A/N: It has been a long time space fans. I hope you enjoy this latest installment.

Disclaimer: By Saturn Cassini's grand finale, I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender or Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.

Zuko's instinct is to grab Katara and run. Even if he fights all the soldiers-and he could-it might endanger Katara's life. Logic intercedes, and he reminds himself to stick to the plan, even if it has deviated from its original conception. He clenches his hand into a fist and then releases it slowly, leveling his emotions.

Staring at Zhou, Zuko speaks coldly. "They aren't friends of mine; you can let them go."

"Oh," Zhou rears back in mock surprise. "No, I suppose a hired assassin doesn't have any friends or much honor for that matter." Zhou snaps his fingers at the soldiers, "Then it shouldn't trouble you when we arrest them and take them to Boiling Rock." The soldiers push Katara and Sokka toward the door.

Zuko calls out, being careful to keep an even tone to his voice. "I said they weren't friends," The line along his mouth tightens with insight. "Because they are my prisoners, you cannot commandeer them. They have been entrusted to me until I bring them before Thanos."

"Interesting, how you change your story." Zhou folds his hands behind his back, strolling more fully into the room. He stands rigidly next to Zuko, staring at the blank wall. "It would help me if you could clarify what is true and what is a convenient fiction on your part." Zhou swivels to face Zuko's profile. "Perhaps, slave-boy…"

Zuko's veneer falls as he angrily spits at Zhou, "What did you call me?"

"I'm sorry; did the truth hit a nerve?" Zhou drips with insincerity. "I didn't mean to offend your high…" Zhou stops himself from uttering the royal title. Raising a hand to his temple, he massages it with weariness. "It is so difficult to keep track of your titles when they all seem to be taken from you." The dramatic gesture drops as Zhou's hand falls against his side. Wrinkling his nose, he flicks his fingers in disgust toward Katara and Sokka. "By their smell, I would say they were both Southern Aquaquadrant trash…" Turning, he says coldly. "One final time, are these stowaways your prisoners or friends?"

Zuko stares boldly into Zhou's eyes. Stating deliberately and matching Zhou's challenging tone, Zuko enunciates slowly. "I told you, they are my prisoners."

Katara watches the back and forth repartee' between her enemy and her temporary ally. Ally? Hours before, Zuko had been an adversary. Now, they were allies? Staring at Zuko, the lower swoop of his eyebrow arches up into a glaring stare. His nose angles downward with strong purpose and resolve. He hasn't deviated from his promise to the siblings. His handsome profile's proud demeanor has altered her original assessment of Zuko, a pompous blowhard. Her brain can't stop her uncertainty that Zuko will eventually betray her, no them, she reminds herself fully. Skirting a side-look to her brother, Sokka is oblivious to anything but staring at the white floor, which has a faint sheen of black dust.

The Drac soldiers fill the little room, baring their escape. She could fight them, but fear holds her back. The moment Sokka and Katara were yanked from Shipie's hiding space, terror over being identified as the prodigy has infused her being. Snuffing out her normal bravado, Katara's quick thinking has been stymied and slowed. Both siblings knew they weren't dealing with the standard Draconian rat-pig-headed mentality, by the mere fact, the soldiers had deduced their hiding location. Sokka had designed the place beneath the sliding bed to be impervious to life trackers detection. This Draconian vessel had been equipped with instruments far more sophisticated than anything Sokka or Katara had encountered before.

Katara hasn't felt such fear since the many raids upon their home world's village. She closes her eyes, desperately trying to steady her nerves. She recalls her promise to never let the Drac subjugate her, fight to the end. When she opens her lids her steely resolve courses through her veins; she feels more like herself and not the frightened little girl hiding under layers of pelts on her ravaged homeworld.

Zhou and Zuko had been locked in a silent battle of narrowed eyes and body posturing until Zhou backs down with a quick turn of the heel.

"It matters little what you say or whether your tale is accurate. Friends or not, you will All be prisoners at Boiling Rock." Zhou barks to the soldiers. "Take them to the transport!"

Zuko bristles as the cuffs are clamped over his wrists. He had managed to be free for only several hours before he is chained again. A burst of insight hurls forth, as he is dragged away. "Zhou, Thanos will be most displeased when he hears about this."

Zhou chortles, "Yes, I'm sure he would be most displeased if he ever heard about it. News doesn't travel very quickly or that well from Boiling Rock prison."

Metal bands clamp around Katara and Sokka's wrists. The soldiers holster their blasters. Zhou leads the charge as the men file behind him with the three prisoners falling in order, and one soldier marching in the rear.

Katara looks to her brother. Sokka's head is hung low as his fingers wiggle, dropping faint dust upon the floor. Katara then glances at Zuko, thinking they can silently communicate a plan, but he is scowling at the floor, too. If Katara's hands weren't shackled, she would throw them up in the air in exasperation. It always comes down to a woman saving the day or in this case, preventing the three of us from rotting in some volcanic prison hole.

Katara begins to implement her stop, drop, and bungle maneuver. She pulls up short to a standstill. Sokka side-steps his sister and moves along the wall. He doesn't acknowledge her, but it comforts her to know that he isn't completely out-of-touch. However, Zuko passes Katara; his brow knitted with intense concentration. Zuko's mind is racing. He knows he must figure out something, but what that something is, he isn't quite sure. Sokka is equally as busy as his sister at trying to devise their escape. His strategy isn't as glaring in obvious bravado as Katara's, but the black dust of deceit flows from his fingers. It will only need a bit of cajoling to provide a wide-open opportunity for them to get away.

The soldier, pulling up the rear, grabs Katara's arm to shove her into marching again. "Move it, scum."

"Watch it scaly, I'm not somebody that can be pushed around."

A voice echoes from behind the mask, distorted by the mouth grill. "You look like somebody I can push around." The soldier reinforces his statement with a prod from behind.

"I'm not scared of you." Katara jerks him forward and into the backs of the other soldiers. She gives a swift kick into his backside, which sends him sprawling. The soldiers collapse into a pile, a jumble of limbs entangled in a heap of confusion.

Zhou barks, "Get up, you idiots!"

The soldiers flail in failed attempts to disentangle. Zuko is alert to Katara's diversion. He whirls around, beginning to dash down the hallway. Sokka is already ahead of Zuko in seizing upon the devised escape. Katara follows suit, but as she turns to flee, one of the soldiers manages to reach from beneath the pile and snatch hold of Katara's ankle. It causes her to falter. She slightly turns and uses her other leg to kick off the hand. The slight delay gave Zhou enough time to jump over the tangled mess of soldiers and seize Katara by her braid before she could run. Yanking her back to his chest, Katara screams. Zhou whips her around, holding Katara's upper arms in a vice grip, tighter than the shackles around her wrists.

"How rude to flee, when we were being so hospitable." Zhou snarls, "Bad manners are so typical of your pathetic race."

Katara moves her arms back and forth, trying to break his grasp. She aims a well-placed kick at the Admiral's shin while spitting into his face.

Zhou's hand flies, not at the spittle on his face, but slapping Katara hard across the face. She flies against the side metal wall from the force of his blow. Slightly stunned, she staggers to her feet, valiantly trying to get her bearings to escape. The soldiers have managed to untangle themselves and descend upon Katara, blocking her route to her brother and Zuko, who have already made it to the far end of the hallway. Soldiers close around her, gripping her thrashing limbs and holding her aloft.

Sokka and Zuko had both paused in their escape when they heard Katara scream. Turning, they realize she isn't with them, but instead firmly besieged.

Zhou pulls out a white cloth from his pocket. He makes deliberate swipes, removing the evidence of Katara's contempt upon his face. He folds the cloth neatly into a square. "I knew the Southern Aquaquadrants were barbarians, but I assumed their women would have manners." Zhou opens a side compartment against the wall and drops the handkerchief down the shoot. "I was rather fond of that; pity, it was a gift from Fire Lord Ozai himself. Oh well, it has been sullied, no use to me now." He laces his fingers together behind his back. "It seems like everything else on your backward planet, the females need a lesson in proper etiquette." Zhou assesses Katara's curves. His mouth rises at the corner, menacing intent intended for all present to witness. He flicks a hand at Zuko and Sokka, who have drifted back. Each one poised for battle, their fists and bodies ready for combat. "You may continue your pathetic excuse for an escape, I have what I need." Zhou moves closer to Katara and runs a hand along her side. She growls out in protest. The soldiers tighten their grip upon her. Zhou continues, "Upon reflection, I think I will keep this wild female as a trinket. It would be a pity to let her waste away on the Boiling Rock when she could be so much more useful to me here."

Zuko steps forward, boldly calls out, "Zhou, I challenge you."

"Excuse me, boy?" Zhou drops his hand. "You challenge me to what?!"

"I challenge you to an Agni Kai." Zuko strides toward Zhou, glaring at him. "If I win, you will let me and my prisoners go."

Zhou's eyebrows narrow as he contemplates the offer, but then he shrugs. "I have everything I want right here."

Katara felt the hate overwhelm her. "You will never break me, just like the Drac can never truly break my people."

Grabbing Katara's face with one hand, Zhou snarls, "You will be broken." He flips his head at Zuko, "You have your one prisoner; now, get off my cruiser!"

Zuko entices his challenge to Zhou, hoping it will flame the man's unquenchable need to protect his pride. "I will spread far and wide that you, Admiral Zhou, are weak and cowardly, denying my Agni Kai, a right given to all of the Drac by birth."

Zhou rounds upon Zuko and almost screams, "I'm not weak, and you will pay for that comment!" Facing one of his soldiers who surround Katara, Zhou's lips curl out his order. "You, take Zuko to the arena's inner chamber." Chuckling, he adds toward Sokka. "Let this scum join Zuko, he will need someone to take his ashes back to Thanos, after I'm through with him."

Sokka bursts out; he body tense with fear and anger. "What about Katara?"

"Katara, what an exotic name for such a little minx, she will stay with me until after the Agni Kai."

"No!" Sokka wails as the soldiers carry a yelling and struggling Katara away. Sokka tries chasing after them.

The soldier assigned to their escort draws his blaster, interceding Sokka's attempt to grab his sister. "If ya' want to be a bunch of ashes like this no-good traitor prince, ya better stop!"

Sokka balls up his fists and stills his anger. "Fine, where is the arena? I want to make sure I get a good seat for the show."

"That's better; ya' don't act as dumb as ya' look." The soldier stabs the butt of his blaster into Sokka's side. "Git movin' to the arena."

"You look and act as dumb as you sound." Sokka indicates plainly that he doesn't know where the arena is located. "I have no idea where the arena is?"

The soldier pauses, not sure how to proceed. He is still working out Sokka's retort. He finally steps forward, bobbing his blaster in time with each of his words. "It's, uh, in da middle of da ship, dum-dum."

At the mention of dum dum, Zuko's scar tinges. Azula's voice drips her doubting poison into his psyche. "Dum-dum is you, isn't it Zuzu? Risking your pathetic life is one thing, but risking that of your friends is quite another." Her mocking laugh finishes in his mind. "Friends, what a joke, you don't have any friends; you don't have anyone."

Sokka speaks slowly with his own version of "duh, dumb Drac soldier". "I have never been on this ship before, why don't you lead the way?"

The soldier stands up straighter, trying his version of looking smarter. "You escape, no way."

"Dude, we're not leaving my sister." Sokka stares at Zuko, in case the Prince Ponytail has other ideas.

Zuko looks startled that Sokka would infer that he would renege on his promise. However, he does admit that he would be more willing to escape if Sokka had been the one captured, rather than Katara. "We will be walking off this ship after I win the Agni Kai."

"You heard the guy, lead us to the arena, so we can walk off this ship." Sokka states without too much believability.

The soldier looks between Zuko and Sokka and shrugs and moves ahead. Zuko and Sokka follow.

The hallway descends downward. Doors periodically open and close as the soldier, Zuko, and Sokka pass through. The guard pauses in front of a door to the side; he taps a code onto the screen, and it opens. He shoves them into a little room with a few lockers and a bench. The door closes behind them.

Sokka quickly tries it but doesn't feel an opening. The seal of the door can't be pried open.

"What are you doing?" Zuko watches Sokka move from the door to examine the air portal above them.

"I'm trying to figure out a way I can get out of here, grab Katara while you fight, and then blast our way off this ship." Sokka pauses in his inspection, glancing over his shoulder, offering half-hearted truth. "We'll grab you, too, but don't think we not dumping you at the nearest spaceport."

"I told you, we will walk off this ship." Zuko is annoyed by the prattle of nonsense from Sokka. There won't be a need to escape when we will be free." Zuko ignores the burgeoning pain within his scar.

Sokka drapes his arm over Zuko's shoulder. "Buddy, you are way over your space depth with this Agni Kai business."

Zuko shrugs off Sokka's arm, "You don't think I can win?"

Sokka holds up his hands in defense. It isn't what I think that matters." He believes Zuko doesn't have a chance in the universe against Zhou. Sokka speaks carefully, "But since you asked, let me try to explain it in simpler terms." A tiny black beetle scuttles across the white floor and over Sokka's boot. Knocking it free, it rolls onto its back; legs wiggling in the air frantically. Pointing at his boot, Sokka explains Zuko's foolhardy attempt. "This is Zhou…" Indicating the struggling beetle, Sokka slams his boot down upon the unfortunate insect. "This is you after Zhou has finished with you." When Zuko's eyes narrowed to yellow annoyance but didn't respond, Sokka assumes the prince hasn't caught onto Sokka's little demonstration. Speaking with exaggerated slowness, Sokka states more clearly. "My foot is Zhou, and the bug is you, crushed by Zhou into tiny Zuko space-dust."

Zuko kicks away the mess, "This is what I think of your little demonstration."

Sokka shrugged, "Everybody's a critic. No matter what happens, we are getting off this stinkin' ship whether you win or not." Sokka knows that Zhou is merciless when he wants victory. He spits out the title with bitterness. "Admiral Zhou got his honor title after using his environ-ray to alter our planet's weather. When he changed our climate, the world we knew died. Some things found ways to survive, but we must always live in winter. It isn't a matter of you defeating Zhou; it is only a matter of Zhou doing whatever it takes to defeat you."

A moment flashes in Zuko's mind of being covered with flesh-eating leeches. Shoving the memory deep into the recesses of his mind, Zuko says hollowly. "I have endured worse. I refuse to let Zhou win."

A gong sounds, a floating platform appears. Zuko walks toward it. When he steps fully upon it, it flies over to the main combat circle. Moving onto the center arena, a drum beat pounds out a thundering rhythm that correlates with the continuous chanting from the filled seats surrounding the arena.

Zuko bends down and slips his hand into the metal glove. It wraps around his hand, sealing it in the metal. Glowing red, he stands up, turning around.

The referee box holds Katara, handcuffed. She stares at Zuko and prays to the gods he will be victorious. Grabbing the microphone, the referee hails the beginning of the Agni Kai. Katara scoots closer to the edge of her seat in anticipation of the battle.

Zhou already has his hand gloved. He faces his opponent and sneers. "This will be over quickly."

Staring at each other, Zuko begins by drawing a circle with his hand. A ball of fire shoots out. Zhou steps aside. Stepping in quick succession, Zuko sends forth several bursts of flames which Zhou blocks with crossed arms, scattering the fire. Drawing along the ground, Zhou sends a long line of flames at Zuko. Stamping forward, the Admiral aims strong blasts at Zuko. Being pushed toward the edge of the platform, Zuko loses his concentration and falls down. Zhou smiles to himself that his prediction was correct that the battle is over before it began. Zhou runs, leaping into the air landing next to Zuko. He begins a final blow of flames, but Zuko won't be deterred. Spinning his legs, Zuko jumps into the air. Kicking and jumping, he throws the flames from his hand. Zhou stumbles backward, confused and unable to regain ground.

Sokka runs to the edge of the trainer box. Leaning out, he yells, "Go Zuko!"

Zuko fires repeatedly. Zhou trips and falls.

Towering above Zhou, Zuko holds his fists at the fallen Zhou's chest. "Yield!"

"Never, finish me!" Zhou growls.

Zuko raises back his fist and throws one final flame. The blast hits to the side of Zhou. A charred mark burned on the arena's floor. "No! I don't need to kill you to know that I have defeated you."

"Coward!" Zhou snarls, "you are weak."

"No, I am honorable." Zuko lowers his fist.

The referee brings the microphone to his mouth. "Zuko is the victor."

The audience is silent as Zhou rises. The fire glove falls from his hand. "Release the prisoner."

The shackles fall from Katara's wrists. She jumps up, stepping away from handcuffs. Soldiers surround her, leading her out of the box.

Zhou yells, "Get off my ship!"

"Gladly," Zuko replies as the fire glove falls from his hand. The platform had already appeared next to the edge of the arena. Zuko steps on it. It floats back to trainer box.

As Zuko enters the trainer box, Sokka claps his arm around Zuko's shoulders. "I never doubted that you would win, buddy."

Zuko rolls his eyes, "Yeah, right."

The door to hallway opens, Katara appears.

"Katara!" Zuko and Sokka say simultaneously, as they both step forward to embrace her.

Sokka gives Zuko a suspicious look. A slight blush alights upon Zuko's cheek; he steps back, allowing the siblings to hug.

"Glad to have you back, sis." Sokka relaxes momentarily, relieved to hug his sister again. His voice cracks as he jokes, "I need somebody around to do my laundry."

"Thanks, Sokka,"Katara squeezes her brother extra hard. She looks over at his shoulder and smiles at Zuko. Mouthing, "Thank you."

Standing straighter, Zuko almost grins but instead places his fist next to his upright hand and bows. Katara lowers her eyes and shoves Sokka away. "Come on, let's not waste any more time."

The door opens and a guard leads the three of them back through twisting hallways toward their ship. At the sight of the spacecraft, Sokka wipes at his eyes, which have gone suddenly misty. Zuko shakes his head at Sokka, marveling at the unnatural attachment to a ship. Zuko, Sokka, and Katara run up the gangplank, Sokka climbs up from the hold with Katara and Zuko behind him. Sokka swings into the captain's seat and pulls the control toward him. Katara jumps into the pilot's seat. Zuko stands behind tether clamp is disengaged from Shipie. The open cargo bay reveals the escape. Throwing switches, the engines fire, and the spacecraft rises. Straightening, Shipie flies out of the open bay into space, heading into warp speed.

As the bay shuts, Zhou reaches the Admiral viewing deck of the Draconian cruiser. "Did the scum leave the ship?" The viewing screen shows a distant speck of Shipie.

"Yes, Admiral, they are out in space, clipping into a first level light speed."

Zhou's lip curls. "Good, now, go after them, Boiling Rock will get its prisoners after all, and I will gain myself a worthy prize in Katara."

"But sir? The honor vow."

"I said I would release them and let them go." Zhou sneered, "I never promised I wouldn't recapture them"

A/N: Well, we're getting closer. Next episode, we FINALLY get to meet up with Momo and Apa. It took me much longer to cross space than I thought. I wish I could write at light speed; but like Shipie, I'm not built for it.

Author's plea: PLEASE, favorite, follower, and especially review. It helps fuel my engines.