Wow, what a weekend! Finals got canceled b/c of this ridiculous ice storm that's basically frozen the area solid, so in celebration I wrote this chapter. Be warned: this chapter contains three situations and the title I guess is a sort of spoiler for how they turn out. The title is also the name of a very good Clint Eastwood movie, but that's irrelevant. Now, on with the show, and enjoy!
Kojima: Why am I the one holding a cue card? I'm not some stupid messenger boy! sigh Whatever. Avatar is property of Mike, Brian, and Nickelodeon, now can I leave?
Chapter XII: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
"Captain Akira Hideyoshi?"
"Yes?"
"The doctor, after reviewing your case, has recommended we remove you from duty for a week, to allow your concussion to heal. An office assignment was recommended, something low-stress, out of the way." The base commander looked at the captain over folded hands, his expression unreadable, "However given your history of service, and recent events--"
"Sir, I-I can explain-"
"No need, Captain. You were defeated by the Avatar, the Fire Lord believes you, that's good enough for me. Trust me, if the Avatar was a pushover, do you think that we would have lost the North Pole?" A smile seemed to tug at the commander's mouth.
"So, what--?"
"What assignment do we have for you? A rather unusual one, I'm afraid. A week of paid leave at Ember Island ought to do it." The man couldn't help it, he grinned broadly at the look on the stunned captain's face, and let a low chuckle escape his lips.
"Also, when hearing of your new assignment, your men were helpful enough to suggest that I order two tickets for the ferry instead of just one." This time, he nearly laughed outright watching the emotions struggle behind his face. Akira finally settled for examining his boots, as his mind was instantly thrown into chaos by the commander's words.
This is absolutely, completely, the most awesome thing that could have possibly happened to me, ever!
Yeah, sure, but you know it's going to go wrong eventually.
Who blasted cares? It's going to be great this week. I can take her to Ember Island for a full week, hang out, be friends again like we used to! Or maybe...
Oh, shut it. You're a hopeless idiot.
Am not.
You're a soldier, you've been a soldier for years, you automatically have no chance.
Come on, she likes me!
We've been over this before, remember?
Oh, just shut up and thank the nice man.
"Thank you--thank you, sir!" Akira gratefully took the offered tickets from the man's hand and turned to leave.
"Oh, and Captain Hideyoshi?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Try to have fun. I think you've earned it."
The late morning air outside the Palace was shattered with a high-pitched scream.
"OhmygoshthisisamazingIcan'tbelievetheyletyouohthisiswonderfulIcan'twait!"
"Ty Lee, slow down and breath, okay?" Akira found himself grinning shamelessly as the pink-clad girl got a hold on herself. Suddenly her eyes widened, "Oh no, I need clothes!" With that she was off and running, her braid swinging behind her as she skidded around a corner and was lost from view. Akira just threw back his head and laughed, scaring one of the servants passing by. A Guardsman? Laughing? Who's dying?
Aang blew the bit of fuzz out of his face as he sat up on the cool, soft grass. Appa lay only a few yards away, happily pulling up said grass with almost obscene relish while Momo chittered away from his perch on the bison's horn. Around him, the other members of their group sat occupying themselves as the morning crawled onward. Sokka was, as usual, sharpening and shining his sword, a beautiful onyx blade he had only recently obtained while he trained with a swordmaster. Katara was scrubbing out her spare tunic, the victim of a rather successful prank by Toph and Sokka working together. Looking over at the diminuitive Earthbender, he found her forming shapes with her black meteor bracelet as fast as she could move her hands, while muttering to herself over something. Aang strained to make sense of some of the mutterings, but only caught "I care" and "me too?" Shrugging off the odd comments as yet more odd behavior from the decidedly odd Toph, he was nevertheless surprised when she looked up abruptly and said, "Snoozles, come with me. I need to talk to you about something."
"Huh? Can't it wait, I need to polish this some more!" Sokka whined, obviously distraught that he couldn't yet see his face reflected in the black material.
"No, Sokka, it can't. I need to talk now." The use of his actual name, in addition to her tone of voice, brought Sokka to a stunned silence. Blankly, he got up and followed Toph away from the camp, leaving Aang to wonder exactly what was going on while Katara wrung out the now-clean tunic.
"So, we haven't had a good waterbending duel in a while. You game?" Aang turned to see Katara's mischevious grin as she drew a large amount of water from the small stream.
"When am I ever not game?" He said, as he pulled his own water out, forming a ring of tendrils around his feet.
"The Octopus? Haven't seen that in a while. Maybe you'll be a challenge this time, student Aang?"
"I want a good match, Sifu Katara. No holding back."
"Alright, but you asked."
Katara sent out whip after whip, only to have them easily blocked by Aang's tentacles. Trying a different approach, she sent out a jet of water at her opponent, pulling it up at the last minute and then bringing it down inside his defenses. Aang retaliated by forming the water into a frozen sheild around himself, then shattering the ice with a strong kick. The ice shards hovered around him before a quick, fluid motion sent them streaking toward the girl. Quickly melting the incoming projectiles, she drew the water aside, then around, looping it back to send right back to Aang. However, both were startled by a hoarse shout coming from the direction Toph and Sokka had walked off to.
"You-you're lying! You have to be!"
"Why? Just because I don't feel a certain way doesn't mean that I'm automatically lying!"
"So you're just walking off? You don't walk away when I'm talking to you, lunkhead!" An ominous low roar made Aang and Katara stare at each other in alarm.
Rounding a line of large bushes, they found Sokka trapped up to his neck, with Toph standing over him breathing heavily.
"I thought you would understand! You, of all people! But noooo, you just had to ruin everything, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU?"
"Toph, what in the world is going on?" Toph looked up at Katara as though broken from a spell, her sightless eyes wide and shining. Then, she turned and ran. "Wait! Toph!" But Katara's shouting was useless, as the blind Earthbender kept running.
Aang sighed, "Go talk to her?"
Katara shook her head, "No, I"m going to stay here and have a word with Sokka." The latter gave a small squeak under the look his sister gave him. "You go talk to her, you're probably the only one she'll listen to at the moment." Aang nodded, then set off to find his Earthbending teacher.
Katara looked over at her brother, who gave another pitiful squeak, "Mind telling me what you did to make Toph cry?"
She wasn't too hard to track, to tell the truth. Aang noticed that she had used her earth wave to quickly reach the edge of the trees, but had promptly crashed upon hitting the dense growth. He found her curled up in the roots of a tree only a few yards in, shaking violently and absently beating her fist into the bark.
"You okay, Toph?" He instantly regretted the question. Of course she's not okay! Anyone with working eyes can see that, and after what just happened I bet even a blind person would know!
The only response from the girl was a violent shake of the head, as her hand again pounded the tree. Aang sighed and sat down beside her, leaning against the trunk, "I'm here if you wanna talk."
The beating stopped, and he heard a loud sniff as the girl adjusted her position. "Aang?"
"Yeah?"
"I--I shouldn't have told Sokka that I--that I like him. I think I just messed everything up."
Aang justed stared at the girl, wondering where all this had come from. In all the time he'd known her, Toph had been just as hard and callous as the stone she worked with, and this declaration slightly disturbed him. "Uh, Toph, what do you mean, 'like him?'"
"Like--like you 'like' Katara. Something like that, I think."
"Oh." Aang was suddenly finding the odd mushrooms growing near his feet very interesting.
"Yeah, something like that. You know, maybe it's my fault."
"Huh? Why?"
"Well, he--Sokka was really the first guy that really ever got to meet outside of the arena. My parents never really let me go out much, spirits forbid with an actual boy." She let out a dry chuckle, "When I first joined your group, he seemed like the most normal of the group," This earned a snort from Aang, "Alright, alright, the least crazy, at least. Sure his sense of humor wasn't up to much, but he tried. And he always took my side whenever Katara was going off on me." Another chuckle, "Funny, isn't it, how people grow on you? I--I guess he wasn't the same though. I thought that he would at least know how I felt, but I guess I thought wrong." The bitterness in her voice surprised Aang, drawing his attention away from the mushrooms to look at the girl's back.
"Toph, don't beat yourself up. Come on, I know stuff like this can be hard, " an image of Meng floated before him, "But you have to just pick yourself up and move on."
"Easy for you to say, Twinkle-Toes, you've got Sugar Queen. And before you say anything," she said, raising a hand, "she feels the same way, she's just too...too Katara to tell you." She put her hand back down, "and right now, I don't really want to just 'move on.' I want to pound his face in, honestly."
"Umm, okay, maybe try taking your anger out on something else?"
"Like what?"
"Like, let's have an Earthbending match!"
Toph sighed, then slowly got up before taking a listless ready stance, "Come on, let's go."
"Umm, Toph--"
"I said let's go, pudding-brain! If I had wanted to just talk I would have stayed on the ground!" Grinning, Aang set up opposite the Earthbender.
Twenty minutes later, both combatants had completely spent their energy, and the surroundings had been completely remade. The green light from the canopy now filtered through a layer of dust, outlining the sunbeams as they slashed down to the ground. Among the stone and dark, moist earth thrown about, the faintest hints of green could still be seen, refusing to give up even under the combined onslaught of the two Earthbenders. Outside the ring of destruction, the deep green walls of vegetation pressed in, hoping to reclaim the area as their own.
Aang finished describing the scene to Toph, as she continued fiddling with several small stones in her palm. "Feel better?" He asked her.
"A little. Enough to go back to camp maybe."
"Excellent! Should we let Sokka out on the way back?"
She snorted, "You can, if you want. I'll just bury him again."
"Fair enough."
"You called me, Father?"
"Yes, Azula. I called you here because I have reason to believe you lied to me."
"Oh, so Zuzu told you about my switch? I knew he would, he really doesn't care about his honor, does he? He's so obsessed with "right and wrong" these days, I'm surprised he hasn't either broken Uncle out of jail or killed himself yet."
"That will be enough, Azula. And while your brother claimed the lie, he didn't confirm the truth behind his words. You did, just now. Now, if you could hold your tongue for a moment, I wish to speak."
"Y-yes, Father."
"Your brother is apparently far more honorable than you have ever been. He has done nothing to ever purposefully harm this nation, unlike yourself, who have brought in elite Earth Kingdom soldiers to use as a personal army, as well as lying to me about the Avatar!"
"Fine, I'll admit it, Zuko was worried sick that you wouldn't give him his honor back unless he was the one who actually killed the pest. Frankly, I didn't care one way or the other, and at any rate he did help, so I thought I would offer the friendly gesture as a sort of "welcome home" present. I had no idea he would get so worked up over it."
"I seem to remember asking you to hold your tongue, girl. So, you thought you could play Zuko's desire for my respect and attention to your own advantage. He told me that you had planned a fail-safe, that in accepting your version of events, he left himself open should the Avatar ever reveal himself again."
"Really, Father, do you think the Avatar is alive as well? I hit him in the back with lightning, I watched him fall, I felt his heat begin to die before he hit the ground, he is dead!"
"No, he isn't. And you are a liar and a traitor."
"Traitor? but Father, I--"
"You sought to do great harm to you brother, do not think I have not seen it. I heard reports once, several months ago, that you had very nearly killed Zuko with a bolt of lightning. Zuko, your brother! I heard that, had Iroh not been there, you would have succeeded! What am I supposed to think of a daughter who places her own ambitions before that of her own family? What am I supposed to believe about her abilities as a fit ruler of a nation?"
"Father, I--"
"Do not fail me again, Azula. I have worked far too long and far too hard keeping this family strong and stable, and I will not have you destroying my work with a few thoughtless actions!"
"'Strong and stable'? We haven't been strong and stable since you drove Mom away, and everyone in the Palace knows it!"
"Father, Father I didn't mean..."
"Remove your armor, Azula."
"Father--"
"Obey me! Remove your armor!"
clang, clatter
"Now what, Father?"
"You will learn to respect your family, your nation, and your Fire Lord."
"Father? Father--wait, Father, no! You can't, you--Daddy, please!"
Kojima shut his eyes, but the flames spilled through anyway, and he couldn't do anything to drown out the scream. He turned, helplessly listening as the man he had sworn his loyalty to enveloped the Princess in flame. Eventually, the roar faded until the flickering and popping of the slow-burning oil had reclaimed the room. That and the stuttering moan that now seemed to penetrate every corner within the spacious chamber.
"Guards, remove her."
Refusing to look beyond his hands, he helped Dasi as they placed her arms over their shoulders and carefully carried the girl from her Father's sight.
Well, okay, so that was kinda dark, but you were warned! And no, there are no concrete 'ships yet, beyond Ty Lee and Akira and hints at Maiko. Trust me, I (kinda) know what I'm doing, and the plot has in face been planned out up through the end of the war, and then a little bit beyond. Yes, I know I said I wouldn't be going off the shows, but so much awesome stuff has happened this season that I can't help it. So, Sokka WILL have his meteor sword, and he WILL know how to use it. Also, Katara WILL be a bloodbender, although I am going to tweak how the show limits it a bit, since I'd like to think Katara's a much more powerful bender than Hama. As a final note, I may end up loading the next chapter soon, since it doesn't look like we'll have class tomorrow either. So, until then, see ya!
God is still the source of all talent--NullChronicler