Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender. So there, end of story.

Author's Note: I've lost a lot of inspiration for my most recent (and only other) fanfic, Revelations. It really wasn't shaping out how I imagined it at all. I apologize to those who liked it, but as for now, it is going to be on a temporary hiatus. It's not dead, just . . . no more updates in the near future. For now, my urges lie in this new idea I've been mapping out. It was inspired by a varying amount of sources, including but not limited to: Mulan, Assassin's Creed, The Last Samurai, and of course, Avatar: The Last Airbender. Hopefully, I can nail this beginning, and keep you all enticed. Here it goes . . .


Prologue


Fire is the infinite element in its own right. As a child of Agni himself, a fire bender is blessed with such limitlessness, such raw power. At times the flame burns low, in a resting steep of embers and cinders. At times the flames grow, rising into an unquenchable storm of light and heat. Fire is powerful and dangerous and alive.

For nearly an entire century, the people of the other elements have learned to never count a fire bender out of a battle. What we may lack in numbers, we make up in valor, ingenuity, and tenaciousness. Never give up without a fight. This is the code I was raised with, nourished with. To surrender is to admit victory cannot be achieved, and to allow oneself to even think such weak thoughts brings an utmost dishonor to the individual. And without one's honor, life expectancy drops. Swiftly.

The Great War began long, long ago. One hundred years, to be exact. It was a battle between my ancestors and the rest of the world. The Fire Nation against the combined might of the Water Tribes, the Air Nomads, the Earth Kingdoms; one would think that we should have been completely dismantled, crushed, and beaten senselessly back into obscurity. But we were not.

For we had one thing the other elemental entities didn't: Unity.

Starting before the beginning of Fire Lord Sozin's reign, before the first Fire Lord in fact, we were much like the same of our neighbors. We were split, divided, and unwhole. We were a suit of armor linked together with the most fragile of rings, a series of multiple divisions in a supposed cohesive nation. My long-dead ancestors had been part of our long and unforgettable past. They had been part of the Fire Clans.

And now, I fear I may be treading down the same path.

The clans were led by various leaders, each with their own ambitions and desires. Skirmishes constantly occurred during the age of the Fire Clans, as powerful lords battled for dominance over their territories. Civil war ran rampant, the lower classes were left starved and deprived, and private armies ravaged the landscape. The truth is written in blood, in the very soil we live upon. A citizen only has to walk along the desecrated remains of a once crimson spattered battleground to feel that gruesome coppery liquid deep beneath their feet. The earth can only drink so much before its maw is slaked.

It was an era of eradication and darkness for my nation during those bleak times. Though it may sound rash and obtuse, I am actually somewhat thankful for what Fire Lord Sozin did, starting the Great War. From an emotionless and completely strategic standpoint, he did the greatest thing for the people of the Fire Nation, for my people. He united them. It cost us animosity between the rest of the world, but the penalty did its law justice. Throughout most of the next century, people of the Fire Nation thrived.

But that was the past. Once our enemies realized that they outnumbered us ten-to-one by forming alliances with one another, our entire infrastructure of warfare came crashing down in a blazing heap of annihilation. By the end of the Great War, we were fighting a three front battle. A losing battle. Our numbers had spread too thin and our resources had dwindled down to next-to-nothing. We didn't stand a chance.

The final crippling blow came during the reign of my grandfather, Fire Lord Azulon. Born into the air nomads and trained covertly from the outside world, a young Avatar named Aang led a direct aerial assault to our capital. My people were struck down with the force of an untamed hurricane. The peace treaties were signed a week after the incident, and relative stillness enticed the world for the next thirty years. Fire Lord Azulon, always a strategist, managed to keep his position secured by blocking off and isolating our nation from the rest of the world. In doing this, he retained the Fire Nation's traditions and kept his place upon the throne. Grandfather died mysteriously in his sleep, seven years ago. I was nine years old when I attended my first Royal Funeral.

Though our early history may sound dreadful, it is the past decade that causes me the most concern. My father, Fire Lord Ozai, took the mantle as supreme ruler with zeal and hungry ambition. The reasons unknown to me at the time, he issued edicts that re-opened trade routes and ports back with the other nations. Being a nation that was incredibly self-sufficient for nigh on a quarter-century, we managed to glean new revelations of the world we left behind. However, it seemed we still managed to remain a vague mystery to the rest of our "allies".

For the first few years of his monarchy, Fire Lord Ozai managed to keep up his façade of reliving the harmony between each of the four nations. But as I grew older, I began to learn of the real reasons behind my father's decisions. He did not want peace with our age-old rivals. He wanted something far from it. Fire Lord Ozai had opened up our trade networks to gain the aid of mercenary armies, rebels attempting to overthrow Earth Kingdom monarchs. His plan was to conquer the world again once more, to extend an empire, all in the name of the Fire Nation.

In an inexplicable display of mastery over politics, my father managed to conscript an entire army of nearly three-hundred thousand strong, all within the course of four years. He then set a campaign upon the Earth Kingdom, bent on taking over the key strongholds of Ba Sing Se and Omashu respectively. The three-hundred thousand combined troops of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom revolutionaries began to amass themselves in strategic locations across the continent, waiting for my sire's order.

Desperately attempting to reconcile with my father's madness, I spoke to him in a war meeting, begging, pleading him to reconsider his verdict. Even at the mere age of thirteen, I knew that an extensive amount of unnecessary death would be the only way to consummate victory. Unnecessary and implausible, for mercenaries tend to fight only for those who carry a heavier sack of gold; they were not loyal, like the honorable clan-mates before our time.

And so I told him as such. I, with my nation's best interest at heart, attempted to stand up against the god of our nation, the supreme ruler, my father. I told him that only those who truly belong to our homeland, our country, could be trusted. That the Earth Kingdom rebels would prey upon us as soon as we "helped" overthrow their monarchy. That we would all suffer, if he could not contain the vastness of the mighty earth legions. That our people would die.

Now, three years later, I still bear his anger. It resides as the scar slapped with fire across the side of my face, the mark of my treason. It remains as my unforgivable dishonor.

Yet, I no longer care for the "honor" in which my father stripped of me. It is tainted and meaningless, for his sense of "honor" did nothing to protect my people. Three years in exile, I waited for the moment, the moment everything would blow up in our faces . . . And I saw it unfold. And I saw it happen. I knew that we would be attacked, but the fool, the damn fool . . . he never saw it coming.

The assassin's blade made sure of it.

I am Zuko, son of Fire Lord Ozai and Lady Ursa; heir to the throne of a divided and crumbling nation at war with itself. I am the last remaining survivor of the immediate Royal Family, a once exiled and forgotten prince.

I am the murderer of my own father. I am the darkness in the night, the shining light of dawn and the protector of my nation. I am the bringer of righteous punishment and the wielder of dragon's fire. I am a lone warrior amidst the political turmoil of the reemerging Fire Clans, seeking out a way to end the suffering of my people by uniting them once more.

I am Zuko, and this . . . this is just the beginning.

. . .

. . .

. . .


Author's Note: So . . . prologue. Let me know what you guys think. Once I figure out how the poll's thing(s) work, I'll set up one for a "would you rather" sort of deal. Which fic sounds more appealing? Revelations, or Firestorm? You guys decide, and I'll focus my attentions more so on one than the other.

Reviews are, as always, appreciated.