Pre-Chapter A/N: Please do check out the first chapter of the novel I'm working on up on pa-treon- it's completely free to access.
What can I say except you're welcome? Here we go with the seventh chapter of 2025. Lovely to have you all here, and I hope you enjoy this one. If you do, feel free to head over to pa-treon and read the next two chapters- I update there on a daily basis so there's always something for you to read.
Aang was fast. It was one thing to see it animated, and another to experience it in combat. The whistle that heralded the use of Maki's combustion bending had only been in the room for a second, but he still managed to turn around and begin spinning his staff to protect himself. The room exploded as her attack hit, and even with my guard up I was still sent flying at the wall behind my desk. A wall that instantly parted for me as I flew through. No, no, no.
Why did they never listen? I asked myself with a sigh as I fell against the ground of the next room, a storage chamber and found myself staring at two women who looked inordinately pleased with themselves.
"Do orders mean nothing to you?" I asked.
Azula scoffed, and Toph whistled, raising her head to the ceiling to mime looking away from me. I sighed.
"Let's go then" I said and shot right through the whole in the wall that Toph had made. Maki, Toph, and Azula. There was no way Toji wasn't behind this, I thought as the Avatar danced away from every attack I sent. That was fine. I just needed to keep him busy. I needed to keep him from realising that the woman he was probably in love with was dead. Of course, it was as I said those words that he spun around my kick and darted around me.
"Katara?" He called. I turned as well, but by the time I'd done so, he'd reached the body. It didn't look good. My lightning hadn't been especially powerful with how little time I'd had to call it into being, but it was more than enough to stop a heart. And then she hadn't been able to move to protect herself and had taken the full brunt of Maki's combustion bending.
I took a deep breath. A lesser man would have attacked Aang in his moment of grief, but I would not stoop to that. Poison was one thing. I'd had to force myself to agree to even that much, but this was just disrespectful. Besides, it was unlikely to work. I took stock of what was going on. Jeong-Jeong was being overwhelmed by Azula, while the two non—benders had been buried up to their necks by Toph in seconds. She had moved to stand beside me now.
"He's going to be mad," I told her, giving her the silent warning to run.
"Can't be the greatest Earthbender in the world without ever fighting the Avatar, can I?" She said with a chuckle. I wanted to shake her, to tell her that this was not a joke, that we could die here, but I was just grateful to have her by my side.
Another combustion bending blast came in through the window, heading for Aang's position. Once again, he was a blur to my eyes as he picked up the still, unmoving body of his friend and dodged the attack. When he put her down and turned to us, his eyes were white and glowing.
I took another breath, heating every cell within my body. It would hurt by tomorrow, enhancing myself like this, but that would only matter if I lived to see tomorrow.
When he moved, it was like the world held its breath. He crossed his arms in front of his head to block a blast from Maki's combustion bending, being sent flying backwards. I shot after him, heat fueling my movements and allowing me to move faster than ever. He stopped himself against the wall and I smashed right into him, sending the both of us through the wall and down the hallway of the palace. He turned in midair, kicking me away and stopping himself with his air bending.
Two jets of fire from my hands allowed me to slow down rather than fly out the window. He was forced to turn around and shatter two boulders that were about to smash into him. I used the opportunity to send a lance of fire at his back. He turned again, blocking the flames. He remained positioned sideways, head swiveling between me on one side and Toph on the other — watching him from opposite ends of the hallway. And then he was sent flying into the wall as the wall behind him exploded. Maki was there, clearly having been carried the distance by Toji.
We could do this, I thought to myself. Aang rose with a vengeance, a bubble of air forming around him that moved so quickly that it was clear every attack would fall apart before it. He looked around him before letting out a roar of rage and flying in my direction. Toph's boulder shattered against his wind shield even as my flames washed over it to no effect. Maki sent a lance of combustive energy that exploded against his shield and sent him jerking to the side. I bolted into movement at that.
He wasn't ready for me to fall upon him, and still, he dodged near every attack. A punch, a kick, two more kicks, everything was dodged as he did his best impression of water his girlfriend had bent and flowed around every attack.
"Enough" He roared, blasting me backwards with a powerful roar of wind. He flew after me, even as I barely managed to slow myself down from smashing against the ground of the palace's stairs. We were outside now.
I danced away from the tendrils of water that reached out to ensnare me and retaliated with powerful fire blasts that managed to block his air—bending attacks. He smashed his foot against the ground as he landed, and the ground rose in a wave that was clearly intended to destabilize me. I jumped with the force of the fire in my veins and used fire blasts from my arms to dodge out of the way of the water that was sent at my airborne form. Since when had he even started carrying water skins?
He lurched to the side to avoid another blast of combustive power, and I took the chance to angle my jets to fly right at him. A gust of hurricane class winds plucked me from the air and sent me flying into the distance. At the same time, he was forced to turn away from me to dodge out of the way of Toji's spear. Toji rolled underneath the arc of water the Avatar sent in his direction, picked up the spear from the ground, and tried to use it to stab him through the brain.
Aang dodged around the stab, and kicked his feet out from under him. Toji dropped his spear again and rolled with the attack. When he rose, two knives hidden in his sleeves buried themselves in a wall of earth Aang managed to raise in time. The wall shot out at him as Toph seized control from him, forcing him to jump above the attack and take a few steps backwards.
With a war cry, I announced my return to the fight. He dodged underneath my roundhouse kick. A spear of stone almost shot through my stomach, but I channeled explosive flames to my fist and broke through. Another blast of combustion-bending sent him reeling. The shield he maintained around his body was already beginning to show weakness.
He screamed again, rising into the air. I felt the power in the air try to freeze me in place. As if. I feared no man. I kicked at Toji's discarded spear, bringing it up to my grip, and tossed it back in his direction. I didn't need to check to know he caught it. Aang slammed one foot into the ground and multiple blocks of earth rose around him. He lifted his arms before flinging them at us.
One fire whip in each hand, I cut through the man-sized blocks that were in danger of hitting me. Maki blew up a few of them, and Toji hunkered down with Toph under a shield.
That wasn't all, it seemed. He'd been busy while we were busy. He had a sphere of distorted air between his hands. He shot said sphere straight down at the ground below him. I didn't even get a chance to figure out what the attack had been before I was suddenly flung off my feet and far into the distance.
When I came to, I found myself on the floor. I was somewhere in the palace. In what remained of it, I amended. Aang's attack had devastated it. Half of it was just gone. I pushed myself to my feet and tried to look for the others. Aang was still there, floating above the mess, regarding me with cold eyes. I couldn't find anyone. I just had to hope they'd done a better job of hunkering down than I had. Everything hurt.
I took my stance again as Aang shot at me like a bullet. I took a deep breath, allowing the heat to fill me. This time, when I struck, my flames were a brilliant green. I smiled as I felt revitalized by the resurgence of the green flames. They came and went at their own will these days. After the fight with Iroh, I'd had a brief breakthrough with getting them to show up more regularly than before, but that was still erratic at best. It seemed it had smiled at me now, though.
Aang dodged out of my first fire blast, but the force of the blast still managed to knock him off course. Oh, we were so cooking. I shot forward, forming jets of flames beneath my feet that carried me forward even faster than before. Almost faster than I could keep up with. Fuck yeah. He blocked the fist I sent for his head, and I smiled. This was the first time all fight that I'd managed together him to block. I pushed my fist into his staff, upping my output and waiting for the staff to combust, but it didn't. Interesting. Our eyes met.
There was something there. An awareness beneath the bright eyes. "You are an abomination" he said, but I was stopping to think this was him. Would Aang have used that word? Surely not. The voice still carried the echoes of hundreds of others like his voice used to while in the Avatar state, but there was something deeper about it. Something Other.
He pushed against me, and now Aang fought like someone else completely. We broke apart, and then he wielded the staff like a baseball bat, tryin g to brain me with it. I bent at the waist to avoid the attack and then slammed a kick into his side. He didn't even move. Where Aang from before had been unable to pin down. This one was like an immovable object. He punched at me, and it was all I could do to lift my hands in time to block. Regardless, I was sent flying right back into the ground from the force of the blow.
I braced for the pain but needn't have worried because I found myself landing in a pool of mud. Thank you, Toph, I said silently as I caked part of the mud with my fire and used that solid hand hold to lift myself back on solid ground. Aang was still coming at me, but he had to block several explosive blasts from Maki. Toph was also sending boulders in rapid fire fashion. She worked herself over until she was practically next to him.
He weilded the elements like he'd been learning them all his life, but the element he weilded the best was water. He called forth massive amounts of water from the air itself, using it to block Maki's combustion bending and to wear down Toph's rocks into nothing but sand. While still floating in the air with his air-bending. We weren't fighting a twelve-year-old boy with power anymore. This was the Avatar.
He was a hurricane of force. Consistently in motion. The ground tore itself apart under his ministrations, sending massive pillars tearing through the air right at us. I stared at the pillar that was as wide as I was tall and waited for it to be close enough before I swung a flame encased fist. Gleaming a greedy green, my flames tore through the pillar, shattering it to pieces with concussive force. Both Toji and Maki dodged out of the way of the attacks sent at them, while Toph stopped hers cold and then slapped it with a palm, sending it flying right back. I smiled in her direction, proud as ever. I ran forward, sending two fire blasts rights arcing at him. One from the right, and one from the left, to prevent him from dodging out of the way of Toph's counter-attack.
He was more adept in fighting in three dimensions than I was and dropped to the ground, landing with an earthquake. I didn't feel it as Toph slammed her foot into the ground, forming a circular platform that encompassed where we both stood and lifted it from the rest of the ground, insulating us. She shot two pieces of metal right at him. Daggers. She could aim them with her metalbending better than the best marksmen I'd ever seen. He swept his hand, water snatching them from the air and tossing them aside. The water rushed at us, multiple tendrils reaching out for our position.
I took a deep breath and increased my output even further. I scorched the fire as it came, evaporating it to steam and the steam into nothingness. At this point, there was scarcely any moisture in the air. He pointed a hand behind him and from within the smattering of buildings at the palace outskirts, he drew a hurricane. This was a fucking mad man, I realised. The hurricane tore through the mansions that cradled the palace— the ruins of the palace, more like, and swept through the air right at us.
Fuck it. Fucking fuck it. What could we do to stop a hurricane? Toph didn't stop. That was the value of being blind. She couldn't see the natural disaster on its way. She sent another series of daggers at him. His hand swept ups, forming a water shield that froze to ice that the daggers embedded themselves in. I roared, breathing out flames hot enough to melt steel, that passed his ice like it wasn't even there and forced him to lift a proper earthen shield. He turtled in like a turtle in his shell.
A shield that exploded a few seconds later as Maki blasted it to smithereens. He came shooting out, moving right for me. Toji— where the fuck had he come from— shot in his way, spear lancing out like a serpent for the Avatar's head. He stepped backwards, avoiding the attack before the ground beneath Toji turned to mud, trapping his legs. He began waving his hands, drawing the oxygen out of Toji's head. I cut into their dance, shooting at Aang with fire at my feet. He lifted his hand and caught my roundhouse kick. Still floating, I brought my other leg towards his face, and gave him a fire blast to the face.
He ate the attack, not seeing it coming, and was sent flying backwards even as I landed on the floor.
"Let Toph get you out of that and get out of here. This fight is a bit above your pay grade" I said with a smirk.
"Fuck you, Natsu" He said even as he removed his feet from the ground that had turned into mud.
"Please do me the favour of killing my old master. The only way he's lasting this long against Azula is if he's up to his old tricks and giving her the runaround" I said. He nodded, marching into the ruins of the palace. Aang rose again. Because, of course, he fucking did.
He jerked to the side, avoiding a lance of concussive force, and then taking a punch from me straight to the face. He staggered backwards, and I laid into the Avatar. I weaved to the side to avoid grasping fingers, and landed a right hook. He came at me again, and I ducked underneath his arms, giving him a gut punch for the ages. This, at last, confirmed that Aang wasn't the one in control here. He kicked at me and I blocked the gust of wind that threatened to toss me off my feet.
He brought his water around again, using it to black another lance of concussive force from Maki's third eye. He lurched as Toph disturbed his footing and I smashed my foot into his knee, forcing him to his knees. It did not last long. He roared again, pushing me away. He turned to the hurricane and stretched out a hand to it. From where it was raging wildly after he'd been distracted, it began making its way towards us again. I chuckled at the situation and punched the fucker in the face again. He returned fire. I felt my nose shift at the impact. We fought, power and the elements raging around us as we traded fists.
I lifted a knee to block his attempt at a gut—kick and punched him in the face again. I quite liked punching his stupid fucking face. He slammed that bald head into mine again, snapping my nose in the other direction, setting it straight. My head was ringing, my nose was bleeding, I was probably going to fucking die here, but I felt so alive. I slammed on his feet. The idiot would learn to wear armoured boots in his next life, and I dodged away from his grasping hands and snapped another punch into his head. Whichever one of them had taken over was a good fighter for sure, but I was a great one. We clashed again, and this time he had the upper hand. My punch was slapped to the side, and he landed a straight palm thrust that sent me stumbling backwards and probably broke something. He attempted a roundhouse kick, but I ducked underneath it.
He swept another kick in my direction, this time aimed at my gut. He used his legs far more often than Aang did. Most likely someone who had been very good with fire bending. No other bending style had this much leg—use. I blocked the kick and used the hold I had on his leg to pull him out of his stance. We landed on the floor, and grappled for only a few seconds. I had the clear advantage. I was on top. I was bigger, and I knew how to do this. Sharing a room with Toji meant that a surprising amount of wrestling had gone on when we were younger. I landed a punch straight across his face, and his head snapped back immediately.
I looked up, and the hurricane was here. It crashed into the both of us, sweeping us into its grasp.
A/N: We get the first part of the fated Natsu and Aang fight, this chapter. Azula, Jeong-Jeong, and Toji are off doing their own thing right now, but that won't last for long. Everything comes to a head in the next two chapters, so I do hope you loved this chapter. As always, the next two chapters are up on pa-treon. If you just want to read complete chapters and not my work in real-time, then feel free to purchase this story as a collection on my pa-treon page so you get to read each chapter after I finish it and not neecessarily the daily updates available with a regular pa-treon membership- nice way to support this story and me while you're at it. Enjoy!