Avatar: Lingering Tensions

Chapter 11: Midpoint

Akira wakes up sitting in a guest room within the Shining Explorer, the ship of the Remnant corvette that picked her team up after they rescued Ozai. The sun is shining. The sky is a mixture of light orange, blue, and white. Cosmos steps in the room, "Hey sunshine, come on. You should check this out."

Akira rubs crust out of her eyes, "What?"

Cosmos: "Just come on or you'll miss out on the fun." Cosmos leaves and Akira quickly gets up and follows him. As she gets up, she reaches in her travel bag and grabs a twig that is lying in the room. She promptly chews on it to clean her teeth.

Akira follows Cosmos into a room where Aten, Kota, Reyna, and Timur are standing across from Ozai who is restrained. Akira looks at Cosmos, "What's the big deal here?"

Ozai looks at her, "You, let me out!"

Timur elaborates, "He's dead set on getting out of here, but none of the crew will risk releasing him without first getting approval. Yeoh has been upstairs working, so she hasn't said anything about his release."

Akira crosses her arms, "Well, maybe he should just wait until we land. Once we make it to our destination, we could return him."

Ozai shouts, "Why?! Why can't I be released now?! I'm a national iconic, this is a disgrace."

Aten: "I saw we release him, otherwise he could have us killed after he reunites with his military."

Timur slowly walks toward Ozai, "Or, I have another suggestion."

Reyna asks, "Timur, what are you doing?" Timur pulls his left hand back and draws a dagger before swiftly holding it to Ozai's neck.

Timur: "Or we kill him right now!" The group looks in shock.

Ozai: "You wouldn't..."

Timur presses his blade more tightly against Ozai's neck and the former monarch raises his head in irritation. Timur: "Why wouldn't I?! Do you remember what you tried to do?! You wanted to wipe out my entire ethnicity and nationality. The whole Earth Kingdom, you wanted to burn all of it to the ground. Why should I let you live? Just so you can do the same thing now!"

Akira aims her clay shooters at Timur, "What are you doing?! Come on Timur, stand down! You could ruin our entire bounty and even have us all killed!"

Timur glares at Ozai, "If you shoot your clay at me, I'll slash his throat before it lands."

Reyna pleas, "Come on Timur, not like this. It won't end well for us."

Kota asks, "Did you take this bounty just to plan an assassination? If so, why didn't you kill him the minute we discovered him?"

Timur: "Because I wanted to wait until most of you had an opportunity to get to safety. I knew it was less likely we'd be extracted if I immediately killed him. I personally hated this man's guts and the minute I knew we were rescuing him I thought about taking him down. So, he'd NEVER have a chance to hurt anyone else."

Aten: "If you stand down now, you might still get your share of the bounty."

Timur: "I don't care about that, this is bigger than money!"

Reyna: "If you kill him in cold blood, you'll only fuel the hate and bloodshed between our nations. Especially like this."

A tear flows down Timur's right eye, "So what? We might as well strike first, then we'll have the advantage."

Kota answers, "Our people don't need another war."

Timur: "Don't act like you cared about peace, otherwise you wouldn't have taken this bounty. You put money over purpose."