2
Prince Zuko was cheesed off. Nobody in this town had seen the avatar for weeks, but a few crazy old guys had said that the kid might be hiding in the mountains. Then just as he was about to tell his men that they should leave, he saw a girl stare at them, then run up towards the woods.
'She's warning the avatar!' he thought and yelled, "Lieutenant Ji, come with me, the rest of you try to find my uncle, check the market, and tell him where I am!"
As he and Ji ran through the trees, after the girl, Zuko was sure that they must be close to catching the avatar. Suddenly, the girl vanished. He held up his hand, and Ji stopped.
"Check around," he muttered, "She's here somewhere, and can most likely tell us where the avatar is." Ji nodded and walked through some bushes. Zuko went the other way, and then heard a muffled yelp. He went the way Ji had come, and found something very interesting.
The Shadow, a thief, was holding a knife to Ji's throat. Zuko took a step forward, and she snapped, "Don't even try it Fire Nation boy! Or this guy's going to get it!"
Zuko couldn't move, he hated unnecessary killing, so said slowly and calmly, well calmly for him, "Alright Shadow, you've had you fun, now let him go. We don't have any money right now." This wasn't a lie; the money was on the ship.
She growled and said, "I don't want money, besides, as soon as I let him go, you'll try to capture me! You can't trust Fire Nation!"
"We won't try to catch you," Zuko lied. The Shadow laughed, "Right, next you're going to tell me that my best friend wasn't destroyed by the Fire Lord!"
"Who was your friend?" Zuko asked, inching forward, The Shadow didn't notice. She spat, "No one you'd know. He's been gone two years."
"Really?" Zuko tried to sound interested, just a few more feet to go; "What did he do?"
She shrugged, "I wasn't there, but everyone here heard about it! Some Fire Nation official was bragging about it."
"How interesting," Zuko said, and then he hit her. She staggered back, and glared at him, and he said to Ji, "I'm going to finish this, go back to the ships, that's an order!"
Ji did as he was told, and Zuko turned to face the thief, "Now, who was your friend again?"
"No one you would know, he's gone!" she snapped in a blind fury, and shot a rock at him.
'Earthbender,' he thought as he blasted it with fire, 'but her style is strange. It's closer to firebending!'
He swung a blast at her feet, to catch her off balance, but she was faster and jumped it. She sent another rock at him, but the attack was weak and he incinerated the rock. The Shadow backed up against a cliff; then Zuko realized that this was what she had been planning all along. She stuck the wall, and rocks tumbled down upon then.