Chapter 95

"Take this!" Ty Lee cried theatrically. "Super acrobatic kick!"

"Gah! You fiend" Sokka cried with dramatic pain. "Then you take this! Boomerang of destruction!"

"No! Not boomerangs! My greatest weakness!"

Sokka peered slowly around the corner of a tree at where the others were, and nodded his head when he couldn't see anyone else coming towards the patch of trees they'd ducked into during the mock fight. "Okay, they haven't noticed. I think we're in the clear."

Ty Lee sighed in relief and flopped down on the ground like a deflating balloon. "Thank the spirits. I need a break."

So did Sokka if he was honest. Between the lack of sleep and being stuck between Katara and Toph's arguments, having to fight someone was the last thing on his mind. Thankfully it seemed that the unofficial ceasefire between Ty Lee and he still stood as long as nobody else could see them. "Things are still tense in your team?" He asked curiosity.

Ty Lee whimpered pitifully. "Worse than before actually. Someone's going to snap soon."

"I hear you." Sokka sighed, sitting on a fallen tree trunk. "At least you're getting a good night's sleep."

Ty Lee rolled her head to look at him. "In a giant metal tank that ploughs headfirst through a tree every minute?" She asked sarcastically. "Please. The Fire Nation may be great at making war machines, but we rarely bother to look at how to make them comfortable. No matter how soft the beds are, trying to sleep in that thing is like laying your bedroll out on the back of a charging bull."

Huh. He'd never considered that their relentless pursuit would be tiring for the fire nation girls as well.

"Why are you guys so determined to capture Aang anyway?" Sokka curiously.

Ty Lee peered back at him. "Well, he's a threat to our victory. Public enemy number one."

"I get that." Sokka replied. "But I don't get why it's the job of the nation's princess and her three best friends to do it. Last time I checked, the Fire Nation did have a rather large army."

Ty Lee looked uncomfortable. She rolled over, bringing her legs up in an insanely flexible arc until her toes perched on top of her own head and propper her face up with her elbows, now facing him in what looked like a highly unusual meditative pose. "Truth be told, we weren't actually after The Avatar at first." She began. "We're actually supposed to be after Zuko."

"Angry jerkbender?!" Sokka was surprised. Why would the Fire Nation be hunting their own prince? Come to think of it, did that have something to do with why he hadn't appeared to try and capture Aang recently. "Isn't he on your side?"

Ty Lee shook her head. "Not since the North Pole. Zuko was banished before, but after he and Iroh stopped Tanya from that whole business with the red moon, he was declared a traitor.

As his shame was a stain upon the royal family, Azula, Tanya and the royal guard were sent to bring him in. They caught Iroh, but Zuko himself went to ground." She shrugged. "Azula realised she needed a more elite team. Then you guys showed up right as we were recruiting Mai, and Azula realised that Zuko would go wherever The Avatar went. We could capture Zuko and The Avatar."

Zuko had been branded a traitor by his own father?! That was terrible! Sure he'd done a lot to make their lives difficult, but Sokka personally thought that his actions back in the North Pole had been heroic. After all the bad he'd done, it had been somewhat inspiring that he'd put aside his own wants for the good of the entire world. He didn't deserve to be punished for that. "I can't believe that The Firelord would do that to his own son." He muttered.

Ty Lee looked at him curiously, as if trying to work something out. Suddenly something seemed to click, and her eyes widened. "You have no idea, do you?"

"No idea of what?" Sokka asked.

"Why Zuko is chasing you. Why he's so obsessed with capturing The Avatar." Ty Lee seemed a little amazed. "I assumed you must have picked up the story somewhere in your travels, but maybe not. You don't know about Zuko's banishment."

No, he didn't. Zuko had always been too busy throwing fire around to explain his motives, and Sokka had just assumed it was because he was working for the fire nation and was thus evil. Now that Ty Lee was suggesting that there was more to the story however, Sokka couldn't deny that he was a little curious.

Ty Lee flipped herself up in another display of flexibility, shifting smoothly into a cross-legged sitting position. "It all started years ago," she began, her voice taking on the gentle pace of a storyteller. "When Zuko asked to join a general's meeting…"

...

There was a silence in the air, an unspoken tension, that seemed to permeate the ruined building of the abandoned town. It was as if the universe itself was waiting in anticipation.

Azula had read about a feeling like it in the autobiographies of the firebending masters of old, in the chapters where they told of the hunt for the dragon that earned them their titles. They'd described a sense of importance, of destiny, the moment they entered the place that would serve as the battlefield between them and the legendary wyrms.

It had always irked Azula that she'd been born one generation too late to prove her mastery through a dragon hunt of her own, but this hunt for The Avatar she'd undertaken was a fitting substitute. One day, after she'd ascended to the throne and the war was over, she'd pen an autobiography of her own, and this nameless little ruin of a town would be immortalised as the place where The Avatar was finally defeated.

Her tracking skills, like everything else about her, were perfect. From the way the shedded fur that was scattering in his wake had fallen on the ground, she could tell that The Avatar had descended down somewhere in this town. After many days of relentless pursuit The Avatar was finally too tired to flee, and had no choice left but to fight.

Azula dismounted from her lizard and went the rest of the way on foot, her posture upright and confident even as she kept her senses alert for an ambush. She wouldn't put it past an air nomad to resort to trickery now that he was cornered. The trail of fur led her deeper and deeper through the empty streets, until eventually she arrived in an open clearing that had probably once been a market place.

Standing there, waiting for her, was The Avatar.

A satisfied smirk slipped across Azula's lips. The boy was making a good showing of trying to appear strong and confident, but she could read all the weaknesses in him like an open book.

The dark rings around his eyes betrayed his exhaustion, the tight grip he held on his staff betrayed his fear, and the way his gaze remained unfaltering fixed on her betrayed that he really did not have any allies hidden nearby for an ambush. He would be an easy victory. She'd have to embellish the story of their fight, otherwise people may doubt that it qualified her as a firebending master.

"So here we are then. You've caught up with me." The Avatar stated neutrally, his tone lacking in emotion. "What now?"

"Now?" Azula grinned wickedly. "Now it's over. You're tired, and you have no place to go. You can run, but I'll catch you."

The Avatar raised his staff, settling deeper into a fighting stance. "I'm not running."

Azula settled into a stance of her own, stoking the inner flames within and feeling the exhilarating rush of hot energy begin pulsing through her body.

This was going to be fun.

...

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