Author's Note: A big thank you to EVERYONE who reviewed last chapter. You guys are great, I really do love you. Go and get yourselves a virtual cookie, but don't take too long, because here's the next chapter...

Previously, on Avatar…

"Dad and I want your help. We need to find as much information about King Kuei as we can and relay it to him. I've already made a start, but there are some files up in the palace that I want to get my hands on and I can't do it on my own."

"Where is she, Azula? What have you done to her?"

She faced him again. "That's for me to know, Brother. All you need to know is this: Tonight, midnight, I will be waiting in the abandoned underground market, at the entrance near the public section of the royal gardens. If you meet me there and agree to help me, I will let Jin go, unharmed."

Zuko said nothing for a moment. "And if I don't?"

She took one step back towards him. "You said it yourself. You know what I'm capable of. So, will I be seeing you there, or not?"

Katara looked at him thoughtfully. "What if one of the teachers is on her side?"

"You mean a member of the Red Army in disguise?"

"Yeah."

He scanned the room for her sketchbooks, on the desk and on her shelves. He picked one at random and scanned its pages quickly before he tucked it underneath his arm and climbed back out the window.

Chapter 16

He'd lost all sense of time when Azula came into view. The ancient underground market was nothing but an endless abyss of twisting shadows in the darkness of the early hours of the morning. Stale air overwhelmed him, but his mind was set: nothing would deter him from the mission ahead, as much as he wanted to walk away. Lives were at stake; the lives of innocent people. Maybe it's selfish, Zuko thought as he faced his sister like an old friend. More people could be hurt if this goes right on Azula's terms than the amount of people I'd save by complying. Her smirk sickened him to the core. But she has Jin, and she will get Katara next if I don't play this game with her.

"You're late," she commented, nonchalantly.

"I came," he said stubbornly. "I almost didn't, but I'm here."

Her eyes glistened. "I see. Shall we, then?"

"Not yet," he said. "We had a deal."

A cold laugh chimed from her mouth. "You want me to release Jin." Zuko didn't answer. He stared unblinking at her, waiting. "Very well." She turned to call over her shoulder. "Mr Long Feng, will you please bring the prisoner forward?"

Zuko felt the pit of his stomach bubble as the very teacher he and Katara had suspected a traitor stepped forward, a smirking face similar to his sister's, dragging a constrained figure with him. There was a muffled whimper from the prisoner as Mr Long Feng thrust her forward. Her hands were bound too tight and even in the darkness, he could see where her skin had rubbed raw against the ropes. There was a thick bag over her head, tied shut around her neck.

"Let her go," Zuko said through gritted teeth, resisting the urge to yell. Mr Long Feng looked to Azula for confirmation and the young woman nodded. He pulled a knife from his pocket and cut the rope around the prisoner's wrists and the tie around her neck. She pulled the bag off her head by herself and looked around in fear and confusion, as if she hadn't expected it to be just as dark outside of the bag as it was inside. Zuko relaxed as he recognized the mousy face and dark hair. He'd half expected Azula to have fooled him and discover that Jin had not been in any danger at all.

But Jin stood in front of him, adjusting her vision to the new darkness that surrounded her. Fear contorted her face as she looked at Mr Long Feng and at Azula, but when her eyes rested on him, her expression turned to rage. "You!"

Zuko couldn't bring himself to look her square in the eyes, or reply to her outburst. He turned his face to one side, exposing the scarred flesh.

"You're free to go, Jin," Azula sighed. It seemed to take a moment for the girl to comprehend this and she stared dumbly at her captor, gracefully intimidating in her Red Army uniform. But Azula's patience was short. "Out of my sight already!" Jin flinched and took a step towards the outside world, passing Zuko as she went. He felt her eyes on his face and the look of horror she gave him as she realized – or perhaps thought would be more appropriate – that he was one of them.

It wasn't until Jin was gone that Zuko realized the other two pairs of eyes resting intently on him. He turned back to Azula and Mr Long Feng. "Alright," he said, as if to reassure them that he was in; as if to reassure himself that this was the best he could do. "Alright."

Azula turned on her heels and gestured for them to follow her. Mr Long Feng didn't budge until Zuko was in front of him. He kept his eyes on the floor beneath his feet as his sister led them deeper into the darkness of the underground. Mr Long Feng's eyes burned at the back of his head. Inside his jacket, Zuko could feel the sketchbook he'd taken from Katara's room, and hoped the bin-liner he'd wrapped it in wouldn't draw too much attention as they walked. He'd taken a detour home after leaving Katara's house to fix some last-minute details before taking the plunge. There was nothing promising him that he'd guessed right and that his own plans were going to work out. There was no guarantee that everything wasn't going to go exactly the way Azula intended, and that in the end, saving Jin and Katara had been in vain. I'm too far in, he told himself. There's no turning back now.

The tunnel seemed to go on for hours, burrowing deeper and deeper into the earth, but he knew better than to trust his judgement of time when he was so wound up. At one point or another, Zuko noticed their path sloping upward and the thick stale air beginning to thin as they came towards the end of the line. Azula stopped. It took him a moment to realize they had just stepped out of the tunnel and were no longer in the public section of the royal gardens.

"This is a blind spot in the guard patrol," she said without turning around. "Listen closely, because I will not tolerate any mistakes." It was at that point, as Mr Long Feng stepped up next to him, trembling, that Zuko realized Azula was telling both of them. "We breach the fence here and make a beeline for the palace. Once we start, nobody speaks, understood?" Zuko and Mr Long Feng both nodded, and although she didn't turn around, Azula seemed to sense their understanding. "We enter the palace via a trapdoor that leads to the basement, and then we leave the basement directly into a corridor in the wing closest to us. We remain on the ground level until we're close to the throne room, where the confidential files are kept. Another trap door will take us underneath the throne room and from there, it's straight forward. Grab what we came for, bag it, and leave the same way we came."

Bag it, Zuko repeated inwardly. Good. Mr Long Feng extracted a pair of wire cutters and made a hole in the fence, which Azula led the way through. The distance between the fence and the basement entrance was longer than Zuko had judged, and Azula set a violent pace. Zuko had to clutch the sketchbook to his chest underneath his jacket to stop it from slipping out. When they reached the trapdoor, it was locked and a look of panic overcame Mr Long Feng's face. Azula turned on him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know, I thought –"

"Silence!" she commanded, and he shut his mouth abruptly. For a moment, Zuko thought their plan was a failure and they would leave. But he should have known better than to assume that Azula would be unprepared, or willing to cut her losses if she wasn't. From her own pocket, she produced a small bag filled with powder. Zuko stared in confusion for a moment as she opened the bag and began to pour the powder onto the trapdoor. Then, she tossed Mr Long Feng a lighter and stepped back. "You can light it, Mr Long Feng." He stared at her, open mouthed. "Well? We're waiting. Your stupidity has already delayed us enough. Hurry up!" Mr Long Feng nodded and knelt down next to the trapdoor with the lighter. Azula made a gesture to Zuko to make him stand back and he positioned himself as she did; several meters away from Mr Long Feng and the trapdoor, couching behind a giant pot plant for safety.

It wasn't until Mr Long Feng turned his face away from the trapdoor, closed his eyes and held the lighter to the powder that Zuko realized what it was. The lighter clicked and the flame caught. The explosion was not to the magnitude of a bomb, but it was violent and instantaneous, and it did what Azula had intended it to do. Somebody must have heard that... The trapdoor was blown to smithereens… and Mr Long Feng writhed on the ground, holding his flesh in the places he'd been burned and the places where shrapnel had struck him. His mouth was open in a silent scream and it wasn't until Azula moved and Zuko followed her towards him that the sound of whimpering came to his ears. Azula didn't give Mr Long Feng a second glance as she stepped over his body and descended into the basement. Zuko lingered for a moment longer, staring over his shoulder. Turning his face away from the blast hadn't spared him and his features were burnt, melted and distorted. Gunpowder – or perhaps something stronger – was a dangerous material.

Azula hissed at him impatiently to follow her and she led them through another door at the other end of the basement. Inside the palace, the walls were decorated green and golden. In the dark, the gold seemed luminous against the night. But there wasn't time to admire the subtle beauty of the palace in the dark. Azula led him swiftly down the corridors and around corners. They caught nothing more than glimpses of guards on patrol and no sight whatsoever of the palace's residents. Zuko realized soon that they were skirting around what must have been the center of the palace; the throne room. He followed silently, glancing around while his sister looked for the next trapdoor. He half hoped a patrol would suddenly appear and capture them. This was the part he didn't want to go through with. He'd seen enough already. Jin was safe and he could protect Katara himself if need be. But it was too late to back out now. All that was left to do was hope that he'd be able to twist Azula's plan back on her without her noticing until too late.

She grabbed him suddenly by the forearm and dragged him through a trapdoor. It was suddenly darker without the sky pouring through windows, but the room lit up again as Azula twisted a torch into life. She gave him a warning glance, which he interpreted as This is it, don't mess it up, and nodded once to her. Azula let the light of the torch wander around the room, resting on the filing cabinets and drawers. A desk was backed up in the corner of the room, overflowing with papers. Azula led him there first but didn't look at anything on the desk; she went straight for the drawers underneath it. But they were locked. She sighed in exasperation and pulled the packet of powder out of her pocket again. She stared between the packet and the lock, contemplating. Anybody else would have worn a fearful expression as they considered blowing up the cupboard containing the goods, but Azula's face was cold and calculating. Eventually she put the bag of powder back in her pocket, deeming it too risky. She turned her hard eyes on him and he felt his skin crawl. The thought of Mr Long Feng's melted face clung to his mind and he shook his brains for a solution, before she could find a more gruesome way.

"You got a bobby-pin?" he asked quickly. She raised an eyebrow and stared silently at him. Then, eyes unmoving, she reached up to her neatly pulled-back hair and slid out one bobby-pin. He took it and started bending it before he shoved it into the keyhole. After several sharp movements and some more delicate, coaxing twists of the small hairpiece, there was a soft click and Zuko smirked at his own work. Azula pulled him back and tugged the drawer open. Part of him wished he hadn't helped. It made him feel sick to know that he might have brought Ba Sing Se one step closer to its demise.

The way she sifted through the drawer's contents reminded Zuko of a greedy animal, finding a jackpot of food. But she extracted only one thing; an A3 folder with a black, spiral-bound cover. He had to stop himself from smiling as she flicked through the pages and stuffed it into a bin-liner for safekeeping; it looked exactly like the sketchbook in the bin-liner clutched to his chest inside his jacket.

Azula stood up and Zuko knew that she had what she wanted. They made their way back towards the trapdoor that would lead them back into the heart of the palace. But not sooner had Azula pulled the door shut behind her, a gruff voice yelled out, "Who goes there?!" They swerved to see two patrol men standing in the corridor, in the same direction they needed to go to retrace their steps to the market. Each of the men had large rifles slung over their shoulders, but on seeing the two intruders, they were both reaching around to grab their weapons. Azula was faster though. She threw the package of files into Zuko's arms and he fumbled to catch them. By the time he'd steadied his grip, Azula had pulled out a gun and had already shot one of the guards. The second guard was in the process of aiming his own rifle at her when she shot him. They fell to the ground with a sickening thump, and Zuko felt Azula grab his wrist as they ran.

Behind them, footsteps pursued, and Azula was forced to take a different path as more guards cut them off. There wasn't time to stop and enter the basement that would lead them to the outside. Ahead of them, a decorative window of colourful glass created the image of King Kuei with citizens of Ba Sing Se bowing at his feet. Azula aimed her gun and shot the glass until it all shattered to the floor.

"Zuko, give me the files!" she ordered. His eyes widened in realization; her plan was to abandon him. Gritting his teeth, he slipped the files underneath his jacket. She turned to face him. "Give them to me now!"

Zuko pulled a package wrapped in a bin-liner out from underneath his jacket and thrust it into her grasp, hoping that it was the decoy. Her smirk confirmed what he suspected would happen next. Azula spun around as she ran and raised the gun towards him. He stopped, knowing he'd never get out of the way in time. She pulled the trigger. The bang ripped through him and resounded down the corridor. The guards kept coming and Azula disappeared out of the shattered window, before he'd even hit the ground.

Author's Note: OMG, ZUKO! NO! Tell me what you think in a review! Four reviews or not update! Four reviews, or you'll never find out what happens next!