Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I wasn't entirely sure what to do with this chapter until last night. Hope it works, hope you enjoy.

Chapte Six: In Which Dreams are had, Weird Attacks Across Time and Space are Attempted, and Explanations are Made

Zuko had been standing outside the door to the room where Aang was once again slumbering peacefully for hours. He heard footsteps in the corridor, and turned to see Iroh walking toward him.

"Has he woken up?" asked Iroh.

"Nothing so far," Zuko yawned.

"I'll take over here. Go get some sleep." Zuko began to protest, and Iroh cut him off. "You haven't slept in two days, Zuko. You need to rest." Zuko groaned, and walked away. Behind him, he could hear Iroh opening the door.

Zuko walked to his room, and sat on his bed. Well, he meant to sit on it. Actually, he ended up collapsing. Wow. Hadn't realized he was so tired…

Azula had a good many recurring nightmares. No one entirely understood why. Maybe it had something to do with being sick all the time.

Zuko had a dream of his own that would come up from time to time. It wasn't a nightmare or anything close to one, but he didn't like it, anyway.

He dreamed about the Agni Kai.

He saw his father come out, prepared to fight.

He felt shock, confusion, and a desire not to fight.

He begged his father's forgiveness.

He heard the anger and contempt in his father's voice as he ranted.

He saw him pull his fist back, flames appearing around it.

He heard his uncle shout his name in a voice that Zuko had never fully understood. Ordering? Desperate?
He felt his head snap around on some random impulse and he wondered why he had just done that.

Then he felt the blast sear past him, knocking him aside.

Leaving him untouched.

He heard his father roar in anger, banish him and Iroh. Iroh's expression was calm, but when he looked at Zuko, he had the same bewildered look on his face that Zuko did, as if he didn't know why he had shouted.

He saw Ursa and Azula run over to them. Ursa carrying a large sack. He realized what was going on, that they were coming too for some reason.

He heard Lu Ten shouting at them on the waterfront, convinced that they were going to steal his ship, and refusing to—

The explosion in the hall woke him up.

Zuko rolled off of the bed, took a second to recover, stood, and walked slowly to the door. He pushed it open slowly—first a crack, then far enough for him to squeeze through. He looked around, then turned to his left.

Suddenly, a burst of flames erupted from further down the hall. Zuko swiftly sunk into a firebending stance. No time to think, he instinctively punched through the flame. The flames were blue.

Azula.

As Zuko ran forward, he saw his sickly little sister laughing like a maniac, and firing massive flames around her indiscriminately.

"Azula!" he shouted. His sister spun to look at him.

"Oh, Zuzu!" she slurred. "I've been looking for you. How nice to see you AGAIN!" She began punching and kicking fire at him rapidly. Zuko dodged and blocked for all he was worth. Then Azula began coughing. Zuko stared for a moment, and then it hit him.

It wasn't the new Azula attacking him.

It was the original Azula, inexplicably in the new Azula's body.

Then he nearly got hit by yet another blast, and it was back to dodging.

He heard footsteps, and then he heard Ursa shouting.

"Azula! Stop it!"

Azula collapsed. Zuko knelt beside her and picked her up cautiously.

"Zuko?" she mumbled.

"Yeah?"

"My stomach hurts."

Zuko smiled. New Azula was back—Original Azula was simply too crazy to fake anything by now. He turned to Ursa. "Find Lu Ten," he ordered. "We need to talk about this now."

""Is this important? You pulled me away from very important captaining-the-ship things," Lu Ten announced officiously.

"You were trying to push your bed overboard," Ursa pointed out.

"It is always important when the captain needs a new bed," Lu Ten groused.

"And even more so when he's bent on destroying the old one so that he'll have no choice but to get a new one."

"I keep telling you, it's evil!"

"Anyway!" Zuko said, perhaps a little more angrily than he meant. Ursa and Lu Ten turned back to him.

"We need to talk about this."

"About what?"

"About what happened in the hall earlier." Zuko sighed. "There's something wrong with the universe."

"Wow. That was really out of nowhere," Lu Ten announced. Zuko rolled his eyes, and started over.

"I mean, things aren't supposed to be like this."

"That doesn't help much either," Ursa replied.

"Okay, let's put it this way. The war is supposed to be over. The Fire Nation is supposed to be trying to help people. The Avatar is supposed to be restoring balance. But none of those things are happening, because it all got changed around somehow.

"Huh. Anything I should know about?" Lu Ten asked. Zuko looked down.

"Mother was missing. No one had seen her in years. Azula was crazy—like you saw down there. Lu Ten… You were dead."

"Great!" whooped Lu Ten. "I've always wanted to be dead!"

Ursa and Zuko both turned and stared at him.

"Is that a bad thing?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Ursa.

Lu Ten slumped. "Wow. I'm going to have to rethink my life." Then he straightened. "Hey, that's why Azula went crazy!"

"Huh?" asked Zuko in confusion.

"You see—no, of course, you don't see—whatever changed the universe can't entirely keep it changed. The old universe is trying to reassert itself, and the new one wants to survive. If we don't change things back, they will continue pushing at each other until they literally push each other out of existence!" He smiled.

"Where'd you figure all that out?" asked Ursa, a look of confusion on her face.

"I just made it up off the top of my head. But it sounded good, didn't it?"

"What's going on?"

Everyone in the room turned. There, watching them expectantly, was the Avatar.

I'll next post when I can decide to do with the story.