20. Eclipse

The return to the Fire Nation was a triumph painted in crimson and gold. Dragon streamers danced in the wind, and the cheers of the capital citizens roared.

Zuko stood at the prow of the royal flagship and watched the confetti rain down. To the people, he was a conqueror. And to his family, he was a true Fire lord that has superseded all before him.

Inside the palace war room, the mood was less celebratory and more inquisitive. Azulon, frail in his wheelchair, was present alongside Ursa and the rest of the council.

“You took the impenetrable city in a single night,” Azulon rasped in a dry voice. “But the reports say the Avatar’s body was not recovered.”

“Azula dealt the final strike,” Zuko said, glancing at his sister. She felt a pride like no other. “But the Avatar’s not dead.”

She froze with wide eyes, then abruptly stood up. “Impossible. You said it yourself: I killed the biggest threat to our nation.”

“Yes, you did,” Zuko agreed, walking to the large map of the world spread across the table. “But the Water Tribe girl has spirit water. She’s likely already brought him back since I allowed it.”

“You allowed it?” Azula’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Because Ba Sing Se was just a stepping stone. That Avatar can only be killed by me, and me alone.”

“Fire lord Zuko,” Iroh muttered. “May we ask why you did not kill him when you had the chance then on more than one occasion?”

“As you all know,” Zuko announced to the room, “the solar eclipse is approaching. When it does, the Avatar will try and invade because he’ll see us as vulnerable. When he does, he’ll be leading the last remaining rebels.”

Azula, although livid that she did not truly kill the Avatar, understood Zuko’s strategy: to set a trap for the rebels and (hopefully) kill the Avatar then.

Zuko finished, “You’re to lure them to the throne room where I’ll be waiting.”

Ursa stood up. “You can’t expose yourself then, my son.”

“It’ll be fine mother.”

“Without your bending?” Iroh wondered. “I mean this in all due respect, my lord, but even you aren’t invincible.”

“I don’t need fire to burn them,” Zuko said. “You’ve all done a fair job following me and have seen that I’ve never been wrong. So deploy the Imperial Firebenders to the harbor. Let the invasion force land and fight their way to the crater. But the palace… leave the palace to me.”

Not a single member rejected his plan.

✟

Months later, the sky turned a bruised purple. The air grew heavy and cold as the moon began its slow slide across the face of the sun.

The invasion had begun.

From the high windows of the throne room, Zuko watched the distant smoke rising from the harbor. He could hear the faint explosions, the screams of men, and the grinding of earthbending.

They were coming as he sat relaxed with his full ceremonial armor.

The eclipse reached totality. The world plunged into an eerie twilight, and the flames behind the throne died.

Boom!

The brass doors of the room exploded inward, torn from their hinges by a surge of metalbending. Dust billowed into the vast hall. Through the haze stepped Team Avatar.

Toph led the charge, flanked by Katara and Sokka with his boomerang and a new sword. And in the center, looking determined and grim, was Aang.

“Fire lord Zuko!” he shouted. “I’ve come to end things!”

Zuko didn’t even flinch. He just looked at them with a profound sense of boredom. “You must be joking. You actually came here with a few rebels on the one day I can’t firebend?” Then he slowly stood up and descended the first step of the dais. “How truly stupid of you.”

Aang’s face hardened. “It’s not. You and your forefathers have disrupted the world. So we’re taking you down once and for all!”

“Please,” Zuko countered. “It is stupid because of how desperate your group of rebels are. I gave you a lesson at Ba Sing Se. And yet, even with the power of all four elements, you relied on a celestial accident to save the world?”

“Whatever it takes!” Sokka yelled, throwing his boomerang.

Zuko tilted his head as the boomerang whistled past his ear.

“Get him!” Toph yelled, slamming her foot into the ground.

A pillar of metal shot up beneath Zuko, but he vaulted over and safely landed. Aang charged forward, blasting a wave of compressed air. But Zuko side-stepped and moved inside Aang’s guard with terrifying speed.

Bang-bang!

Two rapid jabs dug into the nerve cluster on Aang’s shoulder and hip. He gasped as his staff clattered to the floor. His legs then turned to jelly, and he collapsed.

It was over in two seconds!

“Aang!” Katara screamed, uncorking her waterskin.

But before the water could fly, Zuko pressed a hidden button under his sleeves.

Thud-HISS!

A transparent wall slammed down from the ceiling that sealed off the dais from the rest of the room. It was a thick, reinforced polymer—an invention Zuko had commissioned from the mechanist weeks ago.

More so, it was shatterproof and impossible to bend.

The rebels slammed into the barrier—each with their own weapons. Even Toph, with her metalbending, found it impossible to break.

“Toph!” Sokka tried. “Can’t you dig us underground?”

“I can’t!” she said with urgency. “The whole room’s covered in this stuff.”

They were all frantic because locked on the other side with Zuko was Aang, still on the floor. They all pounded the glass and yelled his name.

“Don’t bother,” Zuko said. His voice was muffled but audible. “That wall’s impervious to anything you might have.”

Aang looked up with fear in his eyes. He tried to move his arms, but they were dead weight. So Zuko knelt down and pointed a retractable spear at Aang’s throat.

Outside, everyone was screaming with elements whipping uselessly against the barrier as Toph was desperately trying to feel for a weakness in the floor.

“It’s quite ridiculous how easy it is to read you,” Zuko sighed, looking at Aang. Then he dropped the spear. “So stiff-necked…”

“W-what?” Aang stammered, bracing for death.

Zuko then grabbed Aang by the shoulders and placed a knee against his spine.

Crack.

The group outside froze upon thinking Zuko had just broken the Avatar’s back. But when they looked, Aang suddenly stood up!