Chapter 9: The Rescue
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Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Aang couldn't help but pace back and forth as he stood on a hill overlooking a nearby set of ruins. Long ago, the world had been divided into four different nations: The Fire Nation, The Air Nomads, The Water Tribes, and The Earth Kingdom. After a war with the Fire Nation had been stopped by one of his predecessors, the Nations had started to work more closely with each other, and within the next few hundred years, they had all become completely integrated. Thus, the four elemental nations had been no more, and had instead turned into various countries throughout the world.
The one where they were currently living had once been part of the Earth Kingdom, and had once even been a Fire Nation colony when the war had raged all those years ago. Though many things had changed since then, there were still little pieces of history left over from the war, including the Fire Nation ruins outside of the city where they lived.
Despite knowing that he could probably take these people on himself, Aang had seen fit to call back up, and currently had the Order of the White Lotus trying to figure out a way to storm the ruins. There was a problem with this, however, as the ruins weren't completely ruins anymore. Clearly, someone had been working on restoring what had previously been there, as there was now a large building in the center with the Fire Nation emblem on it.
It was clear that they would have to be careful when dealing with this, since they wouldn't be able to just charge in and save Katara before they could hurt her. They had no idea where she was in the building, and even if they did, it would be no simple task to get in there and to get her out.
"This is all my fault," Aang groaned as he stopped pacing and put his hands into his hair in frustration. "If I hadn't told her who I was-"
"This is not your fault, Aang," Iroh spoke up as he walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Your enemies would have kidnapped Katara regardless of whether she knew that you were the Avatar or not. You cannot blame yourself for that."
"I can blame myself since I'm the reason she got kidnapped in the first place!" Aang argued, letting out a tired sigh as he looked back to the building with worry. "This would never have happened if I hadn't gone out with her."
Iroh sighed as well and shook his head. "This is not your fault, Aang. You had no idea that this was going to happen. We didn't know that this was going to happen." Aang still didn't look convinced, so Iroh decided to try a different route. "You can blame yourself all you want later, Aang, but right now we need to focus on getting Katara back to safety."
Hearing this, Aang's face took on a look of determination and nodded his agreement as he turned to his firebending master. "You're right. What are we going to do?" he asked, watching as the rest of his master came walking up to him as well.
"We have come up with a plan, Aang," Gyatso began as he looked back over to the building. "You are going to go inside and pretend to agree to their demands. While you keep them busy, we'll have a few of our order infiltrate the building and search for Katara. Once we've made sure that she's safe, we will arrest the hostage takers and be done with this."
Although Aang liked that the plan sounded pretty straightforward, he also couldn't help but be a bit nervous that something might go wrong. This wasn't training anymore. This was the real world, where the girl he loved was being held hostage because of who he was. Never before had he wished so much that he wasn't the Avatar.
But, knowing that there was nothing he could do about it, he forced himself to take a deep breath and slowly nodded his agreement. "Okay. But how are you going to get in? There's guards everywhere," he noted as he looked back to the building, seeing the many guards that lined the perimeter and had been placed along the rooftop as well.
"Leave that to us, Aang. We will take care of it," Gyatso replied simply, making Aang sigh a little as he nodded. Seeing that his ward didn't look very convinced, he too put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile. "Do not worry, Aang. We will get her out of there before you know it."
Despite the fact that he couldn't help but still feel nervous that something might go wrong, he knew that they were all professionals, and that they were more than capable of getting the job done. "Okay. You're right," he finally agreed as he looked back to the building. "But why did they have to do this at all? Why can't they just leave us alone?"
"We do not know yet," Jeong Jeong admitted as he came walking up to him with Piandao and Bumi on each side. "But it doesn't matter. We'll find out soon enough once we've taken them prisoner."
"You've got this, Avatar," Piandao told him with a smile, making him smile back at him before the familiar cackling of Bumi filled the air.
"Just make sure to keep them distracted long enough, and we'll get her out. And don't be afraid to think outside the box on how to keep their focus," Bumi grinned, making Aang grin back at him as he nodded.
Taking one more deep breath, he nodded to them all and gave them a quick smile. "Alright. Good luck, guys." And with that, he launched off into the air, leaving them all to watch the most powerful man in the world go turn himself in to an unknown enemy, hoping that everything would truly go alright as they said it would.
Katara looked rather displeased as she struggled in her bindings, finding that the only thing that she could move was her fingers. The rest of her had been carefully tied up to ensure that she wouldn't escape, which of course did not make her happy. If being knocked out hadn't been bad enough, then to wake up several hours later and find that she had been hogtied like some pig certainly didn't help her mood.
Why had these people kidnapped her in the first place? She didn't have any enemies. There were some people she had gotten into arguments with before, but nothing that would make them want to kidnap her, so why on earth was she in this situation?
Before she could muse on this for long, the doorway to the room opened, revealing two guards on each side with the girl she recognized to be the one she saw in the alleyway right before she had been knocked out. She had never seen her before in her life, so why would she kidnap her?
"Well, it looks like you're finally awake," Azula taunted her as she walked up to her and stooped to her level. "It's about time. I was beginning to worry that my guards had hit your head too hard."
"Who are you and what do you want?!" Katara growled, once again attempting to get out of her restraints, but finding that there was nothing that she could do. To her ever increasing annoyance, Azula just laughed, making her eye twitch a little as she saw her kidnapper find this situation to be amusing.
"Calm down, girl. You're just a negotiation piece that we're using to make the Avatar do our will," Azula told her simply, making Katara's eyes widen before narrowing again and trying harder to get out of her restraints. "Yes, we know that he's your boyfriend. And we know that he will do nearly anything to make sure that you stay alive."
"Leave him alone!" Katara barked at her, making Azula laugh uncaringly at her, clearly not seeing her as a threat.
"You've got some fight in you. It's too bad that you're not of Fire Nation descent. You would make an excellent warrior," Azula mused in thought before shaking her head. "It doesn't matter. It's too late. Your boyfriend is on his way here. As long as he meets our demands, you will be spared. And as long as you behave, you won't be hurt."
"Go jump in a river!" Katara snarled at her, becoming even more frustrated as Azula simply laughed it off, every insult hurled at her clearly having no impact on her whatsoever.
Giving her one more evil smile, she then turned to the guards and said. "Guards, make sure that she doesn't get into any trouble. I'll have more orders for you soon."
"Yes, princess!" they saluted her, making her nod to them before walking out of the room as the guards took a position at each side of the waterbender. Despite the fact that they had tied her up, she couldn't help but be a bit grateful that they hadn't put some tape over her mouth. Despite the fact that every insult hurled at her captor hadn't done anything, it still had been worth it. If nothing else, it had served to help quell her anger a bit.
Though she also couldn't help but worry a little as she thought about what Azula had told her. Aang was coming to negotiate with them for her safety, meaning that he too would be in danger. Not only that, but she was certain that the list of demands they had for him wouldn't be anything good, and she wasn't going to let them get their way because they had her. If only she could find a way out of thereā¦
Aang, after having landed on the ground not too far away from the wall of guards that were guarding the large building in front of him, took one last deep breath before allowing himself to walk up the rest of the way to the guards. The last thing he wanted was to give in to the demands of a hostage taker, but there was no way he was going to let them harm Katara. Besides, he wasn't actually giving in to them. He was just pretending to until Katara was safely out of there.
Feeling reassured with this thought, he walked up the rest of the way to the guards and put on a serious expression, knowing that he would have to put on a brave face if he was going to fool them into thinking that he was actually going to agree to their demands.
"I'm here. Take me to your leader," he told them simply.
"Good. Follow me, Avatar," the lead guard motioned for him to follow while a few of the guards followed with them, ensuring that the Avatar was outnumbered in case he tried something. Not that he was going to, of course. Right now, they held all the cards, and they knew it.
As Aang walked through the old Fire Nation ruins, he couldn't help but think back to what he had learned of that war. It had been one of the worst the world had ever seen, and judging from what he had learned so far, he could only assume that the people who had kidnapped Katara wanted it to go back to how it was back then.
He would not allow this, but he also needed to make sure that Katara was safe before he could stop them. Even if that meant that he had to pretend to agree to their demands until then. Luckily for him, the Order had seen fit to give him a rather small ear piece that fit in his ear, but was made out of clear materials. So much so that if it wasn't looked at directly, no one would notice.
So, as soon as they told him that she was safe, he would begin his work on taking them down. Hopefully the Order would be able to help him out, but if not, he always had his back up plan to help him take on all of these guards.
Though he still didn't know who exactly he was dealing with. Prior to finding the note at his apartment with the necklace that was now in his pocket, he had never thought that anyone would even know about his identity, much less that anyone would want to kidnap an innocent girl to force him to do things they wanted him to do.
Shaking these thoughts as he walked into the building, he took a look around and was not so surprised to find it modeled after old Fire Nation palaces. Except that it was more modern than the pictures he had seen of the paintings from around the time of the Great War, of course. Other than the fact that it had a modern look to it, pretty much everything else about it reminded him of the paintings he had seen in museums.
Clearly, these people wanted it to look like what it had in the past, but for what reason? The Fire Nation had been disbanded long ago. Were they planning on bringing it back?
Before he could muse on this much longer, they finally reached a large room that Aang immediately recognized from one of the paintings he had seen. Whoever had designed this building must have taken great inspiration from it, as the throne that was placed in the center surrounded by flames, just as it had been in the painting.
He didn't get to admire how alike the building was to it for long, however, as soon he found himself in front of the throne and the man who was sitting on it with a young woman kneeling at his side. If Aang hadn't been so worried about Katara, he would have loved to talk about how they had managed to make everything so close to what it had been in the past, but it was no such time to talk about that.
"Welcome, Avatar," the man on the throne grinned at him. "I am most pleased to see that you have come."
"Who are you? What do you want?" Aang asked quickly, finding that he was itching to just go through the building himself to find the woman he loved, but he knew that he couldn't without putting her in danger.
"Be calm, Avatar. As long as you agree to our list of demands, your girlfriend will be fine," Ozai assured him. "As for who I am, I am Fire Lord Ozai."
Aang couldn't help but raise a brow in confusion at him. "Fire Lord? The Fire Nation royal line ended hundreds of years ago."
"Yes, because my weakling ancestor decided that he could not rule the world," Ozai remarked with clear annoyance, clearly not being very happy with his ancestor before he put on another smile. "But it doesn't matter. I will fix his mistake and make the Fire Nation strong once again."
"I don't think you understand. The Fire Nation doesn't exist anymore," Aang reminded him.
"Ah, but the Fire Nation has already been reborn," Ozai smiled wickedly as he gestured to the room around them. "Look around you. This is the rebirth of the Fire Nation. Every day, I gather more people to serve me, and with the Avatar's help, I will do what my ancestors could not and subdue the world."
Although Aang found himself wanting to just start a fight now, he reminded himself that Katara was still in danger, and forced himself to focus as he looked back up to his enemy as he decided it was time to start stalling. "What makes you think that you'll be able to take over the world?"
"The rest of the world is weak, and the Fire Nation will be strong. It is the natural order of things," Ozai told him simply. "And if not for that reason alone, then the Avatar being forced to do what we say will certainly help us conquer the world."
"Fine. What's your list of demands?" Aang asked, becoming surprised as he saw Ozai snap his fingers before a guard came walking up to him with what appeared to be a large packet which Ozai took and began reading aloud.
Seeing that this would indeed give him sometime, he couldn't help but pray to the spirits in his mind. Please let her get out of here quickly.
Katara struggled some more as the guards continued to laugh at her, enjoying seeing her struggle to get out of her restraints they stood guard. This only served to make her more angry, however, as her pride would not allow her to keep getting humiliated, which in turn only made her more determined to figure out a way to free herself.
Despite the fact that she had already looked around the room a few times, she looked over it one more time and tried to find something, anything that would help her. Then, just as she was about to give up, she saw it. A nearby water fountain that would work if she could just get her fingers stretched out toward it.
Fortunately for her, the guards seemed to have enough of watching her struggle and turned back around, allowing her the chance to move. Being extra careful to be quiet, she just barely managed to roll herself over a foot or so until her back was facing the water fountain, smiling as she could feel the water in it.
Focusing on the water, she managed to coax a small amount into coming out of the spout, gently guiding it back to her as she checked to make sure that the guards weren't looking, becoming relieved to see that they didn't seem to notice what she was doing.
Once she finally managed to get the water back to her hands, she slowly guided it to the rope that was holding her back and managed to slice through it, making her let out a quiet sigh of relief as she enjoyed having her hands free again. With that satisfaction, she then freed her feet, allowing herself to stand up as she wondered about what to do next.
Hearing the hum of the water fountain next to her, an idea came to mind as she decided that it was time to draw their attention. "Hey!"
The two guards stiffened in surprise from hearing this, and turned around instantly, becoming scared as they saw the smirk on her face. "Freeze!" one of them attempted to sound intimidated, but Katara just gave them a smile.
"If you say so." Not wasting a moment, she reached her hands over to the water fountain and forced the water out, making the guards shriek in surprise as the water sent them hurtling towards the wall where she promptly froze them to it.
Laughing a little as she looked at them, her smile quickly dropped as she remembered that she wasn't completely safe yet, and decided that it was time for her to get out of there. Making her way over to the door, she was about to walk out when she heard some guards talking as they passed her by.
"Can you believe it? The Avatar is actually here!" one of them said excitedly.
Katara gasped as she heard this, making them both look in her direction, but if they had seen her, they didn't make any sign of it.
Instead, the other guard simply scoffed at his comrade, clearly unimpressed that the most powerful man in the world was there. "Oh, please. With the girl locked up, all he is is a weapon. He's nothing special." Watching them walk out of sight, she then slumped back against the wall, her mind racing as she thought about what she had learned. If Aang was here, it was likely because her captors had told him that they had taken her, and likely were giving him a list of demands to ensure her safety.
Knowing that she couldn't allow this to happen, she decided that she would have to find Aang so he knew that she was okay and so he wouldn't agree to their demands. There was one problem with this, however. She had no idea how to find him in this large and unfamiliar building. How was she going to be able to find him?
Then she remembered the guards she had frozen to the wall. Deciding that they would be her best bet, she made sure that the door was closed enough so that no one would hear her and made her way over to them, unfreezing the top of their heads so that they could speak.
After a few moments of them taking deep breaths of clean air, she decided that it was time for her to find out what they knew. "Where is the Avatar being held?"
"Why should we tell you?" one of the guards growled back, unable to keep himself from shivering due to the intense cold of the ice surrounding him.
"I could always just put the ice back over your heads," Katara offered, making their eyes widen as they saw that she was serious.
"Okay, okay!" the one on her left spoke up. "Go down that hall and take a right at the end of it. It'll lead you to the throne room."
Unable to hold back a bit of a smirk from seeing how quickly the tables had turned, she then replied. "Thank you." Before walking out of the room, making sure that there were no guards to spot her as she made her way through the hall. What she didn't know, however, was that a member of the Order had been just seconds behind her, bursting into the room ready to take down any foes, only to be wind up surprised to find that the guards had already been taken care of and that the hostage had escaped.
"Oh, no."
Aang couldn't help but sigh a little. He was thankful that he hadn't had to come up with anything to keep them distracted, but listening to all of their demands was incredibly boring. Even if he was still on edge knowing that Katara was in danger.
Just as Ozai flipped the page to the next set of his plans for world domination, a voice came over the intercom, taking them all by surprise as they heard them almost yell. "Red alert! Red alert! The prisoner has escaped!"
"Imbeciles," Azula growled as she stood up, knowing what was going to happen next and not willing to let the most powerful bender have the chance to strike first. Had Aang not been so surprised by hearing that Katara had escaped, he likely would have seen the blast of fire sent at him coming, but did not as he was sent back into the wall directly behind him.
The impact of the wall hitting him forced him to focus, making him quickly press the button on his communicator as he continued to dodge blasts of fire from the enemies who were now attacking him. "What happened? Did you get her out?"
After a few moments with no response, some static came over the line as his Guardian's familiar voice came over the line. "No, we did not get her out. She got herself out."
"What?!" Aang couldn't help but ask in surprise, his eyes widening as he narrowly avoided a blast of fire that would have burned his hair off if he hadn't managed to dodge it in time. "Well, where is she?"
"We are currently trying to figure that out," Gyatso assured him. "But by the sound of it, you are in trouble?"
"A little bit," Aang admitted as he broke some fire sent at him and sent a wave of air toward his aggressor, knocking the Fire Nation guard off of his feet.
"Very well. We will be in there shortly. Hang on until then, Aang." Gyatso advised him before some more static rang in his ear and his voice was cut out.
Seeing that he was going to be on his own for a few moments, he decided to take the offensive, using some earthbending to trap some of his opponents while simultaneously dodging their attacks. Fortunately for him, they couldn't get themselves out of it, giving him the chance to have some more breathing room.
Not that he really needed it. There was only so much their firebending could do, especially since he was a master at avoiding and evading. The only problem with this was that their reckless attacks were starting to set the building on fire, which would not be a good thing if it got out of hand.
Because of this, Aang had to not only be on both offense and defense, but he also had to put out any fires that he could to ensure that the building wouldn't come crashing down on them. Which, needless to say, wasn't exactly easy.
And as if he hadn't been distracted enough, a loud "Hey!" caught his attention, his eyes widening as he recognized the melodic voice that belonged to the girl he loved. He knew that she was strong and fearless, but what on earth was she doing there?
Before he could get the chance to do anything, she reached down to the ground and started bringing her hands up, making them all look confused before the room around them started to shake. Without a word of warning, the water in the pipes below them burst through the floor, spreading to each of the remaining guards and freezing them in place, leaving only Azula and Ozai left.
"Wow," Aang couldn't help but breathe in amazement. He had known that his girlfriend was a powerful waterbender, but seeing this incredible feat, he couldn't help but be rather impressed with her.
If Katara hadn't been so on edge, she likely would have blushed at the way he was looking at her, but this was not the case as she turned her focus back to her captor, looking quite angry as she stared her down. "You're going down!" she yelled across the room, making Azula laugh simply as she got into a defensive stance.
"Whatever you say, peasant," she sneered at her before launching herself in the air towards Katara. Aang, despite wanting badly to help Katara, was not given the chance to as Ozai came leaping towards him with a flaming kick, preventing him from being able to help the girl he loved.
He trusted Katara's abilities as a fighter, but this wasn't how the plan was supposed to go. The Order was supposed to get her out of there so he could deal with the rest without worrying about her being in danger, but now that was all he could do.
Deciding that it wasn't going to do him any good to keep thinking about it, he focused on fighting back against Ozai, knowing that there wasn't much that he could do at the moment but keep Ozai's attention off of her.
After a little while of fighting, Katara appeared to get the upper hand on Azula and, when she didn't notice, took the water coming out from the pipes underneath them and froze the princess in place, leaving her frozen with a look of outrage on her face.
Seeing this, Ozai knew that if he didn't do something quickly, this fight would be a losing one. Looking over to the waterbender who had just incapacitated his daughter, he smiled wickedly as an idea came to mind before shooting a large blast of flames at Aang, making the young Avatar jump out of the way to avoid it before he launched himself over to the waterbender. Narrowly missing the water tentacle that had attempted to slam him to the ground, he landed right behind her and wrapped an arm around her throat, the other hand being held to her face as he started heating it up.
"Surrender now, Avatar!" Ozai snarled at him as Aang came charging over to him. "And the girl will live!"
Stopping in his tracks, Aang couldn't help but feel his fear spike as he saw Katara struggle to get out of the insane firebender's grip, a look of determination on her face as she shouted. "Don't listen to him, Aang! I'm fine!"
With every failed attempt to get out of Ozai's grip, Katara's face felt the heat on her face grow, making her start to whimper as it started to really hurt. She was strong, but the pain was quickly becoming unbearable. When she finally couldn't take the pain anymore, she accidentally let out a loud whimper of pain, calling out. "Aang!"
It was a cry of desperation, one that Aang knew well. Feeling rage and fear consume him, his fists clenched and his eyes closed, only to open a few moments later with pure white filling where his eyes should have been, making Ozai's eyes widen as he saw that he was truly in trouble now.
