Come What May
By Gigawolf1
Chapter 6: Revolution
Within the temporary structure, Toph found an old man. Unlike the man outside who was aggravating Azula, this old man was actually old. More importantly, she recognized him. "Hello Toph! What brings you here?" asked Iroh.
Outside, Azula stood before a small group. Ty Lee was unconscious, Katara was distracted, Sokka was covered in wet leaves, leaving only Aang and the Blue and White Spirits. Katara looked at the man who seemed old, but somehow wasn't. He looked at Azula, then at Katara, and a look of realization hit his face. Katara blinked and found herself in front of him as Azula was generating lightning.
"Hey Azula, you see this Waterbender? Young female, slightly younger than you? She's a representation of the only thing we have in common. That is, the fact we both like girls." Azula began to rage, but unleashed fire upon Aang instead. The Avatar dodged quickly, and the resulting fire burnt down an empty hut.
"You think you're clever, don't you old man? Trust me, I will have my revenge. You can't keep me here, and even if you could, you can't beat me."
The man chuckled. "I don't want to keep you here. I feel that you would threaten the innocence of the young girls. Besides, all three of your targets are here. If you leave, you lose." To his surprise, a row of buildings to his left began to burn. "You little bitch! My food was in there!" Azula suddenly flew through the air, stopping before hitting any building.
Azula began to move as she saw the man move again, though slightly. As she dodged, her sleeve ripped slightly, and behind her, a hole broke in a building. She grinned until she noticed that the land beneath her feet was rising. A large boulder rose with her on top. With a quick spinning motion of his hands, it had flipped, and then came crashing down.
Dust rose upon impact, but Azula waved it away. "You think a little bit of Earthbending can beat me? Dream on!" A tongue of blue fire struck out towards him. Instinctively, with the motions of a Waterbender, he drew the fire around behind him and struck at Azula with it.
Nothing could have shocked Azula quite as much as what happened next. After blocking her own fire (an easy feat for her), the man was no where to be seen. She then saw him bounding away, and gave pursuit. Everyone else followed them to what appeared to be a small stadium.
'Why is there a stadium in the middle of nowhere?' thought Zuko. He was the third to reach it, right after Azula and the odd man. "Prince Zuko! You and Azula have some unresolved problems. The best way to solve these, I feel, is with an Agni Kai. And you have no choice!"
Zuko reached for his broadswords, but found they were nowhere to be found. Likewise, he noticed his mask was gone. Azula turned and found Zuko. "To make things fun, make sure it's a real Agni Kai. Absolutely exactly like a regular Agni Kai, or else one thousand monkeys shall consume you."
At this point, Aang, Sokka, and Katara entered the stadium and climbed the stairs. "Why is that guy acting so weird?" asked Aang. His friends could only shrug, confused themselves. A moment later, he was behind them in the stands. "I find that being weird helps to make people off-balance mentally. In the time it takes me to do stuff regularly, I can do twice as much. For example, bringing up Azula's little secret in front of girls she may like distracts her from otherwise obvious facts."
Nudging Sokka, he said "Maybe we get lucky today, my friend."
"What are you talking about? Today, I've found out that the girl I liked wanted to kill me, and doesn't even like guys! How could we get lucky?"
The man smiled mischievously. "In an Agni Kai, the Firebenders fight topless." Sokka could not respond before the man continued. "Then again, I've only seen the guys, so it may be different for girls. Thus the 'lucky' part."
Mai, the White Spirit, found herself locked out. Ty Lee had not come to before she left, and Mai wasn't interested in carrying her. Iroh and Toph, however, stayed in the building and drank tea while waiting for Ty Lee to wake up. "She told me something very interesting, Toph. Something interesting, and horrible as well."
When the fighters emerged, the man had a look of slight disappointment upon his face. Rather than being topless, the Fire Nation Princess was wearing the same kind of pants as Zuko, along with an unrevealing top. The fire began to fly quickly, and more than once it approached the audience. Katara and Aang blocked it easily, but of course, Sokka's hair caught on fire.
Waiting outside the stadium, Mai remembered when her assassin training finished. Her teacher had done the worst criminal act in existence, and she had been forced to watch. She also helped, she reminded herself. The reason her teacher was there was the same as why Mai herself was, and that reason was Prince Zuko.
The Prince fought Azula as hard as he could, but was obviously losing. He could not overpower Azula, but the words of Iroh filled him. "It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If you take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. Understand the other elements… the other nations… will help you become whole."
As a Firebender, he used fire to knock his opponents off-balance and leave them unable to fight back. The Avatar, the last Airbender, used Airbending to dodge attacks. The Waterbender used her element to manipulate her energy and could switch easily between offense and defense in the same motion. The Earthbenders he met attacked with solid strikes, the only element to actually hit in such a way.
Letting go of his fears for a moment, Zuko shot fire in front of him, like he did when attempting to use lightning. As before, the fire exploded before him and propelled him away as Azula's latest fire strike hit where he had been standing. Another fire blast came, and rather than evading, he took the attack and used Firebending to make it his own.
The sudden change in events left Azula off-balance. "The unexpected leaves the unchanging confused," said the man. "That is important to remember, young Avatar. Just as it is to remember that power alone is not needed to learn an element." They looked on as Zuko raised a wall of fire to absorb a blast from Azula, then sent the wall itself at her. 'Just like Toph did when she rescued me,' thought Aang.
Azula hoped to wave away the flame, but it would not relent. She was skilled in the art of Firebending, but could not even dream of the potential power inherent in the method used. The man continued narrating to Aang the importance of Zuko's attacks.
"Firebending means you create and unleash Fire. Upon contact, the fire breaks to better burn. This allows the Firebender to attack again quickly. By using fire to propel themselves out of harm's way, they can take an opponent off-balance. Likewise, a wall of fire flung at a foe, or returning a fire blast, switches the defensive into offensive. Unlike regular Firebending, however, maintaining the flames makes them harder, if not impossible, to wave away. A strong flame can eventually resist the wind, just as the stone survives erosion by becoming earth."
Undeterred by her surprising inability to defeat Zuko easily, Azula began to burn the stadium itself. While Katara and Aang tried to extinguish the fire, Azula ran with Zuko chasing after her. Azula was grinning until she ran into a wall of solid stone. "Where do you think you are going, Azula?" asked Iroh, who was standing beside Toph.
"Again? You are really starting to get annoying, you know. Especially you, Uncle, who has no idea what you're doing anymore," to which he replied, "Of course, you would know everything about planning ahead. I know everything now, about how you planned the murder of Fire Lord Azulon, and how you plan to rule the Fire Nation!"
The man laughed. "Iroh, I guess this means you owe me five coins! I told you she was responsible for everything." Sokka muttered something to the essence of "This guy's really getting on my nerves." He watched as the man jumped down, fire following him, swirling around along with the dust he landed near. Finally, he unleashed his final weapon; the man hit Azula with her own fire, along with some dust from the ground and some water Katara was flinging around. Covered in mud before becoming baked, Azula was trapped.
Smiling, the man did the most unexpected thing in the world. He created an air scooter, a technique invented by Aang mere days before he disappeared, mere days before the genocide of the Airbenders. He leapt off of it, kicking her into the ground. None around him expected this, as Aang was, until the man proved otherwise, the only known Airbender in the world.
Knowing there was no chance of survival where she was, Azula used intense fire to cover her escape. As she left, she thought of how Ty Lee and Mai had dared to betray her. 'They'll pay for their betrayal,' she thought. She ran towards the Fire Nation soldiers who were supposed to be following her to Ba Sing Se, knowing that now they were her only chance of reaching the city in time.
The man turned towards Aang. "Avatar, you likely wish to know how the Airbenders survived. I shall tell you, but not just yet. You need rest, and so does everyone else. For now, let us recover in my burning home. Soon, the flames shall be extinguished, and you can continue on to Ba Sing Se."
AN: Long, weird, and almost finished. Any questions you want answered will be in the upcoming chapter.