Chosen by the Spirits | A male reader x Avatar the Last Airbender story

Chapter 7- Siege of the North (part 2)

I stood completely still and silent, my mouth agape. For a moment I refused to believe his words; there was no way that we could be related. But, after I thought about it more deeply, it become a more likely possibility. My parents had never informed me of any of my fire nation family, so it was fully plausible that he could be my uncle. I pushed the thought to one side. There was no point in jumping to conclusions without consulting my parents first. Still, I would be lying if I didn't say I felt extremely uneasy as I faced against Zhao.

"Now step aside," he growled at me. "I need to get to those spirits," he informed me, pointing at the pond where the two koi fish circled. I was quick to put myself between him and the pond.

"I won't let you near them, Zhao," I told him, and I saw his brows furrow. "Everyone relies on the spirits. Even you,". I saw Zhao grow more and more frustrated with every word that I spoke, so I braced myself for a potential fight. I knew that it would be wrong to bend the water from the spirit pond, so I would have to use the water that bordered the oasis. As I faced off against Zhao, I began to fill with nerves. I had only ever duelled against waterbenders, and had no experience in fighting firebenders. Furthermore, I had to win this fight, or else Tui and La would be killed. I was fighting for my own life; if either of the ocean spirits died, surely so would I. Unexpectedly, Zhao punched the air in front of him, causing a short burst of flames to shoot out of his first. Thinking quicky, I rapidly controlled a stream of water from the oasis border to block the fire, instantly extinguishing the orange flames. I knew that Zhao had just sent a small amount of fire as a warning, but as I blocked his attack, I saw a gobsmacked look on his face. He took a step back in surprise.

"You're a waterbender?" he gasped. "But how? Both of your parents are fire nation," he claimed in genuine confusion. In an attempt to perhaps intimidate the Admiral, I narrowed my eyes at him as I faked confidence.

"The spirits are more powerful than you know," I threatened him. I watched as his look of confusion quickly vanished, instead replaced with a fury.

"Your parents have brought water tribe blood into the family," he spat before giving me a menacing look. "It would appear as if somebody needs to purify the bloodline," he snarked, before lobbing a ball of fire at me. I quickly bent a big stream of water to protect myself, which I then threw at Zhao. It hit him in the chest, knocking him over backwards. I then attempted to trap him in a block of ice while he was on the ground, but he kicked at the water, shooting fire from his feet, before spinning to regain his balance and stand in front of me once more. Zhao bent a large square of fire, which he sent barrelling towards me. I was able to cover myself in a large bubble of water to protect myself from the flames. Once the fire had passed, I used the water to create many ice daggers, which I sent directly at Zhao. This didn't seem to faze the Admiral, who simply swiped and kicked at the daggers as he began to approach me.

Readying myself for close-combat, I bent some water into a sharp ice sword, which I swung at Zhao to keep him at bay. He avoided the melee attacks and sent a spray of fire at my face, which I just managed to duck out of the way from. I threw the ice sword at Zhao, who didn't expect it, and it narrowly missed his shoulder. He glared at me with pure hatred and ramped up his attacks. Using a sweeping motion with his hands, he created two desperate waves of flames which crashed down on my from both sides. I was just about able to roll backwards out of the attack, and I used my agility to flip back onto my feet so as to not be at a disadvantage on the floor. As Zhao was about to unleash another wave of fire at me, I used a thin stream of water as a whip, which I managed to wrap around his hands from a distance. I knew his hands would only be bound for a moment, so I sent a wave of water from his side, which also hit his hands. Thinking smartly, I turned the water into ice, locking his hands in a case of ice. Proud of myself, I grinned, though it quickly turned to a frown as I saw the Admiral raise his knee to the ice, smashing it into pieces.