Today, the 25th of April in Australia and New Zealand, it is ANZAC Day, a day of remembrance. (At least it was; there's a massive time difference between there and here.) To all of my readers from those nations, I hope you had a good day.

Responses to Reviews:

RonaldM40196867: Maybe a couple more near the end, just to get more time with the full six-member Team Avatar with Zuko and Suki, but aside from that I don't particularly wish it had more episodes.

Zigzagdoublezee: I'd say he reminds me more of the General from Avatar State, because he is in a position of authority in the face of Fire Nation attack and is scrambling for any way of dealing with it. And in my other story I made Bao a lone wolf because he was rejecting the Avatar playbook of the past, which included having a Team Avatar. Plus it was also faster.

As Always, Please Review!

Yue stood in the gatehouse and watched as the stream of refugees began to flood through the opening in the wall beneath her. She nodded with satisfaction. So far, all seemed to be proceeding according to plan.

Rinzen was with his bison, making sure that Gembul was being properly fed and watered before they continued the journey, while the Governor had returned to his palace. That left Yue with Sokka and Katara. Katara was studying the waterbending scroll she had stolen from the pirates while Sokka watched the flow of humanity beneath them silently.

Suddenly he looked up into the distance.

"What was that?" He asked, pointing towards the horizon.

"What?" Yue jolted with alarm and followed where he was pointing. But she saw nothing.

"I don't see anything."

"Strange," Sokka frowned. "I could have sworn I saw movement."

Yue looked again, but didn't see anything.

"Maybe it was just a bird," she suggested.

"Or maybe it was a Fire Nation army come to kill us all!" Sokka said dramatically.

"Maybe," Yue shrugged. There was an army hot on their heels, she knew. "But we can't say anything until everyone's through or they'll shut the gates."

Sokka scowled. He knew the Governor had solid military reasons for giving those orders, but it still seemed hugely unfair.

Yue watched the crowd of people below, looking at the expressions of fatigue, of sorrow, of hope and gratitude written on their faces. She thought of the tank man again. She saw the family she had talked to before, walking together in a big group beside their cart as it trundled towards the gate. A man and a woman were in the lead and a pair of teenagers trailed just behind them, a girl talking animatedly to a boy.

Yue was just about to look somewhere else when the boy looked up at her. There was a moment of eye contact, and Yue felt a shock as she recognised him. She saw amber eyes widen, and then the boy had looked down again, trying to vanish into the crowd by making himself look as small as possible.

Yue took a step backwards in shock. What was he doing here?

Sokka had noticed the look on her face. She pointed vaguely out into the crowd.

"What?" He asked. "What's wrong?"

"But- what- but-"

"Whoa, slow down," Sokka grabbed her arm. "What did you see?"

"Zuko!" Yue said.

Katara's head snapped up from her scroll.

"Zuko?" She repeated. "That Prince?"

Yue nodded.

"He's here?"

Yue nodded again.

Katara's face hardened.

"Where is he?" She demanded.

Yue gestured down into the crowd.

"We need to stop him," Katara said firmly.

"Wait, hold on!" Yue found her voice. "How do we know he's doing anything that needs stopping?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Katara gestured out to the horizon. "The Fire Nation is coming. He's the Prince of the Fire Nation! He's obviously spying!"

Yue frowned. Spying was a possibility, and yet...

"Why come himself?" She asked. "The Fire Nation could send anyone through here to spy, and they send the Firelord's son, who a lot of people will probably know, to do it? That doesn't sound very logical."

"Oh I don't know," Katara shrugged. "Maybe he's braver than he is smart, it doesn't matter. What matters is that we need to go down there and stop him from entering the fort."

"I don't know," Yue turned to gaze up at the sky. "He did help us back in the North..."

"He says he did that because he didn't know what was going on," Katara replied. "Well, he knows now! We need to do something before he does!"

"No," Sokka said. They both stopped and looked at him.

"If we lock him out, he'll run away and we'll lose him," Sokka explained. "If we let him into the fort and then confront him, we can grab him. Then we'll have something that the Firelord wants. We'll have options."

Yue didn't say anything for a moment. This didn't feel right to her.

"I don't know," she said again. "I do think we should let him in, but..."

"But what?" Sokka prompted.

"I feel like we owe him," Yue said.

"Owe him?" Katara sounded incredulous. "Why do we owe him anything?"

"Because he saved us, remember!" Yue said. "When the Fire Nation were after us, we were lost, scared and alone, he went against his own country to help us! There must be some more honourable way of handling this."

"Not intentionally!" Katara replied. "And what does honour have to do with it? Is honour worth selling out this fort to the Fire Nation? Letting them get at Ba Sing Se? The Fire Nation has no honour, why should we treat them like they do?"

"Because we should be better than them!" Yue shook her head. "But I don't think that's what he wants to do anyway!"

"How do you know?" Katara asked. "Have you talked to him at all? Do you know what he's been doing since the North Pole?"

"... No."

"So how can you know what he wants to do?" Katara exploded. Then she set her face determinedly.

"Alright, if you're not going to stop him, I'll do it myself," she said, turning and storming away.

"Katara, wait!" Yue took off after her, desperately holding a hand out for her to stop, but neither of them had made it three paces before the door clattered open and a messenger was there.

"Fire Nation!" He said, breathlessly. "They've got behind us!"

"What?" The argument was forgotten as both Princesses stopped dead in their tracks.

"How?" Yue demanded.

"I don't know!" The messenger held his hands up. "But they're there. The Governor has ordered that the other gate cannot be opened."

Yue looked down at the stream of refugees.

"So they're stuck here," she said. The messenger nodded sympathetically.

"It would appear they are," he said gravely.

Yue balled her fists in frustration. How had that happened? She took a deep breath, looked at the clear blue sky, and counted down to calm herself. Perfect serenity, as was expected of her.

Then she nodded.

"Alright," she said. "Let's see Zuko. Maybe this is his doing. But I want to hear him out before we do anything."

She turned and swept out of the room, the southerners trailing in her wake.