Azula: the New Avatar

1 - The Avatar

Azula groaned in annoyance, shifting as she prepared to free herself from the fifth person that year to attempt to kidnap her in the dead of night. Zuzu hadn't had these problems when he was the heir—or had he? It did seem like exactly the type of thing he would keep to himself.

A burst of fire and an acrobatic flip freed her from her bindings, and she landed on the cobbled roads behind her captor. He yelped, and she grinned at his fear.

He managed to surprise her by attacking first, but she easily warded off his attacks. She recognized the specific moves he used, and she realized she recognized his form from watching one of the noble families. She let him strike several times, trying to remember where she'd seen those moves, before she struck with a precise burst of her signature blue flame and dropped him like a sack of rocks.

She bent down to examine his features and commit them to memory, but the sound of a foot slipping against roof tiles told her she wasn't alone. She jerked backward, flipping back just as an arrow slashed through the air with all of the pinpoint accuracy of a Yu Yan. She traced the arrow's trajectory, spotting the archer; she performed a quick kata before lashing out with a crack of lightning that threw him against the wall. She nodded in satisfaction—he wouldn't be moving any time soon, unless it was to a grave.

She scanned her surroundings for any other attackers and managed to spot several more archers that were more stealthy than the first, but she acted as though she didn't see them. She started back toward the palace, hoping to find a more strategically advantageous battlefield; she was outnumbered, badly.

Just as she rounded the corner, three more figures dressed in black attacked her—a rudimentary attempt at an ambush. No would-be assassin would have expected that to do more than inconvenience her, so it must be a distraction from the archers. If she twisted just so... 

The arrows that were aimed for her impaled the men serving as the distraction. She broke into a sprint, trying to find cover. The archers knew she'd noticed them, and feigning ignorance was pointless. Unfortunately, her attackers had chosen their location well, and cover was scarce. She mostly had to dodge the shots fired at her, and she found herself wishing she'd have taken those silly acrobatics classes with Ty Lee after all.

She dropped into a slide underneath a vendor's shop, flipping it up to defend herself from the hail of projectiles. Dozens of cabbages flew into the air, the motion providing just enough cover in the darkness for her to dart behind a shop. She swung herself gracefully onto the rooftop, creeping silently across it toward the nearest archer. She'd been keeping track of their movements as they shot, the angle of the arrows giving away their exact positions. The first archer was out without a sound, and the second. When she reached the third out of the five she'd seen, he managed to make a noise before he died, irking her to no end.

The other two, zeroed in on her position from their doomed comrade's voice, immediately resumed fire. Luckily for her, they were dumb enough to be right next to each other. Taking them out took only a small opening and an arc of fire wide enough to hit two targets. Azula dropped to the floor in a crouch, listening for footsteps, the rustle of clothing, the creak of a bow being drawn.

Nothing. 

She took two steps forward, and then—THRUM. The deep thrumming sound of a longbow being fired came from behind her, and she frantically twisted around. Time seemed to slow down. She was facing her attacker, the arrow was on its way, and she had no chance of getting out of the way in time. She brought her hands up instinctively as if to catch it, cursing her carelessness, and the arrow froze. She blinked, looked at her hands.

Her fingers trembled as she recognized the familiar flow of chi through her body that came with bending, felt the current of the air she controlled that kept the arrow in place. The arrow clattered to the ground as she stumbled back, nearly forgetting the archer that had taken the shot. There was no way he hadn't seen her.