AtLA fic: Airbender's Child: Fire 13/15
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story, in fact a lot of the dialogue will probably be cadged straight from the show itself, which means I own even less.
Author's Notes: One more chapter to go. Phew. I probably could have wrapped this up in one, but you've all been waiting long enough, I'm giving you guys the climax now. I have a note at the end, due to the spoilery nature of it, so check that out.
After everything that had happened, all the adventures, excitement, discoveries and mayhem of the past year, it somehow felt like things were happening too quickly now. Like the final confrontation should be further off.
But in the end, it took very little time for them all to organise, to say his goodbyes to everyone and wish luck to them. Strangely, he almost felt like he'd stepped from that first moment he saw Shuga cuddling with Appa at the Southern Air Temple to climbing aboard Appa to face his sister in a fight for the throne itself.
"It feels . . . weird," she said from behind him.
It was enough of a non sequitur that Zuko frowned at her. "What does?"
Katara gestured around them, a little vaguely. "All this. Going to defeat your sister, Sokka going to lead the troops to prevent Ozai from destroying the Earth Kingdom, your uncle taking back Ba Sing Se. All of it."
"I was just thinking about that," he admitted. "I was just thinking that it felt like it was only yesterday I met you all at the Southern Temple."
She nodded. "Like something more should have happened? That there should be more to this than just . . ."
When she paused, Zuko nodded himself. "More than just flying into the capital and proposing an agni kai with my sister," he finished.
Katara seemed to contemplate something for a moment, then crawled over the saddle to his side and curled up against him, fitting her head under his chin and wrapping her right leg around his left. Automatically, Zuko brought his arms around her and pulled her close. "We will win this," Katara told him. "Even if Aang can't defeat your Dad, he gave up the title of Fire Lord. He isn't anymore, and once you've taken back the crown he won't have a nation to back him."
"I hope it's that easy," Zuko told her.
She sat up enough to look him firmly in the eye, and said, "It will be, because you're going into this planning to win, not expecting to lose. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, dear," Zuko said with a small, teasing smile.
She smiled back and lay back down. The rest of the flight passed in silence, Zuko just trying to keep himself focussed on winning and not on his fear that Azula would prove herself eternally right and better than him. Again.
Then they were landing, interrupting the sage as he tried to crown Azula the new fire lord. To her side, chained up, was Aiko. His older sister had been dressed in the robes of royalty, her hair in a topknot with the small flame crown that was the symbol of her position as princess of the Fire Nation. Aiko was standing to the side, looking at Azula with some strange combination of yearning, pity and anger.
"What are you waiting for?" Azula demanded of the man who had stopped, shocked, at the sight of the giant six-legged furry animal landing in the courtyard. "Do it!"
Zuko leapt off Appa, aware of Katara following a step behind him, letting him take the lead on this. "Sorry, but you're not going to become Fire Lord today, little sister. I am." Suddenly Zuko understood the look on Aiko's face. The normally sleek and well-turned-out appearance of his younger sister was nowhere to be found. Her hair looked like it had been sheared off by a knife-wielding maniac, the face paint she should have been wearing was nowhere to be seen, and her eyes were darting back and forth as though tracking the movements of opponents invisible to everyone but her. Under her eyes, dark circles contrasted sharply with her pallor. Everything about Azula bespoke madness and Zuko wanted to stop it. To take her somewhere to make her better.
Her head tilted and the slightly crazy smirk as she replied told Zuko this was going to the bitter end. "You're hilarious," Azula told him.
"And you're going down," Katara said from behind him. Her hand reached forward and squeezed his comfortingly.
"Please!" Aiko tried. From Azula's eyeroll, she'd probably been trying for a while. "You don't have to do this! Either of you!"
Azula ignored her. "Wait. You want to be Fire Lord Fine. Let's settle this. Just you and me, brother. The showdown that was always meant to be. Agni kai!"
"You're on," Zuko said easily.
His younger sister grabbed a chain she was clearly using as a leash on their older sister, and carted her off to a courtyard. Zuko followed.
"What are you doing ? She's playing you. She knows she can't take us both so she's trying to separate us," Katara hissed as she trailed after the three siblings.
He turned to her, willing her to understand. "I know. But I know I can take her this time," he said firmly.
She wasn't buying it. Not that he blamed her. "But even you admitted to your uncle that you would need help facing Azula."
They had arrived at an arena that had filled his nightmares and fears for so long. An agni kai. He hadn't been in one since his father had declared him a public disgrace. But this wasn't that arena, Azula wasn't his father and this time he was going to win. "There's something off about her," he told Katara. "I can't explain why, but she's slipping. And this way, no one else has to get hurt."
He stared at her, pleading with her to understand.
Slowly Katara back away and went to stand beside Aiko.
Azula could have been carved from ice. She looked about ready to shatter as she crooned, "I'm sorry it has to end this way, Zuzu."
He settled into a ready position, waiting for her first strike, and replied. "I know you are."
Her face crumpled for an instant before the indomitable will that had turned her from a talented bender to a force of deadly proportions reasserted itself. Her opening stance was more complex than his, and she held it a moment. Then her hand swept around and up, blue flame flying true from her palm towards him.
Zuko reacted by slicing his way through with his own red fire, and sent out his counterstrike. They ranged back and forth, Zuko using every strange and unusual style he'd learned from airbending to duck and dodge around her, rather than to confront her head on. She blocked him and attacked at every turn. His whole world narrowed to the fight with her.
"No lightning today?" he taunted.
"Oh, there will be lightning today," a familiar voice said from behind him. From nowhere, lightning speared out of the sky. Zuko, with reflexes he hadn't even known he had somehow caught it, redirecting it in Azula's direction. She dodged, but it caught her across the legs, disabling her.
Well, with that injury the agni kai was over, Zuko thought. A disabling strike like that was considered an end to the fight, traditionally. They didn't have to be to the death. He turned around to see a shocking sight. His mother had been the one to create the lightning. "How . . ." he asked her.
The look on her face was a distinct echo of Azula's. "Have you never wondered how true lightning comes about?" she asked. Her hands flew into the air, and the whirlwind she created flew up into the clouds reflected the blood-red light of Sozin's Comet. Coming from the clouds themselves, a bolt of deadly energy came down and landed in the courtyard. Zuko dodged away to avoid the chips of stone sent flying by the impact.
"Enough mother!" Aiko shouted, running into the centre of the yard. "We've won! Zuko can now be crowned Fire Lord."
Ursa stared at her eldest child as though she was a stranger. "You're siding with them? With the monsters?" Her chest was heaving and her arms flew up again. "No! I will bring the people of air to their rightful place. I am the Fire Lady and I will destroy Fire Nation from the inside out! The throne is mine!" Her voice rose to a scream and lightning hurtled out of the sky, splashing into the courtyard again.
It struck the roof nearby, sending tiles flying everywhere, some of them slamming into Aiko with brute force before she could even think to dodge. "No!" Katara shouted. She flung herself towards Aiko, who Zuko could see was bleeding. It was pooling around her head and neck on the stone beneath her. That was when he realised that, while Ursa could somehow call lightning down from the clouds, unlike a firebender, she had absolutely no control over it. Lightning was striking all over the city, again and again. He could hear screaming in the distance.
Another strike flew down, heading towards Katara. Zuko flung himself towards her, calling her name. Somehow, she called water from the drains around the courtyard to her aid and a thick bubble ice surrounded her and Aiko, protecting them from the one strike. It shattered the ice, but they were both unharmed. The bolts continued to come, thick and fast, and Zuko found himself unable to do more than station himself beside Azula to redirect the lightning away from his little sister. "Why?" she asked him.
"Because even though we don't believe in the same things, any of the same things, you're still my sister," Zuko told her.
Suddenly her eyes widened. "Zuko! Look out!" She shoved him backwards and the lightning scored its way across his body. He lay there, weak and shaky, unable to pull himself up. He hear Azula snarl and saw her drag herself forward and send a lance of fire at Ursa. "No airbending bitch is going to take the satisfaction of beating Zuzu away from me!" she snapped, and fired again. It was enough to break Ursa's concentration and for Katara to pull away from Aiko and go on the offensive.
Zuko was in awe, even though he felt too weak to move, as Katara flung herself into a deadly dance with his mother. The water spinning through the air clashed with the whirlwinds and air slices his mother sent her way. Suddenly, there was a pause. Long and deadly, it gave Aiko time to pull herself to her feet and stumble to her brother and sister. The three watched as Ursa confronted Katara at the far end of the courtyard. They were facing each other, and Katara was out of water. She had nothing near enough to block his mother. "No," he moaned, struggling to pull himself to his feet, to stop Ursa. Azula was pale and shocky beside him, watching just as avidly, and just as clearly unable to do anything. Aiko was no better than they were. All they could do was watch as Ursa's hands came around, a deadly force gathering with her movements. The gentle air that could turn a blade of grass into a deadly projectile ready to sweep down on Katara, who seemed to be holding something.
Then everything stopped.
Katara's arms came up, and somehow, from the ground beneath her an enormous wave of water erupted into the air, and froze the two women inside. Both of them were stopped, frozen in that one moment in time. He was sure his heart had stopped beating.
Katara had killed herself to save them. "No," he whimpered again. There was nothing else he could say. No other word that encompassed what he was feeling right then. Just . . . no.
"Zuko," Aiko said, a hand weakly pointing at the ice. Inside, around Katara, somehow it was becoming cloudy. He watched in awe as she moved through her element in its solid state as though she were surrounded by water, not ice. Watched her wrap something around his mother's hands, tying her down to something on the floor behind her.
A sharp gesture and it was like the world had started to move again. The water turned to liquid again and splashed downward. Katara knelt gasping on the ground while his mother panted beside her, then started to scream and rave.
His girlfriend came stumbling over, her hands already coated in water as she began to fix the damage created by the rampant lightning. "Are you okay?" he demanded as the strength came back to him limbs.
She smiled. "I'm fine," she told him, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead.
Aiko sighed in relief as Katara's healing hands dealt quickly with her own hurts. "Thank you, Katara." Then she shook her head. "I think I have to take back anything I ever said about air as the superior element. That was amazing."
Katara smiled at her, a little bashful. "I was desperate."
"How did you manage to get that much water so quickly?" Zuko demanded.
She grinned conspiratorially, "There's a drain covered by a metal grill over there," she told him.
Azula snorted. "And here I was impressed that you'd managed to pull water out of the air or something," she said snidely.
Aiko and Zuko both bristled, but Katara's eyes just narrowed. Suddenly, a tree crumbled to dust at the other end of the courtyard and all the grass turned brown as all the water in the plants flew through the air to turn into a terrifying mass of ice daggers, hovering over Azula. "Would you rather I had done that to you?" she asked the princess.
The firebender's eyes were wide for a moment, before a grin crossed her lips. "I am impressed, waterbender," she informed Katara. "What else can you do?" She made a startled noise as suddenly she was yanked upright and into the air by an invisible force.
"What else do you want me to do?" Katara demanded grimly. "What will you make me do?"
"Katara," Aiko said. "Katara, stop."
"Did you really mean it, Zuzu?" Azula asked. "Did you really mean that?"
It took him a moment to understand what she was referring to. "You are my sister," he told her. "What happens to you next is up to you."
Katara had lowered her to the ground, but hadn't let go of her blood. She wasn't taking any chances with the other girl. Zuko wondered briefly how she was doing it, then saw the full moon in the sky, sharing space with the sun. For a moment, he thought he could see a flash of white hair and pale blue eyes in the sky.
His moment of inattention had given Aiko the opportunity to step into the breach. "Come with me, Azula," she said. "Please. I want to get to know you." She knelt beside Azula and gently stroked the mauled hair.
Zuko hadn't seen Azula like that since she was very little. Since before his mother had chosen to treat them both like monsters, him in private, Azula in public. She closed her eyes, relaxing into the affection she'd been denied from everyone. Then her eyes snapped open and she stared at Katara a long moment before her eyes returned to Zuko's. "You win, brother. But only because of your pretty waterbender." She grinned. "You'd better keep her, because I'm pretty sure you don't have anyone else around who's ruthless enough to help you keep the throne." She said to Katara, "You can let go. I'm going with the only person around here who actually likes me. I promise I won't even plot sedition."
Zuko looked at Katara and Aiko. They both nodded. He nodded at them and said. "Fine, then."
As Katara let Azula go, healing her up, he became aware of the audience that had gathered. He realised that there wasn't time for him to indulge himself in any of the emotional breakdowns he wanted. Instead he stood and turned to the crowd, some of whom were fire sages, some of whom were nobles and the rest were various palace guards and servants. "You have heard and witnessed," he snapped. "Princess Azula has given up her claim to the throne in my favour." He stood. "I am now the Fire Lord," he declared.
The sage who had been about to crown Azula the minutes and eternity before he'd arrived to interrupt said, "Well, you will be once we crown you."
Azula was now standing and she rolled her eyes. "Then get on with it. You can have a big public spectacle later. Right now, give the prince the authority to do what needs to be done."
Zuko just stared.
Aiko and Azula rolled their eyes. "Honestly," Aiko told her, "You'd think with our parents he'd be a little less dumb."
"I know," Azula replied with that familiar smirk. "Really, Zuzu, get on with it. Do you want me to be forsworn so soon because you're not taking the throne? It's not like Aiko can have it. Only a firebender can hold the fire throne."
Things moved quickly after that. Zuko didn't even have time for a victory kiss as he began sending orders for troops to pull back and withdraw, drafting letters to be sent to the Fire Nation's Earth Kingdom holdings to begin the process of halting hostilities and releasing prisoners of war back to their home nations.
Post fic notes: About Ursa's lightning, I'm basing that rather roughly on the various theories about how natural lightning is created. That is, the upset in the air inside of clouds creating electrical charges. I have a theory that bending works at the molecular level (if you want to get all high school physics-y about it) so I think it would be feasible for an airbender to agitate the clouds enough to create lightning. Just go with it.
Prologue Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight Part Nine Part Ten Part Eleven Part Twelve Part Fourteen Part Fifteen
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