The panicked voices echo off the walls of the grand meeting hall within the chief's longhouse. For the first time in almost every single person's life here at the north pole, the firenation is attacking their city. From the entrance to the palace, the ocean is infested with hundreds of warships that take up almost the entire horizon past the outer walls of the city. Many of the men have already taken up defensive positions on the bulwark preparing for the attack while others tend to their families trying to reassure them that they'll be fine. Sokka clutches Yue into himself in a protective and possessive manner, seeing as Hahn is also nearby taking orders from chief Arnook. Zuko himself is with Katara, Aang and Pakku recalling as best as he can the plans that his father had to invade the northern watertribe.

"Silence!" Arnook declares in a firm tone, his loud voice echoing off of the surrounding structure. "We must remain calm, we all knew this day would eventually come and we have to prepare for the siege at hand. Avatar Zuko, you are the former prince of the firenation so you have some understanding of the battle tactics and potential plans that they may have, yes?" Arnook asks, prompting the tribesman around them to turn to face Zuko.

"I know who is leading the invasion and I know what they'll probably do under his command. They're led by a new admiral named Zhao and he has been after me for a while. He wants to capture me specifically as some sort of trophy to boost his standing within the firenation. He's devious and deceitful but most importantly, stupid, arrogant and prideful. He's smart enough to know to avoid a night invasion since the moon boosts our waterbending so the attack will be during the day." Zuko reasons, "How much time do you need to prepare for the siege?"

"Don't tell me you're thinking of going out there and fighting them by yourself. That's completely insane." Katara scolds, "What are you planning anyways? To turn yourself in so that we might have a couple hours of time at most?"

"No, I'm going to sink a few ships to stall for time. I know how they fight, their tactics and what to expect on the ships. While they're dealing with me, they'll be too busy to launch any sort of attack on the city until I'm done with them. I know I wont be able to deal with all of them but I can create enough chaos to delay the attack for a few hours hell maybe even a day. That'll only happen if I manage to take out the right ships to block them off from getting within catapult range." Zuko responds, "I have three out of the four elements, and they only have one. Most of the general deckhands on the ships aren't benders they're infantry. The higher ranked staff are the benders but they're usually up in the bridge. Plus I'm the only person here who knows where to attack the ships to disable them."

"I think you're a damn fool if you go out there alone to fight them. They've killed three avatars in the past hundred years and you're willing to make that four?" Katara shouts back but Zuko merely stares at her.

"Then why don't you come with me. I need back up out there and we're the entire reason why they're here in the first place." Katara goes silent hearing Zuko's request before pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance and taking in a long exasperated sigh.

"Fine, but the moment things get hairy we're getting out of there." Katara finally agrees, "You coming with us Sokka? Yue? Aang?"

"The avatar, an airbending master, two powerful waterbenders, a warrior and a ten ton flying fluffy monster versus over a hundred firenation warships. Not the best odds but we've probably worked with worse." Sokka adds, "Let's do this."

"We'll get the women and children to the long house, I want every able bodied man no matter what age to come with me. We must defend our homes." Chief Arnook declares before turning to Sokka and Yue. "Be safe, and keep her safe." Sokka nods at what his father in law requests before taking off to join the rest of team avatar.

Aang blows hard on the bison whistle causing Appa to launch himself up from the stables and come directly to them. Coming in for a quick landing, the entirety of team avatar including its newest member Yue climb aboard the flying bison before Aang flicks the reins prompting Appa to take flight again. Zuko furrows his brow in an angry expression as they get closer and closer to the invasion force. Once past the icy walls below, the lead ships of the armada notice the flying bison and begin to take shots at it, launching flaming boulders from the catapults to try to knock the group out of the sky. Aang instructs Appa to drop extremely low nearly to the point of skimming the water so that they're out of the line of fire from the catapults. The moment they're near the boats they team splits with Aang and Zuko attacking one boat with Yue, Katara and Sokka attacking the one adjacent to it.

Setting foot on the iron hull of the dragon class warship, Aang spins his staff out in front of him with Zuko drawing his twin swords from the sheath on his back preparing for the fight. Flanking them in a semicircle are spear wielding deck hands and a couple of firebenders that were manning the catapults. With a brief nod to Aang, the two benders attack with Zuko immediately launching into a spin move creating a massive ring of fire around him and Aang that pushes back the flanking spearmen. The three firebenders on the deck manage to block the incoming flames but Aang capitalizes on this using his staff to slam a wall of air towards them. The nearly invisible column of air slams into the lead firebender causing the other two to look at where their ally ended up getting launched from. Zuko sprints forwards between the two soldiers then airbends both of them off the side of the ship and into the water. "I'll head up to the bridge and take out the steering, you take out the engine." Zuko says as the two sprint into the main door leading to the helm and below deck.

Across from them on the other ship, Katara, Sokka and Yue launch their own attack against the soldiers. Sokka immediately throws his boomerang at the lead firebender behind the catapult before drawing his whalebone club and sword. Yue sprints along the side of the ship drawing up a large amount of water to coat her arms with and to share with Katara. Both women utilize the water tendrils over their arms to easily rip apart the catapult and deal with any of the non bending soldiers. Meanwhile Sokka parries an oncombing stab from one of the spear men before cutting the top of the spear off, following through the motion by striking the soldier in the helmet with his club. With a follow through motion from the club strike, he stabs the soldier in the side before wrenching his sword out of the man continuing his attack. Yue freezes the points of the tendrils of water into scythe-like blades in order for combat while Katara keeps hers in a liquid state as the two take to climbing the helm up to the bridge rather than fighting their way through it. With Katara and Yue dealing with the officers and the navigation staff Sokka makes use of the barrels of oil and blasting jelly that are near the destroyed catapult, courtesy of his wife, he rigs up bits of rope that he soaks in the oil before lining them into the blasting jelly. He pours the oil all over the deck before watching as an officer gets thrown out of the bridge by a tendril of water before the two women return.

To the port side of the ship Sokka and the girls are on, the soldiers have taken note of the raiding party attacking them and have prepared a line of firebenders and archers to start firing at them. Seeing the oncombing barrage of fire and arrows, the three drop below the raised waist high walls of the ship in order to get closer to the attacking ship. "See if you can drag them overboard, we won't be able to make it across with them firing at us." Sokka says before grabbing his boomerang again. From the crouched position he won't be able to use his boomerang but the girls can attack them. Yue gives Katara a look before the two begin moving their arms up and down drawing up a massive wave of water between the two ships, Sokka can feel their ship tilt to starboard by the massive amount of water that the girls are pulling up between them. Across from them he can hear the soldiers slipping due to the increased incline of their ship. Peeking his head up just enough to see over the side each of the attacking soldiers are either focused on retaining their grip or have already fallen over. With a nod to Katara and Yue, Sokka springs up and rears back with his boomerang before throwing it hard towards the standing firebender. With a loud metal clang, the girls spring to action freezing a bridge between the two ships so that they can continue the assault. Before Sokka runs across the ice bridge created by the two waterbenders, he sparks the head of the spear he cut off against the oil on the ship causing it to catch fire.

Aang launches himself from a port hole in the bottom of the ship after choking out the fire in the engine causing the ship to stall out. Just before he touches the surface of the water, he flips open the glider staff and takes flight towards the next ship. From behind him, the bridge windows are blasted out by a wall of fire quickly followed by Zuko who slides his way down the edge of the building with frozen claws over his hand to slow his descent. Zuko attacks the ship to the right with Aang going after the one behind them. Once landing he immediately creates a massive sphere of air around himself and expands it outwards pushing away each of the benders allowing him to attack the catapult. The nimble airbender darts around quick as a flash, tying the load of one catapult to the other. With a flick of his staff he sets off the trigger mechanism on the catapult causing it to launch forwards ripping apart the other catapult that he had tied to it.

Zuko jumps clear off the side of the ship he and Ang disabled towards the starboard ship preparing to fire its catapults at the city. With a spray of fire from his hand he increases his height for a moment in order to make it to the other ship. Before the catapult operator can slam the hammer against the firing mechanism, Zuko blasts the man with a fireball followed by a cut of air from one of his twin swords. The resulting blast severs the man's hand just below the elbow and launches the hammer from his hand and off the side of the ship. Registering that there's an attacker, the other firebenders on deck begin launching retaliatory strikes towards Zuko who manages to catch then throw back each fireball towards their senders. A couple manage to dissipate the redirected fireball while a couple of the other masked benders get struck directly in the chest by the attack. Drawing water up from over the sides of the ship, Zuko clads his swords in the water coating both blades and all the way up to his shoulders in the frigid liquid. Bringing the weapons to an offensive pose, he stabs the right blade out first launching the water off of his arm and weapon in order to capture the firebenders in front of him. The moment it makes contact with the other soldiers it freezes them to the water allowing Zuko to yank them upwards then throw them around into their allies like rag dolls. The other weapon he uses to sever the chain holding the counter weight of the loaded catapult. With the weight severed it drops 10ft to the deck of the ship punching a hole straight through the hull and into the lower deck. With the tendrils of water, Zuko grabs a nearby barrel of blasting jelly before spinning and slinging the barrel at the helm causing it to explode and take out the tower. Behind him, on the first ship Sokka and the girls attacked a massive explosion goes off, nearly splitting the ship in two.

Zuko watches as Appa flies overhead towards the ship behind them then watches as the bison grabs one of the soldiers and drops him overboard. Aang had let his guard down and ended up getting tied to one of the catapults he was trying to set off by a hammer wielding opponent. Across from them, Katara and Yue make short work of another warship, using their waterbending to rip apart the hull and the weapons on board sinking the ship quickly. Sokka stares in awe of what his sister and white are capable of before shaking his head and returning to the task at hand, wrenching his sword from the chest of a soldier he goes about setting the blasting jelly and oil to scuttle the ship much like he did with the previous ones. He shudders as a massive explosion on one of the ships he saw Zuko jump to takes place but he sees the firebender launch himself at the next ship continuing their assault.

Ship after ship team avatar attacks but with each ship they invade, either disarm or kill the crew of, another is there to take its place. Zuko and Aang have been partial to disarming rather than killing anyone but Sokka and the girls haven't been pulling their punches when it comes to this battle. Especially after the ships begin launching the flaming boulders and explosives into the city. With each ship they take down more take their place and Sokka calls it before any of them could get hurt, each ship they've attacked has been partially prepared for them since the first one he attacked had launched the distress flare. Raising the horn of a narwhal-shark to his lips be blows into the spiraled horn signaling for Aang and Zuko to come to them on Appa to get them the hell out of there. Zuko blasts one last barrel of blasting jelly before jumping off the ship and into the water, using his waterbending to create a platform of ice that he surfs towards where Sokka had blown the horn. Aang comes circling in from above on the back of Appa, landing the flying bison in the water so that the others can get on board. Flying back to the city Zuko turns back and looks at the line of destroyed ships barely amounting to 18, burning and partially sunk in the water. For a split second he thinks he sees his uncle on the main flagship but at this distance he can't make out who it is.

"Think that will buy us some time?" Sokka asks looking at the scuttled ships behind them, "Nobody is hurt right?"

"I'm fine."

"Yeah, Katara and I made short work of the ships; they didn't have a chance to fight back." Yue says in a slightly triumphant tone but there's clear exhaustion in her voice.

"I'm officially a traitor to my homeland." Zuko says with a sigh, turning to face the others.

"They betrayed you Zuko, they betrayed the peace of the world and have betrayed themselves. You're here to return the world to balance and end this war, Be the first good firelord in a hundred years." Sokka says firmly, "It's kill or be killed and you can't afford to die, not again because there are no airbenders for you to come back as."

"What we need is a way to end this battle as fast as possible, think you could use your bridge to the spirit world to get us some help?" Katara asks but Zuko doesn't respond, instead he continues to stare out at the destruction he caused and the lives he was forced to take.

"The faster this battle ends, the sooner people stop dying." Zuko says under his breath, trying to harden his resolve for the task at hand but he can't help but feel that a part of him has died having to actively fight against his nation, his country, his home.

"Let's get back to the city and try to come up with the next step in our plan, but I agree with Katara about contacting the spirits. The Ocean and Moon spirit have helped us in the past when the watertribe was in danger. Maybe they'll help us again." Yue says as she rests a hand on Zuko's shoulder.

"Let's just go." Zuko says as Ang flicks the reins of Appa harder, bringing them in for a landing within the city. As the moon rises, the catapults stop and a brief moment of relief washes over the city as the siege pauses for the night.