Aang knew his ploy had partly failed as only one lizard rode past the setting sun. He would have preferred if all three had come to him, so Katara and Sokka could escape to safety. Katara especially feared the chi-blocker.

She would have to face that fear. Aang would have to face his. He found solace that the most dangerous of the three girls had tracked him down.

He could have run. He almost had. His glider had been in hand, ready to take him wherever he wanted. Leading the girls to an abandoned town would have been a good practical joke.

Aang would have found it funny if he'd been in a joking mood. Instead he felt tired. Not just physically, but emotionally. He'd yelled at his earthbending teacher, accused her of weighing them down. And she'd left.

He might never get to learn from Toph, might never get to meet her again. But her attitude left its impression on the airbender. Standing and fighting. Facing down the enemy.

Avoiding and evading was more than what he'd been taught. It was Aang's nature. Fleeing conflict. Sokka was right; it was his specialty. It's what brought him to this time, away from the murder of his people, to meet new friends.

Today the tactic failed them. Repeatedly. His group was scattered and exhausted. Aang realized they should have stayed to fight them off the first time. They hadn't been as tired. They'd been together.

Instead of running, he collapsed his glider and sat. He didn't use the negative jing of retreating that came to him as easily as airbending. Aang used the third jing. Neutral jing.

She dismounted, trampling over the dead fur. Her steps shrank the distance. For a few seconds the only thing Aang could hear was his own heartbeat.

She stopped to regard him with one hand on her hip. It reminded him of a word Katara used to describe some of the richer girls in the Northern Water Tribe. Haughty.

Aang waited and listened.

"Nothing to say?" she asked with that smirk.

It was confident and maybe a little hungry, like a wolf-bat. Some might call it arrogant. But she had the skill of a master. That danger made Aang face her on his own, so his friends wouldn't get hurt. And she would hurt them.

"I'm Aang."

She raised an eyebrow. "What delightful manners." She tilted her head, never taking her gaze from him, but emphasizing her hairpiece. "Azula, Crown Princess to the throne." She spread her hands grandly as she said this, as if basking in her own presence.

"Is there any way to resolve this without fighting?" he asked.

Azula laughed, but it didn't sound like any laughter he'd ever heard. It carried its own chill in the humid air. "I suppose you could just sit there. Though I prefer moving targets." She held her arms loosely at her sides. It might have looked relaxed to the untrained eye.

"You can run now, if you like. You seem good at that."

Aang stood and planted his staff, his free hand in a fist. "I'm not running."

It must have been the sun that made her golden eyes glow in their sockets. "Do you really want to fight me?" she challenged.

"I don't want to fight anyone," Aang said.

"Is that the cowardice that made airbenders so easy to do away with?" she asked dismissively.

Aang's hand tightened around his staff. Maybe his sleep deprivation made him want to fight her... a little.

His anger widened her smirk. "Oh, before I forget, Bumi says hello."

Aang reeled back. "What?"

"You don't remember Bumi?" she asked with dramatic shock. "I'm sure he'd be crushed. He had lots of things to say about his old friend Aang."

Aang's grip tightened around his staff. "What did you do to Bumi?"

"Oh my, but you have a history of leaving people behind, don't you?" Her painted lips widened further. "I'm sure Mai and Ty Lee are finishing off those water tribe peasants as we speak."

Worry for his friends narrowed his focus. He wasn't going to lose anyone else. Aang leveled his staff at the princess.

"Then I don't have time to waste on you."

Azula read people and played their emotions, pushing them to her advantage. She was naturally gifted, and she'd been encouraged to take command of everything in her presence. To use her total knowledge of a person, their history, their aspirations, their mood. Use everything to transform a person into a tool for furthering her goals.

Rarely, however, her machinations had unintended results.

Everything she had said served to unbalance the Avatar's susceptible, prepubescent mind. The loss he must feel as the last relic of his dead, weak people; desperate attachment to the earthbending king as a result of this.

A stab at his habitual fleeing to make him unsure of fighting, tear his focus between combat as the option of running lingered. A casual mention of his friends at the mercy of her team to make him sloppy.

It worked so easily on Zuzu, already a man, yet so easily distracted by the right words that tore at his heart, his identity. Mention Father's disgust for him and he lashes out.

A weak, merciful boy would be just as mentally feeble if not more so. Azula meant to topple a tired, angry, afraid and confused Avatar.

She'd miscalculated.

The steel in his tightened eyes had amused her.

Then he moved. Barreling at her faster than an arrow. The Avatar sidestepped her stream of fire. He circled around her as if it were a game. Azula swept the ground with her leg. He hopped over the blue fire. She punched toward his chest, he ducked under it without slowing. His speed seemed to grow as he left ghosts of himself trailing in his wake.

Azula felt disruption in her careful breathing. Her vision blurred. The air became thin as the Avatar created a vortex around her. It sucked in debris from the decrepit buildings and the dried up mine.

Objects flying at that speed formed a daunting barrier. She had to chance it. Azula jumped to get out of his deathtrap but the wind lifted her like a leaf. The vortex caused a tightness in her lungs she'd never been anticipated.

She gasped and flailed, trying to set fire to anything she could. The wisps of smoke she conjured would have shamed even Zuko in childhood. The less she could breath, the less focus she exerted on firebending.

She would die.

Father's face wrinkled with disgust as he turned away.

Azula calmed her heart and mind to find the cold place within herself. The place without feeling. No fear or rage. She filled her lungs as much as she could with one long breath. Centered, she exhaled everything, throwing down a heavy blast that spiraled against the base of the funnel.

An new explosion seemed to occur every second as it rang in her ears.

Gravity reasserted itself. She landed in a crouch, her sharp nails dug into the dirt to counter unprecedented shaking in her legs. Black hair a mess around her face and neck, obscuring her vision.

She clutched her throat and drank in air greedily to alleviate the burning in her chest. It was nothing like the breath of fire. It was foreign and unwelcome and she wanted it gone from her body.

She'd never been so disoriented in her life. Never without control.

Growing shadows dotted the ground. She looked up. A rain of rocks and fragments of support beams fell upon the town like comets. Azula shot to her feet. She dodged and blasted debris from the sky with precise gouts of sapphire flame.

Regaining her calm, Azula scanned the area with narrowed eyes, searching for the Avatar.

She found him and blinked in disbelief as he rode away on the back of her mongoose-dragon!

Azula glared at his back. She would never catch up on foot.

The Avatar had bested her.

Then an ostrich-horse barreled into the lizard. The impact threw the riders off as the two mounts scratched, pecked and bite at one another. The Avatar spun his staff overhead, slowing his descent as the other rider tumbled in somersaults before landing on his feet.

The Avatar gasped. "Zuko!"

Her mongoose-dragon gave chase as the bipedal bird ran from the town, leaving just the three of them. No way out. Good.

Seizing opportunities is the basic rule of warfare. Azula circled her arms overhead, throwing them down at her sides. The blast shot her into the air. She curled into a ball, spinning to build momentum. Azula kicked fire that slowed herself while attacking the Avatar and her brother.

He spun his staff to cool and disperse the flame while Zuko built a wall of fire. It pushed him back. That made her feel a bit better.

Another set of twin blasts softened her landing. She glowered at them.

Her brother looked… oh, how he had fallen. He didn't resemble royalty at all. More gaunt in the face. It stretched his scar. And dressed in rags fit for the poorest Earth Kingdom peasants. Such a pitiful sight.

Then again, she might not look her best either, given Zuzu's double-take at her appearance. She would thank the Avatar for that. With lightning. Generous helpings of lightning. And this time she wouldn't miss.

At least she'd like to, but wouldn't have the time necessary, not with two opponents to crush.

Zuko held his hands out at the both of them, his form somewhat improved. "I never thought I'd see you so disheveled, Azula."

The princess bared her teeth in a smile. "You're hardly one to talk, Zuzu," she infused the name with all the venom in her being.

Despite exhaustion, fear, and anger, the Avatar snickered. Oh she would give him plenty to laugh about. She'd underestimated what he was capable of and willing to do. That wouldn't happen again.

"Back off, Azula! The Avatar is mine!" So cute when he tried to intimidate.

"You had your chance, Brother. But thanks for saving me the trouble of tracking you down. Where's Uncle?"

From his petulant silence and jaw clamping shut, Azula surmised the old team had split up. Oh well. He wouldn't be difficult to track with no resources.

A three-way standoff, each tracking every shift of body weight and attention. Their gazes fidgeted but Azula kept hers steady.

She knew the best way to strike. Eliminate the weaker of the two, then focus her undivided wrath upon one target.

Azula sharply inhaled to unleash a sudden, decisive strike at her brother.

Until the Avatar spoke.