Welcome to the first installment of my Avatar side story. This set of episodes occurs after Aang has learned some waterbending from the Northern Water Tribe, but before he manages to run into his earthbending teacher, Ty Lee. This episode revolves around Aang and another character of my own design who teaches Aang Style Bending.

Disclaimer: Blah, blah, blah, I don't own Avatar. Etc, etc, etc, I wish I did…you get the drill. Basically, I don't own them, nor want to make any money off of them, and am writing this story for pure enjoyment as a fan of the series.

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"You're mine, Avatar! Yaaaaaaaaaagh!" Zuko bellowed as he threw yet another blast of fire at his elusive opponent.

Flashback

This had been a meeting of the fates it seemed, as Zuko had discovered Aang, Katara, and Sokka's camp mostly by accident. Well, make that entirely by accident. Iroh had been practicing with Zuko on some of his more advanced firebending skills when Iroh had pushed him a little too far. Iroh was trying to teach Zuko his patented Landmine maneuver. This involved concentrating the elemental fire into a condenced form and then depositing this fireball into the ground, where it would travel unnoticed by the opponent until the bender decided to release the energy therein. Of course, Zuko became enraged (no surprise there) and tried to perform the maneuver out of pure emotion. He succeeded, though only in destroying his half of the rock cliff they were standing on and thus sending him tumbling down a steep embankment which left him mostly unhurt, albeit his ego took a beating. On his way back around the mountain to find a way back to his Uncle again, he had stumbled upon the Avatar's camp. To make matters even better than what they already were with this find, Aang's annoying friends and hairy beast were nowhere in sight. They must have gone off to get more supplies from the nearby neutral town. With his ego in shreds after that fall, needless to say he was more than willing to pick a fight with anyone just to blow off some steam. Stumbling across Aang without his friends was a divine gift for him.

End Flashback

"Still too slow, Zuko." Aang retorted as he flung himself sideways, tumbling through the air with the ease that only a master airbender could. Landing lightly on his feet and taking up a defensive stance Aang further taunted the Fire Nation Prince by making a very good facial imitation of an exasperated Zuko by holding his breath and puffing out his cheeks.

'Why that little Avatar wannabe, I'll show him.' Zuko thought as he watched this display of mockery from the young opponent.

Fire flared from his nostrils and smoke billowed from his ears as he tried to catch his breath while being infuriated by this young sprite of a fighter. Zuko had tried almost every move that he had in his arsenal to offset the young Avatar, but to no avail. At this point, the two combatants were deadlocked. Aang could not cause much damage to Zuko, and Zuko in return was unable to hit the avatar with anything substantial. The most either of them had done was to put the other's hair and clothes in disarray, or to singe the hems of their clothes respectively. And so the battle continued on, blow after blow; stance after stance. To anyone watching, it would look like they had been practicing a choreographed battle scene for some extravagant theatre performance. The longer this went on, however, the more chance there was for either of them to make a mistake. Zuko realized that the Avatar was a better conditioned fighter for defensive maneuvers and knew that he himself would be the first to slip up and leave an opening that would be his downfall.

'I know!', Zuko's mind raced with the though, 'I'll have to try the Landmine maneuver uncle taught me. But this is only going to work if I can throw the Avatar here into a crevasse or something.'

Looking around Zuko saw his chance. During the course of the battle, the two combatants had wound their way through the clearing to the edge of a river ravine…a very deep ravine. 'Even if this doesn't kill him', Zuko mused, 'At least it will give me time to regroup and fight another day.'

"Graaaaaaaaaaagh." Was the battle cry Zuko made as he took up the fight again. He threw a straight lead, emblazoned with fire of course, at the young Avatar, followed by a sweeping leg kick. Then, wind-milling his arms, Zuko performed a rising dragon hand sweep which sent twin thin columns of fire towards the Avatar.

Aang ducked under the first punch, and immediately had to summersault up and back from the sweeping kick. What he didn't count on, was the sweeping columns of fire that came racing towards him while he was still flipping in the air. Aang gasped at the sight of the fire, and reacted the best way he knew how, by pushing himself back further with his bending skills against the power of the fire. But the move was so sudden that Aang had only enough time to react, and not worry about his footing or how he would land. As the gusts of air pushed him backwards through the air, Aang tumbled out of control. The ground came up to meet him all too suddenly and he ended up dazed on his back in the dirt, only feet away from the edge of the ravine.

'Now's my chance,' thought Zuko. He immediately went into a pose which had the semblance of an airbending technique. Jumping high into the air, Zuko's arm cocked above his right eye; his palm sparking with energy. As he touched down, he drove his palm into the ground with as much force as he could manage without breaking his hand, for he was no earthbender. The energy gathered raced from his palm and into the ground in a torrent and swiftly moved towards its intended target with unnatural speed. Zuko grinned as he knew that the technique was working perfectly…

Aang held his head as he sat up and heard only the words, "Goodbye Avatar." Before his eves shot open to see where the threat was coming from. In that instant he saw Zuko rise from the ground with his palm still open and trembling. Dread filled Aang's mind as he realized something was wrong and that this was probably going to hurt. Aang saw Zuko's fist close…

'BOOOOOOOM'

Zuko watched as fire and rock engulfed the young Avatar, throwing him off the cliff and into the ravine below.

"Let's see you bend your way out of this one, Avatar." Said Zuko softly as he turned his back on the ravine and walked away. 'Now to go find uncle, and hunt down the remains of the Avatar.'

'Am I dead?' Aang was rocked by the explosion and tumbled through the air. The rush of wind was increasing as he opened his eyes to the rushing water that was coming all too swiftly to meet him. Then, everything went black.

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Several hours later and a pretty fast body-surf…

Why his Avatar instincts didn't kick in, he didn't know. But the next thing he knew was that he was cold, wet, and on some sort of shore. In reality, Aang had passed out upon hitting the water and drifted, unharmed and face-up, hundreds of miles down the river. It was if the river itself was keeping him safe from the rocks and dead trees under its surface. He landed on a rocky beach, somewhere far west of where he had started.

Aang opened his eyes in the semi-conscious form he was still in. Everything around his was still shadows and undeterminable shapes. Aang drifted out of consciousness and lay on that beach in peace while his body healed. If he had kept his eyes open for another minute or two, he may have seen the lone human shadow check him over, then pick him up and walk off into the distance.

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Where is our young Avatar, and who is this traveler? Does he have any ill intentions towards our young Avatar? I guess the next installment will tell…