Firestorm
"I'm not a thug."
It bothered Zuko how little truth there was in that statement, how much he had to assert that. He had robbed people in this insane, wrong world when he needed to, and he needed to more and more. But what choice had there been? It was either that, or begging on the streets.
"Of course not," said the tattooed man behind his steel mask. "I let my thugs recruit thugs. They're simple animals, content with drugs and money and whores."
At the mention of whores, Zuko glanced at the two women sitting on the couch. They were young with long dark hair and wore more tattoos than clothes. They flinched when he looked their way, as though expecting him to hurt them. He clenched his fists, but said nothing.
"But you would not be content with such base trifles, would you?"
Zuko turned back to Lung and held his gaze. He hadn't expected to meet another firebender so far from home, but even at a distance he could feel the heat coming off of the man. "No."
Lung sat down between the two women, putting his arms around them. They grew stiff and pale, but they didn't move, not even to breathe. "No," he agreed. "You have vision, Firebrand. Ambition. You want dominion. Power. And fear."
That was ... partially correct. Almost right, but so wrong. "Is that what you're offering?"
"A place in my organization. You have potential as a fighter. Prove yourself as a leader, and you could serve as my lieutenant. My right hand, even. You've met Oni Lee. He's useful, but he lacks initiative. Bakuda lacks restraint. You could surpass both of them in time.
Zuko considered that for a moment, considered this man who could bend fire and held a pair of half-dressed girls as trophies as he tried to recruit him. He offered him respect and power, people under his command. Compared to his life living on the streets and robbing people just to eat, this would almost be like being a prince.
But he was a prince, a prince of the Fire Nation, and Zuko would accept no substitute.
"I'd rather die a beggar."
Lung rose from the couch with the confidence and disdain of a lord. "Then so be it."
WWW
Dragons were the primordial fire benders, the ancient spirits who had taught the oldest of Zuko's ancestors how to fight. But the Fire Nation outgrew their old masters, and defeating even one became the highest honor a man could achieve. When he was a child, everyone told him how Uncle Iroh had slain the last dragon—at least, everyone but Iroh himself—and he had often dreamed of finding a survivor in some secluded corner of the world and proving his courage and his skill beyond question.
As Lung tossed a car at him, his body stretched out beyond human recognition and covered in scales that burned like molten steel, he wished that he could go back and knock some sense into his younger self.
He spun as he ducked, building up momentum and kicking a blast of fire back at his opponent. It washed over Lung like water off a turtleduck's back. Lung made a grating sound that may have been a laugh and released an orb of fire. His bending was slower than Zuko's, and Zuko rooted his feet, filled his lungs with air, and cut through the orb with all the focus, precision, and power he could muster.
The explosion filled the street, blackening walls and scorching cars, burning everything besides the two of them. In terms of firebending, they were about equal. Maybe Zuko even had the edge in skill if not strength, but the dragon wasn't harmed by fire, and in terms of physical strength ...
Lung charged at him, faster than a creature his size had any right to, and with his feet rooted in the ground Zuko couldn't dodge the blow. Claws dug into his chest and the force knocked the air from his lungs and his feet off the ground. He skidded across the asphalt and crashed into a telephone pole, cushioning the impact with fire just enough to avoid breaking anything.
He lay there for a moment, forcing himself to breathe. He hadn't spent the last three years hunting the Avatar to get killed by a dragon! Lung had to have some weakness. The eyes?
No. He had heard this story a hundred times before. There was only one way to kill a dragon, and it wasn't with fire. It was with lightning.
I can't bend lightning. Uncle Iroh only taught him the basics, and when Zuko learned the basics, Iroh taught him the basics again, as though he could capture the Avatar with stances and breathing alone.
"Bgg," the dragon said, his mouth too distorted to speak as he strode closer. "Bgg frr yrr lfff nnd dai!"
Beg for your life and die.
Zuko stood up, and faced his opponent. The pole he had crashed into fell like a thick, naked tree, ripping free of the wires at its top. One wire landed near him, sparking and sizzling against the ground, and Zuko stared at it as Lung walked closer.
I can't bend lightning, he thought again, but I have lightning right here! He had seen his uncle redirect it once during a storm. Zuko had been focused on other things at the time, but it seemed like a simple enough technique. In one arm and out the other. In. And out.
Either this will work or kill me. At the very least, he'd die on his feet.
"I am no beggar!" he shouted, reaching for the wire. "I am Zuko, son of Ursa and Firelord Ozai. In my veins flows the blood of lords, conquerors ..." He closed his fist around it in a final, desperate gamble. "And dragonslayers!"
Lightning raced through him, sharp and hot like fire never was. His bones ignited beneath his skin, and a blinding white flash erupted out of two fingers on his right hand.
He had never felt such power. He had never held such power. He was the inferno, he was the storm, and, an instant later, he was nothing at all. He fell to his knees, and everything went black.
WWW
"I don't believe it. The new guy soloed Lung."
"Pretty convenient if you ask me. Alright, let's go home."
"Hold on, we should take him to a doctor."
"Why? You want to recruit him?"
"Bitch scared off the last pyrokinetic we made the offer to, so the spot's still open."
"She was a scrawny pansy-ass and you know it."
"If that's what we're doing, we better act fast. His heart just stopped."
"What?"
"Yeah. Turns out five thousand volts through the chest isn't good for you."
"Okay, okay. I made all of you take that first aid class a few months ago. Who remembers how to do CPR?"
"One, two, three, not it!"
"Not it!"
"Hell no."
"... I hate all of you."
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Zuko opened bleary eyes and found himself in a strange room lying on a bed. He jumped to his feet—or at least tried to. He made it halfway there, then fell to the floor in a jumble of sheets, wires, tubes, and bone-deep weariness.
"Easy there, hotshot," a feminine voice said. "Unless you have a healing power, you might want to take it easy."
Zuko breathed, and it hurt. He pushed himself to his feet, and that hurt too. He grit his teeth through the pain and faced ... strangers. The first was a girl about his age with a smug, knowing glint in her eye that he didn't trust. Out of the two others, only one looked like a fighter. The other barely seemed to be paying attention.
"Who are you?"
"We're the Undersiders," the larger man said. He was tall, broad, with dark skin and a wide, friendly smile that Zuko didn't trust either. "I don't know if you know this, but you did us a huge favor back there, so we brought you here to pay you back. You nearly died."
His eyes flickered around the room. It was small, utilitarian, with a bed and equipment he didn't recognize, but it looked medical. "Is this a hospital?"
"Of the more discreet variety," the girl said. "I'm Lisa, this is Brian and Alec. Rachel's just outside, and according to the name you shouted out for the whole neighborhood, you're Zuko."
Between her smile and her tone he thought she was mocking him, but there wasn't anything he could object to. "I am."
"So, introductions aside," Brian said, "we wanted to make you an offer. You're new here, but you can fight, and you can win. So you have two choices. One, we go our separate ways, knowing that tonight you helped us and we helped you. This is a life with too many enemies and few friends, so that's nothing to sneeze at. Second option, we all leave together."
Zuko leaned against the bed as heavily as he dared. "Do you know what I did to the last person who offered me a job?"
"Did it involve an attempted murder suicide with a telephone wire?" Lisa asked. "Yeah, we saw that." Brian shot her a glare. "What? I'm just pointing out the painfully obvious."
"And this isn't a job," Brian said. "It's a spot on the team. We'd work together, but we'd also plan together and decide what to do together."
"To do what?"
"Whatever we want," Lisa said. "We're not as ambitious as Lung. We're not trying to take over the city and rule it with an iron fist. We're just here to have fun and make lots of money, and we're very good at both. Most of all, we're flexible. So, let me ask you this, Hotshot. What do you want?"
To go home. To regain his honor. To have his father accept him as his son. He wanted to do it alone because this was his mission, but ... he was so far from the world he knew.
"I'm hunting someone," he said. "A bald monk who can bend air and water like I can fire. I need to find him, capture him, and return home." He had managed to capture the Avatar ... how many times so far? But each time the return trip had proven to be the hardest part. And now, after the madness at the north pole and their journey through the Spiritual Convergence, home was further away than ever.
"Well," Lisa said, smiling, "it just so happens that finding people is within my expertise. If he's in the city, I'll know about it within the week."
"And if he's not?"
"I'll point you in the right direction."
He narrowed his eyes. "If this is a trick ..."
"Then I'd be playing with fire," she said. "And that's more your thing than mine."
Zuko considered the offer, considered the people making it. He had nearly died. There was no other way to spin it, and this team of robbers had saved his life. That merited ... something. Maybe not trust, but at least a debt. And he wouldn't be starting a new life here, just stepping forward. Besides, what could happen in a week?
"Alright," he decided at last. "I'm in."
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A/n So I've had a Worm/Avatar story in my head for a while. In one version, Zuko and Iroh set up a tea shop and have to deal with gangs demanding protection money. In another, Azula joins the Wards, gets along well with Sophia, and manages to convince everyone she's a perfect hero (besides Gallant, who runs screaming every time he sees her.) In the end I picked this one because, well, I think Zuko would get along well with the Undersiders. And he's the only character I remember putting on a costume and committing crimes, though it's been a while since I watched the show.
On a side note, I really like Firebrand as a cape name. Hotshot could work technically, but not as well. What do you think Aang's cape name would be?
I would like to thank my editors who have been keeping up with my NaNo WriMo challenge, Eschwartz and HanChenYou, as well as my Patrons, Exiled, Prime 2.0, Sphinxes, Kelsey Bull, Hubris Prime, Janember, Yotam Bonneh, Svistka, Lord of Edges, LordXamon, Victoria Carey, Kurkistan, Bernie McGuire, Christopher Harris, Luminant, and Jan.