Sorry for the delay, had a job interview thingie this afternoon which prevented writing the update in a timely manner and didn't get back until like, three hours ago, for various reasons. Update will be done in an hour or two, tops.
Day Forty-Three, Ruins of Omashu
“What did you do with Ed?” I demanded, rising to my feet with a
bit more effort than I would have liked.
“Ed?” She looked at me. “Oh, you mean the foreign boy.” She
smiled. “I don't really know. After melting his leg off I lost all
track of him. I don't imagine he survived.”
The expression for a going berserk is 'seeing red' and until that
moment I had never quite understood what it meant. But as she spoke
those words I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my throat, I could
feel my temples throb, and yes, I witnessed a red tinge fill my
vision. My hand snapped up, carrying the broadsword with it. I
remember yelling something, but not rightly what. I have no illusions
that it was coherent, much less inspiring or pithy.
Azula barely even twitched. Her body slid just far enough to the
side to avoid my clumsy overhead chop. Sparks cracked off the ground.
I roared and dragged the blade back up, trying to take her legs out.
I was looking right into her face at the time, I distinctly remember
her raising one eyebrow in a mocking expression.
When I regained consciousness I was slumped against the wall. My
head was spinning and black stars sparked in my vision. I groaned and
shifted my hand, putting my injured one down to support me. The flare
of pain restored my senses.
I hadn't lost too much time, by the looks of it. Zuko was dueling
with Azula, a whirling dervish with his paired longswords. Azula,
however, looked like she was at a courtly dance, a particularly
boring one. Her feet barely shifted, her body barely bent and she
somehow evaded every one of Zuko's cuts and thrusts. Her lips were
curled in a mocking sneer.
Still outside the 'room' I had created was the robed girl, Mai. She
was holding up a brace of throwing knives with one hand. Her
expression was conflicted however and she kept lowering and raising
the hand. She probably didn't want to risk hurting Azula while Zuko
was still in melee with her. Thankfully, she didn't seem to have
noticed that I was awake and thus a fair target.
The pink-clad girl, Ty Lee, was staring at Azula with wide and
frankly scared eyes. Her body was trembling.
“Damn you!” Zuko finally shouted and hopped forward into a
scissor kick. My jaw dropped as a curtain of fire exploded from the
soles of his slippers, creating crisscrossing streamers of red flame.
His flames had Azula completely boxed in, at that range there was
simply nowhere for her to move to evade the attacks.
She never even tried. Her hand simply snapped up and the flames bent
around her, leaving her in a cocoon of safety. Yet she wasn't done.
Her other hand came up, cupping the air, and the flames twisted
around her in a spiral, collecting in front of her. Zuko was just
coming down from his jump as the fire spun around her palm,
concentrating into a ball like a miniature sun that compressed
tighter and tighter with each second. The flames burned first red,
then blue, then blinding white. Zuko didn't even have a chance to
fully regain his footing before she opened her cupped hand towards
him.
“Bang.”
It was like a grenade going of. All sound in the room ceased and the
pressure wave pushed me against the stone. Zuko flew backward like a
cannonball. Ty Lee had to bend over backwards to avoid him smashing
into her, and rolled away as he slumped to the ground. From the way
he shifted he was still conscious, but not happy about it.
There was no time for me to be shocked. I had to act. My eye spotted
my fallen sword and I pushed myself off the wall towards it. Mai
spotted me and sent five knives spinning in my direction. I got to
the sword first.
In a flash of transmuting light the sword reshaped itself into a
thin hemisphere around me. The knives smashed into and through the
metal, but not all the way. One quivered to a stop in front of my
nose.
I rolled to my feet, transmuting the metal again. The knives were
just part of the mass this time around, giving me more to work with.
Mai looked offended as her weapons vanished into the signature of my
alchemy. She pulled out more from her long sleeves.
“Don't bother, Mai,” Azula said, stepping between me and the
pale-skinned girl. “You'll just give her more ammunition.”
I hopped backwards. I'd need range to deal with her. My hand spun
the sword around, blue sparks running off it. “You shouldn't have
hurt my friend,” I told her.
“Oh, why not?” She looked amused.
“Because I can control more than just metal.” I slammed the
blade pointfirst into the rock, sinking it in a few centimetres. The
array I had etched into the metal glowed, sending blue lightning into
the ground at my feet. Rods of rock erupted from the walls, floor and
cieling, forming an interlacing web with Azula at the centre.
Somehow she shifted her body so that absolutely none of them hit
her. For the second time my jaw gaped open. I'd transmuted over fifty
rods with that stunt, and none of them had done more than flutter her
hair or ruffle her clothes.
“Yes, I'm aware.” She gestured with one hand, and a blast of
fire shattered all the rods on her right side, allowing her to step
sideways into the gap. “Though you're not nearly as versatile as
the other one.”
I growled and swung the sword up, transmuting it as I moved. It
uncoiled into a chain, each link forming as it stretched out toward
her. She jerked her head to the side, avoiding the constructing
chain, and then ducked down as the chain swung back around towards
her. I snapped my hand out and the chain hissed with light as it
deconstructed and reconstructed again and again. My attack did not
have to follow the motion of my hands, it didn't even have to obey
most of the laws of physics. I could reverse its motions, split it in
two, or even move its location entirely in an eyeblink.
It never touched her. Just like with Zuko she only ever moved just
enough that the chain missed. Her feet barely shifted and her body
bent and wove. Her eye never left my face and her smirk never slipped
for even a moment. Her arms were laced behind her back.
“Is this the extent of your powers?” She sounded disappointed.
“I was expecting more from the supreme being.”
“Shut up,” I snarled. “You can't dodge forever,”
“Really? You want me to burn you alive?” She snapped her
hand up, a trial of white flame erupted from the edge of her fingers.
Half my chain went spinning off, clattering to the ground. The metal
had been melted like wax. “Well, if you insist.”
“Nin, stand back,” Zuko said, stepping forward. I breathed a
sigh of relief. My attack had at least given him time to recover,
though his shirt had been ripped to shreds and the skin underneath
was sorched and bleeding. He assumed a stance, right foot leading and
one hand held in front of the other. “Only another firebender can
beat her.”
“I'd love to put you in your place, brother, but the adults are
talking. Ty Lee, if you would?”
Zuko had just enough time to widen his eyes before a pink blur came
at him from behind. The girl bent her body in a way that was almost
unnatural, her hands jabbing out seemingly at random. One blow came
into the pit of his arm, another just above his elbow, a third his
shoulder. Zuko flinched and jerked with the hits, stumbling back. His
arms dropped limply to his side. He tried to kick at the girl, but
she was already inside his movement. Her fingers danced across his
extended leg and it flopped uselessly. Then she bent nearly double,
doing the same thing to his remaining mobile limb. He dropped like a
stone, cracking his chin against the ground.
“Sorry, Zuko, but its for your own good.” Ty Lee said. “If you
kept fighting, she'd kill you.”
I grimaced and shifted my feet.
“Ty Lee, move!”
The array I had carved into the ground at my feet during my first
attack exploded with light. However Ty Lee was already moving,
bouncing towards the wall. The great stone fist that rose from the
ground to catch her missed by a heartbeat. She ran along the wall for
a second then bounced off it and started rushing towards me. I
snapped my hand up, the half of the chain still in my hand started to
crackle with light... and a spear of white-fire as thing as a pencil
passed just in front of my hand, sending the transmuting steel
spinning away. I gaped and stared at Azula, who was raising a smoking
finger to her face, where she adjusted one of her bangs back into an
immaculate state.
Taking my eyes of Ty Lee was a mistake, however. I felt blows rain
down on my limbs and before I knew it, I was flopping to the ground,
my arms and legs numb.
Azula clapped, slow and mocking. “Good job.” She walked over to
me and placed her foot on my chest. “You know, I could save myself
a of trouble just by killing you right here. But unfortunately I
don't know if it would stick, or if they could just make another one
of you.” She kicked me lightly in the chin, snapping my head back.
I slumped back, barely able to think.
Azula walked over to her brother next, who was glaring up at her in
impotent rage. It was hard to tell if he was snarling, or just
desperately trying to hold back tears. “Oh don't look at me that
way, Zuzu. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done so back at the
dock.” She crouched in front of him, dangling her hands between her
legs so she could toy with his hair in a disturbingly affectionate
manner. “Oh! You're just so cute when you're in despair. Just like
the night Mother went away!”
“Don't you mention Mother!” Zuko roared with far more force than
I thought him capable of. It was enough for Azula to drop her hands
from his head. “If you're going to kill me, just do it?”
She slapped him lightly. “Zuko, I just told you I don't want
to kill you. What happened between me and Uncle Iroh was purely
politics. With Father dead, the line of succession had to be clear
and absolute. Now, with him dead, there is nothing to prevent you
from taking the throne.”
Zuko's good eye widened and his mouth opened and closed like a
beached fish for a few moments. “You want... you want me to...”
“We can discuss this later,” she said, standing up. “For now,
you've been a bad boy and need a time out. Some place you can think
about how you have hurt your sister with your cruel words and
actions.” She turned to me. “Mai, strip him down.”
Mai jerked her head towards Azula, a tinge of pink appearing in her
cheeks. “Excuse me?”
“He could have an array etched anywhere in his clothes or his
belongings.” Azula tilted her head to the side and tapped her cheek
with one finger. “And remember to bind his hands and feet so they
can't touch anything when you are done. Remember, unlike a bender he
doesn't have to move to perform his art, but he does apparently have
to touch an array.”
“Why are you keeping us alive?” I asked.
She stared at me for a long moment. “You're bait.”
“Bait?”
“Yes.” She grinned maliciously. “So long as I have you, the
homonculi will have to come to me.”
“How did you even know we where here?” I said.
“I wasn't certain,” she admitted. “So I set a trap. Ty Lee
certainly looks so harmless and vulnerable, doesn't she.” She
looked at the acrobat with a grateful smile. “Thank you for that as
well. You certainly have proven yourself useful.” Ty Lee blushed a
bit and backed away with a nervous smile.
“As for you.” She reached down and grabbed my head. “I need
you alive, but not in one piece. So don't push my generosity again.”
Then she slammed my head against the ground and all I experienced was
darkness.
*
The cell I awoke in was loud. It took me a moment to realize why.
The sound was a waterfall, crashing down nearby. I was hanging in a
cage suspended from a chain in the ceiling, below me was a deep drop
into a lake whose depth I couldn't guess at. Spikes of stone rose out
of the water like spear pointed at me. In the centre of the room a
great pillar of water feel straight down. The cage was barely big
enough to fit me standing upright. My shoulders ached and a glance up
confirmed that my hands were held in a metal disk, positioned so that
I would have no chance of touching it. The metal showed the telltale
rectangular marks of alchemy. A glance down showed my feet where in a
same contraption.
Looking around me at eye level showed I wasn't alone in the room.
Zuko was in a similar cage, though he was unbound. His cage, however,
was close enough to the waterfall that the spray was getting all over
him. He was shivering and trying to rub warmth into his shoulders.
Another glance to the other side and...
“ED!” I screamed, joyously.
“Ugh, not so loud...” Ed groused. He was in the same kind of
cage, and like me was bound hand and foot (though only one foot in
his case, for obvious reason). He did not look good. His body was
covered in dark burn marks and his face was bloodied. I really didn't
care. He was alive. I felt tears rolling down my cheeks.
“Oh god, I thought you were dead,” I gasped out. “Azula told
me...”
“Azula lied, what a shock,” Zuko snarled, his zoice barely
audible above the roar of the waterfall. “She probably told you
that to trick you into attacking instead of trying to run away.”
“Azula?” Ed asked. His voice was strained, and I realized he'd
probably been hanging like I had for much longer. It was already
uncomfortable for me, and I found it too easy to imagine what it
would be like in a few hours.
Or a few days.
Or a few months...
“Crazy lady, nice hair, shoots fire,” I said. “Burned off your
leg?”
“Oh, her.” Ed grunted. “I played dumb when she tried to
question me, pretended like I couldn't understand what she was
saying.”
I nodded, took a deep breath and then yelled, “And what the hell
were you thinking, running off on your own like that!” I was
panting now. “You stupid impulsive idiot, you had me worried sick!”
Ed had the grace to look away, shamefaced. “I had to try and get
here in time,” he said. “I couldn't wait for you to recover. The
reaction we saw, I've seen it before. I know how to stop it,
how to reverse it. If I could have gotten here in time...” He
looked down, squeezing his eyes shut. “I was too late,” he choked
out.
“So the transmutation destroyed the city?” I asked.
“No, that was done afterward,” Ed admitted. “There was some...
some little kid floating above the city, in this ball of wind... it
was like nothing I've ever seen. Even father couldn't fly.”
Ed shuddered. “He was glowing and his voice... it was like a chorus
of screams, nothing but pure rage. Then he just exploded and this
huge tornado of fire came down from the sky all around him and ripped
the entire city to shreds. I was almost killed right then, I think I
lost consciousness. When I came to, it was just in time for
psycho-fire-chick to find me.”
“What are you too talking about?” Zuko asked, irritated. I
explained. Zuko frowned. “The Avatar,” he said.
“He could really do that?” I asked.
“He sunk over a hundred Fire Navy ships at once, and melted an
entire island into magma. I know, I saw him do them both.”
I shuddered, making my bindings clatter. The confrontation, no, the
total defeat at the hands of Azula had left me shaken to my core. I
was just beginning to think, after our success with Lust and the
bounty hunters at the pier that I was getting to the point I could
take care of myself. She had never been in any danger at all. The
thought that there was someone out there even more dangerous than
Azula made my stomach do acrobatics that even Ty Lee would have been
impressed with.
Still, I was alive, and so was Ed. As far as I was concerned, those
were both mistakes on Azula's part. The only question was, how to
exploit them?
[ ]If all three of you work together, you can make a daring escape!
Right! Right? ...
[ ]Zuko held things back for two long, time to drag out the truth
from him.
[ ]Wait for rescue.
[ ]I'd rather die than be a hostage for that woman. Do something
foolishly dangerous!
-------------
Epsilon
Day Forty-Three, Ruins of Omashu
“What did you do with Ed?” I demanded, rising to my feet with a
bit more effort than I would have liked.
“Ed?” She looked at me. “Oh, you mean the foreign boy.” She
smiled. “I don't really know. After melting his leg off I lost all
track of him. I don't imagine he survived.”
The expression for a going berserk is 'seeing red' and until that
moment I had never quite understood what it meant. But as she spoke
those words I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my throat, I could
feel my temples throb, and yes, I witnessed a red tinge fill my
vision. My hand snapped up, carrying the broadsword with it. I
remember yelling something, but not rightly what. I have no illusions
that it was coherent, much less inspiring or pithy.
Azula barely even twitched. Her body slid just far enough to the
side to avoid my clumsy overhead chop. Sparks cracked off the ground.
I roared and dragged the blade back up, trying to take her legs out.
I was looking right into her face at the time, I distinctly remember
her raising one eyebrow in a mocking expression.
When I regained consciousness I was slumped against the wall. My
head was spinning and black stars sparked in my vision. I groaned and
shifted my hand, putting my injured one down to support me. The flare
of pain restored my senses.
I hadn't lost too much time, by the looks of it. Zuko was dueling
with Azula, a whirling dervish with his paired longswords. Azula,
however, looked like she was at a courtly dance, a particularly
boring one. Her feet barely shifted, her body barely bent and she
somehow evaded every one of Zuko's cuts and thrusts. Her lips were
curled in a mocking sneer.
Still outside the 'room' I had created was the robed girl, Mai. She
was holding up a brace of throwing knives with one hand. Her
expression was conflicted however and she kept lowering and raising
the hand. She probably didn't want to risk hurting Azula while Zuko
was still in melee with her. Thankfully, she didn't seem to have
noticed that I was awake and thus a fair target.
The pink-clad girl, Ty Lee, was staring at Azula with wide and
frankly scared eyes. Her body was trembling.
“Damn you!” Zuko finally shouted and hopped forward into a
scissor kick. My jaw dropped as a curtain of fire exploded from the
soles of his slippers, creating crisscrossing streamers of red flame.
His flames had Azula completely boxed in, at that range there was
simply nowhere for her to move to evade the attacks.
She never even tried. Her hand simply snapped up and the flames bent
around her, leaving her in a cocoon of safety. Yet she wasn't done.
Her other hand came up, cupping the air, and the flames twisted
around her in a spiral, collecting in front of her. Zuko was just
coming down from his jump as the fire spun around her palm,
concentrating into a ball like a miniature sun that compressed
tighter and tighter with each second. The flames burned first red,
then blue, then blinding white. Zuko didn't even have a chance to
fully regain his footing before she opened her cupped hand towards
him.
“Bang.”
It was like a grenade going of. All sound in the room ceased and the
pressure wave pushed me against the stone. Zuko flew backward like a
cannonball. Ty Lee had to bend over backwards to avoid him smashing
into her, and rolled away as he slumped to the ground. From the way
he shifted he was still conscious, but not happy about it.
There was no time for me to be shocked. I had to act. My eye spotted
my fallen sword and I pushed myself off the wall towards it. Mai
spotted me and sent five knives spinning in my direction. I got to
the sword first.
In a flash of transmuting light the sword reshaped itself into a
thin hemisphere around me. The knives smashed into and through the
metal, but not all the way. One quivered to a stop in front of my
nose.
I rolled to my feet, transmuting the metal again. The knives were
just part of the mass this time around, giving me more to work with.
Mai looked offended as her weapons vanished into the signature of my
alchemy. She pulled out more from her long sleeves.
“Don't bother, Mai,” Azula said, stepping between me and the
pale-skinned girl. “You'll just give her more ammunition.”
I hopped backwards. I'd need range to deal with her. My hand spun
the sword around, blue sparks running off it. “You shouldn't have
hurt my friend,” I told her.
“Oh, why not?” She looked amused.
“Because I can control more than just metal.” I slammed the
blade pointfirst into the rock, sinking it in a few centimetres. The
array I had etched into the metal glowed, sending blue lightning into
the ground at my feet. Rods of rock erupted from the walls, floor and
cieling, forming an interlacing web with Azula at the centre.
Somehow she shifted her body so that absolutely none of them hit
her. For the second time my jaw gaped open. I'd transmuted over fifty
rods with that stunt, and none of them had done more than flutter her
hair or ruffle her clothes.
“Yes, I'm aware.” She gestured with one hand, and a blast of
fire shattered all the rods on her right side, allowing her to step
sideways into the gap. “Though you're not nearly as versatile as
the other one.”
I growled and swung the sword up, transmuting it as I moved. It
uncoiled into a chain, each link forming as it stretched out toward
her. She jerked her head to the side, avoiding the constructing
chain, and then ducked down as the chain swung back around towards
her. I snapped my hand out and the chain hissed with light as it
deconstructed and reconstructed again and again. My attack did not
have to follow the motion of my hands, it didn't even have to obey
most of the laws of physics. I could reverse its motions, split it in
two, or even move its location entirely in an eyeblink.
It never touched her. Just like with Zuko she only ever moved just
enough that the chain missed. Her feet barely shifted and her body
bent and wove. Her eye never left my face and her smirk never slipped
for even a moment. Her arms were laced behind her back.
“Is this the extent of your powers?” She sounded disappointed.
“I was expecting more from the supreme being.”
“Shut up,” I snarled. “You can't dodge forever,”
“Really? You want me to burn you alive?” She snapped her
hand up, a trial of white flame erupted from the edge of her fingers.
Half my chain went spinning off, clattering to the ground. The metal
had been melted like wax. “Well, if you insist.”
“Nin, stand back,” Zuko said, stepping forward. I breathed a
sigh of relief. My attack had at least given him time to recover,
though his shirt had been ripped to shreds and the skin underneath
was sorched and bleeding. He assumed a stance, right foot leading and
one hand held in front of the other. “Only another firebender can
beat her.”
“I'd love to put you in your place, brother, but the adults are
talking. Ty Lee, if you would?”
Zuko had just enough time to widen his eyes before a pink blur came
at him from behind. The girl bent her body in a way that was almost
unnatural, her hands jabbing out seemingly at random. One blow came
into the pit of his arm, another just above his elbow, a third his
shoulder. Zuko flinched and jerked with the hits, stumbling back. His
arms dropped limply to his side. He tried to kick at the girl, but
she was already inside his movement. Her fingers danced across his
extended leg and it flopped uselessly. Then she bent nearly double,
doing the same thing to his remaining mobile limb. He dropped like a
stone, cracking his chin against the ground.
“Sorry, Zuko, but its for your own good.” Ty Lee said. “If you
kept fighting, she'd kill you.”
I grimaced and shifted my feet.
“Ty Lee, move!”
The array I had carved into the ground at my feet during my first
attack exploded with light. However Ty Lee was already moving,
bouncing towards the wall. The great stone fist that rose from the
ground to catch her missed by a heartbeat. She ran along the wall for
a second then bounced off it and started rushing towards me. I
snapped my hand up, the half of the chain still in my hand started to
crackle with light... and a spear of white-fire as thing as a pencil
passed just in front of my hand, sending the transmuting steel
spinning away. I gaped and stared at Azula, who was raising a smoking
finger to her face, where she adjusted one of her bangs back into an
immaculate state.
Taking my eyes of Ty Lee was a mistake, however. I felt blows rain
down on my limbs and before I knew it, I was flopping to the ground,
my arms and legs numb.
Azula clapped, slow and mocking. “Good job.” She walked over to
me and placed her foot on my chest. “You know, I could save myself
a of trouble just by killing you right here. But unfortunately I
don't know if it would stick, or if they could just make another one
of you.” She kicked me lightly in the chin, snapping my head back.
I slumped back, barely able to think.
Azula walked over to her brother next, who was glaring up at her in
impotent rage. It was hard to tell if he was snarling, or just
desperately trying to hold back tears. “Oh don't look at me that
way, Zuzu. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done so back at the
dock.” She crouched in front of him, dangling her hands between her
legs so she could toy with his hair in a disturbingly affectionate
manner. “Oh! You're just so cute when you're in despair. Just like
the night Mother went away!”
“Don't you mention Mother!” Zuko roared with far more force than
I thought him capable of. It was enough for Azula to drop her hands
from his head. “If you're going to kill me, just do it?”
She slapped him lightly. “Zuko, I just told you I don't want
to kill you. What happened between me and Uncle Iroh was purely
politics. With Father dead, the line of succession had to be clear
and absolute. Now, with him dead, there is nothing to prevent you
from taking the throne.”
Zuko's good eye widened and his mouth opened and closed like a
beached fish for a few moments. “You want... you want me to...”
“We can discuss this later,” she said, standing up. “For now,
you've been a bad boy and need a time out. Some place you can think
about how you have hurt your sister with your cruel words and
actions.” She turned to me. “Mai, strip him down.”
Mai jerked her head towards Azula, a tinge of pink appearing in her
cheeks. “Excuse me?”
“He could have an array etched anywhere in his clothes or his
belongings.” Azula tilted her head to the side and tapped her cheek
with one finger. “And remember to bind his hands and feet so they
can't touch anything when you are done. Remember, unlike a bender he
doesn't have to move to perform his art, but he does apparently have
to touch an array.”
“Why are you keeping us alive?” I asked.
She stared at me for a long moment. “You're bait.”
“Bait?”
“Yes.” She grinned maliciously. “So long as I have you, the
homonculi will have to come to me.”
“How did you even know we where here?” I said.
“I wasn't certain,” she admitted. “So I set a trap. Ty Lee
certainly looks so harmless and vulnerable, doesn't she.” She
looked at the acrobat with a grateful smile. “Thank you for that as
well. You certainly have proven yourself useful.” Ty Lee blushed a
bit and backed away with a nervous smile.
“As for you.” She reached down and grabbed my head. “I need
you alive, but not in one piece. So don't push my generosity again.”
Then she slammed my head against the ground and all I experienced was
darkness.
*
The cell I awoke in was loud. It took me a moment to realize why.
The sound was a waterfall, crashing down nearby. I was hanging in a
cage suspended from a chain in the ceiling, below me was a deep drop
into a lake whose depth I couldn't guess at. Spikes of stone rose out
of the water like spear pointed at me. In the centre of the room a
great pillar of water feel straight down. The cage was barely big
enough to fit me standing upright. My shoulders ached and a glance up
confirmed that my hands were held in a metal disk, positioned so that
I would have no chance of touching it. The metal showed the telltale
rectangular marks of alchemy. A glance down showed my feet where in a
same contraption.
Looking around me at eye level showed I wasn't alone in the room.
Zuko was in a similar cage, though he was unbound. His cage, however,
was close enough to the waterfall that the spray was getting all over
him. He was shivering and trying to rub warmth into his shoulders.
Another glance to the other side and...
“ED!” I screamed, joyously.
“Ugh, not so loud...” Ed groused. He was in the same kind of
cage, and like me was bound hand and foot (though only one foot in
his case, for obvious reason). He did not look good. His body was
covered in dark burn marks and his face was bloodied. I really didn't
care. He was alive. I felt tears rolling down my cheeks.
“Oh god, I thought you were dead,” I gasped out. “Azula told
me...”
“Azula lied, what a shock,” Zuko snarled, his zoice barely
audible above the roar of the waterfall. “She probably told you
that to trick you into attacking instead of trying to run away.”
“Azula?” Ed asked. His voice was strained, and I realized he'd
probably been hanging like I had for much longer. It was already
uncomfortable for me, and I found it too easy to imagine what it
would be like in a few hours.
Or a few days.
Or a few months...
“Crazy lady, nice hair, shoots fire,” I said. “Burned off your
leg?”
“Oh, her.” Ed grunted. “I played dumb when she tried to
question me, pretended like I couldn't understand what she was
saying.”
I nodded, took a deep breath and then yelled, “And what the hell
were you thinking, running off on your own like that!” I was
panting now. “You stupid impulsive idiot, you had me worried sick!”
Ed had the grace to look away, shamefaced. “I had to try and get
here in time,” he said. “I couldn't wait for you to recover. The
reaction we saw, I've seen it before. I know how to stop it,
how to reverse it. If I could have gotten here in time...” He
looked down, squeezing his eyes shut. “I was too late,” he choked
out.
“So the transmutation destroyed the city?” I asked.
“No, that was done afterward,” Ed admitted. “There was some...
some little kid floating above the city, in this ball of wind... it
was like nothing I've ever seen. Even father couldn't fly.”
Ed shuddered. “He was glowing and his voice... it was like a chorus
of screams, nothing but pure rage. Then he just exploded and this
huge tornado of fire came down from the sky all around him and ripped
the entire city to shreds. I was almost killed right then, I think I
lost consciousness. When I came to, it was just in time for
psycho-fire-chick to find me.”
“What are you too talking about?” Zuko asked, irritated. I
explained. Zuko frowned. “The Avatar,” he said.
“He could really do that?” I asked.
“He sunk over a hundred Fire Navy ships at once, and melted an
entire island into magma. I know, I saw him do them both.”
I shuddered, making my bindings clatter. The confrontation, no, the
total defeat at the hands of Azula had left me shaken to my core. I
was just beginning to think, after our success with Lust and the
bounty hunters at the pier that I was getting to the point I could
take care of myself. She had never been in any danger at all. The
thought that there was someone out there even more dangerous than
Azula made my stomach do acrobatics that even Ty Lee would have been
impressed with.
Still, I was alive, and so was Ed. As far as I was concerned, those
were both mistakes on Azula's part. The only question was, how to
exploit them?
[ ]If all three of you work together, you can make a daring escape!
Right! Right? ...
[ ]Zuko held things back for two long, time to drag out the truth
from him.
[ ]Wait for rescue.
[ ]I'd rather die than be a hostage for that woman. Do something
foolishly dangerous!
-------------
Epsilon