Burnt Out - Zuko x OC

Battle of the Sexes

The closer the four of them got to the meteor, the heavier the air surrounding them became. Sweat began to drip down their heads, necks and underarms. Their clothes stuck to their sticky skin. As soon as they came within one hundred meters of the rock, it was as if Kai hit a brick wall.

Her feet refused to budge. She couldn't stand to get any closer. And when she breathed in, heavy smoke filled her lungs and caused her to gag. Another flash of memories assaulted her mind, visions of Sergeant Shin shoving his fingers down her throat to keep her quiet while forcing her legs apart.

Sokka was pulled to a halting stop by something — by someone. He glanced quickly over his shoulder to see Kai staring wide-eyed and gripping him by the forearm tight enough to turn her knuckles white.

"Don't—" She stammered. "I can't — the fire—" She couldn't manage to articulate what she was trying to say because she didn't know why her feet wouldn't carry her any further. Not only that, but the fire itself seemed like her mortal enemy. It terrified her just as deeply as being dragged to The Great Divide did to when she was a child. Maybe even moreso.

"Spit it out!" Sokka yelled. "We have to help them!" He grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to gently shake the fear out of her, but Kai just stood in shock.

Sokka looked back and forth between the rest of the gang and her, and when he glanced down into Kai's eyes, they seemed almost transparent with disconnected.

He glanced back at the other benders one more time. What can I even actually do to help? I'm not a bender like them.. He turned toward the terror struck girl and decided that this was where he was most useful.

"It's okay, they've got this handled anyways. Just breathe." He said, loosening his grip on her arms.

Sokka watched with jealousy as his friends used their supernatural abilities to become the heroes once again. Meanwhile, Kai couldn't even face the same direction as the flames. She turned her back on the scene and focused her attention on Momo and her own out of control heart rate.

Toph folded the ground over on itself to snuff out the flames. Katara manipulated the water from the river to drown them out and in a last ditch effort to get things under control, Aang froze over the entire area and made it snow in the middle of summer. As soon as the fire died, so did Kai's fear. It disappeared completely, as if it never even existed. She held out her hand, catching a snowflake in the center of her palm. Despite the warm summer air, it held its shape.

*****

The gang decided to explore that very town the next afternoon. They were enjoying a cheap lunch at an outdoor patio, people-watching the villagers that didn't even know that their lives had been in danger.

"These people have no idea how close they were to getting toasted last night." Aang said. Katara was paying more attention to Kai, who was only picking at her meal. She hadn't told the others what she'd seen a few nights before, mostly because she wasn't sure that she could believe what she'd seen.

"Yeah, the worst thing about being in disguise is that we don't get the hero worship anymore. I miss the love!" Toph said.

"Boo-hoo." Sokka said from the edge of the patio where he was sitting. His mood had been gloomy all day. "Poor heroes."

Katara tried to entice her brother's mood into rising by reminding him of the sea-slug that was waiting to be eaten, but Sokka didn't have it in him to dine. "You guys can do all this awesome bending stuff like putting out forest fires and flying around and making other things fly around!" He waved his arms around in animation. "I can't fly around, okay? I can't do anything.."