A/N: Happy 2012, everybody! Enjoy the chapter :D

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender or Legend of Korra.

Chapter Sixteen: Fire Lord Zuko

When Iriah reached the top of the wall, she was so desperate to find Mako that she misjudged the thickness of the wall, lost her balance and went toppling over the side, both arms flailing wildly. In the few seconds that it took for her to reach the ground, Iriah fully expected to hit solid ground and have all the wind knocked out of her. As it turned out, her knee collided with something hard on the way down, and she rolled sideways, landed on her back and clutched her knee, howling silently with excruciating pain.

It was only after a full-minute of trying to catch her breath that Iriah realized what her knee had hit. Lighting her immediate area with small flame in the palm of her right hand, she saw two men lying side by side barely a foot away from her. One was Mako, the other was the man with the mullet she had witnessed in the noodle shop. The blow from her knee directly to his head had rendered the man completely unconscious, something that filled Iriah with immense relief, despite the agony her knee was causing.

Gingerly testing her leg, Iriah quickly slipped over to Mako's side. She was shocked to find that his neck was pockmarked with what looked like circular cigarette burns and severe bruising. Iriah quickly tilted Mako's head back to free his airway and bent her head close to his, trying to listen for signs of life. Thankfully, the sounds of shallow breathing reached her ears.

"Y-you…"

With a sinking heart, Iriah turned to see that the man was no longer unconscious. She hadn't knocked him out completely though he looked a bit dizzy, certainly angry with murder burning his eyes. Desperate as she was to get Mako to safety, Iriah couldn't think how to avoid the fight she was about to get into.

"You're from that circus, aren't you?" growled the man, propping himself up onto one knee, never breaking eye contact with Iriah who was mentally assessing her new opponent. The man cracked his knuckles threateningly before standing up completely, his face a death threat on its own. "You can't save the boy now. But I'll finish you off so you can join him."

Yongzheng was brutal, savage, and deadly. His firebending was powerful, if a bit unstable. The only reason Iriah was still alive with just a few singes was mostly due to the fact that her opponent's aim was not as precise as it could've been, allowing the much more nimble female firebender to dodge his relentless attacks.

The man halted after sending another round of fireballs in her direction, all of them barely missing his target by a hair's width. He panted heavily, more out of frustration than exhaustion. Iriah, on the other hand, could already feel the fatigue set in, her mind scrambling to figure a way out of this mess. She could make out the outline of his hulking figure in gloom but the flashes of fire kept effectively blinding her. Iriah blinked rapidly, trying to erase the flashes of flames that were seemingly seared into the back of her eyes.

They were fighting just feet away from where Mako lay; dead or alive, Iriah had no way of knowing. Although the few moments she had used to check on him had confirmed that he was breathing, the tables could turn at any minute if his air passage was damaged and was left untreated for too long. However, the prospect of fleeing from the fight, either alone or somehow dragging the immobile Mako with her, was inconceivable. The minute the madman saw her back turned, he would roast her alive.

"You little runt!" snarled Yongzheng, wiping spittle on his arm as he glared at her. "What's worse than a descendant of that cowardly scum Zuko is a foolish supporter!"

"Let him go," said Iriah in a surprisingly calm tone she did not feel. She realized she was using her slightly masculine stage voice she adopted during her magic acts, the voice Bing Su referred to as her "gay tone" because it sounded like a slightly high-pitched, effeminate man's voice. Swallowing slightly she continued, "He's done nothing to hurt you."

At her words, Yongzheng laughed harshly, the sound of a beast roaring before tearing its prey limb from limb. He was clearly enjoying the process of intimidating his prey, and Iriah would've been lying through her teeth if she had said she wasn't scared. She was petrified about what the man was capable of doing to her, to Mako. The ironic thing was that a more innocent, less-worldly girl in her shoes might've mustered more courage than she was feeling. But Iriah wasn't innocent. She had learned the hard way what happened when a murderer cornered you in a dark alley and decided to end your life. She couldn't back down but, at the same time, couldn't reassure herself that she would escape alive, unscathed.

"Innocent, is he then?" asked the man, his lips curling into a cold, cruel smile. Iriah was instantly reminded of the night her father died and how her captive had taunted her.

You are an innocent girl, aren't you, sweetheart?

"No descendant of Fire Lord Zuko is innocent, you mark my words," growled Yongzheng, pulling Iriah out of her reverie. He flexed his fingers and Iriah stiffened slightly, afraid he might suddenly attack again. It was all she could do to keep up, either evading or blocking the fire he ruthlessly threw at her. To her relief, he kept talking. "That innocent boy over there has the bloody fiend's eyes. He's descended from royalty, whatever hovel he might dwell in now." He spat suddenly on the ground between them. It took all of Iriah's nerve not to jump back. "So I'll finish him, right after I kill you."

The United Republic had always been hailed as the symbol of unity among the four nations. Even in its early years when the citizens of Fire Nation colonies and immigrants from other nations were still trying to get used to one another, people always spoke of the peaceful times to come in the city which was created by the great peacekeepers of the age, Avatar Aang and the much celebrated Fire Lord Zuko.

Growing up in the heart of Republic City, Iriah knew what it meant to live in a melting pot of different cultures. Although her family never traveled extensively, Iriah loved learning about the various cultures. She especially loved to compare life in the city to that of the four nations. After years of living together, the cultures of Republic City had evolved beyond the traditions of their original homelands. For instance, a family of waterbenders in the city was quite different from their counterparts living in the water tribes. Many took pride in this difference, saying that in this way, they upheld the traditions passed down by their ancestors and yet were unique in their own way. Iriah felt the same way about her cultural heritage and her family traditions and yet sometimes wished the city weren't such a diverse mix of cultures.

One of the disadvantages of a melting pot society was something referred to as "ancestral pride". A common example of this was seen in any given public school spread out across the United Republic. For years, educational administrators struggled to put together a suitable history textbook for students. The main problem was that the original history books had been written by Earth Kingdom scholars, some of whom were incredibly biased, unabashedly praising the wisdom and majesty of the Earth Kingdoms while degrading the other three nations. In response, some schools started using textbooks similar to those used in Fire Nation schools. Even though Avatar Aang had seen to it himself that all the Fire Nation history books be rewritten because of the historical inaccuracies depicting the Air Nomad genocides as something patriotic and heroic, there was still an underlying tone of great favoritism toward the Fire Nation in the revised textbooks. All at once, parents, students, and teachers started fighting over what was to be viewed historically accurate, unbiased, and objective.

This fight was still going on when Iriah went to school. Over the period of her high school years, Iriah and her fellow classmates were forced to memorize three different versions of the pre-Hundred Year War era which varied depending on which teacher you learned from, textbook you used, or in some cases, which school you attended. In all the academic mayhem that ensued, Iriah found it a sheer miracle that she managed to graduate at all.

Unfortunately, squabbles over history textbooks were the least of the problems. Some people took ancestral pride to new extremes. During a year in middle school, there was a bully in Iriah's year that she would never forget. The huge boy named Bom Seok came from a family of proud earthbenders who were well known among the political crowd. He frequently spent his time either flaunting around his money or picking on kids who were descendants of earthbenders from the original Fire Nation colonies. Whenever a teacher pulled him aside to lecture him on his bullying behavior, Bom Soek explained in his patronizing tone that the kids he was bullying were from families of traitors who had sold out their own country to fraternize with the enemy. He also made it a point of speaking up in history class whenever the Hundred Year War was mentioned, careful to emphasize how the earthbenders who eventually married the firebenders in the colonies were even worse than the political spies who sold information directly to the Fire Nation.

Even to this day, the thought of the self-righteous boy who justified tormenting his classmates by using his warped understanding of history still left a sour taste in the back of Iriah's mouth. She tasted it right then as she listened to the ego-maniac standing before her, proudly proclaiming that murdering someone was okay because his understanding of history dictated that the creation of the United Republic of Nations was messed up, and so were the founders.

"DDIIIEEEE!" Yongzheng screamed, slashing the air with a swift kick. A stream of white-hot fire went whipping at Iriah who was almost knocked off her feet. She slashed the air with both hands, cutting off the attack before it reached her or Mako who was still lying some feet behind her.

Soon the air around Iriah smelled of acrid smoke. It was nearly impossible to counterattack at any point because Yongzheng appeared to have no limit. He barely charged his attacks before throwing them. Despite the fact that his aim was always a little off, it gave little advantage to Iriah who could not move away from her side of the alley for fear of endangering Mako. She was cornered and had nowhere to go.

When the smell of something burning close by reached her nose, Iriah chanced half a glance down while Yongzheng was switching stances; she realized the edge of her black cape had caught fire. Then it hit her; there was a way to get out of this. Unscathed was no longer an option at this point in the game, however. Her opponent had already proved his mastery of firebending to be far beyond anything Iriah was capable of. While blocking the next wave of burning spears Yongzheng threw at her, Iriah hesitated for the slightest of moments. She could see no way out of the situation; drag on the fight any longer and Mako would be dead before sunrise. She had to try and hope for the best.

It was her father she thought of during the next few minutes, his winning smile; his slightly crooked nose from all the pro bending injuries; his surprisingly gentle laughter. Yongzheng couldn't have guessed in the time it took to complete one Avatar cycle what was going through Iriah's head as she carried out her plan.

The small flame that was flickering on the end of her cape grew so rapidly, he was momentarily stunned. Then Iriah whirled around, wrapping the flaming cloak around her as she did. There she stood, a burning pillar, sending sparks and plumes of black smoke into the sky. Yongzheng's brain was struggling to comprehend this spontaneous act of self-immolation when her rough screams ripped the air; the screams of someone being cooked alive, it seemed. The flames seemed to climb higher and higher, eating up the air above like serpents, twisting and writhing its way upward coupled with terrifying shrieks.

All of a sudden, it ended. The human bonfire, the smoke, the screams; it all stopped. The tattered remains of the cape and a slowly flickering ember drifted down to the ground while Yongzheng stared in amazement. His awe lasted only a few seconds before it was replaced by heart-stopping terror.

Out of the flames grew a figure constructed entirely of embers. The figure's handsome beard, royal robes, his very skin was flickering flames but every single feature was realistic and visible. It took Yongzheng barely half a second to recognize the face of the figure. Fire Lord Zuko.

"No…" gasped Yongzheng, taking a step back. His eyes raked the alley, saw the boy lying motionless as ever but there was no sign of the other one anywhere. "This is a trick! Come out here you coward!"

But even as he shouted into empty air, the burning figure of Fire Lord Zuko seemed to walk like a real human being towards him, his robes flickering in orange flames, the famous scar adorning the right side of his face in slightly deeper shades of fire.

"Stay away!" roared Yongzheng, and he punched out, sending a fireball straight at Zuko's face. Incredibly, the attack sailed right through the face, distorting the image for a while but then the flames seemed to leap back to reconstruct the features of a very angry Fire Lord.

"P-please…" whispered Yongzheng when the figure was a few steps away. "H-h-have mercy."

Fire Lord Zuko's fiery incarnation did not speak. He was so close now that Yongzheng could see every detail, right down to the ornate headdress worn only by the royal ruler of the Fire Nation. As a young boy, Yongzheng had seen the design many times in his textbooks and was scared witless to see it tonight.

Without warning, a hand shot out and grasped Yongzheng's neck. The man was utterly terrified. He couldn't even yell out when he felt the heat burning his skin but was silenced by sheer horror when he felt the pressure of the fingers. How was this possible?

"Leave…" whispered Fire Lord Zuko hoarsely, the yellow-orange embers constructing his face flickering as his lips parted to speak. "Leave…"

Fire Lord Zuko released his grip on the man who staggered backward, making a noise between a whimper and a cry of pain. Fear striking every tendon his body held, Yongzheng began to run in the opposite direction but Fire Lord Zuko had a last parting gift. Screams of terror were heard as dawn approached. In later years, some people heard the babbling stories of the deranged man, positively quaking with fear as he recounted the day when the flickering image of Fire Lord Zuko mutated into a huge dragon in a burst of flames, chasing him down the length of the alley before shattering in a shower of gold sparks.

A/N: Thanks for reading! ^^