Hello, people of fanfiction.
As always, I'm having a blast with this story,
even though I'm really busy at the moment, I can't help but continue writing it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Thanks for the kind reviews and hopefully you enjoy this chapter too :)
It's been a month since Zuko has started training at the academy, he's learned a lot about firebending, and Master Jeong Jeong has finally informed the academy that Zuko is ready for his first mission outside of the academy.
Master Pakku made a final meeting with him, a meeting that Zuko explained everything in details why he would like to join the bending academy, and it wasn't only for Iroh's sake, it was for the sake of everyone involved around the world, as he would like to create a safer place for all benders around the world where they could bend freely, Master Pakku felt the Authenticity of his words, and told him of the consequences that he might face, Zuko then accepted them and said that he's ready to hear anything.
Master Pakku then felt that Zuko was worthy of being told everything.
"The thing we've been preparing ourselves all this time to face are dark spirits, long ago, before the time of the first avatar, there were two immortal spirits called Raava and Vaatu, Raava is the spirit of light, while Vattu is the spirit of darkness, they balance each other out throughout the mere existence of the human race, they were made for humans… and depending on human emotions can one of them take the upper hand over the other, it's like a game of cards, where collecting the most number of cards, results in collecting the most number points, and the person who ends up with the most number of points wins…" Pakku said, Zuko was getting more and more agitated by every word and the master hasn't even gotten into the main topic yet,
Pakku continued, "The first avatar helped Raava defeat Vattu and so the light spirit rewarded him and they merged together, creating the strongest being in the universe, The Avatar, and so being part-spirit, when the avatar dies, he gets reincarnated into the next generation, a person who is born the next day from the next nation in the avatar cycle, the avatar cycle goes as follows, Water, Earth, Fire, Air. The current Avatar which is Aang is from the air nation, that means when Aang eventually dies, the next avatar will be from the watertribes, which is Northern or Southern Antarctica…" Pakku explained, Zuko followed every word, although he was internally disturbed when Pakku mentioned Aang's demise, but he decided not to voice it out loud,
Pakku continued, "The first avatar sworn to use Raava's light spirit to guide the world towards peace, and so Aang, being the current avatar was recruited to this academy from the moment he was born, we saw the signs, and immediately capitalized… however, as per the guidelines that were left behind by our ancestors, the avatar is supposed to be recruited by the time he turns Sixteen, but this time, we decided to recruit the avatar by the time he turned twelve..." Pakku said.
Zuko decided to speak, "Wow, five years ago? why would you recruit him this early?" he asked.
"Because of the danger to come… when the first Avatar defeated the spirit of evil, he couldn't completely wipe him out because it's impossible, so he imprisoned him in a place in the spirit world called the tree of time." Pakku said.
Zuko had a lot of questions, but he decided to save them for later.
Pakku continued, "The thing that made us recruit Aang so early was, we've received disturbances coming from the portals of the spirits, a couple of reports indicating dark spirit activities, a lot of dead people without even knowing what's going on, they can't even be seen unless you're a bender, and to defeat them, it requires a special type of bending, it's called spiritually-modified bending, that's what you need to defeat dark spirits. Aang being the avatar though, doesn't need this kind of training, as there is the light spirit living within him, makes him connected to all spiritual energy, which makes him immune to all their spiritual attacks, as well as being a lethal weapon against them, apart from being the strongest being in the universe and his task is to protect us all, his help is most required in this particular fight. Any questions?" Pakku said.
Zuko's eyes were as wide as plates, he couldn't understand what was happening, but he decided to respond to the master anyways,
"Yeah. What are you talking about?" Zuko asked, his face devoid of any emotion, as he couldn't comprehend a word Pakku just said.
Pakku frowned, feeling the anger building up that all those words he just said fell on deaf ears, but it was understandable that he Zuko wouldn't be able to understand all this crucial information in one go, and that's why he came up with an alternative plan way before Zuko's question,
"Don't worry, I know practice makes perfect. You need to see these things for yourself to understand what's happening, so I've decided to make you finally go out of the academy to have a better understanding of what's going on…" Pakku said, which made Zukof feel excited.
"Toph and Katara will explain to you everything along the way, they are waiting for you outside as we speak. off you go, now." Pakku said, waving with his back hand for Zuko to leave his office as he continued reading the book right away.
Zuko sat there for a couple of seconds, but he knew that staying here for too long would provoke Master Pakku which would bring out sarcastic Pakku, so he decided to leave right away before that happens.
As he was out of the office, he found Toph and Katara waiting for him,
"Ready for your field trip, newbie?" Toph asked.
Katara chuckled which further provoked Zuko, "Shut up." He said, before leaving the academy with them.
As they hopped into the car and making their way to their destination, Katara explained everything along the way, "There has been spiritual activities in a simple restaurant in Gaoling." Katara started.
"Hey, that's Toph's hometown." Zuko interrupted, looking at Toph, they have been talking for the past month as part of group meetings with Katara, Sokka, and sometimes Aang when he's around, and so Zuko knew a lot of details about her.
Toph merely shrugged, "The academy has been my home for a long while now, I don't really know anything about Gaoling anymore, although my parents still live there." Toph said, although Zuko knew her words weren't genuine for some reason, he didn't have an explanation for it, it was just a hunch.
Katara continued, "Anyways, back to the mission, although, the reports make it seem like a normal accident, it's apparently not, as our agents there in Gaoling said that they felt dark spiritual energy roaming around this simple restaurant for some time now."
"Woah, people can feel dark spiritual energy?" Zuko asked, feeling confused.
"Didn't master Pakku explain everything to you?" Toph asked.
Zuko grimaced, "Apparently, he left out some crucial parts."
Toph snorted, "He always does that."
"To answer your question, Yes, Zuko. We can feel any spiritual energies around us, as humans, we do have spiritual energy in our body, so when you concentrate all your spiritual energy to a purpose, that purpose could be doing a spiritually-modified bending move to attack dark spirits, or it could be feeling the spiritual energy around you to make sense of what's happening." Katara explained.
Zuko's eyes lit up, "Oh, so that's why Master Jeong Jeong spent so much time making me concentrate on the sun, apparently he wanted me to be able to gather the most spiritual energy."
"Exactly, and the stronger your spiritual energy concentration is, the stronger your spiritual energy output becomes, and being unable to see made me instinctively using concentration to be able to see, Seismic sense, which is the main reason I'm able to see, is in fact a spiritually-modified bending technique, and being reliant on it to see, made my concentration skyrocket, which is by the way made me the strongest user of spiritual concentration… this statistic is excluding Aang, of course, because it would be unfair to compare ourselves to the avatar." Toph said.
"It sounds way harder than I expected." Zuko said, discouraged.
"I know it's easier said than done, but you'll get the hang of it, eventually." Katara said, her motherly nature kicked in as she was trying to encourage Zuko.
Zuko smiled, "Thank you, Katara. Where's Aang by the way?" Zuko asked.
"He's been away to Northern Antarctica, but he's coming back home today, Fung is on his way to the airport to pick him up as we speak." Katara said.
"I understand now why him and my uncle were holding such information from me back then, because I wouldn't have understood it until I'm a real bender, even now, I'm not sure if I fully understand what's going on, what I know is that I'll follow my code and we'll see what happens." Zuko said.
Katara smiled at him, feeling the authenticity behind his words, and totally encouraged him to continue on his path.
As the three of them arrived at the scene, they found the undercover agent waiting for them, he turned out to be a police officer called Tolan, and he is an earthbender.
"We've been investigating this restaurant for some time now for having spiritual energy circling all around it, and not just any spiritual energy, it was so strong, you could feel it from afar. Apparently, those aren't just any spirits, but we left the case unattended until a girl came rushing to the station reporting that she's seen a hooded girl speaking to herself every day in the same spot around the café, she said that she reported the incident to the hotel staff but she wasn't sure it's something they could handle, so she decided to also report it to the police, Our dear friends inside the station of course dismissed the reports, but our agents around Gaoling understood the assignment, so we placed cameras all around the restaurant. When the incident happened, all the people at the restaurant were killed, except for one who was able to make it out alive…" Officer Tolan reported.
"The hooded girl." Katara responded.
"Yes." Tolan said.
"Were your cameras able to record the girl as she was making her way out of the restaurant?" Katara asked.
"Yes, if you'd like to come take a look at it."
"Okay, let's go." Katara said.
As they looked at the footage, and the officer rolled to the exact moment of the girl's escape before the explosion, he zoomed at her from all directions as multiple cameras were able to record her.
Zuko didn't need any explanation, he knew exactly who she is, her wrist-watch, her mouth, her nose which was clearly apparent from the camera that was recording from a frontal angle, her skin, everything screams her name, he gasped as the realization hit him.
"That's my sister." Zuko said.
"What?" Toph asked.
"That's what we thought as well, Prince Zuko." Tolan said.
"No way Princess Azula of the firenation has decided to dine at a local restaurant in Gaoling, it must be her look-alike." Katara said.
"I'd know Azula from a hundred miles, Katara. That's her." Zuko voiced out, he was still in disbelief, but he couldn't deny what his eyes are seeing.
"Your family is dealing with dark spirits now? what kind of humans are they?" Toph asked, feeling disgusted by them.
Even though she couldn't voice out loud, she held bad feelings for those who committed this crime as the people who died are from her hometown, Zuko understood her situation and so he decided not to respond to her question.
"Can you please try to get a better angle of where she was headed after leaving the restaurant?" Zuko asked.
"as per our cameras, she ran into the old forest to avoid being linked to the scene, however, we could never press charges against her as there is no proof that this is indeed Princess Azula, nobody would believe us, and also the fact that it's definitely a normal accident in the eyes of the public, even if we did prove that this is Princess Azula, we have nothing against her." Tolan said.
"You're right, Tolan." Katara said.
"But I can still feel spiritual presence from afar at the forest, I guess we should investigate ourselves." Toph said.
"You're right. Maybe we could also run into Azula and put an end to her madness, I've always known that my sister was crazy, but not to this extent, why would she deal with beings that want us extinct?" Zuko asked, to himself more than to the others, if the allegations appeared to be true, Zuko would have no choice but to kill Azula to save humanity, which is a double-edged sword, on one hand he's committing the biggest crime of killing his own sister, and on the other, he's saving humanity from her evil schemes.
It was really hard to think at that moment, in just a couple of hours, his world has gone upside-down, there are dark spirits that want humans dead, and his sister is linked to them, and for a certainty, his sister wouldn't be linked to them without their father's approval, so he's certain Ozai is linked to them too.
And now he's headed to the forest with Toph and Katara to find the dark spirits and his sister.
Now, I totally understand why Uncle Iroh and Aang didn't want to explain anything to me. Zuko thought as he stepped into the forest, going into his first big adventure, all the while remembering Aang's words about him wishing he hadn't learnt a thing upon learning the truth.
Zuko, Toph and Katara finally arrived at the forest,
"What's it, Toph?" Zuko heard Katara say, as he was too occupied with his thoughts, he didn't realize that Toph halted her movements until Katara voiced it out loud.
"Something is not right." Toph said, and like it was on cue, four dark spirits attacked the trio.
The dark spirits were a pack of wolves, Zuko assumed they were dead wolves who turned into spirits, and then turned into dark spirits.
"Watch out!" Zuko voiced out, but Toph had already decided to take matter into her own hands.
She did some hand signs and then she stomped hard with her foot on the ground, which resulted in four layers of earth being shot into the air in front of her, Toph then pushed the earth layers forward, and each layer connected with a dark spirit, as soon as the layers hit the dark spirits, they completely disintegrated into fairy dust.
Zuko was impressed by the power display, he didn't realize the other dark spirit that was about to attack him from behind, which is also a wolf spirit.
"Zuko, get down!" Katara said, the firebender did as told, and then Katara used water from her pouch and she did some hand signs that turned the water into gold, she encircled the water around the dark spirit wolf which also turned it into fairy dust.
"Wow!" Zuko voiced out, at that particular moment, he was glad Master Pakku chose those girls to be his mentors.
"You should be on the alert, Sparky, it's gonna get pretty chaotic." Toph said with a smirk.
Zuko didn't know the reason behind the smirk, but he assumed Toph just loved fighting so much, which could be the symptoms of a mental illness and she needs to be treated as soon as possible.
"Toph, we should get out of her, I'm starting to feel creeped out by this much dark spiritual energy." Katara said.
"I'm pretty sure the people who died in that restaurant felt worse than that, Katara." Toph said.
"I thought you said you didn't care about the people who died." Zuko said.
Toph gritted her teeth, "I was lying. I'm devastated, and I won't stop until those dark spirits pay for what they have done!" Toph shouted, before she stomped her foot to the earth again and shot the layers of earth at a dark spirit that was approaching.
And surprisingly enough, the dark spirit blocked her attack and launched an attack of its own.
It was a purple energy attack that looked like it could be lethal, Katara, Toph and Zuko barely jumped out of harm's way, but the impact with the ground created an explosion that launched all three of them away from the battlefield, separating all three of them.
Zuko stood up with a groan as the landing with pretty harsh on his back, he assumed a fighting stance and looked ahead,
"Katara! Toph!" He shouted, but no response as he realized the explosion got him very far.
He decided to use Toph's method to follow their track, he concentrated and concentrated, it was hard at first, but then he started to feel it.
He started to feel the dark spiritual energy… but it was coming from behind him.
Zuko turned around to find a huge dark spirit that resembled a dragon coming from behind him, and with one swift move, the dragon attacked Zuko with its breath, making Zuko instinctively jump out of harm's way as the dragon's attack wasn't fast enough to catch him off-guard.
Zuko then used his firebending to attack the dragon, but it was no use, it wasn't a spiritually-modified attack.
Zuko kept attacking the dragon with normal firebending, trying his best to make a spiritually-modified shot but it was no use, no matter how hard he concentrated on the attack, he couldn't shoot it.
The dragon felt at ease as it realized that none of Zuko's attacks bothered it, it then opened its mouth and launched spiritual beams at Zuko.
One of the spiritual beams made contact with Zuko's left eye and he fell to the ground, he wasn't severely hurt as the beam wasn't that strong, but it still burned his left eye and Zuko knew it will leave a terrible scar, but that was the least of his worries for now, as he realized he couldn't stand up.
Hard as he tried, he was unable to find the energy to stand, it's like the energy beam sucked out as much energy as it could from his body, he realized why such attacks are lethal, because it has a triple effect, the impact, the heat and the third factor is sucking the energy out of its target's body, rendering him motionless.
Zuko then closed his eyes on the ground, he thought it was the end, his life started to flash in front of his eyes, he remembered meeting Aang at school for the first time, he remembered Aang taking him to the academy, he remembered his life at the palace, his relationship with his father, his mother, his sister and his uncle…
My uncle…
"Now, it's your time to rise up to the occasion, to become the man you were always meant to be, to become a true firebender."
Zuko remembered Iroh's words, his eyes opened widely, he stood up all of a sudden and assumed a fighting stance against the dragon.
The dragon looked confused, as if he was seeing something around Zuko for the first time.
Zuko realized what was happening, he was starting to connect with his inner spiritual energy, the dragon sensed it and that's why it looked confused.
The Prince decided to give it a try, he launched a firebending attack, and as it connected with the dragon.
The dragon was immediately turned to fairy dust.
He's finally learned Spiritually-modified bending, Zuko realized that the spiritual energy gathered upon remembering his uncle's words, he felt like he was failing his uncle by dying in his first mission, and that's how the spiritual energy was gathered in front of him.
So, that's how you gather spiritual energy? emotions? Zuko thought, but his train of thought was cut short as he felt there was blood dropping from his face.
Finally, he remembered the attack that the dragon did to his face, he put his hand on it and it stung so bad, he felt bad at the fact that it would leave a horrible mark on his face, but he was glad he wasn't dead.
He also felt out of energy, and so he dropped to the ground, unable to move.
"Zuko!" he heard Katara shouting, "Thank goodness you're alive." Katara said as she ran towards him with Toph running behind her.
As she found him lying on the ground with a huge gash on his left eye, Katara gasped, "Here, let me heal it for you." Katara said, and then she had some water from her pouch and she placed it on Zuko's left eye, moving it slowly on his left eye to heal.
Although she did manage to stop the bleeding and stabilize the wound, it still left a terrible scar on his face, and Zuko was still unable to move.
Zuko was silent the entire time, he wasn't able to speak a word about what just happened.
"Don't worry about the loss of energy, by the time you learn enough about spiritual energy, you won't be facing such problems again. Toph, help me carry him to the car." Katara said, and Toph did as told.
"So, was it fun exorcising your first dark spirit?" Toph asked, as she was carrying Zuko with Katara.
Zuko knew she must have felt his movements with her legs and she sensed the dark spirit with her spiritual energy, However, Zuko wasn't able to respond to her question, he wanted just to look ahead as the trauma of today was too much for him, Katara and Toph carried Zuko out of the forest, and they found the car waiting for them outside.
They placed Zuko inside in the back seat, and they sat beside him on each side.
"Let's get out of here." She told the driver, "I know it must be hard for you, Toph, to abandon this quest and return to the academy, But we will have another shot, I promise." She continued, directing those words to Toph who looked sad as she was leaving Gaoling.
Toph looked at her and smiled faintly, "Thank you, Katara." She said, it was only Katara who could make her feel motivated at times like this, and she truly appreciated it, she then punched Katara in the arm, which the waterbender responded to with an "Ow!", however she wasn't offended by it as she knew it was Toph's way of showing affection, that's why she responded to it with a smile.
Zuko however, wasn't feeling motivated at all, in fact he was rethinking all his life choices.
His first encounter with a dark spirit and he had an eternal scar on his face, as well as being rendered motionless and having Katara and Toph carrying him back to the academy, it was humiliating.
Zuko felt like crying, but he decided to save it for his room at the academy, he didn't want to be more of a burden on Katara and Toph than he already was, it's more than enough that they have to carry him back to the academy.
A defeated Zuko returned to the academy after his first encounter with the dark spirits, carried by two girls who are far stronger and far braver than he is.
He just felt like he could crawl into a hole right now from the embarrassment of having Sokka and the rest looking at him in such state, it was humiliating to say the least.
As soon as they placed him in the infirmary, and left him alone after the treatment.
Unable to contain it in him anymore, He broke out crying, he wept loudly that he could have been heard if someone was standing at the door.
And indeed, a certain someone was standing at the door,
"Hello, Wonder Boy. Congratulations on exorcising your first dark spirit." Aang said, Zuko remembered Katara saying that he was going to return today from his trip to northern Antarctica.
Zuko was unable to respond right away, but he had a lot to say to Aang, and he's going to deliver it to him, he waited for a couple of seconds until he was able to overcome the lump in his throat, and then he started his words with,
"I Quit."
Stay tuned for next chapter, it's going to be fire!
Can't wait for your reviews, and have a good one :)