A.N: I am SO SORRY that I put the same chapter up twice! Well not intentionally! Fanfiction loves to screw and embarrass people appearently. It's happened to two other of my stories that I updated today. Thankfully you guys alerted me! Here's chapter 4 for compensation!

Book 1: Fire

Chapter 4

-Training Repetition-

The next day, Zuko and Daiyu were training with retired general, Iroh.

Both were drilling with the helmsmen and Iroh critiqued every move they made. It was a beautiful afternoon, the sun was setting. Zuko's ship cut through the waves. Yet everyone was to tense to enjoy the beautiful setting.

"Again." Iroh demanded.

Zuko blasted fire from his hands at the guards, but missed. Then the guards attacked Zuko with blasts of fire from their fists, but Zuko dodged. He back flipped over the guards to land behind them. Zuko let out more blast from his fist. "Ha! Heeya!"

On the other side of the ship, Daiyu faced her own challenge as she practiced defensive and evasive maunevers, Iroh's orders. He said she needed to work on her pivoting. What was pivoting going to do?! She dodged a man only to get hit from behind.

"Use you small stature to further your agility, Priestess." He said once more and Daiyu's left eye twitched. She tried to do as she was told but she was easily becoming frustrated. She wasn't allowed to fight back, only to dodge. And quite frankly, she was about to blow a fuse. Once more she got hit and she almost screamed.

Iroh sighed and got up. Looking over at Zuko he gave his criteria to his nephew first.

"No! Power in firebending comes from the breath. Not the muscles. The breath becomes energy in the body. The energy extends past your limbs and becomes fire." Uncle demonstrated by releasing a controlling plume of flame that burst in front of Zuko, but did not hit him. "Get it right this time. And you, Priestess Daiyu. Use all of your weight with each step. Do not try to forcefully push them away! Like this." He demonstrated by having three men gang up on him and using all of him to evade quite easily. "Do. It. Again."

Zuko wasn't going for it. "Enough! I've been drilling this sequence all day. Teach me the next set. I'm more than ready." Daiyu scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"All day? Ha! That's nothing! I've been drilling this ALL WEEK! I want to move on to advanced hand to hand combat. Spinning like a ballerina isn't going to protect me from a bender. I need to know more."

Iroh groaned. "No, you two are impatient. You have yet to master your basics." More forcefully, Iroh once again commanded, "Drill it again!"

Daiyu screamed and pulled on her white hair. "Your crazy, old man!" She exclaimed, her red eyes filled with anger. So was Zuko's golden ones. "Grrrr... huh!" He blasted one of the guards backwards with a gout of fire. "The sages tell us that the Avatar is the last airbender. He must be over a hundred years old by now. He's had a century to master the four elements. I'll need more than basic firebending to defeat him. You WILL teach us the advanced set!"

Iroh sighed, giving in to his nephew and nephew's companion demands. "Very well. But first I must finish my roast duck."

Both Daiyu and Zuko watched the old general in desbelief.

"I can't believe the old geezer did that!" Daiyu muttered exasparated as she scrubbed herself clean in the tub.

"Honestly, this set makes much more sense than pivoting! He basiclly wasted my time for nothing." Her long wavy hair was now drenched and bone straight, it clinged to her pale skin. She brought her wrists up again for the up-teenth time and looked at the signs of the High Priestess.

"Besides, Avatar. Your an old man now, aernt you? You probably hit your prime, yes, but you'll also now be a sack of dust and bones. I'm sure Zuky can take care of you. If not I have his back. Sense day one." She mused as she smiled and stretched, causing water to drizzle down her long arms.

"I didn't even want to be the stinking High Priestess anyways. All of those dresses and gems and make up irratated me. The dancing and singing was fun though! But I could never go into the woods and play. Ah well! This was enough adventure for me. And look at that, Zuky and I will be home just in time for my sixteenth birthday!" Daiyu giggled and grabbed her towel. Drying off she started listing everything her and Zuko would do since it was a common part of your birthday to hang out with your best friend the night before. All though usually your best friend would be of the same sex.

Ah well!

Laying down on her bed, she hugged her teddy bear Lu-Ten gave her for her eighth birthday.

"Zuko can finally smile again."

"Do you know whom you've just brought home, Son?"

Daiyu and Zuko were laughing and playing with each other when they both heard that. The two kids stayed outside the doorway to take a closer look.

"What do you mean by that, Father?" Lu-Ten questioned as the two conversed over tea. Iroh rose a brow, not believing that his child did not see the same signs he did.

"White hair? Red eyes? Gem like tattoos on both wrists? She's obviously the High Priestess. The continuation of her kind." Outside the doorway, Zuko and Daiyu exchanged confused looks. "What does that mean, Zuky?" Daiyu questioned quietly and Zuko shrugged.

"Your right Father, I thought that was strange. But that's not why I brought her here. She was being bullied on and beaten by older boys, it disgusted me! She doesn't have a family either. I wonder if she'll let me become her new family?"

Daiyu watched in awe at the man who rescued her. Zuko smiled too. "Hear that? Your in the family!"

Daiyu giggled and smiled happily as Iroh chuckled and began to speak. "All of us will fill that role. Hear that Daiyu? Zuko?" The two kids squealed as Lu-Ten ran into the hallway and began to chase them.

"There spies!" Lu-Ten accused happily and Daiyu shrieked with delight. Zuko held her hand with a smile as Lu-Ten captured them and squeezed them to death.

Daiyu woke up.

"I fell asleep." She said simply to herself. Seeing it was light outside, she decided another bath wouldn't hurt.

Zuko was looking through his telescope, spotting the Avatar who had sent off a signal flare from an abandoned Fire Nation ship. "The last airbender." He said, almost amazed. "Quite agile for his old age." He commented to himself. "Wake my uncle and Daiyu! Tell them Ive found the Avatar..."

Zuko looked back into his telescope to see the boy and his companion, a water tribe girl, running across the ice away from the ship. He then scanned left quickly, then pulled back to see a village.

" ...As well as his hiding place."

Rapid knocking resounded through Daiyu's room.

"Yes?" She called out since she was not decent.

"Priestess Daiyu, Prince Zuko says he has located the Avatar. He wants you ready for battle." Daiyu's eyes widened in shock. Zuko was letting her off the ship? And to fight?! She never started rushing to get ready in her life. Wrapping her bust with bandages, she looked inside a chest that she had been dying to open for a while.

Inside was her uniform for battle.

She carefully slid on the red top which was cut right above the stomach and had a turtle like neck. It was sleeveless and form fitting. Her bottoms were silk like and flowy red and golden pants that started out tight but flared out at the knee. She wrapped her shawl around her waist so that it was diagonally stretched across herself and it all fell around her left leg. She reached inside the chest again and pulled out her "accessories". Golden fire like sleeves that started at her forearm and spilled past her fingertips. Her golden diadem she so carefully placed on her head and her golden rings that offered protection from the spirits.

"Prepare yourself, Avatar." She muttered to herself as she gathered her dao swords and placed the sheaths behind her with the small straps.

As she walked across the ship she finally got her mindset straightened. If she did this right, if she helped Zuko successfully, he would finally be happy. That's all she wanted for the boy. It was her fault he was stuck like this in the first place.

Meeting with the Prince, he nodded at her and she copied. Daiyu knew it wasn't time to giggle and joke. Everything Zuko has worked for for the past three years lies within this moment.

The ship finally settled and with the noise of metal on metal, the bowsprit of the ship opened and folded out and down onto the village's floor. The bowsprit had became a huge gangplank, for disembarking the Fire Nation troops.

Zuko and Daiyu, highest in status, step down the gangplank first, followed by the guards. Daiyu looked around the village of snow. Cursing herself for not being a firebender, she sucked it up and took the cold like a big girl. At least her wavy hair was long enough to cover the majority of her arms as she walked.

She heard one of the kids say 'pretty lady' which made her raise a brow. Did they not see her getting ready to fight this village if they didn't receive what they wanted? And yet they called her pretty.

'Far from it.' She thought to herself.

Finally her and Zuko stepped down into the freezing snow. Usually with this outfit she wasn't suppose to wear shoes but she would break tradition just this once.

A boy got up of the ground and charged at Zuko with a war cry. As he ran up the steps towards the Prince, Zuko casually and expertly kicked his weapon out of his hand and then kicked him in the face, sending him sprawling on the ice. His head got stuck in the snow and he struggled, quite comically, to free himself. Daiyu almost giggled, her lips tipping up but quickly falling back down. Zuko walked forward to address the village.

Daiyu waited impatiently as Zuko walked back and forth in front of the people of the Southern Water Tribe. 'I swear he could be so dramatic.' She thought to herself. "Where are you hiding him?" He demanded.

There was silence.

Daiyu frowned and gritted her teeth. These people better got to talking. They didnt want to see her angry.

Suddenly he grabbed an old woman and demanded where was the Avatar. "He'd be about this age? Master of all four elements?"

Again there was no response. Daiyu was getting pissed. Stepping up she began to walk towards Zuko, getting ready to draw her swords. "I know your hiding him!" She yelled.

Behind Daiyu, the boy got up, his face paint almost gone. He retrieved his weapon and charged at the girl with another cry. Daiyu turned to him in annoyance. She dodged the pathetic excuse for a warrior charges, and flipped him over her head. Daiyu kicked at the teen, she heard the girl call 'Sokka', but Sokka rolled out of the way, throwing his boomerang at Daiyu as he did. Caught by surprise, Daiyu barely avoided the boomerang. She turned to look back in anger at Sokka over the near miss.

"Why you little...!" She was seeing red.

A little boy in the crowd threw Sokka a spear.

"Show no fear!" The child cried as Sokka got back up. Sokka catched the spear and charged at Daiyu, who, as Sokka reached her, was protected by Zuko. He broke off pieces of the spear shaft with his wrist guards. After the head of the spear had been shorn off, Zuko grabbed the spear, boinked Sokka on the forehead with it three times, finally broke it in half and dropped the pieces on the ground. Daiyu giggled as Sokka, after getting bonked on the head, had also sunk to the ground, rubbing his head. Zuko was standing sternly over him. The boomerang returned and it slammed Daiyu in the back of her head, knocking her diadem off kilter. Furious at the village's antics, Zuko began to spit fire out of his hands as he hovered menacingly over Sokka.

Suddenly Daiyu looked at her wrists. The air shapes inside the gems moved again. The one on her left wrist moved towards the center and the one on her right wrist moved towards the water symbol. Not even two seconds later did a boy on a penguin..? Come sledding down and knocking Zuko over.

Daiyu's eyes flashed green again and the boy instantly looked over at her. They both pointed at each other in shock.

"You...!"

"Your...!"

Daiyu looked at her wrists once more. All of the symbols on both wrists came together.

This boy was the Avatar. And she knew exactly who this boy was!

"Aang!" The girl called out and the boy named Aang carefully looked away. "Hey Katara! Hey Sokka!"

Zuko looked over at his best friend. She knew who the Avatar was? Why didn't she tell him?! Daiyu avoided eye contact as the young firebender stood back up. What was she doing? She was here to capture the Avatar, not gawk at him! Finally getting to look at Zuko, she nodded her head towards Aang and mouthed "Im always with you."

Aang looked over at the Firebenders and Daiyu. Aang twirled his staff while being surrounded by Zuko, Daiyu and their men. They began to close in, but Aang blew the men on either side of him backward with blasts of air. He blasted Zuko as well, but he held his ground, shielding his face from the wind. Zuko noticed he hesitated his attacks around Daiyu.

He could clearly use that to his advantage.

And Daiyu knew that all to well.