A/N: I know, I know, this took FOREVER to put up. I haven't had any time whatsoever to write lately. But I'm not just being lazy, I swear! I'm furiously hacking out the next chapter as we speak.

Sorry about the lack of…shipping?...in this chapter. It's a little more action-centric, introducing my fabricated villain and hinting the conflict to come.

The party stared at their new threat with mixed feelings, mostly that of confusion. Not so confused that they weren't ready to attack, but lacking certain details, yes. "You're a waterbender!" Katara pointed out accusatorily.

Toph made a frustrated snort. "So that's why I couldn't find you. You were hiding in the water."

"Very smart, little earthbender." The woman nodded. "Unfortunately for you, I'm smarter." She folded her hands into the sleeves of her crimson robes and tilted her head to the side as she sized them up. "Nice job dispatching that decoy rank. It gave us ample time for the rest of our troops to get into place. I wouldn't try to run if I were you."

"Why are you doing this?" Katara demanded heatedly. "How could you help the Fire Nation? You're a traitor!"

"That's what makes me so valuable. You, on the other hand, are worthless to us, so I'd keep my mouth shut if I were you." Her eyes narrowed. "Now if we could just get to the point already."

"I'll go with you. I won't put up a fight." Aang held up his hands uneasily. "Just leave them alone."

"That's a temptingly noble offer, Avatar, but you miss the mark. Princess Azula has specific orders that she will be the one to find and capture the Avatar herself. I would hate to disappoint her."

The group looked between one another before Iroh spoke up. "Then what is it you want with us, Miss?"

"I've been instructed by her highness to procure her brother's head." Her cruel eyes snapped to Zuko, burning into his face.

Zuko felt rage swirl up in his chest, fist curling on the hilt of his sword until his fingers turned red. He could sense Iroh tense behind him.

"Well, my prince? Care to make an offer as generous as your companion?" the woman encouraged.

Zuko's brow furrowed, biting his inner cheek as he tried to come up with a response. He couldn't allow the others to be put in danger for his sake. He certainly could not allow them to kill his uncle, which was of course his greatest concern. But he couldn't sacrifice himself either. He was the future Lord of the Fire Nation—this attempted assassination was treason. Surely if his father knew, he would punish Azula for this. But in the end he knew he was obligated to match the Avatar's offer. At least they would never be able to accuse him of being useless now. As he opened his mouth, however, he was cut off.

"He doesn't have to." Aang said severely. "You're not taking anyone."

"Aang!" Sokka whispered harshly. "What part of being surrounded don't you get?"

"There's nothing we can do, Sokka. We have to make a stand." Aang explained as he stared the woman down.

"We can make a run for it back to Appa." Katara suggested.

"You could try and get away on foot if you'd like, but that pretty pet is ours if you do. Unless of course you leave the boy with us."

Aang's serious expression didn't falter as he slid into a battle stance.

The older waterbender was clearly not pleased by this opposition. "Just as impetuous as I would expect a twelve-year-old to be. If that's what you want, that's what you'll get. Order Peng to kill the animal—subdue the others." She ordered to her miniature army. And with that, the soldiers advanced upon Aang and his friends, the woman parting from them to go straight for Zuko.

This time the gang was expecting the attack, however these fighters were more skilled than the last batch. After witnessing her last display of skill two soldiers immediately went after Toph, and three mobbed Iroh purely because of his reputation. While they were busy, Aang, Katara, and Sokka were faced with a good handful more.

"Fall back, we have to make our way back to the bison!" Iroh hissed towards Aang and the others, facing forward just in time to block a flaming kick. His three opponents began a relentless assault.

Toph was struggling with her soldiers as well, as they continuously leapt away from her bending. They seemed to her to be able to dodge every rock and predict every earthquake, and she was hardly able to land a hit. All she succeeded in doing was evading their attacks in return, but even so that put them at a quickly tiresome stalemate. Aang was furiously trying to fan away the flames flying in his direction while Katara continued to douse the attacks falling on her, both trying their best to help Sokka, who was unfortunately not as skilled a warrior as the Fire Nation elite. " 'We don't have a choice, Sokka!' " Sokka snapped at Aang as he dodged a waft of flames licking at his head. " 'We have to stand our ground!' Great plan! Did any of that involve surviving, by chance?"

"Don't let them single us out!" Iroh barked. One of his attackers lay unconscious on the ground before him. "Band together so we may fight them as a unit!"

Seeing no better option, they obeyed, slowly backing down towards one another. The soldiers regrouped as well to compensate their reunification. They were still outnumbered and things were beginning to look grim. Iroh spared a worried look in his nephew's direction.

Zuko had reclaimed his second sword and was circling off with the female waterbender, eyes focused on hers in anticipation of her first attack. Even if he would have relented himself to the Fire Nation in order to spare his uncle, he never intended to go down without a fight. A stream of water aimed to wrap around his ankle, but he sidestepped just in time to avoid it. "You're going to have to do better than that." He said as he glowered at her.

The waterbender smirked and Zuko suddenly felt a bone-shaking clout to the back of his head before registering that his shoulders were now soaked. He stumbled forward, snarling at her as his hands began to grow flames.

"You were saying, your highness?" she taunted.

Zuko lunged, bringing down both swords and severing her next wave of water just inches from her finger tips. She caught him with her other hand in the center of his chest and vaulted him clear over her head into the brush behind her. Zuko collided with the earth hard, but was instantly on his feet again with his swords crossed in front of him. So she had been battle-trained. Judging by what he guessed was roughly a ten year age difference, that did not bode well for him. In a bizarre ounce of what could be considered luck, however, Katara had helped him gain experience when going up against a waterbender. She still stood smirking at him. He scowled and threw his weapons down, preparing to fight her element to element.

The woman threw a blast of water at him without hesitation, which he barely diverted with an upward flame that instantly shielded him with a small barrier of evaporation. With that came a barrage of water whips against a torrent of fire that Zuko held onto firmly to protect himself. He moved from side to side, ducking and dodging his way around every attack, firing what seemed like futile bursts of flame into his enemy's serpent-like water streams. Every attempt to wound her was snapped up by an arm of water, another sprouting in its place to seek revenge. What seemed to be eons passed in their battle and she didn't even look like she'd broken a sweat. In the meantime, Zuko was panting heavily. "Give up, prince?" the woman crooned with aggravating composure. Zuko looked up with narrowed eyes and lunged.

"Ahhh!" Iroh cried as he hurled his fists to the side into an attacking soldier's stomach, bringing him to the ground in a coughing fit. The old man turned swiftly back to the group to see the other Fire Nation fighters being pushed back inch by inch under Aang and Toph's apocalyptic array of flying earth and ice. He quickly stepped in to add his own fire into the mix and at last, with two soldiers successfully crippled, they seemed to be gaining an upper hand. But that was a matter of how long they could last. Aang was obviously exhausted, throwing blast after blast of all manner of worldly weaponry in his enemies' direction. Streams of bullet-like rocks, waves of thick, blinding mud, razor sharp whips of water, and powerful bursts of air that could easily throw a man twenty feet away broke free from every movement he made. It was beginning to take a rapidly weakening toll on his body. A twelve-year-old had no opportunity to learn endurance, especially when considering that he had yet to master the patience and stamina that came from learning to firebend.

"I don't know how much longer I can do this." Aang voice the obvious aloud as he pushed himself harder. Katara was in agreement, as she had very little water left to work with. If they could somehow move then back towards the river she could gain an advantage, but at this distance and with as little left as they had in them, that was a clear impossibility. Luckily, Iroh still had quite a bit of fire in him. He had been distracted the soldiers with flame after flame to allow the others to hit them, but now he saw that he had to take matters further. Gathering up all of his remaining energy, Iroh concentrated in preparation for a devastating blow.

Near them, Zuko was again finding himself buried in the dust, cradling his ribs as he rose to his knees to face his opponent. There were so few waterbending masters these days. He didn't know how she could possibly be as good as she was. Nevertheless, he continued to stare her down. Daggers of flames extended from his hands as she advanced a step towards him. Suddenly, an explosion and a flash of light blinded him, and several soldiers began to yell. When his sight returned, small tendrils of electricity were receding from Iroh's fingertips and the entirety of the Fire Nation soldiers were dazed and smoldering as they lay near the tree line. Only the waterbender was left standing, staring it what appeared to be shock as she absorbed Iroh's ability to bend lightening. Her expression quickly hardened however, and she turned back to Zuko with a snarl. The rest of the group looked on, unsure if they should intervene when the soldiers began to get up again.

"Nice try." She said as her frigid eyes bore into Zuko's. "But you aren't going anywhere until we get what we came here for."

Zuko tensed in anticipation for another attack, but just as she raised her arm, a sudden flash of white leapt in her path. She nearly lost her balance as what was now identified as Momo latched onto her face, screeching in a mixture of terror and confusion as he held on for dear life. With a muffled, irate cry, the woman snatched the lemur by the tail and proceeded to try and tear him away.

"Now's our chance! Go!" Aang cried out as he waved his arm frantically back towards the woods. Iroh stayed by Aang while Toph, Sokka, and Katara obeyed, Zuko remaining in hesitation as well.

The waterbender finally detatched the animal from her by encasing him in a sphere of water, hovering it above her hand as she scowled at the animal in revulsion. "You're going to regret that you flea-bitten mongrel!" She threatened. A fast gust of air broke the surface of the sphere and freed the soaked lemur before she could make good on that.

"Zuko, run!" Aang reminded as he caught a frazzled Momo in his arms and followed his own advice.

"Zuko!" Iroh chided.

With one last death glare in his would-be assassin's direction, Zuko scrambled up and bolted after his party.

They rushed through the dense forest, unaware if may soldiers may emerge from the shadows and storm them. All that mattered was getting to Appa—or, perhaps, getting to the place where Appa had once been. When they arrived at the scene, none of them were sure where their luck lay. Appa was still there, but, as had been previously suggested, he was subdued by ropes and a smattering of more soldiers. Patches of his fur were singed or torn away, but at least he had managed to avoid serious injury by throwing the enormous fit he was. He threw is head in rebellion, lashing his tail and stomping all six of his legs to protest his capture. His movements could almost be described as panic as this occurrence was all too reminiscent of the first time he had been kidnapped. Aang rushed in and instantly took out a soldier holding a rope on his neck. With that single link broken, Appa tossed the man away on the other side with a harsh bob of his head and pulled away another at his foreleg with his teeth.

Mounting their ride was extremely difficult. He was far from free yet and flying while virtually nailed to the ground was out of the question. Toph sought to remedy this nuisance immediately. Sectioning out the ground around Appa's feet, she pushed him up into the air on a pillar of earth. The ropes snapped and the soldiers fell a dizzying feat to the ground below. Aang hurtled himself into the air with Katara and Sokka's shoulders in his grip to land on Appa's back while Toph broken another rising pillar under herself, Iroh, and Zuko. Being back in Appa's saddle felt like waltzing back into paradise, even if they were still dodging flames. "Let's get out of here! Yip yip!" Aang panted as he tightened the reins. Appa gladly complied, darting off into the sky.

Down below the Fire Nation soldiers gave up their assault, seeing that their target had escaped to where they had no way of following. They slowly receded back to their leader, who was staring after the bison with contempt.

"What shall we do, Commander Bataka?" one asked.

The woman sneered slightly before her expression fell back into cool composure. "They'll have to land eventually…Zuko's quite attached to those little urchins, isn't he? I wonder just how far he would go for them."

"What do you mean?"

"Zuko himself is too clever a fighter to be separated from the group. When they land next, we're going to find ourselves a hostage to persuade him."

"But who?"

Bataka smirked as an image of one of the children sat in her mind. "Oh you just leave that to me…"