Chapter One: Hunt

Aya glared at her friend. How could Mitsuki be so annoying?

"Fine then." the firebender hissed. The brunette raised her hand slowly flames curling around her fingers. Mitsuki just stood there laughing. Suddenly, Aya drew her arm back and jumped, punching at the airbender, a blue flame explosion ensuing.

Mitsuki looked back in astonishment as the front of her outer tunic burned slowly. Immediately, she began to circulate her arms, creating a whirlwind around Aya. It also made the oxygen in the air lack, and Aya struggled to breath. While she had her distracted, Mitsuki moved her way to the firebender's back. She lowered her hands momentarily, letting the whirlwind die down. Aya fell to her knees, gasping for breath. Then she fell forward in pain as Mitsuki punched her rapidly in the back. She was completely paralyzed.

"This teaches you not to mess with an Airbender." She replied cockily, grinning with pride.

Aya glared at Mitsuki. Curse her stupid knowledge of pressure points... Aya swore under her breath, but the airbender still heard.

"No cussing, dumdum. That won't wear off for a good ten more minutes." the blonde said, waving her hand lazily.

Come on arms, move!! Aya urged herself. She managed to raise her head a little, only to see Mitsuki start to cook herself some tea. The firebender groaned and collapsed her head back to the ground, gasping from the amount of effort it took to just raise her head an inch or two. She couldn't get her arms to move, no matter how hard she tried, so the older girl resigned herself to waiting until the paralys went away.

--

Ten minutes seemed to take years. Years of being relentlessly teased and poked. Aya tested her limbs, only moving them fractions of an inch at a time. She smirked when she finally felt them respond, moving as if she had never been paralyzed at all. Mitsuki was drabbling on and on about the theory of Ty Lee being an airbender, and didn't notice a thing.

Suddenly, Aya leaped into the air, encircling herself with fire, and pushing the ball out into the expanse of the room. White fire.

Crud. She had been so into her discussion about her fool-proof theory to notice her friend's recollection of the feelings in her limbs. The fire blasted towards her, but she had just enough time to bend the oxygen out of that part of the room, causing the flames to die out. Several thoughts flashed through her head. Plan of attack. Plan of attack. She could force air into her mouth and blow up her lungs, but that seemed inhumane, and she didn't want to kill her. She couldn't bring herself to ever actually kill someone. If she knew she was responsible for killing someone, she would be mortified. No, she just had to put her enemy in a position where she would be forced to surrender.

Mitsuki slowly spun a ball of air around her hands, and flung it toward Aya. The cold air stung the firebender's eyes, leaving her momentarily blind. Then she breathed in slowly, and brought forth hurricane-force winds, flinging Aya against the wall.

Aya slumped, her head falling against her chest. She sat there for a moment with her eyes closed, catching her breath. She knew she was temporarily blind as the firebender wracked her brain for her next attack. Mitsuki stood in front of her, warily standing in a more defensive position. The airbender wouldn't kill her, she didn't have the guts. But she could extinguish her fire within seconds. How come Azula could formulate a plan within milliseconds but she couldn't?

Aya smirked. Azula. She rose slowly against the wall, concentrating more on her positive and negative chi more than anything else. She opened her eyes a slit. Her vision was back. She took a pace or two forward, then she looked up and her eyes snapped open. She whirled through the motions as fast as she could, feeling the positive and negative come screaming apart and crashing back together, sparks trailing her fingers even as the lightning left her body and sailed towards Mitsuki.

Mitsuki saw the lightning being hurled at her, but this time she didn't dodge. Her hands stayed in the firm position, her legs rooted to the ground. The jolt came slowly, first coursing through her veins and then through her entire body. It was like she was being racked around like a doll. The excruciating pain was everywhere, and she keeled over, arms over her stomach. But she looked back up. Aya had the face of a madwoman, grinning with pride. Mitsuki had waited for this, and now knew she had made the right decision to take the attack.

She slowly opened her mouth, trying to form words.

"Aya…I was afraid it would come to this. I can see now that the Fire Nation is ruthless, and has no concern of past or present friendships. If you really want to kill me, go ahead. I won't stop you. But if you are my real friend, you would help me up."

"Mitsuki…" Aya stepped back a bit, seemingly taking in the words.

"It wouldn't really matter anyways. I feel the life draining from me, I'm sure I will die soon. I didn't think lightning would hurt that much." She smiled, and then furrowed her brows, "Now choose; save me, or kill me." Wait for it. Wait for the look. There it was, Aya's eyes grew narrow. She fumbled in her pocket, raising an ocarina to her lips. She played a soft melancholy tune of about three notes, and then shoved it back in her pocket. She had to save her energy if this was going to work.

Aya sprang forward, fire in her hand. Mitsuki was sure that the following actions would surprise her. She jumped up and shot a blast of air through the roof, causing an opening. Above was Kiyu, her faithful bison. Mitsuki grinned when she saw that her friend had heard her short call. Using the remainder of her energy, she propelled herself up to her steed, just before Aya would have struck her. Her opponent looked up in bewilderment. Mitsuki clung to the reigns of the bison, and called out 'yip, yip!' making Kiyu go forward.

She had to hurry, her time was running out. Katara lived nearby, and could help her before she passed out and eventually died. That was, before Aya got there first. Mitsuki knew a chase was about to happen.

Aya glared at the retreating animal. The Fire Nation wasn't ruthless; they weren't the ones who could explode someone from the inside out. She lowered her eyes. She couldn't have helped trying to kill the airbender. Azula was her master. It was kill or be killed.

A teenage girl stepped out of the shadows.

"Nice job. I wasn't sure if you had it in you. You've definitely progressed since your last fight."

Aya turned to look at the Princess, keeping her face carefully blank. "Thank you, Princess." She bowed in the traditional Fire Nation style. She couldn't let Azula know how close she had come to helping the airbender up and taking her to the nearest healer.

"Something wrong, Aya?" Azula's voice was unusually caring.

"Nothing."

Aya: Okay, so our first chapter. I know its like, "Whoa, why are they killing each other!?" but, we explain in later chapters. We tend to explain things through flashbacks later. ALOT of flashbacks. ack.

Mitsuki: OKay, Aya posted this first withou some edits. I have re-done them, and hopefully it makes more sense...