Chapter Text
7 years before Aang got out of the ice:
BURRGHK! FSH!
"AAAAARRGHHH!!"
A little girl's eyes were burned by the giant flames that were engulfing the house she and her parents were in.
Her mother picked her up and carried her out of the house.
"I can't see! I can't see!" The girl screamed as her hands unclenched from her eyes. The skin around her eyes was burnt and stabbed with wooden splinters. Her eyes were unfocused.
"Help her!" The woman carrying the girl said to a nearby woman in a blue dress.
The woman in the blue dress came to the girl and bent some water oit of a small vial into the girl's eyes.
The woman sighed.
"I can heal the scar damage to her face, but I can't restore her eye sight. The damage has gone all the way down her optic nerves into her brain. I cannot bend the water in that part of the body without causing internal bleeding in her brzin that could kill her.
If it were genetic or pathogenic I could use spirit water from the oasis in the northern water tribe to move the water in her body so as to correct the damage and put the right proteins in her, but...no sadly I can't fix this."
Gaoling was under attack from the firenation . One of the trebuchet fireballs had smashed through the top of a watchtower and the remaining flaming debris had flown through the city and hit the house the Beifong family had.
"What happened to her?" A man who ran to the 2 women and girl, asked.
"Toph's eyes got burnt by the flames!" Toph's mother screamed.
Toph's parents were hurrying her out of Gaoling as she clutched her face and sobbed for eyes that would never see again. (AN: yeah I went there. I figured that Toph being blinded from birth to rich parents who could easily afford to send Toph to waterbending healers in the northern water tribe who had access to spirit water but didn't despite how protective they were of her was...kinda a bit too ridiculous for live action. So I got her blindness attributed to a firenation attack. Plus I really didn't like how she was introduced in the original cartoon as a spoilt brat who wasted her powers fighting for entertainment when she could've been using her powers to defend her country from the firenation rather than going "Not my problem!" only running off with team Avatar to esacape her boring life with her parents.)
In a cave hidden in a mountain: 20 people were dressed in white robes with masks on and were standing in a circle.
"My fellow conspirators. I have, painstakingly discovered this:" The member who spoke held up a scroll which rolled downwards showing 5 people standing in a circle with their arms outstretched above a comet.
"This ritual will slow down the approach of Sozin's comet by 5 years.
It will require at least 40% of the people in this ritual to be firebenders and at least 40% of them to be earth benders. It will also require the burning of 10 kilograms of wood from trees which were alive during the last comet's visibility in the sky, and the burning of bones of at least 1 human who died during the last comet, and at least 1 human who lived through the last comet, and the drinking of a specific kind of tea prepared at a high strength. And the people who perform the ritual will have to give at least 500ml of blood into a glass cup. The items must be burnt in urns made of jade and the items must be burnt witt the burning items must be within 30 meters of each person, and each person and their items in the ritual must be completely surrounded by a circle visible from the sky formed of the bones of at least 100 earthbenders and 100 firebenders. Each person must be at 1 of 5 points in the face of the world: North, South, West, East and middle of either hemisphere, evenly spaced out. The ritual must be done in summer and on a night when no clouds are covering the skies directly above each person.
This ritual can only be done sucessfully once. After it is completed, the comet will be slowed down for 5 years but that is it.
Everyone in favour of this plan say "yes"."
"May I ask: where did the instructions for this ritual come from?" One of the members said.
"The spirit of knowledge. I persuaded him the he should help us because if the firenation wins the war a lot of knowledge will be burnt."
"How did you get into the spirit world?"
"I didn't. I found his library."
"Where is it?"
The member showed his right hand as having on it a scar of an owl.
"As part of the deal, he made me enter into a spirit-bond with him. I cannot in any way, even unintentionally, lead people to the library."
"How did he communicate them to you?"
"He drew and wrote them on sand."
"Is there anyway we could simply destroy the comet?"
"From the distance away from the planet and the gravitational pull of the planet, No."
"What about moving the comet so it doesn't come at all?"
"Same problem."
"What about the moon spirit blocking the comet from view?"
"That won't be enough to completly get rid of the comet's power, like how firebending isn't completly stopped from being done in an eclipse, merely reduced. Firebending comes from the mind of the firebender being connected to a source of fire. The comet has been circling the sun for 100 years for it acts as an increaser of the firbender mind being connected to the sun. The moon blocking it won't be enough because the sun is the source of the firebending enhancement."
"Is there anyway we can block the comet's power altogether?"
"No method that I know of doing that exists."
Of course they all said "Yes". (AN: yes I got the comet delayed. I want team avatar to have more time to grow.)
"In order to ensure that the skies above us are uncovered, and seeing as how obviously none of us are airbenders, we wil need waterbenders to keep the skies clear of clouds." Said one of the members.
"But these...bones...where are they to be found?" Said another.
"There are graveyards and tombs were they can be found...those the ritual specify anything about the earth and firebenders? Would it matter if...meaning no disrespect to the dead, I'm sure this is what they would want done with their bones...we used...per say...the bones of a past Avatar?" asked one member.
"In theory that could work, but I wouldn't advise it, we don't want to upset those who hold those remains sacred, and I am not sure what the effects of the Avatar bones would have on the ritual. Obviously there are the bones of the air nomads who were slain in the last comet arrival. I have already got them. Of course the fire nation has many bones of people who were alive during the last comet arrival I have already got them. There are many trees all over the world which were alive 100 years ago. I'm sure, a member who is...well known amongst us would be more than willing to provide the tea.
It's the bones of in total 500 firebenders that will I think prove to be the biggest obstacle to our success. There's of course many bones of firebenders in the fire kingdom, but its not always possible to detect which is precisly a firebender and which isn't.
We can of course get some bones from people whose firebending was well known such as the bones of firelord Sozin, and others."
"But the bones will be in the form of already burnt ash. Will that make a difference?"
"I asked, no it won't.
I think, by far the most practical option for gathering...most of the bones of firebenders and earthbenders, is to take them from battlfields."
Zuko's ship the afternoon after the battle of Agna Qe'la:
Lieutenant Kaito looked through his telescope and saw the rowboat Iroh and Zuko were on.
"Halt! Hard to port 20 degree then go 500 meters." Kaito went on deck and used firebending to signal in a form of moorse code to the rowboat.
A rope ladder was thrown from the ship to the rowboat.
"Thank you." Iroh called from the boat.
Zuko tied the end of the rope ladder to the row boat.
"This boat may make good firewood, bring it up." Zuko said when he and Iroh were on deck.
"Where's Lieutenant Jee?" Iroh asked.
"...I'm afraid he was slain by...Commander Deng on the orders of the traitor Zaho. The brave lieutenant sacrificed himself to save the ship and crew from Deng's assault. May his spirit rest in peace.
I'm now a lieutenant as the officer next in rank after lieutenant Jee. I'm lieutenant Kaito sir." Kaito said. (AN: I put this in because the actor of lieutennt Jee is unlikey to show up in the future because he has some family issues he is seflessly sorting out and I want to give his character a noble send-off in respect of his decision. I detest so-called "fans" who have no respect for the private lives of actors and actresses.).
"And Deng?" Zuko glared.
"Slain by the Northern water tribe sir."
"Shame. I'd have enjoyed roasting him."
"Prince Zuko: you haven't slept in at least a full day. You should rest with some calming tea which will stop you from waking up with the sun." Iroh said.
Zuko's ship the next day:
FUSH! FUSH! FUUUUUSH!
Zuko was practicing his firebending on the ship's deck. He was groaning even more so than usual with his every move.
"You have nothing to be ashamed of you know." Iroh said as he sipped his tea.
"I was stopped! By a waterbending peasant!" Zuko growled.
"Prince Zuko! Do not think any worse of others due to their occupation or economic status!"
"The poor are invariably less well-educated than the mighty!"
"Usually yes, but we should treat them with resp-" Once glance at Zuko's face made Iroh pause. "...with tact nonetheless."
"She stopped me capturing the avatar!"
"Well...to be fair it was winter the worst season for firebending because the planet is at its furtherst from the sun, it was a full moon...most of the time, it was night time which isn't as good as day for firebending, obviously the temperature in the north pole in winter was low so your fire wouldn't have been as easy to have powered as in warmer environments...and she was in by far the best environment for water bending, and you had been in freezing water recently before the fight which obviously would have weakened your chi, and you were still somewhat slightly damaged from the attempt Zaho made on your life.
And you obviously were underfed. That mask you were using to hide your identity obviously made eating and drinking hard.
Also...I couldn't help but notice a ruined wooden statue of Avatar Kuruk in the place I found you in...It was the ice moon, a time when the barriers between the physical and spiritual grow thin...Avatar Kuruk was in many ways the most spiritual of the 4 Avatars prior to the current Avatar...He was an avatar whose birth element was water...he was shown wearing water tribe attire...obviously this waterbender was a friend of the current Avatar..."
"What's your point uncle?" Zuko clenched his teeth as he spoke.
"My point, Prince Zuko, is...it is not impossible that the spiritual connection the waterbender has to her element was strengthened by the spirituality of the Avatar being connected to her through those spiritual factors I listed. Bending is not only physical, there is a spiritual factor to it.
I don't know for sure...but it might explain how she was able to delay you.
Moreover, she was...somewhat near the moon and ocean spirits in their mortal forms as she fought against you. Perhaps the close proximity to them somehow enhanced her waterbending? It certainly did the Avatar when he fused with the ocean spirit."
"You said there was "no Avatar any more"."
"I wasn't being literal. What happened was the Avatar's spirit fused with the Ocean spirit and would have been so permenantly had the moon not come back.
My point is, it might have helped the waterbender being so near to the ocean spirit."
Zuko inhaled and then exhaled.
"Uncle...please...stop making excuses for me.
Even if what you say is "possible" did actually happen...it was me being not talented enough that made her delay me.
I could have grabbed a hold of the fire in the nearby candles and used them to attack her from behind...I could have thrown fire that heated up some water and used heat bending to bend the resulting steam into her face...I could have fired a big blast of fire to conceal a later smaller blast of fire which I could have manaevered into attacking her from an ungaurded angle while she was distracted with the bigger blast...I could have fired a fireball from my hand and then one from my feet which could then have been maneuvered to out flank her... I could have fired a fireball at the waterbender before she was even aware I was in the room instead of just shouting "AVATAR!" anouncing myself to them...instead...I let my arrogance get the better of me."
"Was it only arrogance Prince Zuko?" Iroh asked gently.
Zuko looked at him with bewilderment blemishing his face.
"What do you mean?"
Iroh sighed.
"During your confrontation with the Avatar in Omashu...I couldn't help but notice that at some point an...elderly, unarmed woman who wasn't using much force...got inbetween you and the Avatar and admonished you with a...slight maternal rage.
You were...surprisingly...gentle in your resistance to her."
"What? Are you saying I was...going "easy" on the waterbender because...she was a protective female?" Zuko scoffed and gestured with his hands the quotation marks.
"No...I am saying...I think you...only subconciously...saw the qualities of your mother in both the waterbender and that woman in Omashu, and that's why you were hesitant to be aggressive...that would have been as if you were hurting your mother." Iroh looked Zuko in the eyes as he spoke.
"I..." Zuko looked away.
Zuko growled.
"So father was right: compassion is a sign of weakness. It makes you vulnerable, exploitable...it shows that you are unwilling to attack your opponent which gives your opponent only further encouragement to attack you.
Ordinary people are hesitant to hunt wolves who can fight back, but not hesitant to hunt sheep because the sheep don't fight back."
Iroh sighed and gently shook his head.
"It's not as if she completely defeated you."
"She's probably younger than me. She's obviously taller than me. The Avatar said to her "go easy". She was going "easy" on me!" As he spoke flames came from out of Zuko's nostrils.
"There was this one point in the fight where she had me encased in ice with sharp points of ice near my face. If she wanted the ice would've cut me!"
"Or maybe had she tried to do so, your body temperature would've just melted the tips."
"Well...I did break free of the ice. But I got knocked on the floor at least once in the fight before that happened."
"Also, we don't actually know if the girl was in fact a peasant. It should be noted that the young man from the Southern water tribe who is travelling with the Avatar is technically the sort-of prince of the southern water-tribe. Perhaps she is his lover?"
"I doubt it. She looked more...interested in the Avatar when I first saw him at the South pole, and at Omashu."
"Or...maybe she is the sister of that sort-of prince of the southern water-tribe? I noticed that both of them had the same coloured eyes, skin and hair."
Zuko groaned.
"Wasn't one bending prodigy sister enough for me?"
Iroh smirked at that.
"Oh yes...Azula...We haven't spoken about her very much. But you must've been thinking about her: you do have a picture of yourself, her and Ozai in your cabin."
"Thanks to her....If it wasn't for you Zaho by now would have caught the Avatar and I'd be banished for the rest of my life."
"Of course not! You would only have been banished until eventually Ozai died, then you'd be the next firelord and un-banish yourself."
"Not if Father makes Azula the heir to the throne." Zuko looked down.
"And yet...there's a picture of you and her in your cabin. Have you been sending letters to your sister and friends?"
"Yes. I sent messages to father, Azula, Mai, Ty lee and master Piando, letters for their birthdays by messenger hawk, along with, small of course it is by messenger hawk, birthday presents."
"Having met them...I can understand Ty Lee, Mai and Piando, and obviously you should keep your father informed. But...Azula? May I ask why?"
Zuko shut his eyes at that.
"It's...It's what mother would have wanted."
"Has Azula sent you any letters?"
"Only to boast about her accomplishments."
"And...Miss Mai...how is she these days?" Iroh gave Zuko a sly look.
"She's still in Azula's good graces, still the most talanted knife thrower in the firenation." Zuko smiled.
"But...she's probably being introduced to...other boys in the firenation." Zuko frowned as he spoke.
"In my experience, firenation women have a tendency to be...warm with their loved ones." Iroh smiled.
"Azula was always...ruthlessly "warm" with others." Zuko sighed.
"If you don't mind me asking...Prince Zuko...this may be a...difficult topic but...I myself have never had a daughter so I'm curious...what was Ozai's...parenting with Azula like?"
Zuko shut his eyes tightly and looked away.
"I remember...father rarely praised me or her, but when it was her...it normally involved a lecture on how to damage people through firebending." As he spoke Zuko gently stroked his burn marks on his face.
"Did he ever...encourage you and Azula to make friends?"
"Well...he encouraged us to consult with others, but "friends"...that was mostly what...mother encouraged us to do." As he spoke Zuko bowed his head and took a few quiet and sharp breaths. "Father never showed any interest in any...rivalries she and I had, except to observe our skills. He was mostly away from the house when me and Azula were children."
"Where these rivalries between you...humerous or...not?" Iroh asked, his mouth twitching downwards as he spoke.
"Mostly we fought over petty things. I don't really remember I haven't given it much thought. Mother never let either of us use firebending in the palace when we weren't practiccing with our tutors."
"Zuko...when Ozai...you know..." Iroh gestured to Zuko's scar. "I looked away, but for a brief sceond. I looked at the faces of the crowd and saw Azula...she was...albeit not as much as I was...horrified."
Zuko looked up at that.
"Azula is...I think deep inside she's not really someone who hates you, but she is embarassed by the pity she has for you.
She certainly feels resentful to you."
"What would she be resentful to me for?" Zuko asked.
"Envy. Well think about it nephew: You are still first in line to be firelord. You are banished yes, but you have had experience fightning not just the Avatar. You've fought and defeated waterbenders, Earthbenders, a treacherous admiral, the prince of the southern watertribe-"
"A non-bender teenager armed with nothing more than a stick!"
"...You've seen much more of the world than Azula has, you infiltrated Omashu and Agna Quela, you found the Avatar-"
"I lost him!"
"And you single-handedly..." Iroh looked around before whispering "You know what you did with the Avatar single-handedly." Iroh looked at Zuko carefully. Zuko looked around sharply as he spoke.
"Azula... SHE TOLD ZAHO I WAS THE BLUE SPIRIT!" Zuko hissed.
"IF Zaho was telling the truth, all she did was identify the swords as your own, but you are far from the only person who has dao swords. The blue spirits dn't use any bending, so undoubtedly the firenation thinks the blue spirit was a nonbender. You're obviously not a nonbender."
"She got ZAHO the archers!"
"That may be true. The point is...she feels threatened by you because she wants to prove herself the superior heir to Ozai's throne. But despite that...I think she, secretly, misses you."
"Well...she's doing a VERY good job of persuading father that she's a better heir to the throne than me."
Zuko threw onto a nearby table a scroll which Iroh picked up.
"She conquerd Omashu?"
"And she mastered lightning. The "Cold blooded fire" that father delighted in displaying to me, Azula and-....mother when he mastered it." Zuko shut his eyes at that.
Iroh grew silent.
"I NEED to master lightnng!"
Zuko took a deep breath.
"It's...keeping your mind calm and concentrating the fire without emotion...concentrating on the positive and negative energy in the extended chi coming out of you..." As he spoke Zuko held out both of his arms widely and made claw gestures with his hands.
Zuko stomped forward and tightly brought his amrs to his sides, then quickly extended them out.
zzzzzzzzzzcrkzzzzzcrkzzzzzcrkzzzzz
Sizzling and cackling glowing white lightning came out of his hands.
Zuko pressed his hands together.
BZ-BOOM!
"Urgh! Why won't it work!" Zuko roared.
"I think...Prince Zuko in order to control the energy that comes from making the positive and negative energy recombine you need to control your positive and negative emotions. This can only be done with you not being out of synch with your true nature."
"...What "true nature"?"
"What is it you really want Prince Zuko? That is your true nature. But you've been so burndend by others trying to pressure you into being something you do not really want to be, to fully realise it, hence your subconcious feelings of shame."
"I am NOT ashamed!"
"You might not think you are Prince Zuko. But often people feel things that they do not correctly identify."
"But I want to...I mean...I..." Zuko kept cutting himself off.
"Prince Zuko. I think you've been spending too much time thinking about your father, your sister, and the avatar. Perhaps it's time to consider your mother." Iroh said.
Zuko lowered his head.
"What do you remember of mother?" Zuko asked.
"I remember her being a kind woman." Iroh said.
"You were there when Father banished me because I was, as he put it "soft, like" mother."
"Prince Zuko let me be absoloutly crystal celar about this: COMPASSION IS NOT A SIGN OF WEAKNESS!
Do you think it weakness that I have been by your side all these years?
Do you think it was weakness that makes the waterbenders heal their ill?
Do you think it was weakness that got the Avatar to sacrifice himself for the southern water tribe?
It takes a lot of courage and resilience to show compassion to others."
"Don't confuse compassion with "care". You've been by my side all these years out of care. "Care" is adressing needs. Not because you were worried about my emotions. I always appreciated that about you: you always told me what I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear. You cared more about my needs than my feelings. "Compassion" is being emotionally concerned with people's painful feelings.
Prioritising emotions over needs is a frailty.
If we base our values on the emotional states of others, as opposed to actual needs and impartial objectives, then we become overly-reliant on others for guidance and we let emotion distract us.
I should've taken that hit on father. He might've blocked it or dodged it, he certainly did my previous attempts at striking him, but I didn't not take it because of that.
I didn't take it because I was scared that the pain I obviously would cause him if I did succesfully land the hit...would be felt by my heart and it would be too much.
I felt pity for father in that moment. That pity made me fail. I prioritised father's emotions over my drive to save the division."
"You DID save the division."
"I saved specifically the 41st division. Another division undoubtedly was sent in their place. It was the plan I was in opposition of, and I...in a fit of emotional vulnerability forgot my conviction.
And besides...father obviously knew that...if I ever fought the avatar single-handedly I would probably fail. He obviously didn't know at the time that the avatar was in the body of a frozen 12 year-old. So...I think it's obvious that he wanted me to sacrifice the 41st division to capture the avatar."
Iroh's face lit up with a smile.
"But you didn't. You captured the Avatar without sacrificing a single person. That is a sign of a truly brilliant leader."
"Yes. But a firelord who prioritises emotions over his convictions is weak!
And if the mighty show too much pity to those less fortunate, the less fortunate become overly reliant on the mighty, as opposed to self-reliant. "
"Yes, there is strength in prioritising convictions over emotion. And there is something to be said for spoiling people rotten.
But there are some burdens which absoloutly no-one can through self-reliance alone carry.
Honestly I pity the Avatar."
Zuko's eyebrows jumped up at that.
"You, the dragon of the west...pity our enemy?" Zuko spun arond and looked Iroh in the eye as he spoke.
"Zuko consider: he is one person who most of the rest of the world is putting the fate on almost exclusively his shoulders. Imagine what it must be like to have so much on your shoulders at such a young age.
He has the strength of 1,000 benders in the avatar state yes...when at his peak at least-"
"Wait! What do you mean..."at his peak"?" Zuko asked.
"Well...let me put it to you this way: on Kyoshi Island I looked through a telescope and saw Avatar Kyoshi disappear after an enormous bright light came out from her and the current Avatar was in her place in the avatar state, and he collapsed in exhaustion.
Also there are some...illnesses that weaken people's bodies in such a way it damages their bending abilities.
Sleep deprivation can also weaken people's chi.
There are certain types of food and drink that can increase people's chi and/or help chi flow.
And of course, this Avatar is in the body of a child, not an adult. His lungs and brain have yet to develop to their peak. Chi is partially biological. The more mature the body of a bender, the more their chi.
Also...he's a vegetarian, if he doesn't have access to a wide enough variety of vegetarian food he won't have enough essential amino acids for muslce proteins, which are especially essential for waterbending as waterbenders needs to use their muscles for shifting their weight for power in waterbending.
Muslces don't produce power in firebending or airbending as far as I can see, and perhaps not even earthbending. But the limbs are needed to direct the chi, the better the limbs move, the more well directed the chi is, and muscles move the limbs."
"Okay, but I must not underestimate him."
"Of course not."
"Avatar Kyoshi defeated me."
"Aah...Avatar Kyoshi...she's....
Zuko...there's a reason as to why Avatar Kyoshi used metal fans. Kyoshi...let us say...struggled with her birth element (earthbending in her case), more so than any other known Avatar. The fans, being metal and having a strong connection to her mind as they were symbolic of her mother who used metal fans to improve her airbending which was somewhat...more...less...impressive than others, were able to enhance her earthbending, granting her more precision and power, the same went for her waterbending.
Furthermore...there was a...battle of sorts between Kyoshi and a bender who could generate lightning. Kyoshi won in the end, but the lightning she was hit with in the battle caused some permanant damage to her body. Not enough to completely get rid of her bending, but certainly enough to weaken her bending."
"What's your point Uncle?"
"My point is that those we think highly of are often...excessively thought highly of.
People expect so much of the Avatar, perhaps too much.
There are so many people in this world with so much power, yet so many limitations and so many conflicting interests...no ONE person can solve those problems perfectly to the satisfaction of absoloutly everyone.
Conflicting interests: that's why idealism never works, there's too much disagreement in the world. If there wasn't we'd all be like bees in hives or termites in nests: altruistic, constructive and productive without any need for reward or punishment to motivate us. But alas humans in general are not that way.
He has obviously many allies, and has shown signs of immense power even when not in the avatar state, yes.
But he's still a human.
He bleeds when he gets cut like you or me.
He defecates like you and me.
He needs food and drink and sleep like you and me.
All it would really take to kill him would be something like poison in his food, or for his throat to be shot with an arrow while he sleeps."
"Where would be the glory in that?"
"EXACTLY Zuko. The need for glory, for others to percieve you as admirable. It makes people more concerned with appearances than about actual success. Appearances are unfortunate necessities, not ends in themselves.
He needs guidance, needs to be in the right place at the right time...needs purpose.
But other people's admiration can often lead to...arrogance. People have such high expectations of the avatar without actually knowing what he is in fact capable of, and not capable of.
I don't think even the Avatar is aware of what he can and can't do even with training. But everyone else keeps expecting him to be able to to grandiose things. Perhaps those expectations are driving him to arrogance.
Has it occured to you Prince Zuko that your father's...alleged expectation, of you finding, capturing and bringing to him the Avatar, the most powerful bender on the planet have driven you to arrogance?
Do you remember in Omashu what you said. "I don't need fire to defeat this boy" was it? And he airbent his way out of your grasp and was clearly holding back."
Zuko put his hands on the edge of the shop's deck and let ou an exhale.
"Of course that has occured to me."
"Zuko, if you do become firelord, what would you do? Conquer the rest of the world? The world will not follow willingly. They will resist and they will hate us for generations to come. Hatred can sharpen your teeth, but it doesn't heal wounds."
"We are doing the world a service, by replacing their incompetent and corrupt leaders with better ones who will give the peoples of the world far better: advancements and guidance."
"Yes guidance is a generous, glorious gift. But is it absoloutly necessary for us to kill and terrorize so many people who love their nation in order to give them that guidance?"
"If they "loved their nation" they would supply their citizens with aqueducts, mansions for everyone, make automated transport, pave their roads-"
"Yes, those things are indeed undeniably beneficial. But it must be them who do it!
That's something the firenation and the avatar have in common: the flawed philosophy of it has to be someone else who carries the world's burdens.
Think about it Prince Zuko: if it's the avatar alone who is the source of peace and help to the world, then everyone else has no opportunity to be a source of peace and help.
The idea of the Avatar being a lone epic pillar of destiny and almost everyone else is helpless...it creates a cycle of dependency. People become too dependent on the Avatar, instead of sorting out their own problems. It's patronizing.
If it's the firenation alone that provides the rest of the world with peace and prosperity, then everyone else has no dignity, no purpose, nothing to congratulate themselves for."
"If we don't rule them, others who will do worse than us will."
"Ah, yes, the age old justification of the aggressors on every side of every conflict of every type: "If I don't have the power, others who will do worse will".
And yet, who is the firenation, or the avatar, to decide what is best for the world? Different people have different values."
"What about necessities? Such as clean water, transport, light, fertile soil, shelter, money?"
"Yes, those things are universal. But are the earthkingdom people really so incapable of acquiring those things without the rule of the firenation?"
"Well they are evidentally incapable of doing so under the earth king. What would be the alternative? Democracy? That would never work with almost no-one being a bender, giving the benders decisive power over those who don't share their aims who aren't benders, meanning the benders could sabotage democracy behind the people's backs.
Social optimism may help children go to sleep, but it is a reckless fantasy in the real world as I have learnt."
"...Perhaps, but without social optimism, or if that fails tolerance of when others don't do as we would prefer them to do, honest peace between people cannot exist."
"So what's the alternative uncle?"
"Well...under Ozai's rule our farmers use firebending to cool down the air to extract nitrogen for turning infertile ground into fertile soil. We...well..."
As he spoke Iroh was blushing and he made a cupping gesture in his hand. The air inside his hand became cloudy.
"I actually...invented the technique. We bargain with the merchants of the earthkingdom. We take all the ground that belongs to no-one in the earth kingdom and make it fertile, then we build verticle farms, with water from aqueducts, artificial sunlight from firebending, and use the products, not just food, also medicine and...luxuries, to trade with the rest of the world, keeping everyone happy. If we increase them and give them for cheaper we will help people focus more so on the future rather than the past."
"And those merchants whose merchandise will be rendered less valuable due to the abundance of merchandise we will provide, meaning that they will have to reduce their prices of food to compete with ours? They will loose profit rates. Many farmers will be rendered obsolete, be out of a job. They will try to destroy those places you propose building to make their own products more valuable."
"...That's a cynical and pessimistic view."
"It is a valid view.
Anyway this conversation serves no purpose if I don't become firelord, and I won't if father decides Azula is a more suitable heir. I need to capture the Avatar."
"Prince Zuko, the Avatar is obviously mastering waterbending, and is sure to soon go to the earth kingdom to master earthbending. How do you plan to take this crew to the earthkingdom?"
"He has already mastered warerbending."
"What makes you think that?"
"I at one point cut the Avatar, making him bleed, then after...at most a few hours the cut was completely healed. He couldn't have had any help from any other waterbenders. He healed himself...using waterbending. " (AN: I know, this is nit-picking. The simplest explanation as to why that cut healed so quickly was because the makeup or whatever that was on Gordon was gone and they thought no-one watching the show would notice. But I quite like the idea that Aang is so good a waterbender because waterbending for healing requires a lot of will to relieve pain. Obviously Aang is so sweet he would be a natural at it.)
"So...?" Iroh asked.
"So he has advanced at an unprecedented rate. Avatar Roku took 12 years to master 3 out of 4 elements. He obviously won't be able to master firebending."
"Not necesserily."
"What?"
"Well Prince Zuko: If the avatar were to steal firebending scrolls, he could learn from them.
That or he could go to the shrine of a past avatar and learn from them."
"Why didn't previous avatars do that with their predecessors?"
"1: The other bending teachers might know techniques that past avatars did not know because as time passes new bending techniques are learnt.
2: When the current avtar communicates with past lives just whenever the current avatar summons them at will it has only ever been after the current avatar and the past avatar have somehow established some kind of physical link which might take time or extreme conditions. So being taught by a more readily available teacher might be preferable.
3: Although the Avatar is obviously the best bender in terms of sheer raw power, and the other avatars have mastered the 4 elements, that is not to say that other bending teachers might not have more sheer skill in bending. So a bending teacher who has more sheer skill in a bending type would be better than a past avatar with more power but less skill.
4: Bending teachers who aren’t the avatar spend their lives practicing 1 specific bending type, while past avatars spent their lvies practicing 4 bending types, meaning the non-avatar bending teachers have more time to focus on their specific types of bending. Like a martial artist who focus all his/her time and energy on learning how to punch is more likely to be better at punching than a martial artist who splits his/her time and energy into learning how to punch, then kick, then dodge, then grabble. So practically speaking it might be better to rely on other bending teachers than a past avatar, unless that past avatar was more especially talanted at the bending type than the other bending teachers.
5: I know from personal experience that when his spirit is seperated from his body the avatar cannot bend, so…although the avatar could be verbally told how to bend by a past avatar in meditation, or shown some images from a past life that could demonstrate how to bend, the avatar wouldn’t be able to actually practice the bending in the meditation. The avatar would have to meditate, then go out of the meditation to practice, then go back into the meditation to get feedback from the past avatar…which could be…less easy than having another bending teacher who could jsut give feedback at will without the need for the avatar to meditate.
But for obvious reasons the avatar is unlikely to find a firebending teacher besides a past avatar."
"Well then he'll be headed to an Avatar's shrine...on his bison.
I'll need transpo-" Zuko's eyes widened.
Then a grin of glee went onto his face.
"Set a course to the northern air temple! Full speed!"
The northern air temple:
Zuko stood near a door and put a glowing orange hand near the metal parts.
Zuko's ship lower decks:
"Prince Zuko...what are you doing?" Iroh asked as Zuko went around the ship carrying crates full of metal blocks.
"Making improvements to this ship."
"How?"
"You'll see."
"Where did you get all this metal?"
"Fom the northern air temple andbits and pieces around the ship which I melted with my firebending, which aren't required for any special purposes."
"Such as?"
"A few empty barrels with some metal in them, a few spare items, a few relics from past Avatars, but mostly metal from the northern air temple."
Below decks Zukos used his firebending to meld the metal to some heavy metal parts of the ship.
"Get metal cables."
Zuko tied the metal cables to the gems, and to a wheel which was put on a metal pole. Zuko tested the wheel by moving it from left to right, up and down, diagonally and straight, forwards and backwards.
Zuko took a deep breath and began firebending through the metal wheel.
As he firebent the metal began to levitate.
Zuko moved the wheel upwards then forwards.
HHmmmmm
The ship began to hover upwards then forwards.
"Zuko! What!?" Iroh's mouth was so widely open he could have drunk a whole pot of tea.
"I used the metal to enhance my firebendingm and I took the metal and magnteized it so the metal is being repelled, generating magnetic leviation, now the magnetic levitation is moving in accordance with my will because the metal in enhancing my firebending.
I got the idea from studying Sky Bisons. Their levitation comes from the ability to internally airbend to generate thrust from within by air-propelling some body parts, which are connected to the rest of the body, upwards with the end effect being levitation."
"This is...genius."
"Yes. But it's only 1 ship. I could do with more."
Near the walls of Agna Qe'la at night:
Zuko's ship was flying noiselessly above the wrecks of the ships that attacked the northern water tribe. There was no glowing fire or smoke coming from Zuko's ship to make it visible from the city. It was so far from the city wall and it's black exterior made it well camoflagued against the night sky.
4 people, one after the other, went down a rope from Zuko's ship onto one wrecked ship each.
"I thought the northern water tribe would want the ships not sunk, for getting their metal." Zuko commented from his ship.
"We only have a few firebenders on this ship to move about the ships you plan to salvage." Iroh said.
"They'll have to do." Zuko replied.
"Now, I am guessing that the Avatar will go to the one place in the earthkingdom that is safe from the firenation, and is garunteed to have at least one shrine to an earthbending avatar to teach him: Ba Sing Sei.
Avata Kyoshi founded the Dai Li there."
"...Zuko...are you seriously...going to Ba Sing Sei?"
"No of course not. We'll catch him on his way to Ba Sing Sei. He will obviously be travelling via sky bison. He may think himself safe in the sky, but we can ambush him in the air."
"Hmm. You know this reminds me of a time when I myself was on the way to Ba Sing Sei and I learnt this song the earthbenders we took captive sang."
Iroh took a deep breath.
"It's a long long way to Ba Sing Sei.
But the girls in the city they look so pretty-"
"Uncle! Please let me concentrate."
Zuko firebent and the ships all began to rise.
When they were so far from the northern water tribe they couldn't see the ice any more, Zuko gently put the ship back in the water and adressed and assembly of his crew.
"My fellow followers of fire.
We have indeed suffered much loss. Our journey to the north has ended. Our nation has been defeated.
But our pursuit has not ended. Our pursuit has only made us all the more glorious, for now we have, like the most magnificent of dragons risen. We have waged war with the forces of the ocean and the forces of the earth. But we have learnt our lesson. For now we have resolved to wage war with the forces of the air.
We have moved on."
A few hours later Zuko put the ship back in the water when he was tired of firebending:
Zuko went to his room and opened a bag.
"UNCLE!"
Iroh ran into Zuko's cabin.
"Look at this which we found in Zaho's flagship which we salvaged!"
Zuko threw a scroll onto the floor.
Iroh picked it up.
"So...Azula WAS working with Zaho."
"YES!"
"Did any notes confirm that she identified the blue spirit swords as yours?"
"No. But still...she is now my enemy."
2 days after the attack on the moon spirit at the fire palace in the fire nation City:
A gathered assembly of the firenation's nobles and other VIPS, servants and a few randomly selected guards bore witness to the conversation between Ozai and the great sage in his throne room.
"It has come to my attention, that the traitor Zaho slayed the moon spirit and consequentially the tides of this planet were disrupted and tidal waves impacted the islands of the fire nation.
Zaho killed the moon spirit on the advice of the great sage, and without my permission."
The sages looked at the Great Sage in shock as his face was struck with terror.
"Was it incompetence, or treachery?" Ozai asked.
"The moon is back sire." The great sage pointed out.
"Yes. By the princess of the water tribe sacrifcing herself." Ozai marched towards the great sage.
"Honestly...I envy the northern water tribe for them having had a spiritual leader who loved her nation so much she would make the ultimate sacrifice for them, whilst the firenation has a fool for a spiritual leader."
"Sire! I swear I meant no-"
Ozai gestured with his left hand behind his back, by raising his pinky.
A tiny fire inside a mechanism in a pillar near to the great sage came into being near a telescope. The lense of the telescope were inside the glass eyes of a small model figure of a golden dragon that decorated the pillar. The result of the fire was a small red dot that shone on the great sage's neck.
Ozai gestured with his left hand behind his back, by raising his thumb and forefinger.
The head of the model figure of the dragon moved silently because of small flames inside 2 key positions in the model dragon's interorior emitting propulsion in the direction of the walls of the model dragon whilest the flames grew in the opposite direction, like fireworks that move wheels they are tied to. The dragon was moving in line with the movements of Ozai's thumb and forefinger.
Ozai raised his forefinger on his right hand.
Thuut!
An arrow from a concealed mechanism inside the nearby pillar came out of the mouth of the small model figure of a dargon which decorated a nearby pillar. The arrow hit the same place the red spot was shining on.
The arrow embeded itself in the great sage's throat from his right to his left. His blood squirted everywhere.
Ozai turned to the fire sages.
"Burn half of him, not including the head. I'll send what's left of him to the northern water tribe with a letter explaining that Zaho's conduct wasn't approved of by me and that what's left of the FORMER great sage will be the moon spirits' to do with as seen fit.
And as a sign of sincerity, send them as part of their release...27 water tribe captives, preferbly waterbenders, to be freed to the northern water tribe. 1 for each night the moon is in the sky, and preferably prisoners who aren't crippled and have them all be wearing their water tribe attire and have painted markings of the water tribe on them."
"Your highness, with respect, I'm not sure if we have 27 captives from the northern water tribe."
"If we don't send enough from the southern water tribe in addition to those from the northern water tribe, to make in total 27."
"And if a total of 27 water tribe prisoners aren't available?"
"Then send what prisoners from the water tribes we do have to them, and add captives from the earthkingdom, not benders, to make in total 27.
The norhtern water tribe obviously will not be appeased, but the spirits might."
Ozai turned to his audience.
"Our war is a weapon of progression against primitivity. We are at war with the corrupt and incompetent rulers of the world who are fundamentally lesser than us, because we in the firenation understand that will power and brilliance drives all in the best way, whereas our enemies in the earth kingdom know nothing but stagnation, cowering behind their walls, their feeble unity and their mountains.
I would have sent Zaho the incompetent, Zaho the failure and Zaho the fool, to serve as distraction against a force in the Earth kingdom, had it not been for the Avatar going to learn waterbending from them. I suspected that the Avatar would seek instruction from them as soon as the statues of past Avatars began glowing in the palace, signalling the Avatar's return, I just didn't know precisley where the Avatar had been until I heard word from the Southern seas. I meant for the siege of Agna Q'ela to last months so that no word of Omashu's conquest could reach them so that the distraction would last longer and more of the Earthkingdom would be conquered, and that the delaying of the Avatar's training would be longer. But Zaho's folly ruined that plan, and Omashu was all we conquered.
We are however NOT at war with the spirits!
We should be thanking the spirits for all they have given us.
My most important duty is to the firenation, not to the grandiose plans of fools like Zaho.
Go, spread the word of what has happened here and why.
Any lies from you about today's events, and your own eyes and ears will be burnt off so you yourselves will never hear nor see truth ever again."
Agna Quela 1 week after the attack on Agna Quela:
Sokka was glaring down and inhaling. "You have gone too far you fire fiend! You'll pay for what you've done! You're dead!"
Soka dramatically raised his club...
Then he used the tip of his club to his Pai Sho tile which had the insignia of a whale to take away another tile with a dragon with fire coming out of it's mouth was taken by Sokka's hands.
"Ha!" Sokka crowed.
"Sokka its just a game." Katara
"Yeah. But I love it!" Sokka smiled.
"How's your waterbending coming along?" Katara asked Aang who was sitting near watching the game.
Aang smiled.
"Ah!"
Aang waved his hands in a curving motion and the chair Katara was sitting on was pushed against by a collum of swirlign water which lifted her chair upwards sightly then moved the chair towards Aang. Katara cried out in shock.
"What do you think?" Aang smiled at Katara, his voice that of a teenager.
Katara shook her head and smield fondly at Aang. "How is it that you're doing so well?"
"I'm guessing my connection to the ocean spirit somehow gave my waterbending a boost." Aang shrugged.
"And...how's your healing going?" Katara asked.
"Very well. I learnt how to heal some flesh wounds through waterbending before I got to the north."
"What?! How?" Katara asked.
"I read about it before...the comet festival and I tried it out when I got cut and it worked. I've been talking to Yugoda about healing bones and organs.
Do you know: I think waterbending is by far the best bending, and I say that as an airbender and the avatar."
Katara looked at Aang impressed by his statement. "Really?" She blushed as she asked.
" Yeah really. Does airbending, or firebending, or earthbending give people the power to heal?
Water has the option of solid, liquid or gas. Does air or fire have the same ability?
You can't eat or drink fire or raw earth, but you can drink water.
Water is so soft and pleasent. Who likes swimming in mud or fire?
You know, because everyone drinks water, and most of the water in the human body is not made into tissue or nucletoids or acids. So it doesn't fuse into the body in a way that the chi of the person counteracts the chi of the waterbender trying to bend the water in the person's body. Meaning waterbenders could bend the 60% of the human body which is water, thus controlling the body of the person."
"...Wait? Waterbenders can bend the water in the bodies of others?" Katara asked in shock.
"Yup."
"Then why not do it on the firenation?" Sokka asked.
"It only works if the waterbender is especially powerful, because the bender's own chi is opposed to going into a place with another person's chi radiating off it, like pieces of matter that have the same charge repelling each other. Healing is fine, because the body wants to be healed so it's chi accepts it readily and the water used in healing comes from outside the body meaning it hasn't gone through the body's digestive system meaning it hasn't been radiated by the chi of the person.
And if the opponent is a firebender who can use thermal energy to control the temperature of the water in the firebender's body, the water could be made to resist the bending of the waterbender.
Plus, the technique only works if the person's chi points are not covered by anything metal.
Metal conducts chi, that's why benders cannot bend pure metal. If it covers the major points on a person's body where the chi flows and branches off through the body, then the chi is conducted so the bending of the waterbender cannot bypass the chi of the person that the water in the person's body has melded with, even non-benders' chi.
From what I can see the firenation military have all their major chi points covered with metal-"
"I saw lethar on their armour." Sokka said.
"On the outerlayer of their armour yeah, but I've head the sound their armours made. They're metal covering the chi points."
"What about the full moon?" Katara asked. "Pakku and Yugoda both confirm that waterbedning is more powerful during the nights with the moon in the sky and at it's peak during the full moon."
"Well...that may help. But I've never heard of it being done.
Also...feeling the energy of the water in another person's body after the water has melded with the chi of that person's body feels...well...I've never done it myself, but from what records show it is like..." Aang's face was looking nervously at the ice. "It's been reported as feeling...intrusive. Like the sensation of something alive and wriggling in your clenched fist.
You know, after I die, my successor is going to be a waterbender?
If...you're still alive then Katara...would you please do my succesor the honour of being his/her waterbending teacher?" Aang asked brightly.
"Umm...sure."
"Even if my successor is annoying?" Aang asked smiling cheekily.
Katara smiled.
"Yes Aang even if your successor is annoying." (AN: yeah I threw in a little joke about Korra in there. I really LOVE Korra.)
"Hey Aang." Sokka nudged closer to Aang as he spoke. "Seeing as you're going through puberty now...did the monks tell you to expect...anything?" Sokka grinned.
"They told me that during puberty I would experience intense emotions and desires I wouldn't understand as my body and brain undergo changes that can be...hectic."
"Yeah...that's a very good way of putting it." Sokka chuckled as he spoke. "Thing is Aang...in a 100 years war...it's a pretty bad time to be a teenager."
Omashu: 1 week after it's conquest.
Rummmb! Rummmmb! Rummmb!
In a room underground, a team of earthbenders were moving the rock in front of them behind them. They were earthbending a bubble of earth around them as they moved forwards and upwards. The only light they had came from a few candles.
"What if the king is dead?" One of them asked.
"Too bad. The firenation princess is our target." Another replied.
Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring!
Unbenkownst to them, a metal jar was above a table in the earth. The metal jar had a red line that began shifting back and forth with the top part swining from left to right while the bottom part of the line just twisted from left to right. As it did so a ringing sound came from the jar. The jar was decorated with figures of dragons, one figure had a ball fall from its mouth into the awaiting mouth of a figure of a toad. (AN: this metal jar is based on a real life ancient chinese earthquake detector: Zhang Heng's seismoscope, with some modernish adjustments. Look it up.)
CRUN! CRUN! CRUN! CRUN!
On the mountain side of Omashu above the palace outer parts, were several earthbenders dressed in cothing that had rocks on them to camoflague them. They were climbing very high and earthbending quietly enough to not be heard by the guards below them. Then they earthbent platforms for each of them. Then they used earthbending to pull out of the mountain huge rocks which they dropped above the heads of several guards.
BRN!BRN!BRN!BRN!
The guards were all crushed.
The earthbenders levitating above the palace landed on the windows and balconeys of the palace.
The earthbenders underground reached a metal door.
"This is the same metal door the Avatar's companions used right?" asked one of the earthbenders.
"Of course the entire palace is surrounded by pure metal to stop treacherous earthbenders from getting in." Another replied.
"But this door is locked. How did they get in?"
"A servant saw the king and the avatar fighting and when he saw the cieling collapsing, he fled to the tunnel in hopes of escape and the companions were fortunate to be there at the time."
BRUNCHK!!!
A large chunk of rock was shoved out of a wall in the Omashu palace.
The team of earthbenders came out of the earth to find....
No-one.
One member of the team went to a nearby window and waved a brown flag.
BOOOOM!
A crate oof blasting jelly tied to a huge rock that was moved with earthending blast tore down the huge green door to the palace and in rushed several soldiers who were coming in from the city.
Fwwwwwwwwwh!
A massive cloud of green dust flew by the invisible force of bending into the palace.
The soldiers of the earth kingdom resistance ran into the palace after the dust.
FUUUSH!
"AAARGH!!"
From out of holes in the walls and cieleings letting in daylight, with mirrors, came streams of fire the width of an average adult man's arm. The fire hit the team in their arms, legs and spines.
Outside the palace on the roofs, camoflagued to blend with the roof, were several firebenders who had firebent the fires into the palace.
Inside the palace were several guards, with gas masks, who struck the soldiers who rushed in through the destroyed door, from behind.
The Omashu palace banqueting hall:
"What did you think?" Azula spoke as she walked in front of the earthkingdom soldiers who were bound and guarded.
"That in 100 years of warfare against the entire LARGEST CONTINENT IN THE WORLD wherein some people have the power to MOVE ROCKS WITH THEIR MINDS...that THIS is the first time tunneling has been used by earthbenders to counter attack?
That NOW is the first time bombs tied to flying rocks have been used against us?
Did you seriously think it wouldn't occur to us that after we took Omashu, others would try to get it back?" Azula smirked as she spoke to the soliders.
"Was it worth sacrificing your guards lives?" The nearest soldier to Azula spat.
"Oh no guards were killed. What you crushed were stuffed suits of armour."
"YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO OMASHU!" Another earthkingdom soldier shouted at her.
"Has the word "conquered" not yet entered your nation's dictionary?" Azula asked with mock politeness.
"The people will revolt against you!"
"Oh good, more meat for barbeques." Azula smiled with wild eyes.
At that some of the captured earthkingdom soldiers gaped. "Is it true what's been rumoured...do you...eat the people you killed?"
"Not always. Firebenders have their firebending chi diulted by the earthbending chi of earthbenders. But the non-benders in the firenation can, and my...dear dragon Ryujo do." A smile graced Azula's eyes which softened, like an ordinary cat-owner speaking of her cat. "Sometimes we use the ashes of non benders to fertilize plants.
We need to put their flesh to some use.
She's eaten many people recently...but...She's never eaten Avatar before...neither have I. Do you think all that glowing chi makes them taste better?" Azula licked her lips and a dreamy expression was on her face.
The Earthkingdom soldiers looked to the floor. "You're evil."
"Waste is evil. Carnivorism doesn't waste." Azula replied as she made a dismissive shooing gesture with her right hand without even looking at the soldiers.
"Are we going to be eaten?"
"Not yet. You're going to be taken to a wide area wherein me, or others, will use you as training items. After you eventually die, I'll have your flesh fed to the nonbenders in our army."
In a room made entirely out of metal:
"Aaah! My dentist will be speaking to you about this!" Bumi yelled as Azula extracted blood from his mouth using a syringe.
Bumi was chained to the wall, with needles in various parts of his body.
"In case you're wondering: those needles are blocking your chi and stopping you from bending. And no earthbenders can save you: this metal in this room has had all traces of the minerals of earth burned out of it by our expert wielders." Azula said.
"Yeah, if it were that simple to have bent the metal the firenation used we would have won the war ages ago." Bumi replied.
"Obviously. You don't last 100 years in a war against the rest of the world by being primitive."
"No you do it by being a sweet daddy's girl (!) What do you want my blood for?" Bumi asked.
"Why should I tell you?"
"Why not?"
"I have better thing to do with my time than lecture a man his own people refer to as "mad"."
Had Azula's nose been any higher in the air she would be scraping the ceiling (AN: sorry if that confused you: I was being hyperbolic). Azula put a gag on Bumi and left.
"In case you're wondering: the gag is not for your voice, it's for your breath. I'm doing the people of the earthkingdom a service."
In a corridor:
Azula paused before...
FUSSSH!
A stream of blue fire the width of a thin tree trunk and 20 feet long, came out of her free hand and struck the man behind the corner whose shadow she's spotted.
Another stream of blue fire came from out of Azula's left foot which she pointed diagonally upwards. The stream of fire from her foot split into 5 branches and went out the 5 nearby widndows and hitthe 5 climbing earthbenders who were camoflagued by clothing that blended with the stone wall. The earthbenders fell to their deaths.
"AAARRGH!!"
"Guards!"
Azula's guards grabbed the man behind the corner and dragged him to near Azula's feet.
One of the guards wlked towards Azula and began to speak.
"Princess, we found the tunnel dwellers using slow earthebending to quietly gain access to the palace, just as you said they were, and we found the tiny holes they were using to keep themselves supplied with oxygen, just as you predicted they would, and we killed them with the blades you ordered, after we enlarged the holes with our firebending quietly."
"Indeed."
"Blades? Why not use firebending to kill them?" The captured man asked.
"Because it occured to me that the earthbenders may use some sort of explosive to destroy the firenation people in the castle." Azula replied.
"How did you know about the tunnels?"
It's what I would've done in your position. Of course I would have done it better. Azula thought.
"Why should I tell you?"
"How did you know about the attack on you in this palace?"
Same.
"Again: why should I tell you?"
Azula smirked.
"So...this is the thanks the firenation gets for ridding Omashu of a frail, corrupt ruler and making it better?"
"Hmm...better how? Having earthbender barbeques? Washing your hair?
How do you keep your hair looking that fresh and cool, with a head that hot? Hmm?"
Azula smirked as she waved her head around and then shrugged.
"And how is daddy? Does he miss his wittle princess?"
"No. He knows I can take care of myself." Azula smirked.
"Oh yeah? So well you need an army?"
"No, the army needs me."
"Is he so scared of the earth kingdom that he'd send his daughter here in his stead? Are you even an adult yet?"
Azula's fists clenched despite her face still smirking and raised one eyebrow in mock curiosity. "I'm 23 actually. I know I don't look it, but that's what taking care of your health will get you.
Got defeated by a little girl? I'm sure that's a story people will find intriguing."
"How many more is it going to be? How many more cities do you have to conquer?" "
"Hopefully not many, I got lots of thinks to do."
"How many more sons, daughters, sibling, parents, friends and spouses, do you plan on burning just to make daddy pat you on the back? Hmmm?
Or is it perhaps to shut up the infant in you wailing for mommy?"
Azula's head was turned to the man so he couldn't see the pain in her face as he spoke. When he mentioned her father her face hardened and her eyes sharpened, when he mentioned her mother her eyes widened and her lips slightly, before she inhaled quietly with her eyes closed, then snarled and smiled.
"Ha! No, I'm not doing this merely for other people's apprvoal. That's what the weak do.
What do I need my mother's love for? Like it matters...
I'm doing this because the world needs better leadership than that the likes of your king have given it.
I don't need to prove myself to you! You're a harmless prisoner."
She sneered as she spoke, her face scrunched with scorn.
"Correct me if I'm wrong here but...umm...Doesn't power in firebending come from the breath?" The earthkingdom soldier said as she marched away.
"So?"
"So...I mean...no offense or anything your ruthlessness, but umm...don't ermm...people of your...umm...biological status, have...slightly...less oxygen in their lungs than...well...you know...biologically speaking...M-E-N?" The earthkindom soldier asked mockingly.
Azula sharply inhaled.
Fush!
Azula produced a ball of blue fire.
"Ever heard of a MALE firebender who could DO THIS?" Azula smirked as she spoke.
"No avatar ever...produced blue fire. It's hotter and more efficient."
Azula made a huge stream of blue fire go 5 meters long.
"You underestimated me. That's why you lost!"
As she spoke the corridor behind her became filled with guards escorting Bumi to another place.
"MMhhhMhMHmm!" Came Bumi's gagged mutterings.
"Aw, how sweet. A few last words for your failed soldiers? Okay take the gag off." Azula smiled mockingly at Bumi.
"Sounds like a fun game! I love games!" Bumi said cheerfully. The guards stopped escorting him as he spoke. "Would you like some candy kiddie?"
Azula scoffed. "Hate me all you like. I am still going to be the one." She put the gag back on.
In a room in Omashu:
"How's your first day been as ruler of Omashu?" Ty Lee asked as she, Mai and Azula laid back in a metal bath each which were full of rose petals that covered their whole bodies.
"Tremendously of course." Azula smiled with her eyes closed in the bath.
"It was a good idea of yours to have these baths Mai." Ty Lee said as she laid back and relaxed.
"I needed to do something to get rid of all the filthy dirt of Omashu getting in my hair, skin and clothes." Mai said as she shuddered in disgust at the mere mention of the dirt.
"This war is making us so great. Necessity is the mother of invention." Azula smirked as she looked out of a window overlooking Omashu.
"Aren't you are giving birth to a lot of inventions which will be used to defeat the fire nation then?" Mai asked.
"After 100 years of war? Not much has been shown of that.
Look over there though." Azula pointed outside one of the windows.
A giant, jade, statue of Oma was being bent to rise in the centre of Omashu.
"I heard the story of Omashu. Obviously the badgermole part was hyperbole, badger moles can't speak, so at most Oma and Shu saw their movements and got inspired by them. Earthbenders are born not made, they couldn't have simply become earthbenders from seeing the badgermoles, if it were that simple there would be no non-earthbenders in the earthkingdom by now. Oma and Shu couldn't have been the first earthbenders unless it was granted first to them by the lion turtles.
Anyway, what I found magnificent was the part about a whole city being made from earthbending."
While she spoke Azula let a ball of blue fire bome out of her hand. The ball became flat, then shaped like a plate with vibrations making the air above it fly upwards. The plate went underneath a towel and the towel began to levitate upwards. The plate of fire slowly moved the towel towards Azula unti she caught the towel.
"The Earth kingdom is actually VERY divided, its why the earth kingdom hasn't been able to mobilize ALL its forces at once against the firenation. We are united.
The firenation's sanitation is FAR better than the Earth kingdom's, if Omashu is anything to go by."
"Yeah" Mai said as she sneered at the city through the window.
Azula then rose up with the towel covering her otherwise naked body private parts. She wrapped the towel around her body and tied a knot with the towel.
Azula then inhaled and as she exhaled steam left her body.
She then stepped out of the bath and leaned back with her hair still in the bath water and picked up a hair comb. She brushed her hair back.
"Now that the lunatic is no longer in charge of Omashu, the people will be given better leadership.
We'll start by getting rid of all the dirt. Also we'll get some better irrigation, improve the transport of food, abolish taxes and instead have money from our usual sources meet the public needs, and the earth kingdom will see how much better the firenation way of life is better than the Earth kingdom's.
And-" Azula stopped speaking and a gleam came into her face. "Let's tell our predecessor his flaws."
Azula bent down and from behind the bath which allowed no view of her naked self (AN: yes of course I'm not going to include anything pornographic. Obviously the actresses are adults, not teenagers or childrren, and obviously I aged up Zuko and Azula, but even then, this is rated12 not 15) she put on a bra and panties that were on the nearby table.
She turned to the others.
Ty lee looked at Azula's six-pack abs and capped delts with a pleased glow in her eyes. (AN: hey...the original cartoon didn't have a problem with showing teenage girls in bikinis and bras, and let's face it the relationship Azula has with Mai and Ty Lee in Netflix's live action is obviously MUCH MORE HEALTHY than in the cartoon. Honestly I kinda hated that in the cartoon Azula by implication bullied Ty Lee into being her goon.)
Outside the Omashu palace in it's courtyard.
Azula was standing besides Bumi as he was bound and gagged next to her. A crowd of hundreds of Omashu citizens were in front of her bound and gagged.
"You see that building over there?" Azula pointed to one of the huge buildings in the lower levels of Omashu.
"That is the hospital of Omashu." Azula pulled from out of one of her pockets a scroll.
"This is a scroll from the records office of that hospital. Here it says that over the last 4 years, in total 3,597 children were admitted to the hospital for asthma, lung damage, nose damage, eye damage...and various types of cancer. Of which...a reported 1,203 died. Of course the real number is probably much higher.
And that's not counting teenagers and adults.
Any idea what caused those illnesses?" Azula asked in mock sweetness.
Bumi glared at her.
Azula pulled a pouch from out of another of her pockets and slowly spilled its contents onto the ground.
"Dust...from YOUR chutes...which fell onto the people and the air they breathe...not to mention the water they drink from that fountain, and of course the food on display in that market. Taken in small doses for a small period of time it wouldn't do any noticeable amount of damage for a healthy adult...but BIG DOSES over a LONG TIME...when your body is frail like children's...." Azula smirked.
Bumi's eyes widened.
"You've been ruler of this city for...how long has it been? All that time showering your people with rock dust...leading to asthma, internal bleeding, cancer and so on." Azula was full on glaring as she spoke then. (AN: yeah I'm being picky, but things like that are important. Air pollution is a serious problem in the real world and shouldn't be dismissed just for the sake of fun).
"Care to guess how many people, including infants, have gone to hospital and died because of the YOUR fun slides poisoning them?"
Azula turend to the crowd of onlookers and pointed at one of them. "You madam." She went to a nearby woman and gently stroked her hair. "What was the name of that daughter of yours who died 2 weeks ago? Jin was it? How old was she? 4?
Lung damage was it?" She began patting her head as tears fell down the woman's face and she began wailing behind her gag.
"How much blood and flesh was coming out of her mouth when she was near death?"
EHNNNNNRRRK! The woman let out a muffled scream as she glared at Bumi.
Azula looked down on all the earthkingdom people in the courtyard.
"Call yourselves the "EARTH kingdom" and you don't even know that breathing in and eating lots of dirt is...uh...you know...BAD for you?" Azula's voice was dripping with derision as her snide comments sank in.
"In the firenation we give gas masks to our people who work in areas with lots of pollutants like smoke to keep them healthy. Even our soldiers have those masks that look a little bit like skulls, are that ways because they have air filtration systems. We wouldn't have been able to keep our people'e lungs healthy from the smoke produced by the warships if they didn't, and without healthy lungs how would we firebend?
Oh plus..."
Azula took out of one of her pockets a tiny vial of liquid. "We mostly use bioethnol for sustained fires in domestic dwelling. We use it because otherwise the smoke produced from other fires would be damaging to our lungs and we wouldn't want that would we? How'd we be able to firebend if our lungs are damaged?"
Ty Lee and Mai nodded slowly as Azula spoke.
"Oh and, those badgermoles in the tunnels underneath Omashu, when they cause massive vibrations as they smash their arms and feet through the walls...what is stopping them from causing damage to the people of Omashu?
There have been reports of incidents of earthbending causing unintended structural damage to buildings through vibrations the earthbending produces." (AN: yeah I'm being picky about the badgermoles. TBH I prefer them in the original cartoon when they lived underground away from the city rather than right underneath it. I get why the did it in the live action series: they wanted to glue the two original episodes together, but it really doesn't work.)
Oh look: There they are." Azula pointed as she spoke.
Soldiers in groups were holding up the cleaned skulls of badgermoles and parading them through the city.
"Awww. I always thought badermoles looked cute." Ty Lee pouted.
"You only saw paintings of them. Their earthbending under Omashu have caused earthquakes which have wounded and killed many, and they ate many people. The sight of them will firmly establish that we are the ones in power now. And the nonbenders in our army said their flesh tasted great." Azula smirked.
"The point is: if this ruler really is so incompetant that he cannot even stop his people from dying from showers of dust that he is the cause of, nor oversized sniffling diggers underneath his nose, and said ruler really represents the best in the earthkingdom...I mean...how is the firenation supposed to not see these people as dumb animals?
You've had...what's it been now? Centuries? Millenias? To make this city actually better...and...you haven't." Azula spoke in mock sympathy.
Mai frowned. "I wish they had, this place would be sooo much less boring if it were made all the better."
"Yeah...speaking of boring." Azula waved her hand to several nearby guards and they dragged 10 earthkingdom soldiers in uniform to Azula.
"Let's see how well these do. I'd love to fight Bumi, but Daddy wants him. They'll have to do." Azula pouted.
Frrrru! Fush!Fush! Fu!Fu!Fu!Fu!Fu!Fu!Fu!Fu!Fu!Fu! BUH!BUH!BUH!BUH!BUH!BUH!BUH!BUH!BUH!BUH!
Azula flew 10 feet into the air from thrust prodivded from fire that came outwards of her feet's soles. At the same time she flew 2 balls of blue fire came from Azula's hands and split into 5 balls each in line with her fingers on each hand. The resulting 10 small balls exploded close enough to the earthkingdom soldiers that the were knocked unconcious onto the floor. This was despite the soldiers making efforts to dodge the blasts or block it with rocks that Azula's fire outpaceced or throw rocks at Azula which mised.
Azula landed gracefully back to the ground and looked at Bumi. "There are turtle ducks that cannot recognise their own faces in mirrors that have better leadership skills in battle than you."
Azula then looked at the eath kingdom soldiers she rendered unconcious "I've seen logs of firewood that were more resistant to my firebending than that.
I think this day could do with some lightening up." Azula smirked as she began making lightning bolts aimed at the sky.
4 years before Aang got out of the iceberg:
"Your majesty. We beg of you to take care of our daughter who we love more than the ground loves the mountains. We'll provide you with whatever you want of us for her." Toph's father on his bended knee said to Bumi.
Bumi looked at Toph.
"Is she an Earthbender?"
"I...have no idea sire."
"Hmm...well anyway, I accept. All these old faces are boring me." Bumi made a beckoning gesture with his right hand to Toph. Toph's mother just behing Toph gently pushed Toph towards Bumi.
Bumi reached into his right pocket and withdrew a green glowing gem with a pure white shining light eminating inside it's centre.
"Reach out with one of your hands please."
"Why?" Toph's voice was sharp as a knife.
"Because I want you to hold this gem which if you hold in your palm the light inside will tell if you are or are not an earthbender."
"...Ok..."
Toph reached out with her left hand.
Bumi put the gem inside Toph's hand.
The gem didn't stop glowing.
"Ok. Let's see what I can teach you."
Outside the Omashu palace in it's courtyard, present.
ZZZZRRM!RUM!
Azula finished releasing a lighting bolt.
"That's 1,000 bolts.
Oh and uh, for you...well...underfed, impovished peasants good news: see those trucks over there?" Azula pointed to several trucks that were crossing a mechanical, retractable bridge made mostly out of metal and which was stretching to Omashu.
"They're delivering fresh, clean, food and medicine to you for...about 1/4 of the price you had whilst under your last ruler.
Oh and you know those prisoners we got? Yeah your sons, daughters, father, mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, friends...yeah well good news. We've decided to let them go.
When I say "go" I mean: we will let them leave our prisons, but we've poisoned them with chemicals that have corroded their cells causing illness for which there is no permenant cure, not even waterbending with water from the spirit oasis of the northern water tribe can heal it, and we've done the research. They can however survive with regular doses of a medicine which we alone are the providers of.
Of course this medicine will be under guard, and there's a self-destruct failsafe in place.
And being the geniuses that we are, the medicine is mixed with a toxin that can only be deactivated in the medicine by a very careful form of firebending. Too little heat and the toxin remains active, too much heat and it'll destroy the medicinal capabilites.
So don't go getting any ideas." Azula wagged her finger at the earthkingdom citizens mockingly like a nuresmaid telling children not to do something naughty.
Plus we'll ensure that absoloutly no-one who we even so little as suspect is plotting against us, will get the medicine.
And those who are earthbenders, will have needles placed in strategic chi-blocking positions, to stop them from earthbending again. The needles have no earth impurities in them so they can't be moved by earthbenders. They're all booby-trapped with blasting jelly which will detonate if anyone tries to move them in anyway, unless they are defused through firebending. They'll need firenation permission to ever earthbend again.
They'll be paid of course for their services, and be allowed to go free.
More good news btw: you guys get NO taxes." Azula smiled widely and made "thumbs up" signs with her hands.
"Oh and, we'll end homelessness. You want...what? Mansions that are huge with walls made of concrete which will last millenias? Well good news guys: we got concrete with volcanic ash that'll do just that." (AN: that actually is a thing in real life. Google "Roman concrete") "Marble walls? We go that covered. Emeralds? Diamons? Rubies? Saphires? We got it all. You can talk to our guys at the office set up just near the gates for further details. It won't cost you a single copper piece.
Oh and uh, for those of you between the ages 5 and 16: school is 8:00 sharp, till 16 :00, and you'll find arrows with directions to schools for you on the roads...assuming you know how to read. If you don't...you'll learn.
So just to recap: we got rid of a literally poisonous, crazy king, ended taxes, ended homelessness, gave you lot medicine, transport, sanitation, jewlery, food, liberty, employment and education...and what do we want in return? I mean apart from badgermole meat barbeques and some carved bits of architecture which is about as difficult and time consuming for your earthbenders as pouring a cup of tea and won't cost you a copper piece? Peace.
Peace after 100 years of bloodshed.
All in all, I'd say its a pretty good deal. So um...is there...I don't know...a....sand pit or something you guys wanna go into?
Okay people, gotta go now."
Azula let out some fire from her feet and flew to an open window.
Azula marched back to her room and began speaking to Mai and Ty Lee who were already in the room.
"Got bored already?" Azula asked smirkingly.
Mai shrugged. "Nothing we haven't seen before. I get that the peaseants need the message that we're better thoroughly drilled into them, but like I haven't seen you practicing already."
Azula continuied speaking as if she hadn't heard Mai " We in the firenation are like fire, we're bright and beautiful."
As she spoke Azula strethced out both of her hands. Out of her hands quietly came poles of blue fire that covered her left and right sides in flame that curved around her figure perfectly and left her front and back sides visible.
"This nation is a nation of sticks in the mud.
Earth is everywhere on land.
Fire on the other hand struggles to survive. Fire relies more so on the bender to exist, than other benders who rely on the material they are bending to exist.
The need to struggle is what makes firebenders strong, makes them imaginative, resourceful, ambitious, mobile, adventurous, willful.
The firenation has been using advanced science to understand the physical world, especially the human body, and its applicatability to use power for over 100 years. We wouldn't have lasted this long in the war if not for it."
As she spoke Azula's blue fire grew slowly in size and her body began to levitate as blue fire came from out of her feet.
"Think about it:
The Earth kingdom alone has a little over 4 times the land mass of the firenation.
Obviously anywhere on earth earthbenders have the geographical advantage over the firenation.
The firenation is a collection of islands so obviously waterbenders have the geographical advantage over the firenation.
How could we possibly have thrived in 100 years of conflict with almost all the rest of the world if not for superior science?
Besides a few fountains they don't have much automated water transportation, despite having the ability to move rocks for aqueducts for thoushands of years, if you did you wouldn't have food shortages or such smelly towns. We do, we wouldn't have a population size big enough to wage war against the world if we didn't, nor suitable water pipe systems in places like the Pohuai stronghold.
They don't have electric, mechanical pure metal gates which would make this city inaccessible in the event of an earthbending attack. We do.
They don't have automated land-based transport despite the ability to dig for the materials for such machines, we do. And we've used them such as tundra tanks to great military effect as they've learnt.
And even if they didn't have earthbending: they don't have cranes for lifting heavy objects, and so make do with Earthbending chutes, which from the complaints we found lodged in their mail are prone to accidents wherein property gets destroyed. We do have cranes.
If the people of the Earth kingdom are so primitive that they can't stop themselves from breathing and eating literal dirt, then they are obviously in need of better leadership.
Earthbending humans have existed in the earth kingdom for tens of thoushands of years.
Which begs the questions: Why has earthbending not been used to make life in the earth kingdom perfect?
Why not have there be absoloutly no homelessness with earthbenders making all the houses? I passed on my way here a beggar who was obviously homeless.
Why not have absoloutly no roads which aren't well paved? I saw several untidy roads on the way here.
Why not use earthbending to build aqueducts so that there is no food shortage? The earth kingdom wouldn't need to choose between feeding orphans or feeding soldiers if they did."
As Azula spoke her voice got sharper.
"Why not use earthbending to build more roads to Omashu, thus improving transport and reducing ques?
Why not use earthbending to mine more?
The point is, the earthkingdom could be so much better. What explanation for why it isn't is possible, besides the wrong leadership?"
Ty Lee began talking "They've been so busy fighting the firenation for 100 years-"
"Not for tens of thoushands of years."
"Has it occured to you, that the earthbenders of the earthkingdom are so lazy they simply do not want to do those things?" Mai asked
"That's selfish and a waste of ability."
"It's absoloutly selfish, and by our standards yeah it's a waste. But it was their choice."
"Was it? Who did the resouces they'd need to have to do those things belong to?
Obviously the earth kings. Did they give them permission to do those things?"
Mai shrugged "I guess not."
"Would they have done so if they'd given them permission and paid them to do it?"
Willpower and brilliance drives innovation and curiosity. Fire is willpower and brilliance."
As she spoke Azula's blue fire began to stretch 5 small but long lines from the direction of her fingers from each of her hands.
"Other benders however are reliant on the material they are bending to be readily available, making them accustomed to already having instead of processing what they already have in order for the material they are bending to be available.
Also, firebending needs the firebender to process air in order to generate fire from the energy that comes from within the bender. So firebenders on an instinctual level understand the value of processing items, as opposed to merely taking items and moving them.
Our machines, they were made using raw materials out of the ground and then we processed them by using our bending to heat them up to form alloys.
What has the earth kingdom got to compare?
A massive empty canyon.
A massive worthless desert.
A massive city of walls ruled by a spoilt-rotten coward who has spent his entire life from bith inside a palace that's so grandiose and opulent it makes the fire palace look like a shack, and who is so frightened of his own people he feels the need to split them up from each other with massive walls."
As she spoke Azula's fire lines from out of her fingers began to stretch and twsit like tentacles. They moved closer to a map of the earthkingdom on the wall opposite her, and their tips were shaped by an invisible force to form the faces of dragons with teeth and they began to make biting gestures with their teeth in unison with Azula snapping her teeth.
"We will show all the world why we are the greatest."
As Azula spoke she made a circle with her head which made fire appear over her head in the shape of a cicle with spikes pointing upwards.
As Azula was circling her head, she rolled her shoulders back and blue flame encased the top of her shoulders with large curling-upwards, spike-like shapes of fire coming out of the tips of the fire above her shoulders which were facing away from her head.
She also made a circling motion with hips and blue fire covered her body beneath her shoulders like a huge ball gown.
"Yeah, but what you are proposing is not what the people are used to. The people are used to their way of life which, yes is primitive, stinky and stubborn, but it is what they like." Mai pointed out
At that Azula's fire disappeared, she landed on the floor gently and scoffed.
"Oh yes...they like it so much they began bombing the city before I even began to go to the Earth kingdom (!)
Their guards loved their people so much they poured more effort into using earthbending to build impenetrable prisons rather than houses for the poor (!)
I'm sure the people gave the guards heartfelt congratulations for destroying food being delivered to Omashu just because it was outsiders who were trading them (!)
I'm sure the overcrowded, full of noisy smelly people, streets of Omashu caused by lack of expansion of Omashu to other nearby places, was just lovely to them (!)
How did the people like inhaling all that rock dust that they coated the city with?" Azula brushed imaginery dust off her leftcshoulder.
"If it wasn't why did the earth kingdom not have those changes before this war?"
Azula shrugged.
" Yeah. But they will still think you're just a monster Azula." Mai added.
Azula rolled her eyes at that.
"Obviously I'm a monster, but "just"? Oh no." Azula smiled gleefully as she said "monster".
"Even if all this bloodshed, fear and pain is necessary to make earthkingdom technologically better...will the people see it as worth it? Of course not."
"Obviously I am in some ways "VERY selfish", and selfless in other ways. Selfishness isn't the problem, the problem is not enough will to improve the world in a satatistically significant way. Not enough worthiness.
Lack of willpower and cleverness is what is fundamentally wrong with the world, far more so than lack of altruism. The firenation IS willpower and cleverness, that's why this war is for the firenation. This war is like a furnace, the world is being formed into being better, but that is only possbile if the one who is the former is sufficiently skilled."
"Yes but hope that things will eventually get better is really what drives people forward." Ty Lee pointed out.
"Intolerence can be a virtue if it is compatible with constructive objectives. We're only replacing a few individuals. The common people will be better off."
"What is left of the "common people" you mean." Mai said as she looked at one of her knives and smiled.
"We're far more generous with their people than the king ever was.
Who doesn't enjoy feeling powerful? Power is the ultimate means to every end.
If they say "No." to our employment, which I doubt considering it'll be the only way they'll be able to profit off, and use at all, their earthbedning, we'll just use our machinery to make life better in the earthkingdom and get all the more glory."
"What about that inventor? Sai." Mai said.
"What was the alternative? Have him do naught but give weapons to the earth king?"
"According to the records we found, his wife was killed by the firenation and his son was imobilised from the waist down." Mai said.
"Maybe his loved ones were civillians that died under firelord Azulon. Firelord Ozai forbade the deaths of civillians, deeming it cowardly and weak to attack civillians as opposed to enemy forces.
Anyway, he gave us nothing which by itself was of any use. Our spies corrected the flaws in his designs, and improved upon them.
And, a fat lot of good balloons which can easily be popped with blades or burned with fireballs or bashed with rocks are in a war with firebenders and Earthbenders (!) And the balloon was inefficient. Our spies saw this problem and solved it by using firebending to make the upwards thrust strong enough to make a small balloon carry a significant weight. It otherwise would never have worked." (AN: Yeah I'm being picky about the not-physics-friendly stuff in Avatar, but I think it just makes firebending all the more awesome that it is used to make the baloons work, and I like to think that Sai didn't think that firebenders could use firebending to make it work so his treachery was less vile that way).
Plus, Sai's model was slow and not very aerodynamically effective.
Also, it was far louder than our designs.
Sai clearly wasn't all that clever.
But he was clearly clever enough to flee the firenation invasion of Omashu. Unlike the king."
After she spoke Azula entered a
"But now the people of the earthkingdom are resentful of us...Who is to depose your dad?"
"Anyone who does so by agni kai, after being quized by the academic elite on vital matters of economics, technology and laws and passes the quiz and is old enough, and who takes an oath to the flame eternal."
"How many people have tried to depose of daddy deadliest by agni kai?"
And how are you planning on making the earthbenders of the earthkingdom bring about this "perfect" kingdom of yours, now that you've slain so many?"
"More will come and we shall employ them."
"What? Not "enslave"?"
"Of course not, it would be stupid of us. Outside forces would just set them free and they'd revolt against us."
"But you are going to make some earthbenders suffer right?"
"Well we shall deny them earthbending abilities without our supervision obsviously, and we'll need some challanges for glory so we'll use them as sparring partners."
"The earth king is lucky I need him as bait for the Avatar, or else I'd be humilating him myself in an arena in front of his own people."
"How do you make that fire blue?"
"What you're referring to is the ability to generate fire using energy from within our own bodies, and...yes technically the oxygen in the breath interacts with the chi in the firebender's body and a special type of spiritual energy with which firebenders have a connection to. Then when the resulting energy is concentrated outside of the limbs and mixes with oxygen outside the body, our spiritual energy turns inert gaseous atoms into flamable gaseous atoms producing fire.
I...am so talanted a firebender I can make what small amount of fire I can generate, more hot and efficient."
"When fire burns in COMPLETE combustion, it produces shorter wavelengths of light, which the human eye sees as blue. I can't inhale more oxygen, but I can concentrate the energy coming out of my limbs in such a way that it uses more of the oxygen outside of my body making the combustion more complete so my fire has more energy.
It's smaller, but stronger, like a stone that is smaller than others, but is made of atoms which have more sub-atomic particles so their mass is denser, so they're heavier and thus more impactful when used as a projectile because force equals mass multiplied by acceleration, so a steel-head arrow accelerating at the same speed as a limestone-head arrow is going to have more force."
As she spoke Azula smiled with a gleam in her eyes.
Kyoshi Island:
Suki was running through the forest in plain trousers and a t-shirt, not the dress of Avatar Kyoshi.
She stopped for breath.
"Why are you not in uniform?!" came from Suki's left.
Suki turned and saw her mother who was glaring at her.
"It slows me down."
"It's our tradition. It is-"
"An ANTIQUE!!!" Suki shouted. "We've been cowering on this island for 100 years, worshipping a ghost, not innovating, not discovering anything fundamentally new, not changing in anyway...we're like statues. Nice to look at, stalwart, strong...but immobile.
You know, she got her headress and her metal fans from her mother, Jesa, a former airbender who became a greedy criminal whose airbending suffered from her spirit being corrupted by her pursits. And her facepaint: was from her father who was a daofei, an outlaw criminal, which Kyoshi later became a member of.
That's what you've been pressuring me to dress up as: a flatterer of thieves and abandoners of spirituality."
Suki's mother was glaring at her.
"She was-"
"A poser.
I don't want to spend the rest of my life being somebody else! There's no honest dignity in it.
The world needs me."
"You swore an oath to defend this-!"
"MAYBE BEING KIND IS MORE IMPORTANT TO ME THAN BEING HONOURABLE!...If I can't be both. It wouldn't be kind of me to prioritise this tiny and insignificant island above the rest of the world.
What would you want done to you by others if it were you whose home the firenation was invading?! Did you ever think of that?"
"...So you are going to discard the robes you've been wearing for years, leave me, leave your friends-"
"Only those who won't join me."
"And how many of those will that be?"
"However many do so."
"...and your birthplace, just to...attempt to rescue complete strangers and if you are...unsuccesful you could die."
"I wouldn't be a hero if I didn't."
"Is this about the world...or that boy?"
"Both, but I would choose the rest of the world over him if it came to that.
I will find the avatar, his friends and help them end this war.
We've been living in the past for too long.
I must move on."
An enormous arena made of stone:
A huge cyclical building had rows of people in stands that had thoushands of people behind transparant plastic walls with bars on them to ensure that the scene was visible, but not interruptable. In the centre of the arena were two archery circles. In front of the archery circles were 2 people each with bows and arrows. They were standing on a line painted in the floor which had written on them "28 meters".
A man with a speakerphone lifted to his mouth began speaking.
"The firenation is competing in an archry contest with 5 champions from Omashu. If just one of those archers win, the firenation shall leave Omashu. If the firenation wins against all of the archers, the firenation wins the city and the chosen champions will be imprisoned.
The competitors will shoot arrows, one after the other, each taking a turn after the other."
The firenation champion was of course a yu-yan archer.
Azula smirked as she looked down on the arena from a high gallery.
Agna Qe'la:
Splash! Splash! Splash!
Aang was waterbending levitating water to 10 snow statues of firenation soldiers which were being moved about by other waterbenders. Heaps of snow were being thrown at Aang by other waterbenders who were throwing the snow from the ground near the feet of the statues.
"You are doing well Aang. But now we need more speed." Katara said as she began making wave-motions with her hands.
20 Snowballs came from out of the ground near the statues and began being hurled to Aang.
BUSH! PASSH!
Aang used airbending to blast the snowballs away with one hand. The other hand he used for levitating a lump of water that stretched out like a tentacle and destryoed the statues very quickly.
The Omashu arena:
Twhp! Twhp! Twhp! Twhp! Twhp!
Gong!
A gong was hit by the same man with the speakerphone after the last of the challangers to the firenation hit the 2nd middle circle line of the archery circle. The archery circle of the firenation had exclusively arrows in the middle circle.
"After 1,002 shots....The firenation is victorious!"
A huge round of applause from the spectators came, even those dressed in earthkingdom clothes.
Azula walked onto the archery range.
Azula began firing arrows at the archey circle as a firenation soldier carried it from behind and ran back and forth. Another firenation soldier took some metal balls and rolled them on the floor towards Azula, making her move out of their way as she took aim and fired at the targets.
Agna Qe'la:
BASH! "AARR!"
Aang's right hand was smashed by a huge club made of white bone that was swung by a water-tribe warrior.
20 Snowballs came from out of the ground near snow statues in the shape of firenation soldiers and began being hurled to Aang.
Tht! Tht! Tht! Tht! BUSH! PASSH!
4 bamboo sticks with hollow and blunted tips were thrown, without enough force to be wounding, towards Aang.
Aang simultaneously leaned his upper body from the hips upwards in directions to avoid the bamboo sticks, and used airbending to blast the snowballs away with his left hand. Aang moved his left leg in a semi-circle on the floor to leviate some water to his right hand and healed his right hand, whilst his right leg moved in a forcefull sweeping curved line for lveitating some water to smash the statues.
Katara looked on at Aang's waterbending.
"Is this really necessary?"
Yugoda answered Katara's question "Yes. In combat the Avatar must be ready for anything."
A balconey overlooking Omashu:
Azula was standing in another room, which was lavishly decorated and had a balconey overlooking Omashu.
Azula layed down on her bed and inhaled.
The bed was cocooned with a metal cover that had a thermometer which measured the temperature in her body.
She then wound up a wind up lever which let out an electric "Whhiir" and another screen showed a diagram of her body in fine detail: showing the organs, bones, organelles, mineral contents and other aspects of the blood and contents.
"So...how's it going?" Mai asked from the corner.
"My body is being scanned by a thermo-detector and electric microscope. I want to see if I can achieve immortality like Avatar Kyoshi."
"Aaah...okay. But Avatar Kyoshi obviously found immortality to be a real snoozefest." Mai added.
"We'll see how I do with a world to conquer."
BEEP BEEP
The sound came from the microscope device which had appearing on the screens "Data stored."
Azula held took out of the device a glowing piece of metal which had on it the fire nation insignia. held
"The wonders of studying lightning...well actually it's plasma generation, through producing fire so hot and so concentrated it rips electrons off atoms, seperating negative and positive charge, then recombining them to release energy in a form of electricity that resembles lightning.
Now we can use it to encode image data onto tiles.
We've been studying it for centuries.
Now I think its time to practice my firebending for the big day." Azula smirked and left.
"Hello Azula" came from behind Azula.
Azula turned her head to see her...an image of her father formed out of flames that were coming out of a cangle.
"WHO DARES MOCK THE FIRELORD?!" Azula screamed, blue flames coming out of her hands.
"No-one. I have perfected the art of being able to project an image of myself into flames at long distance. I am still in the firenation."
"Prove it!"
"For your 12th birthday, you disguised yourself as a peasant and attended one of those sentimental plays your mother wanted you to see with her." Ozai sneered at the word "sentimental".
Azula relaxed...a little.
"How come I've seen no other firebenders do this?"
"It requires considerable strength and skill to perform.
Also it only works if the firebender doing the projection has a source of fire from precisly the same type as that of the source of the projection in the vicinity.
Furthermore it can only be done when the firebender and the place the projection is, are both in daylight time.
Moreover it can only be done in a time that isn't in winter.
Additionally it can only be done if the source of the fire that the firbender is using for the projection, is in the close vicinity of another firebender.
Plus, it can only be done if the firebender who is doing the projection is just under the beacon from a lighthouse which uses lenses made using material from a volcano in the firenation, made using firebending from the firebender using it, with the light from the lighthouse being pointed in the general direction of the place of the projection.
And it has a limited range. So far it's never been done for any further than 1,000 miles even by the most powerful of firebenders."
"What are you doing here?"
"I heard you captured the earthbending mad king of Omashu.
I want him to duel me in front of firenation soldiers."
"But I need him as bait for the Avatar, spy reports indicate he and the Avatar were friends!"
Ozai frowned
"...Very well.
I'll have to make do with 5 earthbending soldiers from Omashu already in the firenation, with preferably at least 1 of them being of the rank of a lieutenant, preferably all 5 of them being lieutenants. If that is not an option I 'lll get earthbending soldiers of the next highest rank. I'll duel them all at once. I'll put it out that those of higher rank are being used for...questioning. Which I will make true.
Also, I came to share with you a message. Since it is a family matter I think it deserves a personal touch."
Ozai read from a scroll.
" "Father I survived the siege of the northern water tribe and I have the following to report:
The swords used by the blue spirit to free the avatar were NOT mine, merely of the same make as mine. There are MANY in the world who use dao swords, such as the guards in Ba Sing Sei according to the latest reports. I would never lower myself to using dual swords when I am a fire bender.
Zaho explicitly plotted to overthrow you with his soldiers, not by agni kai, but by rebellion. He even tried to persuade me and Unlce Iroh to turn against you and Azula.
Zaho ignored my uncle's warning that destroying the moon spirit would unleash cahos on the world'd waters which would devestate the fire nation as it is a nation of islands.
Also, I wish to make it absoloutly clear that I CAPTURED THE AVATAR using a bounty hunter I hired to track him down and had her deliver him to me. I was in the process of delivering him to you when I was ambushed by Zaho who claimed that I was in defiance of his orders when actually he was in defiance of your orders as he directed my ship away from the trail of the avatar. Furthermore he merely ordered my ship to go in a different course and I took a boat from my ship towards the avatar while my ship went in the direction he sent it in. Additionally he claimed that he would "welcome" my assiatance which he expected but he in fact stole my prize from me. I tried to inform you earlier but I fear Zaho intercepted my messenger hawk, which won't happen now of course that Zaho is dead and I'm sending this message from far away from my boat so none of Zaho's spies can intercept it.
Zaho's incomptenace was boundless. He failed to hold the Avatar at the Pohai stronghold despite having far more soldiers and resources under his command than I did, with the Avatar having only the aid of a non-bender with naught but a few blades. He failed to capture the Avatar At Kyoshi Island despite having far more soldiers, and more time, than I did. I understand that the attack on Agna Quela was meant to be nothing more than a distraction to help you win at Omashu, therefore you would need to sacrificce the incompetent as they're the most disposable, you were wise to sacrifice Zaho as he was clearly the most incompetent admiral I ever met.
You'll be glad to know that I defeated Zaho in an unofficial agni kai on your behalf. It was no easy task bearing in mind that I was wounded before the fight began, I was sleep deprived, Zaho was wearing better armour than me and Zaho was an adult while I am still a teenager.
Of course myslef and Uncle Iroh rejected Zaho's treachery and Zaho was slayed at the North. I'm confident that most, if not all, of Zaho's treacherous conspiritors died at the seige of the north. It seems that the spirits of the fire nation have turned the defeat of the fire nation at the north to be a blessing in disguise as it has rid the navy of traitors to the fire nation, blessing your wisdom father.
Furthermore, I have created improvements to my ship, and 4 others which were salvaged from the north, which have enabled them to fly with magnetic levitation through firebending with a single firebender doing all the work. The designs are in a seperate message." "
"What?" Azula whispered as surprise struck and anxiety crept across her face.
" "I would be honoured if you were to give the task of conquering Ba Sing Sei to my invention." "
Azula's eyes narrowed and her lips curled in spite.
" "I am in pursuit of the Avatar, but bearing in mind that I have more experience than anyone in actually finding and capturing him I must insist that I be not impeded by others. Rest assured father any who stand in the way of my delivering the Avatar to you will be defeated by me.
You were right father, the demands of the world outside the firenation strengthened my spirit.
I should also tell you, that I received a letter which claimed to be from you, saying that my banishment was temporarily lifted for Azula's wedding. Obviously it was a trap from some enemy of the firenation who didn't know 2 things: firstly the minimum age for marriage in the firenation is 20, and secondly both of us know that the only reason I would ever attend Azula's wedding...is so I could rescue whichever poor person my sister would marry." "At that Ozai began chuckling while Azula glared and puffed out fire from her nostrils.
" "Wishing you and Azula blessings.
To the flame eternal. Prince Zuko."
What do you make of that Azula?"
Azula frowned. "I wouldn't invite Zuko to my wedding for any reason other than to serve the seafood! At least he can't fail at that! He couldn't even keep a 12 year old under lock and key!"
"I have heard reports from my forces that... Crown Prince Zuko has indeed created ships that can levitate. Obviously they are far superior to hot air balloons and tundra tanks. I should think that Ba Sing Sei would be vanquished if Zuko were to lead an attack on the city from the air, with a significant enough force.
I am starting to question the wisdom of promoting Zaho, which as I recall was YOUR idea."
Azula's eyes lit up with fear at that.
"Azula if you are going to use pawns to sabotage your brother, at least make sure those pawns can actually do their job." Ozai smirked as he spoke.
Azula glared at him.
"Did you identify the swords used by the blue spirit as Zuko's?"
"No. I spent far too much time concentrating on building myself up to bother with whatever Zuko trained with."
Ozai smiled. He had of course been reading Azula's messages to Zaho. He knew Azula was telling the truth. Zaho had been lying.
"Well since you are seemingly incapable of choosing adequate, loyal subordinate commanding officers, perhaps I should send you to ember island for further education."
"NO!" Azula had terror wobbling her eyes.
"I mean...Look at Zuko: he said it himself the demands of the world outside the firenation strengthened his spirit. I have conquered OMASHU! I swear I'll never make the same mistake with Zaho with any other subordinate commading officers.
Give ME the task of conquering Ba Sing Se!"
"Eventually Azula, eventually." Ozai's voice was that of someone soothing a hissing cat.
"Why not now?"
"We're not ready.
By the way, Sozin's comet for reasons unknown has been delayed by 5 years as far as I can tell. But the fire sages and I are performing a ritual that will render the comet incapable of being delayed any further. Our aim is to have it come during a Summer, the optimal season for firebending, to maximise our powers.
As for Omashu...Azula, get a notepad. You'll want to take notes of this."
Azula went to a nearby desk and took a notepad.
Agna Qe'la 17 days after it's seige:
"Darn."
Aang looked in a bucket of water and saw his black hair reflected.
"This is what you get when you go for too long without a shaving blade." Aang said to himself.
"Also...what happened to your voice?" Katara asked.
"I don't...know." Aang's voice was deeper and his body was taller.
"Maybe I am having a growth spurt?"
"Or...the iceberg delayed your growth and your body is now catching up."
"Are you calling me old young girl?" Aang put on a mock old-man accent as he made silly mock-grumpy faces.
"Ha. Seriously Aang what if you...you know...die of old age before you master all 4 elements?"
"With Pakku as my teacher I just might(!)"
"Ha!"
"How's Sokka?"
Katara's face fell at that.
"He's been...hunting a lot.
I think he's upset about the fact that he's not a bender meant that he couldn't do more to save people at Agna Q'ela."
"Hmm.
Why is it do you think that some people are benders and others are not? Except for the air nomads.
I mean...there is literally no sky byson who isn't an airbender, nor was their any air nomad who wasn't an airbender. There's no badger mole who isn't an earthbender. There's no dragon who ever couldn't firebend.
Why is it not the same for humans who aren't airbenders?"
"...I have no idea to be honest.
Some believe that the spirits choose who does and doesn't become a bender for reasons known only to themselves."
"If so then they're doing a VERY bad job of choosing who is an isn't a bender right now. IF ONLY they'd take away the firenation's benders." Aang glared at the floor as he spoke.
"Some think that there is something in our biology that determins who is and isn't a bender.
Some think that the cosmos has some sort of mechanism in it that rotates in an unforseeably changing pattern except for the geographic culture of the people choosing who is and who isn't a bender.
But really I do not know why. It just evidently is."
"Is there any specifc type of food or drink that enhances or weakens your bending?"
"Not to my knowledge.
But even if it were to be known what it is that gives some people bending and not others...what use would that knowledge have?"
"Well...I've been thinking...what if we could make Sokka a waterbender?"
"What?"
"Well think about it: waterbending has healing abilites. Airbending has no healing abilities...that I know of. Niether does firebending, nor eathbending."
If we could make people waterbenders then they could heal people, and maybe the firenation would stop seeing waterbenders as people to be destroyed and instead see them as people who should be treated with respect."
Katara smiled hesitantly at Aang.
"That would be lovely Aang, but I doubt that will actually happen anytime soon, and it might not happen at all."
"Maybe. But things change Katara."
"Speaking of change...Aang." Katara flinched as she spoke. "How are you planning on...re-populating the air nomads?"
"Oh, I'll just use the birthing cradles."
"...The...what?"
"Air benders were born through, either men or women, donating some stem cells, and putting them in small pots which contained cells which were alive, under advanced super-resoloution microscopy-" At that Katara looked at him in complete bafflement. " (That's a bit complicated, you don't want to be bored with the details) with the stem cells formed into cells for fertilization through a form of airbending, the genes are recombined the to make new organisms, making them suitable for artificial...fertilization." (AN: this has actually been done IRL in Japan, with mice, and there is serious talk about doing it with humans.)
Katara kept looking at him with her mouth slightly open.
"Artificial pregnancy." Aang said.
"OH!...So..." Relaization dawned on Katara.
"So, people could be born without men or women needing to go through the...painful process of...odinary pregnancy." Aang said.
"But...that couldn't have been how it was since the begginning. How did people...reporduce before that technique?"
"Oh it wasn't nasty or anything. We didn't have arranged marriage or anything like that.
There were specific places and some social events that let the monks and nuns...mate. But we didn't have marriage or anything. The air nomads believed in free spiritualism. There was often polyamorous relationships, not attachments to specific individuals.
Also we...well...you've seen the southern air temple. Contrary to the...impressions on some maps...the air temples are...actually very small compared to other nations.
And...the air temples...well geographically its actually, except for the western air temple, mountains...were...not exactly the...best of places for growing food.
So...the airnomads regularly took some...potions to make us at least temprarily...incapable of impregnation through sex, so as to keep our population number...balanced.
I...am given to understand that other cultures are more...conservative than that?"
"Well...I mean...some people tend to have...possessive instincts when it comes to relationships."
"You mean jealousy and lust?"
"...Yeah."
"The airnomads teach that life is to be respected, not bound. Through binding others to ourselves we are denying our spirit, and theirs, freedom."
"So...how did men and women...socialize in the air nation?"
At that Aang looked down and blushed.
"Well...I mean...sexual relationships were considered...okay...at least between adults in seclusion. But...it was discouraged for airbenders to make big deals out of them because the main principle of being an airbender is to detatch yourself from...distractions from spirituality.
In the air temples it was...because there were loads of children and teenagers there...considered...indecent for adults to...socialize...physically intimatly, near the temples, except in their rooms which were all soundproofed for...obvious reasons.
But there was...rarely...mating between airbenders and non airbenders.
The main reason as to why exclusively airbenders lived permenantly in the air temples, whilest non-benders only at most temporarily visited, is...the atmopshere in the temples is...made differently to the atmopshere of other places, and airbenders oviously can regulate their breath better than others.
Also it's been observed that airnomads under microscopes have...mitochondria which is...better than everyone else's and more..open blood pathways in their bodies, making it easier for their bodies to cope with thin atmopsheres." (AN: in real life there actually are some people called the sherpa people, who live in the himalayas who do have bodies better evolved for thin atmopsheres in mountains, through their mitochondria and their blood paths being more open).
"So...nonbenders who lived for long periods in the temples often got...unhealthy.
Whenever firebenders came to the temples, their fire was much...weaker than normal because of the air." (AN: Yeah, I put that in there. I had to come up with some explanation as to why the firebenders were...honestly...kinda disappointing in the comet in Netflix. They were no where near as impressive as in the cartoon.)
"Also...well...you've seen me with my airbending. I accidentally almost killed you and Sokka in a fit of rage. During my airbending training I once almost accidentally killed some of my fellow students due to underestimating my own bending strength.
Other airbenders can sometimes cope with such accidents through using their airbending to cushion their landings or counteract items being thrown in their direction with airbending, even by accident.
But non-airbenders...lets just say that there have been...very few...incidents where airbenders have...gotten...physcially intimate with people who weren't airbenders.
Airbending is in a lot of ways a very dangerous bending because, unlike water or earth which are heavy elements requiring concious concentration of energy to move, air is the lightest of elements and thus the easiest to move, therefore it is much easier for...accidents to happen." As he spoke Katara remembered vividly the experience of her and Sokka desperatly clinging on as Aang in the Avatar state almost blew them off a mountain.
"But there must've been some...interactions between men and women in the air nomads."
Aang flinched.
"Yes but...they only came about in adulthood.
Males and females were...well not treated differently like how they are in the northern water tribe, on the contrary the nomads believed firmly in respect, equally and dignity between the sexes...but...well...I mean" Aang's eyes were desperately darting around looking anywhere that wasn't Katara's face.
"...you've seen me with my airbending and you've seen the southern air temple. The air nomads were the only people to ever be made exclusivley out of benders, although non-benders were allowed to visist. And the airbenders lived in very tight-knit communities.
So...accidents happened...especially during instances when airbenders were...emotional or distracted in some way.
Going through puberty as an airbender is...usually...full of...emotional difficulties. Which often lead to...accidents." Aang winced as he spoke. "Males and females...especially when both of them were...young or...blooming...were...well...not always, but...VERY often...somewhat...distracting influences on each other, which could often lead to...accidents.
One of my friends, Monil, once practiced airbending outside of the air temple, in the firenation, and a girl smiled and waved at him whilst he was practicing his airbending...he was...fascinated by her and he...fell and broke his ankle."
Katara processed this, her face voiclessly screamed that she was imagining Aang accidentally falling down and hurting himself with his airbending because he was distracted by a women smiling at him.
"So the Southern and Northern air temples were where traditionally males trained and studied, and the western and eastern air temples were traditionally where women trained and studied. Young males and young females were allowed to go to other temples for reasons other than training and studying, but that was...not often."
Katara took a few seconds to process what Aang was saying.
"Older women and older men were allowed to go to and from the air temples okay, and males and females were allowed to...visit each other, normally for celebrations or sporting events or pilgrimages, and sometimes men and women would go to air temples normally reserved for the opposite sex for special reasons. But for the most part young airnomads males and females to studied and trained apart.
EQUALLY!" Aang shouted. "Respectfully, equally and freely. But apart. Like how in some cultures men and women have separate bathrooms, or compete separately in some sports.
Males and females were however allowed to socialize with each other after they'd reached a certain level of...discilpline.
The air nomads didn't beleive in social divisions like how in the other nations people were divided on the basis of stuff like money, or biological family. On the contrary they encouraged everyone to see others as their spiritual family.
But the relationship between the biological parents and their children was...different to other nations. The air nomads believed that parents and children getting too emotionally attatched to each other had the very serious danger of leading to...accidents. So we were given to monks to raise us in communities."
"Oh...um...okay."
"But the point is: obviously now that I am the last airbender...I can't have kids and then pass them onto a monk to raise in communities. There's going to need to be change. DRASTIC change.
If I am to repopulate the air nation...I'm obviously going to need...help.
Sexual reproduction can be done fine, but raising children, and many children at that...I mean...I am the avatar. I obviously am going to have other duties. So I can't do it alone.
So...any ideas?" Aang asked cheerfully.
Katra was looking at him with her mouth hanging slightly open and her eyes went from place to place.
"Umm...I mean...I can't think of any specifc person who would...I mean...Look Aang...you can't just go up to random people and say to them "Would you like to be a nanny for my kids?""
"Why not?"
"Because...I get that you mean no disrespect and all, but...to someone who didn't know you very well...it could be misinterpreted that you only view the person as simply a person for nannying children as opposed to an individual to be respected, admired and appreciated for their individuality. People like to feel respected, admired and appreciated, treated with delicacy."
"Okay so...what would be a good way to...you know...respectfully ask someone to..."nanny" my children?"
"Well...I mean...I-I'm sure there are orphanages that could look after your kids."
"Even though they're airbenders and before I came out of that iceberg, no-one' seen an airbender for 100 years?"
"Well...I mean..."
"Katara...I don't want to burden anyone, but...do you think...the northern water-tribe...could?"
"No!" Aang jumped at Katara's shout.
"Think about it Aang. If young airbenders who could accidentally blow people into the water, were to be in the northern water tribe, or the southern water-tribe for that matter. The freezing cold water could...damage the body. If they're not out of the water quickly enough, or healed quickly enough the frost bite, or hyperthermia, or puenomia...could...
I mean...to be honest Aang, I'm kinda glad that my waterbending needs me to make a concious effort of directing my feelings. Imagine, if I was an accident-prone waterbender? Imagine if I'd accidentally splashed Sokka with cold water? Imagine if waterbenders in the north accidentally waterbent in such a way that it literally brought the house down?"
"OK.
By the way...I have been thinking. You know how we can use waterbending for healing?
What if we could use it for...you know...changing appearance?"
"Like what?"
"Like..."
Aang slowly traced a few lines along his face and the skin around his cheek, nose and ears expanded in some areas and twisted in others.
"Ooohh...great." Katara smiled, shyly.
"Is there a problem?" Aang asked.
"No. It's just...I mean...honestly it feels more like you are my waterbending teacher than the other way around."
"That's not going to make me think any worse of you."
"Yeah and you're a really great person for that. But..." Katara got up and made to the door. "I need to have a word with Yugoda I'll be back soon."
Yugoda's healing hut:
"You're healing skills are improving Katara." Yugoda said.
"Thanks...Um.....Yugoda I...well...I mean...is it possible to...use the healing water abilities to...you know...effect...aging?" Katara asked nervously.
"Well...there have been some records of people using waterbending to...fix the nuclei of individual cells in such a way that the proteins produced are more...youthfull. But that would require at least one of the cells in the specific organ being processed to be under a literal miscroscope, a full moon, the practictioner to have a very precise diet including at least 2 litres of water from the spirit water in the northern water tribe, a tea made of the leaves of a moonflower, the waterbender would need to be very powerful and skilled. Also the delaying of old age lasted only 4 decades. And the person would need to eat a diet of fish, blueberries, cabbages, nuts and olive oil for life.
And there were...side effects." Yugoda looked away.
"What side effects?" Katara asked.
"1: Insomnia during the full moon.
2: Increaed need for water to drink.
3: Hair loss.
4: Bloodshot eyes.
But by far the biggest reason as to why few even try it, is because...unsuccesful attempts have...damaged the body."
"What damages?"
"Some have broken bones. Some have painful cuts. Some vomit. Some experience hallucinations."
"Has...an avatar ever...mastered this technique?"
"Yes, Avatar Kuruk."
"What about...Avatar Kyoshi?"
"...She mastered a...different technique."
"What technique?"
"An advanced meditation technique that basically is designed to put the body back together after it has been deteiriorating.
However it also had...a side effect."
"Which was?"
"Stagnation. Not only physical stagnation, also psychological stagnation...Kyoshi's personality after she mastered the technique became...stale. It was ironic: she was so talanted a bender, yet so unbending herself." Yugoda looked at Katara sadly at first, then smiled warmly.
"Things move on my dear, they have to. Or else nothing gets started at all.
You see the paved road beneath our feet?"
Katara looked down on the paved slabs underneath them.
"It was made using rocks from a mountain which was cut down. If it hadn't the ice beneath the rock would have just gotten into our clothing and bothered us.
Things which remain immobile become purposeless."
In the courtyard of the stronghold in capital city:
FUUSH!
"ARRRGGH!"
BHUN!
5 small pieces of fire shot out of Ozai's bodyaway. 1 came from each of his hands from the tips of his middle and for fingers being pointed and pressed together. 1 came from each of his pointed shoe tips. 1 came from his mouth.
The fire pieces flew threw the air very fast and grew in size as they did and hit the earthbenders who were 10 feet away from Ozai.
Ozai raised his right hand infront of his face and cupped his palm so that he could see all the earthbenders. As he did so the fire they'd been hit with grew and killed them in 2 seconds.
Ozai turned to his audience which consisted of dozens of military and civllian people.
"The Earth kingdom is now like a piece of coal in a fire. It is weakening, crumbling. Soon it will be ash which we shall use as nutrients for our flowers of future fortunes."
A square in Omashu:
FusSSh!
Bhng!
A shirtless firebender had throwin a fireball which exploded near the face of a man in green attire. The two men were in a metal cage with thin metal nets supported by corner pillars for walls. The floor was metal plated, except for 5 squre meters of thin rocks on one side.
The man in the green attire was sent against the wall behind him and
Azula, Mai and Ty Lee looked down from a nearby balconey to see the fight.
"Boring." Mai muttered.
"Of course, that earthbender never stood a chance." Azula replied.
"Still it's good for the public image: the people of Omashu see the supremacy of the fire nation."
"Yeah but the firebender got all the advantages. I gave him acupunture to improve his chi circulation, thus improving his bending power. Ty Lee also gave him massages to improve his chi circulation."
Ty Lee looked at the firebender with a fond smile.
"He had a steam bath to improve his chi circulation, he meditated with candles for an hour, and the best food and drink for firebending possible.
The earthbender had no such advanatages."
"Yeah but all that was done without the peasants' knowledge." Azula pointed out.
"It is daytime so the firebender's powers are better."
"It's still glorious." Azula answered back .
"These earthbenders are not actually from Omashu they were sent from other places. Why them?"
"For the same reason we're only aiming to knock them unconcious with a few burns and broken bones: because we don't want them made martyrs of, we just want them humiliated. They have no family in Omashu.
They're also slightly drugged the earthbender's food. Not enough to taste or smell or be seen, or even felt, but only enough to slightly decrease his chi."
Azula went inside the room she'd made hers and went onto a bed.
"Omashu will of course need a governor. One whose loyalty can be relied upon, and who isn't so hated by the Earth Kingdom so as to pose any significant threat to his or her position.
My orders are:
We can't make slaves out of the Earth kingdom citizens, that'd make martyrs out of them, and the enemy would just free them and they'd rally around their liberator, probably the avatar.
But we should nevertheless firmly establish that we are the ones in charge, and deservedly."
"Is that why you threw a fireworks party?" Mai asked.
"Of course.
Now to host military parades." Azula walked to the door as she spoke.
Her, Mai and Ty Lee appeared on a higer balconey and saw thoushands of firenation soldiers marched throuh Omashu.
Firebenders with small candles on their armours to enhance their firebending, used firebending to generate fires with blasts to come under the steel boots of non-benders, who'd their feet insutated by leather and rubber. The non-benders flew above the highest point of Omashu. There were 2 nonbenders for each firebender. Have the brandish weapons in the air. 1,000 soldiers in total flew above the highest point of Omashu.
"Magnificient propaganda isn't it?
"How's that hunt for the terrorists coming along?" Azula asked.
"Fine. None of them are reported as bending so they can't earthbend tunnels to escape, but they could ould have earthbending allies." Mai responded.
"Once we capture them I'll trick them into confessing in a cage with curtains in front of the public, then I'll burn them."
Rurururururururururu
"Ah. There it goes." Azula smiled as she and the others turned to the right.
A massive aceduct made of marble was being built by earthbenders, with fireblades held close to their necks.
"And this is only the beginning.
They'll also build additional roads into and out of Omashu, showers, steam baths, for the general public, in large amounts throughout Omashu, and to earthbending to expand Omashu. We'll give the common people, cheaply priced of course, mansions to live in. Also build waterpumps, and see to it that they're well supplied with clean water for the public use. And libraries and schools made of marble."
"Where'd they get all the marble to do that?"
Azula smirked.
"Look over there." She pointed at another public square.
Firebenders were taking pieces of rock from baskets and using firebending to form marble and crystals such as diamond, sapphires, rubies, emeralds and amethyst.
"It's a technique taught to me by the dragon of the tea-pot." Azula smiled fondly as she spoke.
"Your uncle must be rich." Ty Lee said.
"Not very. Thanks to the abundance of gems, they've lost their value.
We've already decorated the walls and streets of the city with those jewls at least the size of a satsuma in the numbers of tens of thoushands, on the sides of the walls facing away from direct sunlight of course."
"What if they decide to revolt?" Mai asked.
"Why would they? We've given them the best employment ever. We've improved the architecture tremendously. We've stopped them from being taxed.
We distribute public medicine to the local population.
We've open trade routes from the firenation and the colonies to Omashu.
We've decorated Omashu with flowers that both look beautiful, and smell lovely."
"We killed many of their loved ones."
" "Their loved ones" were in support of a lunatic who taxed the people, who destroyed private property on a whim, who was so incompetent he couldn't build houses nor provide any more than 1 road from Omashu for trade, nor provide aceducts for the poor despite having earthbenders under his command. That's made that clear to them.
We've put posters and leaflets out in Omashu for all to see, making it very clear that the mad king of Omashu was so incompetent and corrupt a leader, that he didn't do any of the great things for Omashu that we did when he was king. We the firenation in 1 day, did better in ruling Omashu then the Earth kings did in at least a whole century. We are gardeners uprooting the weeds to have them replaced with better plans for the whole world to bask in their brilliance.
I'm to perform feats of lightning in public, with at least 1,000 members of the public seeing me do it fast and powerful, 10 times.
And of course, decorate Omashu with flaming torches.
Have the people have a lawyer as a leader, who will be in charge of crimes and punishment for the common citizen. That leader will be restricted by the firenation of course, with the governor of our chosing keeping the leader in line.
Take from the caves of Omashu the glowing crystals our spies reported being there.
Use the building of pipe system in Omashu as a cover for the extraction of the glowing crystals. As I understand it the hygine of Omshu is...lacking.
Don't tax the people of Omashu anything. I should think that the people of Omashu would be happy to live without taxes.
Get all those who collected taxes whilst Bumi was in power killed by mummification using the paperwork of the taxes they collected to mummify them. Have it done in public after a public trial.
House 1,000 soldiers in Omashu to be garrisoned at various places surrounded by the local population. Have their houses be built on pillars above the houses of the Earth Kingdom citizens. That way we need not ruin their houses, so as not to anger them, but we firmly establish by symbolism that we are above them.
The Eath kinhdom citizens will be human shields." Azula smiled.
"The Avatar might try to free Earth King Bumi. I'll have him, discreetly, moved and have a literal puppet that looks like him from a distance be placed in Omashu, have the guards and meal provdiders think he's there. I'll be sending by messenger hawk the plans for a system that I think will prove to the advantage of capturing the Avatar."
"What if the Avatar doesn't come?"
"I have a secondary plan for that.
For now...time for some serious theatrics."
A few minutes later in Omashu's town square.
Azula was riding an ostritch horse through the city when-
THUNT! THUNT! Thwp! Thwp! Thwp!
"AAWWWGHHH!"
2 huge spears with rocks tied to the middle of the sticks of the spears, went flying through the air towards Azula and struck her in her chest. 3 arrows went flying through the air to Azula and hit her, 1 in her left leg, and 2 in her abdomen. The ostirtch horse was terrified and screaming.
Fwwwssh! THUSH! THUSH! THUSH! THUSH!
Azula clenched her teeth and used firebending to propel herself upwards 10 meters by fire that came out of her right foot. Then she used her left hand to fire jets of blue fire out of her 4 non-thumb fingers to destroy more arrows that were being fired at her.
Azula put her right hand on the spear that hit her in her heart and steam came out of her pierced armour. She pulled the spear out of her chest she dropped it on the ground, then put her hand over her heart wound and sthe wound sealed up using flameless firebending to fuse the flesh back together. She then repeated the procedure on the other wounds she sustained.
Azula went back to the ground and looked at the crowd of onlookers
Azula picked up the spears and arrows and took a sniff of them.
"Poison." Azula smirked.
Azula breathed out some smoke. Then she scoffed. "Not the hardest poison I had to de-toxicfy my body from."
She outstrethced her arms in a yoga pose.
"Who else wants a go?" Azula asked.
"THE AVATAR WILL!" A random person shouted.
Azula smirked and borught her right hand closer to her face and produced a huge blue flame that grew so tall it's heihgt reacehd the height of her hair.
"Well I hope he knows it's rude to keep a girl waiting." Azula smiled at her joke.
Fussssssh!
Azula's feet let out blue flames that took her back to the Omashu palace.
Mai and Ty Lee were waiting for her.
"How did it go?" Mai asked.
"Ok. That firebending on the inside of the spears to make them move by propullsion was genius, as was the automated firing of the arrows. Bravo Ty Lee." Azula smiled at Ty Lee who blushed.
"So...now the Earth kingdom peseants will gossip about the invincible princess of the firenation who cannot be poisoned, nor killed by a stab to the heart." Azula chuckled. "They'll probably joke that I have no heart to stab. Ha!" Azula grinned predatorily.
Agna Q'ela:
Sokka was looking at the full moon.
"Hi Sokka."
Sokka jumped and spun around.
A silver fox with 3 tails looked at him.
"Well, all I can say is I hope wherever I've fallen asleep the nearby food is good."
"Ha! Good to see that me becoming one with the moon spirit hasn't hurt your sense of humour."
"...So...this is...real?"
"This is a real projection of me from the moon to here. And I'm here Sokka not just to reasure you that I'm really fine, Me and Tui have been getting along really well, I'm here to help you."
"How?"
"I know how to make you a waterbender."
"...Wait...how?"
"You might wanna sit down for this it's...rather complicated."
"Okay...yeah I can do "complicated" as long as it's explained to me very well."
"Okay. Basically to be a waterbender you don't just need to have the right spirituality, you also need to have the right psychological and physiological connection to the moon. You see how waterbending works, technically, is that the gravitational pull of the moon effects the water of the world in such a way that the water is bendable. The human body is mostly water, so of course the human mind has a connection to specifically water. And the moon effects, randomly, the water in the bodies of people when they're born in such a way that they become waterbenders.
However, if you can establish a strong psychic and spiritual link to the moon by artificial means, you can become a waterbender despite not being born one.
But...the technique to do so is...challanging."
" "Challangeing" how?"
"Well for one thing you will need to...digest a rock that came from the moon. Those are very rare.
For another thing you will need to drink at least 4 liters of water from the spirit Oasis and then bathe, fully...unclothed, in the spirit oasis.
Then you will need to hunt a sea serpent and eat it's brain, personally.
You will also need to drink a tea made from leaves you personally plucked during a full moon.
And the most important part of this ritual, is that you will need certain objects, preferably metal, with which you will have to chisel by yourself a perfect model of the moon from rock and have it facing a full moon, then paint the face with your blood, before washing the blood off with water from the spirit Oasis.
The waterbending you will get however, will NOT be a type that can be done with only your bare hands at any time. You will need to use those objects that you chisel the moon replica to direct the water you are bending. And the only time you can waterbend is when either you are using the water to self-heal, or during any type of moon from half to full.
It won't even be properly you who is doing the waterbending, it will be me. You will serve as merely the guide for me, not the actual waterbender.
However during the full moon, I can use my powers to bless you in such a way that you cannot even be so little as scraped during the full moon, unless by your will."
"...Okay...umm...why didn't you get Hahn to be the...intermideiarty waterbender?"
"Because it can only be done by the moon spirit's...love. I wasn't the moon spirit at the time and I never loved Hahn as much as I loved...you."
Sokka looked down.
"Ok you keep this up, I am liable to choke on the tears of joy."
"Ha.
Look Sokka...I will always be up in the sky watching over. But...I cannot be with you in the way you want me to be.
So...please...do yourself a favour. Move on from me."
On Appa:
Sokka looked down onto the sea.
"There's a sea serpent right about...there!" Katara pointed to a spot on the oceans.
Sokka took a hunting spear and threw it.
The spear hit the water but didn't sink.
The water under the spear began to shake intensely. Sokka pulled on Appa's reins and Appa flew upwards, pulling the spear by the rope tied to it's rear on one end and Appa's saddle on the other, up.
A huge green snake's head came out of the water as Appa groaned from the weight of the sea serpent.
On the ground of the northern water tribe:
Sokka was looking at a huge brain roasting on a spit.
"It smells so...smart." Sokka was licking his lips at it as he rubbed circles over his belly.
Sokka then sprinkled moondust onto a cup of tea and drank it.
"You are SOO going to get hiccups and potty breaks if you drink 4 litres of water in one day." Katara teased as Sokka put a metal fork into the meat and took a slice. Sokka just shruged as he chewed his food.
"Worth it."
In a hutt in Agna Q'ela at night:
"You are doing well Aang." Avatar Kuruk spoke to Aang as he went through the motions of waterbending whilest meditating, without any actual bending.
"But now you need to learn Earthbending."
"Okay Avatar Kuruk. Thank you." Aang bowed and came out of the spirit world.
"Hey Sokka! How'd it go?" Aang asked.
"Ok. I am now a BOOMERANG BENDER!" Sokka cried out as he swung his boomerang in the direction of some nearby ice. The ice melted into water instantlty.
There was a soft giggle on the winds that everyone hear, which had Yue's voice to ir.
"Okay guys time to go to the Earth Kingdom. But-." Aang's face lit up with glee. "Oh...Oh...I've just had an AWESOME idea."
7 years before Aang got out of the ice:
Bumi was leading Toph to the centre of the arena he will later fight Aang in.
"Here you go kid." Bumi handed Toph a piece of bread to eat.
Toph ate it.
"Urgh!" Toph cried as she began cluthichng her arms and legs as if she had pins and needles.
"What you just ate was bread laced with tiny, harmless really, crystals made from the fossilized remains of badgermoles. They can give the power of earthbending ot a non-bender who was born in the earth kingdom.
The process doesn't last long, but it can be...painful.
Sorry I lied earlier about the glowing crystal. That crystal has no ability whatsoever to determine if someone is or isn't a bender, other than through someone bending it of course."
"Why don't you give those crystals to others?" Toph asked.
"There's a VERY little amount of them, and I don't want the wrong hands having such power. The earthbending capabilities of those whose powers come from the crystals are 5 times stronger than the average born bender.
Being so young I can ensure that you grow up uncorrupted.
And there are ways earthbending can be used to grant sight to the blind. So your need is more so than others.
But also...the most pressing need for earthbending right now is obviously in conflict with the firenation. No doubt you want revenge agains the firenation for what they did to you. So you can be trusted to use your powers to fight them."
"It would be selfish and pathetic of me to not use earthbending to fight the firenation, wether they blinded me or not." Toph replied.
On Appa:
"Aang...are you sure Avatar Kuruk is...okay with this?" Katara asked.
Aang had used waterbending to get the statue of Avatar Kuruk onto Appa's saddle.
"I'll ask him...hope the ice I used to hold the statue up didn't get into his joints."
Aang meditated into the spirit world.
"Oh very funny (!)" Avatar Kuruk said to Aang.
"What?"
"You don't actually need to be near a statue of me, or any Avater to communicate with us, except for the first...few times. Because the statues help to strengthen the connection making it easier for communication. And...when there isn't a physical connection to your past lives near, or when the barriers between worlds are not thin like on an ice moon, or a solstice, or if you are in the spirt world through something like a point of extreme spiritual energy like in Hei Bei's forest....you can communicate with us, but ony temporarily, and the further down the history, the harder it is for you to communicate with our pasts."
"What about having one of my past Avatars...take the wheel on the Avatar State?"
"Well for...that...yes you would need some sort of item which has a connection of some distinguishing kind related to the avatar you want to contact.
But I already told you I can't control the Avatar State any more than you can.
And for a past avatar to..."take the wheel" would require the body of the current avatar to be in the nation that past avatar was born into."
"You mastered all 4 elements right? So you CAN teach me Earthbending. All the other Earthbenders obviously have a war to fight I can't expect them to do that AND train me at the same time. It's not like the past Avatar's have anything better to do than teach me. Why not have the predecessor avatar's teach me to Earthbend?
And for that matter: why not firebend? Obviously it's...VERY Unlikely I'll find a firebender in the firenation willing to teach me firebending."
"It doesn't work that way: You can't bend in the spirit world and past avatars can only appear to you whilest you aren't meditating in the spirit world during events like an ice moon which don't last very long."
"You bent in the spirit world."
"Yes but I don't have a physical body and I can only do it when I'm communicating with someone. I can't bend matter in the physical world except through the body of the current avatar, and that's only when I am in the nation that I was born into and when within a...700 meter range of a statue of me.
"But you can show me right? Then I could take what you show me in the spirit world and practice it in the natural world."
"Well...technically yes. But..."
"What?"
"Honetly Aang I spent so much of my life fighting in the spirit world where, as you have discovered, I couldn't bend...I..." Kuruk lookded away in shame. "I forgot how to Earthbend."
"So which Avatar could teach me how to Earthbend?"
"Kyoshi probably would be best. She...struggled at first, but learnt Earthbending so advanced she lived for 230 years and bent glass, and bent Kyoshi Island from the mainland Earth kingdom."
"You...forgot?"
"Being a past Avatar spirit, isn't like being a living human. After our minds leave our bodies when we die, our minds merge with spiritual energies which can be...especially for those who spent...A LOT of time in the spirit world, and I spent ALMOST ALL my time in the spirit world, and as I made clear to you both my body and soul were damaged from the battles I fought...our minds become...different, filled with different sensations, different notions, more...instinctual and metaphorical awareness rather than detailed awareness.
I can teach you the side of Earthbending that is to do with spirituality. But the...specific details of the physical movements of Earthbending...for that you'd need a better teacher.
"Okay. So...do I need to go back to Kyoshi Island to-"
"No. Avatar Kyoshi was...perhaps the most revered of all the Avatars. She has many shrines all over the world, and her legacy is not just Kyoshi Island, she made quiet an impression at Ba Sing Sei...not that she'd be particularly proud of what's become of her legacy."
"Why what's happened?" Aang asked.
"Aang...spiritual awareness of the physical world is...it's not like having a map that shows you all the details, it's like having a living body and having nothing but your nerves to sense things that are right or wrong. You can sense the pain, but not always the cause nor the precise details.
What I sense is that Kyoshi's fighitingforce on Ba Sing Sei have a lot of...fear and secrecy. I'm sorry but I can't be more clear than that.
But onto other matters: there's an island calleg "Grey Peaks Island where there's a secrect shrine to her in the 3rd mountain to the North. You can access it by waterbending from a tunnel in the island's base below the waterline. Past Avatars left behind many shrines to themselves so as to be able to contact their successors."
"Okay. Umm...Kyoshi showed me a vision of a future that was certain. Can you or her do so again so that next time I can be ready?"
"That...isn't..." Kuruk looked down awkwardly.
"What happened was...it's-...welll.
The avatar spirit, has a very...special connection with peace and light. I can't fully explain it, its from something that happened...VERY long ago, something to do with the past of the Avatar cycle.
Maybe the very first Avatar.
Anyway it's from so far back into the Avatar's past that I can't personally access that knowledge without something like a harmonic convergence, or help from another spirit who was alive at that time.
A thing about the Avatar cycle is: the more recent the past avatar incarnation, the easier it is for the current Avatar's incarnation to connect with the past incarnation. Past Avatar incarnations who come from the same culture as the current Avatar incarnation are also usually easier for the current Avatar to connect to.
So something that happened a VERY long time ago in the avatar cycle, isn't easy, maybe in some conditions not even possible, to do.
Anyway this thing that's connected to us, the Avatar spirit is of peace, so it can sense in the mortal world motions for plans for war that are...well not literally inevitable, but IMMENSLY probable.
I'll admit there has been some...hyperbole about the Avatar that has been mistaken for literal fact.
Of the last 3 Avatars before you, that is to say me: the most recent avatar born in a water tibe, Kyoshi: the most recent avatar born in the Earth kingdom, Roku: the most recent Avatar born in a firenation, and, before you of course being the most recent avatar born, Avatar Yanchen was born in an air temple, completing a full turn of the Avatar cycle before your birth....Kyoshi was the avatar who was the most...involved with warfare in the mortal world. So her spirit, now detatched from her now dead body, and thus fully intune with the spirit world, was able to be the most in tune with the detection of the planned violence of the firenation.
However!" Kuruk growled with annoyance drawn all over his face. "Do not mistake this for omniscience. It takes...A LOT of physical motion for the spirt to detect the movement, so motion designed for violence on a scale smaller than the attack at Agna Q'ela isn't detectable, and the details of the plan are not fully known through the big motion alone."
"WHAT?! But...Yue! She's-!"
" Yes...well actually I can sense her spirit is the moon spirit now. She's not dead in the same way that...Hahn for example is.
And the detection of the motion is not in such a way that all the details are precisly known.
It's like seeing a shoe from a distance: you can vagurly see the colour, the shape and clearly see the direction the shoe is pointing in, but without close inspection and the right measuring tools you cannot tell what the precise details such as the exact dimensions, the materials, or the sings of wear and tear of the shoe are.
No here's a better simile: it's like looking through a window that is mostly fogged up, with a small patch being clear enough for you to see a ship on the ocean in the distance and you can see the direction the ship is going in, but without close inspection and without the fog being cleared up and without the right measuring tools, you cannot see the full picture nor can you tell precisly where the ship is going to go in the distant future.
We are NOT clairvoyants anymore than people in high towers can predict the weather."
"But you can help me right?"
"Of course we'll provide what assistance we may."
"I need Kyoshi, maybe she'll be able to go into the Avatar State and move earth with me seeing it so I can learn."
" Maybe...but Aang! Be warned! Kyoshi has taught earthbending before, and those she taught she taught to use earthbending...ruthlessly."
"She wasn't ruthless at Kyoshi Island."
"That was when what she wanted was for word of the Avatar's return to be spread around.
That was when she wanted to intimidate the firenation away from Kyoshi Island so as to deter any future returns from them as opposed to killing any of their soldiers for had she done so there would have been retaliation.
That was when she wanted to persuade the firenation soldiers that she was capable of defending Kyoshi island despite being dead for roughly 200 years, deliberately without telling them that she needed the body of the current Avatar there, in the hope that the soldiers would conclude that she could defend Kyoshi island from the firenation without the need for the body of the current Avatar.
The knowledge that the current avatar's body, and a stature of the past avatar, is needed for a past avatar to "take the wheel" of a current avatar's body and wield power through the body...is a secret that the avatar must keep from all, least the avatar's enemies exploit that weakness.
If the firenation where to discover that Kyoshi needs the body of the current avatar, then all they'd need to do is choose a time that you're off Kyoshi island to attack Kyoshi island, and maybe hold the inhabitants hostage.
Kyoshi is not...at heart a ruthless person. But she has far less...reluctance to behave brutally towards others than some past Avatars in when other people's evil puts her in a position where she has to choose between priotirizing the evil over the good."
"But we should be good to everyone wether they're good or evil."
"Correction: we would prefer it IF WE COULD be good to both the good or the evil...but alas that option is not always available to us. The
Earthbending is the bending art that requires the most...stubborness, of the bending disciplines.
To master an element, you must meld your mind and spirit to the nature of the element.
For air you need to be like air, open, free, humble, unattatched, quick and willing to move on.
For water, as you've learnt you need to be adaptable, willing to change, willing to supply and soothe, and if need be supress life, willing to fufill or to flood.
For fire you need to be passionate, bright, willing to consume, willing to dominate, willing to take control of the destiny of that which your fire touches.
But Earth...earth is the most stubborn of elements. To master it requires precision, persistance, patience and impermeability.
When you bend earth, you're are becoming one with it. Not only do you command it. It commands you. It commands you to be rooted to it or it will not follow you.
That's why when you see earthbenders you'll find that they are usually far more...reluctant to move on than others.
It's not an easy balance to find.
Mastering Earth and fire will not be easy for you, even with the right teacher and the optimal environment. Earth is the opposite of air. Fire is a dangerous element that normally requires intense emotion and willingness to consume to wield.
And you must master the elements quickly Aang.
The comet is not just a rock in the sky that orbits the sun and appears once a century.
The comet soaks up solar radiation in a way that Earth cannot. When it appears in the sky, the firebenders, including the avatar, have their firebending increased by 100 times because of the 100 years the comet has been soaking up radiation from the sun.
I knew people from the firenation who didn't have bending before permenantly became firebenders during the comet, although they were less powerful than people who were born benders during the comet." (An: yes I put that in. I had to come up with some explanation as to why the firebenders in Netflix who were fighting that Earthbending spy during the comet were less powerful. The explanation that they were letting his message go because they knew Sozin's plan, doesn't work because they would have put less effort into catching him had that been the case.)
4 years from now, in the summer, the comet will come and grant the firebenders that same strength.
They will undoubtedly use it to destroy MANY, if not ALL of their enemies when that happens."
Aang's jaw felt as if it would weigh less if it was made of lead.
"Even with the avatar state, if there are enough firebenders fighting you at once with enough skill...there is a chance you'd loose during the comet."
"I...I CAN'T DO THIS ALONE!!!" Aang yelled.
"Even if I do defeat the firelord...who will take his place?"
"If necessary, you must take the throne."
" "If necessary"? I'LL BE SLAIN IN MY SLEEP!"
"Not if you kill everyone in the firenation loyal enough to the firenation's insane war to do that."
"And how will I be able to tell the difference between those loyal enough to the firenation's insane war and not, for that?"
"...You could challange the firelord to an Agni Kai and have as the prize for victory over him his permenant withdrawl of all his soldiers from everywhere that isn't in the firenation."
"...An "Agni"-what?"
"It's a firebending duel used to settle disputes."
"Can I win?"
"Maybe. The rules are that you're only allowed to use firebending, and no help from any spirits, which does actually include the avatar state. And it has to be in front of an audience that'll include at least 1 person."
"If he doesn't accept?"
"Then he'll be considered a coward and probably will be rebelled against."
"If I loose?"
"Then he can kill or maim you."
"But if I die, the next avatar can take my place right?"
"Yes, but the next avatar will be born in one of the water tribes, and the firelord could use the comet to wipe out completely the water tribes."
"But...that'd mean that loads of ice would melt and the oceans will rise which would demolish islands, including the fire nation."
"Not if they focus on exclusively people."
"Some waterbenders could hide in the ice."
"Then the firenation would just wait for them to run out of air."
"...What if they flee?"
"It would be an infant, and the firenation would use the power of the comet to also destroy large amounts of the earth kingdom."
"...Can I just wait until after the comet to fight the firenation?"
"...Technically yes, but make no mistake, the comet will be a time when the firenation will strike cripplingly, if not completely decisively against the rest of the world.
But do not despair Aang.
There is still hope: an eclipse will happen, soon. It will, for 8 minutes, render the firebenders unable to draw power from the sun thus almost absoloutly powerless."
Aang's eyes gleamed with hope at that.
"When precisly will the eclipse happen?"
"You'll have to ask Princess Yue that, as she is now the moon spirit. On a full moon, she will appear to you, as a fox that can speak. But she is new to the moon's paths which from the perspective of spirits is...more a matter of instinctual awareness, rather than mathematical awareness. She might be able to tell you the season, maybe even the month. But for more...precise data, you'd have to ask the spirit of knowledge itself."
"Where can I find him?"
"He has a library...somewhere I can't sense, he has used his spirit powers to make his library somewhere inaccessible from the spirit world, or indeed any other spirit besides him and those he gives explicit permission for. This library is...somewhere underground in the physical world.
People can't bend in the spirit world, but some spirits can bend in the physical world, the knowledge spirit: Wan Shi Tong is his name, is one of those spirits who can bend all 4 elements in the physical world.
Wan Shi Tong is one of those rare spirits who can come to and from the spirit and physical world at will whenever he wants."
"Could he teach me bending?"
"Definitely. But good luck finding his library (!)"
"Could I find him in the spirit world again?"
"Perhaps, but he rarely goes into the spirit world. He's VERY preocupied with hoarding knowledge in his precious library. There's rumours that he's building additonal libraries in other places around the world. The 100 years-war has resulted in the destruction of a lot of papers, so he's almost obsessively...some might even say "obsessively", hoarding as much knowledge as he can."
"Why doesn't he fight the firenation?"
"He doesn't want people to follow him to his library. There's a lot of important knowledge in that library that could spell doom for others if it fell into the wrong hands.
"If they time it right, they will lay siege in such a way that they cannot flee with the next Avatar."
"Well...what about the avatar that'll be born in the Earth kingdom?"
However he can supply knowledge to those he deems worthy.
Aang! One more thing: the Avatar State exists in such a way that if you are killed within the Avatar State, the cycle will be broken and the Avatar will cease to exist."
Aang came back to Appa's saddle.
"Guys we need to go to Grey Peaks Island."
"Wait! I thought the plan was to go to Omashu." Sokka said.
"Yeah but I've been thinking: Bumi's an Earth king, he's doubtless got a lot of important things to do besides training me. I should learn Earthbending from Avatar Kyoshi.
She has a shrine to herself on Grey Peaks Island."
"But the last 2 times you went to an Island to speak to a past Avatar ..." Katara spoke tentatively.
"Don't worry guys, the firenation won't do anything to us even if they knew we were going there, which they won't, because last time Kyoshi kicked the ass of the firenation. She was by far the most bad-ass of the past avatars." Sokka spoke with an expression of awe in his face.
"Oh yeah...sure its specifically Avatar Kyoshi who is the woman dressed in a battle-dress you wanna see?" Katara smiled cheekily at Sokka.
"Katara-I...Suki and I-"
"Oh come on Sokka its okay, I mean...after Yue-"
"Moving on!" Sokka yelled, feeling his insides clench in on themselves.
At Grey Peaks Island a cloud at night descended on the island:
Aang was bending the water in the cloud to cover Appa.
"Okay guys. Lets see if I can..."
Aang used waterbending to put water into the ground and hardened the water to use it as a scoop to dig up the earth to form a hole in the earth big enough for Appa to hide in.
"Okay buddy please land in there and we'll cover you, so the frienation don't see you." Aang said to Appa.
"You're waterbending is coming along incredibly Aang." Katara said.
"Yeah, you're even indirectly earthbending through waterbending." Sokka marvelled.
"Gyatso always said that the divide between the elements was merely a matter of form. Fundamentally the elements are all connected, bending one effects the others. Like how heating up water with fire effects the water, then the air gets hotter, then the earth gets heated up." Aang said.
"Right....Any chance of us seeing Gyatso in the spirit world?" Katara asked eagerly.
Aang's face fell. "I...doubt it."
Aang approached the statue of Avatar Kyoshi and meditated.
"Aang!"
Aang froze as Kyoshi marched towards him.
"You didn't listen!
You should have destroyed ALL those ships at the north before they even made it to Agna Q'ela! But you didn't!
You should have chased down and destroyed ALL the ships after the battle of Agna Q'ela! But you didn't!
You should have gone straight to Agna Q'ela instead of wasting time helping random strangers on your journey! But you didn't!
You had an opportunity to take the "crown prince of the firenation" hostage! But you didn't!
You have failed to be a mighty merciless warrior!
This world needs an Avatar who will do whatever is necessary! You are too soft!"
Aang's body began to glow even brighter. Katara and Sokka averted their gaze until the glowing went down a bit.
Standing before them was Avatar Kyoshi.
"It was a good idea of Aang's to make the statues of the past avatars mobile. I must now follow his example."
CRACCK! RURURURURURURURURURURURURURURUR!
Avatar Kyoshi wielded her fans and the cave in which her statue was in opened up and the ground Sokka, Katara, Kyoshi and her statue was in rose to the surface.
CRACK! TURTURTURTURTURTURTURTURTURTURTURTURTURTUR!
A piece of the island that was near the ocean with the people and statue on it, split from most of the island and began to slowly move towards the open ocean.
Those statues were puhsed by Kyoshi in the direction of the firenation. Then another 50 were sent in the direction of the Earthkingdom.
Aang in his blue, translucent spirit form watched Kyoshi.
The fire nation royal palace:
"Sire...are you serious?" One of the firenation generals in the firelord's throne room said.
"Deadly." Ozai said.
Zuko's ship:
"I don't believe it." Zuko said.
Zuko's ship was 1KM in front of one of the statues of Kyoshi and Zuko was looking at it through a telescope.
"I can't either." Iroh said.
Zuko went into his room and locked the door.
4526-7189:
Avatar Kyoshi bent a life-size statute of herself into form and put on it her makeup and outer clothes.
Sokka and Katara looked at her with some shock.
"What's...that on your hands?" Katara asked.
Kyoshi's hands had on them pale scars.
"I got them from an...enemy who I killed.
You should leave!" Kyoshi shouted at
"You don't seriously think that the fire lord is going to fight you 1 on 1?"
"Of course not. He'll send some ships. I have a plan."
Kyoshi approached the ocean water and bit her left thumb so a drop of blood from her went into the ocean.
"Hello Kyoshi."
The face of the Ocean spirit appeared on the water glowing blue and large.
"Will you help me?"
"Well...I can guide you. But without my fish form I cannot directly control the ocean. I will the ocean and the life of all waterbenders into existence, but I cannot control it at the drop of a hat."
"Very well then. What must I do?"
" "Must"? What a human concept. I can show you things that you'd...probably consider to be the most important...I can make an educated guess as to what you'd do, and I can tell you what I believe I would do if I were in your position.
But...know this... you echo: life is never in perfect order.
Human minds crave symmetry, but nature is never perfectly symmetrical."
Kyoshi glared at the ocean spirit.
"I am no "echo". I AM Avatar Kyoshi! I AM-"
"You are an upset grandmother criticising her grandson.
War is cahos. You think you can tame it? You can't.
War isn't just beating the opponent into powerlessneess. War is an idea. Ideas are like drops of blood in the ocean: they don't stay in one place and be still, they spread and reach the nostrils of the sharks promting them to come, and the sharks multiply when they feed.
I'm older than the existence of the avatar and I tell you: wether you defeat the opponent or not, there will be no truly permenant peace whilest the pursuit of control is prioritized above belief in others.
Your failings as the avatar came from glorifying control, not faith.
You couldn't control the Dai Li, you couldn't control the earth kingdom, you couldn't control those criminals you interacted with in your younger years. Do you know why?
Because you taught them all the wrong lesssons: you taught them that power wins, not love.
What will this...the latest of Rava's pets teach the world?" The ocean spirit said when he looked at Aang.
"As I recall you looked to me for guidance at the first opportunity, and likewise now your grandmother is now looking to me for help. Not because of faith in peace, but faith in power. Because you think "power wins"."
"POWER DOES!!!" Kyoshi screamed.
"Power gives you ability, not satisfaction. The only thing you displaying your power does is is teaches the bad people to get tremendous power first, then do bad things.
This war, with the firenation: along came the comet and the firebenders got power and then they struck whilest the avatar was untrained.
Say you do fight the firelord, and say you do somehow defeat him. Then what? Whoever takes his place will learn the lesson that power wins, then seek it out, and if they get it they'll just keep on doing bad things.
The world needs to learn the lesson that evil, poweful or otherwise brings misery not only to the victims, but also to the villains. Or else the bad people will only stay bad people. You cannot teach that lesson with feats of sheer materialistical might.
The world needs to move on, be flexible, change."
The face of the ocean spirt disappeared.
A spiriual plane of existence:
In a circle were standing several spirits:
Wan shi tong, the ocean spirit in his black fish form, standing on his black tail, 1 spirit in the shape of a human whose skin was blue and had 3 eyes, 1 spirit in the shape of a dragon whose body was on fire, 1 spirit whose face was made of black wood but the rest of his body was made of steel, and 1 spirit whose body was in the shape of a cloud save for several glowing lights of all colours, 1 spirit was in the form of a 4 limbed creature with huge vines and branches and no head but a centre in the shape of a tree and countless eyes made of water and mist.
"So...one of Rava's pets is unhappy with her latest successor." The spirit whose skin was blue and had 3 eyes spoke.
"How many more will die?" the spirit whose face was made of black wood with the body of steel spoke.
"All life is fire. Fire grows, eats, moves, changes, spreads sometimes...and it ends." The one with the body of fire spoke.
"Your worshippers would know." The blue skinned spirit said to the one whose body was made of fire.
"Why are you even here? You're not an elemental spirit. For we elemental spirits, ours is not to judge, ours is to be as we will." The ocean spirit spoke.
"I got bored with my people. Still waters are dull as well you know.
How's your new girl?"
"Still watching over humans, especially some boy I gave life to in the south pole."
"Humans are getting more and more advanced. Soon they won't need any of us, then we can move on to another planet and try something new at last." The blue skinned spirit.
"We could try for another galaxy." Said the spirit with a body of fire.
"I'm not done cataloguing this planet." Said Wan Shi Tong.
"Why do you bother? They're so boring. They're born, they walk, they talk, they build, they destroy, they hunger, they fear, they feel, they seek...then they die." the blue skinned one said.
"They innovate." replied Wan Shi Tong.
"Slowly, often with conflicting interests, normally with consequences, and never without help."
"Yes but the process is still beautiful to me." Said Wan Shi Tong.
"WE ARE ABANDONING THEM!!!" the one with the body that was composed of branches and vines.
"Oh you, forever trying to bind everything together, forever fiddling with people's faiths and fortunes. They must walk their own paths or they are meaningless." the one in the shape of a cloud spoke to the one with the body of branches and vines.
"Seperation is an illusion! We all know that." The one with the body of vines said.
"No. Seperation is what gives us identity, gives us direction, gives us the capacity to reach out. We're all connected yes, but by Space and Time, not by soul, we're not all copies of each other and if we canot keep clear the difference between what is and what isn't there is naught but confusion.
We're not going to be doing the people of the world any favours by doing all the guiding, protecting and providing for them. If we did that, what opportunities would they have to do good?" the blue skinned spirit spoke.
"Don't go playing games of semantics with me, you know what I mean. My existence promotes compassion." The one with the body of vines and branches said.
"Your existence promotes being a stick in the mud. You grow but never change. You provide but never respect. You guide, but never clarify. You promote awareness, but not imagination. You grow and survive, but never die so as to replenish the soil for your successors. You grow just for its own sake. You're a weed." Said the blue skinned one.
"I am an instrument of fate! I am-" The one made of vines and branches roared.
"Fate is blind. Fate obeys only natural laws, never the laws of good and evil. Good and evil have nothing to do with nature nor vice versa." the blue skinned one said.
"What would you know of fate young one?" The one with the branches and vines said.
"More than you for I've seen more than you who limit yourself to only the ground and the little streams of water, but never look beyond, never contemplate the "what could be" of abilities. You see probable futures and echoes, and show them off to others who you highjack the minds and flesh of, then pass it off as wisdom, when really its just you craving other's lives to distract you from your own impotence and sad unwillingness to move on.
That which does not move on is purposeless."
A forest near Omashu:
Toph sat alone near a fire and tapped her left fingers against her left knee.
"So...things are changing...but for better or worse?" Toph muttered.
Toph scooped up some dirt and put it in her mouth then spat it out. "Bitter and paralysed...like me."
Toph looked down.
NO! GET A GRIP GIRL!
I can bend stone, but I am not made of stone. I am made of soul. Souls must soar!"
CRACK!
Toph bent a huge boulder from out of the ground beneath her feet and used it as a platform and used it to carry her into the sky and fly.
"Time to move on." Toph said.
A Firenation dock:
Firelord Ozai alone was at the helm of a huge firenation ship that was leaving the firenation.
He firebent the ship to levitate as Zuko did.
"Avatar Kyoshi thinks she can defeat me. She has no idea what I have up my sleeve for her." Ozai grinned as he held his hand above a red button to his left. "She will find that firenation engenieering has since her time moved on."