Hey everyone. You wanted it, you asked for it, and now it has arrived. The newest chapter for a method to the madness is here! I apologize for the extremely long update. My birthday arrived, and I turned 16 years old. GOT MY DRIVERS LICENSE! My band had a pretty stellar show and we had a blast. Then, my school of rock group did their foo fighters show, with an amazing reception, and all the songs went off without a hitch. Next season, school of rock is doing a DARK SIDE OF THE MOON SHOW! I'M SO FREAKING PYSCHED! DARK SIDE OF THE MOON IS MY FAVORTIE ALBUM EVER!
Well, with that out of the way….let's get on with the show.
Zuko woke up….and screamed.
He screamed until his vocal chords felt raw and sore. He screamed until he thought he was coughing up blood. Blackness surrounded his vision. All black, not one glimpse of light anywhere, and on top of that, tight spaces. He felt like he was in a coffin. And the more Zuko banged his fist against the solid black wall in front of him, (which, due to its sound, clearly made of wood,) the more he felt that he was defiantly in a coffin. He remembered getting knocked unconscious by his psychotic sister back at the palace. Maybe Azula took his wife and killed her and everyone else. Maybe his servants mistook him for being dead and thrown him in a casket. Maybe right now, while Zuko was stuck in this terrible, terrible predicament, his wife and best friends were stuck in an even dire situation. Maybe they were dead. Shit, maybe he was dead. Maybe this is what happens when you die; you're all alone for the rest of your life, staring into bleak darkness, as you bang your fist against your tomb and scream for help, yet no help will come.
Suddenly, dark light engulfed his vision. For a brief second he felt free. He sprang out of his sarcophagus like a bat out of hell, and began to fly towards freedom.
Then, he realized that he was falling, not flying. And thus, he began to scream once more. It was night time, he realized, due to the gray atmosphere that surrounded him. But even so, he noticed the clouds whizzing by his head at incredible speeds, and the ground below him getting closer, and closer. Dimly, faintly, he could see houses and possible buildings below him, getting larger and larger. He braced for impact.
When suddenly out of nowhere, he suddenly stopped falling. He collided softly with solid ground, as ridiculous as that sounds. He felt strange all of a sudden. It was like he was moving, but instead of moving up and down; he was moving left and right. He turned his body over and laid on his back. He noticed that he was now staring up at the clouds. He was in mid air, not falling or flying, just hovering; possibly moving straight. What was going on?
All of a sudden, Zuko's good view of the clouds was suddenly obscured by the maniacal, devilish grin, that belonged to none other than his evil sister; Azula.
Zuko's eyes went wide in both utter fear and amazement. He found it odd that the girl who had previously tornado kicked him in the face was now staring back down at him, gleaming cheerfully.
"Now, are you gonna behave?" Azula asked as if she were talking to her disobedient child.
The fire lord nodded his head vigorously. He wasn't quite sure what he was getting into, but he knew that if he were to have chosen defiance, there would've have been dire consequence. He knew his sister all too well to rebel against her when she was in this teeter-totter state. She had that grin plastered over her skull like some horrific holiday decoration. The pain behind that smile was as deadly as fire itself. And knowing too much of the effects of fire, Zuko decided to be submissive towards his sibling.
"Good," Azula proclaimed as she held out her hand. The smile was gone in an instant; replaced by a dreadful scowl of annoyance. "You've wasted enough of our time screaming." She sighed.
Zuko was momentarily bewildered as he stared at Azula's hand which was outstretched in front of him. In theory, he knew that she was going to help him up. But since when did Azula ever help anybody with anything? Reacting without thinking, Zuko grabbed the hand and Azula pulled her brother up to his feet.
"I would've just let you fallen to your death when you left that chest over there," Azula exclaimed as she pointed towards the chest which Zuko sprang free out of moments earlier.
When Zuko turned his head towards the general direction where Azula was pointing, the pieces of the puzzle began to fit. All was beginning to make since. The curtains were beginning to unfold. He now fully realized, somewhat, where he was at. Nothing could hide that giant tail of Appa's.
So Zuko was on the back of Appa, riding high in the night sky. He assumed that after he passed out, his sister must have taken him hostage and placed him in that chest. As the revelations came forth, new questions began to arise. Zuko knew that he was on Appa, that much was certain. But where was he going? More importantly, where did Azula want to go to? Even more importantly than that, who was piloting Appa as he and his sister spoke?
"However," Azula continued. "You're too vital to my plan to just die off so easily." Pointing again, she proclaimed, "You're lucky that Katarra here was piloting and was able to catch you just in time before you went splat dear ZuZu." '
Zuko turned his head, and gasped. What his sister said was absolutely true. Flying the magnificent beast, and shivering in the cold night out of fear and natural reflexes, was none other than the Avatar's lady; Katarra. She seemed saddened, alone, and confused, as any sane person that was held captive by his insane sister should be. For a brief second, Zuko thought, 'where is Aang?' then, he asked himself, 'is this really Katarra?'
"Katarra?" Zuko mumbled; unsure of how to take in the scene that was displaying itself before him.
"Yes," Azula replied cheerfully as she pulled out a knife and began to walk towards the water bender. "She's agreed to be our driver for tonight's events." She sat right down next to the completely bewildered water girl. "Haven't you," Azula demonically asked the driver.
The knife came roaring around her side. The sharp end came to an abrupt stop, right next to Katarra's neck. If any more pressure were to have been applied, the lady would've surely been killed almost immediately. The knife stayed there for a brief moment. Not cutting, nor penetrating; just making its presence known. And that it did. The water bender was almost brought to tears. Zuko faintly heard the lady proclaim, in an almost painfully strained whisper, "Aang, please be ok. Please be here."
There was no doubt about it now. This was Katarra that was piloting Appa. And that was Azula who stared at the side of her head as if it held all the secrets of the universe. The knife finally went away, as Azula made her demands. But before she did that, in an almost evil and vindictive mockery of Katarra's pain, she whispered. "Shush…..hush my darling."
Then came the demands; almost as cold as Azula's mind was itself. "Keep going straight. I'll tell you when you've reached your destination. Try anything funny and your husband is going to get your head on a stick as a lovely anniversary gift. That is, if he makes it out alive to even see you. Don't do anything stupid. Just fly."
Azula turned around and faced her brother, smiling; happy without a care in the world. The violence and paranoia she was unleashing felt like pure justice. Her pain was constant and sharp, from which there was no escape. And seeing her pain being inflicted upon others as well, warmed her heart, causing her to smile as she began to speak to her brother.
But before she could get a word in edgewise, another voice piped in right beside Zuko's right ear, proclaiming, "what about me?'
Zuko turned his head to the right, and could've sworn that he was hallucinated. The unfortunate thing was, he wasn't. This had to be a dream, but it was all too horrifyingly real. Zuko began to question his own sanity, when out of nowhere, he saw, Sokka. But it wasn't just the fact that he saw Sokka that fried his brain for all eternity. It was the fact that he saw Sokka wearing some unusual articles of clothing.
Sokka…..was wearing a women's dress. Like some cross dressing maniac unleashed from the bowls of hell, Sokka stood there in all of his transsexual glory. There was no doubt that Sokka was not enjoying this. The scowl was self evident. Then again, with all that make up that was covering his face, who knows if he was actually frowning or not?
Azula sighed in irritation, and exclaimed quietly, "You, you just sit there and look pretty." As she said this, something eerie began to happen. Zuko recognized the dress.
"…..Is that my wife's formal palace dress?" Zuko asked in utter horror as he began to stutter.
"Yeah, I think it looks much better on Sokka," Azula stated as she began to look around Appa's giant saddle for something.
"….I tend to disagree." Zuko mumbled in fear and in instinct as he watched his sister grab a piece of paper. She handed it to him without hesitation. He scanned over it instinctually. Suddenly, he was amazed. This was his handwriting! But he had no recollection of ever writing this.
"What's this?" Zuko asked in bewilderment.
"Oh, you know," Azula cheerfully began. "Standard red tape to insure that everything we do tonight is legal." Then, with a grumbling undertone, she spoke in a command. "Now sign the damn thing."
Zuko didn't waver on this decision for a long time; his hand began signing his name at will. "You're lucky that I was able to copy your handwriting so well," Azula continued. "Or maybe, I'm the lucky one in this situation. I just needed your signature in case everything falls apart. Because, even if I wrote the actually letter, that's your actually signature, signifying that you agreed to this."
"I doubt that's going to hold up in fire nation council." Zuko declared with a quirked brow. His sister had completely fallen into a fantasy long ago, but now it was no longer a fantasy. It was complete fiction.
"Well, we will soon see, won't we Zu, Zu?" Azula affirmed with an almost iron like quality to her voice. She took the paper from her hand and stuffed it in her pocket for safe keeping.
"What does it say?" Zuko asked about the paper.
"Well basically, the letter says that your wife lost her marbles and decided to form an alliance with me." Azula stated as if it were the gospel. Zuko's jaw went slack when she told the story. He was in complete disbelieve. "She attacked you, stole your shoe, and took off fleeing towards the general direction of the earth kingdom." Azula stated. "Which, by the way," and with that, Azula immediately punched her brother square in the nose. He flew back in pain as the red blood began to flow. Without any pause to see if he was listening, Azula exclaimed, "Good. Now it looks like you've been attacked." Pulling her brother back up by the front of his fire nation royalty suite, she continued with her story. "Anyways, you're not sure where she's going, but you have a defendant idea that your wife is heading towards Ba Sing Se through the Sakura forest of darkness. You have decided to head to Ba Sing Se to alert the people, and prepare them for attack. This note is basically issuing your guards and personal servants to go on an epic woman hunt. That takes care of security. Plus, since the note says you're going to Ba Sing Se, Appa doesn't seem so out of the ordinary. It's perfect."
"What about the actual Mai?" Zuko demanded with a glum look. "My guards will defiantly see her bond to a chair at the kitchen table with a time bomb in front of her as they're running out."
"Good point there." Azula said with a smug smile. "Fortunately for me, I thought of that before you. I hid her and locked her in a linen closet with the bomb." Silence fell amongst them. Zuko was distraught. Sokka was frankly amazed at how in depth Azula's plan was, and Katarra simply still piloted Appa. "Everything's going according to plan." Azula proclaimed in a whisper. Her evil grin began to show in the moonlight.
At last, with no sense of fear and or uncertainty, Katarra spoke her first words since Zuko saw her. "I'm sorry, where are we going again?"
SLAP!
As if nature would only be in balance if Azula were to do this on cue, as soon as Katarra was finished with her sentence, the demented and mentally tortured fire lady responded with a slap to end all slaps. Back hand, hard, fast, in a blink of an eye, powerful, and filled with outrageous yet almost righteous fury, Azula slapped the shit of Katarra with just one slap. She almost made the WaterBender pass out with just one slap. Sokka got up to attack the attacker against his sister, but as soon as Sokka was about to stand, Zuko held him down and back. If one thing was certain, it was this. Azula was going to have her way tonight, whether that meant death and or harm to others. The best thing to do was just to sit back and comply with every horrendous and horrific event that played out. Azula held the knife once again to Katara's throat. Appa growled loudly in disapproval.
"Waterbenders….are better seen….then heard!" Azula snarled in a vindictive manner. "So shut up! And if I hear another word out of you, head on a stick. Remember that."
Sokka could no longer take it. He shouted, "GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY SISTER YOU EVIL WHORE!"
"Now, now, now," Azula grumbled as she took the knife away and laid back in exasperation. "No one important is getting hurt;" she turned her head towards Sokka. "Least of all you. No, no, no. you, my dear princess, have a very important role to play."
The psychotic nut snapped her neck towards Zuko. "Zu Zu, politely hand Sokka your shoe please."
The blade began to glimmer in the moonlight. And that was all the motivation that the fire lord needed to take off his shoe and hand it to Sokka. The warrior boy placed the shoe on his foot as Azula commanded him to do. Amazingly, it was so close to a perfect match; A little big, but still ideal for what Azula had planned to do with it.
"Well, my, my," Azula mockingly declared as she stared at Sokka's foot enclosed within this new shoe. "It's a perfect fit m'lady!" Jumping towards him, Azula landed right in front of Sokka and stared into his eyes with critical importance burning behind hers. She clasped both hands against his facial cheeks and pulled his forehead towards hers. They connected.
"Time to take you to your glamorous ball!"
The Sakura forest which stood in the middle of the earth kingdom had the word "dark," in its title for two reasons. First of all, it must be stated, that the reason why the word "dark," was in the forest's title was partially because in the late spring, the pink flowers on the trees would turn into a deep dark scarlet red. It was a dazzle spectacle to see. Some even said that there was more to the color than what met the human eye, and that the forest itself was emitting colors that the human perception could not conceive.
However, the main reason why the Sakura forest of darkness was considered dark, was due to the fact that at night, the forest would become the most eerie, terrifying, and flat out most horrific place to be on any of the four nations. All trees would pose themselves as menacing for some odd reason. Every corner felt like someone was hiding behind it, waiting to pounce and kill the unlucky passer by just trying to make it through the forest. Walking from one end of the forest to the other after dark was considered suicide.
Which is why when Appa landed in this particular location, and when Azula told Sokka that it was time, he flipped out.
"Are you insane?" Sokka asked ironically as his voice began to break due to utter fear.
"Well, yeah." Azula honestly replied with a smile from the ground as she looked up at the terrified Sokka who was seated on Appa.
"That forest is dark, and creepy, and there ghouls, and ghost, and food which eats people, and there is no way I'm walking into that thick brush." Sokka screamed at the top of the lungs.
Azula sighed as she looked towards her head in defeat. She looked back up and considered the situation from a moment. She chuckled just a bit when she saw how Sokka shivered in fright. She turned towards Zuko. "And you call me the crazy one?" Azula asked with a mixture of sincerity, insanity, and humor.
A silence overflowed them. The trees seemed like they were begging to grow into terrible creatures. Azula however, saw no fear in the forest, as she herself, had a forest of insanity constantly growing in her brain. She then began to state her case to the petrified water warrior upon the great furry beast.
"Fine with me." Azula stated as she wielded her knives like a happy kitchen mother. "I'll let ya travel with us tonight. but like any great princess legend goes, at midnight, you shall turn into a pumpkin. And you know what we do with pumpkins right?" and with that, her voice dropped about 12 octaves, and a menacing tone was released. "We carve them."
"….well ok then." Sokka instantaneously replied with a hic-up of alarm in his voice. He hopped down of the air bison with tremendous speed. Then, once he landed squarely on his feet, he began to take off; slowly at first. His trepidation with the forest was tremendous. But as he kept eyeing Azula as she gradually tossed her knife like a nervous habit, he wondered how far she could throw the knife and still make contact with her target. He decided that he didn't want to wait to find out and he began to run at full blast. The dress was starting to tug against his legs, making him almost fall, and he was pretty sure that it was tearing. But that didn't matter. He was running for his life.
Azula shouted as the water warrior's silhouette disappeared out of sight, "Be careful out there, and watch out for giant locust ants!"
Azula hopped onto the back of Appa with a happy grin on her face. She seemed fluid and lucid and that nothing could stop her. Suddenly, she felt a hand tap her on the shoulder. She turned to slap the intruded, but instead began to calm down once she realized it was her brother. While she still wanted to kill him, the look that he imposed on his face made her slightly curious as to what he was about to say.
"Umm….is it-is it true th-th-that there's giant l-l-l-locust ants out…..there?" Zuko stammered quietly.
Azula shrugged her shoulders. "Beats me. I don't even know if there's another side to the forest or not. That's why I'm trying to get the hell out of here." And with that, she snapped the reins, proclaiming, "yip, yip," and her crazy crew took off into the night sky towards Ba Sing Se.
Zuko noticed that his eyes were gradually getting heavy as his sister kept flying across the night sky. He knew that it was imperative that he was to stay awake. However, a fire lord can only take so much insanity before it has its toll on the body. So, against his will, his body began to shut down and once they were over the serpent's pass, he began to fall asleep.
When he woke up, it was still dark out. It was cold. And he was naked. He looked up and saw his sister staring back at him in disgust. His body trembled in both fear, embarrassment, and from the cold. His skin began to prickle and that's when he realized that someone had cut into him. not deep enough to need medical attention, but scars would surely form, and the blood was beginning to flow rapidly.
He noticed his sisters blade dripping with blood, his blood.
"Don't worry, you're not dead….yet." His sister replied seriously with a laugh at the end. "Now, I'm going into the city. You two….wait here." Azula commanded.
Zuko began to rise up from the ground, when suddenly, an unknown force held him back. He realized as he looked to his left, that he was bounded by chains to a rock. His sister must've had a lot of time on her hands to do that, so much time that in fact, to pass it, she had to carve some unknown shape on his abs with her blade. Then, he noticed something else. Katarra was chained to the same rock right next to him. and she was screaming.
"HELP US!" She proclaimed without any reserve. Tears began to fall from her face. "HELP US! SOMEBODY! PLEASE!"
Azula rushed over and told the water bender to hush. She grabbed Katara's throat and began to apply pressure. The bender began to gag, and cough. Not enough air was flowing. Her surroundings were becoming dark.
"Listen lady." Azula whispered with much malevolence. "You're outside the wall now….no one's going to save you."
And with that, Azula struck the lady with the back of her hand, with so much power, that she caused her to pass out instantly. Azula turned her head and walked away without any remorse. Her sociopathic tendencies were at full drive. She was only focused on one thing; the plan. The plan to end all plans. The last plan that anyone would ever use. The plan to get her lover back. Of course, she stated once before that she didn't have a plan, but then again, Azula was allowed to be hypocritical once and awhile.
She jumped on Appa and started to fly over the walls. Fear, not love, followed in her path. It was as if a giant wake was being held, and Azula was assigned to spread the ashes. She would leave her mark most defiantly. The ashes would spread until the soul of the dearly departed was everywhere. The departed was her mind, and pain was the product of the ashes. No one would escape her wrath.
Wow. I'd defiantly wouldn't want to be on Azula's bad side right now. She seems like she focused. Anyways. Sorry for the long update. Had a bunch of homework. Got a new girlfriend. School of rock just completed its fall season with the foo fighters, and we have just begun this seasons show. Our theme, 'DARK SIDE OF THE MOON!' I'm so freaking excited.
Hopefully most of you will get a chance to read the entire story. If not, that's why I leave it to the people who regularly read this thing to spread the news. Share with as many people as possible. And don't forget, PLEASE REIVIEW!