A/N: Woah I updated on time. Magical I know. Like I said in the last chapter, I'm going to try and update every other week (this actually helps cause it also reminds me when I need to clean my guinea pigs' cage) and considering I wrote 4 chapters of Kataang today (VDay Bash plus this) please don't hate this. That is all. Enjoy!

Chapter 30: What Do We Do Now?

Last Time:

3…

"All I have to do is call your beloved boyfriend…"

2…

"Blackmail him into handing himself over…"

1…

"And then-"

0!

The chamber door slammed open with a metallic screech.

"Not today, Azula!"

Katara's head whipped around to see her brother and former best friends.

"Sokka? Suki? Toph?"

Katara stared in awe, still dumbstruck by the sudden arrival of the trio.

Suki turned to look at her, assessing any damage.

"You alright, Tara? This bitch didn't try anything yet, did she?"

The waterbender raised an eyebrow.

"I mean if kidnapping me and tying me up counts as 'not trying anything,' sure, we're all good here," she deadpanned. The other four in the room paid her no attention.

"Let her go, Azula," Sokka seethed, brandishing his boomerang defensively. "Or else."

Azula glared at him, every torch in the room turning a shade of lightning blue.

"Or else what, peasant?"

With the subtlest of nods to her left, Ty Lee burst through the door as well at Azula's cue, rendering both Suki and Sokka immobile with chi-blocking, limbs limp.

"Should I get Toph too, Azula?" Ty Lee hesitantly asked, glancing at the blind earthbender out of the corner of her eye.

Azula laughed.

"Why bother? This entire stronghold is made of metal. She can't even see, much less earthbend, poor thing."

Toph grinned, feeling the mound of dirt Sokka had had her bring underground and aligning it with where she heard Azula's voice.

"See, that's where you're wrong, Azula."

With all the force she could muster, Toph launched the earth at top speed towards the firebender, holding absolutely nothing back.

Then there was a crackling noise, and suddenly Toph couldn't feel anything.

"W-what? What happened?"

Mai's daggers swooped in, piercing Toph's clothing and pinning her to the wall like a bug.

Where a lump compacted dirt once was, now stood a mass of smoking crystalline spikes, and Azula's smoking finger a few feet ahead to go with it.

"Fool! You think I didn't see that coming? Now all of you are trapped, and who will help you now? Not even Toph Beifong, supposedly the greatest earthbender in the world could stand a few seconds against me! Not even she can bend metal."

Toph grit her teeth, closing her eyes to try and focus while Azula grinned, taking it as a sign of submission.

Azula stood tall, addressing Mai and Ty Lee at the side of the room.

"Mai, Ty Lee," she said sweetly. "I do believe we've been thinking too small. My original plan was just to get Aang, but now we have so much more. The daughter of the richest family in the Earth Kingdom, plus the children of the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe? Why, we can get anything we want. Although…"

She turned back to the prisoners, now all tied up by Fire Nation soldiers, and smiled devilishly.

"Not before having some… fun. I've had to tolerate their pathetic woes for far too long now. I'm quite looking forward to getting some good old fashioned revenge."

Toph took a deep breath, blocking out Azula's ramblings as she focused on what was all around her.

"I mean with three of the nations at my feet, Father's plan will go oh so much faster! Oh, don't look at me like that. Obviously he let me in on them."

Metal.

"Metal comes from the earth. It's just refined rock! There has to be some way I can get it to work with me, not against me…"

She reached deep within, trying to find those unrefined bits to latch on to and serve as her entryway into the entirety of the substance itself.

"Father can become king of the world, sharing our glory with everyone, and I… I can become Firelord. Firelord Azula does have a nice ring to it, no?"

Toph grinned smugly.

"Got it."

With the smallest of hand movements, she used Mai's own daggers against her, dragging her in every direction all at once.

"Azula…" Mai trailed off, eyes widening as she was swept from side to side.

The blind bender chuckled.

"She has way too many knives on her for her own good. One down, two to go."

Her next target was simple. Ty Lee had asked her about 20 too many times to help her with her hair, specifically the bobby pins, forgetting about the earthebender's blindness.

She used her bending to force Ty Lee's hair to wrap around her head, limiting the chi-blocker's vision, and then moved her to the side and welded the pins to the walls, grinning at her yelps.

"How's that for no sight?" Toph exclaimed triumphantly.

Azula's eyes and nostrils flared with a fiery rage.

"Why you…"

Toph had to act fast. With one quick swipe, she used Mai's daggers to untie herself, and then tore down the metal sheets on the walls to shield herself.

Azula smirked.

"You think that's going to help you?"

Her fingers started crackling, sparks of energy bursting from the tips.

"Don't you know that metal conducts electricity?"

She aimed and fired a blast at the steel-clad earthbender.

"Shit," Toph thought, quickly bending all of the metal at Azula, shielding her from the blast, and making a run for it out the door.

"Which way did we come? How do I… there!"

She audibly exhaled as her seismic sense finally allowed her to feel the exit.

The blind earthbender ran down the hall, scrambling up the stairs as fast as she could before feeling a hand on her leg.

"Not today, Beifong. This ends-"

Azula never finished her sentence as Toph grabbed a fistful of dirt and threw it at her face, getting in her eyes and mouth, forcing the firebender to let go of her.

"Sweet earth! How I missed you so!" Toph sighed, donning an earthen suit of armor with one swift movement.

Azula finally came up out of the stronghold, still sputtering dirt, her hair all frazzled as her eyes were livid.

She charged up and shot another bolt of lightning at Toph, to which the earthbender merely braced herself, letting the rock absorb the brunt of the force.

With a smug grin, she shouted to Azula, "Hey, Azula! Haven't you heard that rock grounds electricity?"

She didn't think it was possible but Toph felt Azula's movements get even more erratic as she fired bolt after bolt, all failing against the impenetrable rock.

Then, Azula gave Toph an all-too-wide, maniacal grin.

"You may not be able to feel my lightning, but what about fire?"

The princess switched tactics, now throwing kicks and punches of hot blue fire, making Toph sweat inside her suit.

"This isn't good. I'm not sure I can keep this up. If she continues at this rate, I'll be a marshmallow in no time!"

Toph put up a wall of earth and sent it hurtling towards Azula, but she merely dodged it and kept sending more blasts, making the earth around Toph hotter and hotter.

"Gotta get out, gotta get out."

Azula started using even more destructive tactics, sending waves of fire to Toph, leaving a scent of burnt grass in the clearing.

Wave after wave, Toph couldn't take much more, now simply lying down and trying to catch a break from the intense heat around her.

Azula was about to deliver the final blow, a cloud of intense fire and lightning when she was suddenly frozen where she stood, an irate waterbender in position behind her at the exit of the stronghold, her brother helping Suki off the ladder.

Realizing she was safe, Toph immediately let her earthen armor fall, hugging the ice cube that was now Azula for sweet relief, much to the firebender's chagrin.

"How? What… when?" the earthbender panted, heart rate finally slowing down.

Katara cocked her head and motioned towards the nonbenders behind her.

"They finally got enough feeling in their arms and Sokka was able to cut us free with Boomerang. We rushed up and I used the water from the pond over there to sa- help," she shrugged awkwardly.

"Thanks for that, Sugar Queen. You saved my ass. I owe you one."

Both Katara and Toph's eyes widened at the casual use of the old nickname, before Katara turned her gaze to the ground.

"You owe me a lot more than that," she muttered, causing all three of them to flinch.

"Listen, Katara. About that…" Sokka began, the waterbender holding up a hand in his face.

"I really don't want to hear it, alright?"

Suki spoke up, "At least let us explain…"

Katara stopped in her tracks, her cerulean eyes piercing into Suki's.

"Explain? Explain what? How you all dumped me for popularity? How you bullied me time and time again to maintain that popularity? How you all have the audacity to think that this once incident makes up for the past two years? Cause I'm not sure how any 'explanation' could make this any better!"

Toph had had enough.

"You know what, Katara? You're right. You're fucking right!"

She scoffed.

"Damn straight I am."

"But you're also fucking pathetic!"

"Excuse me?" Katara looked on shocked.

"Are you allowed to be mad? Of course you fucking are! We were assholes, and we know it! But we're at least trying to make an effort! We're trying to get back to the way things were! Do you even want that? Cause if you do, and you're just playing hard to get, I guarantee it's not going to work! We can only take so much!"

Katara stared at them incredulously.

"Do you even fucking listen to me? I have said time and time again that I don't want to go back! We can't go back! You can't go back and change what you fucking did!"

Katara gulped, her subconscious adding in her head, "Even though I wish we could."

The four just looked at each other, unsure what to do. Unsure of what they could do to fix the cracks between them.

The truth was, none of them knew who the others were. Hell, they didn't even know who they were. Life, society really, had made sure of that.

I will run, I will fly, I will so-o-ar.

Katara's phone rang.

"Hello?" she asked, quickly wiping the moisture from her eyes.

"Need to talk? That can't be good… how'd you know they were here? You WHAT? Oh you are damned straight we're talking about this later. Alright. Yeah. I'll tell them. Ok. See you in 5."

She clicked it off, looking back at the three in front of her.

"That was Zuko. He wants us to meet at the hideout ASAP. Something important he needs to tell us I guess."

Katara motioned to the sidewalk.

"Wait. What about Azula?" Suki asked, nervously glancing at the melting ice chunk still containing the firebender caught in midair.

"I already texted the non-emergency city police line," Sokka quipped. "They'll be here in a bit. Frankly, I think the time in the ice will be good for her."

All four of them chuckled at that, despite themselves.

"Alright. Let's go," Toph said.

~About 10 Minutes Later~

"Hey, sweetie, did you mi- oh," Aang faltered, seeing Katara's disheveled hair and clothes.

"Everything alright?" he asked, eyes widening when she leaped into his arms.

"They are now that you're here, Aang," she murmured, holding on to him a bit longer than usual as if to reassure her mind that he was safe and wasn't going anywhere.

"You wanna tell me where you've been?" he whispered.

"I would but… well, it's a long story," Katara weakly smiled.

"Tell me when you're ready, love. Who'd you bring with y- oh."

Aang looked back and forth between his girlfriend and the people who, last time he checked, were public enemy number one.

"Where did you guys come from?"

"Longer story, Twinkletoes," Toph quipped.

The airbender looked at Katara, wanting to assure she was doing okay.

"I'm fine, Aang. We'll talk later, promise."

"Alright," he said unsure. "As long as you're okay."

"People, can we get on with it?" Zuko asked impatiently, stomping his foot against the floor.

"Alright, hothead. Do explain why we're meeting here of all places," Sokka commented.

"Because it's the one place Ozai and by extension Azula wouldn't know about. They already have all our addresses."

"But why would we need to hide from Ozai? I mean I get that he's a creep, and Azula just tried to kill us- wait how would you know about that?" Suki asked.

"Azula tried to kill you?! Never mind that, we have matters more pressing!"

"Uh, what could be more important than that she-devil trying to fucking kill Katara?" Aang interjected.

"Thanks, man. Really feeling the love over here," Sokka deadpanned.

"What could be more pressing, Aang, is that my father is planning to take over the world, and decimate the districts!"

"The hell are you going on about, Hothead?" Toph interrupted.

Zuko sighed, starting from the beginning.

"After I got home, Father wanted to speak with me. There's a comet coming this summer- Sozin's Comet."

"Sozin's Comet?" Aang asked. "Like the one that heightens firebending by like 0.2% every decade and a half or so?"

"Yes that comet. Now will everyone just shut up and let me speak?" Zuko exploded.

Everyone nodded silently, Suki slapping her hand over Sokka's mouth when he tried to argue.

"Great. Now, Sozin's Comet is due again this summer. The last time it came around, my grandfather, Sozin, used it to basically decimate the Air Nation. This time, it's the strongest it's been in ages. He could probably use it to wipe out Earth this time around, but even then wouldn't be in complete control because of the Water Tribes."

"The Water Tribes, while divided by region, would be powerful enough to take him down, especially if there's such blatant proof of his involvement. But, the Water Districts are also on a fault line."

Aang, Sokka, Suki, Toph, and Katara listened intently, dreading what was coming next.

"This summer, my father is going to use the power of Sozin's Comet and the drill that almost got through the Ba Sing Se wall to set off the group of volcanoes right along the shore. The Water Districts will be utterly decimated. The volcanoes will set off earthquakes, and earthbenders won't be able to bend either."

"He will have total and utter control and will wipe out all opposition. He is going to try and take over the world. And he wants me to help him do it."

The Gaang all stared at each, still struggling to process what they just heard.

"Well," Aang quipped, breaking the silence. "This doomsday talk just leaves one question."

"What do we do now?"

A/N: Hope everyone enjoyed! Please review and check out my 2021 Valentine's Bash stories! I am writing 3 oneshots instead of two actually cause I had a few too many ideas hehe. See y'all in 2 weeks!