Avatar: Shadows in the Mind: Chapter 14
Title: Shadows in the Mind
Summary: Five years after the war is over, the world is finally settling into an uneasy peace. When the Avatar and his friends disappear into a swamp in the southwest Earth Kingdom, they find themselves fighting not only for their lives but to prevent another way from breaking out. Chapter Fourteen: Things go badly for Cai, Azula's on a little bit of a high, and Katara attempts to face a possessed Aang.
Rating: Light T, for violence and blood.
A/N: It's so nice to finally see this go up. I've waited a while to finally get back to this. In other news, writing the climax of a story is hard.
Chapter 14 - Dies Irae
Sokka had always prided himself on being a man of science; until Aang had crashed into his life he’d always been of the firm belief that everything had a rational, logical explanation. Once Aang had destroyed that theory, everything was then neatly categorized under either “firm, rational logic” or “freaky spirit stuff.”
What he had come across fit into neither one of these categories, and that was the fact that Mai simply had an endless supply of knives. Sokka had no idea how she could travel that heavily armed and still lift her limbs, or how she moved so quickly, or exactly where all those things were coming from.
Two more stilettos grazed his arm as he wheeled around and used the blunt edge of his machete to deflect them, and a third one whistled by his wrist as he reached out to catch his returning boomerang. Rolling behind a tree trunk and flinging the boomerang out again, he let out an irritated grunt and wiped beads of sweat from his forehead as he heard the soft thunk of a knife embedding itself into the wood beside his head.
It was unnatural, that’s what it was.
The air of the swamp was always stagnant and thick, but the added stench of smoke was making it even harder to breathe, and splashing in knee-deep water made nimble, efficient movements impossible. Catching his boomerang - he’d heard a clank and a yelp as it had hit one of Mai’s arms - he looked around frantically, searching for a way to end this fight as quickly as possible.
What he saw did not encourage him. To his right, Azula and Zuko were caught up in their fight; he could hear Azula calling something to Zuko, but he merely grimaced in response and returned her blast. To his left he could see flashes of red and blue; Katara did not appear to be fighting anyone - Sokka momentarily thought about calling for help, but then he noticed that she was in a defensive stance, water baubles at her hands, and covered from shoulders to knees in blood. His heart stopped dead in his chest, and he staggered forward to go to her - she hadn’t even noticed he was there yet - but then another knife flew in and landed squarely in his thigh, embedding itself.
“Yeeow!” He stumbled, struggling to keep his balance and keep weight off of his injured leg. He turned his head and glared at Mai, gritting his teeth and pulling out the knife. Warm blood ran down his leg, but he ignored it as he cocked an arm and threw the knife right back at her. She dodged it easily, but before she could respond the ground rattled beneath them and they both lost their balance.
Two ragged screams tore through the air, and both Mai and Sokka instantly forgot about the other in favor of Ty Lee and Toph. They both turned to go to them, but then there was the roar of flame and heat at his back and when he’d limped as fast as his protesting leg would carry him to where Ty Lee lay on the ground, Mai was no longer with him.
“What’s going on? Where’s Toph?” He had to shout over the din around him, and he had to crane his head to hear the response from an ashen-faced Ty Lee.
“I just - I just hit her! I don’t know what happened!” She gestured uselessly at the tangle of vines in front of her.
“Toph’s in there?!” Sokka exclaimed incredulously. He rocked forward and hesitated, waiting for Toph to get herself out, but nothing happened and what Ty Lee said filtered through -
“You disabled her bending?!”
“She was trying to bury me alive!” Ty Lee shot back defensively.
Sokka didn’t hear her, however, because he had taken off towards the writhing bundle of vines, machete out, ready to cut through the entire swamp if it meant getting to Toph.
A moment later he felt someone next to him and looked to see Ty Lee pulling at the vines as well.
“What are you doing? Get away before you get hurt!” Sokka shouted and brought his machete down with a particularly satisfying snapping sound. Ty Lee merely grimaced and yanked harder on the vines, trying to pull them away from Toph.
It appeared to be a futile effort; they simply slithered around Sokka’s arms even as he cut through them; when he finally got a glimpse of Toph underneath, her face deathly pale and her eyes closed, he let out a cry of alarm and redoubled his efforts.
The vines weren’t just attacking Toph; two cords were wrapped firmly around her neck and pulling tighter with every moment. They were actually trying to kill her, right in front of him.
***
After a day and a half of traveling with Jun, Cai had come to a very important realization.
‘People in the Earth Kingdom are completely insane. It’s no wonder that Lord Zuko was so uncertain about coming here.’
Jun’s shirshu jumped over a small hill, and he let out a little yelp and tightened his grip on Jun’s waist.
‘And no wonder General Iroh loves it.’
He’d woken up slung over the animal’s back with a raging headache and without Delun. When he’d finally gotten Jun’s attention, all she’d done was hold up a single card: the Queen of Water.
“I told you I’d take your bounty if your card was higher than mine. The Queen beats the Jester, so we’re following the former princess’ scent and heading south, quickly. Delun has been sent back to your ship - this is a two person job.”
There were many questions in Cai’s mind - such as why, exactly, he should trust her, and where, exactly, where they going, and how, exactly, were they supposed to arrest Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee with only two people, and by the way, was she planning on drugging him again? But she was the sort who didn’t lend herself to answering questions, and he was the sort who didn’t find being jostled though the Earth Kingdom countryside on the back of a mutant ant eater the type of atmosphere conducive to asking such questions, so Cai shut up and just held on for all he was worth.
“There are some military holdings down here,” Jun explained to him, when the shirshu stopped once, pausing to sniff the hairpiece and search for the trail. “It makes sense that she’s passed through here, to keep an ear open for news from the Fire Nation.” She glanced back at him, and then promptly performed a double take. “Are you always that shade of green?”
Cai just groaned and closed his eyes. He’d never suffered from seasickness, but a straight night trying to stay on the shirshu had upset his stomach. Therefore, he was incredibly grateful to be able to call a halt when they came across a recently scorched field - so recent that the ground still smoldered and a cloud of smoke hung heavily over them.
“Are we-“ he stepped carefully through the tall grass, “are we near a military holding?”
“How should I know?” Jun answered cheerfully, just as another voice rang out across the clearing.
“A weapons storehouse. Confidential. Not civilian information.” A man stood at the other end of the clearing, wearing the domed hat that marked him as an earthbender and the dark green uniform of the Earth Kingdom officials. “Happened the night before last. The perpetrators set fire to it before fleeing, and the wind and dry wood spread it over to the nearby village. The entire area was destroyed.”
Cai closed his eyes and murmured an oath. So Azula had passed through the area - but would she really raid a village with the Fire Lord in her clutches? It seemed risky. Out of character. She must have been desperate to commit such an act.
“Tell me,” the earthbender stepped closer, “is your fleet nearby?”
Cai scratched the back of his head. “No, they’re much farther north. It’s going to make it a pain to transport the criminals, but-“
Cai cut himself off when the man took him firmly by the wrists and clamped a pair of rock handcuffs upon them.
“What is this?”
“We’ve been looking for the firebenders who caused this chaos, and if we arrest one of them then the rest will come forward.” The man leaned closer to Cai, who was still staring dumbly down at his hands. “Are you their leader?”
“What? You’re arresting me?” His voice rose a bit in pitch.
“For crimes against the Earth Kingdom. I’ll return you to the city of Omashu to face punishment for your crimes-“
“Wait a minute, wait a minute! Who are you? What’s going on?” Cai looked desperately to Jun for an explanation or an alibi. “I wasn’t even here the night before last! I was looking for you, wasn’t I?” He asked, pointing a shaking finger at the bounty hunter.
Jun yawned. “So can I collect the bounty on this guy or what?”
“Hey!” Cai shouted in outrage, shocked that someone General Iroh had trusted so implicitly could be so… untrustworthy.
“Yes.” The earthbender gave her a mark. “You’ll have to return to Omashu to do it, but you’ll be paid in full. Tell them Bumi’s heir sent you.”
“Right.” And with no parting glance at Cai, she and her giant animal left, leaving Cai standing in the middle of a destroyed forest, wondering where he was and how the hell he’d gotten there.
***
It was, quite frankly, the best day of Azula’s life. For the first time, she could imagine how the airbender felt flying through the sky: she felt elated; a kind of strange, thrilling hyperawareness that took over her senses, made her nerves sing. She’d never been so in tune with her limbs, and every move came from pure reflex. Everything was natural, loose, and fluid, as if this had all been preordained and she was just now taking up her proper role in it.
Of course, all this was ignoring the burning in her chest as she drew ragged breaths, and the stinging in her eyes from sweat running into them, but those things weren’t important. This was it; this was everything she had waited for, and there was no going back for her now.
Her brother, by contrast, was grim-faced as they traded blows. His brow was drawn low and his mouth turned down, as if he were concentrating hard just to keep up with her. Though neither was gaining the upper hand, Azula had never felt more confident in her ability to beat Zuko.
It had never been questioned; not even when they were children. She had gained her father’s favor at an early age, and she had surpassed Zuko’s skill level by the time she was seven despite the fact that he was two years ahead of her. Part of Zuko had understood it, even if he hadn’t wanted to admit it; they never consulted each other when learning firebending. One was not to be an asset to the other, but a competitor; someone to be measured up against and watched closely.
Once, just once, they had sparred as children - though if she asked Zuko, he might refer to it as a brawl. Cousin Lu Ten had taken pity on the boy and taken time out of his schedule to show Zuko a few forms - forms that Azula had mastered already - and he was eager to show them off. He looked like a fool, jumping and kicking around the courtyard all by himself, and she couldn’t resist the urge to jump in and show him up.
“Zhao taught me these four months ago,” she sneered, wanting to upset him.
He frowned at her, and then snapped, mid turn, “Go away, Azula. I want to practice.”
She stopped instantly, dropping her arms to her sides and giving him a childish pout. “Doesn’t it bother you?” she demanded. “That I know more than you do? That I have my own private tutor?”
Zuko’s shoulders stiffened and Azula knew that she was close.
“I’m always going to be better than you Zuko, no matter what you do.”
His head whipped around and his eyes narrowed, and she knew she had accomplished her goal. He halfheartedly threw a small flame at her, but she gave him a sunny grin and dropped into her favorite stance, taking in what he had sent at her and returning it ten-fold.
Instead of cowering like she had expected he mirrored her form and responded, his flame growing brighter and hotter; just a little.
Azula danced around him, taking joy in how easily she could overpower him, how frustrated she could make him, and soon his flames were burning as hot as hers and were thrown as seriously as she had thrown her first blow. Even when he was expending the most energy, she saw, she was still far stronger than he was.
They couldn’t have fought for too long, but those few minutes went down as some of the most precious in Azula’s memory; she had been validated, her place and position made certain to anyone who had witnessed the two siblings. Though Zuko had been born before Azula, she was bound to rise up above him.
The interruption in their fight came, to her surprise, in the form of her firebending teacher. Striding confidentially between the two, he yanked them apart - Azula far more gently than Zuko. “Stop this instant,” Zhao ordered coolly, as if he hadn’t literally walked into a firestorm.
The pair stopped. Zhao had that kind of command; even Azula listened to him on occasion. Zuko was panting, but Azula merely crossed her arms in annoyance.
“I was just showing him some forms!” she half-whined, waiting for him to give her the go-ahead to continue.
“If you want to practice with your brother, then you should do so under the supervision of an instructor,” he said calmly. Her mouth dropped at the rebuke, but then Zhao continued, “I imagine your parents would be upset if you accidentally harmed your brother.” His intense gaze shifted to Zuko, who had gone pale with outrage. “You still have to work on your defensive technique, Prince Zuko.” He bowed his head in concession. “If you’d like, I will speak to your tutor-“
“He doesn’t have one,” Azula interrupted loudly.
Zhao blinked in surprise, and Azula could have laughed out loud. Surely he knew that Zuko was just being trained with the regular recruits at the academy.
“Excuse me, Prince Zuko.” Zuko’s jaw was clenched something furious, and Azula found herself wondering with a kind of curious horror if he was going to start crying, right here in public in front of everyone, but after a moment he turned on heel and stalked away from the pair, Zhao’s hand still calmly and reassuringly on her shoulder.
It was different now, fighting Zuko. There was no sign of that unsure boy that she’d left behind, and though his face indicated that he didn’t take joy in firebending the way Azula did, his skills had improved. He was faster on his feet, and not so easily goaded.
“Pathetic,” she scorned, lightly stepping within his reach and easily dodging the flame that whooshed by.
He did not respond to her taunts. His eyes remained solemn, and he seemed focused entirely on the moves Azula was making - it was as if he didn’t hear her at all.
Azula’s grin widened. If there was one thing she was truly a master at, it was getting a rise out of her brother. She just hadn’t found the right button to push yet.
“When I take the throne-“ she started, but he rolled away from a blow and there was a roar and a shriek. To Azula’s shock, Zuko’s attention was stolen from her. He was looking concernedly over at Mai, who was nursing a burned arm where she’d thrown it over her face. Beyond her, Azula glimpsed someone in blue and another in the light green she herself was clad in; Ty Lee was fighting with someone as well.
Azula let out a low growl and pumped her arm, sending another flame towards Zuko. He just barely moved in time, his eyes straying back again, and Azula felt irritation rise. “Ignore her, Zuko.” She spun and moved in closer to him. “Your fight is with me.”
“Are you so heartless, Azula?” he spat at her, back to back as he rolled around and ducked her flame. “She’s your friend.”
“And why would you care about her?” Azula snapped right back. “She was going to Omashu with me to take you down.”
Zuko’s eyes widened and he scrambled too slowly to evade her next shot. It hit him squarely on the shoulder, and he stumbled back, his eyes wide. “You were going to Omashu for me?” he asked faintly.
Absolute delight rose up through Azula’s chest. She’d found her mark.
***
His prisoner had been quiet for some time, either out of rage or shock. Bao suspected it was the latter; the look of surprise on his face when Bao had slapped the cuffs on him had made his close call with the 21st infantry the other night completely worth the effort. And if turning Cai in at Omashu and making him stand trial for a crime against the Earth Kingdom forced them to expunge the Fire Nation from Bao’s lands once and for all - well, wasn’t that his goal? Everything he had silently worked towards under Bumi?
Bao frowned as he thought about the old earth king. Most likely, he would want to delay a trial: give Iroh a chance to explain, for diplomatic reasons; but there was a good chance Bao could press it forward anyway, using the dangerous political climate, the lack of a Fire Lord or Avatar, and the current public favor against the Fire Nation.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.When they had split up, leaving Jet with a cart filled with only a quarter of the munitions that they should have gotten (Bao mentally cursed Colonel Haru in his mind) Bao had taken the ostrich horse Jet had managed to secure and had started heading north. The base for the 17th infantry was located several miles from the burned storehouse, and even before Cai had fallen into his lap he had been planning on heading there and resting a bit under the guise of investigating the Fire Nation raid on the village.
With Cai arrested for the crime however, he could get the process rolling at the base, spreading word that he had caught a member of the group responsible for the raid on the weapons storehouse and adding fuel to the public fervor against the Fire Nation.
Behind him, he could hear Cai experimentally tugging at the binds, more out of curiosity than any actual attempt to escape. He heard a small intake of breath -
“Only an earthbender can remove them,” Bao threw over his shoulder, heading off the inevitable question at the pass.
“Mmm.”
They rode on in silence for a few more moments. There was another little intake of breath:
“No, I won’t loosen them. You’re lucky I don’t gag you so you don’t spew fire at me like your general. You think I don’t know why they call him dragon? But you firebenders, you don’t have the nerve to attack someone right out in the open anymore, no, now you have to be sneaky about it and attack a sleeping village unprepared in the middle of the night! You wouldn’t dare attack the heir of Omashu right in the middle of the day, would you?”
Silence. Bao humphed self-righteously and flicked the reigns, ordering the ostrich horse to pick up the pace a little bit. He really wanted to get to the base before nightfall, to secure backup and make sure everyone was aware of what had actually happened - before people started muttering under the public outrage about how no one had heard from Jet for a while, and really, wasn’t he also very fond of the blasting jelly?
Then he felt the firebender tense again, and this time a small “Uhh-“ came out before he lost his temper.
“You Fire Nation dogs have always just walked onto whatever land you wanted, taking what you wished and burning what you didn’t need!” This, of course, was completely ignoring the fact that he was the one responsible for burning down the storehouse, but it was the general principle of the thing at this point. Bao wasn’t even talking about the most recent events - he was reaching back even farther, to the war and beyond, to his childhood and the terrible, awful, memories of trying to breathe through smoke and his father shoving him ahead and roaring lizards. These were words he would have loved to spew at Lord Zuko, if he ever had the chance.
“It never occurred to you to think about the lives you were destroying! The men you killed or the women you defiled or the children you left wandering alone! You took everything, our houses and our markets and our temples! Nothing was spared - and you are mistaken if you think I’m going to spare you now.” He could feel the heat from his face, but didn’t notice how his voice had raised. “I will be damned before I let the Fire Nation ruin the life of another citizen of the Earth Kingdom!”
He twisted in his seat to glare at the firebender behind him.
The man looked thoroughly bewildered. He opened his mouth, thought better of it, shut it, then opened it again, looked at Bao hesitantly, as if waiting for another outburst, and then finally took a breath.
“I… just wanted to go to the bathroom…” he mumbled helplessly.
***
Stars exploded behind her eyes as she hit the tree; Katara didn’t know what she was thinking, trying to fight the Avatar. She’d never been on the wrong side of his incredible power before - witnessed it, seen others try to fight it - and she’d always been so thankful that Aang was a passive soul. He was strong, and to see his hands use his skill for anything other than peacemaking or protecting was something she’d only faced in her worst nightmares.
But what other choice did she have? No one else knew what was going on, and she couldn’t let him get out of the swamp and wreak his havoc on the world. Groaning and trying to shake the fog from her head, she pulled herself up and reached out, looking to make that connection with the water that was readily available around her.
What terrified her most of all was the knowledge that his attention wasn’t even solely on her. He was merely batting her away as if she were some bug buzzing annoyingly around his face. Every time he knocked her aside he returned to what he seemed intent upon - tearing up the swamp from the roots, using a combination of waterbending and earthbending to pull water from the channels that led away from the center, as if he were searching -
Something clicked in Katara’s brain, but it was far too muddled for her to process. There was the dull roar and Katara looked up into a grayish green wave, towering above her head. She threw her arms up and spun, just barely in time to prevent getting hit with the giant wave, pulling the water around her instead of over her and using the momentum to push back towards Aang.
He was so wrapped up in his own task that for a half-second she thought that she had a decent chance of getting a hit in, but at the last minute his head snapped around and he easily deflected the water, diverting it back into the channel beside him.
The look on his face was one of exasperation. “You’re still standing?” he asked uncertainly.
Katara had to stop herself from letting out a weary laugh - any time she doubted her ability to fight against Aang he did something else that just proved that this was not her Aang in any way. She would never be the type to just lie down and let others have their way when she still had the ability to fight, and Aang knew that, praised her for that, loved that about her.
Calmly, he walked over to her, reached out an arm and gently grasped her by the chin. Katara’s limbs promptly began refusing any orders from her brain, her hands relaxing and letting the water that had formed into baubles around them soak into the ground. He lifted his hand, forcing her to make eye contact with him, looking over her with a curious eye.
“You’re stronger than you look, waterbender. No wonder the Avatar is so in love with you.” There was a new appreciation in his voice; Katara let out a growl and suddenly water was called back to her hands and rushing around them. Her teeth clenched as she felt the icy coldness breeze around her, brushing her back and neck as her braid whipped around.
“Don’t talk about Aang,” she gritted out, a second wave of fury washing over her. “You have no right-“
The pressure at her neck suddenly lessoned, and with a huge gust of wind and the stomp of a foot she was pushed backwards, falling through the stream of water circling the pair and hitting the saturated ground hard.
“I don’t have time for this,” he hissed. “I have to get out of here while my pet destroys your companions.”
Katara groaned and shook her head, her eyes rolling back to see plumes of fire exploding in the clearing behind her. Faintly she recalled fighting Azula and Zuko stepping in, but it seemed so far away that it could have been a dream for all she knew. Her fingers twitched and the water twitched with it, but the spirit merely rolled his eyes.
“By all means, keep throwing the water around - it might actually help me find the way out of here,” he invited, flinging his arms wide. The water mirrored his movements, rushing back away from them; Katara felt some that had soaked into her clothes and into the ground underneath her lift away.
It was getting harder and harder to process thoughts - the part of her that had trained in healing was shrieking about how hard she had struck her head - but this just seemed wrong. He wanted her to get in his way? “Wha-?”
The grin on his face was lopsided, and he bent down low to the ground to look at her. “Didn’t you notice,” he asked sarcastically, as if it was totally obvious and she was an idiot not to have picked up on it sooner, “that only waterbenders had settled and could navigate through the swamp?”
There was crashing and yelling behind her, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember who was back there and whether or not it concerned her.
Aang turned his back to her and returned to the water, sweeping it away in huge gusts and pulling up rock to create a temporary dam and prevent it from flooding back. He would spend a few moments pacing through the wet ground, looking for the right way, before rubbing his eyes and snarling to himself, then dropping the rock dam and allowing the water to gush back in, sinking up to his knees before moving to another waterway.
“The problem,” she heard him say conversationally, “Is that it changes. The cycle of the moon changes it.”
The process was repeated several times, and as he came no closer to his goal he become more and more frustrated. Katara watched with a clinical disinterest for a while, still slowly processing everything in her mind, until her thoughts began to fade and she began to focus on the water pulsing under her hands; with it came a second wind, a new wave of outrage and sense of justice.
Who was this spirit, to take everything away from her? She didn’t care what wrongs the Avatar had committed against him; neither Aang nor she deserved this, not after everything they had been through and all the time they had spent correcting the wrongs of others.
She balled her fists, and felt the water around them harden into ice, as sharp as any blade. The hot, righteous anger in her stomach spread through her body and gave her energy to pull herself up, and as she did so a wave of water rose with her.
There was no longer an edge of doubt to her actions, only single-minded determination. She took off in a halted gait towards him - pain was shooting up her right leg from what would later be discovered as a sprained ankle - but before she got three full steps in he spun around again and caught her right in the gut with a boulder.
The air rushed out of her lungs, and pain blossomed through her midsection. There was the disorienting sensation of falling, and then she hit the ground again. The stars returned but instead of clearing like the first time, they blurred and fell away into darkness. Katara barely had a moment to regret anything before she followed them, sliding away into unconsciousness.
***
Chapter 15: Sic Semper Tyrannis