Azula: the New Avatar

8 - Planning

Katara and Aang, of course, did not stay far away like Sokka wanted them to. He trusted both of them, but truthfully, he shouldn't. Aang's teachings from the monks made him feel "free" of anything binding like a promise, and Katara really didn't care what she was supposed to be doing or what she promised to do, as long as she was doing the right thing.

So, of course, they were actually very nearby when Sokka lead the five strangers into the room where he'd set up the map. Aang frowned when the door closed, leaving them unable to hear what was going on.

"Ty Lee is going to have to fight Suki if she wants a shot at Sokka," Aang laughed. Katara looked at him incredulously. 

"Suki? What the heck makes you think she's interested in him?"

"You're kidding, right? Have you seen the way they talk when they're not training?" he said. Katara just raised an eyebrow. "Oh, come on. He idolizes her, and she loves it. He makes her laugh a lot, even when his jokes aren't that funny. When they're training she has this perpetually amazed look on her face, and after he finally realized that all of those girls could kick his butt, she doesn't even hate him anymore. I'm pretty sure I've seen him make her blush a couple of times," he said.

"Whatever," Katara said, rolling her eyes. "She'll get over it soon enough. So will Ty Lee, as soon as she realizes how annoying he is."

Aang swallowed his response, realizing that saying 'I've realized how annoying you can be and I still like you'  was compromising in more ways than one. "We'll see," he said instead.

"Let's go closer," Katara said, already creeping towards the house. Aang, of course, was never one to argue—especially when someone else just said what he was already thinking.

The two snuck up to the wall, pressing their ears against the wood in an attempt to hear the people talking inside.

"—man with a plan is always attractive," Ty Lee said. Katara snickered as Sokka stammered out a barely intelligible answer, trying to change the subject.

"So, what is the plan?" asked Azula impatiently, the girl that Zuko said was the new Avatar. Sokka's voice was immediately back to being confident and excited, as if he'd completely forgotten already how flustered he'd been a moment before.

"We have two options," he said. "It depends on what you think we can get away with, or if you think it'll be a waste of time. The first one, without going through all the details, involves causing mass confusion and hysteria in the Fire Nation troops you came with—I assume there are troops with you—and then disappearing, hopefully getting a good lead on them while they figure everything out. 

"The second, which would be much harder, is to stage everything so we escape and you give chase. Depending on what you think you can fool your father into, we could pretend to be on the run while secretly training Azula. If you think he'll see through it, or if you see any other problems coming up, we should probably go with option one. Any trap they might set for us will be especially dangerous if we think we have them fooled."

"Whoa," Ty Lee whispered. "He has almost as many plans up his sleeve as Azula."

"They are either going to be very close allies or bitter rivals," said the slightly husky voice of Mai. "Even if they're on the same side, Azula might not be able to handle someone being on her level."

"She also might find it as hot as I do," Ty Lee giggled. "What would that be like, watching Azula fall for a boy?"

"What are you two mumbling about?" Azula's voice snapped. She sounded slightly suspicious, like she had an idea of what they might be talking about but had only heard her name.