She always found sparring with waterbenders to be interesting. The ways they coiled water around them, using the single strand to both attack and defend with such precision and accuracy. It was fascinating the movements involved in the art.

But those were trained professionals, fighting for whatever advantages they could get in the Fire Nation Controlled North. What she was fighting now could hardly be considered anything like those.

Her moves were sloppy, and haphazard, like she only understood the bare minimum of what it took to make the water do as she commanded. It was just so… boring. If this was the Avatar, as she currently believed, it was the most pathetic excuse for a being of legendary proportions she had ever encountered.

She decided to end things quickly, no point in drawing out a boring fight, it was no fun. She dodged and weaved between the streaks of water launched her way before she lashed her hand out, striking the pressure point between two of the girls ribs before chopping at her neck to put her down for a while.

The girl collapsed to the ground in a heap. To the side Azula heard the imbecile shouting out what she assumed was the girls name. Katara. Actually a quite beautiful name. Azula used the toes of her boots to move the girls face towards her. A pretty name for a pretty girl.

The foolish chauvinist was back on his feet now, weapon in hand and charging at her. She didn't want to deal with him. As he approached, his stupid boomerang held above his head like a some kind of idiotic battleaxe she once again dropped low and sweeped his feet out from under him, hitting him on the neck as he went down. She really would have to thank Ty Lee for showing her that particular trick.

With the two siblings disabled Azula turned to the soldiers standing by at the nose of the ship. "Get the girl on board and tell the captain to prepare to leave." She barked her order before she began to march her way back on board, her frustration building.

She had hoped that she would have been able to find at least some level of challenge in the avatar of all people, but instead all she had found was a barely trained girl and her idiot of a brother in a worthless village full of cowards. She turned to look back at the village. The boy still lay unconscious in the snow, an old woman standing over him, looking at her with disgust, while the rest of the village hid behind building peering out at her. She shot them a devilish smirk and began to turn back inside the ship.

Azula paused midstep. The unmistakable sound of a navy ship distress beacon was echoing through the village. Swiveling her head she scanned the horizon for the source before locating it, there was the flare, falling back to the earth. Well, might as well check it out while she was here, even though to her knowledge she was the only active vessel in the area.

She turned to the soldiers currently loading the unconscious waterbender into the ship, upon noticing her gaze the two paused to look at her. With their attention captured she relayed her orders, "once you get her aboard secure the village and wait for me to return, no one gets aboard the ship or out of the village." The soldiers, unable to salute with their arms occupied, presented her with the best tense nod they could to show their understanding, then resumed the task at hand.

Confident in her mens ability to accomplish basic tasks Azula turned back in the direction of the flare, the smoke trail fading into the wind, but still just visible for her to pinpoint a direction. A small smirk spread across her face as she took off, heading in the direction of the distress signal.

~0~

He had to get away, and quick, the whole in the roof seemed tempting enough, but based on what he heard from Sokka and Katara, the airbenders were gone, and use of his airbending had the potential to display that he was an oddity, it may not prove his biggest hidden secret, but it would give him unwanted attention, which was something that he desperately wanted to avoid, at least for now. He also didn't want to go back through the ship though, the mere thought of the eerie halls made a shiver run down his spine.

He had to make a choice, use airbending to get through the hole, or run back through the ship to exit near the base. His eyes danced between the door and the roof as he struggled to make a decision, Bending, creepy hallway, bending, creepy hallway, bending… "Aaaargh!" he screamed in frustration.

Aang looked out the windows of the bridge, searching for signs of anyone of the shining snow around the vessel. He couldn't see anyone, good enough, he thought and quickly wound up in order to make a quick escape through the hole in the roof, not noticing the appearance of a new figure, dashing over the hills towards the wrecked ship, directly towards him.

~0~

As the wrecked ship came into view Azula considered slowing down for a moment before deciding against it and powering onwards, though slightly less excited from before. If the beacon had come from some old abandoned vessel it was entirely likely that the beacon had simply been triggered by some falling piece of ice, or simply faulty mechanisms.

She sighed to herself. She had decided on accompanying this routine patrol of the south simply because it was the most untamed of the conquered fire nation territories. The war had ended before she had been able to participate at all, and after Iroh had ascended to the throne, father had lost some of his ambition and laid back on her training in fire bending. Deciding instead to try and gain as much power as he could by acting as one of his brothers advisors. At first she had been lost, she had already been so far along in her training, her father had so many plans for her that he just… gave up on. Azula craved the excitement, she had needed something to happen, but nothing did.

At first she had made her own adventures, mainly by causing trouble and bothering ZuZu, but her mother had caught wind of it and sternly cut her off before she could go to far, no one would hurt her precious son. Not even her daughter.

Eventually causing trouble around the palace grew boring, and Azula was left with few options. At the peak of her boredom she had gone to her uncle and asked to be admitted into the military, if she couldn't have joined into the war she would at least participate in the quelling of rebellions.

And so she found herself here, running into an abandoned ship. This was not the excitement that she had wanted. Not the excitement at all.

There was motion near the bridge, probably just some falling ice, but Azula slowed still in order to look that way, her trainer had always told her, "never dismiss something you think is insignificant as it will often cause you to miss out on opportunity.

Her jaw dropped. Then, as if it was happening in slow motion, her lips spread into a large cheshire style grin. A boy, soaring into the air like he the winds themselves were carrying him upwards. That could not be explained by much. No machinery was capable of such feats, nor had was there any bending techniques that could give such height. Well… none from fire, earth, or water.

That left Azula with one option left. What she was witnessing was an airbender, an honest to goodness airbender. Her grin grew wider still. An airbender, she had never fought an airbender before, maybe this would be the interesting battle that she was looking for. She watched the boy, based on his trajectory he would land outside the hull of the downed vessel… right in front of her. She let her grin grow only a bit larger before forcing it away and stealing her face, never show emotion in battle, lesson 13.

~0~

He had to admit from the view from the sky was breathtaking. Aang loved flying, the feeling of the wind in his face, the sense of weightlessness, and the view, no matter where he went in the world the view from the air always amazed him, whether he saw rolling green hills, or vast and imposing mountain ranges rising in the distance, from the air, the world blended together and gave a feeling of connection. Without intimate knowledge of the worlds map, borders were meaningless in the skys.

With that in mind Aang took his moment of respite to appreciate the arctic landscape he had found himself in, in the west, the setting sun set the icey fields alight and they sparkled like flawless gemstones, broken up by the shadows casting jagged and spiked shadows. In the distance he could just make out the village in the…

Something was wrong.

There was something in the village that was not there when he had left, from what he could see it was a giant ship, similar in shape to the one he had just jumped out of, but longer, with wide open deck gracing its front. It was halfway inside of the village, the path of broken ice it had left in its wake clear as day.

Aang began to worry, what had happened, could anyone have been hurt, were they in trouble.

Katara.

She had been headed back to the village when he had decided to enter the ship below him. Was she alright? Aang needed to get back, he had already failed once, he couldn't stop that, but he could help now, like he was supposed to.

Aang forced the winds that had been allowing him to gently float back to the ground away and began to plummet back to the earth, leaving himself only enough cushion that his legs would not shatter upon impact with the ice below. Even still he hit the ground hard. He tried to get to his feet as fast as he could to begin running towards the village but before he could the area directly to the left of him exploded into sapphire blue flames. Aang spun on his heel to face behind himself, there was a girl standing there, two fingers extended outwards pointed at him. She smiled menacingly.

"Good, now I have your attention. Wouldn't want the fight to be over too fast." Her voice dripped with… he actually couldn't tell, it was odd, like some strange mix of bloodlust, excitement and… hesitation? That was on odd mixture. In any case Aang was not in the mood for a fight, especially one with a firebender of such strange composure. "I don't know who you are, but I really don't want to fight you, please, just let me go," Aang figured it was worth it to at least try to talk his way out of it, one never knew, sometimes the best way to win a fight was to avoid starting. The girl tipped her head at him, and seemed to take a moment to think before giving him a shake. "Sorry, but I do." Her last words barely had even left her mouth before she pushed her other hand out towards Aang, and those breathtaking blue flames leapt forwards in his direction once again.

~0~

He was a nimble one, surprisingly young too, she placed him at maybe, two years younger than herself, however, despite his young age he was obviously very skilled with his element. Every shot she fired she grew more and more annoyed, as he lept effortlessly away from her attacks, each time landing with the grace of a feather floating to the ground, and yet, despite his slow descents he seemed to always move away.

It was exhilarating. In the past whenever she fought someone, no matter how skilled, how knowledgeable they had been, they weren't able to fight for long, they were simply out matched by her, a young girl. It was a pride shattering affair really, she had fought and destroyed masters, and now here she was struggling against a 12 year old boy. She laughed, her initial frustration dissipating entirely as she grew more and more invested. The boy could dodge, but she wanted to know if he could fight, with that in mind she pressed her onslaught even harder, throwing more fire with smaller gaps, he'd have to strike eventually, everyone had a breaking point, it was only a matter of time before she found his.

~0~

This blue fire burned hot. He couldn't bargain with her, and he doubted she would let him run, no matter how much he wanted to. This was looking like he was running out of options. He didn't want to fight, but he was running out of options. "Listen!" he shouted, "before I fight here, I want to ask you a question," if he was going to fight like she wanted, she was going to answer his questions, equivalent exchange, even if it was a under very odd circumstances. Her response was quick, no breaks formed in her attacks, "I don't believe you are in a position to be making requests here Airbender, but fine."

Aang smiled, this was a weirdly polite battle, but he would take it, "What happened to the village? Is anyone hurt?" This caused a very small break in her attacks, and he took the chance. With a burst of air he pushed forwards tackling the girl and pinning her arms and legs to the ground best he could. "Aaaand, fight over, answer the questions please."

~0~

She couldn't force her mouth closed, it had been a cheap move, but she had been told to expect that, how could she have forgotten, rule 1, there are no rules on the battlefield.

Now she was trapped, her arms and legs pinned and her bending subdued with a boy staring at her face waiting for an answer to a stupid question. He tilted his head in curiosity, a stern look gazing into her eyes.

She couldn't help it, this was all too silly for her, "you can get off of me, I'll tell you, it's not like you alone could do anything, you're not the avatar, we already got her."

The boy's grip tightened, "what do you mean you got her?" Azula stared back at him, her face blank, "the young waterbender girl, she's the avatar, that's the cycle, Fire, Air, Water, Earth, somewhere out there some old airbender passed away and then her turn came up, it's so odd though, none of the sages sensed the avatars demise, you would think they would cue into that kind of thing. But i guess every once and a while things slip through the cracks, I'll have to inform father about this when I return, someone's going to be punished." she was smiling by the end of her sentence, the boy was confused, which was good, exactly what she needed, as quick as she could she hooked her foot inside of his leg and flipped the boy over, pinning him like he had done only moments before.

Now on top of the airbender she took a moment to look at his face, speaking while she did so, "Now, while this has been fun, I really must get going, avatar to deliver and what not," after getting a good look, she had to admit, the boy was quite handsome, with the boyish charm that she could already tell was going to turn into the well defined characteristics of a good man. "Hmmm… not bad, tell you what, when you can move again, come find me, we'll spar again."

The boy was about to speak, but was quickly cut off as Azula delivered a quick peck to his lips then delivered a series of blows to his to side, disabling his motor functions, once again, she really would have to thank Ty Lee, these pressure points were just so incredibly useful. Standing to leave, she gave one final wave goodbye to the paralyzed boy. "Until next time airbender!" With those parting words she began to quickly dash back to the ship, feeling the boys gaze on her the entire time.

CHAPTER THREE! I'm actually having a good bit of fun writing this, so the chapters are coming quick right now. Don't get used to that, I'm still a student so I'm not absolutely full of free time, I just happen to have quite a bit of it right now. Still, I'm having a blast writing this and I am getting some awesome feedback, HI DAD!