Azula Forever

Chapter 5

By: RebLaw

Note: This is an AU story. It is in the same time period about as the Avatar TV show (Ep 3 and Ep 13), with the same characters. There is only one minor change. Azula was born unable to firebend.

Thank you to everyone who commented. I'm very glad people read and like this story. Comments mean a lot to me.

-.-.-.-.-

The YuYan archers did the trick. After numerous capture attempts failing, Aang, the Avatar, was captured. The boy struggled against bonds which he couldn't break, as Azula watched from out of sight. It was a boring job, but she was the only one who she trusted to do it right.

Everything was going just as Azula had planned, for once. Zhao had even put the Avatar in the room Azula had specified. The information had been leaked to Iroh's informant. Everything was in its place.

While she waited for her brother she couldn't help but wonder what all the fuss was about—the Avatar appeared to merely be a child. A child who would bring about her true destiny as the future Fire Lady, no – Fire Empress.

-.-.-.-.-

"I'm leaving Uncle," Zuko said as he barged into his uncle's room.

Iroh was just starting to make tea. "Leaving for where?"

"Zhao's captured the Avatar," Zuko explained.

"And you want to steal him back? Why are you telling me this" Iroh asked, thinking his nephew had a finally lost it.

"No," Zuko said. "I'd risk dishonoring myself if I did that. I want to talk to the Avatar."

"Why?" Iroh asked. "He's just a little kid. There aren't any more of his kind or anything. And Zhao dislikes you."

"That's why I want to," Zuko stated. "If Zhao is a valuable as a military asset, I want to be on good terms with him. I will be the next Fire Lord after all."

"Fine," Iroh said, a bit confused. "Have fun."

-.-.-.-.-

If there was one person Zhao was not expecting to show up at the door of his office, on that particular night, it would've been his mother, who was dead, or his father, who he had never known. But that was not the case. It was the third to last person he never expected to see at his door.

"Prince Zuko?!" Zhao said questioningly, before he took hold of the situation. "What are you doing here? You're here to see the Avatar aren't you?"

"Yes Admiral Zhao I am," Zuko said in a quiet voice. He didn't how Zhao was behaving.

"Well, come with me," the admiral said, bearing an incredibly fake grin. "I'd be more than happy to show the prince of the Fire Nation our latest achievement."

Zhao lead Zuko down a labyrinth of hallways to a well guarded door.

"This is where the Avatar is being held PRINCE ZUKO," Zhao announced, saying Zuko's name unusually loudly. "Please go in and inspect him. We captured him alive just as instructed."

Zuko frowned, and went into the room. The bald-headed monk was barely conscious and really in no shape to do anything. His arms and legs were bound. and spread apart so bending would be impossible.

Something caught Zuko's eye, a thin string running across the base of the wall was ignited and a spark was traveling down it.

-.-.-.-.-

A large pile of rubble occupied which the Avatar had been imprisoned and Zuko had been standing. Zhao and the guards present couldn't rescue the Avatar in time; the poor Avatar didn't really even have a chance, chained up, unable to move, barely awake.

Azula walked out of the shadows. She calmly advised Zhao, "You'd better go explain to your men what just happened… Especially the part about how you had nothing to do with it, it was Earth Kingdom rebels."

"The Avatar wasn't supposed to die," Zhao growled.

"Sorry, it couldn't be help," Azula said shrugging. "Zuko had to die. Just think of it as the price you pay to become Fire Lord."

Zhao sighed, Azula was always right. He went to deal with the men who would have a lot of questions.

"Farewell dearest older brother," Azula said in a mockingly sweet voice to the pile of rocks where her brother had been. "It really is a pity that you had to get in the way of my destiny. You would've looked lovely in the portrait of my royal family after I ascended to the throne."

-.-.-.-.-

But, sadly for Azula, Zuko was not quite dead yet. And Zhao, who was demoted over the Avatar's death (and left the military to open a tea shop with Iroh), never bothered to write her to let her know that Zuko's body had never been found. So there was no way she could see it coming when her "dearest older brother" paid her a visit, to "discuss" what had happened that day.

FINIS