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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.

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Blue Mask, Two Swords, and Sozin’s Comet
Caught
By Pat Squared

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Thanks to all who feed my muse,
She is expecting to deliver another story soon,
So she is in dire need of more food (Reviews),
She will repay you will more stories and more frequent updates.
Please review to feed the muse,
Good or bad – all reviews are appreciated

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The four travelers made their way though the perpetual darkness of the sewers guided by a faded map and a single lantern.

Katara looked listlessly at the water.

Her life was over. She had surrendered her love and virtue to a fire bender. She now had no place where she belonged.

Maybe with the exception of Sokka, her family and Tribe would never understand or accept that she now carried a Fire Nation prince’s bastard child. Even if they did not exile her to the barren wastes of the Antarctic plains, her child would be forever stigmatized, more so if the child showed any of Zuko’s features, let alone has his ability to manipulate fire. Even if she died, the child would be like a bat. Nether a bird to soar into the sky or a rat to burrow into the earth, but something in between with no place to belong in this highly organized world. Her child would never have a place in this world where one’s blood and gifts determined one’s loyalties.

Katara knew that this feeling of perpetual depression was part of coping with the lost of her soul mate. She did not want to believe that he hated her. She did not want to believe that he did not love her. She knew that his honor will dictate going to extremes so that she would not follow him to his death.

However, she could no more not come to this place than deliberately cut out her innate ability to manipulate the heavy, cool essence of water that defined her existence.

Katara dipped her fingers in the turgid waters of the sewers.

“Turn left, I feel a change in the flow.”

No sooner had the four turned off into the darkness and hooded the lantern, did a Fire Nation merchant barge sail past. The deck was loaded with goods and refugees. Yet the refugees did not yet have that persistent air of desperation that haunted the refugees on the mainland. Although the refugees were primarily comprised of women and children, the adults were well armed and provisioned ready to lash out against any perceived threat. They looked more like a family going on holiday than a family forever saying goodbye to their past.

Katara had heard the rumors of an underground civil war in the capital of the Fire Nation. A part of her had cheered that the haughty fire benders got what was due them. However, she looked on the children wondering how many understood that they would never see home again.

The skiff slid slowly up stream towards the center of the town and the Fire Nation palace complex. Every so often, they would glide on up to the wall so that Toph could fell the earth once more and sense if there were any sentries hiding, watching the ebb and flow of life in this man made underworld. Katara pulled out a dagger. Zuko was in such a hurry that he had left behind a change of clothes and his dagger. She pulled the dagger out of its sheath.

Never give up without a fight.

The message on the dagger was so perfectly Zuko that she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

She would wield the dagger into battle. It was better that she die tonight. Neither the mother to be nor her unborn child had a place left in this chaotic world. Tonight, she would hunt down the sister that tormented her lover and the father that tossed him out.

Tonight the moon would hide from the earth. It was better that way. Yue did not have to see how Sokka and the others would die tonight.

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The plan to kill Ozai had failed with great fanfare.

Ozai looked upon the faces of the prisoners assembled before him. Former Naval Infantry Captain Sui was impaled on a spear, his traitorous daughter was unconscious, and the Blue Spirit laid at the foot of the dais with four arrows in his chest and a broken spear penetrating just under his ribs. The other unknowns were dead or dying.

“Tomorrow evening our wayward captain will serve as a human candle as we greet Sozin’s comet once more.”

With that verdict, two of Ozai’s Black Badges dragged the moaning, delerious naval infantryman to his doom.

The gods had blessed Ozai with cunning.

Ozai's daughter had an excellent plan that came too close to success, however, they did not factor in the extent of his newfound paranoia. He did not let anyone within two spear lengths of him now. He had twelve archers and more importantly their loved ones in his custody. The bowmen had barely stopped the crazed assassin from delivering a killing blow. It was close, but even a martyr had its limitations.

Ozai did not care that it cost him three out of four of his loyal Black Badges to stop this threat and that half the survivors would never be able to wield a weapon in his service. He was a god and far about the concern of mortals.

Ozai prodded the body of the man who sired his grandchild with the toe of his sandal.

A soft moan of pain escaped the assassin’s lips. Ozai looked into the face of the daughter he blinded. He saw her wince at the sound that told her of her lover’s pain. The assassin still had a use.

She still loves him. Cut him, make him scream, and you will hurt her a thousands times over the pain that he will feel.

Ozai smiled, “As for our Blue Spirit, he will provide fitting entertainment for the mother of my grandchild. The first thing that the brat will hear is the screams of its sire. Erect the post here and now.”

Two of the remaining bodyguards quickly lashed together an A-frame. A healer pushed the barbed spear though the assassin’s body, bringing forth a scream of pain and then they hung him be his wrists. One of them brought rhino riding crop to the Fire Lord.

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“Boy, kiss the whip and call me father.”

Zuko almost laughed at the irony of the situation. He once wanted to be able to be able to be his father’s son once more. He had chased the Avatar over the known world to be able to be in his father’s presence once more. Now, he was being given an opportunity, a command, to do what he was not allowed to do – publicly acknowledge the Fire Lord as his father in public.

Zuko coughed up and spat in his sire’s face. His spittle was a thick, odd mix of the yellowish-greenish discharge that signaled the infection that would soon steal his life and the bright, frothing pink blood from his lungs.

Wham.

As expected, his sire struck him with a fist to his face, blackening his left eye.

Wham.

Another blow hit him in the gut forcing the banished prince to cough up more blood.

“Ozai, qin wode pigu! (Ozai, kiss my ass). I would sooner be a yanse lang (male whore, literally colored wolf) than to call a psychopathic bastard like you father.”

As expected, his sire lashed out. Flames lashed his body, but Zuko focused on defying the old bastard that once had him quivering in fear. Fire was his birthright and with enough concentration, he deflected most of the flames minimizing the burns. However, he could not deflect the heat or the blunt impact of his sire’s fists upon his flesh.

“At least you are a fire bender. Good, at least my real heir would have the poluted blood of a mudflinger. Tomorrow at noon, you will entertain me one last time. Tomorrow, you will be the guest of honor at your own Agni Kai. I just hope that you provide me more entertainment than that sniveling bastard, Zuko, who actually Kow tao and cried out for mercy. Don’t worry, my guard will give you plenty of exercise tonight to toughen you up for tomorrow’s fight.”

The Fire Lord then proceeded to lash his son's back mercilessly. He had lost count of just how many times the bodyguards woke him up by throwing salt water on his back. He heard his sister’s whimpering as the familiar friend torn into his weakening flesh. Zuko no longer cared what happened to his flesh anymore. He was beyond the pain. He would soon be entering hell and there the oni would work him over in ways not even his twisted sire could imagine.

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If it were not for Toph, the gang would not make it so far. The earth bender used her ability to solidify the ceilings of old tunnels long abandons and to make their way pass ancient cave-ins. However all the bending came at a price, Toph was nearing exhaustion and would soon have to stop.

Katara lost all sense of time and the back up timepiece, Sokka, had actually lost interest in eating which negated his ability to figure out just how long since he last ate and thus the time. With the exception of the water flask on her hip, there was no water to bend in the tunnels under the dungeon of the palace.

“We are nearing the dungeon level. There are many people here. Guards and prisoners.” Toph winced, “They are working one over right now. He is almost dead. Poor bastard.”

Katara tried not to imagine what Toph sensed using her ability to see via the earth. However, the image of Zuko hanging limply resounded in her mind.

Sokka lead the way with Toph right behind him to bend the earth.

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Ty Lee and Mai instinctively knew something was terribly wrong. Tom Tom and Lijuan knew something was terribly wrong. Even the chicken-pigs were acting strange. Mai’s trouble sense was itching terribly as she checked and rechecked every possible thing.

“Stop it, Mai. I have checked the basement and the hidey-hole. There is nothing we can do.”

However, Mai hated this feeling.

Tomorrow was going to be a big day for all of the Fire Nation. Tomorrow the comet would come once more and supposedly grant fire benders the power to destroy the other nations. However, the Outcast Clan had more than enough fire benders in its militia to also receive any extra power that comet might bring.

She had only heard wild rumors of the Blue Spirit be Azula’s new consort.

No way. Azula and Zuko – Azula would gladly incinerate Zuko so that she would get the dais. Zuko – He would never surrender and even if she made him, he would die trying to kill Azula first. That is like saying Ozai and the Avatar are gay lovers.

Mai turned her attention to the only other family she had. Madam Chi had personally took Iroh’s recovery in hand. Her granddaughter, Tea Leaf, was too busy on a convoluted campaign to convince Hiroki, the blacksmith’s son and soon to be journeyman to create a proposal jewelry set for her. Tea Leaf reminded Mai of how she once used to be around Zuko and the Outcast Clan’s spy-mistress suppressed a giggle.

The stress was becoming unbearable, but there was no one who could manage Mai’s spy ring. However for all her apparent success, it was the things that her agents could not find out that haunted the queen spider in the center of her web. A small detail could derail her goal of creating a land separated from the xenophobic madness of the Earth Kingdom loyalists and the overall madness of Sozin’s offspring.

Everyday, refugees from the Fire Nation were streaming into the cities with tales of object lesions. The madness of the Fire Lord was tearing apart her old homeland.

The Council of Elders had quickly enacted her suggestion of using the influx of Fire Nation refugees to build fortified communities and small forward outposts in the fluid, no man’s land. It gave the refugees some gainful employment, instead of creating a permanent class of malcontents. It was cost effective. Also, owning land gave the refugees a stake in the fortunes of the new nation and something to fight for should the need arise.

Building forts to withstand sieges was foolish as earth benders could quickly turn any earth or stone structure into ruins. However, the strength of fire was that it was offensive. Taking a page from classic Fire Nation military strategy, the Outcast Clan simply kept raiding the earth benders on the other side of the line so that they would simply turtle up and waste their forces on defensive operations. The earth benders that would go with refugees were the construction overseers that would eventually construct forts of hybrid construction so to negate the earth bender’s advantage. Plus their families so that both sides would grow up with one another and end the cycle of hatred that now fueled the war.

Land grants kept everyone happy, but there was only so much land. One could not just keep passing out 40-acre plots and communities had to be supported in their infancy. That meant taxes and too many taxes destroyed a nation’s economy.

Now with Madam Chi taking care of a very ill Iroh, Mai had to now deal with the Council of Elders. All it would take is some refugee from Omashu or Ba Sie Sing recognizing Iroh or Mai to pierce the elaborate network of lies that Mai had constructed about her background.

Here, everyone believed the myth that the Storyteller Li was once was one of King Bumi's military intelligence officers. Mai and the soon to be dead, Jian Li, simply followed in the old man’s footsteps. If they looked like every other Fire Bender, it was because they were mixed bloods, like most of King Bumi's intelligence officers, selected for their position because they could infiltrate the Fire Nation. Every meeting risked exposure, but Mai had to be there.

The stress only made Mai’s morning sickness worse and she had to force herself to keep eating. Too many things were wrong for Mai too figure out which piece was the faulty keystone that would endanger their future. Until then, Mai had to keep an eye on a hyperactive three year-old boy and kept an ear out for trouble.

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Katara made the mistake of looking into one of the cells.

A young man was hanging by his wrists from a hook as two guards started applying hot irons to his flesh. He was physically and mentally broken, but the guards were still applying the white hot metal to his flesh. The only response was a weak moan and the half-hearted twitch of an exhausted body. The only other noise was the whimper from a girl’s lips.

One of the guards swung the rod and Katara could hear the crack of bones as it made contact.

“Beg, your highness. I want to see how much you will debase yourself for this thing.”

The girl begged for them to hurt her instead. She even offered her body fro their pleasure, but the guards laughed.

Katara could not take anymore. No matter what, the healer inside of her could not abide doing nothing about the cruelty inflicted upon the young man and the young lady who obviously loved him.

“Don’t stop me,” the Water Tribe girl announced.

However, he brother pushed her back.

“I will take care of the guards.”

With that statement, Sokka turned his skull splitter over and slammed the spike on the backside of the axeblade into the steel door. Using the spike as a pry bar, Sokka tore the door off its hinges and entered the small cell swinging the blade of his axe into the gut of one of the guards. He left the axe in the dying guard’s body and with the other slammed it down through the guard’s helmet and through the skull down into the upper chest. Her brother had just killed his first two men and the look in his eye spoke of the impending lust of battle.

Katara looked inside. There were only two others. A blind girl was hanging on one wall of the cell. The other was the limp form of the young man.

The healer inside Katara automatically categorized the injuries on both prisoners. She looked up at the battered face and recognized the golden eye that told of unspeakable agony. They had burn out his left eye with a hot iron.

It was the broken body of the man she loved. It was the broken body of the man who kid she was carrying. It was the broken body of the man who shattered her heart and her dream. Sorrow, anger, and the desire for revenge all clashed inside her head and for a place in her soul.

She could just could leave them there. She could mercifully create an ice spike and put them out of their misery. She could follow her healer’s oaths and save two lives, even if one of them only brought her pain and sorrow.

She whispered, “Zuko, it’s Katara.”

However, he was hurt so bad that not even her presence could awaken him from the shell that his mind retreated to in response to the pain.

Aang and Sokka broke the restraints and both prisoners collapsed to the blood and shit stained floor of the cell.

“Find a clean place, get me some water to clean them up, and stand guard.”

She no longer cared about a comet or stopping the Fire Lord. Katara had two patients who needed to be healed. She had made her decision and nothing in the universe would make her budge from it.
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Blue Mask