Yo everybody! I know, I know, I shouldn't be starting a new story, but as many of my long-time fans know, my old laptop is broken, preventing me from accessing my files and all the stuff I've written. I've been trying to rewrite my stuff for my stories, but it going slow. Mainly because a part of me is now obsessed with writing new stuff that I hadn't planned on doing. Which has led me to writing two Avatar stories. Here is the first one.

And I should warn you, this one is on the border between the Teen and Mature rating. I've put in Teen, but it may go up to Mature.

Disclaimer: The standard, I don't own Avatar: the Last Airbender.

Prologue: Rise of the Heralds

"Mortal, it is time for you to return to your world," the many voices of his liege spoke as one, giving him an echo as he spoke.

He knelt down before the greatness of his liege, the one who had saved him from certain death. He still felt the bitterness of how what should have been his greatest victory became his greatest defeat and near death. All because of one wretched little boy. He had laid siege to one of the untouchable strongholds of the enemies of the Fire Nation. He had slain a spirit of great power, which should have crippled one of the greatest threats to the Fire Nation and immortalized him in history. Instead, the spirit was restored and he was dragged to what would have been his doom if not for the intervention of his new liege. He was pulled from the grasp of a vengeful spirit and taken to realm beyond his world. His liege demanded his obedience for saving his life. He had given it, though half-heartedly, intending to use this being for his vengeance. He had been a fool back then. It wasn't long before he realized that the being who had saved him was beyond anything he ever known. It was greater than the Avatar. Greater than even the most powerful of spirits. Greater than everything else that existed.

"I have blessed you with a fragment of my power. More than I have ever given any of my servants. For you shall be my Herald."

Pride filled his heart. His Lord and Master had chosen him above all others. He was the Right Hand of his God. "By your command, my liege," he said, still bowing.

"Go. Return to you world and fulfill my plans so that I may take back what is rightfully mine," his liege demanded. "Go Zhao, Herald of the Great Devourer."

Suddenly, Zhao found himself falling through the vast, empty realm of his master, as a bright light blinded him. When the light faded and he opened his eyes, Zhao found himself falling towards water. Before he could do anything, he crashed into the water.

A few seconds later, Zhao's head rose up from the water, spitting out a mouth of the cold liquid. But something else rose up from the water too. A massive sea serpent. The creature let out a deafening roar.

Zhao grinned, revealing a mouth full of inhuman, razor teeth.

"You came to me seeking protection from those that hunted you and the power to retake that which was once yours, human," his teacher and master said though a small portal, a tear in the very fabric of the world.

Ever since he had been bested at what he had thought was his game, he had been on the run from those that would undoubtedly hunt him. Soldiers of the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom, his former agents, and anyone else with a grudge that had learned that he was now powerless. Fortunately, his time as the real ruler of Ba Sing Se had imparted with a great deal of knowledge. Including of a number of cults within the slums of Ba Sing Se. Perfect groups for him to hide amongst. And there had been certainly one that had remained a mystery even to him. The Children of the Void. Supposedly, they had worshipped an ancient god of sorcerious power. When he had ruled Ba Sing Se, he had sought to remove such filth from his city. And while he had succeeded against the other large cults, the Children of the Void remained forever out of his grasped. Agents that tried to infiltrate the group turned up dead. Whenever they tracked down a hideout of the cult, they disappeared without a trace. Nothing they did could stop this group. But when he was on the run, it took less than a day for him to find them, or rather, for them to find him. They claimed that they had been waiting for him as their god had predicted and they had brought him to their lair. Not by foot or by bending, but by sorcery. Real sorcery. Needless to say, he desired to learn this new power and use it to reclaim what was his. Which their god was more than willing to teach, provided he serve him and his cults, and abandoned earthbending forever. With little other choice, he accepted and gain power beyond his imagination. Power beyond mere bending.

"I have given you that. Now it is time for you to fulfill my part of our agreement. You are to become my Herald, Long Feng-"

CRASH!!!

Long Feng turned to one of the cultists. "What was that?!" he demanded.

"Earth Kingdom soldiers! We've been found!" a cultist called out from an ajoining chamber of their underground hideout as the sounds of combat echoed through the tunnels.

"Long Feng, dispose of this foolish rabble immediately."

Long Feng nodded and left the central chamber of their hideout, heading towards the fighting. It didn't take him long to fight the battle. The cultists were fighting a band of Earth Kingdom soldiers and earthbenders, and were losing terrible. The cultists were little more than poorly equipped peasants from the slums of Ba Sing Se. Against trained soldiers, they were doomed.

Long Feng extended his hands, ghostly, pale blue energy in his hands. "Soldiers, earthbenders, here me!" he shouted, drawing their attention. "I am Long Feng, Herald of the Lord of the Void! You are nothing compared to me!"

"You have learned much in short time, my child," her unseen mistress whispered in her ear as a guard walked passed her cell.

She had been locked up because of her only student. Which she had not cared about. She bore no anger towards her pupil because of her current imprisonment. What had angered her was that her weak willed pupil, powerful as she was, was too weak-willed to do what needed to be done. Instead of using her teachings to crush the Fire Nation and avenge all those that had suffered and died at their hands, she helped the new Fire Lord and the equally weak Avatar overthrow Ozai and ended the war without the destruction of that accursed Nation. But as she sat in her cell, waiting for age and death to claim her, a voice began to speak to her. First in her dreams, but over time, she began to hear the voice when she was awake. The voice promised her power and a chance to bring justice to the Fire Nation as it should have received. All in exchange for her loyalty. Needless to say, she pledged herself to the voice. Her mistress.

"Your training is complete," she continued, her voice ever changing. "Before, you could control peoples' bodies, now you can control their bodies and minds. Dominating them entirely. Even reshaping their bodies into what you desire. But first, allow me to give you one final gift."

Suddenly, she screamed, her voice howling through the prison. It felt like her body was being torn violently in many directions. She fell forward, landing on her arms, shutting her eyes tight as the pain threatened to overwhelm her. After what seemed like an eternity of unending agony, it stopped. "Open your eyes, my Herald. Open your eyes, Hama, Herald of the Mistress of Nightmares and behold your new body."

Hama opened her eyes, a third eye opening on her forehead, staring down at her hands. The once old, wrinkled and withered hands were now young once again. Hama, overcome with joy at her restored body, let out a cackling laugh as a guard reached her cell. She stopped laughing, her three eyes staring at the man.

Screams and laughter filled the prison…

"When I found you, you were weak, pathetic and the verge of death," the voice of his master rasped in his mind.

He remembered the war, the siege, and being buried alive alongside many of his men by those wretched earthbenders. He remembered being in cased in dirt and earth, unable to move, unable to breath. Trapped in the endless darkness. He remembered praying to Agni, the other spirits, anyone who would save them. But none of them answered. None of them cared about mortals. Save for his master. He promised him a chance to rise again, with more power than he had ever dream of, if he swore his undying devotion to him. Naturally, he accepted, swearing his devotion to his patron. His master pulled his soul from his dying body, into the realm he was imprisoned in. There he learned much, forsaking the Fire of Agni that he had been born with for a greater power. The power of death itself.

"But now you are strong. Now you are mighty. Now you shall live again, immortal and powerful."

He could feel his master reaching out to him, pulling his soul from the Infinite Abyss and returning it to his buried body. "Rise my servant. Rise Lu Ten, Herald of the Death God."

For the first time in years, Lu Ten opened his eyes.

Moments later, in a farmer's field, in the walled city of Ba Sing Se, a hand erupted out of the ground, followed quickly by another. Lu Ten pulled his dead body out of the ground and began walking towards the great Earth Kingdom capital, crushing cabbages beneath his feet.

"My cabbages!" a nearby farmer screamed, rushing towards him.

Without even looking, Lu Ten struck, a coil of purple energy lashing out from his hand, wrapping around the man's throat. The farmer screamed as the very life was sucked out of him, leaving a dead, withered husk. The farmer's body fell to ground and Lu Ten continued his march to Ba Sing Se. To only living person he desired to speak to.

His father…

Doctor Yuan Shao let out a sigh as entered the maximum security wing of his asylum. It was first of what he hoped would be a new generation of asylums. Before he taken over this asylum, it, like all the others in the Fire Nation, had been little more than prisons for the mentally disturbed. Back then, no one bothered with trying to cure the mad, they just threw them in asylums to keep them hidden and away from the rest of the world. Of course, that was still better than the methods of the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes, whom had no facilities for the disturbed and treated them like dangerous criminals instead.

But to Yuan, the mind was no different from the body. It could become sick and injured just like a person's body. Naturally, there needed to be people that could heal it. Of course, his belief was likely born from his childhood. When his mother, after learning of the death of her husband in the war, descended into madness, was locked up and eventually died in an asylum. Yuan sought to unravel the secrets of the mind, so he could heal those afflicted with diseases of the mind.

His theories and methods had revolutionized the field. Patients he treated saw improvement on their conditions. Some were cured, living happy, normal lives. For the first time in recorded history, there was the possibly of a cure for madness.

A year ago, word of his methods reached the ears of the new Fire Lord. Hearing of his success, the Fire Lord placed him in charge of the Wan Dao Asylum and asked him to treat to his sister, which he agreed to quite readily.

The young Fire Princess had proven to be his most difficult patient in his entire career. When he had first received her, Azula was extremely dangerous, ranting and raving as she threw fire all over the place. Naturally, they had facilities for firebenders, but Azula soon proved to be too much. It quickly became impossible for anyone to approach her while she was conscious. Without any other options, the Fire Lord asked the Avatar to take her bending away.

Yuan remembered that day well. In all the months Azula had been under his care that was the one time she seemed the closest to sanity. When the Avatar and the Fire Lord arrived and told her that they were going to take away her bending, the princess's rage instantly stopped. She began to beg and plead for them not to before flying into an insane rage again, demanding that they let her go and give her back her crown, only to switch back to fear and begging.

After the Avatar had taken away her bending, Azula changed dramatically, dropping into a deep depression. There were days when she wouldn't move or respond to anything. There were others where she would cry endlessly for no reason. And then there were days were she would just mope and mumble. But regardless of how she was acting, there were two things that she would always do. The first was shivering from time to time over the course of the day. It didn't matter what the temperature was, she would shiver as though she was sitting on an iceberg in the South Pole. The other thing was talk to her mother, the still missing Lady Ursa.

Of the two, he had concluded that the shivering was a mental twitch, the result of the loss of her firebending. But her hallucinations of mother were a major part of her madness and even seemed to haunt her dreams. Lady Ursa was an important aspect in understanding Azula's madness. Yet whenever he asked her about her mother, Azula would throw a violent tantrum, yelling and screaming as she destroyed anything she could get her hands on.

Most troubling, however, was her multiple suicide attempts in the months since her bending had been taken, which had increased dramatically in recent weeks. As a result, she was now under heavy observation and her body was constantly kept in a straitjacket, save for when she was being cleaned. Yuan had loathed to take such extreme measures, on anyone, but he had little choice.

Yet, no matter what he tried, she showed no signs of improvement what so ever. This completely mystified him as even other patients, who he knew had little to no chance of overcoming their madness, showed some signs of improvement. In fact, she seemed to be getting worse. It was almost as though some external force was driving her mad and keeping her mad.

Yuan pushed aside those thoughts as he reached the door to Azula's room. Steeling himself for another session with the young girl, he opened the door. Azlua was sitting on her bed, staring blankly at the wall, ignoring him as he entered, mumbling to herself. Her once beautiful ebon locks of hair were a mangled mess again. During her last suicide attempt, Azula had savagely cut out chucks of her hair, screaming, 'Is my hair beautiful now, mother?! Is it?!'

"Good afternoon Azula," Yuan greeted, pulling the only chair in the room next to the bed. "How are you feeling?"

For a moment, she didn't respond, lost in her own world. But after a minute, her eyes repeatedly and she noticed him. Azula turned her towards him and staring into his black eyes with her lifeless gold ones, she quietly said, "The Heralds of the Old Gods have risen… They seek the one who will become the Avatar of the Old Gods… And when they do, the Dark Avatar will free the Old Gods and the world will be consumed in darkness once again…"

As she spoke and for reasons he couldn't explain, Yuan shuttered. And once those words left her mouth, Azula fell back into her own world again, her head slumping back down.

Yuan was unsettled. The princess's eyes when she spoke were empty, lifeless. Like she was nothing more than a shell, a puppet, speaking someone else's words. But what he found more unsettling was that one of his other patients spoke those same words this morning, but he hadn't generated the uneasy that Azula had. "Who is this Dark Avatar?"

"One of the blood of the Avatar and a their tyrant…" she mumbled.

"You mean the Old Gods? Just who are these Old Gods? And who exactly has the blood of the Avatar and a tyrant?"

Azula suddenly began to back away from him, shaking her head, uttering, "No, no, no, no…"

Yuan put hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her down. But Azula flinched from the contact and tried to move further away from him. She looked up at him again. Yuan saw something in those golden eyes that he had never seen before in all the time he had been treating her. Pure, primordial terror.

In a voice barely above a whisper, she said, "Me…"

And done. Now, I'll have the first chapter of the other story up in a few days and then write a few chapters for both , then see which one is more popular and continue that one.

As always, review!