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Blue Mask	By : PatPat Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > AU/AR - Alternate Universe/Alternate Reality > Het- Male/Female Views: 11083 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Blue Mask, Two Swords, & Sozin’s Shield
Words Were Not Needed
By Pat Squared
________________________________________

Words were not needed.

The intruder knew that he was in danger.

Koh, the face stealer, left many signs of his presence scatted about his lair. The floor was littered with the remains of his victims. Skulls with fused jawbones and no eye sockets. There was no place to step without kicking aside someone or something’s bones.

The intruder suppressed the desire to smile. It was tempting to become another one of the faceless victims. Then he too would soon die of dehydration, like the other skeletons. All he had to do was smile.

However to do so would reward his father and sister for their actions – their betrayal of a son and brother who would have once sacrificed his own life just to feel the love they denied him for just one moment.

In surrendering, he would reward the hatred of his homeland towards the weakling spawn of that lucky whore as his father and the others called his mother.

In surrendering, he would reward the hatred of the people of the Earth Kingdom village that rewarded his efforts of liberation from Earth Kingdom bullies with only dull hatred once they found out he was a fire bender. Worse, he would be betraying the sacrifices that his mother and uncle suffered for his sake. He would live to spite them, even if he lived only a life of dishonor.

The Blue Spirit had traveled the known world. From the South Pole to the North, there was not one square foot of land that had not felt his weight.

The Blue Spirit had seen the so-called filthy degenerates of the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribe. Contrary to the propaganda efforts of the Fire Nation, they were no more or less virtuous than those that he once viewed with honor. He had experienced the firsthand vile corrupt nature of man.

G-O-D or D-O-G – Each was only a mirror image of one another.

The air was moist. The walls were cold. And darkness ruled in this land.

The intruder resisted the instinctive urge to light up the area.

For generations, fire benders instinctively feared the darkness and the weakness that came with it. However the dependance on light also weaken fire benders.

Light was not needed. Light would only blind him to the truth he sought. Unlike the other fire benders, he grew to love the coolness of the darkness. There he was not judged by the scar on his face. In the darkness, he rose above fate’s decree and became a hero, at least to some who would never really know the true creature under the mask.

The Blue Spirit was a child of the night. Like the oni, he grew to hate the light. Let the other fire benders fear the darkness and the weakening of their power.

Yin was the positive power – the very power that fire benders such as his father and sister consumed with an overwhelming passion.

Yang was the negative – The power that the Water Tribes used.

However, despite being born a child of the Yin, the Blue Spirit had learned to appreciate Yang. Yin allowed him to burn. Yang allowed his other talents to emerge...talents that gave him an advantage over any other firebender. His uncle and weapon master taught him that fire was but only one weapon in a warrior’s arsenal.

“So trickster, you have come to taunt me again. Only two more souls...”

The bargaining begins.

“I know you desire to add two mores faces to add to your collection, Koh. Unfortunately, I do not expect to be giving you my face in this life.”

“I see that she already spoke to you. Tell me, do you still blindly follow her every whim. If so I actually feel sorry for you. She has been the cause of your misery for countless lives.”

He waited as the creature coiled around his body. The scales were reptilian, smooth with very small bumps yet little grit. The creature blinked and the face of a little girl appeared. She looked so breathtakingly innocence that he was tempted to slay the face thief.

“This was your sister in a former life. She was quite an entertainer. She specialized in seducing her victims before she killed them. They called her the Black Widow and she terrorized the earth kingdom four hundred years ago. At least until some of her victim’s next of kin threw her in my den...”

“And what was I?”

The girls face smiled seductively, winked, and then blew him a kiss.

If this creature did not tell me that the face was my sister’s, I would have...smiled and died. You have over played the strength of your tiles, Koh.

“Trust me. Your crimes against order made her recreational activities look as innocent as the moments you fed the turtle ducklings in your mother’s favorite gardens. It is why your doom is to suffer the breaking of your soul in this life. Perhaps then your soul will be destroyed and you will never plague this world or the world you just left again.”

The creature rubbed his scales against his cheek. They were dry and hiss a soothing melody that was almost hypnotic.

“It won’t be so bad. Monks seek oneness with the ultimate. Sages speak of ending the suffering and pain of rebirth and death. No more lives spent in agony. No more looking at the blade and wondering if today’s the day you are going to break and sever your veins. The gods may pity you and you will never have to...”

He nodded, “Yes, I must admit that your offer is tempting. However, I will go out on my terms. I have been through too much in this live to let my adversaries claim victory without claiming it over my dead body.”

“Your soul is dead already, nameless one. The gods have decreed that you will never be reborn to challenge them again.”

The gods. The gods were things that you swear upon and prayed to. And then they answer your pleas with a resounding NO!

Instead of answers, the gods only gave him challenges to make him stronger.

Each trial was only an opportunity to earn his place, to prove that he was ready to face the world, an opportunity to push himself beyond the limits other set for him. The words did not make any sense in his soul, but making sense was never the face-stealer’s aim. The face stealer played the game for only one prize and the Blue Spirit would never allow Koh the one thing that would set the monster free to once again prey upon the living. He took in a deep breath.

“Smile a little smile and I will free you from your bondage,” cooed the thief of faces.

It was time to take the wind out of the creature’s sails.

“Thank you for your hospitality. If the gods are my enemies, then I shall go forth and challenge everything the gods hold dear.”

With that he turned around and walked towards the mouth of the cave. He heard the sliding of scales against the damp stone floor of the cave.

“Wait, you don’t even know what your crime against the gods was!”

“All I need to know is that I have another enemy that I must face and overcome. Since the gods have singled me out of the herd, like a rhino bull, I have no choice but to fight the encircling jaguar-lizards even if I must suffer for the price of surrender is unacceptable.”

It was as if he severed the courage out of the creature.

“Please don’t leave. Anything, master. The others, they are going to...”

“Master, what makes me your master? I cannot steal the faces of my enemies. I cannot even defeat my enemies; only deny them their goals for a little while. Tell me what gave me power over you.”

Koh whispered into his ear, “When the gods ordered this world to be, they had to place all the chaos into a vessel. Think of it as merchant’s ledger. A small, insignificant debt is forgotten, but was once recorded. Over generation it grows. Slowly at first, and then it shoots up rapidly as centuries past.

“The Spirit of Chaos was placed into a vessel.

"Somehow the Lord of Chaos created two souls. The gods fearing the growing debt they must one day pay to Chaos banishes the souls from the heavens to the earth. On earth the linked souls becomes mortal and suffers rebirth and death like the other souls save for the fact that almost every generation the two souls manage to enter the world no matter how hard the gods try to keep the twin souls trapped in the underworld. You are the current reincarnation of one of those souls.

"Prince Zuko’s fate was to die in his first hours of life outside his mother’s womb. His lungs were to be inadequate to the task. However, your soul attached itself to a child fated to die. You innate stubbornness was no accident. It is the trait that defines every reincarnation you have experienced. You’re the perversity of chaos, randomness. The more the odds were stacked against you, the better you performed.”

The Blue Spirit knew that he was way out of his mind to even began believing Koh’s words. Any more and he would begin to believe that he was locked away in a sanitarium like one of his father’s half-sisters who believed herself to be the sun goddess.

He took in a depth breath careful to keep his face impassive.

“Can’t you see – The Goddesses of Fate decreed that you would have little impact on the world. You went from a historical footnote to potentially the one that can change the course of events. You are a stone tossed into the pond and you create ripples.

"Two lives ago, you, and your other soul altered the fate of House Sozin. Your father Ozai was supposed to die at Ba Sing Sing along with your cousin. Iroh was supposed to be the last Fire Lord. Your tea-drinking uncle was supposed to be the total demon your father is now. Zhao was to marry Mai and they were going to overthrow your uncle’s throne and forever change the how the Fire Nation is ruled.

"Save for a long term privateering campaign, the war would effectively be over since the pair and their successors would be too busy to consolidate power back home. Therefore because of your actions in a past life, your grandfather and mother had to be born to patch the rip you two made in destiny’s grand plan. Should you have offspring, they will be another rip in the fabric of time. Now there is no grand plan that will ever restore the balance.”

“Who is this other soul?”

“Your red string soul mate is the second half of the whole. It can be funny sometimes that you two almost always end up together.”

“Funny, how so.”

“Sometimes you two reincarnate as members of the same sex. Let’s say the gods then have a good laugh since your other half has to break down your innate stubbornness about bending in alternative ways.”

What? I never bend that way. He remembered that any reaction would give his host the gift of his face.

“It’s not a lie. You two are the tricksters who true names cannot be said. Otherwise, just one true worshiper and you two will…I have seen the punishment of hell and not even I can begin to describe the fate that awaits me if I let you become gods again.”
“It is time that I must go. Maybe you will get lucky in my next life and earn your freedom?”

Koh retreated into the darkness whispering.

“The old gods were stupid, yet terribly clever to create you and sentence me to this hell. I have a mere illusion of freedom and you proceed to defeat me every time. You are my bane. I who twice defeated an avatar, cannot even … I will keep trying. You will slip up one day and I will pay you back for a thousand-thousand generations of suffering.”

The intruder had much to think about when and if he ever returned to the light.

________________________________________

To my childhood companion Mai,

I read the intelligence reports that you sent me and I am generally pleased with your progress considering that the Avatar is protected by two powerful benders, one of who managed to beat off my brother and uncle for two years. I am personally changing your orders from trying to bringing in that air bender alive to merely killing the little brat as he would not reincarnate in time to stop the power of Sozin’s comet.

What I want you to do is recruit a separate intelligence network independent of my father’s intelligence service in the earth kingdoms. After you kill the avatar, he will be reborn among the earth benders. Make sure that you know where he or she is before it realizes its powers. We will keep on killing all non-fire nation avatars. As you told me, simple plans work the best. Keeping one captive is too much trouble.

As for Iroh, conserve your assets for the Avatar hunt. If you accidentally run across him, deal with him. If Jian Li deals with him, merely pay that bastard magician his fee. Otherwise let my uncle rest and drink his disgusting tea for now.

As for your father and mother, I regret to share with you some bad news. They suffered a fatal case of food poisoning.

It seems a red and gold spotted arrow toad accidentally fell into the soup.

Your mother perished quickly.

However, it took your father one week to die a most painful death.

Your son, Tom-Tom, is being taken care of by the same nurse that took care of me as an infant.

Only you and I know of the truth, to the world, he is still your younger brother.

Father will have to appoint a new governor for New Ozai. However, I ensured that you were listed as your father’s heir. The bulk of his wealth and estates are yours save for the 1/3 share that will be held by the crown in trust for Tom-Tom until his twenty-first mid-summer celebration. Since I could not get you appointed as governor, I had you named as my confidant and cupbearer. I considered you for the position of shield bearer. However, I am in more need of your devious mind than just as another bodyguard.

As for me, I still am looking for any fire nation bastards who met Jian Li’s profile.

Although daddy was forced to name me the Keeper of House Honor and official heir to the dais, he is trying to match me up with some weak husbands who I can’t image letting in my bed chamber let alone having the honor of fathering my heirs.

I only wish that I could find out who this Jian Li really is. If he is just somewhat noble, I can pick him to father my brats.

He would be quite a consort, even if I have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of my life and one hand on a dagger. I would probably have to kill the bastard to keep my throne, but having his devious mind and talents on my payroll will be worth it.

My brother’s funeral went poorly. He was stubborn to the last. Ever after death, he managed to spite our father wishes. On the appointed day, a hurricane dumped lots of rain and lightning. I had to keep a constant eye on the pyre otherwise the rain doused the flames, it took two days for the pyre to convert his head and right hand into ashes.

Jian Li was right.

Father should have sent Zuko off to the 41st division and let him die as a martyr to the Fire Nation. There is a growing faction that is upset that a female is going to be sitting on the dais when Agni calls my father to his well-deserved reward for serving our nation. They are questioning my father’s sanity and becoming a problem. Some are too powerful for the usual methods to work. As the newly appointed Lady Admiral to the General Staff, I have been busy reassigning their oldest sons to more active areas of resistance. Also, I had father start having the nobles and merchant clans send their seven to ten year olds to the academy. There, a new set of instructors loyal to the true ways of our nation strip them of their loyalty to their families and replace it with loyalty to Fire Lord and his heir.

If you can think of anything else, please don’t hesitate. As cupbearer, you have the absolute privilege of lese majesty when it comes to offering your counsel.

Crown Princess Azula

Mai wept when she read the dispatch.

Azula had the one boy she loved killed and now had her own child as hostage. It did not matter that Tom-Tom was conceived when her father raped her, Tom-Tom was still her child. She hated having to hide her child from the world, but if her enemies know about Tom-Tom... However, Azula somehow found out her secret and now was using him to ensure her loyalty.

Mai remembered when her son was taken by rebels seeking to free King Bumi. She remembered having to act as if he meant nothing to her, otherwise Azula would merely incinerate her child as an object lesson in loyalty to the crown.

Mai missed holding her child. She missed sharing those private moments that the other lucky mothers shared with their children. Tom-Tom was the only one good thing that she had in a life that she hated. And now he was a pawn in Azula’s twisted game.

I will have my son back. Zuko was lucky that he was not alive to witness this obscenity take his rightful place. One day, you will beg me to feed you a serving of the toad, Azula.

Mai made a desperate decision. She would violate her oaths of loyalty to Azula. She would turn her back on 13 years of being Azula’s companion. She would became a fugitive as Zuko and Iroh became fugitives. She would do and more so for the sake of her son.

Mai left a message in the usual place. There was only one man she knew that would do anything for cash. She only hoped that she could find Tom-Tom a safe home before Ty Lee would hunt her down.

________________________________________

He saw his body. The chest was not moving and his skin was turning blue.

He knew he had to return, but he felt something pulling him away.

He was clawing his way but every two inches forward they would pull him three quarters of the way back.

He would never surrender, neither would they...whoever...whatever they were.

“Damn you all. I have been your whipping boy long enough. You had your time. Now is my time.”

He only increased his effort. He would not allow his father or sister the satisfaction of burning his corpse. The avatar might be fated to defeat or be defeated by the Fire Lord. However, the traveler returning from the spirit world planed to rip Destiny’s tapestry again.

The harder they pulled, the stronger was his will. Will, not power, is what separated the supermen from the mass. Triumph was found in the will. If there was anything he had in abundance was willpower. He touched his body.

The first breath was the most painful. Even his childhood lung fits could not match the pain. His chest, his lungs, his muscles screamed in agony as air-laden blood started to replace the acid buildup in his muscles. He wanted to scream, but he lacked the breath.

His tears and sweat were as of blood. He knew that even a two-year old could seriously hurt him now. He was weak. Too weak to stand, but he had to make the effort. With great effort, he rolled out of bed.

The last thing he remembered was hitting the back of his head on the wooden floor of his wagon.

________________________________________

The healer examined her latest patient.

She had treated minor injures and illnesses before. However this was something more.

He was a young man and looking at him one would think that weakness was something foreign to his existence. However, she listened to his lungs during her examination. She could hear the flux.

He was unconscious. There were no signs of skull fractures. His heart was beating strong, his pulse a little fast and his head was warm to the touch, but not feverous enough to cause alarm.

She opened one of his eyes. It was golden, generally a mark of someone with Fire Nation blood. Staring at them, the healer noted the cloudiness in the left side of his right eye. Her patient was born with lung flux. Slowly she bent out some of the fluid in his lungs. It was cloudier than she expected, like it coagulated. According to her trainer in the Northern Water Tribe's healing arts, that only happens when someone dies. However her patient was alive.

She called in the ringmaster.

“Two small pinches of ginkgo, four small pinches each of well ground Echinacea root and passion flower leaves. Add to exactly one quart of boiling water and have him drink it every day. Have him abstain from heavy foods and heavy activities until I can see him again. Feed him broth with lots of marrow and with little to no salt. Boil some ginger root in his broth but remove it before you feed him. No spicy foods no matter how much our patient complains. Keep him in bed. I will see him again in three days.”

“What happened?” the ring master asked.

“Jian Li was born with lung flux and from what I see a pretty bad case that should have taken his life years ago. Some children manage to grow out of it, but growing out of it is a lie. It is just the lung spasms come years apart instead of days. He is not that old. Sixteen or seventeen. Eighteen on the outside. He believed that he outgrew the lung flux and pushed himself recklessly thinking that he was now in perfect health."

She looked in the ringmaster's eyes.

“Ryo-san, I am not going to waste your time and coins with lies. Fire Nation kids and those of mixed Earth/Fire Nation bloodlines don’t generally do well with lung flux. In the Fire Nation, most kids with the disease die within hours after birth. Looking at his features, he has fire nation blood on both sides of the family line. It probably gave him fire bending powers...”

“What? Are you telling me that Jian is a fire bender?” The ringmaster asked. The news could destroy the mystic around Jian Li’s Great Oni Challenge act and cost the ring master his profits.

“He probably does not realize it. Many weak benders use their talent subconsciously, not even realizing it. Lots of mixed bloods are fire benders. They just never developed their talents due to persecution, but still they instinctively use it. However, using those powers are hard on the lungs. Fire benders control the fire by controlling their breathing patterns. For children born with lung flux, it’s especially hard. Looking at the lung damage, he has been fire bending and he has being doing it on heavily damaged lungs.”

She placed her ears next to his chest. The patient’s breathing was easier.

“He had an attack of the lung flux spasms, a pretty bad one. If you did not call for a healer when he fell, he would have died. My advice is let him rest and cut back on the show schedule and his practice sessions. Better yet, have him retire. The news will raise the ticket prices.”

The ringmaster looked at her as if she was asking him to cut off his arm. The healer motioned the ringmaster closer to the fallen magician.

“Listen. You can hear the gurgling of his lungs. It’s not as bad as it was, but you can hear it. Otherwise, he will have another attack. He is a very sick child who needs to rest before he can go out and play.”

The ringmaster reluctantly paid Katara a few silver coins and she departed to the sounds of the ringmaster curses.

________________________________________

Why Zuko? Why did you have to do this to me?

As was her habit, she examined her patient, Jian Li, alone. She removed the makeup so she could better examine his face for clues to the mysterious ailment. She saw the scar. It was the scar that haunted her dreams.

Part of her wanted to beat him up. She had mourned when she heard that he was dead. Now she did not know what to feel. Relief that he is alive or fear that her rival would now hunt her down.

At first she wanted to kill Zuko.

Zuko was the enemy.

However, healers swore an oath to treat all in need and the person lying on the wagon floor was dying. She did her thing and then painted his face before allowing the ringmaster into the wagon.

Now she wished that she did not get the bright idea of making extra coins by working as a healer. She wished that she did not have to witness Zuko’s weakness.

Zuko was dead.

Now he was alive.

Katara had locked her conflicted feelings about the Fire Nation prince that chased Aang around the world into a corner of her mind when she heard he died. Now she had to face them all again.

Zuko was the great boogeyman, always strong with no apparent weaknesses, just an unquenchable determination to accomplish his mission. He was like the steam engines of the Fire Nation...never tiring...alway chugging along to the next destination leaving ashes in his wake. Zuko was the standard that she compared herself against. If she could defeat Zuko, she could defeat anyone else.

Now Katara knew the truth.

Zuko was just a kid like her trapped in this crazy mess.

Every time they faced off, Zuko damaged himself, sacrificing a piece of his damaged lungs every attempt, to only fail and have to risk more of his fragile health in another attempt. Each failure cost him another portion of his life. She was part of the reason that he suffered the attack.

Once Katara would be extremely happy that she broke Zuko’s health.

Now the silver coins Katara placed in her pouch felt like blood money. Zuko was slowly cutting himself into pieces with every battle he fought and she now profited off his misfortunes.

The Fire Lord had hundreds of thousands of ruthless fire benders in perfect health, Zuko, why did he have to use you, a sick child, his own child, to hunt us down. A father who callously sacrifices his own child, no wonder why the Fire Nation is so twisted. If Ozai are willing to throw away his son, the one who love him no matter what, there is no humanity left in the Fire Lord's soul. Aang, you are going to have to fight something that is beyond evil.

We aren’t enemies anymore, Zuko. You are just another victim who was more cruelly exploited than most.

The visions of a sickly boy with the sad eyes who damaged himself to keep up with her now made sense. Her silent mind picked out the clues and tried to tell her that her biggest fear was just a child with the lung flux. The only thing that made him superhuman was his willingness to destroy himself to earn his father’s respect.

Katara took the long way home so that the others would not see the tears in her eyes. There were no words to describe what she felt. Words were not needed to feel what she felt. Words were not needed to summon forth the tears. Words were not needed. Words were not needed.
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Blue Mask