Categories > Cartoons > Avatar: The Last Airbender > Dragons of the West

Chapter 13

by FireChildSlytherin5 0 reviews

Set after episode, the Firebending Masters. It was dinner time after Zuko and Aang arrived back from the Sun Warriors’ community. Aang, Sokka, Katara, Toph, Haru, the Duke & Teo, wait for the arr...

Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender - Rating: PG-13 - Genres: Fantasy,Horror,Romance - Characters: Aang,Katara,Sokka,Zuko - Warnings: [!] [V] [?] - Published: 2008-07-04 - Updated: 2008-07-04 - 2845 words

0Unrated
Dragons of the West

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Summary:
Set after episode, the Firebending Masters. It was dinner time after Zuko and Aang arrived back from the Sun Warriors’ community. Aang, Sokka, Katara, Toph, Haru, the Duke & Teo, wait for the arrival of their newest member to come from his room. Everyone is still uneasy around the fire bender. Soon they have to leave the Air Temple. Ever wondered what the Fire Nation value the most? Find out. What other secrets would be discovered?

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Chapter Thirteen

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A cloaked man slowly walked down the dark eerie halls that lend to the ancient catacombs. The catacombs itself was as large as the Fire Nation itself, with many dead ends and mazes that if anyone ever dared to enter it alone, would find themselves trapped and later die.

The man walked up to a stone wall, looking around himself to see if he was alone or not. Seeing no one, the man opened a hidden doorway using his firebending. An ancient doorway, with cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, opened by itself.

The man entered, just as the hidden door closed. Using his hand, he contoured up a ball of fire, lighting his way down the stone steps. The darkness around the man skreedyed away from the light, for the darkness in the catacombs does not like the light, for it hates it with passion.

The curving staircase was long. Just as the man landed on a level floor, a white-greened swirl of mist covered the floor. As he walked across the stone floor, the mist moved aside forming a clear path for him to walk.

As he walked, the mist behind him formed into shapes of men, women and children, with pale banners of the ancients like shreds of clouds. Their swords and spears that the men held in the ghostly shaped hands where like winter trees on a misty night. They watched the evil man walked past them. They are can not touch him, for their Master forbids it.

The man ignored the mist, knowing full well of what they are. But he doesn’t have time to worry about cursed spirits that forever trapped here, for they can not and will not rest in the afterlife. For that matter, they can not hurt him.

He walked down the maze of halls, passing the while-green mist that seem to follow him out from curiosity or angrier. For almost a hour, the man walked the maze in silence, until he came into a large room, surrounded by very smooth walls. The walls had status of human skeletons riding on skeleton horse-tigers; skeleton men fighting among themselves was curved into walls.

The smell of death lingered in the air like a thick blanket.

In the end of the large stone chamber stood a throne. The throne was large, almost as large as the wall itself. The man walked up to it and then kneeled facing down.

The man waited. But not for long.

A sudden wind picked up around the man. The man’s cloak bellowed around him, as the ball of fire in the man’s hand suddenly leapt up into the air lighting the unlit torches all around the chamber. The mist that that followed the man escape back out from the chamber, stretching in fright from the light.

A dark form of a unnatural looking creature suddenly appeared stand in front of the throne. The man like creature was massive, with muscular legs and arms, with a long tail. It had large horns coming from its sides of it head, it’s skin was bluish white with black tattoos covered its body. The creature wore fur and dark colored leather, with skulls, bones and teeth draped from its clothes. It red eyes glared daggers to the knelling man.

“You are late, Ozai….” the creature’s voice was a whisper, but loud enough to be heard out from the chamber, as it sat on its throne.

Fire Lord Ozai slowly stood up from the ground, looking at the creature with no fear in his eyes. For only he can control this creature, for he himself at summon it.

Thousands of years before, this creature was the Lord of the Lands of Torment and once human before the Torment mutilated him, taking all its humanity away from him, making him King.

This creature is called, Angra Mainyu (1).

Long ago when the Lords and Ladies of the Ancients fought against Angra Mainyu; Fire Lord Suresha Amrit (2) (3),Water Lady Maya Kielo (4) (5),Earth Lord Uros Tlaloc (6) (7) and Air Lady Ilmatar Aditi (8) (9) defeated him, banishing him in the darkness forever.

Now thousands of years later, the descendant of Suresha Amrit himself had awoken him, promising him that if he helped him take over the world, Ozai would give him four souls, the descendants of those that banished him and freedom to rule his domain in the Land of Torment forever, for the exchange of giving him Immortally and alliance between the two worlds.

“I am never late, Angra.” Ozai said the creature.

“What brings you here, Ozai? I take it that our plans didn’t do so well? Come my…friend, let us take a walk.” Angra said stand up from his throne. Ozai nodded.

The Mist behind them watch as the mortal and the demon walk beside each other down the ancient halls.

“The Invasion went well, we captured most of the army, however seven escaped.”

“Including my two souls?” Angra asked his eyes darkened at the thought.

“Be patient my good friend. You will get them very soon.”

Angra’s red eyes glared at the mortal with a hiss. “If you betray me, Ozai, you know what will come of you…”

Ozai turned to the demon, smirking. “I will not betray you. Did you remember that I already given you one soul?”

“Ah yes….” the demon smiled at the memory when Ozai and his men brought the wounded solider Lu Ten, the only son of the true heir of the throne. Angra remembered happily as he remembered Ozai strapping the youth on a stone slab as Lu Ten begged his uncle to free him. Ozai ignored him, and stabbed his chest, taking out his still beating heart...

“I take it that my… nephew still serves you well?” Ozai asked, seeing the demon’s smile across his face.

“Of course he does, he has no choice for his soul is bound to me forever.”

Ozai nodded.

“I heard from my servants that your only son had betrayed you. And that you ordered your men to take your only daughter to the Boiling Rock for punished.”

“Of what you heard it true.”

“You should’ve done what I done to my own children long ago. Taking their beating hearts at the moment they are born, bounding them only to you. They are better as slaves.”


Ozai shook his head. “I rather have servants under my rule that has a brain, then walking zombies.”

Angra laughed. “You mortals have strange ideas.”

Ozai didn’t say anything.

“I come here to ask you your help.”

Angra grinned. He knew of Ozai will ask him to do. For he is Immortal and have many spies in the world. “Yes?”

“My son joined the Avatar, teaching him firebending. My spies also says that my brother and his friends have called the Holy Counsel,” at these words, Angra’s eyes widen in anger. “I fear that my brother will exceed.”

Angra nodded. “Of what you want me to do?”

“I know my brother’s weakness. My son.”

Angra smiled. “Of course, ever since his own son ‘died’, he adopted your son as he second son. And you want me to kill him?”

“I don’t care of what you do with him. Kill him, prison him here for all eternity… use your imagination.”

Angra shook his head, little amused at the mortal’s words. “I will order my best slaves to kill him for you.”

“No. I want the traitor to suffer. I want my brother to suffer. I want the Avatar to sever the betrayal of his friends.”

Angra smiled evilly. “A spy among them?”

Ozai too nodded.


“I have the prefect spy for you… her name is Agurne (10) .”



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Nothingness.

There was no up, no down, only nothingness in darkness, with only sounds of agony and sorrow. There is no feelings here, only pain. There is no time, for what does the dead need of it?

Ghostly forms of people stood motionless where they waited for a command. None of them knew how long they stood there; minutes? Hours? Centuries?

Among the men stood a young girl. She was short, wearing ragged clothes. Like all around her, she was covered by blood, as her rotten skeleton body was flouting six inches off the ground. She held no weapon, for she was bender at one time when she was living. Of what element she doesn’t remember, for it was so long ago. And if she had, she would probably wouldn’t remember how.

For all these years her life is filled nothing but pain, isolated (beside her fellow men and women beside her) in the catacombs of where, like millions here, her soul is forever trapped.

The only hope that she felt in her entirely death, was that her Master had brought them here, out from his domain in the Lands of Torment. Soon, very soon she knew, that her Master will allow them to walk in the Land of the Living once more, something that she never done for almost a century.

Suddenly a booming voice that shook the domain of the dead, as one word echoed through out the mazes of the catacombs. The word itself was in an ancient language, but all the dead here knew of the language, even if the language was long ago forgotten when the dead was once living.

“Agurne!” the voice echoed.

The young girl, Agurne was her name, opened her empty eye sockets, startled that her Master is calling her. Or was it her imagination? Surely there are hundreds of people here have the same name as her?

What startled most to the spirits around her was that their Master was calling her by her living name. Not the name or rather the number that their Master had given her, but her name that her parents have given her.

“Agurne! I call you now!” the voice bellowed out again. Agurne felt a sudden pull as her soul started to disappeared.

She is being summon.

The last thing that she saw before she disappeared entirely was the look of her fellow spirits that stood next to her since her death. Would she ever seen them again?

Before she whispered good-bye to them, the darkness over took her.

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Ozai waited patiently as Angra called on his servant, that he called Agurne. What was so special about her? Is she an assassin? A high commended solider in an ancient war?

The wind picked up again, making him clutch his dark colored cloak tighter around himself. The light dimmed, as a ghostly mist like figure appeared in front of them.

Ozai looked at it surprised. Of what he figured would be a deadly sight, was nothing but a beaten looking skeleton spirit. He couldn’t make out her out hundred percent, as he was mortal that never touched the Spirit World, but enough to know that this spirit was once a beautiful young woman before she died. Ozai step forward towards the spirit, looking at her a different angle.

The spirit floated just a few inches off the ground, looking ahead itself motionless as if trained solider.

“You like her I take it?” Angra asked the Fire Lord.

Ozai smirked. “She is a beautiful woman.” he commented, reaching out towards her with his hand. But he couldn’t touch her; her ghostly form didn’t allow it.

Angra nodded. “You can not take her to you bed. For she is mine, and mine only.”

Ozai turned toward the demon. How dare that creature think he was thinking of that!

The demon laughed.

“Prey tell, Angra, what is so special of this… young woman?” Ozai said, ignoring the demon’s laugh.


“She was once an Airbender.”


Ozai froze. “An Airbender…” he muttered.

At these words, Agurne, cocked her head slightly. ‘I was an Airbender?’ She asked to herself, as a spark of hope fill her well being.

--Flashback--


Three children ran across the green covered hills. All of them were female, dress in yellow and orange. The eldest was tall, thin with dark covered hair that was tied in a braid behind her back. The middle one, who was the cousin to the eldest, was bald showing the world her nearly finished tattoos of arrows on her body, for just a week ago she had pasted her trails and became an Air Master. The youngest however, was shorter then the other two, but equally skilled in their air bending, but not yet a master.

“Agurne! Agurne!” the middle one giggled at the youngest, as she air bended herself into the air using her glider. “Betcha can’t catch me!”

Agurne smiled, jumping into the air using her own glider chasing after her best friends, laughing happily as the three soured through the air.


--End of Flashback--

The memory ended just as fast as it was created.

“Yes an Airbender. One of many that was ready to do her trails before your ancestor slaughtered her people.” Angra said. Ignoring his servant, of which he knew that she remembered her life before her death. He sneered at the happy memory, that he was forced to see, as she was bond to him.



“And how does this help me?”


“You are daft? She is an Airbender. As I give her life that she once had, she can find the Avatar, make friends with him. With both of them having the same element, them being in the same Nation it would be easy for her to befriend him. As she gets closer to him, she too will be close to your traitorous son. And when the time is right, she will then struck.”

Ozai smiled.


“She will not kill him. No, she will frame him into a murderous crime that will not just hurt the Avatar, but also you brother. After they banish him, you then will take your men and capture him.”

“I like your style.” Ozai said liking the plan.

Angra smiled.


“And when the traitor is out of the way, she then will slowly take over the Avatar’s mind, twisting it making us control him. He will avengly come to us. And if the plan goes well, he will also bring the other two souls with him. And when the Avatar is out of the picture, you have an easy path of taking over the world.”


“Yes. The World will be mine!” Ozia yelled happily.

Angra smiled evilly as he watched the mortal laugh wickly.

Agurne didn’t like where this is going to. But she had no choice. Her soul is bound.

(End of Chapter)


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(1) Angra Mainyu: its male name meaning “evil spirit” in Avestan. In Persian mythology Angra Mainyu was the god of darkness, death and destruction, the enemy of Ahura Mazda.

(2) Suresha: a male name meaning "ruler of the gods" from Sanskrit. (sura) meaning "god", (isha) meaning "ruler, lord". This is another name of Hindu gods Indra, Shiva or Vishnu.

(3) Amrit: a male name meaning "immortal" from Sanskrit. (a) meaning "not" and (mrita) meaning "dead". In Hindu legends it refers to a drink which gives immortality.

(4) Maya: a female name in Hebrew/Jewish, derives from the Hebrew word (mayim) “water”.

(5) Kielo: a female name in Finnish meaning “lily of the valley”.

(6) Uros: an old male Hungarian name, possibly form úr meaning “man, lord” combined with a diminutive suffix.

(7) Tlaloc: a male name in Nahuatl, meaning “of the earth”. He was the Aztec god of rain and fertility, the husband of Chalchiuhticue.

(8) Ilmatar: a female name derived from Finnish ilma “air”. In Finnish mythology Ilmatar was a semi-androgynous goddess of the heavens. She was the mother of Ilmarinen, Väinämöinen and Lemminkäinen.

(9) Aditi: a female name meaning “boundless, entire” or “freedom, security” in Sanskrit. This is the name of the ancient Hindu mother goddess of the sky and fertility.

(10) Agurne: a female name meaning “greeting, salutation” in Basque.

Author’s Notes: Hey all I hope this chapter was good. The reason for Angra and the Dead specking in Italic is the reason that I want to bring more passion in the story, showing that they are not alive, nor are they dead. Trapped in the between world.

Also note, I used the idea from Lord of the Rings about the undead, the men from the Misty Mountains.

Do you know what I found out? Aang’s name comes from the name Aang-Aang that in Chinese means high-spirited, or brave-looking. Fitting huh?

Please Review!

--FireChildSlytheirn5
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