Lightning Can Be Warm
Chapter 5
AN: Wow, I got a huge response in this chapter! Thanks for the support everyone! Sorry I can't respond to everyone individually because almost all of you don't have a fanfic account and all the review responses would take longer than the actual story! This chapter has to be dedicated to Azure Fire Flower who really helped me start writing this again with her lovely review. Thanks a lot, you made my day! I also dedicate this to The Jabberwock of Oz and Righteousham. I will be making some changes to the minute details when I get time between exams and art.
WARNING: Swearing involved. (If anyone knows more appropriate Japanese or Chinese equivalents, I would be pleased to hear them... kind of)
Iroh looked on from the corner. He saw the opportunity; the spirits didn't need to give him sight to see what was in front of him. His nephew and niece had to join the Avatar. But there was no way they were going to abandon the responsibility they believed they had. Iroh set his mind a-pondering, as fast as it could, before the opportunity vanished.
Iroh frowned as the Avatar deflated, before he remembered an old book he'd read when he was young, foolish and in love with the wrong person. The book's plot was the idea that Iroh had now to stop Azula and Zuko going onto the wrong path.
"What if the people of the Fire Nation did not think you were betraying them?" Iroh asked them. The dumbfounded looks were all the response he needed.
"How would that work, Uncle?" asked Azula, peculiarly stiff.
"If the Avatar escaped the ship somehow in a way that could be blamed on the soldiers, you could abandon the ship and witnesses and pretend to be chasing the Avatar around the country when in fact you'd be helping them. You could even travel with them until you come to big towns or cities." said Iroh, looking at the dumbfounded expressions on their faces.
"I can see why you were the Dragon of the West now..." murmured Azula, quietly.
Mai suddenly cut in then. "You said they. It's only the Avatar. He's alone. What aren't you telling us, General Iroh?"
Iroh cursed inwardly at his stupidity. Of course, they didn't have future sight, they wouldn't know about the Water Tribe. To his enormous relief, a soldier, just then came in looking sheepish.
"Fool! We told not to disturb our interrogation of the Avatar unless it was something important!" said Azula looking rather angry.
"It is, milady. There is a white speck in the distance with two blue dots on top of it flying this way at a high speed. We thought you should know this." He said looking the floor, petrified.
'That's Katara, Sokka and Appa! I knew they'd come for me!" said Aang.
Zuko purpled convincingly. "Get out!" he yelled and the soldier ran out. As soon as the door slammed shut, he burst out into peals of laughter.
"Talk about Deux Es Machina." He coughed out.
Azula on the other hand looked at Iroh shrewdly. "I see, Uncle Iroh." She said. "It appears Mai was mistaken. The Avatar is not alone. And we have a plan. We'll finish 'interrogating' you and we'll place the worst guards to guard you. You use air-bending to get out and escape on the..."
"Sky-Bison." Aang supplied cheerily.
"Yes, Sky-Bison and we'll go after you with me, Zuko, Ty Lee and Mai."
"And your old uncle?" asked Iroh, looking a little hurt.
"Sorry Uncle, we need you on the ship or back on the mainland in the Fire Nation. We need information and what Father believes we are doing."
Iroh frowned. If he wasn't there to keep an eye on the two siblings, he wasn't sure what would happen. But he trusted the Avatar and Ty Lee to keep them on a relatively peaceful path. And the plan made sense. To keep up the deception, they would need inside intelligence.
"Very well, Princess Azula." said Iroh.
"We should meet at Torment Island, the island, just in front of the Patola Mountain range. It's out of the way and not many people will go there because of the alleged spirit sightings but is the closest to the South Pole." said Zuko.
"Agreed!" beamed Aang. "It's close to the Southern Air Temple, we should visit that too!" Azula exchanged a wary look with Ty Lee who just looked very nervous.
"We had better finish this 'interrogation' before the Avatar's friends reach the ship." said Iroh. The other three who had been listening in the corner got up and immediately left the room, going to mysteriously closet themselves in their rooms. Azula and Iroh quickly followed, ordering a guard to take Aang to the cells.
(X)
Aang whistled as he was escorted, quickly glimpsing outside through a window as he was brought higher up to the cells. He could see Appa, Katara and Sokka getting closer every instant. Time was not something he had.
"So...I guess you've never fought an air-bender before. I bet I could take you with my arms behind my back!" said Aang.
"Quiet!" said one of the guards. Aang smiled a little; when you boasted, no one took you seriously, that was one thing he had learned at the Southern Air Temple.
As they paused to open the cell doors, Aang gulped up a lot of air and blew as hard as he could, blowing both guards into the walls opposite the cell gate. With his hands still tied behind his back, Aang vaulted down the hallway and sprinted as fast as he could higher and higher towards the deck.
"The Avatar has escaped!" a guard screamed as he sped past him. Oops. Aang knocked a guard speeding towards him backwards, toppling an entire pile of guards bunched up together. With a deep breath, he jumped and leaped over all of them and landed on the last one's helmet and cutting his ropes around his wrist.
"Thanks!" Aang chirped before sprinting towards the front deck. A guard ran onto the deck with his staff. Aang smiled and easily disarmed him with a gust of air and pulled his staff towards him.
"Thanks a bunch! Right, now who wants to face the almighty Avatar!" he yelled. He wouldn't normally have said that at all, but from all the acting that Zuko, Azula and Ty Lee were going to be doing, it was fair he tried some too.
He was met by seven fire-benders who had regained their momentum and were glaring at him with determination in their eyes. Aang gulped motionlessly and ducked down as he felt a disturbance in the air and they punched blasts of flame at him simultaneously. He immediately got up and whirled his staff around using the air as a shield, throwing off the now uncorrelated fire-blasts. Aang danced around them taunting them, all the while, looking towards the ever-closer blob in the sky that was looking very distinguishable. He willed all of his friends to reach the deck as fast as possible, making the escape flawless.
To his relief, Ty Lee ran onto the deck with Mai in tow.
"Hi Avatar!" yelled Ty Lee "Listen, you wouldn't go back into the cells would you? You know as a favour?" she asked.
Aang almost smothered a grin as all of the fire-benders turned round to look at her. Immediately, Appa, sensing danger put on a burst of speed coming ever closer towards the ship. But to his horror, Azula and Zuko were almost reluctantly pulled onto the deck by a blathering fire-bender. Aang shut his eyes, this was not good. They were supposed to come out just as they were leaving, not when he was still on deck.
"Avatar!" yelled Zuko, with real frustration in his eyes. "Put the staff down and come quietly! Or else, we'll injure you severely!"
"No! Never!" Aang yelled, stumbling his way backwards, closer towards where Katara and Sokka were approaching from.
"You leave us no choice then!" said Azula loudly, a smirk playing upon her lips. She shot a burst of blue flames and Aang horrified, ducked backwards...and fell of the edge of the boat.
(X)
"AANG!" screamed Katara from where she was. "AANG, NO!" and with that she started crying a little. "Aang! Get back here! You have to save the world! You're the Avatar!"
Then to everyone watching's great shock, the water started stirring and spinning like a whirlpool. It rose higher and higher, an impromptu tornado made out of water and at the top, right in the eye of the storm was Aang. His tattoos were glowing and his expression was furious.
"Now that's water-bending..." murmured Sokka next to her, gazing at the display with awe.
Then the water started whipping around faster and faster, breaking its invisible bonds and flooding the ship. It froze over the entire boat where it was wet and Aang fell onto the deck, exhausted while all the fire-benders and non-fire-benders were trapped inside a layer of ice. Katara urged Appa onto the deck, jumped off and ran to Aang.
"Hey Katara, Hey Sokka. Thanks for coming. You won't believe the story I have to tell you..." said Aang quietly.
Katara threw her hands around him and with Sokka's help, lifted him up over her shoulders and placed him on Appa.
"My staff...it's still on the deck." he said.
Sokka leapt off Appa and grabbed the staff...which was frozen in the ice around Zuko's feet. Sokka swore angrily.
"Katara, a little help here! Melting the magic water would be handy." called Sokka. Katara ran across the deck, eying the furious Azula nervously.
She placed her hands on it and attempted to melt it. It didn't work. Sokka sighed.
"You're so ridiculous, you know? When you don't need to do your bending mumbo-jumbo, it works out perfectly! But when we actually need it...!" Sokka gestured obscenely at Katara who smacked his hands. If they had been watching they would notice the staff slowly being thawed out by a flame coming from Zuko's foot.
"Well, I'd like to see you try better!" hissed Katara.
Sokka fumbled with his boomerang, attempting to get it out and started mumbling. "I'm just a guy with a boomerang. I didn't ask for all this magic and flying, you know!" When he finally pulled it out, he was about to hit the ice surrounding the staff...before noticing there was none. His mouth dropped wide open. Katara dusted her hands smugly and picked the staff up before walking away with a spring in her step, whistling a song their father used to sing.
He looked at the frozen Zuko and shook his head.
"Girls!" he said and he could have sworn the frozen boy had given him a sympathetic look back.
(X)
Zuko had to suppress laughter at the cluelessness of the duo. Surely they had to have realized that the water-bending girl wasn't that talented? But at least the deception had worked. As the Avatar and his companions rose into the sky, Azula broke free with excellent timing as per usual and he pulled himself out as well. The two of them nodded and aimed a fire blast, just to the left of the retreating Sky Bison. They both directed a colourful ball of fire and let it fly. As they watched with bated breath, hoping it would miss, the Avatar gave them the best defence for witnesses and smacked the fireball into the ice cliff around them, dislodging a large amount of ice...heading straight for the ship. Zuko dived to a side, just avoiding a large chunk of sharp ice where his chest had been a few second ago.
"That's it!" Azula screamed, standing up, brushing of remains of snow. "Who was foolish enough to let him escape?" Immediately, all of the fire-benders pointed at each other. Azula growled, rather too convincingly, Zuko found.
"You know what they say; if you want something done, do it yourself." said Mai, sardonically.
"And that is exactly what we are going to do." Zuko cut in. "You there, with the beard and sideburns! Yes, you! Go send a messenger hawk to the Fire Lord. Tell him the Avatar is back."
Azula smirked. "The rest of you; unthaw this ship and set sail. When we reach mainland, you repair yourselves and the ship and we will be searching for the Avatar in stealth, something you morons wouldn't recognise if it thwacked you in the face!"
All of the soldiers bowed down (if they could) and started thawing each other out of the ice and snow. Azula beckoned Ty Lee and Mai towards her and they all huddled together. "We have to either depart now with a smaller ship and make our way to the island by firepower or wait until the ship reaches Earth Kingdom land." said Azula.
"Firepower." said Mai certainly, "We need to get to the island quickly. The Sky Bison is faster than the ship and if we make a detour, they may leave without us. I don't trust the water tribe peasants."
"Don't call them peasants Mai, I bet they're really nice! Anyway, they boy looked like the one in charge of the village. Kinda. I bet they're high up in their village!" scolded Ty Lee.
"Their village has less people than my maidservants!" said Azula with a scoff of laughter. Zuko nodded, that was one thing he agreed with. And felt guilty about. After it was the Fire Nation's fault that they had been reduced to this. "We should get some supplies. And a sleeping bag. And a tent. And other essential stuff. Ty Lee, you should go get everything, you've been doing this for a few years so you'll know what we need."
"It looks like we'll be roughing it for a while..." sighed Mai as they all split to get clothes and necessities.
(X)
Sokka jumped off Appa with a sigh of relief as he touched the soft earth. "Finally! We can stop! My legs feel like I've been training for 8 hours straight!"
"Please!" Katara scoffed,"How would you know how that feels? The longest you've trained is 45 minutes and that's with little rest breaks in the middle for eating stuff!"
"Come on, don't fight!" said Aang, twirling his way off Appa.
"That reminds me. Why've we stopped Aang? It's not close to night time yet. We still have a few hours of daylight. We should get closer to the Earth Kingdom!" said Katara, in a questioning tone.
"We should. But I'm awaiting a few friends here." smiled Aang.
"Friends? You've been stuck in an iceberg for 100 years and have been out of the iceberg for less than a week. All your previous friends will be dead or extremely old and you can't have had time to make new ones!" exclaimed Sokka, incredulously.
"Trust me. I always manage to make friends, and these ones will be very helpful. Think of it as a surprise!" smiled Aang cryptically.
"I don't like surprises..." murmured Sokka as pulled out the tent from Appa's saddle.
They gang made camp in companionable silence. When they had finished setting up, Katara finally asked, "Who have you made friends with, Aang? And are you sure they're coming?" Aang looked a little nervous.
"I don't know whether they'll make it today...but I'm sure they'll show up soon!"
As soon as Aang said this, a loud rustling came from the trees and a loud curse came from the same direction. Out from the trees, came a bouncy girl dressed in pink, followed by a stumbling girl who had a lot of leaves stuck in her long black hair and who had a distinctly grumpy look on her face. Aang recognised them instantly.
"Mai! Ty Lee!" he called and Ty Lee sprinted towards him and threw her arms around him. Mai however scowled and brushed the leaves out of her hair before slowly making her way towards the campfire.
"Where are the others?" asked Aang once he had been released from Ty Lee's choking grip.
"They're taking a longer route; Zuko insisted on taking all of the supplies and promptly fell over when he attempted to carry them all so Azula's helping him." Mai answered in a deadpan.
Katara on the other hand had stood up and was looking at Aang with an expression of bewilderment.
"Aang? I don't know if you've realised or not, but these people captured you and almost killed you! And they are Fire NATION!"
Sokka laughed and flopped off his log. "I knew I didn't like surprises. This was what I was afraid of. Unsavoury characters."
Mai looked at Sokka with raised eyebrows. Then the bushes started rustling and raised voices that sounded familiar to everyone emerged.
"Fool! You can't do things like that without injuring others!"
"Well, you're a manipulative bitch!"
"Yes I am, but you're a frozen wimp who can't fight because of your stupid sense of morals!"
Katara and Sokka took battle stances towards the voices and Ty Lee and Mai immediately stood up to defend their friends. Aang looked between the groups, biting his lip with nervousness. He didn't want to act until they actually did something bad, but their stances and facial expression were more than enough proof. He groaned at his indecision and all the while, the bickering voices drew closer...
AN: Now, I know this is a very short chapter and I'm not happy with it. But I know I wouldn't be able to write more for a long time and I wanted to publish what I had while I could.