Ever expect something to go very, very badly, and find yourself surprised when it actually ends up worse? Iroh's not having a good day.
Zhao smashed open the tiny door with a blast of flame, and ducked into the opening into the side of the rock. Iroh, frowning at Zhao's display, followed after, a few steps behind. It had taken most of the day to fight their way up from the city to the courtyard of the palace. From there, a small group cut deeper, sliding past the defenses to the wall of the North Pole's vaunted Spirit Oasis. And now, everything was so close. It had been forty years since he saw this place last. Now, the grimmest of his visions was coming to fruition. Just his once, he begged the spirits, let his visions be wrong. Let there be another way.
"Here they are. 'The great spirits of the moon and sea'," Zhao laughed. He stooped down next to the water and ran his fingers through it. "Of course, they have the nicest, warmest pond in this Agni forsaken Hell-hole."
"Zhao, please reconsider this. There is another way." Iroh said.
"Silence, old man!" A cruel grin grew on his face. "It's time to go fishing."
Zhao's hand shot into the water and returned, a viper-strike which ended with the white koi in his hands. He held it up to the sky, and began to laugh as it flopped and squirmed, but then stopped as it began to air-drown. The light from the moon went from pristine white to a blood red.
"Zhao, I beg you. I implore you. Stop this madness before it's too late! Please!" Iroh begged.
Zhao just turned and jabbed a finger hard into Iroh's gut. It landed right on the hard surface of the spirit scroll which Iroh had stolen. The grin turned from insane, to insanely patronizing. "Oh, General Iroh. Ask me if I find any surprise in your treachery?" He laughed again. "Take him into custody, men. I am a legend, now. I am Zhao the Conquerer. I am Zhao the Moon-slayer. I am ZHAO THE INVICIBLE!"
The firebenders grabbed Iroh's arms and pulled him back, but Iroh could tell, even behind their death's-head masks, they were deeply unsettled by Zhao's behavior. His laughter continued until something black and white shot out of the sky and knocked the fish out of his hand and back into the pond.
"What is this sorcery?" Zhao roared. It was no sorcery, just a winged lemur, who chattered from the tree. Iroh wasn't going to say anything, though. The boy in the orange robes soared down into the oasis, landing opposite Zhao on the ring. Everything was here. The time was now.
"You have to stop this," the Avatar said, pointing his staff at Zhao. "If you destroy the Moon, then you won't just be hurting the Water Tribe. You'll be unbalancing the entire world!"
"What do I care about balance?" Zhao said. "It was always my destiny to destroy the moon and the Water Tribes. Not one more step, Avatar, or I destroy it where it floats!" Zhao leveled a hand toward them. Please, Iroh asked. Let me be wrong. Let this vision be inaccurate.
"You have no idea the kind of chaos you are trying to unleash," the Avatar said quietly.
"He's right," Iroh said. "When I was young, I came to this place, desperate to fight a destiny I had been shown. What I learned here went against everything I had ever learned as Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, but it showed me why I had always been plagued by madness and anger. Zhao, please. Don't do this. There are things these spirits can show you. They can show you a new way, a better way. They can show you how to live without hatred and avarice."
"You and your precious balance. Not just a traitor, but a heretic, then?" Zhao taunted.
Iroh took a deep breath, then twisted his hands in his captor's grasp. He channeled a fire-blast in the way that few ever could, turning heat into a shockwave, blasting the firebenders behind him away without doing any real harm to them. His hands snapped forward again, and his eyes took on a hard, angry sheen. "Step away from the pond, Zhao. Any harm which you do to those spirits will be returned to you tenfold!"
Zhao's smile returned. Iroh's heart sank. It was too late. He was gone. "It's fitting that you're here, in front of your heathen gods, Iroh. Because today," his grin stretched lunatic wide. "WE ARE GODS!"
And Iroh was surprised at what happened. He had hoped so desperately that his vision would be wrong, and it was. He foresaw a burst of flame, and that Tui would be struck down. But that was not what happened. Instead of a burst, a roiling pillar of flame smashed into the water. Iroh's eyes went wide, and he dropped to his knees. The moon went from red, to black, vanished completely from the heavens. Tears began to run freely from Iroh's eyes as he looked into the pond, and beheld the two, dead koi, charred almost beyond recognition, sinking into the deep.
There was a flurry of activity around Iroh, but he couldn't see it. All he could do was watch as the Koi dissolved into motes of spirit-stuff. He had been wrong, but in the worst possible way. Eventually, he became aware that more had entered the Spirit Oasis. The great beast Appa, and its load of passengers, descended onto the island. One, a girl with white hair, was staggering, supported by a wiry young man. "What happened here?" the girl asked, her voice unsteady. There was blood dripping from her ears and nose.
"They're dead," Iroh whispered, not quite able to believe it. "Zhao killed them both."
Katara, the waterbender, saw Iroh and made a waterbending form, but nothing happened. She tried again, but there was naught. She looked up, and realized what had happened. The moon was gone, and with it all waterbending. But that wasn't the worst of it. "Katara, what is this?" the boy asked. He dipped his hand into the water outside the island, and it came back up slick and chunky. Iroh tested it himself. The water outside the Spirit Oasis... it wasn't water anymore. It was clear, and it flowed, somewhat, but it had the viscosity of molasses, and held thick, transluscent chunks. Iroh unsteadily walked to the door, and looked out at the city. Every building not made of stone was beginning to sag and droop, the ice of its construction no longer truly ice.
"What's happening?" Katara asked again.
"A very long time ago," Iroh said. "Before the bending arts began, possibly before humanity came upon this Earth, the world had two moons. They were not like this one. They were smaller, and were not spirits, but actual things, like this world but revolving around us in the sky. Then a cataclysm came, and the moons were stripped away," he said. He sat down on the edge of the spirit oasis, and dangled his feet into the last real water on the planet. "But the worlda already had spirits, spirits which wanted the physical world to continue. Some parts of the heavens, like our sun Agni, already had spirits within them. So, following those examples, some of the spirits entered this world, and became the Moon, the sea, the sky."
"And then, they came to this place, taking on mortal bodies, to give the gift of waterbending to the Tribes," Katara said.
"Not even close," Iroh said. "Waterbending existed long before Tui and La descended. But the two couldn't be apart, and came together. And they died together. Tomorrow, every drop of water in the ocean will be like that," he pointed to the slime that now oozed down the waterfall and flowed away from the oasis. "Every drop of water that flows from the rivers into the sea will become like it. Undrinkable, non-buoyant, useless. In a year, this will be the only drinkable water in the entire world," Iroh said sadly. "I thought I could stop him. I was wrong. I was so wrong."
Katara sat down on the grass, her eyes blank. Iroh understood completely. The Avatar, though, didn't believe the gravity yet. "There must be something we can do."
"There might be," the white-haired girl said. She was unsteady, but her voice held a quiet strength. "When I was born, they gave me to the spirits, and they invested a part of themselves in me. I was marked. I think I finally understand why."
"Yue, what do you mean?" the boy, Sokka, asked.
She looked at him, and with tears running with streamlets of blood, she gave him a forced smile. "I'm so sorry, Sokka. This is my last duty to my people."
Sokka forced a smile, too, and the two touched their foreheads together for a long moment. She then began to shrug her way out of her robes. Aang quickly turned away, but the others didn't. Sokka walked into the pool, supporting her unsteady form. Iroh couldn't help but marvel at the circularity. Forty years, and somebody was swimming with the spirits once again.
"Nothing's happening," she said, staring at the sky.
"Yue, look down," Sokka said. When she did, she saw what the others did. He was up to his waist in the water, but she was standing on its surface. She gasped, then looked at the boy.
"I'm scared," she said quietly. "I don't want to go."
"I'm right here, Yue," Sokka said. His voice was cracking, and tears ran down his face. She smiled. The color began to separate from her, to lift away from her. Her naked form began to look less like flesh and more like an exquisite carving in clearest ice. Her hollowed form leaned down and kissed Sokka one last time, before it began to flow down into the waters of the Spirit Oasis. And a figure, somewhat like the girl, but radiant and glowing white, ascended into the heavens. A full Moon appeared above the Oasis, and the sickening, splattering plop of the waterfall returned to the rushing sounds of true water.
"What are we going to do now?" Katara asked. Iroh glanced over, and felt himself inch back when he saw the boy, Aang. The Avatar. His eyes and mouth glowed with a blue light, and he stood over the deepest part of the oasis. This was the Avatar State in action. In a voice full up of the outrage and hatred of a thousand lives, he spoke.
"I'm going to break the siege," they said. And with that, he shot below the water. The substance which was once not-water began to glow a strange blue, and it flowed out toward the sea. All eyes were on the Avatar, so Iroh took advantage. He quickly walked over to Appa's side, and patted the beast gently. It grunted lightly and otherwise ignored him, as he clambered up and pulled Zuko to the ground. The boy looked even more hurt than usual, but he would survive. Zuko would survive. His visions were not perfect, but they showed him that.
Zhao walked through the city, marveling in what he had created. The once great structures of the Northern Water Tribe could no longer support their own weight. But in the back of his mind, something horrified him. He reached down into the canals, which ran straight into the sea. The hand came back slick with some sort of mucus. And in the canals ships were beginning to sink, as though the water could no longer support them.
"No. NO! I am Zhao the Invincible! I am victorious!" he shouted as he ran to a bridge which rose higher than any other. It shifted and warped under his feet, but he didn't care. He watched as his ships began to flounder. Then, suddenly, there was light again. The moon held itself in the heavens. Impossible! He had slain the moon spirit! A blue light issued from the water, and a figure appeared on the walls. Not a figure. A monstrosity. It lashed out at the ships, smashing them to pieces in the arctic waters. All of their attempts to attack it fell flat, and it mowed through them. A hundred ships. No, fifty. Twenty. Its wrath was complete and it was brutal. And as quickly as it started, it came to an end.
"There he is!" Zuko's voice came from the darkness. Zhao turned, his eyes watering. Impossible. Zuko was dead. The Dark Prince was dead. But here he was. He leaned against his rotund uncle, unable to fully support himself, but there was no mistaking that facial scar, those eyes. "We have to kill him. He knows too much about us."
"No, Prince Zuko," Iroh said. His eyes were on Zhao, and they were pitiless. Merciless. "He has already died. He just doesn't know it yet," A smile came to Iroh's face. When he spoke it was in Uou, the language of the spirits. "I once asked a spirit for visions of the future, Zhao. I didn't understand the price I would have to pay, then. And now, looking back, I would pay it again. There is a cost to everything worth having. You tried to have it all, and pay for none of it. What happens next, is the universe demanding its due."
He scowled and he cast out a hand, directing a bolt of fire at the two. Iroh clasped his hands together, an the attack was split away. Zhao prepared another, but his hand was caught behind him. He glanced back. That glowing water was now directly underneath the bridge, and it had his arm. He tried to fight it, but it had him firmly. With strength of a thousand men, it hauled him from the bridge. The last thing he ever saw, was Zuko, hobbling toward him, his arm outstretched.
...but Zhao's having a worse one.