Hey guys, this chapter is mostly going to center around the villains backstory, hope you enjoy.
Chapter 9: My Baby!
Niuan drove them closer and closer to the ice tower, it honestly felt like he was going slower just to delay fighting those two maniacs. "We're almost there" he mumbled
"Just to let you know our father is still behind bars where he should be" Zuko said causing Niuan to sigh
Ty Lee had her curios face on, it usually caused her pain so they knew this had to be important "did they know what you were doing, if they hate the fire nation so much then why would they allow you to break him out"
"They don't really care if he's free or not, or the war for that matter" he said
"So what they're just doing all this for fun" Azula said irritated with how far this went
"Not exactly" he said with some trace of guilt. "They'll be perfectly satisfied when you two are dead"
"Quite petty" Azula said
"What did we do?" Zuko said curious by that
"Stole what can never be given back…."
"Back in the later years of the war the northern water tribes didn't have the resources or the manpower to spare on the war, their ingenious diplomats demanded it stay homebound in case of attack."
"But a few waterbenders disagreed"
A clear night sky was slowly fading away as silky and thick air rushed through the hair of several teenage boys ages 15 to 21 packed a ship and said goodbye to their loved ones. They'd need to leave quickly if they wanted to catch those morning winds.
"Alright that should be it" Aguta said as he tied the last of their supplies down "is everyone here" he said before doing a quick headcount; Ikiaq, Atka, Nanuq, Denahi, Sitka, Kenai,...and Zakis, yup everyone was here
"No, we still have one more" Zakis assured
"I'M HERE" Kullo said as she rushed over with her bag and hugged her boyfriend
"Woah woah what's with the bag, no girls allowed" Atka snobbishly ordered
"You think I'm gonna trust you boys out there without a healer" Kullo snapped back
Master Pakku approached "while I don't think it's wise to put her in danger it would be far unwiser to go out there without a healer" he instructed
"Well you guys better get used to her" Zakis said as Kullo tossed her bag in the boat
"Their team landed in the earth kingdom a few days later. When they weren't goofing off they spent a pretty good amount of time holding off firebenders and working on their bending."
Zakis dragged Kullo to a dark part of the forest hand in hand "you ready" he said as he bended some water towards them"
Kullo nodded as Zakis started showing her some waterbending moves by impaling a rabbit skunk with ice
"They joined Earth Kingdom troops throughout multiple battles."
Zakis and Kuulo kissed as several of their new army buddies applauded as the two of them ran off their wedding grounds.
"They were just some naive kids going into a fight, they were pretty good.
Just not good enough"
All seven waterbenders gathered around hand in hand over the graves of Sitka and Atka while Aguta led them in prayer
"Eventually during an earth raid on a Fire Nation ship repair yard they stowed away on an escaping ship and landed in the Fire Nation. They apparently caused quite a few problems for the war effort. They even concocted an bombing attempt in the capital city….thankfully it didn't work"
Zakis held Kullo as they watched from a distance as Aguta, Denahi, and Ikiaq were forced onto a stage with a large crowd watching. A fire bender for each of them walked on the stage as a guard kept them down and forced their mouths open. The three firebenders positioned their hands and were ready to shoot. Zakis and Kullo stayed to honor their comrades while Kenai and Nanuq couldn't bear to watch
"Things were looking pretty bleak until they met HER."
"YOU'RE A WATERBENDER!" Kullo said in excitement at the thought of another female waterbender
"Yes, I was taken from my home in the south and held prisoner here for years" the elderly woman known as Hama said as the four youth ate their dinner "I'd like to teach you kids what I know so it can live on when I'm gone"
"And then when a full moon rose into the blackest of skies she revealed her ultimate weapon"
"Bloodbending" Hama told the story of she perfected the ability to escape prison and had been using to trap villagers until they starved to death
While Kenai and Nanuq were more hesitant, Zakis and Kullo were happy to learn an ability that could change waterbending combat as they know it.
"They trained for several months, every time there was a full moon they made time to train and to capture five to ten times the amount of people than Hama could do before. Kenai and Nanuq eventually mastered the technique but Zakis and Kullo were always behind, ironic given what happened next."
"We should go back to the earth kingdom" Kenai said with Nanuq agreeing
"You're crazy, we're doing so well here" Zakis assured
"Doing well? We're not fighting a war, we're kidnapping civilians and forcing them to suffer" Nanuq argued "it's not ethical"
"NOT ETHICAl, WE'RE FIGHTING A WAR DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT WHAT'S NOT ETHICAL" Kullo erupted
"You know what you two stay here if you want but we're going back to helping people, see if this bloodbending could be useful" Kenai said turning his back
"Aguta left me in charge and I order you to stay put" Zakis ordered
Kenai and Nanuq turned their backs anyway. Zakis raised his hand and tried to force them to stay, Kullo joined him shortly after they nudged Kenai back for a second but couldn't replicate that. Before they knew it Kenai and Nanuq had left back for the earth kingdom.
"They stayed there working to improve but barely held during a full moon and this was before they made other responsibilities."
After an amazing night of trapping their first flamer, Zakis and Kullo felt a great sense of excitement and pride before getting in bed together.
"After getting confirmation that their baby was coming they needed to leave Hama and headed to a nice cottage in the Fire Nation countryside and promised to train more on their own. Only a couple weeks after getting some of the best news they heard since they discovered bloodbending, the Avatar has returned."
"They now had to act fast, Sozin's comet would end the war and they needed to help however they could"
"Alright so we'll need to act fast" Zakis said helping his pregnant wife into their new home in the Fire Nation capital
"One more attempt on the royal family, once their gone the military will be divided for some time and easier for the Avatar to take down" Kullo said as she sat down with her baby bump
"Then their chance finally came, the day of black sun where a solar eclipse would take the bending away from firebenders. Zakis needed to be out there helping with the invasion until-"
"AWWWW" Kullo screamed "The baby's coming"
Their son was born a little bit after the invasion was over, and Zakis was with Kullo the whole way through. He was officially named Anik.
"They ignored bloodbending training for a few weeks to play with the baby but after news of Prince Zuko cowardly trying to escape his crimes against humanity reached the public they knew they had to pick up the pace. They got service jobs and were located in the servant quarters of the royal palace right alongside the palace courtyard in order to plan an assassination attempt. They couldn't plan it fast enough until it was too late, Sozin's comet was finally here and they needed to act."
Kullo held Anik in her arms before she set him down in his crib, Zakis was there by her side before they left to end any chance at the Fire Nations monarchy.
The two of them walked over to princess Azula's chamber with food and WATER only to find that she wasn't there. They looked in her room and also found nothing.
Some more servants were running down the halls "what's going on"
"The Prince has come back" a servant explained, perfect they can take them both out at once "he's challenging her for the throne"
They went with the other servants to watch the agni kai. After all this time they finally caught a glimpse of the Prince and Princess, this was what they came to kill, they were just spoiled teenagers fighting over who gets daddies favorite chair.
"I'm sorry it has to end this way Brother"
"No you're not"
She could vaguely hear them go back and forth. The comet above them was also quite beautiful in a way, people everywhere have either been terrified or ecstatic for its coming, but it didn't matter nothing would stop them from kil-
Fire! They assumed the princess would just shoot a beam of fire at the prince but a wall of blue flames scaled across the entire courtyard in seconds and reached a hundred and ten feet in the air, and it was immediately followed by a wall of orange flames coming in their direction at a height of a hundred and twenty feet. Kullo knew that fighting them now was suicide and they needed to get out of- ANIK!
All the servants immediately understood that watching this was a bad idea and ran off, but Kullo and Zakis had one mission, save Anik.
They leaped over the banister and into the flaming courtyard. The sky was dark bloody red when it was just the comet but being close to two firebenders at this time they couldn't look up with being blinded but the amount of light drowning everything around them. It was barely possible to make it more than a foot at a time with either flames or the heat it left behind everywhere.
Kullo pushed forward but Zakis threw her to the ground to avoid blue flames from crashing into her, the flames stained the concrete and lit the roof ablaze. They resorted to crawling on all fours towards their quarters. They kept an eye out for any water but it was flowing on the other end of the courtyard so that wasn't an option.
Zakis peaked over to check if they could reach the water, only to have to duck for cover as blue flames flashed across the courtyard.
The noise of fire building up built up above them and they were running out of time as light above them got brighter and brighter. Right before it was too late Zakis threw Kullo into the building to their right as Orange and blue fire crashed into the ground.
Everything went black
"OVER HERE" Kullo heard as she fluttered her eyes open. It was already morning and the comet had already passed
There was a rapid cough coming from her right and it was Zakis. She went over to comfort him-
"ANIK" Zakis sheik before both of them pushed the paramedics out of the way before tearing up the rubble looking for their baby.
They spent an hour and a half digging through the rubble and ignoring emergency workers…before Zakis found what he was looking for. He refused to believe it at first but he lifted him up for Kullo to see
For a minute there was silence before Kullo broke down and refused to leave that spot, Zakis never leaving her side and mourning with her. The construction crew had tried to lift them off the grounds and take them to the hospital, but with one flick of the wrist their stomachs were torn open as they both rose that hate filled glares to the palace.
"After a day Zakis and Kullo were able to break out of the hospital. They buried Anik and eventually returned to Hama's inn, but Hama had apparently been arrested for some time. For months all they saw was how their actions did this…but the actions of others needed to be realized."
Silence. That's all there was when Niuan finished telling the story. Zuko was a mess, Suki and Ty Lee were saddened by such a tragedy.
Azula felt sick to her stomach, she leaped out of the tank "AZULA!" Zuko called as Azula ran to a tree and vomited all over the crumbling dry grass.
Zuko ran over to her aid as she was hyperventilating and vomited again. "Azula it's alright"
Azula teared up "it's not alright, it's all my fault…if I didn't challenge you to an Agni Kai none of this would have happened"
"I'm not innocent in any of this, if I had been more careful and known where my fire was going this might have been avoided" Zuko said, every trace of his voice sounded of guilt
"...Add it to the list of horrible things I did, add them to the list of lives I ruined" Azula tearfully let out
"We can admit that later but we still have a job to finish" Zuko said pulling himself together, offering her his hand "we're the only ones who can stop this"
Azula grabbed his hand and got pulled up "I need to fix this, whatever it takes"
Hey guys thank you for reading. Anyways let me know if this was a good chapter, I started to regret that in my first Azula story that we just heard Fen's backstory by Eichi simply telling us, it's short and simple but also doesn't let us know her that well. I also wanted to leave it open whether Zakis and Kullo were more of tragic figures or if they were evil from the start. Thank You for Reading and Please Review!