Genre: Time Travel

Rating: K

Summary: The Gaang gets transported to a very different Fire Nation and run into someone they didn't expect to. (Implied Zhaozai)

The wooden deck is hard beneath Sokka's feet, Zuko crouching just beside him. Part of him wishes he'd felt more wood beneath his feet before the Incident that had brought them here. Katara and Aang were off trying to find or buy food, while Suki and Toph were each on their own surveillance missions. They didn't know why they were here, in a Fire Nation that Zuko said was just a little off, where people laughed off the idea of an Avatar as easily as the bedtime stories they told their children. That's what they were here to find out.

There's someone in their view, someone with very familiar sideburns, though he looks twenty to their mutual enemy's forty. In front of him there's a hooded figure, just a little bit taller, but the angle is wrong to make out any details about them. Their cloak is a dark red and Zuko has told him the fabric looks high-quality. It's suspicious and familiar enough to warrant further investigation. Sokka has his space sword and boomerang and Zuko has his dao and firebending, so that should be enough to fight off anyone who gets in their way. Still, though, he doesn't want it to come to that.

He can hear what the pair they're tailing is saying, if he concentrates. The hooded one is talking. "First mission as a Captain, and one of the youngest ever. Lucky you."

"I'm sure it was due somehow to you," maybe-Zhao says.

"Oh no," Hood denies. "I don't know what you're talking about." But then their - his, maybe, that voice sounds definitely male - tone gets more serious. "Come back soon. I don't know what I'm going to do without you."

"It's just a short mission. You'll survive without me. You've been doing it for years." A pause. "You will keep living, right?"

Hood huffs. "Of course. You're coming back, right?"

"Right."

Another voice, from on the ship, interrupts them. "Come on, Zhao! We need you on deck!" So that's his identity confirmed.

"Coming!" he yells back. "Make sure you get out of the palace every once in a while, mirror boy," he says to Hood, and then leaves for the ship.

Hood stays for a while, but eventually turns back to the winding alleys leading to the docks. Sokka signals to Zuko follow and wordlessly they tail Hood until they're in a place where Sokka is pretty sure no one will see them. Then, moving perfectly in sync, like they'd been raised together, like they had the same blood, they drew their swords and laid them to Hood's throat, shoving him back onto his butt and keeping him there. And that's when everything goes wrong.

Because staring at them from behind that hood is a face that looks horribly, terrifyingly like Zuko's.

I know, I know, I'm late again. And I was hoping to be better about writing since I'm currently not taking classes...