Avatar Zuko

Chapter 15

Zhao sat waiting in his Chambers, planning his next actions. His fleet, by pure luck, had been at the Fire Temple when it had been invaded by 4, apparently teenage, intruders. While Zhao hadn't gotten a good look himself, his troops had reported two Water Tribe members (at least one of which was a waterbender), a hooded figure with two swords (whether they could bend was unknown), and, most importantly, an airbender. The airbender was apparently young, only twelve or thereabouts, but Zhao hadn't seen the child himself; he hadn't been present when they initially broke in and had been knocked unconscious by Roku before he could see them leave the chamber.

Which was interesting, because if Roku left the chamber that had to mean one of the 4 intruders was the avatar, and Zhao had the best lead in a hundred years. That entitled Prince stood no chance.

“Commander Zhao, urgent message from the Firelord!” One of Zhao’s soldiers burst in, hastily bowing before he spoke.

Zhao took the letter, carefully opening it, and began to read. The handwriting clearly wasn't that of Firelord Ozaii, but it was signed in his name.

Commander Zhao,
You and your troops were at the Fire Sage Temple when it was intruded by the avatar and their three Companions, all of which are enemies of the Fire Nation. I'm looking past your failure in allowing them to escape your grasp as an act of pure mercy on my part, and I'm giving you the opportunity to rectify your mistake. I put you, now Admiral Zhao, in charge of finding and capturing the avatar. Their group, however, can be killed or captured, I don't particularly care as long as they're gotten rid of.
Firelord Ozaii.

Zhao smiled at the letter, a smug feeling blooming his chest, as the soldier continued to look at him warily.

“Umm, Commander-” He began, pulling Zhao out of his thoughts.

“It's admiral now.” He snapped with a scowl, causing the soldier to jump back I fear and bow his head. “Now, tell the captain to set our course- we're going to find the avatar. Oh, and let's find that banished prince’s ship too, I'm excited to see his reaction to all of this. ”.

__

“I hate everything about this.” Complained Zuko, who was sat on a stone ledge at the edge of a large field Aang had landed them in. He was in his Fire Nation clothes, and had his signature brooding look smeared across his face, but he had agreed to learn airbending.

“The other airbending pupils usually used to begin their lessons with a little more positivity, but we can work on it!” Aang beamed, convincing Zuko to just turn himself over to his father, surely even that would be better than this.

“Well I'm not the other airbending pupils.” The Prince grumbled, kicking a stone in false boredom.

“No! You're not, you've got some great raw talent judging by some of the stuff you did before you even had a lesson.” Aang praised, still smiling, whilst he set up some targets, assumedly for Zuko to airbend at.

“You mean the stuff I did when either my life was in danger or your guys’ were?” He asked, raising an eyebrow as Aang continued to struggle with the large wooden targets.

The airbender had chosen this particular field since 1) there was lots of room, 2) no Fire Nation and 3) there was a small market a few miles away for Katara and Sokka to shop at while they practised (where they'd been for the last hour). Yet he had not considered the challenge it would be to set up some wooden targets- perhaps it would have been easier with Zuko’s help but… Ah well.

“Aww, you care!” Aang basically sung, causing Zuko’s face to redden.

“No! Death is just… Messy…” He frowned and went to cross his arms, before realising he'd already crossed them.