Here's the new chapter. I thank all of those who reviewed. Please spread the word so that more people may read it. I hope that you all are enjoying the story so far and will continue to review. I have basket ball practice going on and our first game begins 5 days from when this is posted. However, I'll try to write as much as possible during my down time. And without further ado, here is the newest chapter to Method to the Madness.
Lockdown.
It is the phrase used by some which describes the confining of prisoners, or patients, to their cells, as following a riot or other disturbance. Lockdown also describes the process of events to which a high place of security, such as a mental hospital, would go through to keep the prisoners, or patients, locked up. No one goes in and no one goes out. It is completely shut down for a period of time.
And for Republic city mental care, they take lock up to the extreme.
Millions of patients are suddenly thrust back into their rooms, with a personal guard standing by their door. Many personal are told to wait in a secluded area of the hospital, for their own personal care.
But in order for a Lockdown to happen, an order must be given by a high official. It doesn't matter who the person is or high they are in the political system, if they send a letter describing a reason for an immediate lockdown of the hospital, the go code is initiated, and lockdown begins.
So who would want to lock up republic city hospital, so early in the morning?
That person would be a fire lord by the name of Zuko.
When Zuko awoke and received his "Gift," he immediately did three things. 1.) He screamed in horror; awakening his wife, who also exclaimed a gasp of fear and utter shock. 2.) He and his wife immediately woke up everyone who was staying at the castle (this being Aang, Soka, Katara, Suki, and Toph) and issued them for an immediate search and seizure of the palace. When it was discovered that there were no traces of his sister in or around the palace, Zuko decided that it would be best to order an emergency visit to Republic City hospital.
Why would Zuko want to go the source of this chaos you may ask?
The death of Ty Lee was a personal blow to everyone. It not only shocked the gang, but angered them as well. A fiery rage burned in Zuko's heart at the death of a close personal friend. Animosity filled his heart and his head became filled with dark thoughts of anger. And he had many questions rising in his mind as he contemplated a good way to string these questions. There was only one person to answer these questions. And that person was out and about somewhere, ready to kill.
Azula.
The last thing that Zuko did, after he discovered the body, and got the gang to get on Appa, was he sent a letter to the hospital using his messenger hawk. Knowing that the hawk was smaller, and thus, a much faster flyer, Zuko calculated that the hawk would arrive at the hospital 2 hours before they would on Appa. He wrote a message out to all of the public officials of the asylum. It was an urgent message, filled with tension and paranoia.
It simply said "My sister has escaped! She can be anywhere, including the hospital. She may even harm the inhabitants inside it. Put the place on lock down! Now!"
Zuko attached his message on the bird, and then sent it to the hospital. Afterwards, Zuko immediately hopped on Appa, and he, Aang, and the rest of the crew flew expeditiously to republic city hospital.
As estimated, the hawk arrived at the hospital about two hours before the group did. When they arrived in the later afternoon, most of the place was empty and uninhabited by outside officials. It was vacant and desalinate, as if the apocalypse had happened in this confined space. This was not out of the ordinary; since the place was suppose to be locked up tight. Just as protocol, when the place was on lockdown, the only outside guard would be a man in tall stature, standing behind a door, opening a slit to ask for a password.
Zuko politely gave the password, which was immediately recognized by the man behind the door, and he was let on in.
Once inside, another guard came up to them, and politely bowed before them. Then he opened his mouth and bestowed the biggest piece of confusion that settled on their minds.
Apparently, Azula never even left the hospital. It was reported by several hospital staff and guards, that when the order was commissioned to conduct the search for Azula, she was in her room, silently sleeping. As Zuko added up the information entering his skull, he came to this conclusion. Azula, after killing Ty Lee and leaving the note, must have returned back to her room and decided to nap. It was the logical conclusion, but it was so confusing and illogical for a person not to escape, it almost seemed impossible. It left Zuko confused. Millions of questions arose in his head all at once; giving him a migraine.
Why didn't Azula try to escape? Why didn't she try to kill him, if she saw him sleeping? And did she feel any remorse for killing a close friend of the past?
But what confused the fire lord the most, and left him the most bewildered and flabbergasted, wasa small token of information that the guard told him after the initial message. The guard told him that Azula was now heavily confined in a room; bond to a straight jacket, and a guard with Mailto was present in the room with her.
And she asked if she could speak to her brother.
Strait Jackets were defiantly not Azula's cup of tea. She hated how it caused her to be constricted. She hated how it caused her arms to get tangled up; how it cause one arm to fold over the other. She hated the bland white color. She hated how tight strait jackets really were. And she epically was furious about strait jackets, when one was placed on her.
She grunted and snorted in dislike. She hated being in this room. She was unenthusiastic about the fact that she was now sitting on the floor, and wasn't provided a chair. She believed that it was Mailto that was the cause for all her discomfort. He gave her a dirty look that she never received from him before. He had the eyes of disgust, and the face of disappointment. Azula thought that because of this look that was present on his face, he was the reason that she wasn't provided a chair. He was the reason that there was now an unknown guard in the room with her. And he was the reason for the hideous and loathsome strait jacket.
So leaning forward from the floor a bit, and not getting up off the ground, she asked him.
"Is this really necessary?" She exclaimed sardonically.
"The guard, or the straight jacket" Mailto replied viciously.
Azula looked around the room for a minute, as if she were thinking about the question. After eyeballing the guard for a good ten seconds, she sighed in discomfort and frustration.
"Both?" she prompted.
Mailto sighed with irritation apparent in his tone.
"You're tied up in a strait jacket because of the advents you pulled last night." Mailto explained. "The guard, Boulder, is here due to protocol. We are waiting for the arrival of your brother."
And as if on cue, a loud slam was heard not too far from the room. Mailto turned his head to the source of the sound. Behind him was the door, and looking through the small horizontal window, he noticed Zuko, steaming and furiously walking towards the door. Azula didn't even have to look up to know it was Zuko. She just knew it by heart that it had to be Zuko who was so pissed off.
"Speaking of…" Azula remarked.
At that moment, Zuko went through the door, never once keeping his eyes off Azula. They blared with rage. He was now in a dimension of anger that Azula never noticed before in her life. As Zuko slammed the door shut behind him, he stopped in the middle of the room, and looked at Mailto.
"Is the whole room secured?" He asked.
"Yes sir," Mailto replied.
"And did you search her for weapons?"
"She's clean when we placed the jacket on her. And there is no possible way that she can escape the jacket."
Zuko gave forth a slight nod in Mailto's direction. It was a nod of gratitude that told Mailto that Zuko was grateful for doing his job. Then he snapped his head towards Azula. He bent his knees so that he could look her dead in the eyes. This was a move that if any normal person had done to Azula, was bold and scary. Zuko however, was filled with a passionate anger that pulsed through his body. Reasoning was left out. The only thing that was in was mind right now, was to make sure that his message got across to Azula. And that message was filled with anger.
"We need to talk about what happened last night." Zuko proclaimed. "I demand an explanation."
Azula bit her lower lip, and got an off distant look in her twitchy eyes. It looked like she was thinking about what Zuko said, as if she had no clue to what he was referring to. Suddenly, her mouth gapped open, her eyes widen, and she exclaimed an "oh," in discovery. Her face went forward as she remembered.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "So you got your gift."
Zuko's fist shook with fury. "Are you expecting me to say thank you for the dead body in my closet!" he loudly exclaimed.
"I'm not offended by postage." Azula smiled.
"We cannot tolerate this kind of behavior." Mailto stated from the back. "This gets us nowhere, and is proof that your mental health is deteriorating at a much faster pace. We can't have this."
Azula looked up as she licked her lips and twitched. She rolled her eyes in disappointment and sighed angry. She acted like a child who was being persecuted by her parents. "Fine, fine." She exclaimed like a spoiled brat. "No more dead Ty Lee's."
She then turned her head and eyeballed Boulder. "Dead Boulder's on the other hand…."
The body guard shoved her body a few inches away from him, noticing that she was starting to stand. "Stay on the floor," Boulder commanded.
Azula gave the bodyguard a disapproving scowl. Then she turned her eyes on Zuko, who was now standing, facing his back to her, and looking like he was about to pull his hair out. When he turned around, the frustration was nothing shy of over the top.
"Do you have any idea of how this is going to affect you?" Zuko practically screamed. "I can choose to have you executed right now on the spot. But you're lucky that I have some sense in my skull, unlike you, and I'm going to wait till the end of the week to make my decision. It's the right thing to do, and it would be something that our father would never do; and to not be my father is something I strive to be."" Zuko then stood up, calmed himself down, and crossed his arms. "Now, I have some questions that I'm going to ask you. And when I ask you these questions, you are going to give me a straight forward answer. Got that?"
Azula blew a strand of hair out of her face, and then gave Zuko a ready and resentful face, that symbolized she wasn't scared of him or his power. She was rebellions and destructive by heart "Okay, shoot." She replied, with a snotty tone in her voice.
"Firstly, how come when you were placed in this room, did you ask for me?" Zuko began.
Azula flashed Zuko an evil grin. And although Zuko looked all too serious on the outside to be frighten, on the inside it was a much different story.
"I didn't want you," Azula stated. "I wanted to see how you would react. And so far, you didn't disappoint. Anger, frustration, over self confidence and fear; it's like having an afternoon dinner and a show." And with that, she flashed her teeth in an insane manner.
Zuko turned his head to Mailto, as if to ask for an explanation to his sister's answer. Mailto gave him a look of laziness. It seemed as if Mailto was saying that she did this all the time, and that he honestly had no clue why she was acting like this. Zuko turned his head back to his sister.
"Okay, second question." Zuko began. "You said in the note that you saw me while I was sleeping."
"I most certainly did." Azula said as she leaned back against the wall. "You looked just like a baby; peacefully sleeping." Her expression then lowered itself to disgust. "I hated it!"
"Well, if you hate me as much as you do, then why didn't you try to kill me?"
Her reaction to this question, was so insane, so out of control, and so over the top, that it sent a vibration of immediate shock and fear up the spines of everyman in the room; including Boulder. She started bouncing off the floor, her whole body was quaking. She was laughing. It was an uncontrollable snorting laughter. And at one point, she started coughing due to lack of oxygen.
"Kill you?" She exclaimed with a cork in her brow as she continued to laugh. "Why would I want to kill you? What would happen to me then? What would I do without you Zuzu." Then she had an evil smile as she looked like she was contemplating. "Do you honestly think I'd go back to becoming a hired assassin? No, no, no. Zuko, as much as we hate each other, we complete each other. Zuko, you complete me."
"You're garbage that kills for money." Zuko replied with a monotone; as if he was stating fact.
Suddenly, Azula got vicious. Her teeth gnashed as she screamed out her next sentence. A small burst of flame flew out, and lighting danced in her eyes.
"DON'T TALK TO ME LIKE YOU'RE ONE OF THEM ZUZU! YOU'RE NOT!" then suddenly, after scaring most of the men in the room (although Zuko still remained firm) she calmed herself down and leaned her back up against the wall behind her. "You're not one of them, even if you'd like to be." She stated with a smile. "You see, to them, you're just a freak…..like me! And they'll keep you for now. They need you to lead them." Then she got a foreshadowing grin on her face, like a mother does to a child when she is reminding him on a key factoid. "But when they don't…." she sang. "They're going to cast you out…..like a leper. You see. Their code, their quote unquote 'rules,'…..it's a bit of a bad joke. Drop at the first sign of trouble? Please." Then she got a serious look on her face. "Mother was wrong Zuko. I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve."
Zuko again flashed his eyes towards Mailto. But this time, his eyes were deepened with sadness and disappointment. He couldn't believe how bad his sister had become. She was no longer a monster; that was certain. She was now worst than a monster. She was a radical Idealist. And she was the perfect leader for a rebellion. He had now grown confused in his heart, with this new information. This would affect his decision greatly. But, shaking it off, he refocused on Azula and asked his third question.
"Thirdly," Zuko said. "Did you feel any remorse for Killing Ty Lee? Anything at all?" he exclaimed.
She gave Zuko a confused look from the floor, as one eye brow raised over the other. "Why would I feel that?" she asked flabbergasted.
Mailto walked over to Zuko, and spoke to him directly. "Zuko, if that's the case then that means her subconscious is not only repressed but-"
"MY SUBCONCIOUS!" Azula screamed in agony; interrupting the two, for she could fully hear the conversation. "My subconscious…..you don't want to even know what my subconscious brews up."
Mailto and Zuko looked at Azula. They both had some minor fear in their eyes, but they mostly looked like they were analyzing. They looked like as if they were trying to either accept or reject Azula's plea to not study her. With a forceful shake of their heads, they decided not to dwell on what Azula said.
Finally, it came down to the last question.
"Why didn't you try to escape after you got out of your cell?" Zuko asked.
Azula glanced back at Boulder, who was standing at attention, facing Zuko and Mailto. She gave him what was neither a scowl nor a smile, but a strange abysses of somewhere in between. She then looked back at Zuko and Mailto, and leaned forward a bit, and kept one hand cupped over her mouth; whispering.
"I'll tell you everything you need to know," Azula began quietly. "If you get rid of the ape over here." As she said the word ape, her eyes twitched towards boulder.
Zuko glanced between his sister and Boulder. He held his finger and his thumb between his chin, and stroked it as he started to think. After a long period of silence, Zuko came to a conclusion. He looked towards boulder, who held his shoulders back and stood upright.
"Boulder, your presence is no longer needed." Zuko exclaimed.
"But master fire lord," Boulder began. "It's says under protocol that-"
"Forget protocol." Zuko retaliated. "This is a direct order. Please go outside."
Boulder took a look between Zuko and Azula. He looked shocked. At one hand, it was protocol to stay with a prisoner during lockdown. On the other hand, it was a direct order. And even though boulder lived in the earth kingdom, disobeying a direct order from the fire lord could lead to dire consequences. So with a shrug, Boulder started walking towards the door. When he passed Zuko, he whispered into his ear to "be careful" and then he was out of the room.
After watching the guard leave, Zuko and Mailto turned their heads back towards Azula, waiting for her to begin her reply. With a nasty grin, she started to speak.
"I didn't want to escape," she said with a grin. "I love this place. Free food, free company, free housing, and I get to watch the crazies pour in. Besides, last night Zuko, another reason for which I came back, was because I wasn't escaping just to kill Ty Lee. I got out of here to help you."
A strange and bewildered look was present on the fire lord's face. "Help me?" Zuko said while cocking a brow. The anger was now becoming more apparent by each word.
"Well of course," Azula exclaimed with a smile. "This is therapy, after all."
"I'm not the one who needs help." Zuko proclaimed.
"Neither do I," Mailto said.
"Come, come now." Azula said with big puppy dog eyes. Her voice started getting considerate; as if she were talking to a pet. Her face was still accompanied by the smile of curiosity. "Don't talk like that. Everyone needs help at some point."
"And right now it's you." Mailto began. "Zuko and Aang have been here since the very begging. Zuko has to choose at the end of the week whether to put you away, or to execute you. And if you keep doing things like this, your chances of only getting banished are getting more and more slim."
As Azula was listening to Mailto's argument against her, she slowly started to frown. By the end of Mailto's spiel, her face was now a dreadful, disgusted scowl. Hate was blaring out of her vocal chords as she breathed heavily like an animal.
Suddenly, she violently thrust her head back against the wall. A loud BANG bounced across the walls of the room. Zuko and Mailto literally jumped when she did this. Zuko even let out a tiny yelp in fear. Behind Azula's head was a large crack in the rock walling behind her. And from the red substance on the floor behind her, Zuko could tell that the back of her head was bleeding.
She stared at Mailto with animalistic eyes of rage.
"Why are you still here?" she asked mad through gritted teeth. The blood behind her head was now streaming around her neck, adding to the hatred.
Mailto was completely overwhelmed by the question. There was never a point in his life that left him as confused as this moment was now. He was also a bit shook up from Azula's strange actions before. So when he replied, he stuttered.
"Um…..I'm your doctor?" he said.
She still stared at him with all her fury. Her eyes were blazing with the souls of the damned. She looked like she was going to rip Mailto's throat out.
"If this were a normal relationship," Azula exclaimed darkly. "This would be the moment where you would pack up, change locks, and get out." Then, she started to lighten up, although the change was very little, if none at all. "Now, in the beginning Mailto, I completely understood you. The fame and the recognition you would have received if you cured me would have been tremendous. People all around the world would have known your name. You could have been a star. And the respect of your colleges would be admirable." Then she turned her head towards her brother. "And Zuko, I completely understand you as well. You're just a brother trying to help out a sibling. And that I can sympathize with."
Then she gritted on side of her teeth, as if she was trying to be vague. It was as if she was trying to keep a secret, and it was completely in a sarcastic manner. "But in case you haven't noticed, Ty Lee's dead because of you two."
This was the straw that broke the camel's back. Zuko's face stretched itself into a form of rage. And he screamed. "YOU ARE NOT HOLDING US-"
"Responsible?" Azula inquired while smiling. Suddenly, she began to laugh again. "You know Zuzu, I think it's rather cute that after all these years, we still have a brother and sister bond. I mean afterall, we still finish each other's sentences."
Zuko got down from his high point. During his screaming, he was literally standing on his tip toes as his voice raged higher. He started standing still. His eyes blared in anger. His face was disgusted. He now officially hated her. He now wanted her gone. He wanted her to only be a bad dream. He wanted to wake up from this nightmare, and have her be no more.
"You're unbearable." Zuko stated low and disgusted.
Azula's face suddenly beamed. It was as if she received information. It looked as if she discovered something amazing, or that if she was enlighten on a certain area in her life. Her eyes twitched about in her head as she fully remembered something. She started swaying back and forth as her mind reeled in scenes. She then began to lick her lips and speak.
"You know what Zuzu, Mailto; that reminds me of two dreams that I had while I was asleep earlier today." She commented. "The first dream I had, Mailto was there."She said. "It also had Aang and Sokka in it too." Then her face started blushing bright red. "I can't really get into details about this dream; noting how inappropriate it would be to bring it up right now. All I can say is, a sticky white substance was involved." Then she shook her head, like an animal shakes its fur to dry. "The second dream I had," she proclaimed. "Had me in it. And in this one, I go air bison hunting." There was a strange period of silence after she proclaimed what her second dream was about. "Aang's bison," she confirmed. "I mean, where else am I going to find an Air Bison." Then she leaned back, and began telling the story of her dream.
"I track Aang down to this strange pasture. And it isn't long till I spot Appa, big and proud and fluffy; eating grass and yawning. I take aim at him with my fingers…..and…BLAM!...I get a lightning bolt dead on the center of his neck. Appa falls down like a ton of bricks. And he's dead all right. So I walk over there, and I gut the beast. The steam is rising from his stomach, and I can feel the creature's intestines in my hands. Then, I look back down…..and that's when things go horribly, horribly, wrong. I suddenly realize 'wait. That's not an air bison. That's a man dressed up as an air bison! And this isn't a pasture. This is a park!' and there are kids screaming and running in terror. Parents start calling for guards to arrest me. And I first I feel the urge to flee, and then I think 'well…..why stop now. I already gutted him.' So I take the human body back to a tent I have out in the woods. And I skin the man. And I make a little rug out of his skin…it's a nice little rug…..just….sitting by the fire place…a human rug….and that's when I woke up."
The dread that filled the atmosphere was too epic to describe in words. Zuko felt fear in his heart. His pulse went up 100 percent. His heart started beating faster. His eyes widen. Zuko would admit that he was afraid. But could you blame the poor fire lord. He was standing in front of a woman who wouldn't mind having human skin accompany the floor of her home. Zuko was terribly frightened.
Mailto was horrified as well. But out of the ashes of his fear, came the repulsed anger he had at Azula's behavior. He was exacerbated and deathly angry at Azula. She had no clue what she was getting herself into.
"Is this a game to you?" Mailto asked darkly.
Azula replied by giving him the puppy dog eyes.
He lost it. The anger was already at breaking point. The thin ice keeping him from falling into anger was already cracking. Azula's actions were like if a large safe came crashing down on the ice, causing it to crumble under pressure. And Mailto was now suddenly submerged in his anger. There was nothing holding him back. And he uncorked a bottle of righteous fury that even he was unaware that he had.
"Now I have risked EVERYTHING!" Mailto screamed. "I HAD TO FIGHT FOR MY JOB AND THESE SESSIONS. IF I FAIL, YOU EITHER LIVE OR DIE. GOOD FOR YOU, YOUR DESTINY IS SEALED. BUT WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE ME AZULA! HUH! WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE ME. EVEN IF YOU END UP STAYING HERE, THEY'LL JUST THROW YOU TO THE NEXT DOCTOR IN LINE. I'LL LOSE MY JOB IF I DON'T CURE YOU! WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE THIS! WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION AZULA! HUH! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!"
It was at this point, out of nowhere, Sokka opened the door behind them. The immediate sound of chaos filled the room. Mailto and Zuko turned their head behind them. Sokka and boulder stood in the door way, holding the door open. Behind Sokka, a stampede of people was running down the left of the hallway. Sokka was breathing heavily, and his face was that of fear, and anxiety. He was in panic mode.
"We need to get you out of here, now!" Boulder proclaimed.
"What seems to be the trouble?" Zuko asked.
"Remember Carmine, Azula's friend; three cells down," Sokka began, as he hyperventilated. "During the lockdown, one of the nurses found Carmine dead. His body was skinned! Like he was some sort of animal rug!"
Zuko and Mailto's eyes immediately widen. They turned towards each other and shot their glances of fear and sudden realization. They turned their head to Azula, who was amazed.
"Don't look at me." She proclaimed like a whinny child. "I was here the whole time. You know that. And if was during lockdown, I was asleep!"
And that's when she made the horrible mistake.
She lifted her hands straight up in the air, like a preacher or a monk or a teacher would do when they were proclaiming. Her arms were freed from the jacket. She had revealed that the whole time the strait jacket was on, it was never secure. She revealed that she could now escape strait jackets. She immediate realized her mistake, and squinted in embarrassment.
Boulder, who was standing at the doorway when this happened, immediately ran over to capture Azula. As part of protocol, a guard's job was to catch a patient if he or she were to escape, in any way, shape, or form. Since Azula was now out of her strait jacket, Boulder immediately ran up to her and placed her in a grip lock that caused her to have no use of her hands and neck. Boulder then started caring her out of a room. it was protocol to take the escapee, to a special padded room or cell, with no way of escaping. As Boulder carried Azula away, the girl began to scream.
"Guess I muss sleep walk, huh Zuzu!" she proclaimed as she was carried out of the room. "You know, the good news is, I don't snore!" and with that, she started laughing insanely as she was carried down the hall.
Zuko couldn't believe what was happening. His sister now had the ability to break out of a strait jacket. She was now more evil and insane that ever. And with a laugh like that, her condition was more vivid and clearer than ever. Azula, may never come back. But to make matters worse, as Zuko watched his sister being carried down the hall, he felt something heavy placed in the palm of his right hand. Zuko looked down to notice it was a doctor's badge. He looked up to notice a disgruntled Mailto rubbing his temples.
"Find yourself a new doctor." Mailto proclaimed. "I quit."
Will Zuko find a new doctor in time? Will Azula ever be cured? And do Azula's dreams mean more than just psychotic tendencies?
Find out…..in the next chapter of "A Method to the Madness."
I'm sorry, but I love leaving people on cliff hangers. I assure you though, that the new chapter will be posted immediately after this one.
Thank you for reading the new chapter. I hope you enjoyed it.
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