Zuko
"More Ferocious!" I shout at Aang as he firebends. His movements are good, but they're not powerful enough. "Imagine striking your opponent through the heart!"
"I'm trying!" He quips back at me.
"Now roar like a Tiger-dillo!" I say, and he lets out a weak shout with fire coming out of his hands and mouth. "That sounded Pathetic. I said Roar!" I yell, and he turns around and lets out a much louder shout with much more powerful fire. He turns back to look at me, and I nod my approval.
"Who wants a nice, cool drink of watermelon Juice?" I hear Katara say behind me. I turn and see her looking hot as blue blazes in her red top and skirt, and my mouth waters a bit at the watermelon juice she's holding. But the way Aang immediately loses focus and runs towards her pisses me off, and I grab him by the collar of his shirt.
"Hey! Your lesson's not over yet! Get back here!" I snap.
"C'mon, Zuko. Just take a break. What's the big deal?" Suki says to me. I roll my eyes, knowing a losing battle. Aang won't focus again until he gets what he wants.
"Fine." I say and let him go. He runs over and slurps it down. "If you want to lounge around like a bunch of snail sloths all day, then go ahead!" How are they so clam? The comet is only a few days from now!
"Zuko's right. Laying around the house all day's made us lazy. I know just the thing to change that. Beach Party!" Sokka yells, and everyone gets excited, running down to the beach and goofing off. I push the irritation down, waiting for Aang to finish playing and come back up to finish our lesson. After about half an hour, I see he doesn't have any intention of coming back up. The irritation turns to anger, and I head down to the beach to make him continue our lesson there.
I yell as I bring down fire attacks, putting Aang on the defensive and making him run. I burn through a pile of sand and seaweed that Sokka made, a sand city that Toph made, and follow Aang to where he's hiding behind an Appa sand sculpture.
"What are you doing?!" Aang cries.
"Teaching you a lesson!" I snap, continuing the fire attacks. He doesn't fight back, though. He just keeps running away, airbending on top of the house. I climb up and keep firebending, but he's still not fighting back.
"Get a grip before I blast you off this roof!" Aang yells at me. Finally. At least he's not running now.
"Go ahead and do it!" I tell him and advance. He goes into the attic through a window, and I blast my way through the roof to follow him. He blasts a chest towards me and I explode it, then send a flame spiral towards him. He breaks part of it with wind and lands on his feet.
"Enough!" He says, and hits me with a wind blast so hard it knocks me through the wooden side of the house. I land in the dirt with a groan. Aang airbends down and the rest of the Gaang runs over.
"What's the matter with you? You could have hurt Aang!" Katara yells.
"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with all of you?! How can you sit around having beach parties when Sozin's comet is only three days away?!" They all look at me like I'm the one not making sense. "Why are you all looking at me like I'm crazy?"
"About Sozin's comet-" Aang begins. "I was actually going to wait to fight the Fire Lord until after it passes."
"After?!" I shout, anxiety shooting through me.
"I'm not ready. I need more time to master firebending."
"And frankly, your Earthbending could use some work too." Toph chimes in.
"So you all knew Aang was going ot wait to fight the Fire Lord?" I address the group.
"Honestly, if Aang tries to fight the Fire Lord now, he's going to lose." Sokka says. "No offense, Aang."
"The whole point of fighting him before the comet was to keep the Fire Nation from winning the war. But they kinda won the war when they conquered Ba Sing Se." Katara tells me. "Things can't get much worse." She says dejectedly, looking down.
"You're wrong." I tell them. "It's about to get worse than you could even imagine." They listen as I explain about the war meeting: My father's plan to use the comet burn the whole Earth Kingdom to the ground, it being possible with the airships, and how I should have spoken up but didn't. That's when I decided to switch sides. "My whole life I've struggled to gain my father's love and acceptance. But once I had it, I realized i'd lost myself getting there. I'd forgotten who I was." I finish. Beside me, Katara sinks to her knees.
"I can't believe this." She says. I'm angry, but it still takes a lot of self control to not go and hold her close. I hate seeing her in pain.
"I always knew the Fire Lord was a bad guy, but this plan...is just pure evil." Sokka says.
"What am I going to do?" Aang asks.
"I know you're scared. And I know you're not ready to save the world. But if you don't defeat the Fire Lord before the comet comes, there won't be a world to save anymore. So you're going to come to grips, and find me when you're ready to keep training." I tell him, then leave to go calm down. Anger at the group for not telling me their plan and fear about the future courses through me. I need to get my mind off of it all. I go to the servants shed in the back and start working on fixing the roof and the hole in the side of the house. I picked up a few skills while I was traveling through the Earth Kingdom, not the least of which being building. And as long as I need a distraction, least I can do is fix what I broke. If only I could fix everything I've broken. A couple hours go by before Katara comes and finds me. By then I'm calm and tired, fresh out of a shower and sitting in my room with just shorts on. Despite the serious mood and situation, she smirks when she walks in and sees me shirtless. I return it. She looks amazing in her red bikini and skirt on.
"You get more beautiful every time I see you, Katara."
"Are you okay?" She asks, sitting next to me on my bed. "I would have come sooner, but I figured you could use some time."
"I'm okay now. Or as okay as anyone can be in this war."
"Aang's wondering why you didn't tell him about your dad's crazy plan sooner."
"I didn't think I had to. No one told me he was going to wait. Why didn't you?"
"I thought you knew. It didn't occur to me we didn't fill you in. That's why I was saying the comet didn't matter anymore, we should just go ahead and get together. I figured Aang would have time to get over it. Now I'm glad you insisted we wait."
"Oh." Is all I say. We sit in silence for a few minutes, her leaning against me since the door's closed and me enjoying the feeling of her skin against mine. She breaks the quiet with a question I don't want to answer.
"Do you think we even have a chance?" She asks. I take a deep breath.
"We're six teenagers going against the most powerful military force on the Earth on the day they'll have the power of a hundred suns. And if you think Azula's a good firebender, you have no idea how good my father is. But yes, we do have a chance. If Aang can defeat my father, the military will stand down. We'll find my Uncle and place him on the throne, and the war will be over for good."
"It sounds like a dream. But what happens if we can't?" She asks, and I hear tears in her voice. "I'm not so naive to think he'll leave the water tribes alone when he finishes with the Earth Kingdom. We'd be next." She cries. I hold her closer and lay down, kissing her forehead. It's stupid, The door isn't locked, Aang could walk in at any second. Seeing me shirtless and Katara in her bikini and skirt laying in bed together would not be good. But I can't stand to see her cry.
"We do have a chance, Katara." I tell her firmly. "Aang is the most powerful bender I've ever met. And we'll be there to help him. But, if we can't, assuming we survive we'll have to go into hiding and learn to live with the failure best we can, and keep training to try again when Aang is ready. He'll eventually be able to fight my father and win. There will be some survivors in the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes, and everyone that's already captured and in Fire Nation prisons. We'll give them back their land, and support them as they rebuild however we need to."
"And until then? Where could we hide? And How do we live with the shame?" She asks quietly. I sigh, remembering my banishment.
"A day at a time. And, I guess we could keep living here. My father and Azula both hate Ember Island. I don't think they'll ever be back." She sighs.
"Good. I like it here. The comet is in three days. Is there anything else you can teach Aang in that time? Or should he spend the rest of the time meditating?" She asks. She's right, it's worth considering. When Aang meditates he can sometimes speak to past Avatars. They might be able to teach him things I can't. But there is one thing they won't know, because only my uncle and I know the technique.
"He should probably meditate tomorrow. But today there's still one more thing I can teach him that will save his life." I tell her, then kiss her forehead. "Whatever the outcome, I can hardly wait for the three days to pass. I need that moment with you." I tell her and get up. I walk down the hall to Aang's room and find him sitting on his bed, and I motion for him to follow me. Once we're in the courtyard, everyone else comes out too.
"Aang, forget about what I said earlier. You can totally defeat the Fire Lord in three days. The six of us are unstoppable! Water, Earth, Fire, Air, Fan and Sword!" Sokka tells him. Aang offers him a weak smile, then turns to me.
"Before you face my father you need to learn how to redirect lightning." I say, and he perks up. "If you let the energy in your own body flow, the lightning will follow it. You turn your opponent's energy against them."
"That's like waterbending!"
"Exactly. My uncle developed this technique by studying waterbenders."
"Have you ever used it before?"
"Yes. Against my Father."
"What did it feel like?"
"You feel so powerful holding so much energy in your body. But you know if you make the wrong move, it's over."
"Well…not over, over. Right?" He asks. "There's always Katara with some spirit Water, right?"
"Actually, I used it all up after Azula shot you." Katara says from behind us.
"Oh." Aang says and frowns.
"You have to take the Father Lord's life before he takes yours." I say, and walk inside to let him practice.
…..
Later, we train on how to take my father out. But Aang can't do it. Sokka addresses the issue this time so I don't have to, which I appreciate. It gets tiring being the strict bad cop trying to wake Aang up to the world all the time.
When we're eating dinner that night, Katara comes down from the Attic with a surprise. It's a picture she thought was of me, but is of my father. And I have to control my fury as Aang defends the bastard. Even when he admits he knows the world will be better off without him, he says there has to be another way. It knots me up with fear. If he can't get past this, the world is going to burn. And when he yells at Katara, I almost hit him. But he storms off, and I stop Katara from following him.
"Let him go." I tell her. There really is nothing else we can say to him. "He needs to sort it out on his own." She nods. Once we all finish dinner, we each head to bed. I give Katara's hand a quick squeeze when I pass her in the hallway, but we don't sneak time together tonight. There's too much else going on and the consequences of getting caught right now are much higher than the reward of being together. So I go to bed, and wonder as I'm drifting off to sleep if I'll have nightmares about my dad or dreams about Katara.