Book Two: Water
Chapter V: The King of Omashu, Part II

So far, over the course of this study, descriptions of combative bending behavior have been omitted, summarized, or only explored in relation to the main subject at hand. This is partially due to the nature of the study focus, partially due to the repetitive results of the positive control, and partially due to the base simplicity of certain applications of bending. Other sources of media or literature provide better reference for the precision child brutality of Fire Lord Ozai, or the effects of a strong gust of airbending causing several soldiers to reach terminal velocity, et cetera.

In this particular instance, however, we are obligated to provide a deep and insightful understanding of combative bending behavior due to the sheer novelty of the situation. Actual airbending infighting is, by and far, completely undocumented in this reality. The nature of the original civilization strictly disallows such a martial approach, especially between one another. When such disagreements occur in airbender history, these usually result in heated, year-long debates, peaceful protest in the form of work strikes or hunger strikes, unionization, and other non-violent means. The most violent "civil war" in the history of the Air Nomads involved active threats of self-defense and complete segregation between the Northern and Western Air Temples, but no active combat was taken.

Ty Lee, however, is not an Air Nomad, and has never subscribed to their beliefs or their teachings. This is evident when Aang feels a blast of heated air whistle past his head and subsequently propel a large rock behind him into a wall. In his peripheral vision, he sees a guard throw down his staff. However, his self-armament is absentminded, as he's mentally overtaken by the survival of his kin.

"You're the live airbender! I can't believe I found you!"

"Only one I've met until now, and whose fault is that?"

The immediate negative feedback dilutes Aang's initial endorphin rush, and he's forced to send his body into a full-momentum spin as he bends her attacks away from him, uncomfortably hot air turning cool as it grazes along his skin and blows away. His eyes fill with both worry and panic, the emotions compounding into the stimulant known as realization.

"It – It wasn't like that! I didn't want to disappear for a hundred years, it just –"

"Happened? Really, super convenient, Avatar Aang. But that doesn't make things okay!"

Ty Lee bounds off a nearby boulder and Aang barely dodges the tibia aimed at his head. Aang spins a counter-clockwise gust of wind, trained by muscle memory and century-old drilling on the correct form of dismantling an airborne opponent, before his work is undone by a clockwise gust of wind as Ty Lee lands perfectly. Aang's footwork is suddenly jeopardized by Ty Lee's onslaught of staff-based lunges and swings, his own staff clacking, spinning, and deflecting hers.

"Please, listen to reason and let's just talk first. How in the world can an airbender like you be so aggressive? I've never seen anything like this – it feels wrong!"

"No. Really? You think I can survive war through being peaceful? Guess you did, though, and isn't – that – great?"

Each word garners accentuation in the form of a full-weight swing at a ninety-degree angle, a two hundred and twenty-degree angle, and a zero-degree angle (assuming the vertex is at Aang's chest and the adjacent arm is parallel to the ground). Ty Lee expertly maintains the momentum of her staff through rotational inertia, bending her spine, adjusting her stance, and twirling the wood such that barely any kinetic energy is lost upon impact with Aang's staff.

Fearful that his staff will reach material breaking point, Aang creates an air scooter and disturbs the loose sediment of the topsoil underneath, creating a dust cloud to inhibit Ty Lee's senses. Masterful of his tools and creative in his original technique, yet culturally biased towards retreat, Aang utilizes the air scooter to quickly get away before using his newfound horizontal velocity and his bending to extend the wings of his airbender staff and begin gliding.

Both Katara and Sokka allow themselves to feel slight relief, behaviorally trained to believe that Aang's ability to fly allows him to avoid any enemy. Although this is a rational conclusion concerning any land-based combatant, the sudden and violent eruption of Ty Lee's silhouette from the dust cloud denies their comfort.

"I wasn't finished, Avatar!"

Aang lets out a puberty-ridden scream, his crackly voice echoing as he rapidly dives downwards to avoid the glider soaring headfirst towards the apex of his flight. Ty Lee follows rapidly, and the residual effect of both airbenders cutting through air resistance dispels the dust cloud and allows a clear view of the first observed instance of a dogfight in the Earth Kingdom.

Although her limbs are occupied with maintaining the necessary position for gliding flight, one of the core techniques of Ty Lee's airbending variant is breath control, largely in part due to her Fire Nation origins. Taking in a deep breath of air, Ty Lee's diaphragm contracts rapidly. Then, she exhales slowly, forcefully. The resulting linear stream of air is audible and palpable, and Aang sees it fit to perform a break to avoid getting shot down.

Given the novelty of aerial combat and her own lack of expertise in gliding flight, Ty Lee does not think to counter with a barrel roll. Which would be impossible anyways, because the recoil of her airbending attack causes her to stall.

As predicted, Ty Lee folds her wings back into the staff, allows herself to free fall while twisting her body, uses the few milliseconds of low gravitational acceleration to track Aang's flight vectors, and then extends her wings again, creating a burst of air against the rapidly-nearing ground in order to propel herself for an interception, inhaling sharply on her way.

Sokka, observing Ty Lee's controlled fall, drawing knowledge from his understanding of hunting and projectile physics, noting Ty Lee's earlier actions, and recalling his own experiences with Aang's flight abilities, uses this time to yelp out his hasty prognosis.

"She's going to cut you off, Aang, dodge!"

The advice registers in Aang's Wernicke's area just as Ty Lee begins to close in. Her decreasing distance nearly causes him to panic once more, but his eyes widen in realization as the vague, Bumi-drilled concept of unorthodox creativity provides a sudden solution. The moment Ty Lee gets close enough, Aang plagiarizes Ty Lee's work and retracts his wings, utilizing a quick rotational burst of air to stabilize himself – and then latch onto Ty Lee's own airbending staff, hands tightly clamping on her wings.

"Hi! Okay, I know you're mad, and you blame me for a lot of things, and I'd love to talk about it, and you don't, but – just answer one question!"

Ty Lee grits her teeth as the weight of her aircraft is suddenly nearly doubled, and she's forced to adjust her weight distribution and airbending lift on the fly. Veering violently rightwards, Ty Lee makes an attempt to land so that she can resume grounded combat – before her irritation and morbid curiosity wins over.

"What?!"

"Why are you even working for that crazy king?"

As Ty Lee eases into her descent, a series of questions formulate in her mind. Why was she working for Bumi? She agreed to go along with his plan for the Avatar in exchange for her pardon and her landshark. What was her part in the plan? To be an available option for the Avatar to choose to fight. Could she have denied the Avatar once chosen?

...Yes. Why didn't she? Because she didn't like the Avatar. Hated him, on some days of her three-year exile. He is the source of Zuko's obsession, the fuel for her own existential crises, and the most inept person who could possibly be chosen to defeat Fire Lord Ozai and/or subdue the Fire Nation, among other things. As such, she sought physical and verbal retribution and catharsis.

Was she succeeding in attacking? Yes.

Would it be good if she succeeded in combat, denying the Avatar more time to become stronger and possibly cutting him off from his companions, one of whom she suspects is his waterbending teacher? ...No.

Glaring silently at the ground as she touches down, Ty Lee implicitly allows Aang to get off of her glider by not immediately folding the wings. The moment Aang gets off, she puts away her staff, turning around quickly and glowering at him. Aang's expression brightens in hope as she slowly walks up to him, the lack of immediate combat comforting him immensely.

With a bright smile, Aang gives an Air Nomad's bow.

And then Ty Lee chi blocks his left biceps (his left arm goes ramrod straight, and he yelps), his right triceps (his right arm flops uselessly as he flails), his right rectus femoris (as he attempts to run, his right upper leg refuses to bend forwards, and he begins falling), his left sartorius (his left leg then sticks out like a puppet as he spins like a dreidel to the ground), and both of his external obliques (Aang is unable to rotate his torso in his squirming, instead reduced to performing the worm dance).

Her natural human bloodthirst is appeased. Ty Lee raises a hand and turns to the audience.

"He asked a good question. I forfeit."

As Aang and King Bumi slide down the mail delivery system for the umpteenth time that day after a tearful reunion, Ty Lee watches the Avatar experience genuine childhood with an unimpressed expression. She bites into her baozi (moo-sow flavor) and munches as she reclines on the bench, seated adjacent to Katara and one person away from Sokka while sounds of glee echo across the selectively-crumbling infrastructure of Omashu.

Katara mildly considers the fact that the airbender is eating meat, before she clears her throat in an attempt to signal a desire for conversation.

"So, uh. Guess the rumors were true, huh?"

"Sorta-kinda. I'm not the Avatar, obviously, but I do airbend. I usually keep that a secret, though: King Bumi just wanted me as an ace-in-the-hole to rattle Aang."

"Yeah-huh. Slrrrrp –"

"Sokka, gross!"

"Hey, the airbender said it was good! Er, Ty Lee, I mean, not Aang. Look, I get why you're mad. A lot of us are. I mean, I know I am, except more at the Fire Nation than at the kid who popped out of an iceberg, but – why was Bumi mad?"

Ty Lee makes a vague noise indicating thought. "He didn't tell me, obviously, but I get the feeling he was kinda mad at Aang, too. Probably had some time to stew over the rumors of his best friend suddenly coming back to life a hundred years younger, and he was, y'know, there for the whole genocide?"

The two Water Tribe members grow uncomfortable at the mention, and Ty Lee raises an eyebrow at them.

"We – we saw the Southern Air Temple. It's – We're sorry. Aang took it the worst."

Ty Lee processes this information correctly.

"Oh. That one wasn't... cleaned up, I take it. I know the Western and, uh, Northern ones are… Anyways. I guess this sort of leads into why I was so angry with him. With the world, kinda, but especially the Avatar. If you want to start attacking me, fine, I figured there was a fifty-fifty of it happening, and I'm really prepared to make an enemy of the Avatar, I am, but –"

Honesty is a policy that seems to be commonly practiced by Ty Lee, and, thankfully, by the two siblings as well. Ty Lee's rambling is cut off by Katara's gentle touch, and Sokka sets down his meal for this revelation.

"...I hope you understand how awful it is, how many years you have to endure being scared, and untrusting, and mad, and maybe thinking you're the Avatar, all in secret – when you're an airbender born and raised in the Fire Nation."

Their stunned silence is cut off by Ty Lee's derisive snort.

"And I had to leave behind siblings. Feel free to start attacking now."

Once Aang returns to Katara, Sokka, and Ty Lee, he is met by the sight of a strange boat with wheels and Sokka looking ecstatic. Inwardly, he feels a sense of dread and depressed resignation as he realizes the conversation he must have with his fellow airbender.

(Not an Air Nomad, he sharply corrects mentally, before being surprised by his own sharpness. As an airbender, she feels wrong, she bends wrong, she acts wrong. He berates himself inwardly and recites a mantra of forgiveness and understanding.)

The following conversation does not meet his expectations.

"Aang, we figured out how to keep the Fire Nation off our backs, get us to the Northern Water Tribe faster, save more possible airbenders, and give the Fire Lord a good ol' dishonoring! How about a little detour to Crescent Island?"

In an alternate universe, Sokka becomes a corporate salesman whose name is forever recorded in the history books.

Also in an alternate universe, Haru and Tyro have the Avatar's assistance in their prison escape.

Instead, a bleeding heart with a blue mask ensures a select number of cells have their locks loosened, an inconspicuous surplus of coal is left in various areas of the prison rig, and there is now a sizable bounty placed on both the warden and the Fire Nation governor's head with the royal palace insignia, marked for verbal dissent and misuse of military resources.

Potential monetary compensation proves to be a useful replacement for hope.