"What now?" Boto shouted over the diminishing hiss of fire onto snow, and the dull clattering of weapons falling out of sight. The Dragon of the East stood, sharp eyes surveying the field. Yokaizo burned behind them; the costs to taking the city would have unmade the Blue Turbans in victory. So they did the prudent thing. The sensible thing.

They burned the city down.

"We can crush them, right here and now," Boto said.

"You will not," Sativa snapped. "If you corner them, they will fight to the last man, as a wild beast beset. Give them a direction to flee, and they will run until their hearts explode in their chests."

"They'll regroup and hit our asses!" Boto pointed out.

"Not in time," Sativa said, finally relaxing the draw of her bow, and sliding it into the hard leather case which her daughter had dutifully brought all the way from their once-home and delivered to her hands in a time of trial. Whatever else could be said of the girl – arrogant, rude, abrasive, unpleasant, unsophisticated, untempered, inexperienced, overspecialized in trifling matters and underdeveloped in more broad concerns – she could always be counted on to fulfill a promise. Four days. Four days, and this war would be over, in one direction or the other. The retreating forces of Zhao didn't offer a backward glance, they simply fled. They'd obviously thought that she would hold Yokaizo sacrosanct, that she wouldn't dare attack without discrimination. They used human shields to blunt the Blue Turban's arrows, and material worth to dull their blades.

Not blunt enough. Not dull enough.

"They're not going to be happy about this," Piandao said as he came to her side.

"The Old Men?" she asked. "They like little."

"I wasn't talking about the Order," Piandao said. "I was talking about history."

"There is an important prerequisite to how one is remembered by history," she said. "That being, who survives."

"Fair enough," he noted. He looked back. "Do you think that they're still on schedule?"

"Of course they are," she said.

"So sure?" he asked.

"My daughter is with them," she clarified. She moved through the battlefield, which was already falling silent. The snow had slowed somewhat, but still fell in the Fire Nation. The Blue Turbans weren't celebrating as they did when they took Grand Ember and Fire Fountain City. There wasn't much to celebrate. There was one group, though, who didn't look so hopelessly morose. They were moving opposite the retreating army, and from the same direction. Too spread out to constitute a bottling force, so Zhao's men just passed them by. She gave a glance to the maimed swordman, who simply gave a puzzled look as that irregular force approached. The closest of them stopped about a stone's-throw away, turning to watch the backs of Zhao's men, retreating to the west, into the heart of their country. Caldera City, though, was north of here. And there she needed to go.

"So," the dark-complected and pale eyed man said, his fist on his hip as he adjusted his hat's angle slightly. "I hear you've been in a bit of a scrap."

"A small one," Sativa said. "You would be... Savir. I have heard of you."

"And I, you," Savir said. "Dragon of the East. Time was, that title was a mite harder to gain."

"And in that time, there were a great many more dragons," she said. "You represent the Ghorkalai?"

"Some of 'em," Savir said with a nod. "Made a promise to the Avatar. Figure that might extend to getting this little easternish 'temper tantrum' sorted out while doing it."

"I thought it might. Have you seen the Avatar recently?"

"Recently? Hell, woman, I spoke to him last night," he said. "They're only 'bout fifteen miles that way, on those rails."

"So close?" she asked. "What about..."

"You'd best be asking them yourself," Savir said. He let out a high whistle, and the other dark-skinned firebenders and warriors of the Far West gave brief nods, before slipping past the leaders and entering the unhappy mass which was the Blue Turban Rebellion. "Meanwhile, let's get your boys and girls ready for a real fight."

"Indeed we shall," she said. What had been said of Savir obviously didn't do him justice. She gave a look to Piandao. "We should..."

"Talk to your daughter," Piandao said.

Sativa sighed, as Savir walked past, ignoring their argument. "This is not the time."

"Sati, the world is ending, the Day of Black Sun is almost here, and you haven't said ten words to her since the start of summer, and even those were sent by bird because I made you do it. Talk to her."

"What am I to say to her? 'Good work, pity we're not done yet'?" she asked.

"Why don't you tell her how proud of her you are?" he asked, starting to walk her toward the 'rails' that Savir had nodded toward. She wanted to stand her ground, but she knew that sooner or later, she'd end up there anyway, and with the long strain of running around the battle to keep the irregular Blue Turbans from crumbling under the disciplined boot of their opponents, she didn't have a lot of energy left to resist.

"She should know that by now," Sativa said.

"How could she?" Piandao asked. "You never say it."

"She should..." Sativa shook her head. Too much effort to disagree. "Fine."

"Come on. Let's see your girl."

She could hear him physically resisting the urge to say the word 'our'.

If it hadn't been for the volcanoes, the black dirt, and the slow and methodical pace that brought the fleet along the Ember Archipelago and beyond it, to the Bay of Tenko, one could well be forgiven for thinking that they'd gone dramatically off course and ended up somewhere just south of Summavut. Or whatever the Westerners were calling it these days. Long Feng felt a distinct and cutting chill; his Grand Secretariat robes, however modest and adequate in the winters of Ba Sing Se, was dreadfully underwhelming in the snows of the Fire Nation.

Life had gone mad. He was certain of it.

He moved to the front of the ship, the spy-glass burning his fingers as he held it; the cold transmitted along metal especially well. If the digits weren't already three-quarters numb, they might have ached. He raised it to an eye, and barely, a blackish blob against a sea of gray, could see something rising up out of the waters. Something like a pillar of heaven, or a statue of a titan.

"The Gates of Azulon," Long Feng said. He turned to the agent near him. "Have you seen them?"

"No," the younger man said, staring into the distance as did his master. He, unlike Long Feng, only wore the conical hat to show his allegiance. The rest of his clothing was fur-lined and thick layered. "I've never laid eyes upon it. But I've heard a lot about it. How it works, its weaknesses, which ever."

"Great chains to block the bay. Preventing invasion by sea," Long Feng said. It was somewhat surprising that firebenders, a nation of people who had no inherent advantage given to them by their element as earthbenders had, could come up with such feats of purely mechanical engineering. The lightning-towers at the walls of Ba Sing Se were a stunning surprise. This... Nearly a nightmare. "Are they vulnerable, Agent Zhong?"

"Vulnerable? Incredibly," he said. "The base is secured into the bedrock with long spikes. Without them, the central tower would topple with any reasonable pressure against the chains. You might lose a ship. Maybe two if the agent doesn't soften the ground enough. But the rest would get through without so much as a pause."

"I see," Long Feng said. He was no military man, he knew that by heart. But at the same time, there was nobody else on this Earth that he could trust to oversee the army which had gathered to put down the tyrant atop the Burning Throne. Even if the rumors he heard were true, and that one Fire Lord had been displaced by another, he had no doubt that until he personally installed somebody a bit more... biddable... into the position, there would be no end to this World War, and his city of Ba Sing Se would never be safe. "Send out the order."

Zhong gave a curtailed bow, before moving back into the ship. It was fortunate that Agent Zhong hadn't died when that assassin in the Avatar's employ had shot him. This invasion would have been a thousand times more troublesome than it already was had he died, and his spy network and knowledge died with him.

He followed Zhong after a short while in contemplation. There were already so many troubles that beset him. His plan to hire mercenary ships and manpower to bolster his force? Impossible, as there wasn't a single sell-sword to be bought, not for any amount of gold! His plans to stabilize Ba Sing Se before his exodus, undone by the death of Secretariat Han. Even his army was a considerable degree smaller than he'd have liked. Between the unrest in the city, and the lack of available ships...

It was like there was some sort of conspiracy against him.

He descended into the ship, moving past the cold, impatient, miserable and angry soldiers and sailors both. Four days. Four days, and then, when the sun began its descent, just after noon – not that the sun would be visible, of course – the darkness would fall, and the landslide would snuff the flame. A simple plan. Few points of failure, few things that could go wrong.

So why did he feel such a sense of dread?

"Everything is in position?" Zhao asked, staring down from the Burning Throne to the map that was laid out at the dais' feet. Akemi was, as her usual, at his right hand, if a space over. A Fire Lady-Consort had a great deal of clout, but not enough to pointlessly flout certain conventions. Zhao had enough to worry about without having 'violations of etiquette' put him in a position to get a knife in the back.

"It is, Fire Lord," Lord Kurita said, as he waved a hand over the forces which had gathered in a number of places, by Zhao's command, that no invading force of the Avatar and his cronies would ever be able to predict or outmatch. They would 'sneak' their way ashore, only to find themselves pressed down by the full weight of the defenders of Caldera City. "But this leaves us hopelessly defenseless from the south..."

"You forget, there is no road to the south. Not anymore," Zhao pointed out. If there was one benefit to the volcano exploding, it made the city easier to defend. "But you do make a point. Giving an enemy a point of obvious weakness is asking them to attack a different, actual weakness out of sheer contrariness."

"We can move the forty-second here, to the southwestern road; Ashfall ward might be a loss, but there's no telling what could come from the south."

"The Blue Turbans," Zhao said distastefully. There had been no mention of them in Azula's notes. It was either something outside of her ability to foresee – almost as impossible as this weather – or they came about more secretly in her visions, but more blatantly here. "They won't reach the walls; they'll break their teeth on Yokaizo before they even reach the land."

"Assuming they seek to take Yokaizo," a nobody under the employ of Lord Horaki said, rubbing a thumb along his own mutton-chop beard. Even if he was a nobody, Zhao had to commend his choice of facial hair. "If they bypass it..."

"They can't," Kurita said. "They'd leave themselves entirely at the defenders' mercy..."

A runner came into the room, whispering something to Horaki, who began to grow pale. He turned to Zhao. "Your Excellency... Word from Yokaizo."

Zhao puffed out a breath which ended with smoke from his nostrils. He had a fairly good idea how this would end. "Yes?" he asked, keeping his tones neutral.

"They've burned Yokaizo, and scattered the defenders."

A part of Zhao wanted to ignore this. The Blue Turbans weren't the Avatar. It was the Avatar's attack that mattered, and that could be crushed in a heartbeat, instead of goading them into a patient trap that would later backfire. He wanted to ignore this... but as he himself rubbed a thumb along his beard, he let the thumb drift a little higher, and stroke along the scarred, bumpy skin surrounding his eye. It remained even now a lesson. Never for a moment assume that things will go to plan. A lesson against arrogance. The lesson which kept him alive at Summavut.

"Bring the Bridge-burners and all of their ancillaries to fortify the forty-second," Zhao said. It was leaving the ocean-gate weaker than he'd have liked, but he wasn't going to leave his back to an open room full of assassins. He'd learned better than that. He offered a glance to Akemi, who simply gave a tiny nod. Did she believe in his plan, or simply his prudence? It was hard to tell with her. He took a fresh breath, then looked upon his map once more. "The surprises are in place?"

"Yes, Your Excellency," Qin said with a bow that was slightly hitched from an old wound. "But I fear for what will happen if they... misfire."

"Then you'd better be as good as you say you are," Zhao said. He leaned forward slightly, feeling the five-point flame shifting slightly in his hair. "We have a war to win, and an Avatar to cast down. There is no room for error."

He was going to succeed where Ozai had failed, by Azula's word. He'd already outlasted his own death. This, compared to that? A pittance.

Chapter 18

The Day of Black Sun, Part 1

Into the Inferno

Aang looked over the army that had gathered in the snows, thousands of people from every place on this Earth. Fighting together to stop a war. The way that it was supposed to be. He could see the Tribesmen from Ogan's force, moving away from the others, while a knot of others wearing the distinctive blue turbans of the eponymous rebellion approached with them. The tallest of them, Bato from the look of him, moved out first. A girl approached from the horde. Whatever words were shared were beyond Aang's ability to hear, both because of the wind and the distance, but when they ended, Bato was moving toward her, and slowly pulling her into an embrace that she didn't seem exactly enthusiastic about.

Reunited with his daughter, and she didn't know him as her father. Even with the absolute miracle that it happened at all, it still managed to be a little sad.

There was a windy thwump that sounded next to him, and he didn't look aside to take in Malu. He knew it was her, anyway. "Hey, Aang," she said.

"Hey, Malu," he said, his eyes still over the army. "This is pretty much it, isn't it?"

"Yeah," she said, wistfully. "I mean, I always imagined that the Fire Nation would be getting its ass whupped by somebody at some point. I just didn't think that I'd be there to watch it happen."

"It's not the Fire Nation that's getting beaten. It's its leadership," Aang said. "The Fire Nation's fighting just as hard against him as we are."

"You're right," she said. "Aang... I'm glad that you're the Avatar."

"Why's that?" he asked, turning to her. And when he did, he had to lean back. "What the h..."

"What?" Malu asked. As though it weren't strange enough that she was not only shaved bald, but had a slightly livid blue arrow that pointed down at the bridge of her nose. A glance showed that she had the same on the backs of her hands, vanishing up into her sleeves. "Oh, right. That," she said, pointing to her arrow. "I figured that, well, whatever comes, I want to face it as an airbending master, instead of a student with no teachers."

"I thought you said you weren't ready," Aang said.

"Wasn't then. Am now," she said with a shrug, and then let out a hiss. "Oooh, that still stings on the back a bit..."

"When did you..."

"Yesterday. Took for-freakin'-ever to do. How did you sit still for the whole thing?"

"I didn't get it all done in one go," Aang said, his tone making it clear that such was the way it was supposed to be. Malu blinked at him for a moment.

"Oh."

"But... You're welcome. And I'm glad that I'm not the last airbender. That there was somebody else," Aang said.

"Somebody who's better at it than you," Malu pointed out.

"Yeah, yeah," Aang said, brushing up his hair from where it fell before his eyes. He held it there for a moment. "...I should really shave my head, too..."

"Naw," Malu said. "Trust me on this one. Put it off 'till after the whole invasion thing."

"Why?" he asked. Much as she wanted to face the last battles with her arrows, he wanted his displayed proudly.

"Sokka went on about... something. And Nila's scary mother agreed with him. You'd need to ask them," Malu said with an off-hand wave.

"I think I will," Aang said, and hopped off of his seat on the rocks. The reunion between estranged children and long-mourning parents went about as awkwardly as Bato and Aalo's had. In its way, not surprising; they'd survived for so many years without parents, where did they fit into their lives at this point?

The descent was far faster than most would find it. As both were airbenders, there was a lot of terrain which was simply ignored by bounding over it. Where most would be slogging, thighs deep in the drifts, or splashing through the grey slush that always sought to find its way into their boots, they simply kipped from drift to drift. While there was no snow in the air today, the thunderheads that were parked over the horizon – the capital – told that the weather would not be kind for long.

It was places like this where it became very easy to get lost. The one factor that Aang had in his favor was that he was pretty sure that Sokka and the others were meeting in the train. But he never reached it. Because he found Azula wading through that wet snow, and when she saw him, she altered course directly for him in a heartbeat. There was pretty much nobody else who could have nailed his feet to the ground in this weather.

"Avatar," she said. Malu gave a glance to the former Princess – or perhaps current Princess, as Aang didn't have a lot of knowledge on how lines of succession worked – but Azula ignored it entirely. "I need a word."

"Yes?" Aang asked.

"Alone."

"Nope," Malu said with a shake of her head and her arms folded before her. Azula glared at her for a moment, then sighed and shook her own head.

"Fine. I need your bison."

"What!" Aang and Malu asked at the same time.

The look on Azula's face wasn't one of annoyance or anger, as so frequently it was. There was a distant quality, like she was seeing something very far away from them all. "Does it concern you why I need it? I simply do."

"He can't just give you Appa. First of all, I'm pretty sure that Appa isn't going to let you drive... if you even knew how," Malu pointed out.

"Malu's right," Aang said, regretfully. "Unless I know why, I can't just..."

"I need to find my father," Azula said quietly, her eyes lowering to the snow between the two airbenders.

"...what?" Malu asked.

"Why now?" Aang chose instead.

"Because I might not have another chance," Azula said. "I know where he would be held. But I can't reach it by rails, and no other means will get me there in time."

"Can't you wait until... you know... after the war?" Malu asked.

"No."

"Why not?" Malu asked.

"For the same reason you shaved your head and inked your skin," Azula said, cutting to the heart of it in a way that made Aang wonder if Malu talked to Azula first. Of course, rationally, he knew that she hadn't. "I can understand your reluctance. But... I can't think of any other way. And you have no idea how infuriating that is."

"Azula!" Katara's voice cut in on the conversation, and the waterbender was striding toward them. Striding, because with every step, the snow moved out of the way to give her a path. She was luckier than most. "I know what you're asking him for," she said.

"Don't get in my way," Azula said. "You don't know what's at stake."

"You're wrong, Azula. I do," Katara said. "Aang... I need to borrow Appa."

"...what?" Aang asked.

"Why now?" Malu chose instead.

"Because I need to find my sister, and I might not have another chance to," she said. She gave a nod to Azula. "And if what Azula says is true, then reaching her father quickly is the only way I'll be able to find her."

Azula's brow rose slightly. "I presume this means you no longer wish to kill me."

"No, I'm just extending Zuko's truce to you," Katara said evenly. Azula gave that a chuckle and a smirk.

"I suppose that will have to do," Azula sing-songed, shaking her head. She then turned to Aang. "So I reiterate. We need to take your bison."

"This is so weird," Katara said.

"You have no idea," Azula agreed flatly.

"I..." Aang said, but then he shook his head. "I need to think about this."

"Think quickly," Azula said. "For all I know, that assassin might have already made off with my father."

"If he isn't already dead," Katara said. Azula glared at her. "What? Doesn't that sound like something Zhao would do?"

"No. He would rather have a broken Ozai as a trophy to his vanity than as a safe corpse. No amount of change in all of existence would alter that," Azula said.

"I hope you're right, for your sake," Aang said.

"So do I..." Azula said, her tones quiet. Tense. Maybe even a little afraid.

"Look, once we get everything ready for the Invasion, I'll be..." Aang began.

"You're seriously giving away your bison?" Malu asked. "To her?"

"It's his decision, not yours," Azula answered, not amused that she was being pointed at.

"Later!" Aang demanded. Katara sighed, and nodded, before moving back toward the train that was all's eventual destination. Azula, though, gave him another moment of stare.

"Hopefully not too much later," she said simply, then turned, and plowed through the slush of the snow she melted out of her way, not even trying to follow in Katara's rut.

"Some girl," Malu said.

"Yeah," Aang said wistfully.

"Seriously?" Malu asked.

"What? She's pretty, she's smart, she's strong, she's an awesome bender, she's almost as old as I am..."

"She's fourteen. Or ninety. You're twelve."

"I'll be fourteen in two months. Or a hundred and thirteen. Whichever," Aang countered.

"Still."

"You just don't get it. You've never had a boyfriend," Aang said.

"How did you know that?" Malu asked, leaning away from him.

"Stab in the dark," Aang said brightly, before moving forward in Katara's wake. Malu stared at his back as he went.

"She's soooo turning you evil," she muttered.

The group that had gathered at the side of the train was pretty sizable. Most of the army had taken the opportunity to stretch their legs, to put a kettle of tea on, to eat something besides jerky boiled in melt-water. When that reedy old general, Sung, said that their logistics was pushed to the very breaking point, he wasn't lying. If they hadn't taken the train, they'd be starving by now.

Zuko stood away from the others, his back to the train. There was something like a dais formed by the gravel-mound upon which the tracks were laid; it made it so that the Mountain King, the Dragon of the East, and the High Chief stood above those who were pacing below. Strange, how a few teenagers stood shoulder to shoulder with the most politically and militarily important people in the free world. As Uncle always said; destiny could be a funny thing.

"Alright. Everybody!" Sokka said, raising his hands. The people continued to mill below. "Come on, guys! Attention, up here! We've got stuff to say. Important stuff. Guys?"

Nila, standing next to him, rolled her eyes, slid the rifle off of her back, pointed it into the sky, and fired off a shot which cracked across the cold, causing all to turn toward her. She then turned to Sokka. "Better?"

"...I guess," Sokka said. He then froze solid for a moment, as though utterly unsure of what to say. Thus, he turned to his father. "As you were saying?"

"You don't want to explain the plan?" Hakoda asked.

"Sokka is many things, but in explaining plans, I am a greater airbender than he at that," Nila pointed out.

"I suppose he is," Hakoda chuckled. He took a step forward, which was matched by each of Nila's Mother and Zha Yu. Hakoda stood taller than both. "Gentlemen and ladies, mercenaries and soldiers of the Earth Kingdoms. Tribesmen and Ghurkas... this is it. In four days, we take part in the final battle. We will fall upon Zhao's forces, as they are distracted by Long Feng's army, from the west. Our objective is this, and if only this we will still find victory; we are to bring the Avatar into the Fire Lord's palace, where he will end a line of tyrant Fire Lords that has gone on too long as it has."

Nila's mother gave a scrutinous glance toward the crowd, then reached behind Hakoda's back, prodding Zha Yu. She whispered something, and the grey-haired Easterner nodded.

"We will be one prong of three that attacks the city. The south will be struck by our allies from Ember, the Blue Turbans," Hakoda began. "This is a force the likes of which the world has never seen. All of the four nations – my Water Tribesmen, the men of the East, the Azuli and the Embiar, and even both the Avatar and Malu Tuying Fei of the Air Nomads – bound toward a single goal. Peace. There is no room for failure in this battle. But I know that failure is outside of your grasp. I am not a religious man, but I can still say that the heavens themselves open the path for our victory... a victory that has already come far too late for many that we've loved. This battle is not for our glory. It is not for territory, or nation, or prize. This battle is for them. For those who do not stand here today. For those we wish were here."

"He's got a way with words," Toph said from Zuko's side.

"He does that," Zuko admitted.

"The eclipse itself will only last eight minutes, but that's more than enough. We don't need to end a battle in it, only to press the defenders until they can resist no more. If it passes us by, then we can still find victory," Hakoda said. He raised a hand toward the slightly brighter grey spot in the sky which was probably the sun. "There is no one thing that will break us. And there are so many things that will bear us on. We will fight, and we will win!"

A cry came up from the crowd, a pumping of fists into the sky.

"We fight for the lost!" Hakoda shouted.

A fresh cheer.

"We fight for our future!" He continued.

Another, louder cheer.

One of those cheers came from Toph. Zuko turned to her, and she blushed a little. "Shut up. I got kinda swept away."

"You don't have to apologize. He's charismatic. Charismatic people tend to do that to people."

"Hey, I'm plenty charismatic myself! I ain't some follower!"

"Charisma isn't yes or no, Toph. It's varying degrees," Zuko said. He was watching Zha Yu, though, as he leaned aside, and said something to Hakoda's aide, Bato. The staggeringly tall Tribesman gave a nod, then descended into the crowd, somehow disappearing into a mob of people he was taller than. Zuko looked to the edge of the mob, guessing Bato's course, and saw one man walking away from the press. Stopping spies. Messy business.

"See? That's why I let you do it," Sokka said to his father.

"You would have just made an ass of yourself," Nila said comfortingly. Sokka, understandably enough, shot a mildly insulted look at his girlfriend. She didn't seem to understand why. Hakoda gave a chuckle, then turned, noting that Bato was missing.

"Where is..."

"Plugging holes," Zha Yu said. He took a few steps to one side, and leaned to the Avatar, whispering something into his ear. Aang looked deeply concerned by whatever it was the Mountain King had to tell him, but Zuko figured that Aang would probably tell him pretty much immediately once there weren't thousands of people staring at them. What surprised Zuko, though, was that Zha Yu immediately turned around, and headed toward Zuko. Zuko straightened slightly, looking down on the man who was probably nearly fifty years older than him.

It still felt a little odd to be taller than a living legend. Other than Aang, but that was just obvious.

"Prince Zuko, I think the time has come," Zha Yu said, his usual jocularity entirely absent. Zuko leaned back from him.

"The time for what?" Zha Yu caught him by the back of the shoulder and started to walk him away from where the others were gathered at the side of the train-engine. Toph gave a muttering of defiance, but even blind, she 'saw' Zha Yu's warning look for what it was, and fell silent.

"You remember this?" Zha Yu asked, pulling an orb from the pocket of his coat. Zuko leaned away from it. He certainly remembered how odd it felt, getting transposed across space by that thing. "In three days, it'll be ready to use again. And when that happens, you're going to use it."

"...why?" the Prince asked.

"Because there's no other way that you'll be able to get to Ba Sing Se in time."

Zuko stopped, despite the Mountain King's insistence, and stared at him. "What."

The older man shook his head and grumbled for a moment. "Long Feng is at best leading the army against the Fire Lord and at worst left the Dai Li severely understaffed. Right now is the best opportunity you will ever have to infiltrate the Earth King's Royal Palace and release the hostages kept there."

"Hostages?" Zuko asked.

"Emperor Zeruel of Great Whales, for one," Zha Yu said. Then, a shrug. "And your mother for another."

"...I'd heard," Zuko said. Zha Yu seemed honestly surprised that Zuko hadn't exploded with an indignant 'what!', but Zuko wasn't that kind of person... anymore. Ever since Azula finally became well... nothing bothered him quite as much. He'd had one job for his entire young-adult life, and he succeeded. His sister was alright. He had a measure of peace, of fulfillment. Sure, he'd probably start to get twitchy and angry again sometime in the future, but for now, life – even if it ended next week – was good. "Who else is coming?"

"Probably just you and I," Zha Yu said. He looked into the orb as though it were a gateway to another world. Which it was, sort of. "This thing's been overused the last few months. I wouldn't risk it on more than two. And there's a chance that we might not come out the other side."

"But you expect me to go anyway, because it's my mother," Zuko said. Zha Yu nodded. And damn him, he was right. As much as having Azula finally safe and on an even keel made him feel lighter than air... Ursa was his mother. And there was still a part of him, the part which wasn't prematurely aged by responsibility, by worry, by terror and confusion and doubt, which still wanted to have his mother back. "...Fine."

"Good. Get some rest. I don't think for a second that this'll be easy, even with everything off-balance," Zha Yu said, pocketing the orb. Zuko stood, staring at the horizon, to the grey clouds which met grey ground. Almost like the world ended in a featureless void, a place without definition or boundaries. He felt a tingling in his body, too. He thought it simple anxiety. It was something else. Anxiety started in his stomach, a fact he was well aware of.

This... it felt like his bending itself was getting goosebumps.

"Busy moping?" Toph interrupted his moping. Not that he would admit to moping.

"I'm not moping," Zuko said distantly.

"You sound like you're moping," Toph teased.

"And you sound like you're being annoying," Zuko answered, confident in the knowledge of Toph that she wouldn't take that anything like what a girl her age would have.

"I take it that mister crazy-house had some bad news for you?" Toph asked. He turned a confused look to her, but gave his head a shake. Whatever the reason she called him that, it was something he could find out when the world wasn't ending.

"Not bad... just surprising."

"Don't leave me wondering, Prince Pouty."

"Zha Yu wants me to rescue Mom," Zuko said.

"...That's good, right?" Toph asked. "Wait. Ain't she in Ba Sing Se?"

"Yes."

"...You can't get to Ba Sing Se from here in a week. Not even if you rode Appa to death twice."

"I'll be cheating," Zuko said. Toph got a look of concern, which bordered on mildly heartbroken.

"You're not going to be here when we kick Zhao's ass, are you?"

"No."

"That ain't right," Toph said. "That turd needs you to give his ass a kickin'! I know for a fact that Twinkletoes won't do it properly! Twinkly-toes are not the best for kicking with, believe me!"

"I guess you'll have to be my surrogate ass-kicker," Zuko said.

"But..."

"Toph, something else is bothering you."

"Not it isn't," she said, defensively.

The silence that Zuko used was enough to break her.

"I'm worried, alright. I got this feeling like... like people I care about are going to start dying."

"Why?" Zuko asked.

"...You ever read Eastern literature?" she asked. Zuko shook his head deliberately enough that she would be able to 'see' it. "They've got this bad habit of telling you when something major happens, somebody's got to die to let you know how critical everything is. How dangerous it is. And come on; we're going to invade the Fire Nation's capital! If this ain't the end, then nothing is! I just..."

Zuko wanted to comfort her, but even as she spoke, he couldn't help but remember the look on that old woman's face, in that house in the village of Makapu. His choice would bring death and discord; his hand would rip a family apart, such that it could never truly heal.

Only he didn't know what choice.

And he didn't know if the family he broke was going to be his own.

But if there was one thing Zuko could do, it was put on a brave face. He'd had years of training in that, at least. He put his hands on Toph's shoulders, and she slowly turned up toward him. She was probably staring in line with his neck, but being blind, there were certain allowances. "It's going to be alright, Toph. Life isn't a book, it doesn't follow narrative tropes, and nobody's going to die just for the sake of it. We're going to see the other side of this battle. And I know you're going to be there gloating when I get back."

When. He didn't even know if the death he caused was going to be his own.

"Liar," Toph said quietly, but not rancorously. And then, she hugged herself against his chest. "If you get yourself killed in Ba Sing Se, I'll kill you."

"How does that even work?" Zuko asked, looking down to her.

"It... shut up."

"So. This is your suitor," Mother said critically, looking Sokka up and down. Easy, because he was as taller than she was already, and he likely still had quite a bit of growing left to do. "I must say, I cannot speak for your standards. He seems an odd one."

"He is intelligent and respectful, which is far more than I've found in most any other man I've met," Nila pointed out.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Sokka asked, leaning toward Piandao, who was drinking some steaming drink from a cup.

"Such things are not for mens' minds to know," Piandao answered calmly.

"He is a young man of decent breeding, at least," Mother said, continuing to pace before him. "And if he meets a proper standard of intelligence, then it is a not unpleasant match. However... I have heard a very unpleasant rumor."

"Which rumor would that be?" Nila asked.

"That you have given of yourself to him," she said. Nila rolled her eyes. Almost as fast as a flash, Mother had her jaw held in vice-like fingers. "Do not roll your eyes at me, daughter! This is a foolish and dangerous thing you have done!"

Nila pulled back from her mother's grasp, noting out of the corner of her eye that Sokka was now leaning forward, his hand already reaching for his boomerang. While she certainly would berate him later for threatening to beat her mother with his weaponry, it was somewhat pleasing to know that he'd defend her even against somebody like Mother. "He is no old and diseased lech, a frequenter of whores and widows, nor any striker or assaulter of women. There is as much danger to me as there is for the Avatar and the Princess!"

"He may be wise enough to not do you violence, but think with your mind, girl; what life could he give the child that he would inevitably saddle you with?" Mother asked, casting a hand toward Sokka.

"Child?" Nila asked with a scoff. "Our chosen method is hardly renowned for its ability to produce offspring. In fact, I would be rather shocked if it could."

"That can't be good," Piandao said patiently, eyes on Mother.

"Yeah, I have to say, I've never seen her turn that color before," Sokka agreed.

"That is..."

"Mother, enough!" Nila snapped, switching tongues away from Altuundili and into simple Huo Jian. "What happens with my relationship with the Tribesman is my business and not yours. And if you were to meddle in somebody's romantic affairs, I suggest that you try meddling first in your own!"

"You're right. This isn't going to be good," Sokka said to Piandao.

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Mother said.

"I may be young, and my methods unorthodox at best, but I am no idiot. The swordsman looks upon you with eyes almost exactly as the Avatar does for Azula. Before you cast a stone at me, ensure first that you have no patent upon stoning yourself."

"You're doomed," Sokka said to Piandao.

"That is immaterial!" Mother snapped. "It is too late. There is no going back to what might have been..."

"Have you tried?" Sokka asked. Inwardly, Nila hissed with alarm. Until now, he'd been doing the wise thing, and staying away from the deadly maelstrom that existed between mother and daughter. Mother looked like she was about to spit fire at him for daring to interrupt. Nila was half way to agreeing with her.

It was never wise to interfere with the affairs of another's family.

"No. She hasn't," Piandao said, likewise throwing himself to hostile tides. "I know that things won't be the way they were, and that they couldn't ever be. We were young, then. Now, we know more. Older, and I hesitate to say wiser. But if I'm wiser now, then I'd like to think that even if things can't be as they were, that they could still be worth something."

Nila retracted her inner censure. This might be worth hearing.

She migrated to Sokka's side as Piandao rose, towering over Mother where they had gathered on the far side of the train. There was a lot more privacy here, at least. His single hand took one of hers, holding it up and running a finger over dusky knuckles. "You might not want to hear it, but I can't just walk away from you. I thought I could fifteen years ago, and I've regretted it ever since."

Nila then carefully laced her fingers into the back of Sokka's collar and began to pull him away. At first, he stumbled a bit and gave her a confused look. When she shook her head, though, he was wise enough to stay silent.

"I... I don't know if I can..."

"Just try. I'm not going to see the end of the world with this one regret in my heart. And I think you don't want to, either," Piandao said. At about that point, she hauled Sokka out of line-of-sight, thus depriving her of know what answer Mother had to give him. Since it didn't end with the crack of a slap, it probably wasn't what Nila had expected.

"So. That went well," Sokka said brightly.

"Well? That was horrifying!" Nila contended.

"Hey, when Gramp-Gramp learned that Dad was courting Mom, he ran him out of the village. Twice."

"I still hold my opinion," Nila said. "Are you finally content?"

"Yeah, I guess," Sokka said.

"WHAT?"

Both turned, to look through the doors of the train-car, to where Zuko was standing, hunched forward like an almost feral beast. Golden flames formed a halo around his head and neck, while his fists dripped fire into the snow.

"Oh, this's got to be good," Sokka said with a braying laugh.

"You are insane," Nila said. Sokka just shrugged at her, and hopped through the cart, sitting at the door staring down at the scene of Zuko, Katara, Azula, and the bison.

"Are you out of your... You've got to be in... WHY?" Zuko ranted, unable to finish a sentence in a way that didn't call to question his sister's sanity.

"This is why I didn't bother asking your opinion or permission," Azula said with annoyance in her tones. "You always overreact when it comes to these things."

"You're going to try to rescue Dad! DAD!" Zuko stressed. "Why? Why would you do that? He hasn't done one single thing that..."

"I can't expect you to understand my reasons, Zuzu," Azula said. "You've never had anything but an antagonistic relationship with Father. I didn't. You might not believe there's anything worth saving in him, but I do."

"He tried to have you killed!" Zuko pointed out.

"I'm well aware."

"And you want to 'rescue' him anyway?" he asked.

"Yes."

"No. I am not going to let this happen," Zuko was stalking back and forth, the snow melting in an ever increasing diameter around him. "That man has brought nothing but suffering to me, to Mother, and to you, and to this whole planet! There's nothing worth saving!"

Azula was silent for a moment, letting Zuko pant in his near-snarl, the water from his melted snow draining away toward the ocean in the distance, after miles of trickling downward. She then looked to the ground, and in a voice that Nila could only barely hear, answered "I have to believe there's something worth saving in him. Because if there isn't, then what point is there in me?"

"...Azula, you aren't..." Zuko began, unable to find the words.

"I am my father's daughter. You are your father's son. There is nothing in the world that will change that. His sins pass to us, whether we want to believe it or not. If there's nothing worth redeeming in him... then there's nothing worth redeeming in either of us."

"You're... You're not thinking straight, Zuli," Zuko said.

"Don't question my thinking, Zuzu. And don't call me Zuli."

"I've gotta say, I'm torn," Katara said. "I want to agree with Zuko that this is insane, but I've got to agree with Azula, because this is the only way I get my sister back."

"So you're just going to leave?" Zuko asked.

"Yes," Azula said. "You have your own task, every bit as important to me as mine. I never really had a chance to have a mother. I'd very much like one. And I know you wish you had an actual father."

"I had one, and you had him too," Zuko said quietly. Nila gave a confused glance to Sokka, who shrugged, not offering an answer to that charge. It did cause Azula to flinch a bit. Whatever it was, it was a direct hit, only Nila didn't know the shape of the target.

"We should prepare for the invasion," Nila said to Sokka, who turned his attention to her.

"Right now?"

"No. When we're at their gates with hordes of wrathful firebenders bearing down upon us. Yes, right now!"

Sokka rolled his eyes, but followed where she dragged him. "Has anybody ever told you you're kinda pushy?"

"More than you would believe."

"Azula?" the Avatar's voice came from her back, as she worked up her nerve to climb the beast once more. No matter how many times she was passenger to this thing, she always had a difficult-to-shake delusion that the thing was going to realize who her great-grandfather was, and impale her on its horns. So any reprieve from climbing its fur – as vulnerable a position as she could imagine – was a welcome one.

"I'm not going to let anything kill your bison," Azula said, cutting to the heart of things.

"That isn't why I'm here," he said. He reached down, grabbing the bundle of blankets that were going to be the only thing keeping them from freezing – in the Fire Nation, in summer – on their three day journey. With an easy toss, he got it square into the howdah, which only simplified her task by an inch rather than a mile. "I want you to know that even if Zuko doesn't believe in what you're doing... I think it's very noble."

"The Avatar thinks saving the former Fire Lord is noble," Azula said quietly, shaking her head. "There's nothing noble about what I'm doing. Not really. I just don't want my family any more torn-apart than it already is."

"See? That's noble," Aang said.

"You keep using that word, but I don't think you know what it means," Azula said. Aang's face turned to something quite like sarcastic consternation. It was an expression that he'd never worn before she met him in this new, season-long life. "...although honestly, sometimes I wonder if I'm even doing it for the reasons I say I am."

"How is that?" Aang asked.

"My father... tried to kill me in this life. He abandoned me in another. He slapped me down when I righteously rebelled against him in a third. Every rational thought in my brain is telling me to let him rot wherever he is, and never think about him again... but I can't. He just keeps coming back into my mind."

"That's because you care about him. And you know what? It's alright to care about him."

She turned a look on him. He'd gone from sarcastic consternation to earnestness. "Do you assume I thought otherwise?"

"Kinda, yeah."

And he was right about that.

"If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there's more to life than what makes rational sense," Aang said. "I mean, if I did the rational thing, we'd probably both have starved to death under Mount Oma, since the rational thing to do would be to run away from you. Well, limp."

"You have an excuse. Air Nomads were bred to be soft-hearted. Me? What's my excuse?" Azula asked.

"You don't need an excuse to feel," Aang said.

"You do if you're the Princess," she said. "Politics is crueler than any war. The more you care, the more vulnerable you are..."

"Azula, stop," he said, turning her toward him. Which was a little surprising, both in that he had the strength to when she decided otherwise, and that he had the inclination to. "There's a reason why people have to follow their hearts sometimes. It's because the brain might be good at the cold mathematic... but it's not good at seeing what gets left out by numbers and figures. And following your heart leads to a lot less regrets, believe me."

"I wouldn't know."

"I would," Aang said. He let go of her shoulders, but stayed there, standing before her. "You have to save your father, because you'd never forgive yourself if you didn't. The worst things to regret aren't the things you've done, Azula... it's the things you didn't do. Those are the worst regrets."

He was right.

And she hated that.

"I... Just wanted you to know that I believe in you, in what you're doing," Aang said, taking a step back. "That you're not alone."

"...I see," Azula said.

The greatest regrets are the things that she didn't do. She could think of about a dozen things she'd done that she later regretted. That laughably horrible 'party' on Ember Island. Trying to kill her own brother – that a sin across several lifetimes. But when she actually thought about it, what she regretted more than anything else, was that she never got a chance to say goodbye to her daughter.

No. She regretted that she didn't raise her daughter better.

And there was one thing more that she was sure she was going to regret later, if she didn't do it – even if her brain absolutely rejected the idea as being anywhere near sensible.

Thus, before Aang took his second step backward, she grab him by the shoulders, and pulled him right to her, her lips closing on his in a somewhat desperate kiss that the part of her which was still a teenage girl, who liked that somebody was endlessly, honestly, and guilelessly kind to her, demanded.

She broke it on her own terms, which was likely before he would have, but frankly, there was only so much rationality-kicking that she could do in any one sitting. She was fairly sure that the part of her mind that told her to hate the airbender would probably have a lot of unkind words to say about what she'd just done, but at the moment, she didn't care. But there were still appearances to uphold, so she thrust a finger under his nose.

"Don't you dare get yourself killed," she demanded. "And look after Kuchi."

"I wouldn't dream of it... wai-I mean..." Aang said distantly, with a somewhat lightheaded look on his face. She then turned, her willpower screwed to the sticking place, and clambered up the beast's back. She pointedly didn't look down at Aang as she waited for the waterbender to come and fly the beast. Mostly because she didn't want to think about what she was thinking right now.

He was the Avatar, and she was the Fire Nation's Crown Princess.

They were at war with each other. They had every reason to hate each other.

And still, the girl in her... couldn't help but like him.

"Again!" came the order that was screamed past Long Feng's ears. He stood aloof of the soldiers, upon the prow of the ship and staring toward the great statue to Azulon's megalomania. The chains that dangled from its hands had been slowly pulled taut when the bombardment began, so now the entire bay was bridged by unyielding metal. But the statue wasn't standing tall and proud. Not after the second barrage of stones to strike it. Now, it stood at a very awkward angle. And the groaning of metal trying very hard not to crumple managed to compete against the wind.

A fresh flight of boulders, launched from the decks. Every ship bobbed upward as some displacement was lost, but the boulders flew true. They peppered the entire statue, which began to twist. A rent opened in a curve, flowing up Azulon's metal robes, until the entire top of the structure – chains and all, came crashing down into the sea. The chains which had barred the way now had a great and gaping hole in their protection, as the chains vanished into the water hundreds of feet from the shore.

"Move forward," Long Feng said. The leader, a lesser man promoted in lieu of the three of the Five Generals that refused to be part of this, gave a nod, and blew the shrill whistle which was signal to advance. At first, the ship was still. The general looked around, then moved to the prow, glancing down. "What is the meaning of this delay?" the Grand Secretariat asked.

"Ice," he said, incredulous. Long Feng looked at the man as though he'd gone mad. Then, he looked down, to the surf. Indeed, there was a floe of ice trapping the hulls of the ships, one that grew thicker the further from the embankments one went. He hadn't seen it before, because the flying snow on the winds had cut his visibility down to a pittance. He jogged to one of the men on the deck near the flags. "Send a signal to all ships with stones; Drop one ahead of the prow to break ice."

"Aye, general," the man said.

"Ice in the Bay of Tenko," Long Feng said.

"Technically, we are not in the Bay of Tenko, yet," Agent Zhong said. "But this is beyond strange. If the ice is as thick as it is here, if it grows in as fast as it has... We might be walking to the shore rather than landing."

"Do they have anything that would take advantage of this poor mobility?"

"No," Zhong seemed annoyed, still. "The fleets would be caught as surely as we would, and with visibility this poor, we'd slip past them without them even noticing. And the battlements won't be able to hit us, if they can't see us."

"Press forward, then. Every advantage we have is to be used to its utmost."

"I will tell the men," Zhong gave a nod. Long Feng turned his attention to the waters off the prow. A great stone from the deck crashed into the water, sending a great splash of it up. The frigid spray washed his face, a mild and temporary pain until he wiped it away. Then, with a shudder and a crunch, the ship began moving again.

And every yard of that journey was sung by the cracking of ice.

"Are you ready, young Prince?" Zha Yu asked the very distracted firebender at his side.

"As ready as I'm going to get," Zuko said.

"Head clear? Focused on the mission?" he continued.

"No."

"Well, it'll have to do," Zha Yu said. The two of them had been left behind by the advancing Blue Turbans, and the taskforce aboard its train. He raised his globe, black and white-lined, above his head. "Take us to his mother."

The growing sense of unreality reached out of the orb, which seemed to grow even as it remained the same size in Zha Yu's hand. Ordinarily, the sensation was one of weightlessness, a lightless and featureless oblivion which bore no sensation at all. Just a slip across the icy surface of what was, until being dropped back into the real world.

Not this time.

When the orb expanded to its utmost, there was a ripping sensation. A tearing in the fabric of what was, something greater than either could comprehend, greater then either could believe. It was something which was frankly wholly out of magnitude to the act which originated it. Using the Dirak was as slipping a sewing needle into the fabric of the real, and riding the thread that it bore. Ordinarily, the fabric bore the intrusion without so much as a notice, let alone a complaint. But this time... the fabric was rotted, and there was very little integrity left to it.

Even as Zha Yu and Zuko teleported across the face of the Earth, the very nature of the Earth changed. The ripping reached from the point where the two had left, and began to break other fragile places. The rip first tore north to the ruins of the Megalopolis, where its tiny influence caused incredible harm, fissures reaching out in all directions. The fissures reached east, next, until they reached the gaping hole in the world which was the former Great Divide. There, too, a festering wound in the world, and as the fabric of reality ripped, it ripped open there all the faster. North and south were words without meaning to these rifts that tore and sundered, flying in every direction, away from places that the Shards had set their feet. Away from the places that Imbalance had torn down. The Observatory, once home to Zha Yu and his family, mounted higher, as the spirit world pressed through into the mortal entirely. In the smoke-choked city of New Bhatti, the former capital of the Northern Water Tribe, there was a crash from inside a cave, one that exploded into steam as the ghost of its connection to its gods was unmade, and the blast ripped the doors away, sent them racing through the streets.

Behind it, came the tearing.

The only place which didn't bear such horrible tearing was the South Water Tribe. Huddled as they were around the Spirit Oasis, living under an eternal sunshine of Agni Herself above, there was enough integrity here, as nowhere else, that nothing would slip away. Because Imbalance, and its Shards, had never set foot here. Their blood had never rotted the heart of that place.

In a hollowed out tree, shadowed and alone, surrounded by shadows which leaned away out of fear, Koh blinked his eye, and took on a new face, one that stretched lips into a smirk. Not of victory or even achievement, but instead out of curiosity. This... of all things it had seen, this was new.

Every bender on the planet suffered a moment of pristine agony, like a migraine compressed into a single second.

Every shaman on the planet fell to their knees, feeling so sick to their stomach that only the halest and hardiest didn't lose their last meal.

Every human being which was neither of the two felt a chill, an emptiness appearing in them that they could neither explain nor qualify.

Every spirit, screamed...

As the mortal world and the spirit world crashed into each other, and the two of them became, for all intents and purposes, the same thing. If Zuko and Zha Yu hadn't taken that journey, something else would have done it, as surely as death itself. Because they took that journey, it happened right then. Because they took that journey, Zuko's decision had, with a complete inevitability and without his knowledge in the slightest, ended an innocent life.

Zuko's weight returned to him, and he settled into his boots. Falling dead around the two men were ten thousand honey-bees, all of them frozen solid, landing with a rattle and spreading out like sand. Zuko gave a confused glance downward, then over to Zha Yu. "...Why are there so many dead bees around us?" Zuko asked.

"A better question, one that has me concerned, is asking why all the bees are dead," Zha Yu said. He then looked around. "We're in the Upper Ring."

That much was obvious to Zuko. Indeed, the place looked exactly the same as it had when he'd last been there. While it was frigid and the wind was cutting like knives, there wasn't a drop of water to fall as snow in all the continent. "Then we'd better get to the palace before somebody finds this," Zuko pointed at the bees which he then stepped out of.

"Truer words never spoken, but we do have one little side-trek," he said, tucking the orb into his coat once more. In the fraction of a second that Zuko could see it, he noted that it was not black and white, lines flowing past each other. It was a solid and dull grey.

"Why?" Zuko asked. He tugged at the belt holding his twinned dao to his back. "We should get in and out as quickly as possible!"

"We won't get in, even in these conditions, unless we have a bit of help," Zha Yu said.

"And who would that help be?" Zuko asked.

"You'll see, soon enough," he said. The two of them walked through the streets which stood unused and quiet as a tomb.

His metaphor was a bit more apt than he realized; the cold preserved bodies, and held down stink, from those who had perished of simple thirst, when the water from Lake Laogai stopped flowing. Mostly, because it had frozen solid. The Mountain King and the Prince entered the shadows, and from there, vanished into the obscure recesses of Ba Sing Se. It was a sad thing that only the darkness in this city was safe.

"What was that?" Malu asked, trying to hold her stomach and her head at the same time.

"I don't know," Aang said, sitting and looking singularly miserable on the floor of the train. "It felt... bad."

"I felt it too," Toph said, rubbing at her forehead. "It felt like somebody rammed a white-hot rod of iron in my brain."

Aang swallowed, trying to keep his gorget down, as he leaned back against the wall. On a hunch, he opened the World Eye, to see if there was some sort of spiritual rift they'd slipped through.

He blinked. Then, he stood, went to the doors of the train. To the cries of dismay from Sokka and Nila, he threw it open, letting the cold air rush in, but what he beheld was more than a little terrifying. He shut his World Eye. And the sight beyond, out in the countryside, didn't change in the slightest.

Rifts were open in the air, with green and purple clouds boiling through to mix with the slate-gray. Flames burst up from the snows, melting them away in a circle around where they began. Hundreds or thousands of spirits, from the developed and manifested, down to the abstract and the wispy, drifted around as though utterly confounded, lost and confused. Because they were.

"Something bad happened," Aang said.

"Does... this mean we're going to have to fight Imbalance sooner, rather than later?" Malu asked, hiking up the hood on her robes. If there was one perk to still having hair, it was that Aang didn't get quite as cold as poor Malu would, right now. Although, on the down side, he didn't nearly have enough hair to protect his flaring ears.

"Wow. That's some strange crap out there, isn't it?" Sokka said, horning in.

"What is... Oh, my," she said. She pulled the Avatar's arm until he faced her. "I have seen this before."

"What? How?"

"Do you presume that nothing of import happens when you are not present?" Nila demanded. She turned a glance toward Malu, for a moment. "You too were there, in a fashion, though I expect you would not remember it. Sentinel Rock. When Imbalance took complete control of your mortal frame, it did such as this," with a gesture toward the land beyond. Sokka leaned back.

"You were there when all that stuff happened?" he asked. "How did you survive?"

"Mother might have taught me things unsuited for my gender or station, but they do well in keeping me alive," Nila said. "Also, I shot her with my gun."

"I was wondering about that hole," Malu said distantly. "Imbalance did this?"

"I must assume so," Nila said. "Sharif would be able to tell you more, as he is more versed in the abstract and the metaphysical of his end of things. All I can say, is that of the spirit and mortal worlds, there is now only one, with the rules of each held forth in full, and the hazards of either in complete measure."

"This is bad," Aang said.

"You are only now discovering this? We're doomed," Nila said, the last comment turned toward Malu and Sokka.

"No, I mean it's bad, and I don't know what can be done to fix it," Aang said. He ran his fingers through his hair, giving it a stout tug, then puffing out a breath. "Alright. Calm down. One thing at a time. Black Sun is tomorrow. Then, we'll have time to... deal with this."

"Which means I'd probably better go," Malu said.

"What?" Aang asked.

She pulled back her hood, displaying the bald and very recently tattooed head beneath it. "Who is Zhao going to believe is the Avatar, of the two of us, right now?"

"You're right. I should shave before..."

"You will do no such thing," Nila said. "Any attention not paid to you is an advantage you must not squander."

"What... You want to be my decoy?" Aang asked.

"Who else could be?"

"But you're a girl!"

"Woman, thank you," Malu said testily.

"It's doubtful one would notice without a really close look," Sokka said, walking a circle 'round Aang even as the train continued its rumbling way. "I mean, you're both wiry framed. Same complection. From the distance, you won't be able to tell that she's a bit taller than you. Hips aren't too womanly..."

"Hey!" Malu said.

"I was talking about Aang."

"Oh," she said, blushing silghtly.

Aang gave Sokka a look. "Hey! Stop describing me!"

"I'm just pointing out that this is a perfect situation for a girl to take your place!"

"I am not a girl, and I don't look like a girl!" Aang stressed

"But the Fire Lord doesn't need to know that the deception has taken place," Nila pressed. She clapped her hands on Malu's shoulder. "I shall not wish you good luck, because we all know there is no such thing – only terrible luck, or no luck at all – but instead, I shall wish you godspeed, and a warm bed when this is over."

"Thanks, Nila," Malu said, pulling the Si Wongi in for a hug which left the darker of the two bug-eyed and trying to extricate herself. Sadly, she had no chance to do that until Malu let her go. She kipped over to where she'd left her things, and pulled out the old and simply-elegant glider staff that she had kept hidden away for so long. She spun it open, its wings opening broad and proud. Then, she paused, and looked around. "I'm missing something. Hmmmm. AH! Momo! Come here!"

The lemur, which had been huddled into Toph's lap for warmth, let out a chirp and flapped its way over to Malu. When it dove into her robes, she let out a gack of shock at having a simian in such personal proximity to her. When it settled, its head and long ears popping up out of the back of her collar, she stood proud once more.

"The very image of Avatar Aang," Malu proudly proclaimed.

"With boobs," Sokka pointed out blithely. He got elbowed in the stomach by Nila for his temerity.

"You shouldn't have to do this," Aang said.

"Aang, I've already done a lot to make the world a monumentally worse place. Please, just shut up and let me try to fix it a little? 'Kay?" she said, ruffling his hair, before striding to the door. "Kick Zhao's ass for me, alright?"

And with that, she held her glider out the door, and let the wind of passage pull her out and into flight, streaking to the east, to where the Blue Turbans would be arriving at the south edge of Caldera City soon enough. Aang turned to the others. "I guess... this is it."

"It is," Nila said.

"Yeah. Got my armor ready and everything," Sokka said, pointing to the wrapped bundle in the corner.

"We're going to beat the Fire Lord, stop the destruction of Sozin's Comet. That's what we're doing tomorrow. What happens after that, I have no clue, but that's something I'll deal with then," Aang said, repeating what had been said to him as a mantra, a litany towards his own sanity. Every instinct told him to rip out his hair by the roots and worry himself catatonic over what was happening the day after tomorrow, and the day after that. The big problem he had no solution for. But no. He had a problem right here, right now, that he could fix. And as long as he focused on that... he was okay.

To the East, the Blue Turbans finished a hard march, at the behest of the leadership of the Dragon of the East, and the Matriarch of Kyoshi, and launched straight into an assault on the southernmost fringes of Caldera City. North of that, a great fleet of Easterners, fresh from Ba Sing Se, cracked the ice and pressured into a harbor that couldn't see them for the brutal – and now verifiably insane – weather. And soon, this train full of soldiers, from all over the world, would be rampaging, unpredicted and unchecked, through the streets of the city.

If all went according to plan.

Which even Aang knew it wouldn't.

The ships ground to a halt at the shore, hulls sliding up synthetic rock – that cemented concrete that the Westerners used instead of honest granite. The soldiers emerged from deck, wrenching up with their fists to pull that concrete to them, forming ramps that they could hustle down, to set Earth Kingdom boots to Fire Nation soil. For most of the soldiers, they believed – quite honestly – that they were fighting against an existential threat to the continued existence of Ba Sing Se. A naïve perspective, but many soldiers who stood here had never been beyond the wall of Ba Sing Se before this campaign; now, they had traveled half-way around the world.

The others, though, they saw this for what it was. An opportunistic assault to cripple a would-be enemy. Not enough to eradicate them completely, because that wouldn't be in their best interests. Having the West as a boogeyman kept people stomping forward, even if every reasonable instinct told them that their lives were worse than those they 'feared'. A few knew that fear, properly manipulated, could hold an empire together for generations.

One, though, was just coming home.

The soldiers formed rings at the edge of eyeshot – which was to say, they spanned a semicircle of about ten yards for each group. The driving snow, which was already mounding up in this 'slipway' that lead toward the heart of the Lower City, was two-fold making sight difficult. There were no landmarks. If they didn't know the difference in feeling between concrete and rock, they might have been forgiven for thinking they'd missed the city completely.

Zhong slid down the ramps easily, coming to a striding stop in the heart of one of the circles. He tugged the knot holding the conical hat onto his head, and pulled it off. The wind and snow pulled at hair not cut since the start of the season, but green eyes surveyed the land around them. "We're clear. They haven't noticed us!"

"Release the Millipedes!" came the call from the deck, a shout which was swallowed by the wind not far from where it came. The soldiers fell back, bending to crack through the ice, shelves of stone to reach up to beside each ship. From those shelves, they almost delicately pulled the armored vehicles off of the decks, and set them onto the ground. Only six of them. But six Millipede Mobile Redoubts were better than none by a grand margin.

Zhong gave a glance up to the deck of the ship he'd departed. Long Feng stared down to him, and gave him a single nod. Zhong returned it, then turned to the men, who were settling the Millipede onto the synthetic rock. "Earthbenders up front, soldiers in back. If you can't fit, take the back quarters and advanced with the armor."

"Yes, Xiashr," the soldier near him said. While men like Zhong – those directly under the orders of Long Feng and the Secretariats – didn't have any official rank, they were still referred to as though they had. Zhong didn't care. He doubly didn't care that the rank that had been 'given' to him was so low in the scheme of things. All that mattered was the land before him, and how to progress with the least loss of life possible. The soldiers began to fan back behind the Millipede as it started to trundle forward, but it had barely made it twenty yards when a blast sounded, and the snow was launched up from a detonation nearby.

"Fire from the battlements!" the call went out. Zhong looked up and around. He could only see grey and white.

"How?" he shouted to the soldiers who had moved from a steady walk into a brisk jog, trying to keep their numbers between the armored plating, in one way or another. "They can't possibly see us in this weather!"

"They're probably shooting at random!" one of the soldiers nearest Zhong answered.

"...they knew when we were coming, and decided to carpet-bomb. Clever," Zhong said.

"What do we do?"

"We can't fight back against the battlements if we can't see them," Zhong pointed out. "We have to push through; they can't see us either, so they won't be aiming!"

"They could still hit us by accident," another soldier pointed out, as a hiss in the air followed by a bang caused all outside the Millipede to stagger slightly; that one was close.

"A lot less likely than hitting us on purpose," the first agreed, somewhat begrudgingly.

"I don't like those odds."

"Never tell me the odds," Zhong snapped. "Push forward!

He'd no sooner said that, then heard the clattering of metal against rock. It was very muted, of course; between the detonations, the wind, and the grinding of the armor beside him – coupled with the muffling effects of the snow – the Salamanders practically snuck up on them. The closest turned, and a great bellow of flame shot out of the turret, directed straight up, before rounding on the Millipede, and beginning to launch bolts of flame toward the armor, and those within it.

Zhong thrust up a fist, and the stone under his feet answered by kicking the great 'tank' aside. It landed on its roof in the murk, before its entire body rotated to right itself. That was one thing about Salamanders; as long as their water-gyros were thawed, they couldn't be upended. The answer to that assault, though, was a redoubled bombardment from above. Where once the detonations all seemed comfortably distant, now, they were flashing against the snow in almost every direction, the din and the heat of them pressing through this hellish false-winter.

A grim smile came to Zhong's face. The Battle of Black Sun was only just beginning.

"The men are tired, yes," Sativa said, pacing back and forth before the front-rank of the Blue Turbans. Her own head was conspicuously absent one, but as she was an Easterner, and one who had respect of the West by humbling one of their own strategic geniuses, she had exactly that much leeway. Piandao, a once-Embiar, went with the proverbial tide. "They are hungry, yes. But they also know... you also know... that this battle is to be won, today or never. You are the Voice of the People, those maligned and waylaid by those who call themselves your betters for generations! They look down on you. They ignore you. They don't believe in you. Azulon has caused untold hardship to you. Ozai followed in his father's footsteps, bringing pain and suffering not only to your people, and to his own family, but to the whole wide world. And now this pretender, this Zhao, Ozai's chosen champion, has bettered his once-master. He is simply a knife-edged shadow of the beast which created him, yet another man, who calls himself your better. A man born as you were. Who was raised as you were. And in the end, shall die as you shall... although in great likelihood, a fair degree sooner."

There was something half way between a cheer and a round of laughter from the heavily-clothed partisan-army. From peasant levies to irregular army, and now, on the verge of toppling a Fire Lord. History would forever look upon this day, with a face screwed up in utter confusion, and a declaration of 'that's not supposed to be possible'. In other words, it was something fairly typical when Badesh got involved.

"You are tired. You are angry, and cold, but the end is there," she thrust a hand behind her, pointing toward the city. She felt a gust of wind, and turned to see... for a moment, she almost thought it was the Avatar, but her face was a bit too feminine for that. Sativa's brow drew down, until the airbender Malu mouthed the words 'play along'. "And unlike so many revolutions that have stumbled and failed against such a foe, we have the blessings of the Avatar himself. When we go into battle against your oppressors, he shall fight beside us. This is the will of the universe, and by that will, you are made mighty," she clenched her fist before her face. "It falls on you to show Zhao how mighty you are!"

This time, the cheer which went up didn't have any laughter in it. Sativa turned to Malu, and motioned her into a scrum with Piandao. "What is the meaning of this?" Sativa asked.

"I'm being a decoy," Malu said simply.

"You certainly have gone the extra mile in that," Piandao said with a chuckle.

"Hey. I'm honoring my heritage," Malu said testily.

"...that's a real tattoo," Piandao leaned in.

"The Avatar is still with the ambush force, then?" Sativa said, pulling Malu's attention back to her.

"Yeah. They're going to be attacking from the station thing over on that side of the city," she motioned into air which was rapidly filling with fat, wet snow. The older woman simply gave her a flat look. "Right. The west, I mean."

"We must assume they face a harsh entrance," Sativa said.

"Why? Do you think Zhao knows about it?"

"No, because presuming the worst shall come to pass in planning makes all surprises pleasant ones," Badesh answered.

"That makes... a weird kind 'a sense," Malu said. "I can see where Nila gets it."

"So my daughter has a keen mind as well as a sharp tongue? I should certainly hope so."

"You shouldn't talk about her like that," Malu said.

"I can talk of her how I please. As can anybody," Sativa said.

"Ladies, stop this before people get suspicious. And before you start yelling," Piandao pointed his stump toward Malu.

Sativa took a calming breath, and regathered herself – she was a fair bit shorter than this airbender, even though she probably wasn't done growing yet. "As usual Piandao, you have an eye toward the practical. They will attack as they arrive, yes?"

"That was the plan," Malu nodded.

"Good. Then we had best pull all of Zhao's attention away from them. Take to the sky, and make yourself as visible as possible," Sativa said.

"Might be a bit tough... weather being what it is," Malu said, but she nodded. "Still, I know how to tweak Fire Nation noses. I've been doing it for years."

"Then fly, young fool," Sativa said with a shooing motion. Malu scowled at her for a moment, then did exactly that. The Dragon of the East breathed deeply of cold air, then turned a look to Piandao.

"I'll be right beside you," he said, as his remaining hand drew his shining white blade.

"As you always have been," Sativa said. She turned to the Blue Turbans. "Well? Are you going to stand there, or are you going to kick down Zhao's doors? In the name of the Blue Turban! In the name of Princess Azula!"

The cry went up again, and this time, it was followed by the thunder of feet.

The scene had changed in the chamber of the Burning Throne. No longer did the Fire Lord sit imperious, staring down at his war-ministers. Now, he paced back and forth, as though a simple different angle of view upon the maps of the city would reveal some aspect of the battle he hadn't noticed before. As a politician, Zhao was mediocre, that he knew – he had Akemi and her keen wit to make up for any shortcomings there. The two benefited each other, perhaps not in the healthiest of ways, but Zhao was a creature of practicality.

No, while Zhao was a middling politician, he was a long-seasoned soldier. "They are in the 'mouth' at this moment," he said. "Reports?"

"Visibility is making directing the battle difficult," Kwon said, his tones as dreary and despondent as they always were. "But we have reports of several hundred soldiers seen. That makes estimated numbers seen and unseen in the two thousand range."

"And their waterbenders?"

"If they have them, they're keeping them in reserve," Kwon said. Zhao scratched at the chops that framed his face, looking on as Kwon manipulated the map slightly. More tokens representing Earth Kingdom troops. The Avatar's troops. He was probably in the sky at this moment, trying to goad him away from his plan.

"Keep pressure," he said. He then thrust his finger to the younger of the three women in the room – Akemi keeping her presence back from the soldiery. "Kurita, what about these damned Blue Turbans?"

"As you said... they forced a march," she said. While she was still in her prime, any beauty she had was marred by the smashed-in nature of one side of her face, and the eye missing there. A wound from the Siege of Ba Sing Se, that had taken her long to recover from. "They don't have the numbers of the Earth Kingdom troops, but they're still engaging along the wards and the Obsidian Way.

Inwardly, Zhao was growling. Azula had made no prediction of the Blue Turbans. However, she had predicted the appearance of the Avatar's army to within the hour. "Are the forces there holding?"

"Not well. If they hold, they'll lose in the long run," Kowareta Kurita said, the uneven frown pulling at an uneven mouth. "The reserves to bolster their numbers..."

"The reserves are going to remain so until there is no other option," Zhao said sharply. Yes, he wanted to crush his enemies... but he also had a great deal of caution. If this Avatar had proven one thing in his time, it was that he was cunning as a mad fox.

The 'fallen' daughter of House Kurita looked away for a moment; it was a pity, as the side of her face he could see then was fairly comely. She turned back to him, after that deliberation, and locked amber eyes to his. "If I may propose a strategy?"

"You may propose," Zhao said carefully.

"Pull them in. They'll get mired in the city streets. The Salamanders are on the wrong side of the city, and we can fight them, street to street. We have the terrain, they have the numbers. I know for a fact terrain trumps numbers."

She knew that to her peril; catching a chunk of the Ba Sing Se wall to the head was a harsh, but clear, teacher.

Zhao considered it. While he was loath to allow those rebels one footstep into his city, he was a man of practical solutions. As much as his pride demanded that they hold their ground, and that they force them to bleed out in the land outside... he rubbed his fingers along the raw flesh surrounding his burned eye. Pride burned. Hubris failed. Azula taught him that, just as the Wall taught Kowareta.

"Do so," he said with a wave of his hand.

"How long until the eclipse?" Kwon asked.

"Forty minutes," Zhao said. "You've made the arrangements?"

"Yes. No purely firebending units," Kwon said. "Anybody trying to press the lines will get a rude surprise."

"Excellent," Zhao said, continuing to circle the map. Azula had shown him that victory was inevitable; he just had to fulfill his place in prophecy, and claim it!

There was a tension in the train-cars, behind the Avatar. Sokka now wore the armor of a South Water Tribal warrior, much as his father did. Toph wore what seemed a miniaturized version of the armor of the forces from Omashu and the lands around. Bow-wielding Dakongese tested their draw, even as plate-armored Si Wongi tested edges of scimitars. And for a wonder, they weren't doing so in preparation for killing each other.

The only ones who didn't seem tense were the Ghorkalai, who sat on the floor, joking amongst themselves, laughing about somebody's pratfalls and misfortunes, somebody that Aang had never met, and likely never would. They alone were calm. This was normal for them. Not for anybody else.

He didn't give much of a glance to the machines that hung from the backs of the strongest, the designs of Sato. He was loath to create weapons... but these weren't strictly weapons. He took a breath, and looked out of the door of the car, as the train started to slow in its approach of Caldera City.

The mountain was broken, and great rivers of red, molten rock slid down its side. It seemed an old wound even now, as the snow was mounted high where the heat of the lava couldn't melt it. At the same time, Aang could see the spirits cavorting there, fire and stone melding together in the one place that they could, oblivious to the strange times around them. The wind was hesitant. The snow fell, but it wasn't blown, not in the lee of the mountain.

"As soon as the train stops," Hakoda said, his voice clear. They would be the last spoken for minutes to come. The Ghorkalai, the Ghurkas, they rose, letting their joking fall away; in a moment, they were as stern as the soldiers around them. Aang took a deep breath, and pressed his eyes shut. He would do what he must. This was a problem he could solve. One thing at a time.

Only a few miles away, the eyes of a shaman were glowing softly. The guards who had been defending the Dragon Bone Catacombs lay unconscious, the spirits of lethargy and sloth continuing to drape over them as they had been invoked by their master. Furiously, he flipped through pages, trying to find the answers to questions he was fairly sure he'd already asked, and had forgotten the answers to. At least now, with the world on the cusp of death, he could face it with a whole mind. Sharif Badesh bin Seema din Nassar threw the scroll away, rubbing at the glowing scar above his brow.

"Must everything be so needlessly difficult?" he muttered to himself. Since the answer didn't deign to appear – in itself, that was an answer – he turned, and tore fresh scrolls down. The soldiers guarding this place had been spectacular; had he been any but a shaman, and had the world been any but broken to its current state, he would never have breached them. Well, not without being one of the Children. But the answers?

He almost threw a scroll away, before stopping, and looking at it. The Well of Oblivion.

A memory came to him. Drifting into him in a way that he could never explain. Drifting, because the same spirit listened to the same thing twice.

"...of course," he said, grimly.

On the other side of the planet, a door was opened. Ordinarily, the Mountain King would have demanded a great deal more privacy, a great deal more prudence, from the people he dealt with. But these were not normal times. He stomped through the library, with Zuko on his heels, and pounded on the wall at the back, near the stacks of books. "Open up! You know who this is!"

There was a long silence, as Zuko raised his brow in confusion. "Maybe they don't," he offered.

Both were answered when the wall slid back, and an unfamiliar, wide-eared youth stared out at them. "The Mountain King..." the laconic archer said. He then turned to "And you."

"And me," Zuko said dryly. The look that the archer – Longshot by his friends – gave him clearly said 'I don't like the timing of this one bit'. "Neither do I."

Zha Yu turned a look between both young men, then nodded inward. Down the archer bore them, into tin-plated stairways and halls, until turning off and heading into a different chamber. Zuko slipped past Zha Yu's broad form as they reached that corner, and strode in first, his hand upon the pommel of his dao blades. He had a good idea what he could expect. It still caught him off guard.

"...Uncle," he said. Iroh turned to him, taking a bite from a piece of bread, and rose to his feet. He was fairly shorter than Zuko at this point, but somehow, he filled the room with his presence in a way that few others did. Iroh looked Zuko up and down. He even leaned one side and to another. "I'm... I wanted to do the right thing."

"You did, Prince Zuko," he said. Agni's blood, but it felt good to hear that gravely voice again. "I was never so proud of you, as I was when I learned of your decision in the Wastelands outside Ba Sing Se. To have everything you ever wanted, and set it aside, takes a character that few men ever gain."

"Azula's finally alright."

"So she is," Iroh said. "I could see a change in you. You walk as a man freed from his own gallows. There is hope in your eyes. And there is peace in your soul."

Zuko could only nod. There was a tension in his gut. One he didn't know how to adequately explain. Not, until he released his hold of the blades, and pulled the shorter man into a hug that he really, really needed.

"I just... I wanted..." Zuko said, his voice shuddering.

"You were always true to who you were, and what you wanted. Nobody could ever expect more from you," Iroh said. He then backed to arm's length. "But I must ask: What are you doing in Ba Sing Se? Now, of all times?"

Zuko took a breath, to regain his composure, and looked his uncle in the eye. "I'm here to rescue Mom."

Across the world once more, a remote prison stood amongst the mountains, it the only dormant volcano in a sea of its black-smoking brethren. A place only visited when absolutely necessary, a place for the most dangerous of prisoners. A prison, for people that certain parties would rather quietly disappear. A showcase for a trophy, to a petty man's vanity.

The guard walking the wall, his helm's visor down against the blowing snow, didn't allow him the peripheral vision to see that he wasn't alone on his path. He turned just in time to get a fist into the front of his throat, dropping him to his knees, and letting the halberd in his hand fall into the snowbanks of the courtyard below. Thankfully, he didn't suffer shortness of breath for long; the intruder introduced a knee to his jaw, and consciousness fled quickly.

Bright blue eyes looked down at the guard, then inward. A tower stood, surrounded by two layers of walls and baileys. It was a prototype for the prisons like Puhai Stronghold in the East, a place designed to be as difficult to leave as possible. But not so difficult to enter. The girl who could be Yoji took a deep breath of cold air, and vehemently denied to herself that it was familiar. The Fire Lord was somewhere inside that tower. It was her duty as a Child to rectify that.

Invisible to her, on the other side of the prison, a great white form landed with an utterly muffled thud in the snow. It shook vigorously, the fluff that stuck to it whipping around when it wasn't dislodged. Upon the back of that beast were two girls, one from the West, and one from the South. The former looked to the barely visible specter of the tower, and nodded.

"Betla," she said. "Of course, it had to be Betla."

"Something I should know?" Katara asked, her guard up even now. After all, she'd just flown in the same saddle as Azula of all people for all this time.

"You? No... But this place has a lot of ghosts for me."

The two offered no more words. Each had a task. And each would stop at nothing to achieve it, even if each girl thought the other's plan utter folly. Such it was, when family was involved.

And in a traincar which pulled into a station at the fringe of Caldera City, the edge which was once the Ashfall Ward, but now only a flow of lava and the ruins of abandoned houses, a cry went up. Grey eyes opened, and the Avatar threw himself out, an army at his back. Now, the end, a coldly logical part of Aang's mind said to him. Now, the invasion.

To Be Continued...