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.
"HARU! GET ME DOWN FROM HERE!" Toph howled as the earth fragment she was on flew wildly into the atmosphere.
"Sorry!" Haru flailed into the air as he struggled to control the rocks. He had just gotten a weak grip as the flying rock hovered over his head, Toph breathing heavily.
"You have to grip it from the center," Kuei was on his spread stance. He rotated his arms and the stone settled softly in front of the young male Earthbender.
"Never…do…that…again!" Toph fired a pillar at Kuei and launched him almost fifty feet in the air. The king landed with a soft plop on hastily converted mud pool. Instead of groans of pain all three laughed as Kuei bent the sludge away from his clothes.
"We've learned a lot today," Haru lifted a rock and hurled it at a makeshift target. "I can't believe I have two good teachers!"
"I'm no teacher," Kuei scratched the back of his head, "Toph's the sifu here."
"I've never seen Earthbending like yours," she punched Kuei in the arm. "I can't believe a bear taught you how to Earthbend."
"You should see Bosco's new move," Kuei inched closer to Toph.
"I'd love to," she inched closer to him.
"New move?" Haru turned to the two, who zipped apart.
"I call it the Bosco Drop," Kuei made some clay models of the move Bosco demonstrated at the Great Rock.
"Forget a bear belly flop, I want to learn how to do that," Toph poked at the figurines.
"Not one to play with dolls, I see?" Kuei pulled the stone bear off the ground and handed it to Toph.
"It looks like Sandbending," Haru pulverized the ground but only managed to make a crude pagoda.
"Now you can be my sifu!" Toph grabbed Kuei's arm. The king's cheeks flushed red but nodded.
Down below, the Avatar and his new sifu were making powerful looking moves but with no fire. Haru peered over the Earthbending arena and was joined by the others.
"Some sort of breathing exercise? I don't see any fire."
Zuko was particularly agitated, throwing his hands up in anger as Aang shrugged. They were too far away for the earth trio to hear, but Zuko's angry look and Aang's sheepish grin were hints something going wrong.
"I thought Zuko was some super Firebender. He is Royal Family after all," Haru turned to Kuei.
"Azula's the prodigy in the family, Zuko is good but is hardly a master at Firebending," Kuei whispered as Zuko and Aang started looking in their direction. "Then again, I don't know what it takes to be a master at that."
Mitsu whooshed over their heads as Zuko crossed his arms and Aang got up off his perch to greet the Force Bender.
"Something's really wrong, I can't Firebend like I used to!" Zuko swung his fist at the nearest cliff face. Instead of a powerful blaze only a small sliver of fire came from his knuckle.
"What about you, Aang?" Mitsu looked closer at Zuko's fist.
"Um…" Aang made the same move with only a puff of weak smoke.
"This is bad," Mitsu rubbed his chin. His reaction was much better than Sokka's earlier jesting, but Zuko felt no better for it. "We'll talk to the others. Hey, you guys up there! Katara says dinner is in one hour! Good moves with the Earthbending!" Mitsu hollered up at the Earthbending arena.
"Maybe I should learn Earthbending," Zuko shrugged as the three men came up the stairs. "Why are there Earthbending arenas and Water Tribe fountains here anyway?" Zuko noticed the architecture.
"The monks used to say that this temple was the center of our commerce. People would come here to trade and even stay to watch the Sky Bison polo and Airbending Pai Sho. Monk Gyatso told me that this place was designed by the Earth Kingdom, in fact."
"Makes sense, with this hanging design," Mitsu flew upside down and tried to imagine the pagodas looking 'normal'.
"I don't see anything from the Fire Nation," Zuko looked around as the smell of Katara's steamed rice began to infiltrate his senses.
"The Fire Nation stopped trading after Kuzon's time," Mitsu hovered above the floor, "His son started a policy of 'solitary steel' which Sozin used to build his army and machines."
"Kuzon, that's the name of my friend from 100 years ago," Aang remembered. "Named after a great Fire Lord, he said."
The Fire Prince and the Avatar continued as Mitsu examined a mural on the wall. Neither of the other two noticed an image in the corner of a red-robed man sitting next to a green and yellow-robed woman, side by side.
"The greatest so far," Mitsu would not tell the story of Kuzon and Amana the Nun until much later.
"Come and get it!" Katara dished out the rice with her hands and water bended the soup onto the cooked grains. To Zuko she gave some hesitation, but she had no time for recrimination at the moment. Aang was chattering continuously to him and for once he was quite happy. Perhaps it was the Western Air Temple or that all of his friends were in one place for once (except Suki, of course). Aang's happiness was the most important thing to her, and at the moment Zuko and Firebending was all he would talk about.
"So I was thinking," Kuei was the first to speak after a short silence, "I've been looking at these nice scrolls of yours, Katara." He held up the box Master Pakku had given to Aang.
"They're some Waterbending moves my master gave to Aang for me to help teach him."
"I like these moves; do you think you could teach me?" Kuei opened up a scroll labeled 'Water Snake'.
"Um Kuei, you're not a Waterbender," Toph pointed her chopsticks.
"Who says I have to be? I'll use sand and loose stones. I like these instructions- let your chi flow through you and control the water like it was part of you- it really sounds like Earthbending at times. What do you think, Katara?"
"It wouldn't hurt to learn something from another bending discipline, I guess," she nodded. "But you have to teach me something about Earthbending, I think."
"We're all self-taught, you know?" Haru tipped his rice bowl into his mouth. "Katara would be an interesting student."
"I had some of the best teachers," Zuko murmured through his rice. "But now I have a problem," he stood up. The fire going in the middle cast a dark shadow on his facial scar, though his face was grimmer.
"His- our Firebending is kind of gone," Aang shrugged.
"Gone? How can it be gone?" Sokka put down his bowl.
"I don't know, it feels like something's missing," Zuko kicked out with only a thimble sized flame coming out.
"Pint-sized plumes," Katara nonchalantly chewed on her rice, "Maybe you're not as good as you think you are. You know, it would have been more convenient for us if you had lost your Firebending earlier." Her tone was clearly sarcastic, with even Sokka wincing.
"Ouch," Toph grinned behind her bowl.
"It's not lost, it's diminished somehow. Maybe it's because I'm not relying on anger anymore."
"So the solution is easy, we make Zuko angry again!" Sokka started poking him with his scabbard until Zuko yelled him right down to the floor.
"I'm not relying on hate and anger anymore, there has to be another way!" Zuko stared Sokka down.
"I can't believe that Firebending relies on hate and anger," Aang sat down beside the beleaguered prince. "It's as natural as Airbending or Waterbending, its part of the world."
Kuei put down his bowl and raised a map of the world from the earthen floor. "I learned something from my tutors once, about the source of Firebending. There were some ruins here just off the western coast of the Fire Nation's westernmost island. My tutors said that the Dragons once lived there."
"He's right; you need to draw on a different source. I recommend the original source," Toph raised a statue of a Badger Mole. "For Earthbending, the original source is the Badger Mole." Everyone fell silent as Toph told them of how she left home and hid in a cave, eventually meeting a Badger Mole and learning Earthbending from the blind cave animal like the original human Earthbenders, Oma and Shu.
"That's amazing Toph! The monks told me that the Sky Bison were the original Airbenders. Hey, maybe you can give me a lesson someday, buddy!" Aang looked over at Appa, who let out a small roar.
"Hey Mitsu, are you the original Force Bender?" Toph noticed that the prince was silently looking at the fire.
"I could be, but I don't know for sure. All I can say is the source of my bending is linked to Lode, a spirit of the Earth. So Zuko, where can people find Dragons these days?"
Zuko let out a sharp breath. "You can't, there are no dragons anymore. They're all extinct."
"Roku had a dragon and there were plenty of them when I was a kid," Aang shrugged.
"They're all dead, alright?" Zuko was even more agitated and stormed off to the edge of the outcrop they were all eating on.
"Sorry!" Aang got up and stood beside him.
"Maybe we have a chance at going with the ruins of the map Kuei showed us. The people who lived there were the first people to learn Firebending from the Dragons, they were called the Sun Warriors."
"Sun Warriors? They weren't around when I was a kid."
"They died out thousands of years ago, but their buildings are still intact. Maybe we can learn something if we go there."
"Wait," Sokka raised his spoon. "You think you can pick up some ancient energy just by standing where they stood?"
"If the legends about the Sun Warriors are right, that's exactly what they will do. I'm going as well," Mitsu got up and started collecting the bowls.
"What do those legends say?" Teo handed Mitsu his bowl.
"In the tomes I've read at the Great Rock, the Sun Warriors had a Sun Stone that collected the light of the sun for thousands of years. Maybe we could look for that?"
"Why do you get to go?" Kuei dissolved the map into dust.
"A while ago, one of your Professors came to the Great Rock saying he was looking for the ruins. He thought he'd come to the Library of Wan Shi Tong, but he found something that could have led him there. He never came back and neither did the compass he took."
"If it's Professor Zhen, I'm afraid he's in the Spirit World with Wan Shi Tong," Aang sighed. "I'm glad for the company, though. We'll need your flying to follow Zuko's map of the Fire Nation. It looks like they've removed most mentions of this place."
"Fire Sage Shu told me about it. Nice guy, the only nice one out of the five kooks who officiate funerals and circumcisions."
Sokka spat out his dessert and looked strangely at Zuko. "You what?"
"For every boy at the age of nine… what, you don't do that in the Water Tribe?" Zuko smirked out of the corner of his mouth as his drunk his water.
Sokka suddenly found himself stared at. "Well, maybe we do and we were too busy being raided!" Sokka hid behind his arms.
"Oh stop it, Sokka. Maybe it's grown bigger now that you're seventeen!" Toph laughed and punched the ground. "Maybe you can do it now! Oh, I slay me!"
"That's enough talk of manhood, I think," Aang slid over to the fuming Sokka and put hand over Sokka's ear. "I ran away four times before the monks managed to hold me down…" he whispered.
"SHUT UP!" Sokka trembled as the others started leaving the dinner circle. "I am every bit of a man!"
"I learned how, if you want," Katara's half-kind, half-funny offer was nonetheless turned down by her brother.
"And no, Sokka the Sun Warriors won't help you there." Mitsu shook his head and grinned as he left the circle. "We all have to leave at first light to save time, so get to bed, both of you. You too, Appa!" Mitsu waved the beast to sleep.
"Does Suki know?"
"SHUT UP TOPH!" he reached for his boomerang.
"We should rescue her, if only to find out…" Mitsu laughed through his teeth and elbowed Zuko as they went to the sleeping quarters.
"That's not funny, guys!" Sokka sat down and huffed.
"You know they're joking, Sokka," Katara finished cleaning up the dinner area. "It's nice to see everyone laugh for a change, even if it is at you."
Sokka sighed and gave his sister a weak hug. "I can take comfort in that I guess."
"Gran-Gran wanted to, but Dad insisted…" Katara stopped gathering the bowls as she felt her eyelids start to sag with moisture.
"Don't…don't talk about Dad," Sokka tightened his embrace as he fought back his own tears. The siblings never went to bed, still lying together on the floor when Aang and his two companions set out. Aang smiled slightly, his two closest friends demonstrating their love for each other despite their markedly different personalities.
"I wish I could talk to my sister like that," Zuko looked back as Appa took off with Aang on his back. "We've barely touched each other outside of sparring sessions, much less with the hugs and kisses."
"I'm an only child," Aang looked back at the rueful looking Zuko. "I wish I knew what it was like to have siblings at all."
Zuko noticed the regret in Aang's eyes, the guilt for letting the Air Nomads die out still heavy in them. "Let's change the subject," Zuko opened a copy he had of the map Mitsu was holding out miles ahead.
"You're right, the monks always said we should start the day with an upbeat attitude! Is there anything you can tell me about those Sun Warriors? What did they look like, what did they eat?"
"We were only taught that they were the first Firebenders after the Dragons. The rest is stuck in the Dragon Bone Archives, written in scripts and languages no one really remembers anymore. Even what I know was whispered to me by my tutor when I was a little kid, it's not like I learned it in school."
"I miss school," Aang looked southwards in memory of his brief day in the Fire Nation school and the dance he had orchestrated. To be with other children was a rare thrill for him, even if they were clueless to his actual identity or even the proper history of his people. Monk Gyatso was adamant that Aang would be raised as a normal boy, but Aang himself never found out. No one had called him immature to his face, but many a master and friend would hint at that. Aang wondered what Zuko's adolescence was like, or Sokka's. Mitsu and Kuei rarely talked about their childhood, something shared by the rest of the group as well. Aang suddenly felt alone again, as he was virtually the only child left among all of them.
"We're almost there," Mitsu landed on Aang's back after a few hours of flight and avoiding naval patrols. He pointed to a remote island off the horizon with his staff. The island was barely visible on the map but was actually bigger than it was on the sheet. Ember Island was a red dot in the distance, but in the broad daylight the island of the Sun Warriors was brightly hued. Mitsu saw giant sandstone temples and other ruins, all dotted with vines and bushes that snaked over them like shorn wrapping on a forgotten present. The red glint of rubies was a hint of times gone by, the red stones following the sun as it made its way up to its apex in the summer sky. Appa managed to find a courtyard to land on, although the bison couldn't be persuaded to move any further. Aang patted his friend on the head and together with Zuko ran to meet Mitsu, who was waving slightly ahead of them.
"This place is pretty well preserved," Zuko noticed that most of the buildings were complete despite the overgrowth of plants on them.
"No one's been here for thousands of years," Mitsu felt the stones on a wall. "Yet it feels alive somehow."
"The temples of the Fire Sages look similar to those stupas over there," Zuko noticed the rubies in the ground. "That must be a solar calendar up there," he pointed. "The sages say that the past is a great teacher."
Aang looked up as he walked, but found himself suddenly dragged down by a harmless looking vine that turned out to be a tripwire for a bed of spikes , only a quick breath of air managed to save the Avatar from being skewered, and only his small frame managed to save him from tipping over onto the spikes.
"Zuko, I think the past is trying to kill me!" Aang quickly stepped back from the spikes.
"Wow, still sharp," Mitsu poked at the metal spikes with his staff. He effortlessly hovered over them and landed among the sweating Aang, while Zuko ran sideways on the wall and landed with a small smile, dusting off his tunic.
"I thought you said something about an upbeat attitude," he grinned.
"These traps are thousands of years old, and they still work! Reminds me of the Rock…" Mitsu sent a force wave forward and triggered two more traps, the second being a giant pair of dragon jaws that smashed a stone between them until it was a pile of dust.
"There could be more," Mitsu tugged the two boys at the collar and flew up towards the solar calendar platform, which lay in front of a slab that resembled a door. As he landed, Zuko noticed a mural above the door with an intricate design of two dragons breathing fire at a single man. The man was faceless and appeared to be standing in the flames, though it wasn't clear if he was burning or dancing.
"I thought the Sun Warriors were friends with the Dragons," Aang rubbed his chin.
"They look pretty angry to me," Zuko felt the slab for some sort of lock.
"There's no mechanism I can detect," Mitsu ran his palm over the doorway. "It must be deep within the building.
"Zuko, something happened to the dragons when I was gone. Something neither of you are telling me."
Mitsu and Zuko looked at each other, with the Fire Prince sighing and stepping away from the door.
"My great grandfather Sozin happened," Zuko traced the lines on the floor. "He started the tradition of hunting dragons for sport. They were the ultimate Firebenders, the greatest trophy of them all. The last great dragon was slain by none other than my uncle." Zuko stroked a miniature of a dragon's head.
"Iroh? I thought he was…I don't know…good?" Aang shrugged.
"He had a complicated past," Mitsu looked up at a small tower that was opposite the door.
"Family inheritance, I guess," Zuko held his hand up to the large ruby in the tower. "This isn't just a solar calendar, this is like the entrance to the Prime Temple in the capital," he pointed to a red spot on the floor.
"When will it hit the door ruby?" Mitsu recalled a book he once read.
"The summer solstice," Zuko took out his sword.
"Monkey feathers! The solstice again? I don't have that long to wait!" Aang gripped his bald head.
"We can speed time a little bit," Zuko held out his shining blade towards the tower and soon, a little red dot began scattering across the stone slab until it met a rounded ruby on top of the doorway. The ruby glowed slightly and the three looked at each other, wondering if the trick had worked. The slab then began to sink downwards, rumbling into an unseen cavity below.
"Zuko, I don't care what the others say. I think you're pretty smart," Aang gave him a friendly nudge. Zuko shrugged, appreciating the Avatar's lightheartedness. He wondered if all of Aang's people were like that, so open minded and free thinking, so unlike his own. Aang was innocently looking at a statue inside the room they were in when Zuko noticed that there was an entire circle of statues, all with tall headdresses and stern expressions on their faces but with different poses.
"The statues all have 'paths' that lead to the center," Mitsu noticed patterns on the floor.
Aang put his staff down and dusted off a plaque below a statue at the end of the circle.
"It says the Dancing Dragon," Aang pondered. Something in him clicked and he followed the statue's posture, standing on one leg and raising both his hands. A slab of stone sunk beneath his feet and sprang up as soon as he lifted it. The Airbender immediately grabbed Zuko and showed him, though the prince was reluctant.
"You want to what?"
"Dance with me, Zuko! I have a feeling these statues are trying to each us something."
The prince sighed and stood beside Aang on his side of the circle and adopted a similar pose, moving onwards to the second statue in his row as Aang did the same. Stones slid down as the two danced in tandem, with Mitsu standing in the middle.
"This had better teach us some super Firebending," Zuko spread his arms in an eagle-like stance.
The dance ended with both of them touching fists, shoulders bent towards each other. Mitsu felt a rumbling beneath his feet, only to get knocked over by a suddenly rising platform. A single golden-looking egg rose from the platform, shining so brilliantly that the entire room was bathed in a golden light and they were all momentarily blinded.
"That thing…is it alive?" Zuko shielded his eyes as the brilliant light died down.
"It feels like I can hear a heartbeat of sorts," Aang got up.
"It's pretty warm," Mitsu lifted the egg off the platform.
"Wait, what if it's another trap like the spikes out there?" Aang made a tent shape with his hands.
"It's just an egg, but whoa!" Mitsu felt the ground rumble again, throwing the egg to Zuko.
"It's another trap!" Aang watched as the doors and windows shut on them. A green liquid began to seep through the floor, shooting Zuko and the egg upwards towards a kind of grill.
"I can't move!" Zuko howled as the egg hung off some slime.
Aang grabbed his staff and tipped himself on a statue. Raising the staff he breathed in, a powerful tornado blasting the slime back, though the torrent continued to fight him. Mitsu was flying upwards towards the ceiling, but the slime was following him at a ridiculously fast rate. He threw the staff at the stone ceiling and tried to bash through, but the slime grabbed his ankle and he dropped to the ground in frustration, rooted through the hole in the floor he had made. Aang himself was fighting this strange slime, which resisted all Waterbending attempts and eventually grabbed the Avatar, grabbing him and sticking him right beside Zuko as it rose. The torrent eventually subsided, but they were stuck to the grate while Mitsu felt like a tree stuck in the ground.
"You had to touch the glowing egg," Aang shot him a look.
"I like glowing things," Mitsu tried to shrug but his hands were stuck to the ground. Even his staff was caught by the slime, struggling in vain on the stone floor.
"What do we do now?" Zuko's face was the only thing above the slime.
"HELP!" Aang yelled with all the Airbending in the world, his mouth expanding to ridiculous proportions.
"Who are you yelling for help to? No one's lived here for thousands of years!"
"HELP!" Mitsu joined Aang in yelling.
"Oh, what the hell… HELP!" Zuko wailed. What was the worst that could happen, a Fire Nation airship hovering overhead?
They yelled till they were out of breath and talked until they were out of things to talk about and even Aang ran out of monk stories to share. The sun had given way to the moon, and the stars wheeled overhead as their stomachs began to rumble.
"I think we can talk about our place in the universe?" Zuko tried the Fire Breath, but a small spitball came out instead.
"I think our place is in hell," Mitsu groaned as the slime turned to a rubbery kind of gunk. A large foot suddenly stomped by his face, a large shadow falling over the Force Bender.
"You might be going there, if you are trespassing!" a haughty voice called out to him. "We have two others here!" The man called out to other people, who came seemingly out of nowhere, some bearing torches, and to Zuko's amazement some with their own fire.