Finding Zuko after he blindsided Katara and absconded with Aang had been surprisingly easy. It seemed that the relentless firebender had fallen into a thin and hollow ice sheet and knocked himself out from the fall. Aang had just regained consciousness when Appa landed, and Katara wasted no time in blubbering her apologies to the airbender. Aang quickly reassured Katara, and then directed their attention to a coming danger.
"We need to get to the oasis, the spirits are in trouble!"
But of course the soft-hearted guy had to insist on taking an unconscious Zuko along. Sokka regretted cutting through the rope the prince used to bind Aang, but at least the shorter lengths were enough to tie up his wrists and ankles. Plus, Katara was around to freeze him if he decided to be all fiery again.
"No…"
At Aang's horrified whisper, Sokka, Katara and Yue crowded to the front, and saw a group of Fire Nation soldiers advancing on the oasis. Even at this distance, the unmistakable arrogant swagger of Zhao could be identified.
"We need to stop him! Appa, yip yip!"
As fast as the air bison was, they could not reach the admiral in time to stop him from crouching by the Spirit Oasis and reaching his arms into the waters.
Another group of Fire Nation soldiers did it for them.
*****
"Admiral Zhao, you must stop this foolishness." Iroh kept an even, authoritative voice as he stepped out of the same tunnel the admiral used.
Zhao rose up on his feet and immediately fell into a stance, his wet hands steaming up immediately. The firebender squad behind him followed suit. "Prince Iroh. Why am I not surprised to discover your treachery?"
"I'm not the one hiding his true agenda for this invasion, Zhao. Now cease this."
The admiral scowled, gesturing with his eyes towards the pool of water. "Cease? Once I take out the moon spirit, I will be a legend! The Fire Nation will for generations tell stories about the Great Zhao, who darkened the moon!" As he continued, Zhao broke from his stance, using his arms to gesture wildly instead. "They will call me Zhao the Conqueror. Zhao the Moonslayer! Zhao…the Invincible!"
Iroh frowned and began walking towards the megalomaniacal admiral, arms still by his side. "No, Zhao. The Fire Nation needs the moon too, we all depend on the balance."
"You and your fear of the spirits, Iroh," Zhao sneered contemptuously. "We do not need the moon; only the Ocean Spirit needs to live. With the moon gone, the Water Tribes will be defeated."
"Zhao, don't!"
The arrival of the Avatar redirected the admiral's attention and allowed Iroh to get closer. While the prince kept up a facade of steely calmness, his heart quickened when he spied Zuko's form atop the sky bison.
"Destroying the moon won't hurt just the water tribe, it will hurt everyone, including you. Without the moon, everything will fall out of balance. You have no idea what kind of chaos that will unleash on the world!"
"He's right, Zhao," Iroh reasoned again. "Don't do this."
"This is my destiny." Zhao fell into a combat stance again, and with his soldiers he seemed ready to launch himself at the Avatar.
A rustle of metal and cloth drew everyone's attention, and a squad of similar (but more appropriately sized) attired soldiers, along with Colonel Hwa, Admirals Daeyang and Gao Ning, and General Tachi emerged from the same tunnel Iroh and Zhao came from. That so many officers managed to sneak up on Iroh back at the tunnel entrance had worried the old prince - he didn't like the blatant evidence that his senses were yielding to old age.
Seeing the commanders, Zhao relaxed a little, while the Avatar's party tensed up. "Ah, commanders. Good, with your help the Avatar will stand no chance."
Admiral Daeyang answered on their behalf by shaking his head. Judging from Colonel Hwa's scowl, she was too disgusted to form an appropriate reply, while Admiral Gao Ning and General Tachi were too dreadfully disappointed at the realization that the man they had supported had turned out to be insane. "No, admiral. We will not be party to your madness. Please, do not abandon reason. Heed Prince Iroh's advice and stand down."
"I am surrounded by short-sighted traitors. Fine, your corpses will be another step to my ascension." Zhao redirected his stance towards the commanders, while his men faltered in confusion.
It was General Tachi who spoke next. "Have you truly lost all reason, admiral?"
"You're the one who's too afraid and blinkered to know true glory, you cowardly leech!"
"Such impudence."
As the Fire Nation factions faced each other down, Iroh noticed off to the side the sheer confusion in the Avatar and his companions at the turn of events. It was a good sign; that the boy didn't simply wash everyone away meant he could be reasoned with once this was done. Or that he was smart enough to let two enemies break each other down before coming in to clean up the remains.
With a raised hand, the smallest firebender of the commanders' group stepped to the front, the uniform poorly fitting on his smaller frame. "Admiral Zhao. It seems that you are set in your quest for delusional glory."
"Who are you to judge me?" the admiral snapped, already antagonized to his limits.
Zhao's hands clenched into fists as he snarled and the soldiers around him backed away when Xing's grinning face was freed from the helmet and faceplate.
"I'm a firestartah, twisted firestartah."
*****
All of this was getting wilder and wilder by the minute. First Zhao shows up, not for Aang, but to kill the Moon Spirit? And then another group of high ranking Fire Nation soldiers shows up to try and stop him. And now the kid with the dragons turns out to be a firebender, and a Fire Nation soldier at that?
"I feel way out of my league here," Sokka declared, actually earning looks of agreement from Aang and Katara.
"Colonel Xing…" Zhao hissed.
The boy took-
Wait, wait, wait. What? Xing? He can't be that Xing? But-
Sokka felt the chill air rushing into his mouth as his jaw dropped and his mind reeled.
The boy took step after step towards Zhao with all the confidence of a wolf stalking a grounded puffin-seal. "As First Royal Champion, I hereby declare you traitor to the Fire Nation." He paused to glance back to the other Fire Nation officers, and then Iroh. "Do I have any objections?"
Heads were shaking, and nobody spoke up, not even the scarier looking Fire Nation adults.
"Your words mean nothing, boy!" Zhao retorted, and stomped a foot to ground himself in preparation for a fight. "Your forked tongue will do nothing here, charlatan."
Xing didn't seem impressed by Zhao's threat, and instead glanced at the soldiers behind the admiral. "You have two options: Surrender and maybe seek a chance at leniency. Or join this traitor's fa-"
More noise from where the Fire Nation soldiers came from signaled the hasty arrival of Chief Arnook and his warriors, adding more confusion to the scene. "Invaders! How dare yo-"
The boy cut the chief's words short with a dismissive wave of his hand without breaking his gaze from Zhao. "Relax, we're not here for you." He took another step at the admiral, and Sokka felt like the air between boy and admiral grew both colder and hotter at the same time. "I'm here to make amends for the Fire Nation's mistake."
Zhao let out a snarl as he finally acted, both hands punching out a massive fireball. Xing casually skipped out of the way, and the flaming projectile was deflected by the other firebenders behind him. And then, he became a blur of motion, diving towards the admiral who was still drawing back to deliver another attack.
Glint of metals flashed out, and Zhao cried out in pain as Xing slipped behind him and in a fluid, ruthless motion jammed a dagger under each armpit. A hard kick to the back of his legs sent the admiral down to his knees, but the boy grabbed Zhao by the topknot to stop him from falling over.
"Zhao," the boy declared coldly as he looked down at his captive, "For the crime of deceiving the Fire Lord, for the crime of wasting Fire Nation lives in a misleading campaign, for the crime of threatening the very existence of the Fire Nation… I, Colonel Xing of the 11th Royal Regiment-"
Oh spirits, it really was that Xing.
"-First Royal Champion of the Fire Nation, hereby sentence you to death."
Still standing behind him, Xing held Zhao's face in both hands. The admiral tried to struggle, but it quickly stopped and he screamed as smoke began to rise where Xing's hands met his face.
The boy colonel looked up towards Chief Arnook, and then the Fire Nation commanders. "To prevent your madness from infecting others in the future, the reports from both sides of this invasion will say that Admiral Zhao, in his eagerness to pursue his plan, slipped off an icy path and fell into the sea. It was a disappointing revelation to the officers that witnessed it that the vaunted admiral couldn't actually swim, and promptly disappeared into the cold depths. And unfortunately, he took the scroll carrying his plans, the plans he paranoidly kept only to himself, with him."
Beyond the rippling of water, the muted sounds of combat outside, and Zhao's groans of agony, nobody made a sound. The commanders and Iroh looked among themselves, while Chief Arnook glanced at his men. For their part, Sokka traded confused looks with Aang and Katara, and received a shocked realization from Yue.
Hopefully she'll fill him in later.
After a moment, the adults from both sides began to give slow nods, and Xing looked back down at Zhao with a grim frown, though his voice betrayed malicious glee. "Do you understand, Zhao? No one outside of this sanctum will know of what you've tried to do today. You will be remembered as the fool that doomed this invasion by accidentally killing himself. You will be the admiral who failed the Fire Nation by being too overconfident and glory-hungry to trust anyone other than himself. A far better lesson to pass on."
Sokka shuddered as he swore he could almost taste the satisfaction in Xing's words. "Worry not, I will give your family ample warning before the Fire Lord receives the news, so that they may officially disown you and flee the home islands before being unfairly subject to his wrath."
Zhao struggled again, but again he stopped as more smoke sizzled out from underneath Xing's hands.
And then Xing opened his mouth-
"No, wait!" Aang yelled, but his intercession was ignored.
Xing's mouth opened wide, and Sokka could see Zhao's face twisting into an expression of terror at the realization of what's coming. The boy's leg on the back of one knee kept his struggles from amounting to much, while his wounded arms flailed uselessly.
Sokka instinctively took a step back, covering Yue and Katara as he did so, when he saw the glow coming from Xing's mouth. And then a burst of blinding light, accompanied by the roar of fire, made the teens turn away with yelps of surprise. The cries of alarm from the other parts of the oasis told him that most, if not all, of the adults were also surprised by the literal breath of fire. Squinting hard for a peek, Sokka noted Zhao's silhouette being cut through by a beam of white fire…the infamous blinding fire of the Scorpion Dragon.
It was over in a matter of seconds, and the ambient light quickly dropped to normal levels. The darkness returned to his closed eyelids, and Sokka could open his eyes and remember that there were more colors than white.
Sokka felt weak in his stomach as the first thing his eyes were fixed on was the smoke-wreathed Xing with a hand on either side of Zhao's shoulders. The man's head, neck, and pretty much everything in a straight line down was missing, disintegrated away by the intense flame. The ground underneath Xing was a blackened ruin.
Katara's face took on a greener tint, Aang looked no better, and Yue was holding on tightly to Sokka for support. Sokka himself fought down the urge to run to a corner to heave. Though his gaze was still fixed on the grisly sight scene, the young warrior noted the aghast and disturbed looks of both Fire Nation and Water Tribe fighters.
The Scorpion Dragon let the remaining two thirds of Zhao fall away from each other onto the ground, and then walked rather stiffly towards the oasis. That snapped the gang out of their revulsion, but before they could intervene, Xing surprised them by kneeling before the pond and…saluting the spirit fishes with hand in fist and head bowed.
"I apologize for the misaction of my former colleague, and for allowing him to sully your domain." His voice was sharp, precise. "I hope you both can find it in yourselves to forgive me and my compatriots for not intervening sooner, and understand that the fool stood alone in his idiocy."
Sokka was about to wonder what new kind of madness was this, but then he remembered the rumors that the Scorpion Dragon was touched by the spirits. So Xing kneeling reverentially to the moon and ocean spirits might not be too far fetched after all? Maybe?
As if to prove Sokka's confused thoughts correct, Aang suddenly went slack and his tattoos glowed. The airbender took a step forward to speak in a voice that was clearly not his own.
"We accept your apology, interloper." It was a voice that was both calm and strong, like a fast, smooth tide on a clear day. Yet there was a hint of dark anger in it, and Sokka couldn't get the picture of a wild maelstrom out of his mind.
Even if he was an airbender, it was weird seeing Aang move so…fluidly. The Avatar seemed to float across the ground and literally walked on the oasis' water to stare at Xing, nodding once with an authority Sokka never once saw Aang possess. "The fact remains that you saved my beloved from a heinous end, and the consequence you meted out to the fool satisfies us."
The possessed Aang then crouched in a familiar waterbending stance, and the oasis swelled up around him. Xing remained unmoving at the display, even as Aang's tattoos flared and his voice. This time the words that left Aang were crystalline in its clarity, and carried a light, ephemeral quality to it. Disturbingly, it also sounded not too dissimilar from Yue.
"For your service, you will be rewarded accordingly. Even if you are the foe of our guardians."
Aang's arms moved in a circular, flowing motion, and the oasis waters surged up. Rather impressively, Xing remained unmoving right until the unnatural wave slammed into him and engulfed him in a bubble. Even from this distance Sokka could tell that the other boy was doing his best to keep calm as the water rushed all around him and began to glow to the same intensity as Aang's tattoos.
And then the Scorpion Dragon began to tremble, and then flail as primitive instincts kicked in. Sokka's guts twisted once more as he saw the familiar, agonizing patterns of a person struggling futilely as they drowned. Xing writhed in the glowing sphere of water, the last air bubbles leaving him barely visible. Off to the side, the soldiers were all left stunned on their feet, save for a group of helmeted firebenders who were kept from advancing towards Xing by an explosion of icy spikes all around them. Katara was equally entranced by the scene, as was Yue who was still pressed against Sokka for support.
It was a shame that the current situation was such that he couldn't appreciate the moment.
Xing was left in the water bubble for several long seconds, before the glowing receded, and the current inside slowed. With a jerk of Aang's arms, the water rushed back into the oasis, leaving the Scorpion dropping unceremoniously onto the ground where he proceeded to brace himself on all fours and vomit water.
"May we never meet again, interloper," Aang did not say, and then he backtracked to the edge of the oasis and stopped glowing. A now-confused Aang gave a confused 'huh' as he returned to his body, and Sokka could only give him a helpless shrug.
Xing got up after hacking and coughing all the water out of his lungs, and stared down at his own hands for a couple of seconds before the edges of his lips tugged upwards into a smile.
Then he turned his attention to the Fire Nation group, offering a nod to the squad still struggling against the ice spike barricade that calmed them down for some reason, and then turning to Chief Arnook and the water tribe warriors who were caught between awe and hostility, before finally landing his gaze on Sokka and his group.
The tense atmosphere was banished when Aang seemed to finally come to a realization. "Hold on, you're the Fire Nation's Scorpion Dragon?"
Xing gave a faint, annoying smirk. "I suppose we should talk…"