Chapter Four

Author's Note: Here is chapter four! Thank you lawliness for reviewing, I appreciate it, and thank you for the compliment saying that this was a well-written chapter, I appreciate that a lot! Here we go!

The sides were full of people, and Zuko saw the others walk off to the sides, heading for seats. Mai touched his shoulder and then left. On one side he could see the men of the society, and on the other were a bunch of people who didn't agree with the society's actions any more than he did or they were just there because people enjoyed watching a good Agni Kai every once in a while. He stepped up into the entrance of the ring, standing on the edge. Haku was standing on the other side, glaring at him, but looking more ready than he himself was.

Then the other man stepped to center, and he walked up to the center as well. Zuko got into a stance and at the first movement Haku made, Zuko blasted him with fire. Haku managed to jump out of the way, but only barely. Then he retaliated and nearly hit Zuko in the leg, but he flipped and shot a jet of fire at Haku, who yelped when it brushed his hand. Zuko then jumped backwards when Haku shot fire at his feet. Everyone around the arena was silent as they watched the two of them fight; to which Zuko was grateful to. He could feel the sweat pouring down his face again and as he missed hitting Haku again, for what felt like the hundredth time, he moved sideways as Haku tried to hit him in the chest again.

Zuko suddenly felt heat on his leg and jumped back as fast as he could before the flame could hit him, but when he looked down, it already had. The burning scent of cloth hit him as he stared down at the long strip of burnt flesh and cloth that was hanging on for dear life at the edge of the rest of his left pant leg. With a shout of rage he blasted Haku with fire that managed to hit the man in the back as he flipped backwards. Haku screamed, yet his next attack didn't seem to be powered with rage as much as it was powered with determination. Zuko jumped sideways, trying not to land on his burnt leg, and then jumped up onto the man, holding him down. He pushed Haku sideways and then held out his hand, ready to blast him.

"Well, go ahead and do it then, if you dare." he said. "I don't think you will, though."

Zuko breathed in and stepped back. He wasn't going to kill Haku, even if it did seem like the best thing, it wasn't and he knew it. His father would have, but as he had attempted and proven years before, he wasn't his father. He couldn't be his father, he refused to be. Looking around, he spoke as loud as he could.

"You must give up now. I will not permit you to torture the citizens or this government any longer. You need to stop this, right now. Or the consequences will be unlike any you ever want to experience." he said loudly, trying to stay off of his left leg.

"You yourself are one to talk." Haku growled. "You can't even kill a person."

"Get out of here. Get out of my sight, or you'll wish you'd never said that." Zuko yelled.

Haku smirked, stood up painfully, and walked out. There was silence for a matter of minutes. Everyone seemed to be waiting for Zuko to say something, but he didn't. Instead he stood there, breathing heavily, until he turned around and began to move slowly out of the arena. His leg burned and ached badly, and his head was swimming with pain, but he needed to get out of there without collapsing. This might as well have failed, because along with the pain, fatigue was creeping up on him and so was that shadow. He saw it coming closer every step he took. With one last effort at walking out, he fell to the ground, heard someone shout his name, and went unconscious.

The light was rather shocking to him when he opened his eyes, and when he saw Mai's face looking down on him, her eyes echoing worry and pain, he shut his own for a moment, wanting it all to be unreal, a dream. The voice hadn't shown up when he had been unconscious, but he knew it was going to come back. Mai was holding a cloth against his burned leg.

"You need to be more careful." she said. "Don't encourage people to hurt you."

"I'm sorry that being Firelord requires things like that." he replied softly, feeling all his anger wash away when he looked back up at her.

"Well, I know it does, but it's not something to keep continuing. It's not right."

"Neither are societies that intend to destroy governments." he pointed out, and Mai sighed.

"You really do have a hard head. Not that I didn't know it, but don't you think it's a little rough to go around ordering an Agni Kai every other week?"

"I don't do that."

"No, but your father did, and if you start here and now…" she trailed off and the same fear crept up his back.

"Don't suggest anything like that, at all, understand? I've already proven that I'm not like him."

"Alright, I'll let that one slide, but don't continue this or you will become what that group of men wants you to become." Mai said, sliding the cloth down his burned patch, causing him to moan.

"I won't become that man. I can't, or something bad will happen. Something I won't be able to control. You know I made Aang promise me that he would finish me if I became that person. It nearly came to it last time, and I'm sure you remember that." Zuko said, watching Mai shiver when she recalled the whole problem.

Suddenly the Avatar himself bounced in and by the looks of it, Zuko concluded he was alone. Aang looked worried and although Zuko hated seeing pity for him in anyone else's eyes other than Mai's, he forgave Aang for the moment. The younger boy had Momo on his shoulder and even though the lemur was sitting there silently, Zuko knew he would be bouncing around in a minute and wasn't looking forward to cleaning the mess that he would make.

"You woke up!" said Aang. "You should've seen what happened after you went unconscious."

"What have you not told me?" Zuko asked Mai, and he could see his girlfriend's eyes look away from him.

"I didn't want to make you concerned in your…state." she replied and he didn't say anything, he just turned and looked back at Aang.

"Well, you fell down and the men in the society started jeering at you and stuff, and then I went and chased them down. Katara helped me and we got them out of there, but the rest of the people who were there were trying to get to you to see if you were alive and things. Mai and Sokka managed to carry you back here without any trouble but Katara had to chase the people out-she did it politely, but roughly at the same time- and once we got them out of there Haku appeared again. He was laughing and I guess that some of his men had already told him what had happened, so he was trying to tell us that he'd won, and then I went into Avatar state and kinda…" Aang trailed off, looking quite ashamed of himself, and then took a deep breath, went on. "I scared him half to death. I didn't mean to, I was just angry and he seemed to be even more scared after I got out of Avatar State, and he went running out, probably to go and tell everyone that he'd seen me in the Avatar State.

'I bet he told them I was evil or something, but I didn't care. We came running back here to find that you were already taken care of and things and Sokka and Katara headed out to get rid of the stragglers that were still by the gates. I came here as fast as I could without being caught, I didn't want to talk to anyone."

Zuko sat there, taking this all in. It was evident that Aang was still worried; not as much as Mai was, but still worried, and he had even gone into the Avatar State just to get rid of Haku for a while. As grateful as he felt towards his friends, Zuko couldn't help but wonder what that man's motives were now. Would the society still exist or would they disappear and not come back? He couldn't tell whether or not they would. The consequences would be worse if they tried to come back again, he would make sure of that, but maybe it was better if they did come back to learn their final lesson. The lesson he would make sure they did.

"Are you taking this in okay?" asked Mai, who would ask a question like that.

"Yeah, I'm just wondering what to do with this group now." he replied. Aang made a noise that sounded like he was clearing his throat, and they both looked at him.

"I was just in here to check on you, I have to go tell Katara that the gates should be watched and she should be the one to do it." he said.

"Where'd you get that order?" asked Mai, but Zuko shot her a look that silenced her, and Aang left after slightly bowing to the both of them and Momo followed him as well, flying out and making plenty of noise about it all.

Mai turned back to him and stared applying the cloth again, this time firmly doing so and he saw her pull out bandages. His leg hurt pretty badly and even though he'd felt worse, it was still a burn, so the bandages meant that it was going to leave a scar. The same sleep he had felt coming upon him for a few days was creeping up on him again, and Zuko couldn't hold back any longer. His eyes began to droop and soon he was asleep. A dark figure erupted from the back of his mind. He tried as hard as he could to ignore it, but he couldn't, it was coming closer to him. He was standing on the edge of a familiar mountain, a place he had tried not to recognize for a few years now. The shape took its form, the form of a human, a man, as it always had been. An older, white-haired man stared back at him, and in horror, Zuko attempted to reach for his sword in his belt but he couldn't find it, it wasn't in this dream world.

"You thought you could escape from me, didn't you? That the dark figure in your dreams would never take shape, which would never come back. But I have, and I will corrupt you, insolent fool, the horrible great-grandson that I wish never would have existed! You can't keep a legacy alive that never existed in the Fire Nation!" shouted Sozin.

Author's Note: Oh boy, look who I just made a dream demon! Well, this could be interesting. I also like to note that the figure of Sozin is basically a dark spirit here, and not the actual body of the man, more like, the soul in a dark figure. I'm really getting dark here, aren't I? Well, that was chapter four, and I hope to update soon! I hope you enjoyed, thank you for reading, and please, review, review, review!