The Fire Fades

Meisai would remember that day for as long as she lived. Most of her adult life had been given to the service of the Fire Army in times of war, yet it was in the Last Battle for Yu Dao, years after the war ended, that she rose up and restored her honor.

It was all thanks to Princess Azula.

When they parted in Yang City, Azula had given Meisai very specific- very risky- instructions. Among them was the request to rendezvous with the Rough Rhinos, plus the rest of the rebel army that Azula had raised in the colonial countryside, and bring them all to Yu Dao as quickly as possible. The signal that the army was in place would be a messenger, a man sent into the city to the Avatar and the Fire Lord bearing the records that Azula had seized from Long Feng's agent in Geum Gwuang. Azula planned to delay things in Yu Dao until then, so that she would have all her resources on hand before Long Feng felt the need to make a move against her.

Meisai had been Azula's instrument in bringing this to pass, and when the Princess's phoenix signal summoned the army into the city, Meisai answered the call with the satisfaction of a job well done.

The reinforced doors of Yu Dao's main gate had been destroyed in another of Azula's machinations, and Meisai rode in at the head of the army- bolstered by additional volunteers from the tent settlement outside the city walls- alongside the Rough Rhinos. They found Azula standing on the roof of a building facing the main gate, with the sun streaming above her and dark clouds of smoke rising in the distance behind her. Meisai had to shield her eyes against the glare of the sunlight, but she could tell that Azula's spirit was aflame, that her body was tensed and ready for combat; Meisai could feel it reflected in her own Inner Fire. The Princess raised a hand with her palm held outward, and Meisai signaled the sub-commanders to bring their soldiers to a halt. Azula nodded with satisfaction, and then began speaking. Her words carried clearly to the gate and beyond to the crowds assembling past the city's walls. Her voice sounded to Meisai like a god of legend, hard and commanding and possessed of an energy that few people would ever understand. It was like the Agni Warrior had once again taken the form of flesh, this time as a fugitive girl.

"People of the colonies! You know me, I am Azula. There is no time for stirring speeches or appeals for your loyalty. Your enemies, the people who want to destroy the colonies, are in this city. They are burning everything and killing whoever they can find. They use blue flames in an attempt to discredit me, but I don't care what you believe. You are needed to defend this city from your enemies. You must fight to save Yu Dao's people and homes. You must risk your lives and kill. The Rough Rhinos are the best of the best, so they will lead you. Follow the orders handed down through their commanders; they will help keep you alive and make you more effective than you can be on your own. This is the day you take charge of your new nation, and I will be there beside you."

Azula paused for a moment, and then added, in a tone that rang with an almost dreamy quality, "The sword protects!"

The voices of the army and the gathered crowds together rose up in affirmation, Meisai's along with them, and she felt her Inner Fire blaze like one of the First Volcanos. The sound of Azula's voice, the glint of the sun off her polished black armor, the electricity in the air from her very presence- all of it brought a warmth to Meisai that she hadn't felt since she first decided to enlist and devote her life to defending her home and her people.

"Move out," Azula cried, and the army surged forward, Meisai and the Rough Rhinos at its head. They rode straight down the main avenue of the city, a stampeding parade that was all chaos and urgency. Above it all, she heard a heavy groan that resonated like a tribal song echo through the air, and Meisai's view of the sky was briefly blocked by what looked like a ten-ton collection of flying fur.

A Sky Bison.

It was the Avatar's beast, the last living Sky Bison, a symbol of what the Fire Nation had tried to destroy. And Azula stood on its back, pointing the way for her army. "There," she called out, gesturing ahead. "Enemy forces approaching that intersection. Attack!"

And attack they did.

As soon as Meisai's komodo rhino rounded the street corner, she aimed a fist at the first body she saw and punched a stream of flames. It wore the armor of a Firebender, the black and red ensemble that Meisai had once honored, the face of its wearer hidden by the skull-like mask that Fire Lord Ozai had made standard. Meisai knew from experience that the armor protected against all manner of attacks, being made of good processed metal, but there was an ironic flaw to it. Made of refined metal, it was also an excellent conductor. In Meisai's unit, the Firebenders had used the chest plates of their armor as grills on which to heat their food.

It worked the same way for the flesh of the soldier who Meisai was blasting with flame.

To her left, Colonel Mongke did the same, while to her right, Vachir smoothly took aim and let loose with an arrow that must have found an unarmored target, considering the cry of pain it raised. Meisai could hear Ogodei's bellowing war cry ring out above the clanking and whistling sounds of his meteor hammer. Then they were completely amidst the enemy, and Meisai focused on staying in the saddle while her rhino trampled over one of the enemy soldiers. Another of the enemy rushed at her with a sword, but a stream of fire cooked him as he ran. The sounds of war echoed in the streets of Yu Dao, the cacophony of combat that was the mixing impacts of metal, flesh, earth and fire.

Meisai almost missed it when the stone road beneath her cracked and came to life, and she was just barely able to throw herself out of her saddle before teeth of rock rose up to stab into her rhino mount from beneath its vulnerable stomach. She arrested her tumble by grabbing the nearest armored figure as she fell and bringing him crashing to the ground beneath her. Before he could recover, she shot a plume of flames right through the eye-slits of his helmet. Then a sound like thunder cracked through the air, a noise that Meisai had come to recognize as the tools of the trade of the Rough Rhino's explosives expert, Yeh-Lu, and despite its volume it did little more than momentarily interrupt the chaos of the battlefield.

War could not be stopped by any single blow, no matter how strong. War only stopped when the soldiers were all dead, or when there was nothing left over which to fight.

That was part of what being a soldier was all about, and now Meisai finally had an opportunity to soldier on for a cause that the rest of the world could respect. She had no great concern for what people thought of her, as she had served the Fire Nation in good faith, but the chance to restore her public honor was a gift she accepted with gratitude.

From her place in the center of Appa's saddle, Azula sent a bolt of lightning crashing into a team of Long Feng's soldiers that was laying siege to a house full of civilians. The street beneath them exploded into dust and flying pebbles, and Azula didn't even wait to see how much damage her blast did to the soldiers themselves. She turned to look behind the Sky Bison, waved down to one of her army's commanders, and called out, "Another enemy cluster! Follow the lightning! Protect civilians!"

He waved his confirmation, and led his squad of fighters down the street in the direction of her latest electric blast. She watched the resulting skirmish- watched the exchanges of fire and earth, the chops and stabs and hammers- until it was lost from view. Appa rose on the wind currents and arced over the city, tearing Azula's gaze away from the nuances of the war. The wind whipped at her hair and she was forced to crouch down again to avoid being yanked into the air. She inched over to the saddle's right edge, grabbed the side, and used that to clamber up to the front of the saddle, behind where Sokka was steering atop the Sky Bison's head. She shouted above the wind, "How does it look?"

"Like a full-on war!" He glanced back at her, revealing wide eyes and a heavy frown. "It's street-to-street, half of the people fighting on our side don't have weapons or armor, and they're struggling to get those house fires under control. Even if we win, this is going to be a disaster."

Azula looked down over the sprawl of Yu Dao. Smoke obscured much of the view, but the movement she could make out seemed to support Sokka's assessment. What was once the jewel of the Former Independent Colonies was quickly becoming their greatest failure. "I knew when I called my army that the casualties would be horrific, and war doesn't limit its destruction to just soldiers. But Long Feng gave us no choice about where to fight this war. And I'll be paying for my part in it soon enough." She pushed her wind-whipped hair out of her face and looked over along the left side of the saddle for Ty Lee. "Have you found Long Feng?"

"I think I caught a glimpse of his tank," came the wavering reply. Ty Lee was leaning over the edge of the saddle, her face pointed out towards the city's northwest sector. "It was on the road running right up against the city's wall, and heading thataway. Sokka, do you know what's over there?"

"Northwest? That's- oh slush."

Azula was leaning over him in an instant, prodded into motion by the tone of his voice. "What? You sound scared."

Sokka looked up at her with a sick expression. "That's where we parked the airships. Long Feng is going to fly all of our friends out of here. We have to-"

"Yes," Azula cut him off. "Get over there now. The war for Yu Dao can take care of itself."

Sokka tugged the reins, and with a groan like a war cry, Appa turned towards the northwest sector of the city. Azula clung to the saddle's edge even tighter as the Sky Bison went into a dive to pick up some extra speed. She put the full force of her willpower into ignoring the flips of her stomach, and made herself keep her eyes open against the tears that the smoky wind was pulling from them. As Appa moved closer to his destination, the smoke thinned like parting clouds and the full scene resolved itself.

Two airships were rising slowly from the small plaza, just having passed the roofs of the buildings around them. To Azula's eye, they were moving more gingerly than when Sokka was in the cockpit. Perhaps the pilots were inexperienced? Or they were worried about some kind of precious cargo?

Both airships were of the same design, the small craft in which Sokka had brought Azula to her fate here in Yu Dao. The same kind that flew like a ghost in her vaguest memories. They were splotches of dark metal rising against the blue sky, most of their bulk given to bulbous pods on top housing the special rising gas that didn't need to be heated. The rest of the craft was divided between a cockpit and the passenger compartment, with connecting hallways that twisted around the internal machinery which allowed the craft to truly fly. The good news was that, unlike the Fire Nation's massive flying warships, these craft were not designed for combat. They were made for the Fire Lord and the Earth King to provide them a quick and comfortable way of traveling comparable to having a Sky Bison. They had no other way of dealing with combat than running away.

But a diving Sky Bison was faster, and Azula was closing in on these stolen airships.

She stood up in the saddle again, and eased into a Firebending stance.

As soon as Sokka realized what Azula was doing, he let go of Appa's reins and threw himself to clutch at her boots. "NO! You'll blow up our friends!"

She froze, and looked down at Sokka with a piercing glare. "Explain."

Sokka sighed with relief. "The rising gas, it's explosive. Very explosive. We needed something that would lift the weight of the airship, something that didn't require a big furnace room to keep the air super-heated. So we went with this rising gas, but just a spark is all it takes to set it off. We found a way to seal it really well in the metal envelope, but if your Firebending heats that metal up too much... well, boom."

Azula frowned heavily, and looked back out at the airships. "So we need to capture those ships if we want to save everyone and make sure we have Long Feng. In midair."

Sokka nodded. "And we need to do it fast. It looks like they're trying to get some altitude before they head out over the pillars and cliffs and stuff outside the city, but once they're up, it will be a chase, and they can last longer than Appa."

Azula's face tightened and her eyes narrowed, and Sokka could tell that she was thinking, weighing all the factors and putting together one of her optimal solutions. The question, of course, was whether Azula's optimal solution this time would work for everyone else, or if she was once again playing one of her own games. Who would be the winners if her plans succeeded? Sokka didn't know, and barely knew the person she was now, but he had seen a glimpse of that person in Suki, and in the way Azula behaved since he found her again in Yang. He had seen how she obviously hurt in response to all the lies that Sokka had told, and how she fought for other people to whom she owed nothing.

He didn't know her fully, but he found that he trusted her- trusted her, at least, to try to do the right thing.

"We have to hit the airships simultaneously," she finally said. "I'll take one; you and Ty Lee take the other. We'll each have to find a way to force our airship down. The ships are small enough that they can't have too many troops inside. And we'll have to somehow get in from out here. How do we do that?"

Sokka let go of her boots and thought about it. The windows were too small for even Ty Lee to squirm through, and burning a person-sized hole in the hull would take too long with just one Firebender. That left the door. "We didn't bother with locks because the airships are always guarded anyway, so the only thing securing the doors is a handwheel and screw, like on Fire Navy ships. Well, it's actually two wheels, one on each side, so we just need to get close on Appa, and-"

"-and we save the world!" Ty Lee popped up behind Azula with a grin, the wind blowing her short hair back so that it was all standing on end. "So who gets to go first? And which airship?"

Sokka pointed to the one on the left. "That one is Zuko's Fang. The other is the Earth King's Flying Bosco."

Azula nodded. "I'll take the Bosco. That bear is lucky for me. And we should get me aboard first. Better to leave the precise Appa-steering to you."

With that, Sokka took up the reins again and guided the Sky Bison over on an easy arc towards the Flying Bosco. The airships were now a good distance above Yu Dao, and it wouldn't be long before they were moving away from the city. They would only have one chance at this.

If that.

Azula wasn't afraid of heights. That's what she told her stomach as she clung to the outside edge of Appa's saddle, crouching on the bison's fur with nothing but empty air just another step away. Once again, she had another flash of almost-memory, of falling backwards through unending mists, looking up at a reversed city that hung from the underside of cliffs and displayed tiled roofs pointing down like the teeth of a predator.

She was more than grateful when Ty Lee popped her head over the side of the saddle with a distraction. "Hey, Azula?"

"I'm up for anything that doesn't involve looking down."

"Um, okay. I- I wanted to give you these." She lowered a fist down to Azula, and the objects she was holding glinted gold in the sunlight. Azula reached her own free hand up and took the offering, two short lengths of metal that felt right at home in her grip.

Kyoshi war fans, folded up as neat as could be.

Ty Lee gave a nervous-looking smile. "You took some of mine already when you left Kyoshi Island, but you didn't have any when Sokka and I found you again. I just- I hope my other ones helped you somehow, and maybe you'll need these, too. I really am sorry that I didn't think about how I was hurting you as Suki. I'll try to do better, if you let me still be your friend."

Azula looked at the war fans, and then tucked them into her belt. "Thanks. I- just- try to remember that I don't hate you. I'm not angry at you. It's time to move on." She turned away from Ty Lee's smile, gazed out at the approaching airship, and told herself that heights didn't bother her any more than misguided Kyoshi acrobats. Fortunately, Appa wasn't bothered by the heights, either. He zipped right through the wind and sidled up alongside the Flying Bosco, and Azula's vision was filled with the airship's starboard with the door right in front of her. She reached for the handwheel, got a good grip on it, and began to twist-

-Appa let out a surprised grunt-

-and Azula suddenly felt herself being pulled apart by her arms as the Sky Bison veered away. Her grip on Appa's saddle gave out first, and she found herself dangling from the handwheel by one hand as the airship began its own set of maneuvers.

Azula held on with a death grip and told herself that she wasn't afraid of heights.

Ty Lee's screech easily rang out over the sound of the whistling wind: "What was that?!"

Sokka tugged on the reins and tried to get Appa back under control. "Someone fired something at us from the ground. Either they set up catapults or Long Feng has Earthbenders throwing surface-to-air rocks at us." He took a glance down towards the city, and saw another fast-moving object rising up from the plaza where the airship had originally been parked. He jerked the reins back, and Appa obediently went into a heavy dive that dodged the Dangerous Flying Thing. "What happened to Azula?"

"She's- she's doing great!"

Sokka looked up in surprise and found the Flying Bosco in the sky above him. As the airship turned and peeled off away from the city, Sokka was able to make out Azula- a black armored figure with a reddish bob on the head- brace herself against the frame, tug the handwheel enough to open the door, and pull herself inside the craft.

Huh. That was a lot better than the time he fell off Appa running a Fire Nation blockade on the way to Roku's temple.

"Okay th- woah!" Sokka yanked the reins to dodge another Flying Projectile of Evil. "Yow. We've got to hurry to catch our ride." He directed Appa over towards the Fang, but the people piloting the thing must have seen them coming because the airship began its own turn, heading in the opposite direction as the Bosco. "Oh no you don't, slush-heads." Sokka threw a glance back at Ty Lee while he reached for his boomerang. "Get some of the rope and tie one end to Appa's saddle, then give me the other end." When she did so, Sokka tied it around his boomerang, and began whirling it above his head in preparation for a throw.

If this worked, it was going to be his best story yet.

Ty Lee loved flying. Whether it was when she was dancing on a tight rope, or jumping through the air in battle, or even sitting in Appa's saddle while he glided through the air, she loved the sensation of the wind cradling her body while the earth spun below her. People sometimes joked that Ty Lee had an Airbender somewhere in her family tree, and she thought it was such a fun idea that she didn't even mind the insult to her ancestors. As Appa neared the Fang, she leaned out of the saddle and got ready to spring into the sky once more and trust her fate to momentum.

She watched as Sokka threw his boomerang out from his seat on Appa's head, and it arced up and around to hook the handwheel on the Fang's door. The airship's drifting drew the rope taut, and with a groan Appa was dragged by his saddle along with it. Ty Lee felt bad for the Sky Bison, just like she felt bad that Azula was being dragged along with all this trouble because of the mistakes she and her friends had made. None of it was fair, but something Ty Lee had learned from Azula- the old Azula- was that the best way to deal with unfairness was to hit something, so long as that something was an enemy.

And now it was time to hit the enemies.

Yay.

Ty Lee stood up and began running. Her first step launched her out of the saddle, and then she was racing atop the rope between Appa and the airship. Both of the flying thingies drifted back and forth from each other and that made the rope twist in the air, but Ty Lee kept her focus on the door to the airship and didn't slow her run. In the past, she had walked across tightropes on her hands, while balancing all kinds of funny objects on her body. Having the rope twist under her like a hill wasn't much fun, but at least she was on her feet and unencumbered. She passed over the remaining distance and grabbed the handwheel. She braced her feet on either side of the door and twisted, and the wheel loosened with a squeak. The door fell inward, and Ty Lee found herself dumped into a metal hallway.

Yay, that much was done. Time to pull Sokka in without smashing him against the outside of the airship in the wind.

And hope Azula would be okay.

Improbably, Azula had managed to survive her boarding action against the Flying Bosco, so she wasn't surprised when things had immediately gone downhill from there. Once she got aboard the airship and shut the door again, she headed straight for the passenger compartment, only to find it completely empty. Aang, Zuko, Katara, Toph, the Earth King, the colonial governors- none of them were here.

Azula couldn't help but smile at that discovery.

The captives must be on the other airship, where Sokka and Ty Lee could take care of saving them and returning them to Yu Dao and whatnot. That left the question of what was aboard this airship, what could be just as important as the leaders of the entire relevant world, that it would require its own transport. Knowing how Long Feng thought, Azula already had the answer. This was her purpose, the task for which she had been preparing herself since she first set out for Yu Dao with Sokka, all those weeks ago. She had summoned her army in secret, put her allies into play as wild factors to ruin Long Feng's plan, and prepared an endgame that would destroy her enemies, save the colonies, and finally allow her to rest.

She was so very weary of conflict, and looked forward to finally resting.

Here, alone on this airship with her greatest enemy, she could finally achieve a complete victory.

She crept silently through the airship's small hallway, up to the control cabin, and found a single person in the pilot's chair. The back of his round head and Ba Sing Se-style hair queue were visible over the top of the chair, and his gaze was fixed on the front viewport and the mountainous terrain ahead. Azula felt a truly predatory grin stretch across her face, and she quietly took a Firebending stance. She drew a fist back, stoked the heat in her heart and let her Inner Fire flare within its furnace, and indulged in the most searing hate she had ever felt. Everything that had been done to her, from Kyoshi Island all the way to this new war in Yu Dao- even before that, the 'Suki' project that had killed the real Azula was just a by-product of the brainwashing techniques that Long Feng had unleashed on the world- was all the fault of this man who sat unsuspectingly before her. Some might have balked at the idea of burning him alive without making an honorable challenge, but Azula had little use for that kind of honor. She snapped into motion, punching out a massive conflagration of azure flame-

-the chair spun-

-Long Feng raised his arms-

-and the metal floor groaned like a dying dragon and rose up to shield him from the fire.

Ash and Unagi breath.

Long Feng was a Metalbender, and he knew she was here, in a giant flying cage of metal.

Ty Lee gave one last yank on the rope, and Sokka's body- the end of the rope wrapped around his chest- came flying into the airship to crash into her. She let loose with an oof, but was able to keep herself propped up against the hallway wall. Sokka clutched her, hugging her so tightly she could barely breathe. "It's okay, you're inside now," she squeaked, and patted his back.

Without letting up on his grip, Sokka turned to stare her in the eyes. "That was the most horrifying experience of my entire life. Hold me."

"Um, okay." She waited a heartbeat, and then added, "But you're kind of crushing me, and we have to save our friends."

"Oh, yeah. That." He gave her one last extra squeeze, then let go. He immediately went back to the wind-spewing door, shut and locked it, and then he drew his stolen jian sword. "Okay, they probably know we're here. You head aft, I'll head fore."

"Yay! Is aft in the back?"

"Yes. Aft is the passenger compartment."

"Yay!" Ty Lee gave Sokka one last smile, privately wished a little wish that he would survive this whole thing, and then took off in a run down the short hallway. Ahead of her, the door to the passenger compartment was being pushed closed from the inside, but she put on another burst of speed and crashed into it shoulder-first. The door bounced off of her and slammed into the guy behind it with a clang and a painful yelp.

Ty Lee kept moving.

She flipped into the air with a leap that brought her head dangerously close to the ceiling but of course didn't hit it, and she landed practically in the arms of another evil soldier guy. He was wearing Fire Army Firebender armor, or at least something very much like it, and that was a good thing. Ty Lee had grown up in the heart of the Fire Nation and saw lots of people in armor like that, so she knew exactly where it was metal and where it was hardened leather and where it was just normal clothes that she could safely punch.

She jammed an arrow fist into those spots. Hard.

Ty Lee whipped around and looked for more mean ugly-aura guys to punch, but didn't find any. What she did find was a bunch of bodies on the floor, bodies that looked like Zuko (Fire Lord Zuko), Aang, Toph-

-oh, these were the kidnapped people. Ty Lee's friends, plus those governor guys. They were all lined up on the floor, held in place with the cargo straps. Well, good thing she had jumped over most of the room; it would have been mean to step on her friends. With that, Ty Lee realized that she had completed her mission. Yay!

Then the airship tilted suddenly and Ty Lee found herself tumbling on top of Zuko's sleeping body.

Uh oh. What was going on in the cockpit?

Long Feng shouted a kiai from behind his metal shield and made some movement that sent the curved piece of flooring rushing at Azula. She stumbled backwards and reflexively punched out a fireball, but the flame struck the metal harmlessly and faded to nothingness. It occurred to her that lightning would be far more effective against the material, but there was a good chance she would electrocute herself in the process, never mind the chance of blowing up the entire airship.

This presented something of a strategic difficulty.

Azula decided on a new course of action and reversed her backpedaling into a forward sprint. When she got up to the metal wave she reached out to grab the top- her hands sizzled on the heated material- and vaulted herself over it towards Long Feng.

Then the ceiling screeched and bulged to punch her to the floor.

The next thing Azula felt was Long Feng's boot as it slammed into the side of her head.

Stars and lightning exploded in her vision, but she held onto consciousness, and a distant part of her mind began whispering strategy to her. She quickly brought her left hand up and caught Long Feng's boot as he tried to kick her again, and without even fully registering her little win she yanked and sent the Metalbender tumbling to the floor. Long Feng twisted as he crumpled over the pilot's chair, and even as Azula was bringing a fist up covered in flame the floor beneath her undulated and threw her backwards. She slammed into the standing piece of floor that Long Feng had first sent against her, and it was thin enough to fold beneath the weight of her armor and body. The armor, at least, mitigated some of the force of the impact, and so Azula simply had to deal with pain and new bruises as she rolled out of the cabin in an involuntary somersault.

When Azula pulled herself to her feet out in the hallway, her head spinning unpleasantly, she found Long Feng bearing down on her, his hand motions making the metal around her groan while pipes that had been bolted to the walls and ceiling tore themselves free and swung towards her.

Azula turned and ran.

Sokka may have trained with the Kyoshi Warriors, but it wasn't them who had taught him how to move silently. He learned those skills from a lifetime of hunting for his food, of learning to walk across snow without the crunch of ice beneath his feet, of passing over lush lands without bending one blade of grass more than was absolutely necessary. Walking quietly over metal wasn't so much different, stepping one foot at a time, shifting his weight gradually only after both feet were on the ground.

Sokka was so proud of his approach to the pilot's chair in the front cabin, where one of Long Feng's soldiers was working the controls obliviously, that he almost missed the other soldier waiting motionlessly for him at the rear of the cabin. What tipped him off was the slight creak of metal as that soldier moved in for attack, and as soon as Sokka heard it he lifted one leg and drove it backwards in the hardest kick he could manage.

He struck something soft and yielding, and the soldier gave a high-pitched squeal.

At that, the pilot spun in his chair and made to rise, but Sokka was already swinging his sword at the man's head. He felt the blade merely notch the helmet, but the force of the impact sent the soldier flying backwards-

-flying right into the controls of the airship.

There was a sound like a snap and shattering glass, and the whole vessel dipped into a heavy dive. Sokka suddenly found himself in a state of weightlessness as he lifted off the floor in a shared free-fall with the airship. With a squawk, he stabbed his sword into the ceiling and wrapped himself around it, making it an anchor that would keep him from bouncing all around the cabin, but otherwise it didn't do a whole lot to improve the situation. What did go tumbling around were the pair of soldiers, and as Sokka tucked himself into the smallest ball he could manage and pressed himself tightly against the ceiling, he couldn't help but wince at the cries of pain coming from his enemies as they ricocheted off the walls and floor. Armor protected flesh and bone, but could only do so much for blunt trauma.

Well, that was an inefficient but effective enough way of taking out the baddies. Now to somehow fix the airship without bumping into said baddies and joining them in their rapid tour of every hard surface in the cabin.

Sokka was still considering it when Ty Lee sailed through the doorway like she did this every day.

She collided almost right away with one of the soldiers, but managed to grab his body, punch him somewhere soft, and throw him behind her in a blur of motion that Sokka could barely make out. The force of her throw sent her drifting towards the controls, and she grabbed at the pilot's chair and anchored herself by her legs. "Sokka, how do I fix this?"

"Pull the stick back!"

Sokka watched as Ty Lee tried, but the airship didn't level, and the dials across the control board told a grim story. "It's not working! Should I pull back harder?"

"No! Hold on and flip that red switch on the right!"

"This one?"

"Your other right!"

"That's my left!"

"No, that's your- oh, wait, that is your left. Sorry."

"Flip the switch?"

"Flip the switch!"

Once Ty Lee did so, the airship shuddered, and leveled off enough to deposit Long Feng's soldiers into crumpled heaps on the floor. Sokka felt his weight returning and let go of his sword, dropping down so that he could stand again. The floor was still angled, but no worse than a boat on the crest of a wave. He hurried over to the co-pilot's chair and began flipping switches.

Ty Lee looked over at him. "Keep pulling back on the stick?"

"Yes! That button was a release for the rising gas that keeps us in the sky. Right now, it's leaking out of a valve in a position that's offsetting our dive." Sokka pulled a lever that made the entire airship give a clang. Good, the emergency wings were deployed. "We should slow into a glide that will let us land safely, but it's going to be bumpy and we won't be able to fly again. What about our friends?"

"Strapped down in the passenger compartment."

Sokka looked over at Ty Lee and smiled. "Great job. They should be safe while we bring this thing home." His stomach, though, continued to flip, and he couldn't help but wonder what Azula was facing on the Flying Bosco, and if she was safe.

He didn't have a good feeling about that.

Yu Dao smelled.

It smelled of burning wood. It smelled of burning bodies. It smelled of blood and death and sweat and fear. Meisai knew that reek; it was the stench of war, and it would never fail to disgust her how quickly she was able to ignore it. Luxuries like odors couldn't be afforded on the battlefield, where a momentary lack of attention could lead to that one mistake that was finally fatal, and as a soldier, Meisai knew how to eschew luxuries when the need came. She had been fighting for so long in what would come to be called the Last Battle for Yu Dao, had been fighting with such ferocity, that it took the shuddering of the entire street to make her realize that the enemy was retreating.

It was a shudder like an earthquake, something that people said were natural occurrences in the Fire Nation, but which Meisai had only experienced as a prelude to enemy action. She took a low stance that would keep her stable and looked around for the expected enemy surge, but instead she saw the armored soldiers racing back up the street towards a hole that had opened up in the earth at the end of the lane. She could only stare dumbly, trying to figure out what that meant, when Colonel Mongke rode up alongside her on his rhino. "Well, flambé my butt," he growled. "They're retreating."

"They're what?"

"They're pulling out and going underground. Look, that's as orderly a withdrawal as I've ever seen a losing side manage. They must have decided they had enough. Ash, we just about had enough, too."

Meisai frowned. Now that he said it, she could see the same pattern. The enemy soldiers were hurrying along but a portion of them was purposefully moving slower, guarding against the pot-shots that her allies were throwing after them. "Keep an eye out. I have to check something." Without waiting for Mongke's reply, she ran towards the nearest building that wasn't burning and used a burst of Firebending to aid her jump. She grabbed onto the edge of the angled roof and swung herself on top of it, and then repeated the process for the roof on the second story. From there, Meisai had a view of several nearby streets.

The retreat was in effect across all of them. The enemy was heading underground, and as Meisai watched, one of the cave entrances was closed up by a trio of Earthbenders, cutting off any chance of immediate pursuit. Meisai watched just long enough to confirm her impressions, and then climbed back to the ground. Like Mongke had said, it wasn't a decisive defeat. Long Feng's forces must have decided that continuing to fight wouldn't give them the victory they wanted, not at the price that Azula's army was forcing them to pay. It was technically a victory for Meisai's side, but not a comforting one. She had seen so many fall, people whom she had come to know as she helped guide Azula's army here to Yu Dao. In fact, it was only a victory because Azula had charged them with defending the city to the last person.

But then, that's how wars were won.

Once she was on the ground, she was immediately speaking to Mongke again. "We still have burning buildings, so we need the Firebenders to focus on managing those. And you should probably see about making sure our own guys realize that the fighting is over. We don't want anyone getting... overzealous."

Mongke gave a little smirk. "Good suggestions. I'll give the orders." He went serious again, and shifted in his saddle. "But what about you?"

"I'm going to find our Princess."

Azula had a head start on Long Feng of only three seconds, but she made good use of it. She dashed straight for the passenger compartment, and as soon as she was through the doorway, she was punching out fireballs at the porthole windows. She made the fires weak so that they didn't damage the glass itself, but they were hot enough to leave black scorch marks that blocked most of the sunlight. In the dark, Azula continued on by memory to the passenger couches, vaulting the first and landing right on the cushion of the second. She crouched out of view and began digging her fingers into her armor, seeking the strings that anchored the plates to her body. As she found each one, she surged a small flame into her finger to quickly snap each binding, not particularly caring if she burned herself or set her clothes on fire. Soon enough, she had all the armor off, leaving her with nothing but her clothes and leather vest for protection. That wouldn't do much against metal, but she didn't know Long Feng's capabilities as a Metalbender and couldn't risk that he could turn her own armor against her.

She should have expected that Long Feng had picked up some tricks. His Earthbenders throughout the colonies had demonstrated new tactics, but Long Feng had evidently reserved Metalbending for himself.

She waited in the near dark for her enemy to come to her.

Long Feng didn't try to mask his approach. His footsteps rang clearly on the airship's deck as he ambled down the hallway connecting the cockpit to the passenger compartment, until he stopped short just outside the doorway. He was probably peeking his head in as he began talking: "You think you can ambush me, Azula?"

She didn't reply. She didn't know if he could feel someone standing on the floor like Toph's earth-sense, so she stayed on the cushioned bench and refused to give away her position.

"You know, we don't need to fight here, Princess. Your friends- well, they were never really your friends, were they? But you all seem to be working together well enough. In any event, your brother and his allies are on the other airship, and it is long gone by now. Ah, no pun intended. I plan to rendezvous with my lieutenants, but there's no rush. You can't delay me. Sacrificing yourself will accomplish nothing."

He waited, but Azula didn't give him anything.

"To be honest, Azula, I don't want to kill you. Not anymore. I admit, you have been vexing me recently, and I have had unkind thoughts towards you, but as much stress as you've placed me under, you've failed to really stop me. You've just made it harder, but all the greatest rewards require the greatest efforts. You've pushed me to do even better than I originally planned, and I'm grateful for that, in a way. I really am. My plans don't even call for your death, not anymore. There's no reason for us to fight. Why risk our lives? Just to settle old grievances? There's little point in that."

Azula refrained from mentioning that the point was to wipe the stain of his existence from the world.

"And if you do want to fight... well, I'm not going to hold back. I'm in my element here, Azula, and I will kill you. I admit, I'll even enjoy it. Our rivalry is enough to ensure that. And I will hurt you as much as I can. I will take pleasure in your pain. The fight will not end with your death, it will end when I make you beg for mercy, and- because this will be a long flight- I will take my time with that. You have made me expend more effort than I ever wanted, and that does deserve some punishment. And after I've killed you, I expect I'll have enjoyed the process so much that I'll personally kill all your duplicates, just to relive the experience. After all, I have no use for them anymore."

Azula couldn't stop her jaw from clenching at that, nor her teeth from grinding together.

"I'll hunt down every single woman you've stolen from me, and kill them in exactly the same way I'll kill you. But this is only if we fight. If you surrender, I will land the airship and let you go. I ask only that you leave the nation I'll build for myself. Just go away! I- I shouldn't have involved you. That was a mistake on my part. I can learn from my mistakes. That's what all of this is about. Learning from the way I lost Ba Sing Se. Just- just go. Or die. Either way. It's depressing to see you hide from me like this. It makes my old defeat harder to take, somehow."

Azula grinned, and whispered into the shadows, "Not hiding. Planning, you deluded monster. Something you still haven't learned to do properly."

With a roar he burst fully into the room, gliding across the floor with a screech of stone on metal, heading straight for the couch where she was hiding. But that was okay.

That was part of the plan.

And for this plan, less than perfect was less than acceptable.

Azula leaped up off the couch in a flying kick, flames streaming from her foot, but before they got anywhere near Long Feng, he punched the air and the ceiling crumpled to smash her out of the air. She faded into the blow like a dancer giving in to the music and hit the floor hard enough to bounce. All of the air exploded out of her lungs, and before she came to a stop or remembered how to breathe she was once again being hit, this time by a traveling bulge in the floor that looked like a burrowing rabbiroo. She applied her will and shifted just as she was struck, and she was knocked back to smack into the base of one of the passenger couches. Her elbow struck first, a crescendo of pain in her little symphony of defeat, and she cried out as the bone in her entire forearm suddenly turned to burning ice and settled into a sore tingling.

But Azula didn't stop. Less than perfect was less than acceptable.

Carried by the music in her mind, the music that sang the Song of the Fall of the Fire Princess, Azula ignored all the pain, gasping for breath, and flung herself back to her feet for a run at Long Feng while waving a stream of fire at him. She stumbled and meandered on her route, not quite able to make herself travel in a straight line but weaving and stumbling with the grace required by her plan, drifting towards Long Feng's left. He sneered at her and flicked his right hand, calling the wall beside him to shield against her fire, and then snapped his left hand so that the rings set into the floor for the cargo straps all broke away from their sockets and pelted her.

They easily sliced through her clothes and skin, eating into her like her fireballs had eaten into the wooden statue of Kyoshi during her escape from the Avatar's island. Azula took that memory and turned it into the will to keep going, to keep threatening and provoking Long Feng. He stayed calm and twisted his fists just as she wanted him to, and the floor beneath Azula's feet crumpled like an eggshell to trip her, an improvisation that built on her performance thus far and added new character to it. The floor raced up to meet her but she punched her fists out- the reaction a beautiful reflex born of the plan that was unfolding throughout all her sense- and the blossom of flames exploded into hot air to push her up into a spinning jump that Ty Lee would have recognized.

Then the ceiling struck out again with a metal stalactite that hit her hard enough to make one of her ribs snap, and Azula gave a scream that was cut off when she slammed to the floor. When she fell this time, she didn't bounce. She stayed on the ground, using the meditations techniques that Uncle Iroh and Aang had taught to lock her pain away in another world, concentrating on her senses, sure that the climax of her struggle was at hand. Then she smelled it, and she forced a smile on her face despite her involuntary gasping.

It was the smell of rotten eggs.

Literally.

Sokka had told Suki the story of his visit to the Northern Air Temple, back in the same winter that brought the Avatar into his life, where he helped the famed Mechanist solve the problem of identifying dangerous gas leaks by mixing it with an awful smell. Just as she expected, he had done the same to the dangerous rising gas used to lift this airship, to warn the people who flew on his inventions when there was a leak. It was an unlikely eventuality, because Sokka was a good designer and a diligent craftsman when he put his mind to it, and that same quality made him consider even the most remote scenarios. Never mind that his speculations likely hadn't been so detailed as to specify a Metalbender who didn't know not to buckle the ceiling in two different places and burst the seams of the plating between the airship proper and the chamber of rising gas.

Azula loved it when a plan came together.

She pushed herself up, and found Long Feng standing a distance away from her, the few shafts of sunlight that pierced through the scorch marks on the windows streaming around him. He smirked down at her and said, "Are you done, now?"

She beamed at him, pushing herself to her feet. Her breathing was heavy; she couldn't seem to get enough air, and her left side hurt with every inhalation and exhalation both. Ah, she'd located her broken rib. Ignoring it, she took a loose Firebending stance and said, "You're just like Sokka and his friends. They couldn't tell when I was done, either. You want to know how to tell with me?"

"And you think aggressive banter will somehow give you the strength to fight on?" Long Feng bent over and scooped his hands at the floor, like a thirsty traveler seeking sustenance from a river, and came up with fists covered in haphazard metal gloves. Long Feng hadn't bothered to smooth the seams, and the ragged edges of the metal extended out over the knuckles like claws. "Pathetic. Just like you always were- a poorly forged weapon that can't tell when its war is over."

"I'm done," Azula told him between gasps, "when I'm dead. And you were done the first time the real Azula ever laid eyes on you."

Long Feng dashed at her with fists forward-

-Azula knew she couldn't Firebend, not without blowing herself up in the gas-filled cabin-

-Long Feng snarled as he drew closer-

-Azula pulled Ty Lee's war fan from her belt and flung it straight at Long Feng's feet-

-the sharp edge of the fan stuck the metal floor-

-the metal sparked on contact-

-Long Feng was consumed by a clap like thunder and a fireball like the heart of a raging volcano-

-Azula reached within, drew every last wisp of warmth from her Inner Fire to leave her blood like ice-

-and greeted the exploding world of fire like an old friend. She curled into a fetal position and used her will to shape the fire into a protective cocoon around her, trusting in the flame.

The fire flared blue.

Then the world hammered at Azula with such force as she never knew existed, and she knew no more.

"Welcome home."

Sokka watched the Flying Bosco explode in midair and he felt like his heart had stopped.

He and Ty Lee had managed to land the Fang outside the city, coming in just rough enough to rattle his teeth and bounce his backside against his chair with bruising force. When they checked their friends, they found them still sleeping comfortably, looking no worse for wear than after one of their more intense sparring sessions. Sokka had left Ty Lee to unstrap them and see about waking them up, and went to look for signs of the rest of the battle. He found the campers from the tent city at Yu Dao's doors, bursting with news and tales of the war that had been fought in the city. One of them, a woman in green and red, had pointed to the sky, and he followed her vector to see the Flying Bosco soaring into the distance.

Sokka had run after it, knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to keep up but determined to try anyway. He had been overtaken by Meisai on what she said was a borrowed komodo rhino, and soon he rode with her as a passenger on a slightly less hopeless race to follow the woman he loved.

He had been looking up with a mix of hope and fear- two sides of the same coin- when the airship had burst into smoke and flame, leaving nothing more than a stain in the sky and a rain of red-hot debris. He hadn't thought that Meisai's rhino could run any faster, but then she dropped the reins and compelled the beast forward with whips of fire, giving it a new motivation for speed.

They soon arrived in a valley, a valley that was just a little crevice in a giant mountain, a valley that looked like a graveyard for metal. Pieces were scattered about, blackened and still smoking, twisted beyond all hope of recognition. Sokka and Meisai jumped off the rhino and ran into the graveyard, meandering about and calling for Azula.

It was ridiculous, of course. Who could possibly be around to hear them?

Sokka was the one who found her.

She was lying in a tangle, a rag doll abandoned by its owner. Where her skin was visible, it was a mess of cuts and bruises, and she was smeared with dark stains that matched the smoke gathering over the valley. Sokka fell to his knees at her side, the hope and fear swelling in his heart. He nudged her, saying her name, asking her if she was alright.

She didn't respond.

He took her in his arms, holding her gently, and continued to say her name. He leaned over and kissed her, because even though his was a practical mind, he had to explore all the possibilities, and why would so many stories end with a kiss awakening the princess if there wasn't a core of truth in it somewhere?

Azula didn't move.

He didn't know how she could be down in this valley, intact and still so beautiful. She had to have been aboard the airship when it exploded. Surely, whatever clever trick she had devised to make it this far had also saved her life.

Her body smelled of death.

Sokka held a hand below her nose, waiting to feel her breath, but his wait was in vain. He pressed his fingers into the side of her neck, searching for the pulse that all living beings had, but his search was met only with stillness. His tears fell upon her face, and he had one final hope that it would be something so poetic and simple that brought her back to him.

His hope failed, and his fear was realized.

Finally, giving in to painful sobs, he admitted to himself that Princess Azula- his love and his victim- was dead.

TO BE CONCLUDED