AVATAR: THE LAST FIREBENDER

BOOK 1: WATER

CHAPTER 2-3: THE AVATAR RETURNS, PART 3

skies above the Southern Seas, late afternoon

Aang turned around and prepared to fight. The moment that her captors released her, Xilingshi also shot into the air, working as an effectively and infuriatingly annoying distraction.

"The day she gets shot down and killed cannot come soon enough," Azula growled, taking to the skies as Xilingshi kept Azula's cronies at bay, "I would quite love to set her ablaze myself."

Azula's appearance into the skies put Xilingshi in a bind. If she tried distracting Azula, Azula's minions would be relieved of the force that was holding them baclk and attack Aang. As a result, she left her up to Aang, while she zipped around shooting at war balloons and stray Air Warriors. She was a very effective fighter all in all.

Aang and Azula's airbending skills were about equal as they zigzagged through the cold skies, launching repetitive attacks at each other. Aang's attacks were more speed-based, while Azula's attacks were a healthy combination of power and speed that Aang rendered as dangerous. Zuko and Iroh were about to rush into the fray, but at the same time, Azula charged headlong into Aang, knocking him loose from his glider. He plummeted into the water, and Zuko and Xilingshi swore (though they were several hundred feet away from each other). Appa roared and he was about to see eye-to-eye with Zuko with the plan of charging towards the water, but apparently Aang had a different objective in mind—for he certainly wasn't dead when he hit the sea.

Aang shot upward in a spiraling vortex of water. His eyes and tattoos were glowing, and the water he was bending was swirling around him at a rapid pace. He spread his arms out and released the vicious torrent, which clipped several Air Warriors from the sky, and also damaged Azula's zeppelin enough that it started to sink in altitude. Aang then landed down on a chunk of ice and with the rest of his water knocked several of the ships back. This worked well enough as Appa's cue, and he flew down towards where his master was standing.

On the way down and over the water, Zuko noticed Aang's staff floating among the water, and so using a quick bending move, he pulled it up and into his hands. When Appa landed on the iceberg next to Aang, he and the three benders stood there, almost challenging the now crippled Air Warrior army to fight them. Naturally, Azula and her rew were not some to give up, and so they started launching ranged attacks at them, since their methods of transportation had been damaged. Luckily for Azula, this damage was not beyond repair, but it would hamper them significantly, and she knew that Aang—and even Xilingshi—were going to get away.

Aang's sudden burst of power left him exhausted, and he had collapsed in front of Appa, Zuko, and Iroh. Iroh helped hoist him onto Appa's back, and there, the four of them made their retreat. Aang was not unconscious, and he soon sat up and looked around.

"You got 'em," Zuko laughed, indicating the wreckage of Air Warrior machinery

"But they're not through fighting," Iroh warned, "heads up!"

A huge flaming catapult bomb came screaming towards them, but Aang reacted quick enough to get his staff out and divert it into a nearby cliff, thus sealing the fate of the Air Warriors. The icy walls collapsed and buried some ships, and blocked others. There would be a while before Azula would be coming after any of them. Aang made a note of that.

"I didn't believe in getting my butt handed to me in my last life," he commented, "so what makes these bozos think that I was going to believe it this time around?"

Zuko and Iroh both chuckled, as Appa flew back to the Southern Water Tribe. The morale of the group was good, but now they had a few choices to make.

"So how did you pull off that stunt earlier?" Zuko asked, referring to Aang's burst of Avatar State where he had executed the deadly waterbending moves he had.

"I'm not sure," Aang shrugged, "it's just something that got triggered—that's all I understand about it, anyways. Really it doesn't make very much sense, as I've never done any real waterbending outside of the Avatar State."

"provided you can reach the allies there," Iroh added, "perhaps the Northern Water Tribe would be the place for you to go to learn more about waterbending."

"I can do that," Aang nodded, "but how will I know friend from foe?"

"I'll travel with you," Zuko offered, "I'm well-familiar with both Water Tribes. I'm actually a northerner myself. That's a long story though."

Zuko did bring up an interesting point, and Aang's eyes automatically wandered to the huge scar that Zuko had over his left eye and much of that side of his face. It was blue and frozen in appearance, and it did not look like he could open that eye. Surely there was a story to be told about how that happened. Burn wounds were one thing, but to freeze something that powerfully had to have been done in part by a merciless master of bending.

"So what about you, Iroh?" Aang asked, "are you going to come with us too?"

"I am afraid that I cannot," Iroh replied, "for I have too much business among the Southern Water Tribe for me to leave at this moment. I believe that Zuko can keep a close eye on you, however, and that his skills combined with yours will keep the two of you safe."

Both Zuko and Aang nodded.

"So I suppose that we let you off here," Aang asked, referring to the Southern Water Tribe, which they were now approaching, and Iroh nodded. There was the exchange of a few words of wisdom, some goodbyes (mostly between Zuko and Iroh) and then Aang and Zuko were both black off and into the night sky. Zuko was too tired to worry about where Aang was taking him for now, as one could certainly not make the entire trip across the world in a night. The wounds he had received from the war, and most notably, Azula, still hurt enough that he kicked back and fell asleep.

site of Azula's Wreckage; evening

Using powerful blasts of air and firepowered machinery that were on some of the surviving ships, Azula and her crew were able to cut and dig their way out of the mess they were in. however, it was clear that even if they were to get her airship back into the air, there were a lot of repairs that would have to be done to get it back working normally again.

"One thing we've learned from this," Azula told her crew, "is never—EVER—underestimate the Avatar."