Chapter Four: Just Like Jet
"I could be mean. I could angry. You know I could be just like you." – Three Days Grace
A sliver blade missed its intended target, and stuck in a rather large tree trunk. Zuko bounced back up from dodging Smellerbee's cheap shot. This training session was going great, but Zuko still wasn't in the condition he had been before. Now he was starting to think that would never happen again.
The training session stopped there, ruined by the long break they took to get the sword out of the tree.
"It's getting late," Smellerbee said, "I'm going to grab some sleep. You coming?"
"No, I think I'm gonna train some more," Zuko replied tiredly, repressing a yawn. Smellerbee shrugged and went up in the trees.
He had no idea at how long he'd been down there, practicing. All he knew was that he was tired, and would like nothing to do than to collapse right there. But he couldn't. He had to get back in shape, to get strong, like he was before.
"It's not coming back you know," said a voice from behind him. Zuko turned to see Jet, smiling in the moonlight.
"What's not coming back?" Zuko questioned, though he half knew the answer already.
"The way you used to fight," said Jet. "It's gone forever, like the person you used to be."
Zuko shrugged. He didn't want to believe Jet on this one, that he would never be as strong as he used to be, but what he said made sense.
"Now you can be stronger than you ever were," Jet said, as if he were reading Zuko's mind. "You just have to know how to control it."
"How?" Zuko asked, fairly interested.
"Let your anger fuel your dualing," Jet said simply.
Zuko waited for him to say something more. That was his last battling strategy. Didn't Jet know who Zuko used to be at all?
"Anger at the Fire Nation will be much stronger than your anger at the Avatar," Jet explained, "from the Fire Nation you've got more anger to draw out."
Zuko thought this over. Anger was a good source for both contact fighting and Firebending. It had worked well enough before, hadn't it? Now that Zuko really thought about it, all that anger seemed to hold him back more than make him powerful. In the end, the Fire Prince never really won.
"I don't think so Jet," Zuko dismissed the idea, "there has to be a better way."
"If there was," Jet said, "don't you think I would have found it by now?"
Zuko didn't care. He didn't ever want to resort to the same low version of himself that he was, ever if that meant his condition was a little bit off.
"Where are you going?" Jet called after Zuko.
"To bed," Zuko answered. The sun was creeping up the side of the earth. He had been training all night.
Zuko strolled back into camp later that evening, Smellerbee and Longshot, following close behind him, frustrated expressions fixed on both their faces. They had been patrolling the forest, and Zuko had been in charge of the Fire Nation soldier hunt.
Jet appeared at the other end of camp with The Duke and Pipsqueak. They were carrying bags of loot, which Zuko assumed they had liberated from soldiers.
"How was it?" Jet asked easily, and stretching, while The Duke to keep a hold of loaded bags.
"Awful," said Smellerbee giving Zuko a sharp glance.
"What happened?" The Duke asked, collapsing under the weight of the bags.
"Everything was going good," Smellerbee explained, "We trapped in a circle, and we were get about to start the attack when your second in command let him go."
"What?" Jet said, ignoring Smellerbee's jealous comment and shifting his attention to Zuko. "You let him go?"
"He was a ten year old boy," Zuko reasoned, "What was I suppose to do?"
"Take him for all his got!" The Duke exclaimed, pushing the bags off of him, and standing up.
"That's right," Jet said.
Jet and Zuko glared at each other, while the rest of the group watched the tension grow.
"Guys," Jet said, without breaking eye contact with Zuko, "give me and Zuko a minute."
Smellerbee raised her eyebrows about to protest, but decided it was best to fall out. She went, and the others followed her.
Zuko didn't know what to say. Did Jet really expect him to attack a child? After what happened to Zuko when he was only thirteen, he didn't see any justification that could be made to support this insane idea. It was cruel and wrong, that was almost the exact statement he made to his father when he left, and he would stand by it.
"I thought I made myself clear when I told you we're against the Fire Nation," Jet started, "all Fire Nation."
"He was just a child," Zuko defended himself.
"Anyone who wears Fire Nation colors is a danger to us," Jet said.
"I am Fire Nation."
"You're different."
"Only because I'm useful to you," Zuko said, surprising himself. He always knew it was true, but now that it was spoken out loud it became reality. "I wondered why the Avatar and his friends hate you, but now I know the truth. You're just as cruel as I was."
"I should have known better than to let you join," Jet's face turned red with anger, "You're too emotionally involved with the Fire Nation. I should have killed you while you were weak."
"Emotionally involved?" Zuko spat, unbelievingly. "You're out of your mind. I thought the Freedom Fighters protected the innocent people, not attack and rob their children."
"That's it!" Jet shouted, "You're off the Senjou mission."
"That's fine," Zuko said, "because I quit your stupid gang."
Jet's face twisted with anger, and he let his mouth drop the weed he was chewing on. The leader pulled out his hook swords. "You can't quit the Freedom Fighters, not with the information you have."
Zuko got his own dual swords ready. It would be easy just to shot a couple of fireballs at him, but that wasn't fair, and Zuko wasn't about to let Jet have the satisfaction.
Jet's swords hooked Zuko's right hand sword and threw it to the side. "You're not so strong, now, are you?"
Zuko ignored him. He had spent a little over three months with Jet and the Freedom Fighters and he knew this was just part of the game.
The sword came down over his head, but Zuko was too quick. He blocked it with his left dual sword; however this blow knocked the prince off his feet.
"It's no wonder your own father hated you," Jet said, not really sounding like the Jet he knew at all, as Zuko rolled away from another stab attempt. Clearly Jet had let his anger take control. "You're weak, and you were even before the attack."
While on the ground Zuko grabbed his missing sword, and swiftly got to his feet, only to be knocked back down by a kick from Jet. This time Zuko was quite sure he wasn't getting back up. His head hit pretty hard, and he felt his swords leave his grip.
"What would your mother think of you?" Jet taunted from somewhere above him.
Zuko had shut his eyes, waiting to die for the second time that year. It seemed like everything was flashing before him in a shade of white and red. Everything anyone had ever said to him to bring him down replayed in his mind, over and over.
"Why are you always playing with knives? You're not even that good." He heard a younger version of his sister say. "You're a horrible person you know that?" There was the Waterbender in the catacombs. "She committed unthinkable crimes that night…" "Dad's going to kill you. Really he is."
"Enough!" Zuko shouted, scaring Jet who just watching a few feet away, but not making any attempt on Zuko's life.
Zuko jumped to his feet, swords in hands and engaged an unprepared Jet in battle. He was the best he had ever been, far better than Jet, who was now fearing the monster he had taunted. Once Zuko was in a winning position he did not kill Jet. Instead he ran the opposite direction, hoping to get out of that forest as fast as possible.
Little did Zuko know he was headed straight toward the Fire Nation, and waiting for him at the beginning of the pathway was Fire Nation secret service officers, who had been tipped off about a certain Fire Prince living in the forest by a certain ten year old boy…
