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.
Ozai could only laugh. This was the Earth King? A scrawny teenager with glasses only old scholars would wear? He wondered if this wasn't one of Azula's schemes, or if the Ember Island Players had decided to do an impromptu scene.
"I cannot defeat you now, Fire Lord but that doesn't mean I will not someday," Kuei hid his trembling fingers underneath his cloak.
"The mighty ruler of Ba Sing Se, here to fight at last after what… forty generations?" Ozai laughed out loud. "Don't be ridiculous. Surrender now and I will make you a duke over your old kingdom." Ozai held out his hand. "I am not without mercy."
"You will surrender, I promise. But not to me." Kuei opened the top of his glass shield and with a squat and a, earth platform-assisted jump he leapt into the sky with Mitsu on his shoulder and his brother's staff spinning upwards. His landing on Appa wasn't something he had expected, but thanked the bison for anyway.
"Your Majesty!" Katara jumped back at the sight of Kuei. "Mitsu!" she immediately went to heal the wound on his head as the staff thudded beside its master.
"What are you two doing here?" a shocked Aang looked at the brothers, frustration clearly on his face. Kuei's foot landing on it didn't improve on the frustration, although it still hurt.
"What was that for?"
"That is for Mitsu getting hurt trying to warn you!" Kuei ran his hand over his unconscious brother's forehead. "And I should rain rocks on your bald head for every Earth and Water person that got killed or hurt today!"
"Those airships…where did they come from?" Sokka looked shattered more than anyone as he looked towards the invasion point, which was by now completely overrun.
"Our dad told us all to leave, while the others held off the Fire Nation," Katara tried to focus on healing Mitsu despite fighting back tears. "We're all that's left of the invasion," she pointed to Toph, Haru, Teo and the Duke at the rear of the saddle.
"My father volunteered to be left behind. It's like he just got out of prison and walked right back in!" the young Earthbender threw a futile rock at a Fire Nation building below them.
Appa zigzagged through the flames and other weapons sent to attack them, airships being the least of his worries. Momo hid in Aang's clothing as fires singed the sky bison's white fur. Appa was fantastically brave even for one of his species, ignoring the pain of the fire launched against him and the loss of many brave companions down below.
"One last airship ahead!" Aang got up on Appa's head, preparing a tornado attack.
"No," Kuei pulled the Avatar down. "I have to do this. It was always my duty."
Kuei made a wavy motion with his arms and rotated them full circle, culminating in an upward thrust of his fists. A giant monolith burst from the ocean floor and penetrated the airship in a massive explosion. Aang held on to Appa's reins as they swung past the burning, marooned vessel with the northern horizon being in clear sight. Kuei looked back as Toph got up beside him.
"What did you just do?" Toph heard the stone rise, but in the air she couldn't feel it.
"I curse the Fire Nation as long as Ozai is king. I am the King of Earth under Heaven, and Heaven has been shaken. But no, not the Earth," he joined his feet and swung his hand in a crescent. "The Earth shaking is natural, the earth shattering is natural, hence let it shake and shatter!" The King put his hands together and the monolith moved towards the Fire Nation gates until it lodged itself firmly in the dock, dragging two airships with it as it slid towards the city. Kuei then parted his hands, making the monolith break into two identical pieces, then four, then eight until the entire dock was barred, stone imprisoning stone.
"They can't chase us!" Teo looked through Sokka's telescope. "That was amazing, your majesty!"
"That was all I could do," Kuei sat in the corner of the bison saddle as he watched his brother stir. He suddenly got up and angrily chopped the air. The entire eastern coast of the Fire Nation seemed to howl as the very ground it was on seemed to convulse and groan, coastal houses snapping on their stilts and the army at the docks bracing themselves against anything that was standing.
"You hear me? You are all cursed!" Kuei swiped the air with his other hand, sending the monoliths crashing down on the Fire Nation capitol and causing another tremor. He sat down again, burying his face between his knees.
"That… was awesome Earthbending!" Haru looked at his shattered sovereign.
"I didn't see anything, but it sounded great!" Toph wasn't smiling as she saw Mitsu's pained face.
"I know a place we can hide out for a while, hang on!" Aang redirected Appa northwards and over the clouds until the airships were over the horizon and gone from view. "How's he holding up, Katara?"
"He's doing okay, it looks like a concussion only. Someone tried to mess with his chi, but he's…realigned it? It can't be…"
"Ty Lee," Sokka opened his mouth at last.
"If someone is properly attuned to the earth, no one can block their chi," Toph looked at Mitsu, who was beginning to stir.
"How is that? She kept on tagging me in Ba Sing Se," Katara rubbed her shoulder.
Waterbenders rely on fixed points and nodes to heal and attack. Earthbenders let the power of the Earth flow through them. Normally they'd follow the typical chi patterns, but with enough willpower an Earthbender can direct the chi any way they like, because they draw their power from the world itself, Katara suddenly remembered one of Yugoda' s lessons from the Northern Tribe.
"That's difficult, redirecting your own chi," Toph supported Mitsu's shoulders as he managed to get up and lean on the side of the saddle. "I can see people's chi when they bend or exercise, and yours is both strong and unique, hang in there." She took Mitsu's hand and smiled when he managed a smile of his own.
Appa groaned after half an hour, leaving Aang no choice but to ground him and remove the bison's heavy custom-made armor. The entire contingent slumped onto the ground that Aang had led them to, barely a few hundred miles from the Fire Nation but well past their maritime border. Kuei and Haru helped Mitsu up, but the prince rubbed the back of his head and the wound on it.
"Careful, your wound is still healing," Katara lifted some sea water and dabbed it onto a cloth. "All of you need to rest, including Appa and Momo."
"And you too, sis," Sokka offered his shoulder to Katara, who leaned instantly on it. "Where are we going, Aang?"
"The Western Air Temple, or what's left of it," Aang pointed his staff to the northern horizon.
"Let me take you," Kuei stopped walking and raised his palms upward, creating an earth platform big enough to carry even Appa.
"Let's all do it," Toph echoed his stance with Haru, and soon the three Earthbenders were gliding smoothly over the land on their makeshift earth platform. Toph noticed that the ground actually turned to soft clay when the platform touched it and hardened behind them. Kuei was the main force behind the platform, however as he propelled it with powerful arm thrusts.
"Who taught you to Earthbend like that?" Haru asked as he noticed the difference with his own, graceful movements, dubbed the 'soft' style by Earthbending Masters.
"Would you believe, I read it in a book?" Kuei rolled up his sleeves as sweat formed on his head.
"Like the dance you did with your bear?" Aang also joined in the platform pushing. "Sokka told me all about it."
"Bosco is a dancing bear," Kuei smiled as he watched Aang Earthbend. "So we practiced by dancing. I wanted masters to come and teach me proper Earthbending, but either Long Feng wouldn't allow me to, or those masters tried to extort me for cash. The Dai Li and the Army wouldn't really teach me either. So I came up with my own style, I guess," Kuei pulled his arms back as the platform met a large cliff overlooking a cloudy canyon.
"King Bumi sent you the bear," Mitsu dabbed the sweat off his brother. "Who knew that old fart really wanted to smuggle you a teacher?"
"Bumi always thinks differently to other people, that's just how his mind works. He was like that when he was my age," Aang shrugged and got off the platform. "I'm glad you're alive and well, Your Majesty."
"Bumi sends his greetings," Mitsu lowered his head so Katara could affix a bandage to his head. "Omashu is back in Earth Kingdom hands."
Aang smiled, "Good old Bumi! I knew he could do it! That's the first piece of good news I've heard all week!"
"We're here!" Toph stamped the ground excitedly.
"I think your feet need an eye check," Katara looked at the beautiful, but temple-less landscape.
"No, she's right, we're here!" Aang took his glider and waved for Teo to follow him. The two glided over the cliff face, coming back up with eyes full of wonder and excitement.
"The Western Air Temple," Mitsu joined them in flight, "built under a cliff face, as the stories tell."
Appa roared and bashed his tail, also happy at the discovery. He had only been to the Western Temple twice in his life, as Sky Bison were not really necessary to travel there, unlike the Southern and Eastern Temples. Once was the Sky Bison polo qualifying tournament where the nuns of the West virtually annihilated the monks of the South 115 to 67, a certain young Airbender getting his first points at the tender age of ten. The second part was the final of the Airbending Pai Sho World Championships, where the monks of the south avenged their polo players by crushing the nuns in a straight sweep of all the games played on the giant, almost hilltop- sized board. Aang was a seven year old then, but he remembered it all with fervent excitement as the temple lay largely intact, even with the old water fountain still flowing down into the apparently bottomless canyon.
"This is where we will stay and hopefully, train," Mitsu flew upside down as Kuei and Toph walked effortlessly on the ceiling with their Earthbending. They were the only ones to see the temple in a conventional way as the pagodas were built as if they were hanging down, with roof tiles on the underside of every level. This architecture was seen nowhere else in the world, products of a long forgotten people.
"I love the Earth here; I even spot something like a Lei Tai ring!" Toph pointed to a rounded platform not far from the fountain.
"Toph, that is a Lei Tai ring!" Mitsu hovered over the stone disc, which lay on a rocky outcrop.
"What's an Earth Rumble Ring doing here in an Air Temple?" Sokka looked at the shrugging Duke.
"Who cares, let's get ready to rumbllleeeeeeeee!" Toph dived onto the ring and created her signature Blind Bandit Bat emblem on the floor.
"I want to be the…Boy in the Iceberg!" Aang popped up and made an Earth replica of himself and Appa stuck in the iceberg from two seasons and a hundred years before.
"Prepare to be knocked down, ice cube!" Toph made her Mantis Stance.
"Are you as dumb as you look?" Aang puffed his chest, his attempt at being the Boulder hilarious to the others.
"I'm blind, but you look dumber than I do!"
"For now, let's try to be happy," Mitsu looked at Katara, who nodded as Sokka joined in the whooping and cheering.
"We definitely need a bit of happy," she looked into the fountain.