Did it bug anybody else that Pakku did absolutly bloody nothing when the moon came out in the cartoon? Yeah, he did stuff, here. Important stuff. But Zhao is smart, so stuff wasn't enough.

Pakku smiled as the sun finally slipped below the horizon in one direction, and the moon appeared in the heavens. "The night is ours," Pakku shouted. "Everyone! Attack the Fire Nation!"

As though of one body, the waterbenders began to surge forward from the walls. Not all of them, of course; many remained behind to restore the wall to its proper strength, but a powerful force of his most skilled and mighty practitioners, they moved to the fight. Fire sprayed from the decks of the ships. Good, even though it would make the defenders' jobs harder, it meant that the Fire Nation would get no sleep tonight. Pakku felt that power swell in him as the full moon came full into view. "Now, let's see if you can handle this?" he said, his voice rising triumphant.

With a twist of his wrists, a great wave rose up from the water, curling and crashing down on the deck of a ship several miles away. It was at the limits of his abilities, but the effect was devastating. Swamped under so many tonnes of water, the ship had two options, drown, or snap. It chose to snap. The back half was torn away from the front, and both slipped under the hateful waves. Pakku made sure the waves were particularly hateful.

He moved onto the next ship in the line, but this time, the firebenders caught wise to him. As the wave approached, they worked together, with a massive blast of flame to turn the water into steam. At that distance, Pakku couldn't quite reach the steam and hold it like he could water. The wave slipped harmlessly under the boat. He would need a new trick. Elsewhere in the fleet, his waterbenders were having similar mixed results in their attacks. Some rose a ship on spears of ice, trapping it out of the fight. Another managed to tear a hole in a hull, leaving the ship to slowly sink. But then, the Fire Nation was quite keen on defending themselves. At this distance, Pakku couldn't be sure, but more likely than not, some of his students were being burned alive, surrounded by water.

"Intruders! Ambush from the cliffs!" a call rang out. Pakku turned. Hundreds of lizards ran down the sheer cliff walls, each carrying four or five soldiers on its back. Arnook's voice came from the wall, as he dove off the wall in his armor.

"Leave the wall!" the Chief cried. "Protect the healers!"

Pakku turned from his place and prepared a massive tentacle of water to sleep the intruders off the cliff, but another cry interrupted him as the water was still rising to a useful level. "More Mongoose Dragons on the cliffs!" Pakku turned, and saw that they were descending directly toward him. Surrounded. Well wasn't that just lovely? Despite him, the old man got a smile on his face. Finally a real test of his waterbending prowess.

Sokka was panting and covered in sweat, despite the frigid night. The cutting of the air behind him told him his boomerang was close, so he caught it without a glance. A smash with the club brought the soldier low. Where in the Hell had all of these soldiers come from? Was there some sort of breach? He turned, looking back to the doorway. "Are you alright, Yue?" he asked.

"Where did they all come from?" she asked. "The city is supposed to be impenetrable."

"Only Ba Singh Se claims it's impenetrable, and it was penetrablated. I mean, penetrated. I mean, it was busted into," Sokka said. "Tui La, I'm tired."

"Don't swear," she said. Her eyes darted to the courtyard above. The soldiers and firebenders hadn't gotten that far. Not yet, anyway. "Come one, Sokka. You promised you'd keep me safe."

"Yeah, and I thought that meant I'd be able to sit in the palace and eat blubber tonight," he complained lightly. Still, he got to his feet despite his weariness. The soldiers groaned lightly, but other soldiers were coming. Better soldiers than he. They could deal with these people. "Where can we go?"

"Sokka!" his sister's voice came through the din. He couldn't see where she was, until she surged up over the level of the roofs on a wave from the canals. He couldn't quite believe his eyes. Had his awkward, meek little sister disappeared? Who was this powerful waterbender? He didn't have time to ponder long, because she leapt off the wave. "Aang couldn't stop them," she said. "He's on his way back now."

Suiting action to word, Appa landed with a thud on the courtyard. Its white hair was somewhat singed in places, and patchy red in others. Aang, who was obviously as tired as everybody else, nevertheless leapt off of his mount and began to ask it those questions he always did. "Are you alright buddy? How bad does it hurt? Can you still move?"

Appa answered as it always did, with a low groaning sound. It began to saunter toward the palace, favoring one of its legs. Luckily, it had five others to support it. Aang turned and sat down, his staff leaning over his shoulder. "I couldn't do anything. There were just too many. I'm sorry, everyone." he said.

"We'll find a way, somehow," Sokka said. He turned to his sister. "And how in the Hell did you pull off that little surfing stunt? You've never been able to bend that much at once before. It might have come in handy when those PIRATES were after us!"

"It's the moon!" Katara said, as though finally understanding it herself. "My waterbending has always been more powerful at night, but tonight, it's as though I'm five times stronger than I've ever been!"

Yue nodded. "That makes sense. The legends say that the moon was the first waterbender, and that we learned from it and took on its ways. How it pushed and pulled the tides, how it changed with the passage of time..."

"That's it!" Aang proclaimed.

"What is?"

"The moon spirits! Yue, you can talk to the Moon and Sea spirits, can't you?" he asked.

"Well, they speak through me. It's different."

"But they could help us!" the Avatar said. "They could give us the strength that we need to force the Fire Nation away."

"Don't you think I've been trying?" Yue asked, her voice strained. "I've been shouting at them for the last few hours, but they aren't listening. Aang, I don't know how to contact them."

Aang contemplated a moment, but then he looked back up. "Is there a place, like, a particularly spiritual place that you...?"

"The Spirit Oasis!" Sokka interrupted. All eyes turned to him. Some with annoyance, some with simple confusion. "Yue, you told me that when you were born, you were placed in some Spirit Oasis, and that the spirits brought you back. Where was that?"

"The Avatar is the bridge between the worlds," Katara said. "Maybe he can contact them when you can't?"

"And they could give us the wisdom to win the battle!" Yue said, her voice full of hope.

"Or unleash a crazy amazing spirit attack and wipe out the Fire Nation!" Sokka offered. All eyes turned to him, in utter silence. Somewhere, from where Sokka could not tell, a single cough was heard above the deafening silence. "Or wisdom. Wisdom's good, too."

"Follow me," Yue said. She ran off into the night, north past the palace and into the rough hewn and uncultivated stone. Sokka was close beside her, even as his body begged for some rest. The others did not lag. After the long run, she came upon a small door in the side of the stone. "This is the most spiritual place in the North. Possibly, the entire world."

The scene within was one of abject natural splendor. After a short, curving path, and a short wooden bridge, there was a tiny circular island in the midst of a cave lake. Despite the bleak and unforgiving weather, there was warmth, and light. The water inside the island seemed to glow of its own, and a tree leaned close over the waters. Aang got a big smile on his face and threw himself onto the grass growing on the island.

"I never thought I'd miss grass so much," he said, rolling around in it like a fox.

Katara pulled her coat over her head, and walked forward to the island. "How is this possible?"

"All of the spiritual energy of this land flows through this one point, before moving out into the city, and beyond, into the ocean. It's said that this is one of the few places where the physical and spirit worlds naturally touch," she said. Sokka leaned over and saw two fish swimming in the pond in lazy circles.

"I see what you mean," Aang said, sitting down under the tree. He closed his eyes. "It's so tranquil."

Silence reigned. Aang became still and silent, as Sokka washed off some of the sweat on his arms and face in the water outside the island. He tasted it. It was briny. Weird. Finally, Sokka sat back against a rock, and waited. Yue's curiosity finally got the better of her, though. "Why is he sitting like that?" she asked.

"He's meditating. Trying to cross over into the spirit world. It takes a lot of effort," she said.

"Only if you want to," Sokka said. "If you don't, it's easy as can be."

"Oh, please, you said you didn't remember anything about being in the spirit world."
"'Said'," Sokka countered. He remembered. He remembered that yellow sky and that impossible terrain. The strange and fearsome things. He remembered the sounds, the smells. He remembered that there was no safe place to go to the bathroom. Katara gave him a confused look.

"Is there any way we can help?" Yue asked.

"How about some quiet?" Aang asked, annoyed. "I can hear everything you people say."

"Sorry, sorry," Katara said. Even Yue looked a little shame-faced. Sokka kept watching Yue. She was so beautiful. And he could never have her. It tore him apart with every breath. Her pale hair and lovely face haunted his dreams. And that was all they could ever have. Dreams. Suddenly, Aang's face became solemn, and his fists slammed together. The tattoos on his head and hands began to glow white.

"What's happening to him?" Yue asked.

"He's in the Avatar State," Katara said. "They're showing him how to cross into the spirit world."

"What will happen to him?" Yue asked.

"Oh, he'll be fine, unless some idiot moves his body," Sokka said. "Can't come back to the world if you lose your body."

Yue looked at her hands, then back at the Avatar. "I think we should call some guards. He's too vulnerable here."

"Don't worry. No matter what comes," Katara said, "I will protect him."

A gout of flame surged from the path, and Katara just managed to get a shield of water in the way before it landed. Sokka bolted to his feet, putting himself in front of Yue. A figure in white clothes walked down the path. Sokka didn't recognize him, until he started to speak.

"Well, aren't you a big girl, now?" came Zuko's voice in Tianxia.

"No!" Katara whispered. Zuko finally came into the light. He was not what Sokka expected. His face was altered completely, with a thin beard and short hair. He was almost unrecognizable as the person who had been chasing them for a year.

"Yes!" Zuko exclaimed. "Hand him over, little lady, and I promise you, I won't hurt you."

"If you want him so badly, come and get him," Katara said. She pulled up the water from the brackish stream into a pair of tentacles which waved from her arms.

Sokka turned to Yue. "We need to get out of here!" he said. "There are probably more coming!"

Yue looked at them for another moment, then back to Sokka, before nodding, and following him as he made a way deeper into the cave, toward a draft. Toward the surface. Away from the impossible glory of the Spirit Oasis.

"I see you've picked up some new tricks," Zuko said. "But don't think you can stand in my way."

She tried her hardest, though. She sent forth attack after attack, and suddenly he was on the defensive. He tried to power through it, but everything his tutors taught him about firebending related to attack; they said nothing about how to turn the momentum of an engagement, how to counterattack, how to defend. He was forced back, his attempts at overpowering her growing feebler and feebler, until she had him completely encased in water which she snap froze.

She walked forward and said something. He couldn't tell what, since she was on the other side of a case of ice. He could feel the cold reaching its insidious tendrils into him. No. He refused. He called forth a breath, just like Uncle always told him to. It popped out a section of ice, which flowed away, freeing his mouth.

"The peasant got herself a master, did she?" he asked. He tried something unorthodox. He directed that heat he felt with his breath throughout his body. The ice cracked and split, and he heaved his way out with a shattering of shards. "Pity he didn't teach you bett– whoa!"

Even before he could finish the word, the girl had turned and was attacking him again. What had happened to this girl? She was a pushover when she faced him the first time, barely able to get out of her own way. Had a year changed her so much? Uncle sprang to mind, and he began to try another approach. Instead of trying to attack through her offense, he tried cutting it apart. This had better results, but it only brought a look of first annoyance, then rage, then utter hatred to the girl's face. Katara surged forward one more time, with a strike which knocked Zuko into the water. He felt an irresistible force hauling him upward, and then snapping solid, his head craned back, his arms out to the side. Helpless.

"I am the last waterbender of the Southern Tribe," Katara said, her voice a touch raw. "I am Katara, the daughter of Kya and Hakoda, granddaughter of Kana. I am protector of the Avatar, teacher of the Avatar. And you? You're just a footnote in history."

Zuko breathed out. It was over. He failed. Completely and utterly. He opened his eyes again, staring up into the heavens. The sky wasn't black anymore. It was turning red. The sun was rising. He breathed faster, deeper, pulling the chi from deep within himself. He directed it outward, and he felt himself sliding out of the prison she had made. He landed on the ground, and Katara's eyes went wide. She bent a wide column of water and sent it raging toward him. He clapped his hand together, extending that chi beyond his fingertips. The column split along that chi, flying past him, even as he struggled against its heft. He stepped forward. Again. Again, and again, each as arduous as the last. He didn't care. She stared, panic now on her features, as he walked right up to her, splitting her strongest attack around him as he did. She broke off, and prepared to do something else, but Zuko moved faster.

A palm strike to the middle of her chest, and she careened into the side of the tree. She lay on the ground, groaning. He lifted her head by her hair, leaning very close to her face. "Listen very closely, waterbender," he whispered. "You set with the moon. I rise with the sun."

She slumped, insensate, to the grass. He moved to the Avatar. Aang. The boy upon whom Zuko's entire destiny rested. He felt a shudder run through him. A tear welled in his good eye, which he forced down quickly. Zuko had him. Zuko had won. Zuko had the Avatar.