Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Avatar Characters. Nickelodeon owns them. If I owned them I would make so many twists, it isn't funny.
Story Title: Ghost Town
Category: Romance/Mystery/…
Rating: T for Teen
Pairings: N/A Yet
Summary: Katara gets seperated from the group, and instead finds herself in the middle of a town completely destroyed by the Fire Nation troups. But is it really destroyed? And is she really alone?

A/N: Yes, it took so very long to finish this chapter. For a while there, I was going to leave the last chapter just on that cliffie. But then I decided that it was the best cliffie I had ever written, and I shouldn't leave it hanging! Yes, I know. Brilliant me. Anyways, I like this chapter. I really do. So, here it is. Enjoy! - Solar Beam

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Three:

Katara's heart fell to her feet, her soul seemed crushed. It was amazing how her belief, her trust, her love, was broken in a second. She felt like her legs were jelly beneath her body, she felt as if all that made her was broken, shattered in just one sight. She wanted to hide under a blanket, in a whole, be lost in that damn Cave of Two Lovers, as long as she could never see this site ever again. She wanted to be safe and warm with her friends, and suddenly she wanted to be back with Zuko. She felt that she would have been at least safer with him than here with these…these…

A scream echoed off the walls of the small room. "Kattie?" Her mother dropped the child's still body on the ground, her eyes wide. "Kattie, what are you doing here?" She stepped forward, her hand outstretched. Her eyes were returning to their blue color, but her teeth. Her teeth seemed as if they could bit through the Fire Nation's metal.

Katara fell backward; against the wall of the room (she found she had stepped inside when she had opened the door). "D-Don't come near me…" she whispered through gritted teeth. Her mother narrowed her eyes sadly, looking at her daughter as if she had no idea of what she had been doing.

"Kattie, what's the matter with you?" Another step closer, hand coming closer to her face. Katara slides down the wall until she is sitting, her eyes wide in fear as her mother's hand touched her cheek. She was fairly reminded of Jet, when he had touched her cheek in order to try to get her to believe him. Her mother smiled sadly. Katara's eyes narrowed angrily and she swung her left arm under her mother's and slapped it off of her cheek. Then she jumped to her feet, uncorked her water canteen, and formed a water whip with bending, with the normal water from outside of the town.

"You aren't my mother." She whipped out with the whip, her mother dodged right. Katara swung her arms above her head and the whip followed suit, but her mother dodged that as well by jumping to the side. Katara was even more determined than ever; she had been tricked. She hated to be tricked. Katara swung out again, and this time it was swifter and her mother had not time to get out of the way. The whip went right through her, not even scratching her, not even propelling her into the far wall. The woman smirked, pointed teeth gleaming from the lamplight in the room.

A pointed tongue slipped from the woman's mouth, coming back in swiftly, like a snake's tongue. She grinned at Katara's reaction to the action. "Dear Katara, dear dear, Katara. You can't fight me, you can't even touch me.When are you going to realize; I am your mother." And then her hands moved to her far side, and the water on the ground shifted, and then lifted into a water whip. Her tan skin, those long fingers, the pointed nails. They controlled the water like any other waterbender. "I am her soul!" Katara had by this time inched away from the wall to gain more space, but the water that then hit her in the stomach forced her backward into the wall with a yelp of pain.

Katara didn't get up, she couldn't. Her heart was pounding loudly in her ears, her fear was eminent and she knew that the beast in front of her knew how much she feared her. Katara just couldn't fight anything that even came close to looking like her mother. Katara shut her eyes tight as she felt the pulses of feet hit the wooden flooring, coming closer to her still form. Katara's body tensed, and slowly her eyes opened and she looked up. The woman's skin was tight against her form, and bumps and thorns poked from her skin outward like a demon's. Her ears were pointed, teeth were sharp, and eyes were black holes in her head. Black, hungry holes that called the life from within Katara. She couldn't peel her eyes away from the woman's eyes.

The creature cackled. "Yes, now you understand, child. I am your mother's darkest soul, her darkest half. This town is not only cursed, but we demons found it as a haven. So many lost souls, just waiting to be possessed!" She cackled again, loving the blank look in Katara's eyes. "But the only way to keep charge of these souls, is if we feast off of young, living souls. So, we use the child's favorite memory to call them to the town. And then, they are locked here. We mostly like to use a favorite song, or perhaps a favorite tune the soul used to give off when it was still alive. It calls to the children, so therefore the children come to us. Then they are locked in this town until morning. If they are one of the lucky ones, they will survive until morning. Of course, they never make it past the beautiful attack that had hit this town so many years ago." She sniffed contemptuously. "You and that firebender are one of the few lucky ones that have gotten thus far. If you haven't noticed, it is nearly dawn," she paused, and then she grinned evilly, "But this is the end, I fear. While I had lost control of your mother for a while back there, I took control afterward and now I will not let it go. It is just your soul that I need to take control of her for another 50 years. You and the firebender will not get any farther. This is the end."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zuko stared at his cousin's soul. He had shut off his senses so fully that he wasn't hypnotized by his eyes, but he listened carefully to what he said. This was not Lu Ten! This was some evil demon possessing his lost soul! Zuko clenched his jaw tightly, and his cousin's eyes narrowed. "Well, cousin. I suppose this is where I suck the life out of you so that I can have this soul for another fifty years or so. Such a shame that such a beautiful creature such as that waterbender must die this way." He pondered the thought for a moment, and then he shrugged, "but a demon must live on, and as they say, what goes around, comes around."

Zuko stared at the demon for a moment, and then he scratched his head and said, "That saying doesn't make any sense." Zuko swiftly shut his mouth, cursing his stupidity.

His cousin looked as if he were about to retort, but then his eyes widened and he snarled, hissing. A tongue came lashing out, pointed and dripping with venom. His black, cat-like eyes narrowed and began to glow as he roared angrily. "Why aren't you spellbound?" he howled.

Zuko smirked as he threw a flaming punch at his cousin. His cousin ducked and returned the action by throwing a flame-filled punch at Zuko. Zuko ducked to the ground and then side-stepped under the demon's arm, reappearing beside him. "Not all mortals are complete idiots!" He yelled as he bolted through the open door. He came to an empty alleyway. He could hear the demon letting off a strange sound from inside, but he let it pass. He began running: He needed to find Katara!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The demoness stopped what she was doing (which was sucking the life out of Katara) and listened intently to the wind. Katara's eyes were paling from the lack of life, becoming dim and glazed over. The demoness was looking younger than before, her body becoming more in charge of the lost soul. But that howl; it was the call of help, of warning. And it was from her mate! She looked down at the girl gripped in her clawed hands for a moment, before she dropped her still body onto the ground for later. The girl fell to the ground with a silent 'Oof' and a coughing fit. The demoness looked back at the waterbender angrily; she still had enough energy to move, for the girl was now making her way on shaky hands and knees toward a drawer on the far wall. The demoness smirked and the held the girl back by holding her shirt collar.

"Hold on there, little miss. You aren't going anywhere." The demoness picked up Katara by the shirt collar and threw her into a closet near the back of the room, hidden behind a few crates. She grinned down at the girl, crumpled on the ground trying to get up from her knees and hands. The demoness looked at her nails in a bored manner, "No one will find you in here, my dear. Once I get rid of this little…inconvenience…in our plan, you will be finished off." Katara suddenly found the strength in her legs to get up, and she swung around and beat the door the instant the demoness closed and locked it. Katara beat on the door, despite the hurt in her arms, crying and screaming.

"Let me out!" she cried. "Let me out…" she fell to her knees, the energy draining out of her even now. Her hands grasped at the door, forehead pressed against the wood as tears streamed down her cheeks. She beat one fist once more against the wood, "Let me out."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zuko ran down the empty streets, looking around. He had no idea where Katara resided, he had no clue as to where to start. He looked around a moment, and then felt someone tap his shoulder. His 'cousin' stared back at him, a toothy grin filling his face. "Hello, cousin." Fire exploded in his side and Zuko was propelled against a wooden wall.

But he was up in an instant, anger flaring in his eyes. "Don't call me cousin," he growled, flames enveloping around his body, his temperature rising to past one-hundred degrees. He threw his ankle against the ground, and flames shot out toward Lu Ten's body. Lu Ten fell backwards in surprise. "You aren't Lu Ten."

The demon jumped back up and soon they were in a full-out fight. Flame against flame. Fist and against fist. Zuko spun his leg around to his left in a round-house kick, but the demon caught it with an evil smirk and spun him around on his side in mid-air, before Zuko fell to the ground on his hands and knees. Zuko looked back at his cousin, and his eyes narrowed as he then swung his body around on the ground, as he had done many months ago during an Agni Kai against Admiral Zhao. Flames came from both of his feet, now, and he took the Lu Ten demon by surprise. The demon was feeding off of Lu Ten's soul's memories, and he did not remember the prince being so strong. The soul couldn't help but be proud of his younger cousin, despite the fact that Lu Ten was still possessed. The demon was thrown on his back, painfully, and he let out an angry yowl.

The difference between this fight and the one against Admiral Zhao: Zuko wasn't going to miss. He pulled his fists together, threw his ankle up in the air and swung downward with all of his weight and breath. His ankle hit the demon square in the chest, knocking the air out of him and causing him to pass out. And then Zuko was up, running down the nearest alleyway. His hands trailed the walls forming the tight passage, and his eyes narrowed, adjusting to the dim light of dawn. "Katara, where are you?"

As if in answer, he heard something behind a door. It sounded like someone growling, and then a cackle, and then the door opened. "Stay right there, deary, I'll be back once I destroy your little firebender friend." Zuko grinned at the demon in front of him, and the demoness's eyes widened in shock.

"Looking for me?" Zuko threw his leg back and then kicked the demoness backward. Her eyes were wide, and then they narrowed and she looked at him hungrily.

"Yes, I am." And then she was up and she lifted her arms up and called upon the town's water in the buckets against the walls. She grinned, and Zuko looked at her curiously. Was Katara's mother a waterbender? A good burst in the gut told him the answer as a ball of water caused Zuko to stumble backwards against a wall. He shook his head, eyes wide and dazed; it had really caused the air out of him. And then she was in front of him, blue eyes gone, replaced by black holes and her teeth were pointed hungrily. Once gain she was showing her demoness side and Zuko got lost unexpectedly in those holes, and he could feel his mind getting fuzzy as she began to speak to him in words he couldn't pinpoint.

Just as the beast began to breathe in his life hungrily, the beast crumbled to the ground, withering in place, the outer demoness body burning up and disappearing. Katara stood behind her, her eyes wide and angry, her arms were raised in the ready position as she called back the stream of the water that had healed her after her own attack in the street, when Akina had attacked her. She called back the water, slipping it back in the correct canteen. She glared at the withering body, and then something amazing happen. Uplifted a tiny light, a small light that came towards her and caressed her cheeks lovingly. "Mom?" Katara whispered, her voice choked.

"I will always believe you, my strong waterbender," the voice echoed in her ears and in her head, and then it disappeared in a wisp of air.

Katara nearly fell to her knees. While locked in the closet, Katara had faintly remembered the demoness, or rather while her mother was fighting the possession, had given her a canteen filled with the water that could clear the mind. She had drunk the water in tiny gulps, and slowly her mind had cleared and her strength returned slowly. It wasn't back fully, however, and as soon as her mother disappeared it took all of her strength just to crawl over to Zuko (who was sitting on the ground and gasping for air) and give him some of the water. Zuko shook his head and then looked around, and then down at Katara. He had all of his strength; the demoness had only taken a bit of his energy and youth.

"What happened to the demon?" he asked.

"The water doesn't only purify the human soul, Zuzu, it purifies the demon soul as well. By killing it and releasing the possessed soul." She grinned weakly, and even though Zuko itched to tell her not to call him that anymore, he reached over and, despite all of his morals, he hugged her tight to his chest. Katara was surprised by this, and she didn't return the action. Her arms just hung loosely at her sides, her eyes wide in confusion. Zuko was just so relieved she had been safe.

And then, the door was blasted to the other side of the room and through the smoke stepped in Lu Ten's possessed form. His eyes narrowed at the two, and Zuko swiftly stood up and threw his leg around and through a blast of fire at him. Lu Ten, or the demon, dodged by throwing himself aside, and then he threw the exact same attack back at Zuko. Zuko cut the flames off and then he threw himself at the demon, flames alight in his fists. Lu ten threw the exact attack at him, his eyes glowing dangerously, happily, hungrily. Katara stood on shaky legs, her eyes wide as she watched the two. Zuko caught Lu Ten off guard and he threw his fist under the demon's arms and up into the chin, where it caught on fire and the demon was flung up into the air yelling in pain. The demon was up again in a second, spinning around on his back and on his feet.

Zuko looked bewildered as the demon threw his body into Zuko, his body aflame. Zuko yelled out in pain, and Katara felt herself weaken. Her eyes were wide when Zuko got back up and threw his legs on the ground and his fist following. With a deep breath, fire escaped his fists and then he threw the flames in fiery bursts, continuously, after the dancing demon. "You can't kill it like that," Katara said softly, realizing it. "Zuzu! You can't kill it with fire!" Zuko looked at her curiously, only to be rammed into the wall painfully.

Katara frowned and stepped up, behind the beast. Katara took a deep breath, let it out, and then threw it at him. An icicle made of the water that could burn a demon and kill it. The demon felt the pain first, inside of his stomach. Shocked, he looked down to see fire burning his demon body. He looked at the girl, and let go of the boy in which he had grabbed the neck of. Zuko fell to the ground, breathing hard. The demon stepped forward threateningly, but then another icicle stabbed his heart. He looked down, and slowly his skin began to burn up. He reached out to the girl angrily, his eyes burning, but already his hand was gone. He crumbled, turned to ash, and fell to the ground with a terrible yell. Katara fell to her knees, out of breath. And then, as it had done with Katara's mother, a bright light appeared from within the ashes and appeared in front of Zuko just as he came back to.

"Zuko," Zuko's golden eyes widened, even his bad eye, "my cousin, thank you and your friend for saving me. The portal you want to find is the flag pole. Give…my father…my love." And then the orb disappeared and Zuko blinked uncertainly.

"Did you just see that?"

Katara moaned slightly, her eyes shut as she stood on shaky legs. "Yeah, it was his soul being released from the town." She stumbled over to the wall for support, but found instead Zuko had caught her by the waist.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, but we need to get to the portal. It closes when the sun's light hits it."

Zuko looked at her curiously. "How do you know that?" He asked, amazed.

Katara looked up at him weakly, a shrug just barely making its way into her shoulders. "I…I don't know. I think it just…came to me. From my mother."

Zuko nodded and he grabbed hold of her by the hand. "Can you walk? We need to hurry, the sun is coming up."

But Katara found strength enough in her legs to hurry on. "We need to get out of here before the attack…" She was dragging him behind her, out the door, into the alley that was lighter now that the sun was coming up. Her heart was racing and her pained legs turned into a sprint. Zuko let go of her hand and made his way after her, keeping up fully. A few people were waking up, people whose jobs called for it. They were probably doing what they had been doing the day of the attack; going to the bakery.

Katara hardly noticed, she was just following her feet to the flagpole. "Where…where is it?" she asked, as she was lost.

"Over there!" Now Zuko was holding her hand again, dragging her behind him. He was running toward it, racing against the light. The light was just barely touching the pole. "Katara, go!" Zuko shoved her ahead and Katara tripped into a bright circle that circled around the flagpole.

"Zuko!" Her cry was heard even through the portal. Katara found herself in the forest, outside of the town, destroyed now. Katara's eyes widened in happiness. She would be back with her friends! She would feed Sokka anything he wanted, she would give Aang a huge hug and a large kiss on the cheek. She would get out of Toph's way, and stay out of her way, while wishing she could hug her like a sister. She couldn't wait to see her friends! And then something landed on top of her, something heavy.

"We're back!"

Katara shoved Zuko off of her and then she stood in excitement, clapping her hands together. "Yes, we did it!" She grinned at him, and he returned the favor. "I can't wait to see my friends…"

Zuko went quiet. Her friends; they would never believe that he had helped her. He sighed. He wanted to see Uncle, needed to tell him what Lu Ten's soul had wanted to tell him. He looked at her for a moment, and then his face returned to the cold, blank space that he had as a prince. "This is where we part."

He held out a hand to her, but she just looked at it blankly. She swung her arms around him and hugged him tight. "Thanks," she said softly. She backed off of him. "Zuzu," she smirked at his stony face at the nickname. Every time she said that, he was reminded of Azula.

He glared at her, clenched his fists, spun around and walked away. Katara was left there, confused but with a smirk on her face. That's when she turned around, walking back, retracing her steps, trying to find Appa and her friends. She could almost smell Appa; they hadn't bathed him in so long, it was easy to track. She wondered how long they had been gone. Suddenly, she stopped excitement clear in her blue eyes. "Aang, Sokka, Toph! I'm back!"

"Don't worry, Sokka, I'm sure Katara is fine," Aang said, patting his friend on the back.

"She hasn't showed up in three days, Aang, and we can't find that stupid town that was destroyed. Something had to have happened to her!"

Toph was sitting on a rock platform she must have made, quietly listening to their conversation. "Guys, I'm right here!" Katara yelled, waving her arms around. Her friends didn't even acknowledge her. Then, Toph's head swiveled around and faced toward her, but her eyebrows were knitted together as if she could feel something but she didn't know what it was. "Guys!" Katara ran over to Aang to try and hug him but she fell right through him.

Aang shivered. "What's the matter with you?" Sokka asked, his voice dull and his eyes sad.

Aang looked at Sokka in confusion. "I could have sworn I just felt something go through me. It was the weirdest sensation."

Toph was still quiet, but her head was following Katara's movements, though she couldn't see her or feel her. Finally, she spoke up. "Don't worry, you two worry warts. Sugar Queen knows how to take care of herself, she'll be back in no time."

Katara fell to her knees as they nodded and got on Appa. "Might as well go look one more time for that town," commented Aang, rubbing his hand over his bald head, "She could be anywhere."

"I'm right here! Why can't you see me?" Katara yelled, slamming her fist against the ground. And then she so happened to look down at her hands, and that's when she realized; she could see through them just barely. She looked at her body in confusion. It was all making sense. She looked up in realization, her eyes wide with horror. "I'm in the Spirit World!"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, to thank all of the lovely reviewers!

Cayavatar, Sweetnevermore, Silver Shadow 75, Zutara4ever, Cold Static

Your reviews made me smile, and some even made me laugh out loud! I liked the reaction of the last chapter, so I hope this one is equally...err...wonderful. Heh, anyways, thanks to all of the readers and reviewers!