The Highest Bidder

Chapter Sixteen: An Attack on Kyoshi Island

As we made for Kyoshi Island, I couldn't help but feel that we were walking into a trip; though from my past experiences, I was usually right about this kind of stuff. Zuko appeared beside me, armored from heel to toe, and this wasn't at all surprising since we were nearing the shore of the island. He looked ahead at the snow-capped mountains in the horizon, just short of beautiful beach that slowly approached us. I leaned against the edge of the ship; arms crossed, and watched him.

"What?" he said.

"What if I told you that I felt that there was something wrong on that island? What would you say to that?"

"I'd say that I would believe you," Zuko said monotonously. "But we have quite a few soldiers on board, and four Komodo Rhinos to mount. And you," he added.

"I like the vote of confidence," I confessed, "but I have weaknesses, too, you know. I'm not a witch with all the cosmic power at hand."

"So you keep telling me…"

"Well, that's because everyone assumes that I am." I retorted. "I'm not royalty, and I'm certainly not a true soldier; I wasn't put in a boot camp and I didn't train like everyone else."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I just want you to know that I'm not like the rest of your soldiers."

"I know." Zuko said sincerely.

"Well, good…" I shrugged my shoulders. "Want me to get the buggers ready?"

"What?"

"The Rhinos…" I said more clearly, poking the deck with the toe of my boot.

"Oh, yeah. I mean yes."

I suppressed a chuckle, bowed respectively, and went below deck to feed them again.

A soldier came down to retrieve me,

"Commander, the prince requests that they should be out now."

"I'll get them out," I assured him.

"Do…Do you want any assistance?" asked the guard hesitantly.

He made it a point to compare my small stature to the four bulging, muscled Rhinos who growled in their cages.

"Nope, I'm good. I'll be out there in a minute."

The guard stepped back uncertainly, but he nodded courteously and retreated out onto the foredeck. I turned to Rhinos' cages. The bars were all connected to a metal gear that if turned, each cage would open vertically, and the bars would retract into the top floor of the steel. These were Fire Nation traps, and they usually were worked by turned a dial on each cage with extenuated force. Although I was not physically strong, I sported a mind that, if put to actual physical use, it could control an entire fleet of naval vessels—if I had the patience and desire to do such a crazy act.

The Komodo Rhinos growled their yearning to leave their imprisonment. I stepped out of the cargo hold; and with each thrust of my hands, the cages released the Rhinos consecutively. They walked patiently toward me and I guided them out to the bowsprit. The guard who had been uneasy about leaving me stared at me in amazement. I patted his shoulder as I passed him, thanking him anyway for his concern.

Zuko ordered that the Rhinos would have two soldiers for each mount. With one remaining, Zuko took my hand and helped me up the beast's saddle. He climbed on after me.

"Don't fall," he said, looking over his shoulder.

"Really?" I said sarcastically. "I thought I might tip over; that seemed like a fun thing to do."

He grunted in annoyance.

"Just put your damn hands around me." Zuko said staring ahead.

"All right, all right…Mr. Grumpykinns."

He squeezed the bridge of his nose. I smiled cheekily.

"Women…" he grumbled.

The bowsprit let out a full cloud of steam as it lowered to shore; Zuko led the way for soldiers.

Kyoshi Island was quite a lovely place. It was a pity that we had to burn it to the ground.

"I want the Avatar alive," Zuko said to his men.

We entered the town. The village was quaint in shale shingles, wooden houses, and each was accompanied by a delicate porch. The lake was right there beside it, a perfect fishing port. I looked over Zuko's shoulder to see what lay ahead of us, and that was the little problem.

The streets were deserted.

"Come out, Avatar!" Zuko yelled into the empty village. "You can't hide from me forever!"

Silence answered him.

"Find him," Zuko ordered.

I clicked my tongue; he glanced over his shoulder at me.

"What?"

"You know that I feeling I get when it's like I'm being watched? Well, I'm feeling it."

"He's here, isn't he?" he muttered quietly.

"Somebody is…" I retorted.

I could feel tremors around me, which was usually the universe hinting me that there was life beside me. What might have confused me otherwise was that although my senses could pick up life forms, my instincts weren't always up to date. In other words: what I was feeling could have been Zuko and his men all along. My sensory details can't certainly identify what is what, which is why it's a tad confusing when I sometimes mistake animal life for humans.

When I explained this to Zuko, he had a look on his face that was antagonistic.

"Why did you tell me this before?" he snapped.

"Calm down," I said hotly, "it's probably right. I'm paranoid, remember?"

A Fire Nation soldier approached Prince Zuko on his Komodo Rhino with his companion behind him.

"Sir," he reported, "no one is here. The entire town is deserted, abandoned."

"Did you check inside the houses?" asked Zuko curtly.

"Well, no…"

"Then check them!" Zuko ordered irritably.

"No need," I said nonchalantly.

I dismounted Zuko's rhino and strode in front of the straddled village houses.

"Mura, what are you doing?" he asked me with painfully disappointed look on his face.

I pained him no need. I addressed the otherwise deserted town,

"Come out now," I warned them, "or I will bring down your village!"

"Ma'am," said the first Fire Nation soldier, "that's a little harsh, don't you think?"

"Shut up," I muttered.

Silence answered to me as well.

I was slowly growing annoyed with the situation. Three weeks on a ship, feeding Rhinos, and attempting to find the Avatar had started to grow very old; and Iroh wasn't too far from the truth: I did have a nasty temper, but I could only bottle it up for so long.

So—and this is one of the things that I'm not proud of—I concentrated my energy toward a house that was closest to the lake, and with a heavy push, the roof caved in automatically, and a cry of despair echoed from atop the nearby house.

And you would be happy to know, or perhaps it's bittersweet, that I was right after all.

From above the rooftops, an army of fan warriors attacked Zuko's army, dressed in a familiar attire and make-up as the statue of Avatar Kyoshi herself. It was quite impressive to see a clan of warrior girls take down a group of Firebenders. (Keep in mind that the most fighting that I had seen since my time with Zuko was the bit of muddle with the villagers we met before meeting Zhao).

A girl dressed in a similar outfit, fans grasped tightly in her gloved hands, shot out from the ambushing warriors and charged straight toward Zuko and me.

The jury and my peers know this woman to be Suki, the leader of the Kyoshi warriors, and the proud girlfriend of Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe.

Suki charged me; an invisible hand swept through the earth and grabbed her ankle. She tripped and landed face first into the dirt. She staggered to her feet, jumped on my back, and headed directly at Zuko. As she was about to land on him, he turned the rhinoceros and she was swatted out of the air by its tail. I winced as she was sent hard to the ground.

Zuko aimed a fire blast at her; and then Sokka stepped in between Suki and the fire ball; deflected it with his fan. Zuko was taken by surprise, and he fell off the rhino.

Sokka turned to Suki,

"I guess training's over."

Suki and three warriors cautiously approached Prince Zuko; Sokka started to confront him. I grabbed him by the nape of his dress collar.

"Hey!" he pushed me the ground. "Why do we keep running into you?"

"Why don't you stop running?" I retorted, getting to my feet.

From behind Sokka, Zuko spun around on his hands, and shot fire bolts at his feet. Suki was sent barreling into a nearby house; the other three were blown away, knocked unconscious. Sokka cried out in anger and rounded on Zuko to avenge his girlfriend; however, he yelped out in surprised as his fans were pulled out of his hands and came retreating to mine.

"What are you?" he said incredulously.

It was a rhetorical question.

He came at me with a clenched fist; he cried out in dismay as a pile of rubble was thrown into his face, and he fell against the wall of the village house that Suki crashed into earlier.

Zuko leapt into the middle of the street.

"Nice try, Avatar! But these little girls can't save you!"

"Hey! Over here!"

Zuko turned around; the Avatar stood on the side of the long street. Zuko let loose three consecutive fire balls from his hands; Aang dodged them, and using his staff, he flew toward Zuko. Zuko shot another blast of fire, which knocked Aang's staff out of his hands. Aang leapt away and picked up the two discarded fans. As Zuko ran with full force at Aang, an enormous gust of air from the Avatar's fans picked up Zuko and threw him into a wall of a nearby building. I ran toward the broken wall to pull the wood off him. Three other soldiers assisted me.

"Zuko. Zuko, are you all right?" I asked as I found his face.

"Get off me," he growled, struggling to his feet.

Suki came running toward us furiously. Irritated at Zuko, I distracted the Kyoshi warriors with one final blow—

"Aang, she's—" Katara's voice was heard just a few moments before the rooftops of each village house caved in with a heap of smoke and splintered wood; the doors of the houses flew at me with a simultaneous, fluent whoosh; and Suki's face contorted in horror as the villagers from the town—women, men, children—screamed in terror and despair as the doors came crashing in front of Suki's feet.

Above her head, a flying bison came into view, boarded by the Avatar and his friends.

I faced off with Suki: sword vs. fans; and the sight was a bit more than just a few punches.

Jury and peers, it sounds terrible; and what I did was also terrible, but surely by now, in my present time—you should know that my actions were made by a nasty temper. I am sorry that I destroyed the villagers' houses of Kyoshi Island. My excuse is not a valid one, but all I have to say about what I did is this:

When you're angry, you don't think about the consequences. You can't understand the consequences of your actions because in that fleeting moment of irritation or that misunderstanding that leaves you confused and hurt, the feeling you experience is quite simple.

You just. Don't. Care

Zuko saw the flying bison leave the town in the sky, and that's when he ordered for his men to retreat back into the ship.

My fight with Suki left us both in a world of pain, and this isn't figurative. If you have never been hit with those warrior fans, I can't explain that the pain is a bit more extreme than a paper cut, but it isn't as bad as a flesh wound made by a sword. I didn't hurt Suki the extent of that, but I had nicked her a few times, and it hadn't even been my arm that did the fighting.

As I have said before: my mind reacts to danger and tries to protect me when it believes that I'm in a dire situation. So my gift reformed the sword into a body guard and blocked and counterattacked Suki's movements only to the point where she would let me escape.

When I did escape, and I the rhinos were on board the ship, General Iroh took me to the infirmary where I had to be nursed for my injuries. And once more, I suffered a great migraine for penalty of my actions.