender willed her element to envelope each of the hinges. Then, with a slow breath, she froze the water. A loud "crack" resounded throughout the brig, and the hinges broke. She pushed her door, which swung open unevenly along its lock, then walked carefully out. Zuko watched, surprised.
"What did you just do?" he asked.
"Frost-wedging. When water freezes, it expands. By putting water into the little gaps and spaces inside the hinges, and freezing it, the pressure from the expanding ice caused them to break."
Zuko glanced back down at the broken hinges and carefully logged the waterbending trick into the back of his mind.
Taking small steps to accommodate the movements of the ship, the girl slowly headed towards his door. When she got there, she summoned up more water, and began to do repeat the same process as before. Zuko stared, utterly incredulous.
"Why are you helping me? I thought you hated the Fire Nation."
"I do. But I'm not like the Fire Nation–I value life, even if it's that of another country. You're a person before you're a firebender, and I won't just abandon someone in need, even if they are from a country I hate."
Prince Zuko stared several moments, completely stunned. The waterbender's words rippled through him...You're a person before you're a firebender...
Katara's resumed efforts to break open his door brought him back to reality. The "frost wedging" had put a crack in his door's hinges, but it did not break them. "You pull, and I'll push," Zuko commanded. Both worked together, straining, until the door began to give. Zuko gave a solid kick to the hinges, which at last broke completely, freeing the door. He stepped out of his cell, right up to Katara.
They stared a each other, a foot apart, with nothing separating them. Without a word spoken, a truce was called.
Their mutual compliance agreed upon, both inspected the room. Zuko walked over to the brig's thick iron door, but without a key from one of the guards, there was no way to open it. Which meant they were stuck in here, with no way out.
Seeing the brig's door of no use, the waterbender caught his attention and pointed up. "We can try the vents," she suggested. Zuko scowled, skeptical. "Look,"she stated, "There's no other way out but this..."
"We don't know where that leads."
"Well, we know what will happen if we stay in here!" she countered, pointing to the growing leaks in the brig's walls.
Point taken. Zuko looked up at the shaft and considered. Then he turned to Katara and barked, "Get those chairs and table and stack them up. I'm going to climb up into the vent first."
"What?"
"Look," he snapped, impatient, "If one of us was to stand on the other's shoulders, the vent could be reached. You, however, don't have the strength to pull me up or support me on you shoulders. So, you're going to stack up the furniture and keep it from tipping over while I climb into the vent. Once I do that, you'll climb up the stack and grab onto me. Understand?"
Katara blinked and nodded, then did as she was told. Zuko had a difficult time climbing up, due to the slanted floor and rocking motions, but Katara and her waterbending kept the pillar steady and Zuko managed to do it. Breaking the vent cover open was even more of a challenge, but after some forceful coercion, the cover finally gave way and he climbed up into the vent. Of course, once he entered the vent, he realized it was too narrow. There was several inches of space between the tips of his shoulder-armor to the vent's walls, but no possible way he could turn around and lift the waterbender up. Which meant he would have to...
Zuko sighed at the inconvenience, and wiggled backwards through the vent, so that his legs dangled down from its opening. "The vent is too narrow. I can't turn around. You'll have to grab my legs and–OW!" Zuko yelped as he felt the waterbender grab his legs with an iron grip. He grumbled with intense irritation and began to worm forward. The firebender prince felt himself pulled backwards several inches as the supports under Katara gave way, and he grunted with the effort to pull both himself and her up into the vent. When she was finally in, she let go and breathed a thanks. Zuko glared at her evilly from the corner of his eye and continued onwards.
"We need to follow where the air is coming from," the waterbender called from behind him. Well, obviously, Zuko muttered silently to himself as he squinted against the cold rush of air flowing past his face. Gah, it was freezing in these vents. He made a conscious effort not to shiver. At long last he saw a vent opening up ahead, with the cold air coming straight from it. Ahead must be the room where the cold air was created and blown into these vents.
When Zuko reached the vent, he attempted to bust it open, but to no avail. After several attempts to break the cover off, Zuko felt his face become numb against the icy wind blasted on him. He signaled Katara to crawl up next to him and squeezed to the side to allow her room. The vent was tight, so both were uncomfortably squished together. Zuko tried to ignore how warm she felt against him. How did the Water Tribe people stand freezing temperatures like this all the time?
"Use your 'frost-wedging' again," he ordered quickly.
Katara willed a small amount of water she had taken with her from the brig into the seams along the vent cover's edges, then blew on it and turned the water to ice. There was faint crackling sound, followed by a loud "pop" as the cover broke off. Zuko crawled out of the vent and dropped onto the floor of the icy room with a "thud". Katara followed behind shortly after.
Katara looked around the refrigeration chamber. There was lots of ice, and several large swirly-thingies that moved the air around in currents, powered by the movements of several pendulums and interlocking cogs. She noticed along the walls there were lots of vent openings. Ahhh, she thought, this chamber isn't just to keep the prison cold, it must send coolant throughout the ship, in order to keep the engines and other machinery from overheating. Katara marveled at the technology, and noted bitterly this was what had given the Fire Nation such an advantage over all other countries–including hers.
Prince Zuko, however, didn't give the room so much as a second glance and headed straight for the door. He twisted the hatch and pulled the door open.
No sooner had the door opened a crack than a blast of water rocketed through and sent Zuko flying backwards. The room filled with water almost instantaneously. Katara used her bending abilities to keep the water away from their upper bodies while it flooded the rest of the room, creating a four foot wide sphere of air to breathe in. Katara strained to keep the water at bay and the air-bubble in place. "Are you alright?" she asked Prince Zuko.
"Fine. Let's go," Zuko muttered. He grabbed her hand and led her out the door. They floated and bobbed down the halls of the ship, Katara trusting Zuko to know his way around Fire Nation ships well enough to locate a way out. It wasn't long before both saw the extent of the damage caused by the earlier explosion. Debris, twisted metal, shards of wood, pipes, and occasional bodies floated down the halls of the ship as they swam past. Katara averted her eyes from a body floating dreamily from its trapped position under something unrecognizable. The farther they swam, the more severe the wreckage got, until the hallway became an obstacle course of jagged edges from the ship's remains. Zuko stared ahead grimly. The extent of damage and scorch-marks along the wreckage were not from some external attack–this attack had to have come from inside. But what could have possibly happened to destroy Zhao's ship from the inside out? Did his uncle have anything to do with this? He wondered where his uncle was–was he safe?
The firebender prince threw a quick look back and saw Katara struggling to maintain the air-bubble. Her arms were shaking from the sheer exertion of combating the bubble's buoyancy and the surrounding water's pressure. They needed to find a way out soon, before she collapsed–or they ran out of air. Zuko tried to maneuver them around the damaged ship more quickly, hoping the passageways ahead wouldn't be blocked with too much debris.
Ducking under a mess of warped pipes, Zuko forced himself to come to a halt as he felt a strong current ahead. Peering down the hallway, he saw the passage come to an abrupt stop, with nothing but ocean lying beyond it. The prince felt a strange mix of relief and fear–they had come to where the ship had been split in half from the explosion. He pointed out the opening to the waterbender and pulled her forward.
When they came to the ledge Katara said, "Take one last deep breath." After they did so, the waterbender relaxed her powers. Her waterbending no longer locking the bubble in place, the air pocket flew up, and water rushed around them. They pushed off the edge of the destroyed ship and into the vast ocean. Zuko was slightly taken aback when he felt her wrap an arm firmly around his waist. She took her free hand and thrust it downwards forcefully. With a jolt, Prince Zuko suddenly felt himself being rocketed up through the water at an intense speed.
They broke the water with a large splash and gasped for breath. When they managed to recover a little, both scanned their surroundings. From where they tread on the water , they could see Zhao's ship was in dire ruins, and sinking fast, with a great pillar of billowing smoke rising from the wreckage. And not far off, sailing away, was Zuko's ship!
"UNCLE! OVER HERE!" Zuko yelled at the top of his lungs. But the ship was moving away quickly, the distance too great for him to be heard, and the smoke and debris making it impossible for them to be seen. He cursed his luck and quickly decided to make do with the immediate situation himself.
Looking around, the two benders found the nearest island lay to their right, about a half a mile away. "Grab onto me. I can get us there," Katara panted as she swam to Zuko. The prince hesitantly put his arms around her. With two free hands, she thrust into the water and launched them towards the island. The force of the movement made Zuko tighten his grip on her considerably. Katara repeated the thrusting motion several times, propelling them closer and closer to land. Fatigue starting to set in, Katara gave one last mighty blast. Their arrival on land was made very apparent to Zuko as he had the wind knocked from being sandwiched between the impact of the beach and Katara's momentum.
He roughly shoved her off, and lay on the beach, breathing harshly. Both of the benders were shaking–Katara from exertion, Zuko from lack of heat. From a distance, they could see the pathetic remains of Zhao's ship continuing its decent into the ocean's abyss. Debris from the wreckage littered the water, and a thick, black cloud of smoke rose ominously to the sky. Seeing the state of Zhao's ship, Zuko knew if the waterbender hadn't helped him, he would most likely be dead.
Further off was his ship–and his uncle–traveling away at top speed. Did his uncle even know he was alive?
Earlier...
Iroh watched Zhao's ship smolder in the distance, with a sharp, clutching pain in his chest. After noting the manner of damage to the ship, Iroh deduced that the explosion had not come from one of his attacks, but from inside. Something must have gone wrong between Zhao and the Avatar, but Iroh couldn't guess what. He weakly held onto the ship's railing and stared at the terrible sight before him. Prince Zuko...
Iroh gripped the railing tightly as a firm resolution came over him. The Avatar, though inexperienced, was still a powerful being. He could have survived the blast, and rescued Zuko from the sinking ship. Until he was given absolute proof of Prince Zuko and the Avatar's death, he would search for them. Iroh turned to his crew, who all still held mixed expressions of disbelief and horror.
"We are going to search through the wreckage for survivors. There is a chance, however small, that Prince Zuko and the others are still alive, and in need of help. Start the ship and move in immediately–we must act quickly."
The soldiers snapped out of their stupor and did as told, sending Zuko's ship towards the wreckage at a swift pace. Iroh knew they would have to work very fast, and not simply for the survivor's sake. The massive column of smoke rising from the wreckage of Zhao's vessel would attract every Fire Nation ship for miles...and if he was spotted in Zuko's ship at the scene of the explosion, it would spell doom for him and his nephew.
Iroh stood at the helm, alert and watchful. He noticed several rowboats along the debris. So, it appeared a number of Zhao's men had survived. On one hand, he was glad to see not everyone had been killed–even if they were Zhao's men. On the other, this did not bode well for Zuko. Once one of the navy's ships arrived and picked up the survivors, news of his nephew and the Avatar being in Fire Nation territory would spread throughout the military's ranks for certain. Iroh could only pray they weren't as optimistic as he was and assume them dead due to the explosion.
Sailing carefully along the wreckage, it was hard to pick out anything due to the smoke and clutter of the ruins. One thing, however, stood out among the debris. A great, white, furry beast, bobbing along the murky water, its fur burned and blood-stained. The ship was brought up beside it, and Iroh peered over the edge at it. The animal seemed out-of-sorts, but not unconscious. An eye rolled up to meet Iroh's, groggily waiting.
Well, Iroh thought, we can't simply leave it here...once ships start arriving to investigate, this beast will almost certainly be killed. Iroh turned to his men and shouted, "Clear a space on the deck!"
"You're bringing that thing aboard?" someone shouted on the deck.
"Yes. We can't abandon the poor creature, and the beast may prove useful in the future."
The men continued to look skeptical, but did as told. Iroh leaned over the edge of the ship's railing and called down to the beast, gesticulating to aid its comprehension, "Ah...you seem like an intelligent animal, so I will assume you can understand. We are willing to take you aboard, but have no equipment to do so. You will have to come aboard yourself. Can you manage?"
Iroh felt slightly foolish talking to a giant bison, but the bison gave a snort to show it understood, and with a groan, lifted itself from the water. It wobbily hovered its way over to the clear spot on the deck and landed with a "mlurmph". Everyone on the deck was knocked to their feet as the weight of the beast tipped the boat, and the vessel tilted drastically to one side
"Ahem," Iroh asked uneasily, "perhaps you could move just a little to the left...?" The mammoth animal let out a breath and scooted in the direction requested. So, the beast is intelligent...perhaps he will be useful in helping us find the Avatar...and Zuko, Iroh thought. He went up to the bison and patted its nose. "Do not worry," he said soothingly, "We will help tend your wounds and look for your friends." The bison snorted its thanks, which would have brought a smile to Iroh's face, except for the boogers it plastered to him.
"Sir!" one of the men cried urgently from the ship's telescope, "Another vessel has been spotted on the horizon and is approaching rapidly!"
Damn. Already? Iroh desperately wanted to stay to look for his nephew, but he could by no means afford to be apprehended by one of the navy's ship. He could only hope his nephew was still alive and able to make it out of this mess, the Avatar and his friends included. The former general whirled and gave the command, "Set a course away from here at top speed! We'll use the islands as cover!"
And with that, the ship was off. Had Iroh had stayed but half a minute longer, he would have seen the splash created from his nephew and the waterbending girl breaking the ocean's surface.
"Where are we?" Katara asked, tearing her eyes away from Zuko's shrinking ship to look about the island they were on.
"We're on the northern outskirts of the Fire Nation."
Katara blinked. How did he know so precisely where they were? Prince Zuko seemed to pick up on her question and added, "The kazan fern only grows in the basaltic soil of the northern edges of the Fire Nation." He pointed to a dark, spiky fern that populated the shore. Wow, Katara thought, this guy really knows his way around...that will be helpful for finding a way out of here.
But...Katara wasn't entirely sure much she could trust the truce between her and Prince Zuko. Both of them were in deep trouble, that much was for sure. He was a banished prince, and if he was caught inside his nation's borders, he would face dire consequences. And she...she was a girl from the Southern Water Tribe, who was still rebelling against the Fire Nation. If she was found, they would no doubt assume her a spy and...Katara didn't want to think about what happened next.
It seemed if they both wanted to survive, they would have to work together. But their truce could only go so far... If they were rescued by Prince Zuko's uncle, she was certain Zuko would try to use her in the same way Zhao did. And if Aang and Sokka came to their aid, Zuko would attempt to capture him and turn him over to Fire Nation officials. So...it seemed their agreement only lasted until they met with either one's allies. After that, they would be enemies again. Remembering the incident in the cave not four days ago, Katara hoped she could avoid having to fight Zuko head on. Though, in her gut, she doubted it.
Zuko watched the tower of smoke from Zhao's ship with an air of dread. That smoke would signal every ship in these waters...and once the navy's patrollers arrived, they would be scouring the area for survivors. Zuko, however, didn't want to be found–if he was discovered, anything but a "rescue" would occur. They needed to move out quickly; hopefully they would be able to find a way to reach his uncle, or at the very least a place to hide.
"Let's scout the island to see what we can find," Zuko briskly suggested and strode forward along the beach. Katara followed along behind warily. Her wet clothes were uncomfortable, so she drew the water out from them and placed it back into the ocean. Prince Zuko was also bothered with his continually squelching armor, and with a blast of hot air, dried it instantly. Walking along the island, Zuko deduced this patch of land might be big enough to hold a village. However, if there was a village, he was leery about entering, since soldiers would soon be scouring this area.
Their scouting was brought to a halt as a dark form further along the beach caught their view. A closer inspection revealed it to be a soldier from Zhao's ship–a mortally wounded one. Seeing he was no threat, the two benders approached him. The soldier was bleeding profusely, and had several large burn areas covering his body. A piece of wooden lumber from Zhao's ship gave evidence to how the soldier had drifted ashore. Katara was pained by his agony, and instinctively knelt beside the man to comfort him.
"What happened? What happened on Zhao's ship?" Zuko demanded.
The soldier was dazed, and didn't seem to comprehend the question. Katara caught his attention and asked slower.
"It...it was...the Avatar..." he choked.
Katara felt the world bottom out from under her.
Things just keep getting better and better for everyone, eh?
I'm a little nervous about the upcoming "Storm" episode...if my "Zhao killed Katara's mom, which outraged Zuko and triggered the Agni Kai incident" theory is nuked...I will be very sad.