"Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap this is bad. THIS IS REALLY BAD!!!" Zuko yells to himself as he paces back and forth between the two sides of what's left of the city gate. "Help us, Avatar. Keep the big freaking spirit monster from eating us. I just had to go and be the good guy didn't I? Now, I'm dead or a spirit. I don't even know what I am anymore! Ugh! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" He continues to rant, palming his incorporeal fist into his head repeatedly. "I don't even know why I can still stand on the ground. I phased through Katara trying to get her attention. Of course I get stuck in these stupid situations. I swear, this is the last time I fight an Agni-damn spirit monster. You hear me!" He yells to nobody.

He stands there in this incorporeal spirit form for a few moments before slumping against the crumbling wall with a thud. His body is not even disturbing the dirt on the ground. He exhales a breath of frustration before slapping himself in the forehead with his palm again before dragging it down his face. As he stares out at the clearing of the road, something catches his eye. Near the top of the curved branches is a twinkling light off in the distance. He stares in wonder at this shining entity as it gets bigger and bigger. As it continues to get larger, Zuko begins to be able to make out the details of the entity approaching him: large tendril-like whiskers over a bearded face, a set of wide batlike wings, and a snake-like body that slithers through the air as it flies. "I just had to open my big mouth. Didn't I?" Zuko asks rhetorically as he recognises this spirit as a Dragon.

Reacting predictably, Zuko takes off running away from the dragon while quickly trying to open Aang's staff. The now blue fan blades extend with Zuko jumping off the ground trying to get airborne. He couldn't even get the glider off the ground as it doesn't catch any wind and he faceplants into the dirt. "I can't bend in the spirit world!" Zuko says to himself wide eyed with shock and trepidation. His only choice now was to face this supposed threat head on. Knowing the wooden staff would only act as kindling against a dragon, Zuko plants the staff hard into the ground before turning and facing the beast. Balling up his fists to try to seem imposing, he instead flinches when the dragon lands in front of him. Knowing that he's completely outmatched by the creature, Zuko instead flinches and covers his face with his arm and his body with his raised leg. However what he was waiting for never came as, instead, the dragon maneuvers one of its whiskers closer to him and touches his head with it.

Feeling its whisker touch the temple of his head, Zuko suddenly feels memories and meanings being implanted in his mind. He could see the image of a burning comet streaking about the sky and the statue of Avatar Roku. When the whisker moves away from his temple, Zuko relaxes and converses with the dragon. "You're Avatar Roku's dragon. Fang." The creature nods at the mention of its name. "I need to speak with him. Can you take me to his temple?" He asks, prompting the spirit dragon to lean its head down and allow Zuko to climb aboard its back. He is careful not to step on Fang's horns as he climbs up the dragon's mane and takes a seat on a gap between two dorsal scales along its back. Standing back up to his full height, Fang extends his wings and takes off, a single flap strong enough to propel the spirit into the air at speeds far outpacing Appa.

Sitting on the back of Fang, Zuko feels a strange yet familiar nostalgia about being on the back of the dragon. He not only felt safe, but he felt as if this was something he was longing to do for as long as he could remember. Though, he thought it was odd to be moving this quickly and be feeling no movement from the air. From the back of Fang, the Avatar looks out at the world, watching as miles fly by beneath him. He watches as the ship he called home for the past three years comes into view at a port near the village where he and the others are at before it vanishes behind him due to Fang's incredible speed. In the brief instance he saw the men on the deck, he could have sworn he saw his uncle looking up at him. He continues to watch as the land turns to sea and then over the blockade that surrounds the Fire Nation mainland.

Just minutes after crossing the blockade of navy ships, Zuko spots Crescent Island ahead of him and Fang. The creature's speed increases as they near the island of Roku. The temple dedicated to Roku sat atop a volcano dozens of floors high with the traditional and old architecture that Zuko grew up around. Fang darts through the open entrance door and above the fire sages entering for the day before bounding into the center room and flying straight up. Zuko yells in surprise as Fang flies into the ceiling but the two phase straight through it. As he opens his eyes, he sees the antechamber of the temple of Roku. In the center in front of a wall of flames is a solid gold statue of his predecessor. Underneath him, the symbol of the sun is under his feet decorating the floor. He walks towards the statue and notices the intricate details of his predecessor, all the way down to the fibers of his beard.

"Roku?" Zuko questions but gets no answer. "Fang brought me here to speak with you so... h-hello uhm... I'm Zuko." He introduces himself to the statue but gets no answer in response. "Okay, what gives? You showed me that he wanted to speak, and we're here. Is he just busy or something? When can I talk to him?"

Answering his question, the dragon lowers its head revealing a sun stone on the wall, light being emitted from it projecting onto the wall near Roku. "When is the light going to reach him?" Zuko questions and the dragon answers him by placing a whisker against his head again. This time it reveals a new image. The sun moves across the sky above the temple and then the light moves about the moon. It repeats this moment several times before finally landing on the statue. "What do you mean on the solstice?! It's tomorrow!" Zuko protests but the dragon doesn't say anything. "Alright, fine. We need to get back to my body. I need to help the village, and get Aang and Sokka back." With that, Zuko jumps onto the back of Fang and the dragon flies out from the room at high speeds back towards the village where Fang had found him. Now filled with determination, Zuko grabs the horns of Fang as the dragon accelerates back towards his body. The prince makes a mental note to head to his ship after dealing with Heibai and speaking with Roku.

The return trip back to his body was even faster than the journey to Roku's temple. The dragon swoops up high in the sky before dive bombing onto where Zuko's body is. The teen's physical body is seated upon the same totem pole he crashed into the night before with Aang's staff laid across his lap. The dragon flies him straight back into himself and vanishes into the aether as Zuko awakens from his journey into the spirit world. His eyes flutter open upon getting back to his body, and he leaps off the wooden totem pole in the woods. As he lands, he takes note of the creature; a panda depicted at the top of the pole with trees and other wildlife underneath it. In the common script is scrawled, "The Spirit of Black and White" at the base of the totem pole. This gives him an idea. For the next several minutes, he digs about the ash, finding dozens of acorns and pocketing them. After finding a few dozen, he decides to head back to the village. He spins open Aang's glider and takes off the ground with a firebending assisted take off.

Seeing a bright fire move across the sky, Katara runs out of the town hall to see Zuko coming in for a landing. She cringes as he comes in too fast and crash lands into a debris pile near where Heibai had his rampage the previous night, kicking up dust and debris from the crash. He sits up and rubs his head from the force of the impact as the villagers run over to greet him once more. "Lee! Did you find them?! Did you find Aang and Sokka?!" Katara yells out as she rushes over to the slightly worse for wear Avatar, who is still dusting himself off from his crash landing.

"They were taken to the spirit world, Heibai seems to be appearing from the totem pole dedicated to him and his forest. He brought me there as well, but I'll have to fill you in on it later. I know how to defeat Heibai." He announces, walking out of the broken down house he crash landed in. "I'm going to have to distract him long enough to show him the acorns I found in the forest."

"The spirit knows we are hiding in the town hall. It's likely that he will attack there next. How do you plan on keeping them safe then?" Katara questions as Zuko walks with her and some of the other villagers back to the main building.

"I'll trap him with a wall of fire. I haven't used that technique before but I should be able to at least put up a wall in front of the building, keeping him from attacking it." Zuko responds, Katara has her objections about this idea, but she isn't able to voice them as the sun starts to go down below the horizon.

Katara and the rest of the villagers funnel into the town hall once more, leaving Zuko alone. The young Avatar walked towards the center of the village and waited patiently for Heibai to return once again. Zuko looks down at his pocket full of acorns for a moment, hoping that his plan would work. As the sun gets lower and lower in the sky, he feels his power waning as it slowly becomes evening and then night. Tightening his fists and standing with confidence against the oncoming threat, Zuko watches as Heibai appears from the shadows of the night cast forest beyond the village crumbling wall. He scowls seeing the beast once more, his scarred eye nearly squinting closed from the expression. Heibai makes his presence known to the rest of the villagers by letting loose one of his ethereal screams and blowing down another partially destroyed building.

Heibai's attention is drawn towards the main hall in his search for more people to abduct, finding that the houses he's been attacking have been vacant. Zuko stands before him defiantly as the spirit approaches. It growls in an otherworldly mix of guttural low growls and higher pitched screams. The young Avatar notices the light from within the spirit's mouth. Suddenly Heibai charges forwards, becoming incorporeal for a moment and managing to slip past Zuko and near to the city hall. Cursing under his breath, Zuko bursts off the ground with a slight use of firebending from his feet once more and gets to the side of the spirit. Clenching his fingers into curled claw-like gestures, Zuko leans forwards and sprays fire all along the ground in front of Heibai. He then stands and throws an open palmed strike towards the air causing the flames that lined against the ground to lift into a short wall only a few feet high.

The spirit roars loudly seeing the fire in front of it before turning menacingly towards Zuko. The slight smirk that had been present on his face when he managed to stop Heibai in his tracks disappears as he sees it shift towards him. This strike was even harder than the first time that Heibai struck him. The angry spirit slammed its larger forelimb into his stomach and chest, sending him flying. The strike was so violent Zuko vomited upon being struck with Heibai's fist. He slams hard into one of the larger sections of wall that was still standing before bouncing off of it and landing face first on the dirt, his body aching from the force of the blow.

Inside the town hall, Katara watches on in horror as Zuko's plan fails before he could get it into motion. Thinking quickly, she backs the villagers away from the doors as Heibai approaches them once more. As she's ushering the villagers back, a slight glow catches her eye. Looking back at Zuko, she sees him push up on one hand and to a doubled over position holding his ribs with his other arm. Though she can't see his eyes from where she is, she sees the ground where Zuko would be looking flicker a white ethereal blue for a brief moment. The shaved head of the ponytail sporting teen moves and looks up towards the town hall, his eyes once again flickering that same bluish white again. Her attention is brought away from the Avatar as the thunderous cracking of the wood ceiling above her fills the air. The shingles and wood beams shatter and splinter as Heibai slams through the roof of the town hall. The debris pinned Katara as well as one of the village children who was too close to the door when Heibai struck the ceiling. She's forced to watch helplessly as Heibai extends his smaller prehensile forearms towards her, wrapping around her waist and torso before dragging her out of the debris. In the hand opposite her she sees the young boy that had also been pinned is now in the grasp of Heibai.

The waterbender girl prays to the ocean and moon spirits trying to enlist their aid to stop Heibai from abducting her. She closes her eyes and expects the worst. However, a sudden gail of hurricane strength wind whips her hair around and snaps her attention towards the Avatar, his face contorted in a snarled version of his typical scowl with bright blue light emitting from his mouth and eyes. The Avatar ascends into the air, wrapping a tornado around his waist before moving at speeds faster than Katara had ever seen in her life. She barely had time to blink and he was in front of Heibai, staring down at him with that wicked snarled expression of anger on his face. Suddenly, he plunges into the ground, causing a small earthquake that she feels even through Heibai. Taking a wide stance, the Avatar extends both of his hands out to the side of himself as far as they can go before bringing them close to his body and pushing upwards. In tandem with his movements, a wall of earth is driven up from the ground underneath his feet and around them. It grows tens of feet high and encompasses Heibai and cornering him off away from the villagers. Katara now looks on in awe of his awesome power, watching as the dust around them from the debris collects and swirls around his waist once more. The tornado became so strong, even bits of the wood from the destroyed houses are being picked up and spun about in the tornado.

The Avatar raises his hands up towards the air causing more wind to fly towards them from the forest behind him. Thinking that now she will die due to the lack of control the Avatar has over himself, the waterbender woman watches in fear at the display, but a strike never comes. Instead, the tornado around his waist bursts into brilliant orange and yellow fire spinning in the opposite direction of the tornado of air he is floating in. The winds from the forest intensify, moving leaves and trees but not damaging them. Suddenly, Katara feels something hit her on the shoulder, her attention brought to the slight pain of the impact and then to what fell to the ground: an acorn and dozens more being flown around by the storm-strength winds that the Avatar is controlling. Realizing what he's doing, she watches as the winds begin to calm and form a gentle dancing vortex in front of Heibai, dozens of little acorns and leaves dance about the air before the spirit. Heibai, seeing the acorns in front of him, lowers Katara and the little boy to the ground. With the spirit now calmed, the display of the Avatar's might and power ceases with the fire dissipating and the winds dying off, the wall of stone sinks back into the ground from whence it was summoned.

Zuko is left standing at the top of the wall he had created before passing out. Katara tries to run to catch him, but instead he's caught by something else: a large black and fuzzy paw caught the unconscious form of Zuko as he passed out from the use of the Avatar state, gently bringing him to the ground. The original form of the once angry spirit Heibai sets Zuko to the ground gently before sniffing his face and licking him a few times.

"Hu- stop. Stop. Appa, stop!" Zuko snaps awake, seeing the nearly 15-feet tall panda seated on its hind legs looking at him. "What happened? Did I win?"

"You got your butt kicked, then went into the Avatar state when Heibai attacked the city hall. Then, you created a wall of stone and used the air to pull a bunch of these small acorns from the forest and showed them to Heibai," the village elder responds, watching as Heibai walks away from them and out of the gates before disappearing. As soon as he vanishes, a small grove of bamboo grows from the soil and from this grove, the missing townsfolk as well as Aang and Sokka walk out of the bamboo.

"SOKKA!!!" Katara yells upon seeing her brother, running up to embrace him. "Are you okay? How do you feel?" She questions, hoping he's alright.

"How do I feel?" He repeats before feeling his stomach grumble uncomfortably, "Like I really need to go to the bathroom!" He announces before running off to go relieve himself.

"I knew you could do it, Zuko." Aang announced completely forgetting about his alias.

"You blew it." Zuko responds while being helped up by one of the men of the village. "But we need to move, we need to go to Crescent Island. I have to talk to Avatar Roku by the end of the winter solstice."

"That's today!" Aang shouts in surprise upon realizing how short a time frame they have.

"If we leave now, we can get to my ship and have my uncle charter us through Fire Nation waters and to Crescent Island. If we fly there, we'll be shot out of the sky." He explains before turning to the townsfolk. "I'm sorry for using the fake name, but I must ask you not to tell anyone my real name."

"It is quite alright, young Avatar. We've heard rumors of you–not your name, but tales of the good firebender," the village elder responds. "Before you leave, if you need anything, please ask."

"We could use some supplies and some money," Sokka answers bluntly before being punched by his sister. "What? We need stuff."

"It will only take us a few moments to gather everything we can offer. Thank you for saving our village, Avatar Zuko. We'll continue to spread the word about the good firebender." The elder bows as another man hands Sokka a bag of food, clothes, and a small pouch of coins.

Aang tries to thank them for the supplies, but they're ushered away by the village elder. Their next step is to find Zuko's ship and sneak into the Fire Nation.