Children Of Agni
Chapter 3 the Chase
Love and hate clashed in Azula's mind as she stepped out from the shadows, revealing herself to her brother. She watched his stoic features change to anger when she called him Zuzu. It pleased her to see him angry, to cause him pain. She took her leave, and went back to her ship. Soon she would have what she wanted.
She personally executed the captain for his little slip of the tongue. Her brother and uncle's escape was most displeasing. After a discussion with her mentors, Azula decided she needed a small fast elite team to capture the Dragon of the West. She went to the city of Omashu to recruit a few of her friends. Tylee was far too bubbly for Azula's taste in friends, but her skills as a martial artist were invaluable. Mai was a good friend to Azula, her sense of dry humor made Azula laugh, but her crush on Zuko annoyed Azula, Zuko was Azula's prize. So her team set she started tracking and hampering the avatar.
Much to her surprise Azula did not have to track down Zuko, Zuko tracked her down, and challenged her for claim over the avatar. His power could not match Her own, but he did serve as a valiant annoyance as she attempted to capture the avatar; his intervention was enough to prevent the capture. That was the final straw; her brother had to either be captured or destroyed, or better yet captured and then slowly destroyed mentally, physically, and emotionally. Azula felt a swell of emotion and quickly burned it, making her fire hotter. She would no longer care, she would take him if she could, but would kill him with no regrets.
Zuko started his firebending training again with Iroh, progress was slow Zuko could not master his inner turmoil, and therefore he could not master lightning. Zuko did however manage to learn how to redirect lightning, and some of the universal wisdom of the world. He learned the wisdom of the four elements: Air is free, water is change, earth is strong, fire is power. Zuko failed to master lightning, and his uncle thought that he would not master anything, without mastering his emotions first. But uncle was wrong, Zuko failure had awoken the fire within him, if his uncle could create new techniques then so could he.
One night around the fire Zuko was meditating, earth is strong he mused strong steady and stable, Zuko let his chi expand outwards from his body, he maintained his solid mentality pushing his chi out even further. It formed a solid shell around him, strong and protecting, an impenetrable barrier. Zuko pushed it out farther and gasped as the fire was extinguished, or rather part of the fire was extinguished. The flames lapped the outside of the barrier but could not penetrate it. Zuko exhaled and let the barrier fall away.
"I deal with this in the morning" he whispered weakly as he lay down to go to sleep.