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"Quiet," Azula told Ty Lee, who was talking about how great the plan was going. She turned her face straight forward, and so did her two friends.
"Thank goodness you're here, Suki!" It was the water tribe girl, who followed the Avatar around, that came running through the huge room towards them, gasping for air. The strange lemur was hanging on her shoulders, and Mai noted that this must leave a lot of animal hair hanging constantly from her clothes. Azula watched her with an uninterested expression. "Something terrible is going on. The Fire Nation has infiltrated the city. I just saw prince Zuko and his uncle! We have to tell the earth king, right away!"
Azula smiled triumphantly as she got to her feet while saying: "Oh, don't worry. I'll be sure to let him know."
As the water tribe girl realized who she was talking to, her face was blank, just staring at Azula. She only moved the moment Ty Lee got up and made her artistically acrobatic moves towards her. The water tribe girl made an attempt to open her water bottle, but Ty Lee got to her in seconds, and she fell toward the ground instantly, the water spreading around her like a flood of illuminant blood.
"So," Azula said as all three of them moved towards the fallen 'warrior', "Zuzu's in the city, too. I think it's time for a family reunion." She turned towards Mai and said: "Take her away and then have the Dai Lee put her into the caves. Make sure she has no water!"
Mai nodded and instantly bowed down to take the girl's arm, while Ty Lee followed the example. The girl struggled and tried to find a way to get free, but escape was impossible.
"Oh, Mai," Azula said, and Mai turned toward her with an expression that wasn't her usually deadpan one. There was excitement on her cheeks and in her eyes. Finally, something was happening. Something big. And Zuko was in town. "I want you to guard her when she is put into the caves. The Avatar and his friends are bound to come looking for her, and I have other things to attend to. Ty Lee will stay with the earth king and keep an eye on him."
Mai nodded to clarify that she understood her task.
She and Ty Lee took the girl to a prison hold, where they chained her up. The effect of Ty Lee's attack was wearing off, but now only giving her the ability to try a failed attempt at freeing herself from the chains.
Mai watched with a deadpan expression and Ty Lee with a smile.
"I'll tell the Dai Lee," she said to Mai, turning around to dance off. Mai nodded and then sat down on a stool, looking into Katara's furious eyes.
"Let me go!" she screamed. Mai couldn't care less about her demands, and she began swirling a knife around in the air. How boring, watching this girl trying to fight her way out of the inevitable. She wondered why Azula even bothered having her be guarded. The crystal caves were being watched by the Dai Lee. There was no way the Avatar could come by without them noticing.
The girl glared at her, Mai ignored her.
"Why are you doing this?" she demanded. "Why do you insist on destroying the world and everything good that's in it?"
Mai didn't feel inclined to answer.
The girl struggled some more.
"Selfish Fire Nation. Of course you wouldn't answer a simple question!" She snorted. "You probably don't even care, do you?! You're just constantly bored, and the only thing you find joy in is hunting us down!"
Mai raised an eyebrow.
"Look, water peasant –"
"My name is Katara!"
"Whatever." Mai shrugged it off. "I don't care what you think. You've lost. Deal with it." She straightened up and put her knife back in place as two Dai Lee agents walked in. They grabbed Katara's arms and began dragging her off to the caves, and Mai followed silently after.
***
The knife-throwing girl was extremely annoying as she sat there and watched her in all her glorious gloominess, letting out a bored sigh every other second. Katara couldn't stop glancing irritated at her several times. She found the knife-thrower extremely confident, which annoyed her, as she was trying to find an escape route in the cave that she was held captive in.
"You know when Aang comes, you won't have a chance! All you can do is stand there and look pale while he wipes you off," Katara snarled, while she made the impressions with her hands.
"In the Fire Nation, being called pale is considered a compliment, so thank you." She nodded sarcastically, as if she was trying politely to accept some nicely addressed words.
Katara clutched her hands. "If I had water here, I would –"
"But you don't. You're helpless without your bending."
Katara glared at her. "Well, so are you without your knives."
The girl shrugged. "Almost true, but since I always have knives, that doesn't really matter."
Katara raised an eyebrow. "Almost –"
The screeching of earth bending above them stopped her mid-sentence, and she looked above to try and see what was happening. She ignored the knife-throwing girl, who was also leaning a bit forward, though not seeming as surprised as Katara, who had an angry expression on her face.
"You have company!" one of the Dai Lee above her said. Far up they'd created a hole, and Katara could see three figures, two of them obviously Dai Lee, but the other she couldn't quite make out.
They pushed him – or her – down through the hole, and the persona was soon in front of Katara's feet.
"Zuko!" she exclaimed, a surprised look on her face, but it only took seconds before her features changed into anger.
Zuko, now resting on his knees before her, looked up with an expression that was confused, in its own way, over what had just happened.
Mai watched with interest as Katara recoiled from where he sat, raising her hands though she had no weapon to fight with.
Zuko's face was blank before he gathered himself, and his expression turned hard.
Mai couldn't help but let out a little, smoky giggle.
Both of them turned towards the sound, Katara surprised, Zuko in alarm.
Mai pushed herself out from the wall that she'd been resting at, her eyes slipping towards Zuko. She ignored Katara's eyes, which were obviously staring at her.
"Mai," Zuko breathed, getting up in a hurry, not sure how to react to this. He had known that Azula was traveling with her two old friends, but he never expected Mai to … Well, to face her. "What are you doing here?"
"Following orders," Mai responded bluntly, shrugging. Her deadpan expression surprised Zuko. She was different from when he last saw her, but then again, that was years ago. Could she have changed so much from the girl back then?
Mai had always had a sort of deadpan side to her, but Zuko knew that she could smile and laugh just as other kids. It seemed as though this side had changed since he last saw her. Then he remembered the giggle from before, and he changed his mind. She was, after all, following orders.
This is way too confusing, he thought and rubbed his forehead. He decided to abandon the trail of thought, knowing that he was only contradicting himself again and again.
"But what about you?" Mai continued, and he looked up. "Weren't you supposed to capture the Avatar so that you could come back home to the Fire Nation?"
Katara gave out a hiss of both fury and surprise. Mai plainly ignored her and Zuko fidgeted restlessly, not knowing which of them proposed the biggest threat. Then again, there was no water, so he concentrated on Mai.
"You knew about that?" he asked.
"Hi, Zuko," she responded wavering her hand. He frowned. "This is Mai. Your sister's best friend."
He pouted and looked away from her. That was true. She was his sister's best friend, and that was why they were enemies at the moment. Or were they? Zuko was still loyal to the Fire Nation, and so was she, so they wouldn't have to fight, would they? He eyed her cautiously. He didn't know much of her skills, except that she fought with knives. He didn't even know how good she was.
"Why have Azula send you here to guard us?" he asked then, his eyes flickering to Katara and then back to Mai.
Mai shrugged.
"Is it because there is a way out? There must be, or you wouldn't be here."
She shrugged again.
"Wait, what?!" Katara exclaimed, making a move towards them of her own. "What did you say?" Her eyes were gauging at Zuko, but realizing what she was doing, she quickly stepped back again, her face closing into hostility again.
"There's no exit," Mai interrupted with a sigh.
"Then why are you here?" Zuko questioned.
Yet another shrug. "An incident of Azula's," she suggested.
Zuko sighed and let himself fall to the ground, crossing his legs and looking at the ground. He had to find some way free of all this, but it looked hopeless.
Katara didn't find it safe to let her guard down like that. Instead she found her way into an open space, where it would be harder for Mai to pin her to anything.
Meanwhile, Mai was getting excessively bored and began swinging her knives while looking at the ceiling.
"So it's true," Zuko noted. "You did decide to become a weapon master. I guess I didn't really believe it up until now."
Mai stopped swinging her knives, and Katara looked curiously at Zuko, though still alarmed. Despite the situation, she was getting interested in their conversation. Maybe they would give something away, if they forgot about her.
Slowly she withdrew a bit closer to the wall. Mai obviously noticed this, but Zuko seemed to ignore it. Now, all she had to do was waiting for them to lose their guards. She didn't expect if of Mai, but Zuko seemed flustered somehow. Though … Mai did seem to be giving more away than usually.
"Why wouldn't you believe that? You didn't think I was up to it?" Mai's voice seemed somewhat insulted or angry, and her eyes pierced through Zuko, as if they had transformed into two of her daggers.
"Well, your parents didn't seem like they approved," Zuko answered fearlessly.
Katara remembered Aang mentioning Mai's parents when he had given back TomTom. The mother had been crying. From this Katara of course couldn't draw many conclusions, but in addition was the fact that they were Fire Nation, so Katara had a hard time imagining that the governor would have any quarrels about his daughter becoming the perfect assassinator.
"It's not like they had a choice," Mai said with a slight smile on her lips. "Azula helped me by demanding it. But you're right." She stared off into space. "My mother wasn't very positive about it. Never will be. If it was up to her –"
"I really have a hard time imagining you letting her decide that you should just sit in a comfortable room and wait for her to boss you around," Zuko cut her off.
Katara looked at Mai and discovered that she was looking away with a masked expression though … her eyes seemed sad somehow.
She shrugged it off, like she had before.
"So what, Zuko? Have you turned traitor on all of us?" she asked suddenly. "Don't you have any plans of returning?" She was watching him from the corner of her eyes, trying to decipher his expression.
"It doesn't seem like my father wants me back home," he answered.
Mai turned abruptly, pushing herself from the wall. "I'm sure if you help Azula everything will be back to normal in no time. She'll need your help, you know."
"I thought she had you and Ty Lee."
"None of us are benders."
"I thought both of you could knock out benders easily."
Mai snorted and looked away. "Would you just decide what you want already!"
The cave fell silent once more. Zuko's eyes were hanging at Mai as if they were clued to her. This seemed to make her uncomfortable, since she was shifting her weight and touching her hair constantly.
A sudden noise from above made all three of them turn their heads. A rumble that sounded as if something was pushing the very ground aside echoed in the air.
"What …" Katara exclaimed.
A blast sounded and a cloud of dust covered all of them. Katara raised her arms to cover her face.
"Katara?!"
It was Aang's voice!
"Aang!" she shouted, beginning to move towards his voice, but an extreme force suddenly pushed her to the side, and she realized that she'd forgotten about Mai. "Let me go!" How could she hit her so precisely in the clouded room? It was impossible for Katara to see where the dust was coming from, so how could Mai pin her to the wall with such perfection?
A strong wind cleared the room and wavered the dust to the side. Katara could clearly see the situation now: Aang and Zuko's uncle was standing in an opening clearly dug by earth bending.
The next second, Aang was being drowned by knives. Iroh quickly took action and repelled most of them with a strong wave of fire. It wasn't enough. Several of the knives made it through, followed by a new wave.
The only one doing nothing was Zuko, who didn't know what to do. On the one side was his uncle, on the other …
Iroh let out a blast of fire, which Mai elegantly avoided. Her eyes averted to Zuko before focusing once more on her opponent.
A few fire balls and knives later, Zuko realized what was happening, but it was already too late. One of Iroh's blasts hit her and send her rolling backwards. Iroh killed the fire that was starting to burn in her clothes, but it was clear that the collision with the wall had knocked Mai out.
Iroh hurried to help Aang free of the knives, and then ran to Zuko's side. The Avatar didn't take a moment to hesitate about freeing Katara, who hugged him as soon as her arms were free.
"What's the meaning of this, uncle?!" Zuko exclaimed. "What are you doing with the Avatar?"
"Saving you, that's what," Aang responded grumpily.
"Go!" Iroh said to the Avatar. "We'll catch up." He turned back to Zuko. "It's time we talked.
-
Azula arrived not much time later, offering the exact promise that Mai had suggested. She left him to decide for his own what his destiny should be.
Seeing Mai being carried away by the Dai Lee ended his inner debate.
He had decided.