Katara stood frozen, her breath hitched in her throat, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock and terror. The image of Alec, tears streaming down his face, a flame dancing in one hand and water swirling in the other, was seared into her mind. It have her the hope that she has found Avatar who went missing 100 years ago. And maybe now his family can be back home together like before.
"Alec?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "What... what are you?"
Alec looked at her, his eyes still clouded with pain and confusion, but now also with a flicker of something else – fear. He saw the shock in Katara's eyes, the way she instinctively recoiled, and a fresh wave of despair washed over him. He had wanted to explain, to make sense of the jumbled fragments of his past, but how could he, when he himself didn't understand? How could he explain the fire that burned within him, the water that flowed through him, when all he saw in her eyes was condemnation?
He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. The memory of the scarred face, wreathed in angry fire, flashed before his eyes. The feeling of being hunted, of being an enemy, intensified. He was a monster, a freak, an abomination. He was fire, and in this land of ice and water, fire meant destruction, meant the Fire Nation, meant pain.
Without another word, Alec turned and ran. He ran blindly, desperately, away from Katara's shocked gaze, away from the warmth of the tribe, away from the questions he couldn't answer. He ran towards the towering, desolate icy mountains, their jagged peaks piercing the pale sky, promising only solitude and an unforgiving cold.
"Alec!" Katara cried out, her voice filled with a desperate plea. She started to follow, but the speed with which he disappeared into the swirling snow and the treacherous terrain quickly outpaced her. She called his name again and again, her voice swallowed by the vast, indifferent landscape. But Alec was gone, swallowed by the endless white, lost amidst the towering ice formations.
***
Alec ran until his lungs burned, until his legs ached, until the cold numbed his very soul. He didn't know where he was going, only that he had to get away. Away from the accusations in Katara's eyes, away from the confusion in his own mind. He was a storm of conflicting emotions – the terror of his amnesia, the searing pain of his fragmented memories, and a burgeoning, irrational rage against the Fire Nation, against the scarred face that haunted his thoughts.
He stumbled through a narrow pass, the wind howling around him like a mournful spirit. The cold was biting, relentless, but Alec barely felt it. His internal turmoil burned hotter than any external chill. He was a firebender, a creature of warmth and destruction, trapped in a world of ice and water. The irony was not lost on him, even in his confusion.
"Fire Nation!" he screamed, his voice raw, hoarse, echoing off the icy walls. "Fire Nation!"
He unleashed his fury. Flames erupted from his fists, uncontrolled, wild, lashing out at the pristine ice around him. He blasted at the towering ice walls, melting them into steaming torrents that cascaded down the slopes. He sent waves of fire across the snow, turning the white landscape into a scorched, black wasteland.
His anger was a shield, protecting him from the pain of his lost memories, from the fear of his true nature. The more he destroyed, the more he felt a perverse sense of release, a momentary triumph over the chaos within him. He was a firebender, and he would burn away the confusion, burn away the fear, burn away the past that tormented him.
He continued his rampage, his firebending becoming more intense, more desperate. He struck out at everything around him, at the ice, at the snow, at the very air itself. He saw a massive, perfectly round ice ball, almost translucent, embedded in the side of a sheer ice cliff. It was ancient, untouched, a pristine sphere of frozen water.
With a guttural roar, Alec channeled all his remaining rage, all his raw, untamed fire, into a single, devastating blast. The flames surged from his hands, a concentrated beam of pure energy, striking the ice ball with incredible force. The impact was deafening, a sharp crack that reverberated through the mountains.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a faint glow began to emanate from within the ice ball. It was a soft, ethereal blue, pulsing gently at first, then growing in intensity. The glow expanded, filling the sphere, illuminating the ice from within. The ice ball, once a solid, opaque mass, became a beacon, a source of pure, radiant light that cut through the gloom of the icy mountains.
Alec stumbled back, his rage momentarily forgotten, replaced by a profound sense of awe. The light grew brighter, more powerful, a blinding luminescence that forced him to shield his eyes. The air around the ice ball shimmered. It was not fire, not water, but something else entirely. Someone was inside that sphere he saw a big shadow at the source of light.
As the light reached its peak, a deep, resonant hum filled the air, a sound that seemed to come from the very core of the earth. The ice ball began to crack, slowly at first, then with increasing speed, fissures spreading across its surface like a spiderweb. The light intensified, threatening to consume everything in its path.
Alec watched, mesmerized, his confusion momentarily forgotten, his mind captivated by the impossible spectacle unfolding before him. A meters wide beam shot in straight to the sky. The clouds got cleared along the way and it hit him , He found what everyone was looking for the Avatar himself. He unknowingly completed his mission from the spirit though he don't remember it.
The storm was raging toward him unknown to him at this moment, its fury mirroring the chaos to come. Amid the radiant beam of light piercing the sky— was seen by a distant Fire Nation messenger. That moment marked the beginning of the chase, the awakening of the true story.