The flash of blue fire lights up the entire cellar and in between the brilliance of the fire strikes, I can see Mai moving along, dodging every attack while trying to pin Azula down with her knives. She is moving so fast, it almost seems impossible to follow her movement or maybe my body is no longer able to cope with this tremendous strain for the room seems to swim around me for a moment. I look up just in time to see one of Mai's shuriken slice through Azula's fire blast, turning bright red in the intense heat, cutting off the flame in two and lodging itself with a resounding thud on the wooden door behind, inches away from Azula's right ear. Azula's usually smirking face registers a look of shock as a strand of her hair falls off her shoulder, being cleanly cut through with the shuriken. A howl of rage like a wounded animal escapes her mouth and she lashes out with a powerful kick, a ball of bright blue fire racing down towards Mai, which she dodges with difficulty by sidestepping to the right at the last second and counter attacks almost immediately by flinging off a couple of knives towards Azula.
"Traitor!" She bellows, punching out flame after flame of fire, easily dodging every single knife that Mai throws at her. I dash over to where Ty Lee lay unconscious, ducking and diving through Azula's fire, rolling off to land right in front of her unconscious form. I scoop her up in my arms and run towards the door though which I just came through, the door that lead to the dungeons. She should be safe from all the fire and knives flying around here, I reason as I lay her down gently behind the door, a particularly ferocious blast of fire rocking the hinges off a wooden trunk to my right. I scramble up to my feet, quickly looking over to see Mai duck behind a pillar as a roaring blue flame shoots out; there is no way she can even make a scratch on Azula's attack, in spite of her battle skills and no matter what she said, I just can't stand back and watch her get killed by my sister. I dash out from behind the door, just as a razor sharp fire blast slashes through Mai's right sleeve, the skin of her bare arm burning off in the intense heat.
"Mai!" I find myself screaming, my feet automatically dashing over to where she is, my heart hammering in my chest.
"Stay back!" she hisses back, painfully clutching her injured arm, a few drops of blood seeping through her fingers and falling over on the wooden floor. I ignore her, scrambling over the fallen desks and age old trunks as she falls to her knees, breathing heavily. "I said stay back!" she screams, her voice echoing over Azula's howls of laughter.
"Ooh! Poor Zuzu is worried!" Azula's taunting voice rings in my head, a searing anger making the blood boil in my veins but before I could even react, a knife slices through the air, passing by my head by milimeters and strikes through the sleeve of Azula's right arm, cutting through the fabric and pinning it to the wall behind her. I turn around to see Mai up on her feet, her injured arm limp on her side while the blades of her knives glints off in her left hand
"You should be the one to worry Azula." She replies listlessly, "Do not let your guard down so easily."
"You have guts, I give you that." Azula sneers. " But just being able to pin my arm doesn't mean you have the upper hand." She pulls the knife off her sleeve and throws it to the side. "Let me see you dodge this!" She reacts so fast, my brain doesn't even register what is happening. A grunt of pain and Mai's anguished cry of "No!" makes me turn back to see Ty Lee, crumbling over the floor, a fire dagger protruding out of her shoulder, burning a hole through the fabric of her cloth.
"Ty Lee!" Mai clutches her tightly, "Are you all right?"
"Yes," Ty Lee grunts, clenching her teeth in pain, "don't worry."
"Hmm. You recovered faster than I expected." Azula drawled, slowly moving her arms in a eerily familiar circle, " Doesn't matter anyway." She continues, a sparkle of electricity cackling through her every move, "I will just finish you both off in a single move."
I get just a second to see Mai's eyes widen in horror before Azula turns around in a flash and shoots out a brilliant bolt of lightning towards her fallen comrades. My body reacts on it's own, my right hand stretching over to capture the tip of the lightning with my index finger, the familiar jolt of terrifying energy and power ripping through my arm, my chi flowing instinctively from the tip of my arm to the bottom of my stomach and out the other arm, creating a path for the energy to follow as the lightning travels through my body in an instant and flashes out with a terrifying roar from the tip of my left index finger, blasting off a hole on top of the ceiling, debris raining down all around.
I fall on my knees, exhausted but without any noticeable damage as dust and smoke bellows up, covering the whole area. I look over to my right to see Mai and Ty lee looking at me wide eyed and I breathe a sigh of relief to see them both unharmed. The redirecting took a bigger toll on me than I had expected, I guess my body is finally reaching it's breaking point, the point where it can take no more.
"Get out of here." I speak out to Mai, my voice coming out as a wheeze, the dust filling up my nostrils, "Go!" Ty Lee nods her head, her eyes clouding over with concern as she grasps Mai's arm and tries to drag her along. Mai does not move, it's as if she is in some kind of stupor. "GO!" I shout out, her head snaps back as if she just realized where she is at and she grimly nods her head, getting up on her feet. And then, without even any warning, through the smoke and dust, about a dozen pair of legs jumps in all around us. My brain doesn't even get to register what is happening before I am being pinned down painfully to the floor, my arms hooked behind my back, my head forced down on the floor.
"Tsk tsk" Azula's voice washes over me and I can see her foot walking over to where I lay pinned on the ground. From the corner of my eye, a flash of green catches my eye and the realization seeps into me: Dai Li. Of course, who else could it be? I guess I was expecting them to show up again ever since I came out from the dungeons; I let my guard down for just a minute when they strike. I grit my teeth in anger; this is getting messier by the minute and I have dragged Mai and Ty Lee down with me too.
"You are pretty stubborn aren't you Zuzu?" Azula sneers, crouching down in front of me and pulling my head up by my hair, forcing me to look up at her smirking face. "And still an emotional fool. I guess it runs among the filth in the family."
"What do you mean?" I spat out, trying to struggle my hands free but they hold on tight.
She smiles venomously before getting up and kicking me hard across the face, making my mind go blank for a second with the force of her kick. I spat out blood from my mouth as she motions for the Dai Li agents pinning me down to pull me up on my feet.
Why does this feel so familiar?
I stagger on the spot, dizziness threatening to overwhelm me, making me wonder how much more my body can handle before giving up. I try to look up at Azula standing in front, her back towards me, her shoulders hunched for a second before she whirls around, her eyes full of hatred. She glares at Mai and Ty Lee, her face taking on a strange expression, an expression full of an emotion unknown, an emotion unreadable.
"Take those two out of my sight and make sure I never see them again!" she hisses furiously, her eyes nearly popping out. The fire nation guards holding Mai and Ty Lee give a quick bow and drag them away, down the staircase, towards the very dungeon that I escaped from just a few minutes ago. Mai turns to look back at me and I could do nothing except look back at her, hoping against hope that she would understand how sorry I am for getting her involved in this mess, how sorry I am for not being able to protect her. And then she does something which I had never expected. She suddenly gives me a small smile before turning back and allowing the guards to take her down the stairs. It was so brief and so sudden that for a moment I find myself wondering whether I had imagined it all in my mind but then the realization sets in and relief such as I have not felt for a very long time crashes down on me, almost making me feel light headed for a moment. She understands after all.
"Pathetic!" Azula's growl brings me back to the present and the gravity of the situation finally sinks in: I managed to break out of prison only to get captured again. And to think I was able to make it only through three flights of stairs.
"You know," she sneers, looking over at me with contempt, "Lu ten did the same thing. No wonder the fool died. He deserved it for being such an emotional fool, the same way that you are."
The very blood seems to freeze in my veins, making me go numb.
"What?" I could only choke out the word.
Azula chuckles softly, "You never knew why he died did you?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" I shout back, anger making the blood pound in my head "he died as a warrior! He died for his country! How dare you mock him!"
"As expected," she sighs, "you do know nothing about anything do you Zuzu?" A sudden fear engulfs me, what is she talking about? "He died because of your dear Uncle Iroh."
It's as if the ground beneath my feet has disappeared, it feels as if I am rapidly falling down a dark well, the wind whistling through my hair so fast, it's making the whole world around me blur. I stumble in shock, my heart wrenching painfully, the very air seeming impossible to breath. Though a daze, I can hear Azula's voice pierce through, cutting through my ears, as if it is some unstoppable force, engulfing my very soul.
" Uncle was cornered by the enemy and would have most certainly been killed but Lu Ten took the blow meant for Uncle. It was a straight shot to the heart, a sharp chunk of rock ripping it apart. If he was smart enough, he should have stood his ground and waited to strike back, instead of jumping in front of his father to take in that lethal blow."
The words are there but somehow I don't understand anything, they don't seem to be words anymore, just some mere random sounds being forced down my being as facts.
"Why do you think Uncle gave up the crown?" Azula's smirking voice seems to cut through the haze, making me blink my eyes in order to make the room stop spinning and to stop this dark heavy liquid from seeping in through my eye brows. Her words make no sense and I find myself wondering what this red liquid is, which is seeping down my face and dropping onto the floor.
"He was guilty. He felt responsible for Lu Ten's death and in his grief, gave up everything."
Why is my head pounding so much?
"Fools! Every single one of you! I told you emotion has no role to play in life!"
And then a sudden blast blows the wooden door off the hinges, dust filling up the room and through the haze I look up to see…
"Toph! You didn't have to blast the door off the hinges!"
"What does it matter twinkle toes? If I had not done it, Sugar Queen here would have done it anyway."
"Katara! Calm down!"
"Let go of me Sokka!!"
And then everything went black.