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Post by ReelTrebleMaker on Aug 25, 2007 13:49:46 GMT -5
This fic is amazing, seriously. I'm not sure why few people have read it, but it is very well written. The amount of time that passes between chapters goes a little fast, I'll admit, but within them? The pacing is wonderful, very easy to read. Your characters are also well fleshed out and easy to understand; even Sozin (who is undeniably evil ) is obviously a human being. I can't wait for the next chapter! Karma, yay!
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Post by iLurk on Aug 25, 2007 19:55:44 GMT -5
i agree. i just dont understand why this isnt getting more attention.
the only other fic i have read that can be in the same league is the road less traveled
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manzai
Toph
Everybody have fun tonight! Everybody Wang Fire tonight!
Posts: 152
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Post by manzai on Aug 27, 2007 17:26:38 GMT -5
Thanks much, everyone. That's very flattering because I really like Road Less Travelled and admire Nandireya. I don't know if this is that good, but that did wonders for my ego Actually, I put a very small homage to RLT near the end of the story, so look for it. Glad you like the characters, ReelTrebleMaker. Thanks for karma! One of my friends (in real life, not the fandom) said she would work on making a drawing based on this story. She just went back to school though, and I don't know when it will be done, but when it is I'll post it or put it in my sig or something. Anyway, here's chapter 10, my favorite part. ------------------------------------- Chapter 10 “Do the crash-thing!”
“Alright, buddy!”
“Aang, we’ll always be friends, right?”Kuzon tossed and turned on the bed he was using that night. He got no sleep. All his dreams were half-memories of Aang and his childhood. He stared straight up at the ceiling. What have I done? His brother was a psychotic despot, and Kuzon had helped him conquer innocent people. Kuzon lay there for a long time. Suddenly, he could take no more. He decided he had to make things right. If Aang were here he would have challenged Sozin and defended his people. And the destruction of the airbenders would wreak havoc on the balance of the world. It might be the last thing he would ever do, but he knew someone had to do it, and since his old friend wasn’t here, he would act in place of Aang. He got up, and two fire daggers sprouted from the bottoms of his fists. He needed them for light. He donned his armor. Quietly, he left his chambers and made his way across the courtyard to the prison cells. Guards were on patrol. Kuzon kept to the shadows, waiting to catch a guard alone. Concealing himself as one walked by, he knocked out the guard and removed his ring of keys. He entered the cells and opened the first one, in which Taro, Jangbu, and Kunchen happened to be. They were chained to the wall. “If you’re here to kill us, I won’t go without a fight!” Taro threatened, rattling his chains. Kuzon said nothing, but proceeded to unlock his shackles. As soon as his hand was free, Taro chopped it at Kuzon’s neck. Kuzon caught his arm and twisted it into a hold. “I’m freeing you, moron,” he said. He unlocked the chains of the other monks in the cell. “Why? There are no bison. We can’t get away.” “Get to the gliders and go due east. You won’t make it across the sea, but maybe I can steal a boat and pick you up. Get out of here and tell the others.” “We’ll drown!” “It’s that or nothing.” Taro looked at him, then rushed out. Kuzon moved on to each successive cell as monks poured out of the prison tower. Taro spread the plan to some other monks before he left. As he was sprinting across the courtyard, someone called out to him from behind a wall. He turned to see Afiko. He embraced his old mentor. “I was so worried! I hadn’t seen you since you left for the meeting in the Fire Nation!” Afiko hugged him back. “Taro, you have to come with me right now. There’s no time to explain. Grab some of your friends and come with me.” “Come with you where? There’s a blockade around the islands. We can’t get anywhere.” “I have our bison. We can escape.” “How did you get Pema?” “I made a deal with Sozin. He’s going to keep us safe.” Taro’s smile melted away. He felt like something had struck his heart. He didn’t believe it. “ You did this?” Afiko grabbed his hand. “Just come with me, Taro.” Taro looked utterly disgusted. “You did this! You stole the bison! You betrayed us!” He blasted Afiko with air. Afiko slid back a little but knocked away most of the blast. “Look around, Taro! Obviously I made the right choice. I’m your only chance at life. We can take a few more pupils, go back to the Fire Nation and live in safety. The Air Nomads will live on through us, and we can rebuild the order as we please. We can remake the airbenders to be a strong, unconquerable people, not cowing weaklings like these monks! You and I will be powerful, the patriarchs of an entire nation! Come with me…I didn’t spend all that time training you so you could die here.” Taro said nothing. “It’s your only choice.” Taro just looked at him sadly. “No.” Afiko chuckled. “Oh, Taro, you don’t know what you’re saying. Come with me.” Taro didn’t move. “I’m your mentor; doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Taro was silent. “Please,” Afiko pleaded, as close to crying as he had been since his own mentor had died. “I don’t want you to die.” He said, offering a hand. Taro just stared at him, then shook his head profusely, trying to make it all go away. He sadly took a fighting stance. “I’ll take you forcibly if I have to!” Afiko shouted at the boy, hardening himself again. Afiko easily blocked Taro’s first blast and leapt forward with an airbending slice. Taro pushed the air away. They circled each other, trading blasts and slices. Taro would step forward and strike. Afiko would dodge, then step in with a strike of his own, most of which Taro was able to dodge. Taro was sick with sorrow at the actions of his mentor, and after a few minutes, Afiko was able to simply make him physically tired from the effort of fighting. Afiko chopped both his hands in toward Taro and the air around him mimicked the motion. Taro was too exhausted to move in time and fell down under the barrage. A gong sounded, and Fire Nation soldiers began streaming into the courtyard to recapture the fleeing airbenders. The same battle of a few days ago began again. The temple erupted in chaos. Afiko approached Taro, but before he could grab the boy and escape, Taro surprised him, spinning his legs and tripping his old mentor with a blast of air. In one motion, Taro was up before Afiko even hit the ground. He lifted his mentor with a cyclone of air, spun him around, and launched him off to the side somewhere. Taro didn’t look back or pause. He suspected he knew where Afiko was keeping Pema. He needed to get to her to evacuate the others. *** Meanwhile, Kuzon had opened the last cell in the prison tower. As he emerged holding the keys, he saw Sozin approaching angrily with some of the secret police. He caught sight of Kuzon and their eyes locked. For a moment, Kuzon’s chest felt like an empty hole. His body went cold. He felt vaguely like he had when Izuma had caught him standing over a smashed antique vase with a ball in his hand, but a thousand times worse. They both just looked at each other for a while, gaping in disbelief. “YOU!” Sozin cried. He sent a fireball at Kuzon. Kuzon drew his sword and used firebending to slash away the flame. Sozin drew his sword as well. “Traitor!” Kuzon backed away, around the prison tower to the little plaza outside the south wall. Sozin approached him with his sword drawn. “Why, Kuzon? Why did you do this?” He sounded genuinely disappointed. “The Fire Nation was on its way to being the most powerful nation in the world. Don’t you care about your people?” “You said you would keep the airbenders alive! Now you’re going to execute them all. Don’t you realize that what you’re talking about is genocide?” “I’m making the Fire Nation strong again. I will—” “You don’t care about the Fire Nation! You’re doing this because you want to make yourself strong! If you really cared about the Fire Nation you wouldn’t send its people to die in a war. You wouldn’t taint its honor with the blood of innocents!” “How dare you speak to me like this? Insubordination! I wield the power of the Eternal Conflagration! My will is law! I am the Lord of Fire! The Scion of the Sun!” “You’re a maniac…” Kuzon breathed, closing his eyes, “and you’re no longer my brother.” Sozin placed his other hand on the hilt of his sword for a more powerful grip. He had run out of patience for the last time. “You were always the troublemaker, weren’t you, Kuzon?” he said. “Well, now I will make you learn respect!” With that, the fight was met. The swords given by the Avatar, the swords that represented the universal harmony of yin and yang, the swords which were intended to be used in perfect unison now locked together in struggle. “You shouldn’t have skipped all those training sessions,” Sozin said. He brought his leg around and in, kicking Kuzon behind his kneecap. Kuzon fell onto his knee, but he swept with his other leg, unleashing a low arc of flame before Sozin could react. Sozin stumbled back. Turning around, Kuzon shifted his balance to the other knee and painfully shot a fireball out of his hurt leg. Sozin dodged, but was forced back a bit. Kuzon rolled away from Sozin, chased back by sparks from Sozin’s saber as it hacked the courtyard’s stone where Kuzon had just been. “You were always mother’s favorite, weren’t you? She let you get away with anything! But look at you now!” Sozin cried. “You’re worse than Kai Hin!” Kuzon jumped up just in time to parry a mid-level blow from Sozin. Kuzon parried more blows. The swords crashed together. The clacking of the tangs inside the hilts was audible. But no blows landed. Sozin was more aggressive. His sweeping slashes and blasts of fire left virtually no openings. Kuzon backed away, but dodged one swipe of the sword too slowly. As he rolled his head away, the tip of Sozin’s blade grazed his face, cutting a gash from his sideburn down his cheekbone to the corner of his mouth. “I should have known this would happen! You always were unable to think of the consequences for what you did!” Sozin shouted. He forced Kuzon back against the wall. There was a gap a few feet wide in the stonework that stood at the edge of the precipice. When an airbender dies, traditionally his or her body is placed on the edge of one of the temple terraces in a seated, meditating position. The other benders push, or rather, use airbending to throw the body over the edge, through a gap in the wall. They give the person back to the wind. They believe that in freefall the Divine Wind will carry the soul to the Spirit World. From the vantage of the mourners, the body appears as though it will fall forever, free from any attachment to this world. Kuzon backed away from his brother, stepping into the funerary gap, holding the corner of the stonework with his free hand. He wore a grim look, but trembled as tears crept down his face. The wind whipped loose strands of his long black hair against his face. It did the same to Sozin. Just for a flash, a shock of hair concealed that wild, demonic look in Sozin’s eyes. Kuzon could picture the brother he had grown up with, just for that one moment. It was the last image of the Sozin who had been his brother that Kuzon would ever know. “Get away from the ledge, Kuzon! I won’t kill you if you surrender!” Sozin’s eyes seemed to water. He was genuinely sad for the first time in years. Kuzon took a last look at his brother, then threw himself over the ledge. Kuzon heard the fluttering of his robes where the armor exposed them. He saw drops of blood from his wound float up before his eyes. The wind pressed on his back, howling upwards toward the life he had just given up. He closed his eyes. *** Taro was piloting Pema around the temple. He had gotten some of his friends and the very young children out of the battle. He tried to save more airbenders, but he didn’t know how many more Pema could carry safely, and firebenders were launching fireballs and flaming grapeshot from catapults at them. He couldn’t land anywhere. Just a few days ago Taro had been reluctant to even talk to these boys, and now he somehow found himself their de facto leader. But Taro had to try to negate for his mentor's actions, even if it was futile. He knew that if his friend Aang were here, this is what he would do. Taro decided he would act in Aang’s place. Kunchen knelt over Jangbu, who had been gravely burned on his head and chest trying to escape. He was fading in and out of consciousness. “We have to take him to the healers at the South Pole!” Kunchen called over the din. “He’s not going to make it if we don’t get him there soon.” Taro had no choice. He had to leave the temple now, or he would endanger the people he had taken onto Pema. As he flew past the South Wall he noticed fire blasts, which lit up a dim image of some kind of battle. One figure was forced back against the wall. Suddenly, the fight seemed to stop. Then the figure fell through the funerary gap in the wall. “Hold on!” Taro called. He piloted Pema into a dive. Perhaps he could save one more airbender tonight. The monks held the saddle and grabbed the younger children to keep them from being thrown off. Pema just made it next to the falling figure as Kunchen airbended the man and his sword onto the bison. Taro pulled up on the reins just in time to miss a rocky mountain outcropping hidden just under the cloudline. *** Sozin saw the bison catch his brother just before it dove into a cloud. The significance of everything that had just happened finally hit him. “Shoot them down!” He ordered, not checking or caring whether there were any firebenders within earshot. “SHOOT THEM DOWN!” Sozin stepped back, and let out an incredible cry of rage as he made an extravagant motion and fired a huge column of flame at the escaping bison. Sozin missed, too distraught to aim well, but the blast was huge. Firebending is fueled by emotion. Legend has it the blast could be seen as far away as Kyoshi Island. ------------------------------------ More chapters soon. If my readers would be so kind, I would like some feedback on my description of fight scenes specifically. I need to know more about what people think of my style to write another battle scene later. Thank you!
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manzai
Toph
Everybody have fun tonight! Everybody Wang Fire tonight!
Posts: 152
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Post by manzai on Aug 29, 2007 10:37:39 GMT -5
Chapter 11 Kunchen was shocked at the sight of the unconscious man who had just joined them on the bison. “Uh…maybe you should look at this, guys.” The remaining conscious airbenders gathered around the newcomer, but Taro was too busy piloting the bison. He thought it was just another airbender and Kunchen was getting worked up over his injuries. “He’s a firebender!” one boy exclaimed. Taro was shocked. He leapt back into the saddle. “Khalama, take over,” he said to one of the boys, examining the unconscious firebender. “This is the one who freed us,” Kunchen said. Taro regarded the man. “We should throw him off.” “What? No!” Kunchen interrupted Taro’s airbending of the body. “Taro, he saved us. Didn’t you see? A firebender was fighting him too.” “Oh, I saw. Did you see what they did to the temple? Did you see what his people did to Jangbu?” He was almost shouting, glaring right into Kunchen’s eyes. “…Or did you miss that? ...He’s dangerous, and not to be trusted! We should throw him overboard before he wakes up and decides to change his mind.” “He already saved us. Do you really think he’s going to do that?” Taro turned away and sat, looking out into the night. He whispered, “I don’t know what to think anymore.” He flopped onto his back, staring straight up. “We can easily throw him off if he does try anything.” Kunchen tried to compromise with Taro. “Fine,” Taro said with no particular tone at all. He pulled his orange outer cloak over his face. “Wake me when we get there.” *** They flew all night and most of the next day. Jangbu stopped breathing sometime in the night, but Kunchen used the airbending technique of forcing breath into a body to keep him alive. Khalama was scared and woke up Taro. He drove Pema faster. There wasn’t much else he could do. Shortly before they made it to the South Pole, Kuzon woke up. He didn’t realize he had lived, or that any of the airbenders had either. “Is this the Spirit World?” he asked. “No, you’re alive,” Kunchen smiled. He couldn’t be angry at the man. Taro immediately went back to the saddle and confronted Kuzon. “Why did you attack the Temple?!” He grabbed Kuzon’s cape right where it wrapped around his neck. Kuzon was a year older than he, but his anger at the Fire Nation and his mentor’s betrayal had temporarily wiped away his usual timidity. “Why did you kill the airbenders?! What do you want?!” Kuzon was still in something of a daze. “Thought my brother…only wanted the island…They were starving…He lied…Kill the Avatar…” “You were going to kill Aang?!” Taro threw Kuzon out of his grasp like garbage. The other monks moved to the sides of the saddle. He built up a charge of air between his hands and intended to use it on the firebender. Kuzon didn’t move. Then, without opening his eyes, he said, “I was Aang’s friend.” The ball of air died between Taro’s palms. His face softened. “What?” he whispered. “Aang and I were friends. When he used to visit the Fire Nation.” Kuzon panted. “My brother swore to me he would keep the airbenders alive. I helped with the assault because people were starving in the Fire Nation. We wanted to take over your food supply to mitigate the poverty. I never wanted this to happen.” Kunchen focused on Jangbu’s breathing, but he couldn’t help but ask. “Your brother…is the Firelord?” “Yes.” “Then why did you help us?” Taro asked. “I don’t know,” Kuzon said, sounding frustrated. “I just couldn’t go along with my brother anymore. I guess I felt like I owed it to Aang.” “I don’t believe it,” Taro said. “How do we know you’re not a spy or something? Why shouldn’t we kill you just to be sure?” Kuzon looked at him, but his look was sad, not outraged. “I lost everything back there. I betrayed the only family I have. I have no home now. I have no family,” Kuzon said, really talking more into the saddle than to any of the monks. He curled up and buried his face in his arms as tears began to crawl down his face. The salt stung his recent cut. He unsheathed his sword and handed it to Taro. “If you want to kill me, kill me. I honestly don’t care now.” He looked straight at the boy. Taro took up the sword. He held it up. I have to kill him. If you have to kill…you kill. Taro brought the sword higher. Then he remembered. Afiko taught me that…and look how he turned out. He handed the sword to Kuzon. “Thanks,” Taro grunted. “…for saving us.” Kuzon looked at him. Taro stepped towards him again. “If you do anything the least bit suspicious, don’t think I won’t kill you just because you freed us.” “Ha!” Kuzon snorted, “Don’t think I won’t kill you just because I freed you,” he slid his dao back into the scabbard. When they landed, Jangbu was rushed to the healers’ building, with Kunchen at his side, acting as a respirator. Most of the monks went in with Jangbu, either because they were concerned or because they were somehow injured themselves. Kuzon went in for his face, but he didn’t even want the wound fully healed, he just told the waterbenders to dress it, and after they did he left. Taro stayed behind to unload Pema. Kuzon began to wander listlessly. The South Pole was more like the Northern Tribe back then. There were fantastic buildings of ice and snow, waterways and sidewalks to get around. Kuzon had never seen anything like it. Sozin had gone with his mother to a conference in the North Pole once soon before she died (since they wouldn’t confer with a female ruler and a male representative was needed), but Kuzon had been too young to accompany them. If he had come here at any other time in his life, he would have probably been overcome with excitement and would have gone sightseeing. Now he walked simply because it was something to do. He didn’t care about the buildings. He didn’t really even care about the people he had saved. He didn’t want to care about anything. He didn’t want to think about anything. He just wanted to walk. He passed Taro outside the building. Taro bent the saddle off Pema. He was trying to focus on the unpacking, the work, anything else than what had happened over the last few days. He caught a glimpse of the young prince over his shoulder. Taro didn’t look up from his work completely, but paused for a moment. Then he went back to unhitching the bison. Kuzon briefly paused in turn, then just walked on. Kuzon was in a daze, and he felt a little bit physically ill. What he had done was in such conflict with his image of himself that his body was actually having trouble functioning. There was a canal cut into the ice nearby the healers’ building, and Kuzon stumbled over to it, suddenly feeling incredibly thirsty. He bent his head right down to the water like an animal drinking and took three huge gulps before pulling his head out and passing out right next to the water. Taro noticed he had stopped moving, but went on removing Pema’s harness. He was fully prepared to leave the firebender there and forget about him…but he couldn’t. Taro’s mentor might have been that cold, but he wasn’t. He used airbending to lift Kuzon into his arms and brought him into the building. “He passed out outside. He’s warm. I think it’s a fever,” Taro told them. They covered Kuzon with blankets and wet him with rags, but the prince was not experiencing a natural sickness, and the healers had to let it run its course. Kuzon tossed and turned through strange dreams where he heard his mother’s voice, and where he was flying with Aang, then suddenly falling… It was night before Kuzon awoke and left his bed, noticing someone outside his room. Taro was sitting on a bench made of ice in the hall there. “What’s your name?” Taro asked him. Kuzon looked at him, expressionless. “Mushi,” he said mockingly. Taro glared at the obviously fake name. Then he turned his head and continued to stare straight forward. He didn’t say anything for a long time. “…Taro,” he said finally, bowing. “…Kuzon.” The prince bowed. There was a pause. “Kuzon, I have to ask you something: Do you know where the Firelord is going to strike next?” Kuzon regarded him, and then looked up at the ceiling. “He’ll probably go after the other Air Temples. He relies on the element of surprise to invade the temples, so he has to hit the next-closest one before word gets out that the Fire Nation has gone to war.” “Ideally, we want to get there before Afiko steals the bison.” “The airbender who’s helping my brother?” “Yeah.” “Another traitor,” Kuzon said, mostly to himself. “Like me.” Taro was silent for a while. “Afiko raised me.” He looked very sad. “I’m sorry,” Kuzon said. “I know what it’s like when you think you know someone and they turn out to be…something else.”
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Post by ReelTrebleMaker on Aug 29, 2007 17:27:42 GMT -5
Those new parts were amazingly emotional. Poor Taro and Kuzon. I feel really bad for them. They're having such a rough time, and all because of people they trusted and cared about. Your characters are so well developed, so human. Great job!
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Zenjamin
Ba Sing Se Zuko
Toko supporter
Posts: 2,617
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Post by Zenjamin on Aug 29, 2007 20:37:04 GMT -5
yes, however i thought you put a little too much effort in relating kozin to Zuko. although an interesting concept, what first drew me to your story was how the characters and universe you created was so different from the characters and political/cultural climate of present avatar. it really was able to contrast the pre-war era and the after war era.
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manzai
Toph
Everybody have fun tonight! Everybody Wang Fire tonight!
Posts: 152
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Post by manzai on Aug 31, 2007 12:07:55 GMT -5
Thanks. I was indeed trying to relate Kuzon, (and some aspects of Sozin too), to Zuko. I can see how it might be too much. There are certain areas coming up where I could tone the Zuko resemblance down. I'll try to do that. Anyway, here's the new chapter. ------------------------------------- Chapter 12 They decided to leave for the Western Air Temple the next day. Only Taro, Kunchen, and Khalama went. They left the rest of the monks to recover in the Southern Water Tribe. The Southern Tribe sent out messengers to warn the other nations of the Fire Nation’s actions. They also ramped up their own defenses and the airbenders agreed to help if the Fire Nation did attack the Southern Tribe. They got to the Western Temple just as the Fire Nation was attacking. The three boys saved as many nuns as they could, but the Fire Nation now had orders to kill airbenders on sight. Very few survived. Sozin then sent orders back to the Fire Nation via hawk. He commanded his other reserve fleets to move out to the Northern and Eastern Air Temples. Taro and the others had no time to return to the South Pole, so they dropped the refugees off in a coastal Earth Kingdom town and flew on. They moved at about the same rate as the war fleets and only arrived within a few hours of the battles at each temple. Each time they managed to save only so many Air Nomads. Finally, they dropped off the Eastern Temple Nuns in Ba Sing Se. Taro found a cave in the nearby mountains and left Pema there. Taro sent messenger hawks to the other Air Temple refugee groups. They held a gathering in the cave, to plan what they should do next. Every airbender still alive in the world was there. There were less than a hundred. The surviving monks of the Southern Temple brought Kuzon with them, but he almost immediately wandered off into the forest. He dismissed the few monks who tried to follow him, and they turned to their own concerns. Sozin had the war to manage, but every firebender on earth had orders to kill the airbenders on sight. They would be hunted everywhere. They conceded that it would be necessary to cast off any remnants of their identity as Air Nomads. They would live among the populous of Ba Sing Se, lost in the multitude. The adults would wear hats and grow their hair. New masters would no longer be tattooed. The airbenders would let the Fire Nation think they had won, that the Air Nomads were no more. They would have more freedom to move if no one was looking for them. Many of the survivors were young, and thirsty for revenge on the Fire Nation. Battles would soon erupt all over the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe lands. The airbenders who could still do so decided to fight the Fire Nation covertly. They decided they would become an order of warriors specializing in stealth, something like those warriors sometimes called ninja. They could appear, take out firebenders or soldiers, and then disappear again. Besides their natural mobility as airbenders, there were so few of them that it would be very difficult for the Fire Nation to track their movements. At Taro’s insistence, the order agreed never to kill an enemy in cold blood. Remembering Afiko, Taro advised the monks to hold on to their pacifistic ways. However, many of the monks and nuns objected to violence of any sort, and refused to take any part in the war. They wanted to maintain their lifestyles as they had been, meditating, wandering the earth, and attempting to reach enlightenment. Still another group believed they should now try to live as normal families, with marriage and children and regular jobs. In what would become known as The Schism of the Air Nomads, the groups of Air Nomads separated into distinct communities and generally left each other alone, although all kept their true identities concealed from the world at large. In most cases, their ability to bend atrophied and disappeared over the years. Perhaps because of his guilt from Afiko’s actions, Taro decided to remain with the militant faction, as did most of his friends. The warriors, for their part, became masters of the cryptic arts. Operating out of the taverns, shops, and back alleys of Ba Sing Se, the airbenders worked to discover Fire Nation military plans. Clad in dark browns and greens, they would steal into Fire Nation bases or ships, gliding right over the walls. Any soldiers who happened to see them would be swiftly knocked out with an airbending slice. An observer would hear nothing but a howling breeze. To the general population of the world, the airbenders were believed to be extinct. There was always a rumor that some airbenders had escaped, but Sozin disavowed any knowledge of it, and most people dismissed it as a legend. Only Sozin, a handful of top Fire Nation officials, and the underground contacts the airbenders had in the Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom knew there were any left. Since no new Avatar was ever reported from the Water Tribes, Sozin believed he had somehow escaped. Sozin traveled the world in search of the Avatar for a period of time himself, but eventually had to return to the Fire Nation and stay there to make sure his people felt he was being attentive to domestic problems. *** At first, Kuzon would not associate with the airbenders at all. He had no family or home anymore, and was still getting through his emotional breakdown. He felt as though he might as well be dead, given how much of his old life he had lost. He was jaded, disillusioned, angry, and depressed. His head told him he had done the right thing, but he still felt some loyalty to the Fire Nation, at least enough not to want to join the resistance and fight its sons. For months he did nothing but wander the mountains around Ba Sing Se in solitude and depression. One day he found some moon peaches, and rather than letting the ones he couldn’t finish go to waste he decided to bring them to the cave where Taro hid Pema and feed them to the animal. It began to rain as he came to the cave, so he shook off the small amount of water clinging to him, (although it might have been a good idea to take a little wash, since he had been wearing most of the same clothes and some of the armor since the attack on the Air Temple). Kuzon decided to wait out the rain with the creature. He dumped the moon peaches in front of Pema, casually muttering “There ya go. Enjoy.” He turned to go and sit against the wall of the cave, but suddenly Pema gave him a big sloppy lick up his whole back. Kuzon cringed in disgust, but now he knew that this was a good-natured animal. He patted her on the nose. “Uh, you’re welcome.” Pema began to eat the peaches and Kuzon had decided to try and sleep as Taro arrived in the cave, gliding out of the storm with a bucket of water for his pet. He and Kuzon exchanged stony looks, but didn’t speak until Taro noticed the moon peaches. “You brought these?” he asked. Kuzon nodded. Taro just proceeded to water Pema. It had been pretty annoying trying to get this water back in the storm. He was glad he didn’t have to get food now as well. It would be pretty useful to have someone to take care of her when he went into Ba Sing Se to visit the other airbenders. He and Kuzon had an uneasy truce at best, but Taro didn’t think Kuzon had brought food to his bison just to be deceitful. He figured Kuzon would be good enough to take care of an innocent animal. “You like her?” Taro asked. “I like her a lot better than I like you people,” Kuzon said. “I’m sure,” Taro said dismissively. “Listen, I have to go out to meet with the other airbenders occasionally, and if you want to help look after her, you may.” Kuzon seemed to consider for a moment. “All right,” he said. “I’ll help you. But you better get me some new clothes on your next trip, since Bessie here got bison-spit all over mine.” From then on Kuzon lived in the cave and looked after Pema. He periodically went out into the mountains to find food and water for her. His mind finally began to clear in the solitude, and his new purpose gave him focus. Eventually he started talking to Pema, in long conversations and spilling all his problems out to her, as though they had been lifelong friends. Kuzon had no one else to talk to now, so why not her? There was Taro too, and he did visit pretty frequently, but Kuzon wouldn’t become ready to think of him as even an ally for a while. Still, Taro visited him pretty frequently, and was one of the only airbenders to do so. He kept his promise to bring Kuzon a change of clothes, now from the Earth Kingdom, just like the airbenders wore. Eventually, after some months, Kuzon’s depression and loneliness began to fade. He realized the airbenders were the only people to which he still had connections. He began to travel into Ba Sing Se with Taro to visit them, and after a while he began visiting them on his own. A few of the airbenders, those who had suffered most at the hands of his brother, were unable to forgive Kuzon, but they were good enough to just ignore him and not bring it up. However, many airbenders praised him as a hero, and over time they became Kuzon’s genuine friends. After a few more years he joined the militant faction along with Taro, Jangbu, and some others. After just a year, Kuzon could hardly remember a time when he hadn’t felt like part of the airbenders’ community. *** The airbender stealth warriors continued to strike at the Fire Nation. Battles were lost inexplicably. Intelligence was pilfered. But there were too few of them, and even without the Comet around anymore, the Fire Nation was very powerful. The airbenders could only slow their conquering down. The use of clandestine tactics in warfare was nothing new, and the Fire Nation took precautions against this, especially after they lost a few key battles. The airbenders weren’t unstoppable, just hard to catch. Soldiers of any kind enjoy very close camaraderie. The more raids Kuzon went on, the more friends he made among the airbenders. Even Taro, who had threatened to kill him, became Kuzon’s friend. They saved each other’s lives several times. Taro helped get Kuzon from place to place when gliding was required. They argued often. Sometimes it was over things like whether humans could ever fully enact the principle of receptivity; sometimes it was over what kind of fruit pie filling is the best. Kuzon often tried to goad Taro into trying meat, but on the one occasion where he was successful Taro spat it out almost immediately, called it the most disgusting thing he had ever eaten, and profusely rubbed his tongue on his sleeve. Taro got Kuzon back when he persuaded him to let the monks give him a small tattoo. Kuzon went through with it, but he hadn’t realized how painful it would be. He yelped and swore the whole time as Taro, with his full arrow tattoos, laughed. Taro taught Kuzon how to achieve a Zen-like state through meditation; Kuzon taught Taro how to play pai sho and how to style his hair, since Taro had never had to do that before. Taro came away with two large cowlicks at weird angles on his head. He washed them out and decided not to try styling it anymore after that. Kuzon taught Taro to incorporate more aggressive techniques inspired by firebending into his combat style, and in turn he learned better evasive techniques based on airbending. They also talked about Aang a lot. One night they had returned from a mission to save some captured Earth Kingdom soldiers and were relaxing in the cave where Pema stayed. A breeze blew through the valley and rustled the tree branches. Taro watched it. “Kuzon, do you think Aang will ever come back?” Kuzon looked out over the valley. It was a nice night. “Yeah.” In this way, Kuzon and the airbenders passed twenty-three years... -------------------------------------- I know keeping the airbenders alive is AU, but it's necessary for many aspects of the story. I'm not trying to present this as a theory or anything, but I think these ideas about their survival are at least feasible. That is, if we didn't already know for sure that there are no more. Anyway, more chapters are coming.
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Zenjamin
Ba Sing Se Zuko
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Post by Zenjamin on Sept 1, 2007 9:55:32 GMT -5
agreed. in-fact, i believe i is the most likely theory that the airbenders died out over a long period of time. that, although most died in the initial attack, it seems inevitable that at least some airbenders would escape.
then, those who wanted to fight would be discovered and killed off in battle and those who wanted to hide died off in old age and would either take measures to enshure that their off-spring would not be air-benders, or would make shure that their off-spring never praticed airbending.
the art would be forgotten. in present day avatar people would have the gene for air-bending but not even know it themselves. but the gene has to live on, otherwise balance could never truely be restored.
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manzai
Toph
Everybody have fun tonight! Everybody Wang Fire tonight!
Posts: 152
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Post by manzai on Sept 5, 2007 14:54:42 GMT -5
Right. I hope this loose end about how the next Avatar cycle can function with no more airbenders will be resolved by the end of season 3. Anyway, in this case, I just thought up a scenario that worked best for the story and was interesting, not necessarily likely to happen or what I think would/did happen. ------------------------------ Chapter 13 Twenty-three years went by. Taro and Kuzon grew into middle-age. A few more years and they’d have to think about retiring from the warrior order. Taro was relieved that he was beginning to go bald naturally again. His black eyebrows and beard, however, had grown thick and droopy. They were becoming flecked with gray. His soft gray eyes were now framed by eyeglasses, as his vision had dimmed slightly. Like the others, Taro wore green and brown Earth Kingdom robes to disguise his identity, and now a wide-brimmed triangular hat as well, since his arrow was beginning to show again. He altered his robes so they would at least fit as much like traditional airbender garb as possible, even they couldn’t resemble them outwardly. Kuzon, now forty-one, was just starting to go gray too. His hair had not receded so much and was still long enough to almost touch his shoulders, so he tied it all behind his head in a messy bun rather than bother with it. As a consequence of relinquishing his royal lifestyle, his hands had become much rougher and vague lines were forming around his mouth, eyes, and forehead. Kuzon still cut a dignified, maybe even somewhat hadsome figure for his age. He dressed in Earth Kingdom clothes as well, but being more used to wearing armor than the airbenders, his clothes derived more from military uniforms than the others’. He often wore arm bracers, shin protectors, even studded tunics purchased from merchants selling military surplus. Kuzon retained a dislike of cold temperatures and of being wet, so he also almost always wore a cape, as well as his sword. Kunchen had joined the militant airbenders when he was old enough, and had quickly become a leader among them. Taro and Kuzon visited him often, and he looked up to them like older brothers. Life was pretty good, considering it was war time. But some nights, Kuzon had nightmares. Nightmares where he was falling. He remembered his brother. It was never settled between them. In the twenty-three years since the battle at the Southern Temple, Kuzon could never shake his uneasiness from the lack of closure with Sozin. And, although he could never tell any of the airbenders, he missed Sozin. At least, Sozin as he had been. He had disowned Sozin as his brother, but still…they had a past together. At the same time, Taro was still haunted by the memory of Afiko. Since his youth, he had been torn over whether his loyalty should be to Afiko or the other monks. He sometimes thought Afiko had been right, that the airbenders might have been saved if they had been less pacifistic. Afiko had said he wanted to keep Taro safe, and Taro wondered if he had really been right to refuse Afiko. He wondered if he was strong enough to die if it came down to a choice between that and betraying the airbenders. Afiko had raised him, maybe Taro had too much of Afiko in him… But like Kuzon, he could never admit this to any of his friends. *** The airbenders rarely stayed in one place. They were based in Ba Sing Se, but they often had to leave on missions anywhere in the Earth Kingdom, so they were usually traveling rather than back in the Ba Sing Se area. However, they liked to frequent the Ba Sing Se Marketplace. It was a good place to blend in and look for information. Plus, there was plenty of stuff cheap enough for the refugee freedom-fighter’s budget. On one particular day they had gone there looking for their contact, a spiritualist from the Earth Kingdom who had studied with both the air monks of the Southern Temple, as well as the Fire Sages. Since foreigners were now banned from the Fire Nation, she had only been able to keep up her studies by corresponding with Kerai, the grandson of the renegade Fire Sage Kaja. Everyone had split up into small groups to look for her. Kuzon and Taro were walking through the market district together. It was a clear, breezy day and people from all over the Earth Kingdom milled about, creating a cacaphony of dialects, interjections, and arguments. “Ooh…I want a new cape,” Kuzon said, admiring a brilliant hunter-green cape displayed on a rack at one of the vendor’s stands. “Ugh…You don’t need a new cape, Kuzon. The one you have is fine,” Taro said, frustrated. “Are you kidding? This thing was completely singed when we raided those Fire Navy ships last week! It might as well be a shawl!” Kuzon gathered the bottom portion of his cape and showed it to Taro as evidence. “It’s fine, it’s just the hem,” Taro said. “I don’t care, I’m getting it,” Kuzon said, looking slightly greedy. “Sorry, I keep forgetting you’re a prince.” Taro started to speak in a drippy, posh accent. “Yes, his majesty does so enjoy wasting money,” he said as Kuzon got the seller’s attention and indicated the cape he wanted. “Well maybe you enjoy sleeping on a bed of nails, Monk, but some of us have a thing called ‘taste,’” Kuzon replied, paying the vendor and receiving his new cape. Kuzon tied it around his neck proudly. “Well, I think it’s ugly,” the monk smiled. “I think you’re ugly,” Kuzon jokingly replied. They both laughed. Just then Kunchen came running up. “Guys, I found the contact!” He started to speak in hushed tones as he approached them. “She said the Fire Nation just captured intelligence about troop movements through the Yutai Mountains. They’re moving it down the Shi Er Shan River to a major stronghold where it’s going to be delivered to top generals!” “How long ago?” Taro asked “About three days, but they haven’t sent the intel yet. It’s going on a boat tomorrow.” “We’ll have to take Pema and leave right away,” Kuzon said. “If we can get to them while they’re on the river they’ll be isolated. Remember when we were there five years ago? There’s a section of the river that’s narrow and fast-moving. They won’t be able to maneuver the boats.” “Let’s get everyone together,” said Kunchen. The three men took out the traditional airbender flutes they had made and began to play an airbender song. The flutes had a very distinct sound, and functioned like a discreet signal flare to let all the other airbenders around know that the contact had been found. It didn’t take long to call them all together. Kunchen quickly told the rest of their new mission, and they left for the mountains. They packed up Pema and flew for almost a day. They left her in a clearing in the woods along the west bank and scouted up the river as best they could while waiting for night to fall. The boats had launched that morning, but it would be another two days’ journey to the Fire Nation stronghold at the mouth of the river. There were three ships, all light riverboats. One held the prisoners and two were more heavily-armed escort craft. There was little planning necessary. The ten stealth warriors, now fully clad in their dark brown outfits, split into two groups of three and one of four. The leaders of the teams, Taro, Kunchen, and a nun about Taro’s age named Jamyang, gathered in a circle. “Octopus Snares Two Carp pattern?” Kunchen suggested. The others merely nodded, and they separated to get their teams into the appropriate positions. A few of the guards on the Fire Nations ships began to get that uneasy feeling of being watched as the sun began to sink and the river narrowed. It grew darker. One thought he saw something move on the east bank. Another heard rustling on the western. The boats moved into a staggered formation, with the two escorts in front. They could only fit two boats abreast here, and even then, the sides were very close to the bank. So close that they cast a shadow in the moonlight under which the ninja could easily hide, keeping pace with the boats. Perhaps the water grew rougher, or there was a shift change, but at some point the guards became distracted. Simultaneously, three airbenders on either side leapt onto the boats using airbending. There were six simultaneous strikes to pressure points in the necks of six guards. Khalama and a girl named Lasya had to deal with an additional guard each, due to their position closest to the bows of the boats. Keeping low, they sprinted over, and with no more than three motions of their hands and feet they flipped the guards into the river, both using the exact same technique. Kunchen and Jamyang stole into the pilot’s cabins of their respective boats and silently knocked out the two pilots. With the guards all neutralized, those two then took over the steering. The other four ninja blended back into the shadows cast by the pilot’s cabins and other objects on the boat decks. “Hmm. Windy tonight,” one guard on the main boat said to another. Kuzon, along with the rest of Taro’s team, silently waited beneath the water, breathing through a reed and clinging to a sunken log to avoid being swept away. Kunchen and Jamyang were to have the two escort craft neutralized by the time the boats passed above the third team. For a few more moments everything was silent as the boats continued to proceed down the river. Then, swimming up and airbending out of the water behind the main boat, the three airbenders on Taro’s team boarded the boat. By then the guards who had been knocked into the water started sputtering and calling out. Their cover was blown, but with this kind of operation Taro was glad it had even lasted this long. As the two other members spun, dodged, and airbended at the perhaps ten other guards present, Taro pulled Kuzon up onto the boat using the air. The airbenders on the escort craft then leapt silently onto the main boat to lend assistance. Taro and Kuzon made straight for the captain’s quarters where the intelligence was bound to be. Assuming it would be locked, Kuzon sent a wave of fire at the lock, melting it out of the door. Taro stepped forward to blast the door open with a strong gust of air. A guard the others had somehow missed got close enough to those two to thrust his spear at Taro’s side, but Kuzon had already taken a position to guard his friend’s back. Kuzon stepped forward and half-drew his sword from its scabbard, thumping the pommel into the guard’s stomach. But then he hesitated. As the guard stumbled backward Kuzon was sure he now had Sozin’s face. Kuzon stared at it, not knowing what to do. Brother…is it you? Kuzon hesitated, staring. While Kuzon was so entranced, the guard regained his footing and leveled his spear at Kuzon. Just in time, Khalama appeared and blasted the guard against the lip of the deck. “Hey, Kuzon! Kuzon! Are you okay?” Khalama asked, shaking him. Kuzon snapped out of it. He was about to thank the airbender when he saw Khalama gasp and arch his back in pain. A trickle of blood ran from his mouth and he clutched at something behind his back. The guard, still seated against the lip of the deck, had not been knocked out, and had speared Khalama in the lower abdomen. “NO!” Kuzon cried. He caught Khalama in his left arm and blasted the guard with his other one. He started to cry and fell to the deck, holding the dying man. “Help! Somebody help!” he cried, hoping in vain that someone could do something about the wound. Taro was already inside the captain’s quarters and had knocked out the Captain, who now lay slumped in a corner of the room. Kuzon had taught Taro and the others where Fire Nation officers would store valuable intelligence and what stamps and seals it would carry. There was a writing desk with a single drawer, which Taro pulled clean out. Several papers fell to the floor. Taro reached inside the desk where the drawer had been, opened a smaller secret compartment at the back of the cavity and withdrew one scroll. He opened it to verify its content. “Got it.” Taro looked around, gathering several more scrolls he thought would have important information. Exiting the cabin, Taro saw Kuzon sitting on the deck, holding Khalama’s body. “Oh no…What happened?” Taro asked. “Taro, please help him, get him to shore,” Kuzon sobbed. Taro scooped up Khalama’s body. “Everyone’s off. Burn the boats,” he reminded Kuzon, not sure if he would remember protocol after whatever had happened to him and Khalama. Taro made an airbending leap to the western bank. Kuzon did as Taro had said, then leapt to the western shore to join the others. In midair he felt a wave of air lift him and carry him safely to the bank, a sensation he had become very used to over the years. It was generated by Taro and a few other airbenders. Kuzon landed and followed the others a short distance into the forest, away from the scene of the battle. Soon they all stopped, and those who had not yet noticed that Taro was carrying a body gasped in surprise. Taro laid the body down and the airbenders informally circled around it. Many of them were crying. Kunchen stroked Lasya’s hair as she sobbed into his shoulder. It had been many years since they had lost anyone on a mission. “Khalama…” Jamyang said. “He saved my life,” Kuzon said. “He died saving me.” He began to cry as he told them exactly what had happened. Everything except the part about Sozin’s face. They moved on to the clearing where Pema was, and even she looked sad as they entered. They had no mountains available to perform a traditional airbender funeral, so they cremated Khalama and scattered his ashes to the winds as they flew on Pema. The other airbenders sat around the outside of saddle. Most were somberly silent, and a few wept softly, held by friends. Kuzon had never even known Khalama that well. They had been more acquaintances than friends, but that was why Kuzon had never expected him to die. Khalama had been a simple, fun-loving guy who had always stayed in the background, with a good joke here or there. It had hardly occurred to Kuzon that he could die. But he had, and Kuzon blamed himself. Because of his ambiguous feelings about his brother, Khalama had died. “You can’t blame yourself, Kuzon,” Taro told him in anticipation of his thoughts. The airbender laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You engaged that guard to protect me. It’s as much my fault as yours, but that Fire Nation soldier killed Khalama, not us. It’s terrible, I know, but these things happen in war. Death is a part of life.” “I don’t want to hear any of your stupid monkish ‘emotional attachment’ speeches right now, Taro!” He wiped his eyes. “This happened because of the war? Well the war happened because of me and my brother! People are going through this all over the world because of what I let my brother do!” “Kuzon…please…you are nothing like Sozin. You’ve spent the last twenty years fighting against him.” “Oh, for what?” Kuzon stood up. “Sozin has kept his war going for twenty-three years, and there’s no end in sight. We can’t make a dent!” Kuzon was beginning to grow angrier and rave slightly. “We’re keeping the Fire Nation from subjugating even more of the world than they already have! If we hadn’t intercepted this intelligence they could have easily won—” “Yeah, it was really worth our friend’s death just so we could get some flaming little piece of paper with the troop movements!” He clenched his fists and eyes in anger as a plume of flame shot from his mouth. Taro looked straight at him. “It’s not your fault,” he said. Kuzon seemed to calm down a little and sat back down in the saddle. He still sounded distraught though. “Why do we bother, Taro?” He looked at his friend, then out over the nighttime landscape. “Sometimes I feel like I was always supposed to be loyal to my brother, like that was my proper place. I feel like I defied my destiny at the Southern Temple. Everything would’ve been much easier if I had just stayed in bed that night.” “Kuzon, I know you don’t really think that. That’s a terrible thing to say.” Kuzon cradled his head in his hands. “Yeah, well…” he mumbled, his thoughts trailing off. Kuzon wondered why he had been distracted in the first place. Why did he even still care about Sozin? It was what he said that night, Kuzon realized. “Traitor.” He still partly felt as though he were the bad guy, that he had been wrong to betray Sozin. How can I even think that?
...But I do. Taro knew Kuzon wasn’t responsible for the war. Sozin took advantage of Kuzon’s loyalty. Kuzon was just being a good brother. He couldn’t have known what Sozin was planning until it was too late. But while Taro had done his best to help his friend, his own confidence was shaken. The war started because of Afiko too. I knew what kind of person Afiko was. I knew how much he hated the other monks. Am I responsible too…? Maybe I should have stopped him somehow. And he raised me. What if he’s influenced me too much, and I’m not strong enough to resist? What if I sell out the airbenders for my life just like he did? I deserved to be cut off from the order like he was. Maybe I defied my destiny by refusing to follow him. I guess things really would have been easier, like Kuzon said. He and Kuzon didn’t get much sleep that night. The next day they brought the intelligence, along with some of the Fire Navy scrolls Taro had found, to another of their underground contacts in the middle-sized Earth Kingdom town of Renxiang, who delivered it to local military authorities. ---------------------------------
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Zenjamin
Ba Sing Se Zuko
Toko supporter
Posts: 2,617
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Post by Zenjamin on Sept 6, 2007 15:14:26 GMT -5
you.
rock.
very well done.
when i read this part, in my mind i heard sound that you hear whenever the blue spirit makes a quick "saw him in the corner of my eye" appearance.
loved how you tackled and linked the theams of loyalty, family, guilt, and how they can blur the lines of right and wrong.
keep up the great work. it seems like your ability to express these deep themes, while great, is being held back by something. if i had to guess that something is lack of experence.
this means that with effort/time... **thinks of something to say that wont sound too positive or corny**
whatever, im rambling. just keep em comming.
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manzai
Toph
Everybody have fun tonight! Everybody Wang Fire tonight!
Posts: 152
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Post by manzai on Sept 9, 2007 16:57:22 GMT -5
Thanks, benjamin. The "Blue Spirit music" is pretty much what I was going for. And thanks for the encouragement. I'm surprised at how well this has been received. Oh, by the way, there are a total of 18 chapters. ------------------------------------- Chapter 14 The next day the airbenders were passing around a small mountain range north of Omashu. They camped on a ridge. There was a forested valley on one side of the road and mountain range and field of tall grass on the other. Jangbu and some others left to find or buy dinner somewhere. Kuzon went down into the valley to collect some water, still thinking about what had happenned two nights ago. Suddenly he heard a shrill whistling sound. He spun around with the wooden bucket in his hand just in time for an arrow to lodge itself in the bucket’s side. He dodged another arrow as three teenagers on rhinos rode up to him through the trees. They were Fire Nation. With a burst of flame, he flicked away a third arrow as a boy and girl moved in on him with fire blasts of their own. Kuzon threw the bucket at the archer. There was no time to draw his sword. The boy produced fire daggers from his fists while the girl took a deep stance and shot lightning at Kuzon. He couldn’t dodge the bolts of lightning and the ferocious swipes of the boy with daggers. Meanwhile the archer, dressed in an elite royal guard uniform identical to the other girl’s, leapt from her rhino and began shooting lightning of her own. Kuzon couldn’t close up his defense, and the boy with daggers got in close enough to bring one down into Kuzon’s back. Quite literally, Kuzon felt a red hot knife in his shoulder. Howling, he fell onto one knee. As he fell, he noticed the boy wore special insignia on his armor. It was very similar to the mark that had been on the armor he once wore. The armor he had worn that one night, long ago. Suddenly Taro appeared and barreled into one of the girls. He unleashed a wave of air at her, knocking her into a tree. The boy turned and slashed wildly at Taro with his fire daggers. Taro dodged all the blows fairly easily, but he neglected the girl he had crashed into. She was not unconscious, and needed only to raise herself to a kneeling position to fire a lightning bolt at Taro. Taro caught the boy by the wrist and twisted it in front of the boy as he noticed, from the corner of his eye, the lightning-bender rise up onto a knee. As he held the boy’s arm he simultaneously shot a blast of air at the female lightning-bender. The kneeling girl dodged the air just as a blue flame struck Taro’s hip. Taking advantage of the opening, the boy with daggers chopped his free hand onto Taro’s forearm, freeing his other hand. Kuzon was up, though he could hardly stand. Before the girl Taro had hit could fire again, Kuzon blasted her with a fireball, but it only grazed her. He shot another at the other girl, who dodged it. At that moment, Kuzon realized in passing that the girls were identical twins. The boy noticed Kuzon fighting behind him, but he knew not to be distracted. Taro had stumbled when his wrist was chopped, and leaned against a tree. Before he could raise himself to his full height, the boy punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground. “Taro! Get away!” Kuzon yelled, as the second girl leapt forward and unleashed a small arc of flame in Kuzon’s direction, making him stumble. “Forget it!” Taro yelled, knocking the legs of the boy with the ornate armor out from under him with a blast of air. “They’re Fire Nation! You won’t die for me too! GO!” As Kuzon said this, the first girl sprinted over and held his arms in a lock behind his back. One of the tenets of the airbender warrior faction was that the secrecy of the order was paramount. It was more important than any member’s life. Taro knew that if these three teenagers were from the Fire Nation there was probably a whole unit of soldiers not far away. He had to go back and warn the others to get out of the area. Reluctantly, he took off, zigzagging through the trees with leaps powered by airbending. The second girl turned to give chase, but the boy with the fancy armor said, “Let him go. Lo, Li, I need you both to make sure my uncle doesn’t escape. Don’t worry,” the boy said, “he is prize enough.” Li, the one who was not holding Kuzon, produced some chains and shackled him. Then they threw him on the rhino and rode off. They all looked to be between seventeen and nineteen. They rode through the valley and through a mountain pass. After a while the boy in the ornate armor spoke up. It was his rhino on which Kuzon rode. “Well, Uncle, it seems you’ve missed quite a bit back home, you being gone all these years. First and foremost, my birth,” he said with pomp. One of the twins laughed. The boy twisted around in his saddle, trying to talk to Kuzon over his shoulder. “I’m your nephew, Azulon.” The jokingly pompous tone he had used just before was not far from his real voice. The few things he had already said oozed with overbearing and an elitist attitude. “We should do some catching up,” he joked. “Maybe I should introduce you to my boyhood friends? They also happen to be the elite team I assembled to track down the Avatar. They’re both very gifted combatants. Lo and Li graduated at the top of their class from the Imperial Fire Academy for Girls, and they’re some of the finest members of the Imperial Guard.” Kuzon looked at the twins, who both smiled devilishly at him. “My father’s age prevents him from searching for the Avatar himself. However, he passed the task on to me, and that’s what I’ve been doing for the past year. Just between you and me, I doubt I’ll ever find him, but you’re so infamous in the Fire Nation that I’m sure my father will be satisfied with you.” “If you’re going to kill me, skip the speech and just do it,” Kuzon said defiantly. “We’re delivering you to my father and then you’re going to be executed,” Azulon said in a stony voice. They proceeded onward. As Kuzon suspected, they eventually ended up at an entire ship full of soldiers and firebenders that was anchored on a large river. Kuzon’s sword was taken. He was loaded on board in the prison hold, and the ship took off for the Fire Nation. *** When they landed, Kuzon was hastily escorted to a new building Sozin had commissioned, the Hall of Justice. It was used for holding political prisoners, with a public courtyard for executions. Sozin usually presided over the executions, and he didn’t want to have to go far. The people did love a good execution. One of Azulon’s lieutenants threw Kuzon, the man who would have been his duke or general, into a cell with some bread and water. Almost from the very moment Khalama had died, he had been stricken with melancholy. He slid down the far wall of the cell into a seated position and rolled his head back to look at the ceiling, resigning himself to his fate. He had given up his entire life to undo Sozin’s mistakes. He had no family and no home. The Fire Nation he had grown up in was gone, stripped of its honor and heart by his own brother. Sozin’s expansionist military dictatorship had taken its place. And what had he given it up for? People were dying everywhere, which devastated their relatives, caused families to break up, created disaffected orphans, rising poverty in the other nations…so much suffering. “Even trying to fight it, I manage to get someone killed,” Kuzon said to himself. He was tired. He lifted his bowl of water to his mouth and sipped it, wishing it were strong rice wine. *** “Idiot!” Sozin’s angry cry of censure mingled with the resounding sound of a slap to his son’s face in the cavernous throne room. “Don’t you ever think?” Azulon lowered his head, lifting Kuzon’s sword as a trophy for his father. “Father, he’s an infamous criminal. I thought—” “Do you realize the position you’ve put me in?” Sozin bellowed, snatching Kuzon’s sword away. “How do you expect to succeed me if you can’t discern such obvious political consequences?” Azulon lifted his eyes to his father, but said nothing. Sozin realized his son had still not grasped the problem he had caused and became even more frustrated. “All right, I’ll explain slowly, you simpleton,” Sozin barked. “When word gets out that my brother the traitor has been apprehended, I will have two choices: I can execute him, thereby making him a martyr for the enemy and any rebels protesting my rule. Alternatively, I can merely exile him, but that would demonstrate that the Firelord is weak enough to ignore his own laws for the sake of familial sentimentality!” Azulon quaked in fear. “W-what will you do, father?” Sozin turned and stalked toward the steps at the side of his dais. “I’ll just have to pick one, won’t I?” he yelled. He kicked a brass pot at the edge of the step at his son. “Now get out of my sight!” he roared, climbing the steps and collapsing into the throne with his head in his hands. Azulon hurried out, chased by the clanking of the pot. Sozin had really already made his choice. He had to execute Kuzon. He ruled through fear. In over twenty-seven years of rule he had never shown mercy. That was how he kept control. The people were loyal to him not through their own desire, but through fear of the consequences for being otherwise. His rule was iron-clad, and not one breach could be tolerated. The penalty for treason was death. Period. He had to be a strong ruler. But most upsetting of all, he had always told himself that if Kuzon ever returned, he would not even hesitate to have him executed. He thought he had purged himself of these weak, arbitrary feelings of compassion. He could never let such a flaw be known. It’s unbelievable! How did things turn out this way, that I have to kill my own brother?The veil of flame before the throne flared up to the room’s full height. Sozin placed the sword in a scabbard and hung it on the wall of the throne room with several other heirlooms of the royal family, and stared at it for a while. ------------------------------------- Oh, in case anyone doesn't know, Lo and Li are the two old women who train Azula and speak in rhyme.
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Post by iLurk on Sept 10, 2007 12:28:04 GMT -5
verry nice. i love it. shows that searching for the avatar with a small elite team started and is carried as a tradition by lo and li. too bad this contridicts your timeline... but lets just ignore that.
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manzai
Toph
Everybody have fun tonight! Everybody Wang Fire tonight!
Posts: 152
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Post by manzai on Sept 12, 2007 15:52:56 GMT -5
I know. It's weird; when I started writing this it was just speculative, not even Au, but over time more and more stuff I put in was confirmed to not happen. First I found out the TCG characters aren't real, then it was confirmed that there are absolutely no more airbenders, and then that Sozin was very old by the time he started the conquest. So I gave up and just labelled it AU. But thanks for posting that video though. I hadn't seen it til now and it's cool. Now I am curious to see how close to my portrayal of Sozin is to the real one. ---------------------------- Chapter 15 Taro had been on Kuzon’s trail ever since the latter was captured. He had made it to a port of call on the western shore of the Earth Kingdom, and now had to find a disguise and stow away on a ship headed for the Fire Nation. He bought a wide-brimmed hat to cover his arrow and obscure his face. He walked away from the vendor and adjusted his hat under the bright sun. He observed the ships, trying to decide which would have the lightest security. Then he noticed a figure next to him adjust its own hat just as he had done a moment ago. He grabbed the young man’s shoulder and swung him around. “Kunchen?” He was surprised to see the man he had expressly forbid to follow him had actually been following him. “Don’t be mad!” he smiled apologetically. “You better start heading east right now, because you are not coming with me,” he told him. “Taro, I want to save Kuzon too.” “Absolutely not. I’m going into the Fire Nation itself. It’s too dangerous.” “I’m as capable as you. And you also know that you need my help,” he replied, grinning at him. Taro looked at him for a minute. “…And I’m going to keep following you anyway,” Kunchen said simply, stating it as a fact. “All right. But you had better be careful!” Taro warned him. “You know me: safety first,” Kunchen said, turning his attention to the ships and walking down toward the docks. *** A few nights later, Sozin appeared outside Kuzon’s cell. Sozin had decided to take advantage of the last chance he would ever have to talk to his brother. He just looked at his brother through the bars. Kuzon looked so different, with his wild beard he had grown in captivity. He was awake, and looked right back at Sozin. “Why did you do it, Kuzon?” Kuzon did not reply. He was quiet for a long time. Was his brother so incapable of understanding why he had saved the airbenders? He gently asked the Firelord “Sozin, did you ever have any friends growing up?” “Do you think I could have ever become the Firelord who single-handedly turned this country from a starving dustbowl into the greatest power on earth if I had stopped to bother with trivialities like that?” he laughed haughtily. Then he became suddenly serious again. “I had a brother instead…I thought I had a brother instead,” he corrected himself, turning away. Kuzon finally asked “If we were other people, just…I don’t know, farmers or something, a normal family…If we were anyone else…do you think things would have been different?” “I don’t deal in hypotheticals,” Sozin said coldly. He turned away. “Just…” Kuzon paused. He couldn’t think of another way to ask. “…if?” “Don’t toy with me, Kuzon. Do you think I’ll let you off easy because we’re related?” Sozin advanced on him, pressing his face against the barred window on the door and spitting his words like poison. “Do you think, after what you did, that I have one shred of compassion left for you? I gave up on you long ago. You are nothing but a traitor, and I will gladly execute you tomorrow.” Sozin marched down the hall and out of the room. Kuzon sighed. -----------------------------
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Post by ReelTrebleMaker on Sept 13, 2007 14:48:47 GMT -5
OMG, poor Kuzon! WHY?! Sozin is so cruel... But it was pretty cool, how you integrated Lo and Li into that. And Azulon... I like this a lot, though. What did that link go to? I tried to look at it, and it apparently got deleted because of copyright or something.
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manzai
Toph
Everybody have fun tonight! Everybody Wang Fire tonight!
Posts: 152
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Post by manzai on Sept 14, 2007 14:31:59 GMT -5
It was a preview of an episode from season 3, but when I say "preview" I mean it was like a 4-minute excerpt of teh episode. But it showed Sozina and Roku conversing, then Roku discovers that Sozin has conquered a piece of EK land and they fight. It contradicts the timeline of my story because Roku was a live for the start of the war and he and Sozin were about the same age. Incorporating current characters into this sort of "prequel" story is one of my favorite things about it. I like trying to tell a fanfiction story just on the periphary of the canon characters...Although that's probably why my story turned out so AU and the timeline turned out wrong. ----------------------------- Chapter 16 Taro and Kunchen waited until nightfall, then slipped off the boat on a glider. There weren’t many people out at night in the port of the capital city, but there were enough that the two airbenders could go unnoticed. They were looking for any sign of where Kuzon might have been taken. It didn’t take long for them to find a poster advertising the impending execution the following day. “‘Tomorrow, in the courtyard of the Hall of Justice’,” Taro read. “That’s probably where they keep political prisoners.” “Makes sense,” Kunchen agreed wryly. The Hall of Justice was heavily guarded, but Kunchen and Taro had gotten into Fire Nation bases of about the same level. It was a many-storied building, taller than many in the city. They glided up to the top level, knocked out a guard and removed his keys. Taro pulled a torch off its holder on the wall, and they went down hall after hall, checking each cell for Kuzon. Many of the prisoners were only there for trying to emigrate from the Fire Nation or stealing a loaf of bread. Taro very much wanted to free them, but he could not. He could not risk a commotion from freeing all these people. He and Kunchen moved silently, so as not to wake them up. After an hour or two, they finally found Kuzon’s cell. “Kuzon! Kuzon!” Kunchen whispered, “We came to save you!” Taro unlocked the door and flung it open. Kuzon moved into the light, but the look on his haggard face was disaffected. “You shouldn’t have come. I’m not leaving.” “What?” Taro asked him, angry and incredulous. “I have nothing in this world, Taro. I tried to protect the world from my brother and look what I got for it: I was exiled from my home, I lost the last family member I had. We’ve been fighting him for twenty years and we still can’t stop his expansion. All the lives he’s taken, all the damage he’s done… I helped him, Taro! I helped him start it!” Kuzon was half-shouting, but choking on many of his words. “Why should I be alive when so many others are dead? Why?” he asked with quivering eyes. “It’s not fair. I’m tired of it. Sozin told me the Balance was a lie. Now I realize he was right.” “I don’t understand you, Kuzon,” Taro spoke up. “What family did you lose? The genocidal maniac? He’s who you’re lamenting? I’m sorry, I know he’s your brother, but…Look Kuzon, there are two things you told me that I’ll always remember. You said that Avatar Roku told you that your chi was in the exact opposite proportion as Sozin’s. That means you keep him in check. You are destined to oppose him, even though you can never win completely. That’s how this world works. That is the Balance. We can never wipe out all the evil in this world, but we can always try. And we have to try.” Kuzon scoffed. “You also told me you believed Aang would come back one day. I know you believe the Avatar will return--” “I don’t.” “You do, Kuzon. Don’t lie to yourself, you still have hope. Don’t start pretending you’re a mopey jerk now. Fight for that hope. Fight so that when Aang comes back from wherever he is, there will still be a future for him to protect.” Kuzon lightly ran his fingers over the scar on his left cheek. “I don’t even know if I was right to oppose Sozin. You don’t understand. Airbenders don’t have real families. But Sozin was my brother. That’s not a relationship you can throw away easily. Loyalty should be to family first, no matter what.” “Kuzon, for everything we have done in our twenty-three years as friends, listen to me now: You did not betray Sozin. Sozin betrayed you. He took advantage of your loyalty and forced you to do something you knew was wrong.” Taro paused, but his thoughts went on. His own guilt had been dredged up. “If anyone was responsible for what happened at the Temple it was me. I knew Afiko hated the other monks, but I didn’t say anything. He was my mentor, he raised me. What if he influenced me more than I thought? We could be captured and I might sell all the airbenders out, do exactly what he did! I’m as guilty as he is. I should have just gone with him that day.” Taro was half talking to himself now. “You think me questioning my guilt is ridiculous? How could you have had anything to do with Afiko’s betrayal, Taro? That’s not your fault! Afiko made that choice, not you! You’ve defended the airbenders with honor for twenty-three years. I know you would never betray us. Afiko is the traitor. Are you Taro or are you Afiko?” Kuzon shouted, trying to force some sense into his friend. “That’s not--” “Are you Taro or are you Afiko?” Kuzon yelled again. “…Taro.” “That’s right, and I’m Kuzon, your best friend for twenty-three years. And I know that you are not responsible for what Afiko did.” “I know you aren’t responsible for what Sozin did,” Taro replied with a smile. Kuzon looked at them, the people who cared about him enough to come all the way to the Fire Nation to try and save him, and he realized Taro was right, just as Taro realized Kuzon was right. Kunchen was good at sensing auras, and he could tell a sudden change had come over the two men. “I guess you two just needed to hear that from someone else…from a friend.” He smiled at the peace that had come over both of them. Kuzon walked out of the cell and took the keys from Taro. “What are you doing?” Taro asked. Kuzon moved to the next cell down and placed the key in the door. He smiled at them and unlocked the door. “Hey! Hey, wake up! We’re setting you free. Get out of here,” he told the man in the cell. The man murmured some thank-you’s as he sprinted away. “I’m sorry,” Kuzon said softly to the other two monks. “I’m sorry that I needed to hear someone tell me that.” Taro smiled. “I needed to hear someone tell me too. Now apologize later. Free the rest of these people and get out of here!” Kuzon went down the hall unlocking doors, but he had barely gone through one floor when the mass of people escaping put the guards on full alert. As he, Taro, and Kunchen rounded a corner with a fleeing inmate in tow they came upon a trio of guards. They leveled their spears at the group, one pointed right for the innocent inmate. Kuzon rushed forward, wrapped his arm around the spear and smashed it in half with a flaming chop as Taro and Kunchen blasted the guards with air. As they ran past the unconscious guards, Kuzon scooped up the leader’s keys and handed them to the inmate. He left the three of them to go open some other cells. Kunchen, Taro, and Kuzon ran down halls and around corners. Soon they found the central staircase, which wrapped around the sides of the tall room, leaving a long drop to the first floor in the center. Guards were shouting in the hall behind them and others were beginning to climb the stairs. The three friends just looked at each other. The airbenders had escaped situations like this before. They all leapt over the railing and began to fall. Just as they were about to hit the ground, Taro and Kunchen created a cushion of air for them to land on. There was a locked exit door right in front of them, and Kuzon wasted no time in shooting a flame at the metal lock to soften it as much as he could. Taro and Kunchen combined their efforts and blew the door off with a wave of air. The three stole away behind the building and down some alleys, but they couldn’t find a safe escape route. There was a full-on prison riot now and guards and law officers were being dispatched throughout the city. “How are we going to get out of here?” Taro asked, looking around. “Kuzon, do you remember any way out of the city? A way most people don’t use?” Kunchen asked. Kuzon thought for a minute. “The palace,” he said. “There’s a secret passage under the palace in case the royal family ever needs to escape. It leads down the coast.” “How are we going to get into the palace?” Taro asked. “It must be the most heavily-guarded place in the city.” Kunchen noticed soldiers running by with no real organization, just desperate to stop the riots lest they face Fire Nation military discipline. “Easy,” he said. Sucking one straggling soldier into the alley with air and knocking him over the head, he began to remove his armor. “Put these on,” he told Kuzon, handing him the helmet. ----------------------------
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