"Well done, you're improving."

Suki stood before a group of villagers armed with wooden staffs, and demonstrated the correct way to hold them. The group was predominantly female, but there were a few young boys in there too.

In the two days since the ultimatum made by the bandits, Suki and Mai had busied themselves teaching the people of the village to fight. Suki had dealt with the hand-to-hand combat, and Mai was teaching the villagers she trusted not to cut their own hands off some basic knife throwing skills. Meanwhile, Aang had been doing bending training with Katara, Toph and Zuko while Sokka familiarised himself with the approaches to the village so he could think of a good plan to defend it.

Suki did not know why the Bandit leader, Fan, had seemed so confident in the face of the Avatar, though she suspected it was for the same reasons that average Firebender soldiers seemed to underestimate him so much.

"Remember, the ultimatum expires today, and they are coming back. They want to burn down your houses. With any luck we'll do all the fighting for you, but it's best that you can defend yourselves adequately too. And you know what?" She smiled. "I think you can. I'll make Kyoshi Warriors of you yet."

She saw Mai making her way towards her, looking despite everything incredibly bored. "How are your lot coming on?"

"I don't think they are capable of pinning someone's sleeve to a tree at fifty paces yet, but we don't need them to be. They are coming along nicely."

"Excellent!" Suki responded enthusiastically.

"Yes," Mai replied, rather limply Suki thought.

"Will you walk with me for a bit?" She asked. She wanted to ask her something, but was conscious enough that the answer might be something embarrassing not to do it in front of her students.

Mai nodded her consent. Suki waited until they were out of earshot, and then began her questioning.

"I can't help but notice that you seem rather sad most of the time. Is there anything you need help with?"

Mai shook her head. "It's just the way I am. And I'm not always sad, for your information. I'm just reserved."

"Right."

"Also, I want to ask you about that other girl who was with Azula."

"Ty Lee? What about her?"

"Why did she let us- you- go?"

"Is this the part where you accuse me of being a spy?" Mai sounded indignant.

"No, it isn't, I was merely wondering if there is anything you can tell me about her that might be useful."

"I don't know why she let us go. We are- were- friends before we defected, so I suspect that had something to do with it."

"That would explain it."

Just then, a loud crash came from around the corner, and Sokka burst into view. He bounced off the opposite wall, steadied himself, and brushed himself off. "The bandits are back!"

"Looks like it's showtime then." The three of them ran for their positions.

Zuko stood next to the Avatar and Katara as they waited. The tension was palpable in the air. Zuko knew that he was standing next to the Avatar, and so they would probably win one way or the other, but he was nervous about the potential for collateral damage. They were joined by Mai, Sokka and Suki.

Eventually, Fan the bandit leader walked into the square. He was flanked by more of his lackeys, three on each side of him, and each was armed with a frankly obscenely sized sword. To Zuko, who had trained with a professional swordsman, those things did not look practical at all, but he had to assume they knew what they were doing.

"Avatar," Fan nodded to them. He then addressed the village as a whole. "Citizens of Itsuki village! Your time is up! Will you pay what you owe?"

"This village owes you nothing." Zuko shouted.

Fan grimaced. "I was afraid you would say that. You are aware, I hope, of what I have to do now?"

As he said this, he drew his sword, the wide blade glinting in the sunlight.

"Do you really think you can stand up to the Avatar? If you only brought them, irrespective of whether you're an Earthbender or not, then you're an idiot."

Fan lowered his sword. "Right, there's a lot to unpack there. Every word you just said is wrong. I'm not an Earthbender, I didn't bring just these men, and I don't think I can stand up to the Avatar. That's why I joined forces with her."

"Hello Zuzu."

And Azula entered the square.

"Of course Azula's here. I don't know why I'm even surprised." Sokka grumbled.

"What did you expect, peasant boy?" Azula asked. "You stayed in one place for days on end while openly flaunting your identities. What did you think was going to happen, morons?"

"She makes a good point." Mai said.

"Don't encourage her."

"Why are you siding with bandits anyway?" Zuko demanded of his sister. "I thought you hated bandits."

"As it turns out, we have a common enemy- you. Deals were made, and here I am. Besides, didn't you once ally with a bunch of Pirates to try to capture him?"

She gestured at the Avatar as she said this.

"One time." Zuko didn't like thinking about it, not least because those blasted pirates had stolen his ship.

"Where is Ty Lee?" Mai demanded angrily. She was worried about what might have happened to her if Azula knew she had let them go, which was a possibility.

"Ty Lee? She's fine, don't worry about her."

Fan interrupted their conversation. "I'm sorry to interrupt this argument, but haven't we got a job to do here?"

"Oh, right," said Azula, sinking into a fighting stance. "Where were we? Oh, that's right. I was about to end this war!"

She launched three blasts of fire, in quick succession, towards the Avatar, Katara and Zuko.

Katara managed to duck, and responded by sending a jet of water from her pouch towards the water Princess. However, it suddenly stopped in mid-air halfway there. Katara looked confused for a second, until they saw Fan with his sword arm outstretched and a look of concentration on his face.

"You're a waterbender," Katara stated in shock.

Meanwhile, the Avatar dodged out of the way of his fireball and Zuko countered it with his own. Sokka threw his boomerang, but it was immediately blasted out of the air by Azula.

"You're not getting me like that again, peasant." She sneered.

Fan's lackeys charged, and Mai threw her knives. One of the guards was pinned to a wall, trying vainly to get free, while the others kept coming. Zuko blasted a fireball at them, setting two of them on fire. Zuko watched with satisfaction as they immediately turned around and made a run for the lake.

Katara had recovered from her shock and pulled her water back towards her, before looping it around, forming it into a massive icicle and sending it towards Fan. With a motion of the bandit's sword, the icicle turned back to water and changed direction, speeding back towards Katara. Katara moved her arms apart, causing the water to burst into several little streams that all converged back together as they changed direction again.

Meanwhile, the Avatar had engaged Azula, and Zuko ran to join him. Azula was fast, but so was the Avatar and so neither seemed able to land a hit on the other. Zuko watched a fireball narrowly miss the Avatar before Azula rolled under a boulder sent at her in response. He attacked his sister from behind with a fireball, but she sensed his attack and countered it with a wall of her blue fire. "well look who it is. The banished prince. Only this time he's banished himself."

Zuko attacked, hoping to keep Azula's attention on himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Aang begin to spin his arms, and felt the wind pick up. Azula knocked away his fire, and felt it too. She turned around just in time for Aang to release his miniature whirlwind at her. Zuko managed to dodge out of the way in time, but Azula was picked up and carried some distance; however, by blasting the base of the wind with flame, she was able to disrupt the flow of air and get it to drop her. She dropped to the floor, landing on her feet, and ran towards them.

The bandits, meanwhile, were being taken care of by Mai, Suki and Sokka. There were now three of them left, and Sokka clubbed one of them over the head, before throwing his boomerang seemingly at nothing. Suki dispatched the next one, and the last man realized that he had run out of friends. Turning, he began to run away, and Mai stepped forward, aimed, and threw a knife at the back of his head. Before the knife could arrive though, the boomerang got there first. The man crumpled to the ground, unconscious, and the knife embedded itself harmlessly in a tree.

Fan saw that all his underlings had been incapacitated, and so halted Katara's latest attack in its tracks. However, he did not return it immediately to sender, as was the practice with waterbender combat, instead keeping it frozen in place.

"Great, so you took out six men. How impressive. But like I said, I didn't bring just them." And he launched the water straight into the sky.

A great shout came from somewhere off in the distance, and Zuko knew that the bandit leader had just summoned the rest of his men. Still, Sokka had accounted for this, he knew as he prepared to engage Azula once again.

Toph hid inside the main entrance to the village and waited. Sokka had realized that it was likely that Fan would bring a sizeable force, and so had asked her here to give them the welcome they deserved.

She used her seismic sense to keep an eye on the battle going on in the main square, noting from his movements that Fan appeared to be a waterbender.

Eventually, only two people were left standing. Fan, and Azula. The fight stopped at this point, and for a few seconds nothing seemed to happen.

Then, a loud shout came from nearby, and the ground began to shake. Toph picked up a large body of armed men approaching the village. Fan must be calling for backup.

This was just the sort of thing she had been tasked with dealing with. Toph waited until they had got close enough, and then stamped the ground. A shockwave rippled out towards them, knocking many of the bandits over. A few of them managed to remain on their feet, and so, with a motion of her arms, Toph split the ground beneath them apart. Cracks and fissures appeared in the ground as men fell in. As they did so, Toph closed the ground around them, making sure not to crush their legs but trapping them to put them out of the fight.

Eventually, the approach to the village was a mess of unconscious or trapped bodies.

Well, that was easy, she thought. Now I should help the others. She ran for the square.

Mai listened to the sound of the charging men suddenly turn into screams, along with the crunching and grinding of large chunks of earth being bent, and she knew that Sokka's plan was succeeding, and Toph was causing the devastation they all knew she was capable of.

Fan was not so amused.

"What did you do?" He demanded. Only then did he seem to realize that there were only six defenders when before there had been seven.

"It's that Earthbender!" Azula spat.

"Your friends are not coming," Sokka said. "I would advise you to leave."

"Rubbish. I will stop you, no matter what it takes," Azula shouted.

Fan suddenly didn't look so enthusiastic any more, but he still took a fighting stance alongside Azula.

The Princess sent a wave of flame towards them, and with that the fight was on. Copious amounts of all four elements were flung around the square. Mai threw her knives at Azula, who ducked and took aim at her only for her hand to be struck by a water whip from Katara, causing her fireball to miss. Soon it was impossible to keep track of the fight, there was so much happening at once. Mai saw Fan embed an icicle in Suki's shield, Azula knock Sokka's boomerang out of the air again, Katara create enormous water arms that Azula severed with a water blast.

Katara and Aang worked together to raise another enormous ball of water from the lake, and attempted to bring it down on Azula's head. While Fan could not compete with their power enough to stop it entirely, he could slow it down and so it soaked them but didn't do much else.

And then an enormous Boulder came sailing through the air, smashed into Fan's chest, and knocked him over.

Mai turned around, expecting to see Toph having joined the battle, but the figure who emerged was not Toph. Instead, a large, heavily built man with a wide brimmed hat and the green uniform Mai recognised as a soldier of the Earth Kingdom stood there, and soon he had been joined by many others, about twenty by her estimation.

Seeing that reinforcements had arrived, Fan immediately decided that this was not a fight he stood any chance of winning and ran for it. Mai took aim with a knife, but Aang shook his head at her. They were letting him go.

This left Azula, who stood there in a fighting stance. In the end, though, she decided that she wasn't desperate enough to take on Team Avatar and an entire Platoon of Earth Kingdom infantry. She too beat a hasty retreat.

Toph burst around the corner, ready to throw some rocks, then sighed disappointedly at the realisation that there was now no-one left to throw them at.

Aang turned to face the new arrivals. "Thanks for the assistance, but who are you?"

Their leader, stepped forward and removed his hat, revealing a crop of short black hair and bright green eyes.

"My name is Wang Lei, and I am a Captain in the Earth Kingdom army. I was sent by His Majesty the Earth King."

Fan stopped outside the village to survey the scene of devastation that had befallen his gang.

"You did this!" An angry shout came from behind him. The Princess Azula stormed towards him.

"How did I do this?"

"You and your bandits just lost to seven children, and denied me of my chance to capture the Avatar!"

"You just lost to them too," Fan pointed out, but this only enraged her further.

"I knew siding with Bandits was a bad idea."

"We made a deal."

"That deal was dependent on getting the Avatar, and I do not have him. That makes you just another bandit, and the Fire Nation has undertaken to restore law and order in these lands."

Azula began moving her arms in a circular pattern.

Fan did not realize what she was doing until he saw the first blue sparks light up between her fingers.

"No!" He shouted, thrusting his arm towards the lake, the nearest source of water that he could use to defend himself. It was too late. Azula pointed at him, and the last things Fan knew were a flash of blue and a loud thunderclap.