Disclaimer: If I did own Avatar, Azula would be a purple 400-foot platypus bear. But she ain't, hm? (Copy, paste… So I decided to recycle it, you got a problem with that?)

A/N: Okay, I've got only five minutes to post this baby up, so this note will be very short: mystinalchemist, thank you very much for nice review, and everyone who have put this story in their alert list!  Enjoy the new chapter! (Whoa, two thousand words! 8D) This is my first time writing a long action scene, so if you like it, I'll be so merry that it'll make you throw up! Cheers!

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For a split second, Katara saw the light of the fire reflect off of the man's gold eyes giving off a frightening glare.

She wanted to give off another whip, but she was exhausted, and couldn't push herself to do so. And so, with the little energy she had left, she ran towards the campsite, her feet pounding as fast as her heart.

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Chapter Two: The Foe

Gasping for air, Katara felt weaker and weaker by the minute. Her chest started to ache from breathing so hard, and her throat became swollen. The amount of energy she had was wearing thin. Soon, she became incredibly exhausted. But she could not give up! She looked over her shoulder and saw that the stranger was trailing behind her, not too far away. The campsite, however, was starting to get closer and closer, as far as Katara could see.

Panting! Pounding! The chase felt more intense, and it was getting harder to escape from the man. But she saw that he wouldn't be stopping any time, so neither was she.

"Oh!" Katara groaned as she sprained her ankle. It was nothing serious, but it hurt so much running! She didn't stop though—her own health wasn't her priority, it was to get to the campsite to warn Aang about this… This firebender!

The stranger smirked as he saw the girl ready to collapse, and his determination got him to run faster. She never stopped, however, and this annoyed him tremendously. His impatience was getting the better of him, and he thought up a way to get her to stop right in her tracks: he swiftly brought out one of his swords…

"NO!" Katara exclaimed, as she tripped over a sharp, cold blade. She fell face-first in a pile of goopy, disgusting mud. But she didn't care that she was a mess; the stranger had caught up with her! The chase was over—She had stopped, and had lost.

Her heart raced as the man inched closer to her, and she looked up to his shady face. There was enough light to show his victorious smirk.

The stranger was happy he had caught up with her indeed, and slowly walked closer to her. Katara's heart quickened, and wondered what he was going to do to her. Oh dear, she had heard many stories about the cruelty of the citizens of the Fire Nation—they were merciless captors, and punished their prisoners in many ways that one could think of. Those were, however, just stories of the formal Fire Nation soldiers. Who knows how terrible this mysterious firebender (obviously skilled)—one who lurked in the woods—could be?

The poor girl's rapid pulse was getting to her; she was getting very frightened. For what seemed like a long time, she lay there absolutely motionless, eyes closed, terrified—wondering what her captor would do.

Eventually, the man slowly raised his hand and subtly bent towards her. He was getting closer… closer…

The whole thing seemed to go in slow motion. As his hand reached towards her, Katara noticed a strong gust of wind pass by the leaves of the trees, momentarily giving her a flash of the moon. That semi second sight of the moon gave her the greatest chi rejuvenation she ever had—It was like reaching an oasis in the middle of a desert…

With her new energy, Katara gathered the biggest blob of water from the mud—and lifted herself up, while giving off the largest and most powerful water blast she could possibly muster!

The blast was huge, and the firebender hardly had any time to counter the attack; he created a fire shield, but it wasn't enough to save himself from Katara's unnatural current. It didn't however, injure him that much, but itdid shock him quite a bit and had sent him a good distance away from his prey—enough for Katara to escape, and get a good headstart on a second chase.

She felt good—good for taking him down! She silently thanked the bright moon for giving her its power. Her legs felt stronger than before, and she knew she could make it to Aang on time to warn him! She looked over her shoulder for a second time, and thankfully, now she didn't find him anywhere to be seen!

Her feet pounded on the ground, and Katara had a huge smile on her face. She had succeeded! She had defeated him—She was victorious!

She was also getting cocky—that much she knew—but Katara was just so proud! But even though it did not look it, she was still in danger… She had to get to Aang! Oh, the campsite! It was drawing nearer! She could see Appa lying near the shore! Now she could see the six other figures sprawled across the ground! And now she could see Aang's face, snoring away!

And she made it! She was back, she was back! Katara just felt the need to crawl into her knapsack and sleep—

But she didn't have time. She had to warn Aang about that… stranger in the forest!

As she rushed in the middle of the beach, she shouted, "Aang! Everyone! Wake up!"

Everyone groaned.

"Wake up!"

Again, her companions all lazily groaned.

Katara's patience wasn't really at a good level at this time."Wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup! WAKE UP!"

This did—of course—catch everyone's attention.

"Kahhhh-tahhhh-rahhhh," Sokka whined, "What could you possibly want—especially at this time of night?"

"I couldn't sleep when we got here," his sister responded, her voice filled with urgency, "so I went into the woods—without a torch, sadly, and I know that was pretty stupid of me, Sokka, but I couldn't think straight and I needed some air—another reason why I wanted to go to the woods, where I—unfortunately—got lost, which made me go crazy and so I had to sit on a stump—which had an uncanny resemblance to Gran Gran—to calm myself down a bit, and when I felt better, I started to go around the forest and I had to look for a bed of fire daisies, which are quite sweet-smelling, now that I think about it—"

"Katara!" Sokka interrupted, (His sister has talking a mile a minute that he had to stop her at some point.) "And where are you going with this?"

Katara sighed. "I ran into a firebender on the way back here."

"You what?!"

"He looked really dangerous," she continued. "He was probably looking for Aang. We have to leave—now!"

"We don't have to rush. I bet we could beat him easily." Sokka yawned and went back to sleeping.

"Sokka, trust me on this! That guy is really fast. I could have probably been killed out there, if it weren't for the moon."

"Whoa, hold on," said Aang, who never got a say on Katara's idea, "I'm kind of on Sokka's side here. I mean, we can take down a wee army of firebenders."

"There was only one firebender," Katara corrected.

"That's eveneasier," Aang said with a smile.

"But he was fast!"

"I have no doubts of my abilities Katara, and neither should you. You've beaten thousands of enemies before—you're a great waterbender! I mean, that guy in the woods couldn't have been that good."

"He was."

Aang was silent for a moment, thinking up some things to discourage her from worrying about the firebender any longer. He came up with nothing, so he didn't argue.

He raised his hands as one final gesture. "Just go to bed, Katara. You look tired. If the firebender comes… we'll kick his butt." He flashed a smile towards her.

"But Aang—"

"Relax," Aang held her shoulders and gave her a friendly massage. "Sleeeeep," he said in a coaxing voice.

Katara had to admit that she was slightly stressed out. And the massage felt really nice after all the running…

"Okay," she gave in, "but just… a little nap…"

Aang let go so she could head to her knapsack. Katara turned around to face him, returned the smile, and walked past him to her knapsack.

But just as she was ready to go to sleep, she spotted a shadowy figure ready to grab Aang's collar…

"Aang!" Katara exclaimed, immediately summoning her element from her water skin, "Behind you!"

Aang gave out a surprised, "Whoa!" as Katara water whipped the invader—who happened to be the stranger she ran into at the forest!

She couldn't really see the man, but something told her that it was definitely him. How he managed to sneak in the campsite, she didn't know. And she didn't need to know. The fact that he was a cruel firebender bent on taking away Aang was a reason good enough for Katara to attack him.

Yet again, as he did a bunch of other times in the forest, he attempted to counter the attack with a fire shield. This time, it was easy, since the water that Katara had used for the whip wasn't so much. Again and again, she tried to whip him, yet she continuously failed. Since the stranger was using a fire shield for protection from her attacks, the whip became smaller and smaller, its water evaporating in the air.

Eventually, the whip was too short to be used, so Katara waterbended what was left of it back into her water skin. She wasn't completely defeated yet, though—there was still the sea at her left, and the firebender was not wise to choose fighting her during a full moon.

However, seeing that the girl was distracted with bending the water in its container, the stranger took advantage of this and knocked her down with his Twin Daos (basically his swords).

Seeing Katara down, Aang, Sokka and everyone else were shocked. They had just been looking on the whole time they had been fighting, all hesitating to join the battle… including Toph!

No one was trying to attack him, so the firebender knew he was winning! He glanced at who he had been trying to see—Aang. The younger boy staggered back, not knowing what to do.

"Everyone!" Katara called from behind, "Don't let him get to Aang—under any circumstances!"

That was when the real battle started. Toph was the first to make a move on it, spontaneously throwing boulders at him. Haru followed this as well. The firebender, however, dodged these easily—ducking, running, and breaking some with his swords, moving in a circular motion. The Duke tried to pounce on him, and the little Freedom Fighter even succeeded—until the older boy got annoyed with the kid on his head and threw him off. His shrill yells was heard as he was tossed to sky. (Sokka broke his fall.) Momo was ready to strike, but he had the same idea as The Duke's and didn't want to end up sprawled on top of Sokka.

Toph attempted to attack the man again, this time by earthbending the ground under him. First, she cut the area where he was standing on into a square, and made the earth levitate. Then, she shook it like crazy, dizzying the enemy. Once she could tell that he had had enough, she let the ground go down.

At this time, the stranger was dizzy, and was not ready or prepared to fight… not yet.

Tough luck for him, because standing behind him was Sokka, who had managed to get up on time. ("Get offa me, Duke!" he said earlier, "I haven't gotten a turn to attack him, and I don't wanna miss my chance!") With a stroke of luck, he defeated him in one blow: banging his head with the handle of his black sword. Dizzy enough as he was, the enemy collapsed, defeated indeed. Sokka stood above him, a smirk on his face.

From the other boy's point of view, he saw seven mean figures standing and looking down at him. Everyone could now see clearly who he was, and they all waited for him to give them an explanation of why he was there.

"I need," he spoke, "to see—"

They leaned down at him, all suspiciously glaring at him.

"—the avatar," Zuko finished.

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A/N: Yeaaaah, predictable much? Well, please hit that review button so I could have some feedback on my writing—it will definitely encourage me to write better!