Disclaimer: I don't want to say I don't own Avatar. But I don't. :sigh:
Chapter 1: Capturing the Avatar
-Zuko-
Zuko stood at the railing of his warship. It was night time, but the sky was hidden behind a swathe of clouds. Good, he reflected. We will need the darkness. He had almost captured the Avatar in some Abbey. He had met a young lady with a giant creature that could smell "a rat a continent away." He had used a necklace he had stolen from the Water peasant girl to sniff her out, but the Avatar wasn't with them. Now he forced someone from the Abbey to tell him which way they had gone. She said, terrified, they had flown somewhere northeast. Zuko had followed, close to the shoreline and keeping in view of their flying bison. They had not seemed to notice, seeing as Zuko and his crew was keeping well back, and had landed a few minutes ago.
"Sir?" came a voice from behind him. He did not turn around to view the captain speaking to him.
"We have arrived at our destination," he replied. It was not a question.
"Yes, sir," the captain confirmed, bowing slightly, although this was unseen to Zuko.
"Good," he replied. "Gather the men I requested. Tell them they are to meet me on shore in five minutes."
"Right away, sir," the captain replied promptly, and hurried off to alert the three men Zuko had asked be present. He turned to deboard the ship as it came to a stop. He settled himself into the small boat waiting to take him and his three cronies to shore. He would easily be able to do the job with one, or so he thought. But he knew he could not chance the Avatar or the Earthbending girl being awake. The Water peasant boy was hardly a threat, and the girl was not yet a master Waterbender, but the Avatar and the Earthbender were both masters of their craft, so he brought three men and himself, one for each traveler. Within minutes the three men he had asked for arrived. Wu and Seung were big, muscular men (their names were Yoshiro, Wu, and Seung), and could easily snap the Avatar or any of his companions in half. But they were also great Firebenders, the best of a small, elite squad he had brought with him the day he was sent on his lonely mission.
Yoshiro was a small, skinny man, and not a Firebender, but was a master of archery and stealth.
"Take us to the shore," Zuko ordered. The man in the boat began rowing without a word. The short trip to shore was silent. When they got there, they crept towards the trees, but Zuko motioned to stop at the forest's edge. "Yoshiro and I will go first," he whispered. "You two are too big; you would make too much noise going through the trees." It was true. They were already eyeing the small gap between the trees apprehensively. "If you hear my call, come directly to the sounds of the noise. Don't worry about stealth. If you don't hear my call, stay here and wait for us. This may not require force." He motioned to Yoshiro and they set off silently in the direction of the Avatar's camp.
When they arrived, he was gratified to see that the only one awake was the Waterbending girl. He was not gratified to see that she was staring intently into the bushes exactly where they were. "Take her down," he breathed to Yoshiro. He took aim and fired, faster than fast, but she had seen him raising his bow, and the arrow was hindered by the bushes anyway. She leapt to her feet and waterwhipped into the bushes. Zuko and Yoshiro both dived out of its way, exposing them.
"I thought I smelled something vile!" she shouted, entirely louder than she needed to. And, just as she had clearly planned, the Avatar, the Earthbender, and the Water peasant all woke up.
"Zuko!" the Avatar hissed, springing up at once. The Earthbender got up more slowly. She was clearly awake, but before she completely came out of her sleeping bag, she seemed to be surveying her surroundings. Zuko just didn't understand her. He didn't even know if she was blind or not. But she stood up.
"So this is the infamous Zuko?" she said, a hint of a sneer in her voice. He said nothing back, but he had no chance to because the earth beneath him suddenly rocketed upward, shooting him ten feet into the air and receding back into the ground before he could fall on it. He let out a cry of shock as he went up, and in a matter of seconds, Wu and Seung came crashing through the trees and launched fire blasts at the Waterbender and the Earthbender. The Water peasant boy was awake now, and he had launched his boomerang toward Yoshiro, who dodged it skillfully and shot three arrows in quick succession, pinning one of his arms to a tree.
Zuko turned to face the Avatar. He shot a fire blast at him, which he dodged. He came running at him and then ran circles around Zuko, going faster and faster, causing the wind to pick up speed and carry dust from the ground into the air. He realized what the Avatar was doing, and whipped a thin cord of fire into his way, knocking him down. The dust fell in a great cloud, getting into Zuko's mouth and eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut and coughed hard. The Avatar had recovered by the time the dust had cleared, and blasted him with an unbroken wall of what seemed to be rigid, inflexible air. He was completely winded as he hit the tree. But, breathing hard, he managed to keep the Avatar at bay with his fire whip until he recovered.
At full strength again, he launched himself at the Avatar, throwing fireball after fireball, relentlessly attacking, and it wasn't until about ten seconds had passed that he realized the Avatar was not attacking, but only dodging. Or was he? He was moving his arms in a fashion that would suggest bending, but he couldn't see anything happen. Finally, the Avatar thrust his arms outward as far as they would go, palms facing outward.
Ignoring this, Zuko made to shoot a blast of fire at him, but it fizzled out upon contact with the air. And it was then he realized what the Avatar had been doing: there was no oxygen around him. He stared around. Everyone else was still fighting. Well, the Water peasant boy wasn't, he'd been knocked out, but the Earthbender and Waterbender were still fighting, as were his warriors. The oxygen-less space was only around him. He began to cough, falling to his knees. He could not make fire, he was getting dizzy, lightheaded… he was surely going to die, and everything was swimming before his eyes… he couldn't move, he needed to breathe…
And as soon as everything went black, he found that there was oxygen around him again. He heaved a huge, ravenous breath. He could feel life flooding back into his body, but he was on the ground, and every part of his body felt horribly fatigued. He could see the Waterbender was down, and the Avatar was as well. But none of his warriors seemed to notice that he was down. Who had taken him out? He heard a terrible scream from beside him and turned to see the Waterbender writhing and squirming in the dirt. He felt a horrible pang of sympathy for her upon seeing her arm. It was burned badly, bleeding and angry red. The skin looked like it had curdled.
The Earthbending girl was fighting valiantly, but it was now two against one, seeing as Seung was on the ground, badly burned (Wait, burned, he thought. Idiot Wu.) And, finally, dodging two fireblasts, she was taken out with a well placed arrow, blazing by her temple, hitting it hard enough that she was knocked out but not killed. None of them were to be killed.
Zuko staggered to his feet. "Good work," he coughed. They looked surprised that he was so fatigued, and that they were getting a compliment. "Now take someone and get back to the ship!" he said, his snappish manner returning. They looked almost relieved that it was back, unsure how to react to a nicer Zuko. They obediently picked up some random body, and the Waterbending girl was left to him. He knelt down to pick her up. She was surprisingly light, even with her heavy coat on. He felt lightheaded again for just a moment, but knew (or thought he knew) it was just because of his almost being choked to death, for lack of a better phrase.
As he headed back, he saw her eyes open, just a slit. They widened very slightly and she muttered something before passing out again. He couldn't quite make it out, and didn't really want to contemplate what it meant if she said what he thought she did… "You're okay."
-Katara-
Katara lay awake in her sleeping bag, thinking about the weeks events. Madame Wu's prediction, in particular. She knew she had pressed too hard on details on what he looked like, how he dressed, and all that. Madame Wu had probably made a bunch of it up just to get her out, she reflected gloomily. But the first reading… that couldn't be a fluke, could it? She would marry a very powerful Bender…
Then she recalled Sokka's words when Aang was drying the lava from the volcano into a sort of tidal wave of solid rock. That kid's one powerful bender… he had said. So was she to marry Aang? For some reason, the thought just wanted to make her bury herself in her sleeping bag and never come out until the war was over.
Then she recalled Sokka's words when Aang was drying the lava from the volcano into a sort of tidal wave of solid rock. That kid is one powerful Bender, he had said. So was she to marry Aang? For some reason, the thought just wanted to make her bury herself in her sleeping bag and never come out until the war was over.
Truly it wouldn't be that bad. But Aang was her friend and she'd never seen him as anything more. She had been picking up subtle vibes that he liked her as… more than a friend. But she really didn't want anything more than that, friendship. And also, being the wife of an Avatar… he'd be away a lot on dangerous missions. Of course, she would accompany him, but this eliminated any chance of family life, something she'd hoped to have after this war was over. And he had problems that she could never understand. His entire nation was gone, her mother's death could not even compare to that. He had the world to pacify, and she could never help him with some of his problems.
But he was the most powerful bender she knew. Surely she would have to marry him. She would've burrowed into her sleeping bag to wait for sleep to claim her, but she heard a crack of a twig in the bushes at the edge of the clearing they were camping out in. She sat bolt upright, staring intently in the direction of the noise.
There was silence for a moment. But she saw and heard someone raise a bow. She hurled herself to the right just as an arrow landed, quivering, where her stomach was mere seconds ago. She scrambled out of her sleeping bag and grabbed her waterskin. She sent a waterwhip into the bushes. And none other than Prince Zuko and one of his lackeys dove out. "I thought I smelled something vile," she screamed. She had to make enough noise that Aang and Toph and Sokka would wake up. Her ploy was successful. Aang and Toph stirred in their sleeping bags. Once Aang realized it was Zuko, he sprang to his feet at once.
"Zuko!" he hissed. Toph got up to stand next to Aang, but paused at the mouth of her sleeping bag, surveying her surroundings. Katara could tell she was examining Zuko and his lackey, taking in every part of them she could observe.
"So this is the infamous Zuko?" she sneered, straightening up. Before he could make a reply she lunged forward. She closed her hands like she was holding an apple in each and wrenched them upward, along with the circle of land beneath Zuko. He was flung ten, maybe fifteen feet up, and she pulled it back down so fast that he had a ten foot fall as well. Then, out of nowhere, two big, muscular thugs came blundering through the trees. They looked quite unintelligent; she half expected them to take out her and Toph by simply falling on top of them, so it was a surprise when they launched fire blasts at them.
By this time Sokka was finally up, and the scrawny archer who had accompanied Zuko into the forest pinned him against a tree with several well-aimed arrows and then was hit in the back of the head by Sokka's boomerang; he had missed the first time, but no one ever expected it to come back. Zuko turned to face Aang and the battle had begun.
After dodging one of blow she began to water whip him, but he retaliated with a tongue of inferno. When they combined, Katara's water turned to steam and rose upward, and his fire whip fizzled out. Her stomach lurched. There was barely any water around, she couldn't let it go! She took as much of it out of the air as she could and quickly put it back in her waterskin, only to take all of it out again to shield herself from a ball of fire. As she yet again summoned the steam back into liquid form, Toph put a wall around her guy and sent Katara's opponent flying. "Thanks," Katara said hurriedly, but Toph had no time to reply as her opponent had broken out of his earthen prison. Katara turned back and got a few good lashes in while he was down before she had to dodge a fire blast so narrowly that it singed a hole in her nightshirt.
Many minutes, fireballs, and water whips later, she was out of water. Some of it escaped into the air every time it connected with fire, and now it was gone. The dewy leaves provided barely a cupful of water, not enough to do anything but throw equivalent of a water balloon at him. She quickly assessed the situation. She didn't have enough water to fill an eggcup, Sokka is down, Toph is fighting two at once, and this guy's neck was about as thick as her waist. She would have to defeat him with wit alone (Which wouldn't be that hard, she reflected late). He aimed another fire blast at him and she ran behind him. He turned around stupidly, she stayed behind him. He was lumbering around in circle after circle, trying to get a clear shot. She smirked at his monumental idiocy. Finally, frustrated, he shot a blast over his shoulder, successfully taking out the bigger of his two mates.
She was quite enjoying the sport now, but she saw something that almost made her heart stop. Zuko was coughing and spluttering on the ground, paling rapidly. He was trying to move or breathe but could not. Aang was taking away his oxygen! He couldn't breathe or make fire! Aang wasn't going to kill him… was he?
She could not take that chance; she couldn't let him darken himself so much, even for Zuko. She gathered all the water she could and launched it at Aang faster than she believed possible. It hit him, and he fell spectacularly off his feet, out cold.
But unfortunately, in the time that it took her to do that, the thug fighting her had turned and shot a blast of fire right at her, and she was not ready. It hit her full in the arm and she was knocked off her feet, writhing and screaming in pain as her opponent moved on to Toph. It felt like a thousand white-hot knives were delving into her arm, tearing up her skin. The pain of this was so great, she would surely die…
She passed out. After she woke up again a few minutes later, she felt herself being held in a pair of strong arms. She opened her eyes open just a crack, and then a little more to see Zuko carrying her. "You're… okay…" was all she could manage, muttered and soft, before passing out again.
Author's Note: So? Did you like it? Please, please, please R&R, but don't be too vicious, this is my first ever fanfic, let alone Avatar fic. Constructive criticism is appreciated, flames are NOT. So, I have Chapter 2 written, I do need to make some adjustments on it, but it's almost done. So five reviews or two weeks and I'll put it up! Let's hope five reviews come first: crosses fingers:
Now, a few things about me and then you can review (or just review now, doesn't really matter):
1. I like words like incensed or nettled instead of annoyed.
2. I believe in magic and destiny and I write what I get signs to write about (I'll explain next chapter).
3. I am never satisfied with my chapters. Never. So I make them as close to perfect in my eyes as they can get before posting them. But you're views of perfect are what matter. And this is where CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM comes in.
4.This is my first ever story, but I'm already a review junkie. Please R&R!
5. Author's notes will not always be this long.
-- S W e e T R e B e L L i o N
