Chapter 11: Trouble in the forest: part 1

*********** Fire Nation Royal Palace ************

It was another tiring day today. In the morning I received yet more reports from the generals in the colonies about Azula's campaign in the northern areas (mainly looting and abducting children to fight as soldiers in her armies). This new wave of terror worried the generals, so they were requesting access to additional soldiers to stop Azula. I then spent the rest of the day in meetings with my advisors and hearing their suggestions on which soldiers would be most effective. After a long day I decided to granted them an additional four more divisions to be used to defend the villages in the north and two mounted divisions to search for Azula's soldiers. Now I just wanted to sleep.

However when I entered my room I knew I wouldn't be sleeping just yet; Mai was waiting for me in my room, holding another letter from Sokka.

"Can it wait unit morning? I asked.

"No, you need to read this," Mai replied.

Mai then wrapped the letter around the rod and handed it to me. Written on the top part was 'Azula is'. I grabbed the rod from Mai and then turned it to read the next line 'a puppet'. This confused me, if Azula was a puppet who was leading the rebellion? The next two lines answer this question 'The generals are the masterminds'. I turned the rod again but there was no more information (this method didn't allow much information to be sent). I stared at the rod for a few minutes trying to take in what I'd just read.

To prevent the generals in the colonies being swayed by Azula's propaganda I'd offered them incentive to remain loyal to me and ignored their minor transgressions. But if they were leading the rebellion against me I shouldn't be trying to bribe them, I should be punishing them for their disobedience. However now was not the time to act; I and most of my advisors were too tired from today's activities to determine which generals were acting against me and what their punishments should be. I would do this tomorrow.

*********** Earth Kingdom Forest ************

On the day we escaped from Nanjing we were able to travel towards Hangzhou without any problems. Our journey was fairly slow because Azula had very little stamina and tired quickly, so we need to frequently stop so that she could rest (though not as frequently as when we were travelling from the Fort to Dairen). Even though Azula was only carrying the blanket she stole from the Nayami and not any of the camping equipment or food she always tired before the rest of us.

Though I don't know how Azula acted when we were walking (I was leading, so I was at the front, while Ty Lee and Azula were at the back) when we stopped I noticed her acting oddly. Firstly Azula never sat close to us, she sat a short distance away from us but close enough to hear what we were saying. Secondly whenever we tried to talk to her she tried to end the conversation. Thirdly she took an intense interest in everything we did and spent most of her time carefully watching us, especially when we prepared food or got water. Fourthly she became very suspicious when we split up (such as when we gathered firewood) or if one of us moved somewhere where she couldn't see them (such as behind a tree). Even though her Firebending hadn't gotten any stronger, if anything it seemed to be weaker, we all felt uneasy around her.

The next day we had a new problem, a large number of Fire Nation soldiers on Komodo Rhinos descended on this area. I had Toph use her Earthbending to determine where they were heading. Toph monitored them and told me that they were moving slowly through the forest in a straight-line formation. Since they seemed to be combing the forest it was likely that they didn't know exactly where we were but had a general idea. As long as they couldn't find us they'd remain spread out in the forest, making it easier to avoid them. Fighting them would be unwise because they had greatly outnumbered us and it would reveal exactly where we were (even if we managed to win today they could call in a larger number of reinforcements tomorrow). For the rest of the day we either took long detours around them or had Toph use her Earthbending to make a hole that we could hide in until they'd passed. Azula's weak stamina made avoiding them exceptionally difficult because when she became tired we were unable to manoeuvre around the Fire Nation soldiers, so we either had to carry her or hide underground. We couldn't move freely until the evening, when the soldiers started to move away from us (most likely they were returning to their camp). Once they were a safe distance away from us we tried to get as far away from them as possible.

When we finally stopped to set up our camp for the evening we were all tired and hungry. After we ate dinner I checked our progress and realised that we had only covered a quarter of the distance we'd planned to. If this continued we'd run out of food before we reached Hangzhou. If we can't lose the Fire Nation soldiers we may need to sleep during the day and travel at night so we can avoid them.

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My situation keeps getting worse. Firstly this blanket barely keeps me warm during the day. Secondly I still don't know how they're poisoning me (I checked everything they did and I didn't see them add anything suspicious to my food or see them take an antidote). Thirdly the Fire Nation soldiers are making me look like major hindrance. If this continues this group will kill me just so they can travel quicker (Zuko's got to be behind this, he's trying to make them do his dirty work for him). I need to modify my plan.

In my original plan I'd pretend my Fire Bending was weak, so they wouldn't consider me a danger, and take regular breaks when walking so that I wouldn't become too tired (I needed to be ready when my chance came). How I would kill them would depend upon the terrain but ideally it would be at night when they were sleeping, since they would be more vulnerable (the poison they used to prevent me sleeping would work against them). I'd steal their money and food, walk a short distance from them, then set the forest on fire. Even if the fire didn't kill them it would prevent them from following me. However I couldn't do this anywhere. Since I can only walk short distances I could get caught in the fire as well. To prevent this I needed escape to somewhere to that wouldn't burn (a mountain, a cave, a coast, even a grass field would do). Since the trip was meant to take a week I thought that sooner or later I'd find what I needed.

However the arrival of Zuko's soldiers has ruined everything (Zuko will pay dearly for this). Since I'm the slowest and I don't carry anything this group won't lose anything by killing me. Killing me would benefit them since they'll have less people to feed. They'd just need my severed head to prove that I'm dead. NO, I need to stop thinking like this, I need to concentrate on escaping. They probably won't kill me unless they have another day of trying to avoid Zuko's soldiers and they believe that they'll also be running from these soldiers the next day as well. So I'll need to escape before then, convince them that the soldiers won't continue to follow them, or come up with a plan to escape the soldiers. Wait, I already have an escape plan. If I can convince them that setting the forest on fire is the best way to escape the soldiers they'll help me with it, then I can betray them and burn them along with the soldiers. Another day of harassment by Zuko's soldiers and I can remove all my enemies in one go.

***********************

Though we set out early the Fire Nation soldiers soon caught up to us and we spent most of the morning trying to avoid them (I don't know how they keep finding us). This not only annoyed me but also Suki, Toph, and even Ty Lee. However Azula seemed very happy about this and was grinning like an imp (I hope she's not having a mental break down, we can't handle that as well).

As we travelled through the forest we passed by a village. I didn't want to get too close to it in case they got attacked by the Fire Nation soldiers or betrayed us to them, so we skirted around the village. While we stopped so that Azula could rest Toph detected someone coming towards us. I looked over the bush we were hiding behind to see who was apporaching us and saw it was just a Fire Nation girl (most likely from the nearby village). Judging by the way she was looking at the nearby plants she was probably gathering herbs. Since she wasn't a threat to us we decided to stay hidden, rather then try to move. We continued resting for a few minutes, then Toph sensed some Komodo Rhinos and a cart heading towards us very quickly. I had Toph create a hole and we all hid in it. The Komodo Rhinos came closer to where were, then we heard a male voice shout.

"Surrender Azula, we've got you surrounded."

This was what I'd been dreading every since I saw them in Nanjing, having to face the Fire Nation army. We'd all need to work together if we were to have any chance of winning.

"I'm not Azula, my name's Ruikei, I live in Kusa village," a girl (Ruikei?) said, she sounded frightened.

"You can't lie your way out of this, you're coming with us," another male voice said.

"No, let me go. I'm not Azula, ask anyone in Kusa village, they'll tell you I'm Ruikei," screamed Ruikei, she sounded like she was crying.

"Take her to the carriage," the first male voice said.

As we listed to the girl cry and struggle as she was dragged away I realised what had happened. The girl we saw picking herbs had been mistake for Azula. We had to save her but attacking an unknown number of Fire Nation soldiers would be dangerous and would reveal our location to them. We'd have to handle this very carefully.

"I have a plan," Azula suddenly whispered.

"What?" what was Azula planning?

"I can rescue that girl. Send me up to the surface and I'll trick the guards. When I want you to attack I'll shoot a fireball straight up into the air. Until then stay here."

"Azula what are you …"

"There's no time for this, hurry up and send me up there."

"Alright, Toph create a path up."

Notes:

When I finished writing this chapter it was so long that I decided to cut it in half and release it as two chapters (parts 1 and 2).

1) I've modified the **** line to show where the speaker is. If the line doesn't state a location they're in a similar location as the previous speaker.

2) Most of the Fire Nation soldiers are on standby in the colonies (either guarding major cities, forts, or in army barracks), with a small number allotted to the various general. If a general need additional soldiers they need to request them from Zuko (Zuko can approve or reject these requests).

3) The code that Zuko uses works as follows:

A) The person wraps a long, thin piece of paper at an angle around a rod and writes their message on it (usually multiple lines).

B) They unwrap the paper, leaving a long piece of paper with seemingly random letters on it.

C) The message can only be read by someone with a similar shaped rod to wrap it around (Zuko had two rods of the same size made so that Sokka could use this code).

4) Ruikei is Japanese for 'similar shape' and Kusa is Japanese for grass.