Author Notes: While the progression of the story roughly follows that of the show, many events are changed, arranged in a different order or omitted. This is fan fiction, after all.

The invasion seemed to be working well, Sokka thought. Aang was well on his way to the Royal Palace while the Earth Kingdom tanks were pushing though stubborn Fire Nation resistance. Katara wished the Northern Tribe benders were there as she fought the water-ballasted Fire Nation tanks singlehandedly while the Swamp Tribe Waterbenders were stuck in the rear of the assault, fending off armored convoys that had emerged from two nearby bases. Toph, the Boulder and the Hippo were leading the charge of the Earthbenders, a massive truck offloading rock after rock while deflecting fire. The young Earthbender Haru and his father Tyro blasted through wall after wall of stone with the other coal miners, though there seemed to be an endless line of Fire Nation troops ready to push them back. Southern Water Tribe warriors clad in their wolf armor charged at equally passionate Fire Nation Home Guards, elite non-benders who were nonetheless the equals of Hakoda' s men in melee combat. As he watched helplessly from Appa's relatively safe saddle, he watched his son get on the front Earth tank and point his sword towards the great gate. Hakoda watched Katara use a giant wave from the sea to smash into it, sending many Home Guards off the wall the hard way.

"That's for the Northern Tribe!" she did not forget Zhao's near-fatal assault on her cousins as she launched a second wave. Her injured father smiled to himself in pride, though the Home Guard who had shot him in the arm dealt him a hard blow before having Hakoda' s spear thrust through his neck.

"Wedge formation, we're going for it!" Sokka pointed his notched sword towards the gate, where all the Fire Nation troops gathered for what seemed to be a last stand. The three remaining Earth Kingdom tanks roared forward, the Earthbenders inside roaring with them. Sokka dismounted and his sister drove the mighty wave right into the Fire Nation troops, which allowed the tanks to tear through the steel gate with a thunderous slam. The gate fell to cheers, though the sight of Haru and Tyro running back towards them brought mixed reactions.

"Sokka, there's no one here!" Haru pointed to the oddly tranquil-looking city. Not a soul could be seen except for dead or unconscious Firebender troops. There was still commotion behind the invasion force, though Huu had brought forth a seaweed monster from the deeps to quell the rearguard.

"Then we'll head for Aang and help him as best we can," Sokka pointed to the Avatar, who was waving from the front gate of the Fire Palace, which was undamaged apart from an odd hole on one of its towers and a lone guard hanging by a rail pipe, apparently dead. Leaving Hakoda to Bato, Appa swooped under Katara and lifted them all to meet Aang.

"He must be inside!" Aang saw the moon slowly approach the sun in the sky. "Hurry, we have to get there during the eclipse!" The Avatar closed his glider and together with Toph, Katara and Sokka went forward to face his destiny, or so he thought. As Mitsu crashed and fought for breath on the Palace steps, the next sound he heard wasn't the Fire Lord Ozai dying, it was the Fire Lord Ozai laughing on top of another building altogether.

"He's not there!" Mitsu coughed as a loud, droning sound came from the clouds.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Haru picked Mitsu up as the Duke joined him. Teo, son of the Machinist drifted in on his wheelchair-glider and took off his goggles.

"We have…to…get…out of…here…" Mitsu struggled to catch his breath. Haru took his flagon of water and emptied it into Mitsu's mouth, making the prince swallow hard.

"Why do we have to get out of here?" the Duke grunted as he tried to pick up Mitsu's impossibly heavy staff.

"It's a trap! You've all come at the wrong time, the Avatar mustn't try to face the Fire Lord! He's not ready!"

Haru looked at his father. "He looked pretty ready to me."

"Look up, moustache boy," Mitsu pointed at the droning clouds, which parted to show the emblem of the Black Flame on Red and the airships that bore them. "All of you find the Avatar and get the hell out of here!" Mitsu got up and snatched the staff from the tiny Duke, who had barely been able to lift it up an inch.

"Wait, what about you?" Teo reopened his glider.

Mitsu returned his staff to his belt and launched himself up ahead of the airships, which were now opening ports and brimming with fire. Coal ships should have been behind them, but even the captain of the lead ship did not realize that one was hurtling at his bridge at speed until it exploded, tearing the iron cabin apart and drawing the ship into a dangerous decline.

Teo rubbed his eyes and motioned for Haru to push him. "A flying guy that isn't Aang?"

"That's not all," Haru pointed to someone in Mitsu's arms, looking ruefully at the crashing airship.

"By the lords of earth and rock, it's him! It's Kuei, our King!" Tyro rubbed his eyes as well. "If that is him, then…of course, I recognize them both! It's our King and his brother Prince Mitsu! The King lives! Long live the King of Earth!"

Kuei himself was far from happy, and that was not because the kamikaze run had barely stopped the other airships from advancing on the marooned invasion force. The Sand Bender crew, after removing their pouches of sand and uttering a prayer he didn't understand swore one last oath to him and shoved him off their stolen ship, knowing that no Earthbender would ever be hurt from a fall onto stone.

"I didn't even know their names," Kuei looked up at his tired but relieved brother.

"The Pasha will remember them, but we have to get as many as we can out of here!" Mitsu yelled while avoiding fire blasts and arrows from the other airships. "Start by getting those guys out of the way!" he pointed to Haru and his group, struggling to deflect the now dropping bombs and fire blast.

"Leave this to me," Kuei took a deep breath and allowed Mitsu to release him. The ground softened immediately on impact as Kuei danced over it, the stone blocks of the Fire Palace's floor rising and solidifying over the four people trapped. The blocks turned into one single wall of rock as Kuei motioned for the others to follow him. The stunned Tyro tried to bow, but Kuei yanked the old man off the ground and shook his head.

"We need to get back to the army!" Haru called out as he deflected flaming rocks.

"There's no point in that, look!" the Duke tipped his helmet up as the flaming wreck of the rock tank lay before them. The airships were merciless, dropping bombs by the dozens and when they ran out, replacing them with archers who did not need Firebending. It mattered not that the next eight minutes would render Firebenders powerless; they had embraced technology and machinery much earlier than other nations and had prepared for this event. The Water and Earth troops on the other hand were scattered helplessly as their wedge itself became wedged between two attacking formations of newly arrived tanks, and to Kuei's horror, three squadrons of Earthbending collaborators. Hakoda tried to rally his men three times, while the Swamp Tribe were stunned into silence as their chief Huu was rendered unconscious by a concussive blast from a airship bomb. The Mechanist ran for his life as his submarines exploded one by one, having no cover whatsoever from the aerial onslaught. Teo called out to his father, who finally dived under cover from an Earthbender group

"Aang, where are you?" Mitsu plowed through wall after wall as the sun began to darken. He heard no voices above or below ground, and the Royal meeting rooms were all empty. The Agni Kai arena was lifeless while the Royal Dining room was adorned for a feast but with no one present to eat anything. A knife whistled past Mitsu's face and thudded into a Fire Nation tapestry. The narrow corridors precluded flying as well, something that made Mitsu let out an annoyed grimace.

"Got you," a familiar voice came from the darkness, a fist thudding on Mitsu's ribcage. "None of your fancy bending today, pretty boy."

"Ty…Lee!" Mitsu felt the energies in his body convulse and contort, along with the building around him. The floor began to heave with one entire wall somehow blown open from its center and food flying everywhere in a symphony of culinary chaos.

"Hey, I only wanted to knock him out," Ty Lee looked at Mai.

"Looks like you knocked the planet out," Mai took her hand and led the acrobat towards the exit door. "The palace is falling apart!"

Mitsu felt his mind twist into various scenarios, from purple rhinos invading his kitchen to lightning powered flying mechanized sky bison and meditating monkeys drinking ale under a waterfall. He wiped it all out with a vision of a white light, but felt helpless afterwards, his sweating body draped on the floor like a main course would be.

"Is this what it is like to die?" he asked himself as the world swirled over him.

"I didn't want to do that!" Ty Lee looked in horror as tables snapped in two and she dived to avoid flying cutlery and falling pieces of the roof.

"Next time, think first," Mai rolled behind Ty Lee as Ozai's mahogany seat crashed into the spot where she was just before.

"I'm not dead, my life is just weird," Mitsu heard himself speak. "That's it, everything is wierd, I'm the normal one!" Mitsu heard himself laughing as he raised two fingers towards the roof. "Ha, ha, take that, world!" he got up and cracked his joints. The roof flew off the Royal Dining Hall and exposed the two girls hiding under a piece of it, a laughing man with glowing golden eyes staring at them.

"Dead Hand doesn't kill people, people kill people!" Mitsu sent a force wave at Ty Lee and Mai, throwing them flat against the remaining wall. Mitsu took Ty Lee's hand and jabbed himself in the same spot she had hit him earlier and all the pain was suddenly gone.

"No fair!" Ty Lee felt her nose began to bleed.

"Now what are you doing here in this palace?" Mitsu poked at her with the staff. "Where is the Fire Lord and where is Azula?"

"She's in the throne room waiting for your bald friend," Mai spoke and rolled her eyes.

"Hey, Mitsu!" Ty Lee did her best to stare at him from her upside down position, although her nose was now really reeking of blood unable to get out.

"What is it?" Mitsu looked around for any signs to get to the throne room.

"Everything you said on Ember Island, was it true? I don't mean the part about Admiral Chan or the funeral boat, but what you said to me…" Ty Lee tensed up, though the force pinning her to the wall did not relent. Mitsu looked at her upside down eyes and leaned in close to her ear.

"You can't help it if you're beautiful," he softly whispered.

"Ty Lee, why are you crying?" Mai gruffly noticed. "He's the enemy? Attacking our nation?"

"You're not my enemy." Her whisper was barely audible, but Mitsu nodded and stroked her cheeks in reply. He was about to say something in return when something slammed against the wall behind them, flickers of static electricity making everyone's hair stand on end.

"Ozai!" Mitsu lifted the two girls away from the wall just as the Fire Lord crashed through the crumbling wall, his son just having redirected his own lightning at him in their confrontation on the other side. Apparently, the eclipse was over and Firebending was back on the menu.

"You've made your choice, son!" the Fire Lord had his back to the three in the dining room, focusing more on the near-death experience from his lightning, which people had said could shatter mountains.

"Zuko…" Mai muttered behind the broken table she hid behind. Ty Lee was on the other side of the room while Mitsu was prone in the center of the room, a stray rock having struck him in the forehead.

"What do we have here?" The Fire Lord turned to the prince, who groggily noticed him. "You are wearing my nephew's bracelet! Stealing from the Royal Family is a crime punishable by DEATH!"

Ty Lee's begging screams went unheard as Ozai ignited the room with his lightning, burning all around him and focusing specifically on the center of the room.

"No…" Ty Lee cowered behind the shattered pot that was her cover.

"NO!" Ozai stepped back as the dust cleared, the silhouette of his victim replaced with one of another. Tinkling sounds could be heard, an oddity considering that the entire palace was built of iron, steel, wood and rock.

"Who dares oppose me in my own house?" Ozai blasted flame at the man, who did not move. The flames did not touch the man, although they were strong enough to turn the flying dust into glass fragments. The tinkling continued, Ozai realizing that it was a sheet of pure glass that was blocking all his fire attacks.

"Who dares oppose you? I dare oppose you."

Mai and Ty Lee's eyes went wide open.

"The Earth King…" they said in unison.