Zuko is Reincarnated as a Fish
By Morruin
By Morruin
Zuko could truly say he hated the gods. He thought he had been doing the right thing, he really thought he had, but then he had to go and DIE and listen to the King of the Underworld's brat tell him what an idiot he had been, and that his punishment was going to be being reincarnated as a fish.
After the initial fit of rage, he calmed down. A little. He would be allowed to keep his memories, and, surprisingly, his firebending. He wasn't very sure what help that would be as a fish, but he didn't complain. Once he died in this form, he would just come back and kill everyone as a ghost.
As he was now, though, just the death of every official in Underworld would never be good enough. Ever. Zuko would have to rule hell, sitting on a monkey pelt, using Koenma's corpse as a foot rest, to ever be happy with what had been done to him.
At first it hadn't been too bad, though the cold gave him some anxiety. He comforted himself with the rationalization that he couldn't possibly be anywhere near the southern water tribe.
Rationalization was lying to him. He gaped like a stupid fish when he saw that big, fuzzy snot monster fly overhead, and his temper got the better of him when he set the stupid water peasant's canoe on fire.
Fish : 1 ; Watertribe : 0.
It was a while before Sokka got a new canoe, but with the rest of the water tribe back, Zuko had to lay low. Setting their boats on fire didn't always kill them, and Zuko had almost been killed more times than he could count, so he stopped doing that. For a while, he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Finally, Sokka had a new canoe. He had taken his sister with him, and they were far out of the way, where if suddenly their boat caught on fire, they would probably die.
"Oh my God! That fish was firebending!"
"Sokka, get real," Katara replied.
"It singed the fur! That's real enough!"
Katara leaned over to look at the blackened fur. "Oh my-- Ah!" She narrowly dodged Zuko's attack.
Attacking the waterbender had been a mistake. He realized that a moment too late, trying to swim for his life away from the small craft. Katara had matured, and now she was very powerful. The canoe caught up, and in a moment the waterbender had a bubble of water floating in the air in front of her, with a Zuzu fish inside it. Suddenly the outer part of the water became ice, and he was caught.
Now he was in a thick bubble of ice, with no way to escape. He was in the middle of the village, no water anywhere nearby. He stayed where he was, mentally cursing the water peasants while they argued over his fate.
Sokka tapped on the ice, and Zuko rabidly attacked his finger. "I think we should eat it."
"At least wait until Aang gets here. He'll want to see it." Katara looked curiously at the fish. "There's something familiar about it."
"We were chased by firebenders for years. Now one just happens to be a fish. I think we should deal with the threat now."
"Well, at least we can give it a better enclosure." Katara picked up the orb and carried the fish outside. she used her waterbending to melt the snow to make a fairly good sized pond for the fish. "Now we have our own spirit oasis!" Zuko the fish jumped out of the water and futilely shot flames towards the waterbender. "Though admittedly a little ghetto."
People had stopped coming anywhere near the pool. Zuko was an angry little fishy, and he would have been dead many times if Katara had not stopped them. Zuko was not sure he was thankful.
When the Avatar finally arrived, he put his little fishy brain to good use, watching and waiting.
"What did you guys want me for?" Aang asked. "Your note was kind of cryptic."
"Aang, you're never going to believe it. The thing that was setting all our canoes on fire before," Sokka said, with his usual 'this is serious' voice, "was a fish! It can firebend."
Aang looked to Katara, who sighed and nodded. "Oookay . . . . let's see it."
Seeing the avatar again . . . sent Zuko on a rampage. He jumped higher than he ever had before, trying to burn the airbender's eyes out. Anything, at this point. Anything.
Zuko lay gasping on the icy ground, gasping for water. He was still a fish, and the avatar towered over him. When Aang picked him up, suddenly the world disintegrated. It was just Zuko, the avatar, and a swirling mass of grey.
"I hope you learned your lesson," the avatar said. "You're making some really bad karma. I know it's against my code, but I'm going to have to do this, little guy." Aang put Zuko on a cutting board that just randomly appeared, and his glider transformed into a butcher's knife. "Sorry, man," he said, as the steel came speeding down . . . .
~*~
"Ahhhh!" Zuko shouted, still expecting to feel the bite of steel any moment.
Just a dream. It was just a dream. He was still in bed, in Ba Sing Se, and the Avatar was dying, if he wasn't already dead. Zuko got up and decided he needed breakfast.
Apparently Azula and her cronies had the same idea. "What's for breakfast?" he asked sleepily.
"Fish!" Ty Lee answered.
The look that passed over Zuko's face was something between surprise, horror, and motion sickness. "I'm not hungry," he muttered, stumbling out of the room.
"But it's good fish," Ty Lee said, almost sounding downtrodden in Zuko's refusal.
Her only reply was the sound of Zuko vomiting.
