Double Bender

Part 46

By the time I'd made it to the beach, Sokka's, Toph's, and Aang's sand statues were gone...and so was Aang. Katara had just come in from surfing. "What happened?" She asked frantically. "Zuko's gone crazy!" Sokka said. "I made a sand sculpture of Suki and he totally destroyed it!" That was supposed to be Suki? Never mind, I don't want to know. "Oh, and he's attacking Aang." He said this so casually, like it wasn't important. Katara ran after Zuko with the rest of us trailing behind.
By the time we got up to the house, Zuko and Aang were on the roof! Aang was doing everything he could to stay alive and Zuko was blasting jets of fire at Aang. "Zuko stop!" I yelled. He didn't answer. He was so intent on teaching Aang a lesson. It was like I was seeing old Zuko again. It was the kind that always wanted revenge and was only set on...capturing the Avatar. "Zuko please!" I yelled. "Stay out of this!" he shouted back. "Get a grip!" said Aang, "Or I'll knock you off the roof!" "Go ahead." Zuko said. Zuko started fire-bending huge jets at Aang, who was running out of roof. Everyone held their breath as Aang finally reached the end of the roof. Just as it looked like he was going to fall off, he grabbed the roof and swung down into the attic followed by Zuko. That was even worse because we could hear what was going on but we couldn't see anything. There was a huge blast from the other end of the house, sending debris flying everywhere. Then, Aang yelled, "ENOUGH!" and sent a blast of air towards Zuko, sending him crashing through the wall and out onto the lawn. We all rushed over to the sight as Aang was climbing down from the damaged house. Zuko sat up in a pile of splintered wood. "What is wrong with you?!" shrieked Katara. "You could have hurt Aang!" I ran over to help Zuko up. "Tatiana, you really need to control you boyfriend." Geo said. I gave her a look. Normally, it would be the kind of look that said, "He is in fact not my boyfriend" seeing as I'm the kind of girl who gets embarrassed easily, but since Zuko and I were...technically together, I let it go and instead gave her a "You're not helping" look. "What's wrong with me?!" Zuko asked angrily. "What's wrong with all of you?! How can you sit around having beach parties when Sozin's comet is only in three days?!" "Is this because we didn't invite you to the party? I told you he didn't like to be snubbed, guys." Geo said snidely. "Geo, you are really not helping!" I snapped. "You guys need to get serious about this!" Zuko said. We all looked at Zuko. "Why are you all looking at me like I'm crazy?" he said. "It's about the comet." Aang said. "I was going to wait until after it came to face the Fire Lord." "After?" Zuko said, sounding a little shocked. "I'm not ready." Aang said. "I still need more time to master fire-bending." "And frankly," said Toph. "your earth-bending could use a little work too." "So..." said Zuko, still shocked. "you all knew that Aang was going to wait?" "Honestly," said Sokka, "if Aang faces the Fire Lord now, he's going to lose. No offense." "None taken." Aang said. "The whole point of fighting the Fire Lord before the comet," continued Katara, "was to stop the Fire-Nation from winning the war. But they pretty much won the war when they took Ba Sing Se. Things couldn't get much worse." "We had our chance with the invasion and we blew it." Geo said. "The whole point of the invasion was to take the Fire Lord before the comet came and we blew it. So we decided the best thing to do is wait." Zuko hung his head. "You're wrong." Zuko whispered. "What do you mean?" I asked. Zuko looked up and there was a look on his face. It was the kind of look that said everything is going to go down, someone is going to get hurt and there's nothing I can do. "Things can get worse. And they will." I sat down on the rock next to Zuko. "The day before the eclipse, my father asked me to attend an important war meeting. It was what I dreamed about and wanted for so long. My father had finally accepted me back. I walked into the room and my father had saved me a seat at his right hand. One of the generals was talking about how the citizens of Ba Sing Se were giving them difficulty, even though we had already gained control of the city. My father asked me if adding more troops would stop the rebellions. And I...stupidly told him. I told him that the citizens could endure anything as long as they had hope. Then..." he hesitated. "Then what?" I asked, hanging on every word he said. I knew what Ozai was like. Any response to a sentence like that was going to end badly. He took a breath and continued. "Then my sister spoke up. She said that we should...take their hope, as well as the rest of the city and...burn it to the ground." We were all dead silent. Burn it? To the ground...? We had no time. They were going to destroy the entire Earth-Kingdom and there was nothing we could do to stop it. I was horrified, I didn't know what say. Judging by the looks on everyones' faces, they shared my thoughts. And they were just as horrified as I was. Katara nearly sunk to the ground, Sokka was holding Suki like some Fire-Nation jerk would try and take her away, like everything else. I was speechless and especially frightened. We were stuck. We had no where to go. The Fire-Nation was going to win the war. Zuko stood up. "I wanted to speak out against this horrible plan, but I'm ashamed to say I didn't." He hung his head shamefully. "My whole life, I struggled to gain my father's love. But once I had it, I realized I lost myself getting there. I'd forgotten who I was." I walked over to Zuko and took his hand. "It's not your fault." I whispered. "I should have said something." He whispered back. "I can't believe this." Katara said. "I always knew the Fire-Lord was a bad guy," said Sokka. "but that's just evil!" Aang was looking terrified. Zuko walked over to him. "I know you're scared." He said. "And I know you're not ready to save the world. But if you don't defeat the Fire Lord before the comet comes," he looked grim, "there won't be a world left to save." I walked over by Zuko and he took my hand, out of the sight of everyone else. It was reassuring, like he knew what I was thinking and the fact that it was out of sight made me feel safe because it was something that only we knew. It made us feel a little safer, considering the fact that everything was about to go to shit. "Why didn't you tell me about your dad's crazy plan sooner?!" shouted Aang. Zuko looked angrily at him. "I didn't think I had to!'' he said. "I assumed that you were still going to fight him before the comet! No one told me that you decided to wait!" He looked angrily at me. I flinched. Zuko dropped his eyes.
"This is bad." Said Aang, placing his hands on his head. "This is really really bad!" Katara tried to calm him down. "Aang," she said. "You don't have to do this alone." "Yeah!" said Toph. "If we all fight the Fire Lord together, we got a shot at taking him down!" I looked at Zuko. "Well?" I said. "What do you think we should do?" "Me?" he asked. "Well, you're the oldest" I looked at Aang, "Sorta, and you're the future Fire Lord. The rest of us are behind it, so what do you think?" He thought for a moment and said, "Let's do it!" "Alright!" Sokka said. "Team Avatar is back! Air!" he pointed at Aang. "Water!" he turned to Katara. "Earth!" he turned to Toph. "Fire!" he pointed at Zuko. "The double-benders!" he pointed at me and Geo. He picked up a long leaf and a fan-like palm branch and handed it to Suki. "Fan and sword!" he shouted. His "sword" leaf flopped over pathetically. "I think Sokka's lost it." Zuko whispered. "He lost it a long time ago." I whispered back. Aang stepped up. "Fighting the Fire Lord is the hardest thing we do together...but I wouldn't want it any other way!" We all embraced in a large group hug, except for Zuko, who stood awkwardly on the side. We all looked at him and made a space for him in our little group hug. "Get over here, Zuko." I said. "Being a part of the group means being a part of group hugs." He gave us a look that said "Do I have too." I grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him in. Appa came up and nudged us with his fuzzy head, knocking us all to the ground. This is what I'll miss most. I thought. After that moment, nothing would be the same, ever again.

Heloooo, Waffle Bunnies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry, I'm extreeeeeeeeeeemely hyper right now.
The play is over, so I'm a little bummed, several of my theater friends are in "Performing arts remission" which pretty much means we're still getting used to life without the play :'(
So now I have 3 hours after school to kill every day (I know I should be using those hours to do homework but I'm a teenager, what do you expect?
LOVE YOU MY WAFFLE BUNNIES!!!!
~Maeve