A day after the man with the exploding forehead had attacked their camp, Aang and Zuko returned.

In the intervening time, the remainder of Team Avatar had struggled with what to do with the iceblock that contained their enemy. Sokka had initially christened him "sparky-sparky-boom-man", but had shortly afterwards decided that this was too unwieldy to be shouted as a warning, and so the far catchier "Combustion Man" had been adopted instead.

In the end, Katara had dumped the ice block in the nearest river, and they watched Combustion Man float away out of sight.

When Aang and Zuko had returned, they had done so with momentous news. It turned out the Sun Warriors were not quite as extinct as everyone had been led to believe- but Team Avatar was not allowed to tell anyone. The same went for the dragons, for Iroh had not killed them and the last two were still alive. They had taught Zuko and Aang the old way of Firebending.

The two gave them a demonstration of a dance they had done, and then Zuko produced an enormous plume of multicoloured flame.

"So, your bending is back with a vengeance now," said Mai, admiring the flame. Ty Lee stood next to her, entranced.

"We have news too."

And Mai told them of the attack by Combustion Man.

"I'm sorry, who is this combustion man?" Zuko asked in confusion.

"Oh, he was a big scary man who fired explosions from his head."

"I see." Zuko nodded. "Did Sokka come up with that name?"

Sokka nodded proudly.

"If he knows we're here, then who knows who else does," Suki warned. "We should get out of here."

And so, once they had broken their camp, they did. Appa groaned at a new trip so quickly after their return from the Sun Warrior city.

"Don't worry," Aang patted him. "We won't travel far."

Appa swooped low over dense forests while they scoped out their next campsite. Ty Lee whooped in the saddle, her enthusiasm for flying having never dimmed since her first flight, while the reactions of the rest were more subdued. Toph, who hated flying because she couldn't use her seismic sense, was by far the grumpiest.

Eventually, a new location was found, a Rocky outcrop overlooking a cliff with a beautiful view.

Toph, who had no use for beautiful views, stomped off to have a nap while the rest put some water on the boil for food and stayed up to watch the sunset for a while.

Katara made her way over to where Aang was. He sat dangling his feet over the cliff edge, showing a complete disregard for gravity. Meanwhile, the others stood further away, knowing that Aang could catch them but preferring that he didn't need to.

"It's a very pretty view," she offered. Aang looked up at her, and smiled. "It is." He patted the ground beside him. "Would you like to sit with me?"

Katara peered over the edge nervously, but she knew Aang would catch her as well as the others did and so sat, allowing her feet to hang in thin air.

"Are you OK?" she asked him.

"I'm great!" He responded, with perhaps a bit too much enthusiasm. "I now have a firebending master, I'm well on the way to mastering all four elements, and Team Avatar is larger than it has ever been!" He looked at her again. "Why, how about you?"

"Me?" I'm fine too, but I'm just worried. It's not long until Sozin's Comet."

"Don't remind me." Aang's face darkened. "I'm not looking forward to it."

"Well, at least it will all be over after that," she said, putting her arm around him. One way or the other.

"It will all be over..." Aang repeated wistfully, looking off into the distance. "I would like that."

"I would like that too." A question came to her.

"When this war is over and we've won,"

She did not want to alarm him by adding an if to that statement.

"What will you do?"

Aang considered. "My duty as the Avatar. The world will still need me once the war ends. I'll have to travel all over the world clearing up the Fire Nation's mess. It is the way it has always been with the Avatar."

He turned to face her.

"But I hope to do it with the people I love."

Katara looked into his grey eyes and smiled.

"We'll- I'll- be with you, don't worry."

Aang was about to say something else when a rustle was heard outside the camp, followed very quickly by a familiar series of small bangs.

Katara only just had time to recognise it as the sound of Combustion Man's combustion beam on its way to the target before an explosion erupted in the group of Sokka, Suki, Zuko, Mai and Ty Lee behind them. The beam did not directly hit any of them, and they were thrown in all directions. Ty Lee was launched into Toph's rock tent, and Zuko flew backwards as well.

Sokka, Suki and Mai were not so fortunate.

As if in slow motion, Katara watched her brother travel over her head and fall down the cliff, followed by Suki and Mai.

"Sokka!" She shouted, unable to do anything as they fell out of sight. "No..."

Behind them, Combustion man fired again, forcing Aang to dodge and preventing him from going after their friends. Firebenders began to swarm into the camp, swiftly detaining Ty Lee and Zuko, who had not recovered from the explosion. Aang whirled, to find Azula standing at the edge of the forest. Appa took one look at the copious amounts of flames and firebenders in the camp all of a sudden and fled.

Toph overheard the commotion and burst from her tent, smashing one Firebender over the head with a Boulder and sinking another into the floor until only his head poked out. She then created gloves made out of rock and punched another in the face. Aang came down beside her and blew a fourth fire nation soldier away. Unfortunately, this served to make Toph priority target number one for Combustion man, and his next combustion beam exploded at her feet. She flew backwards into a tree and crumpled to the ground.

Aang continued to fight the firebenders, employing all four elements. He clubbed one over the head, bent boiling water into the face of another, and as the unfortunate soldier reeled away shouting, blew many more away with a destructive whirlwind.

As the maelstrom of destruction raged behind her, Katara stayed numbly on the cliff edge, looking at the place her brother had fallen. She felt an arm on her, and looked up, for a second expecting Aang to be there. However, this hand was bigger, and she found herself staring into the face of combustion man. He picked her up and held her arms by her sides, preventing her from bending, though in truth Katara was too shocked to have done much anyway.

"Avatar Aang!" Azula thundered. "You will hear me!"

Aang stopped fighting, to realize that in a matter of two minutes the entirety of Team Avatar apart from him was out of the fight.

"Avatar," Azula said. "Behind you, you will see that I've made a friend."

Aang looked around, and his eyes met Katara's.

"My friend came to me this morning with a complaint. You should have heard him rant! He told me your waterbending peasant froze him in an ice block and threw him in a river."

Azula stepped closer.

"My friend did not like that. He vowed that the next time he saw her, he would deliver a combustion beam straight between her eyes. A bit drastic, I'm sure you'll agree, but my friend does not react well to slights. Of course, I opposed this. We're enemies, not savages after all."

Aang looked between Katara and Azula, not knowing what to do.

"Surrender now, Avatar. Make this easy for all of us. Otherwise, I will get frustrated, and I'm afraid my opposition to my friend's idea may... evaporate."

Aang's eyes widened as the meaning of Azula's words sunk in.

"No!"

Aang looked into her eyes for a solid thirty seconds, and Katara could see the calculations going on inside his head. He was weighing up the chances of successfully getting to her before Combustion Man could fire, she knew. The look in his eyes told her that he didn't like the odds. Some of the light went out of his eyes and his shoulders slumped.

"Fine," he growled, "I surrender."

"Excellent!" Azula clapped her hands together. "I knew you would come to your senses!"

She addressed her guards. "Chain them up thoroughly- I don't want them able to bend."

She then turned around and began to walk away, as what remained of Team Avatar was taken into Fire Nation custody behind her.

Author's Note: In case you're wondering whether there is a missing chapter or why this was labelled as chapter 50 when it's 49, well, I accidentally initially gave this chapter the same name as an old one when publishing it and proceeded to publish the same chapter twice. Yes, I am aware you can rename chapters. It's all fixed now, but that's why there may be irregularities.