Zuko stared at the bizarre apparition that challenged him. For a brief moment he thought
that a spirit had emerged somehow from the shrine, but then he recollected the decoration of one of the wooden statues and realised that the child - a girl he
presumed - was wearing a costume. Part of the village's ridiculous festival no doubt, dressing their children in reflection of past Avatars.
"I have to wonder where you heard that phrase," he said, the words echoing
strangely from the mask that he wore. "But you are clearly too young to understand its significance. The Agni Kai is a duel," he strode forward,
intending to slap down the insolent child, "between firebenders."
Before he could reach arm's reach, the child cupped her hands before her and a flame
sprang to life within them. "I don't see the problem," she said. "Unless, of course, you fear such a contest."
Instantly Zuko's irritation flared into fury and he was glad that his mask disguised his
reaction. The girl was mocking him, he realised, starting at her lidded eyes. "Very well then," he said when he was sure he could control his voice.
"I presume that you are familiar with the forms. As you do not appear to have a second, I will not call one forth."
"If you're sure you don't need the assistance," the girl said casually,
turning her back and walking towards the clifftop. At the edge facing away from him, she dropped to one knee.
Zuko glared at her and then turned away, walking to a suitable place for his own mediation.
Before kneeling, he unstrapped his swords and threw them onto the grass of the amphitheatre. A moment later, his boots and armour joined it. For this conflict,
on a battlefield, he saw need to also remove the close fitting shirt beneath. The village was still burning in front of him and he realised that as a result,
his vision would be less adjusted to the darkness behind his opponent. Happenstance? Or strategy? Was his opponent truly a child?
No. He could not waste thought on such matters. This was the Agni Kai, no matter how
irregular. These last moments were for the calming of his mind, readying himself to bring forth fire. Readying himself for death also, if that was his fate. He
almost laughed at the idea, but that emotion also had no place here. This could be an assassin. He would not put it past the Earth Kingdom to hire one of his
more mercenary countrymen to kill him. I have made them howl, he thought with dark satisfaction. If it is so, then they have truly shown their weakness,
recognising that only a firebender can hope to challenge me.
There was no signal to mark the beginning of the Agni Kai. It was unnecessary.
Instinctively, both combatants rose to their feet and turned to face each other. Zuko opened aggressively, hurling a wave of fire at his opponent, testing her
defenses. The girl's counter was simple, but efficient as she pushed aside that portion of the wave that approached her, seperating it into two walls that
rushed harmlessly past her. Rather than launching her own attack, she held herself ready to respond to his next attack, leaving the initiative in his hands.
Poor strategy.
Zuko held the distance open, switching to more focused attacks, hammering at her with
precisely aimed fireballs. The girl's defense was unorthodox, meeting the fire with her own flames, bending a globe of fire into her hands, sweeping it to
intercept each of his attacks, drawing their heat into her own flame and leaving them ineffectual. The fire globe grew hotter and more intense until the girl
suddenly threw it aside, so heated that the stones it landed upon bubbled and melted like ice, creating for a brief moment a fire pit.
The Prince scowled behind his mask. That fireball would have destroyed him if she had struck
him with it. He would have dodged it, obviously, but the fact that she didn't even try to hit him was... dismissive. As if she had no need to resort to
such an attack against him. Alright then, if she wanted to play that way, Zuko decided, he would see whether she was ans confident up close.
Running forwards, he kicked out, aiming for her feet with a fiery torrent. Break the root,
he imagined his teachers telling him. Himself teaching Toph. Fresh rage flowed through him at the memory of his student, so much potential simply crushed out
of existence by a cowardly attack. Even here, he had not found any trace of Jet or of his conspirator, 'the Boulder'. The girl stepped aside, drawing
her feet away and swept her hands around, drawing the fire up and around, sending it rocketing back at Zuko's face with a cocky grin.
He
blocked it sharply with his forearms, then dropped to the floor, sweeping at her legs. She jumped up above his sweepkick and he had to roll aside sharply to
avoid an axe kick to his head. Her reflexes were good - if her limbs were longer he might not have been fast enough but she had to come closer to him than an
grown adult would have.
Springing to his feet he launched a powerful punch towards her, fire springing into
existence at his knuckles. The young firebender - and he saw too few marks of age on her hands or feet for her to be a stunted adult - avoided the attack, but
as he had expected, she did so by moving back against the shrine and he whipped his hands outward, using fire prevent her from slipping aside, thrusting his
head forward as he exhaled. A tongue of fire blazed across the space between Zuko and his enemy.
There was no escape to either side, but the green-clad girl had another route in mind.
Collpasing forwards onto her right shoulder, she rolled like a ball between Zuko's legs launching her own fire at his rear before kipping up to her feet.
He turned and caught the attack on his right hip, snuffing it out with a slicing gesture, but the fact remained that she had been the first to land a blow.
Finishing the turn, he brought his hands sweeping down and to the left, hurling scorching fire towards her skirts.
While the girl was swift enough to avoid the fire herself she was not quick enough to save
the long green robe and flames caught on it, climbing towards her waist. Jumping into the air she placed her hands behind her waist and then slashed them
forwards, crossing them before her. A line of fire raced around the skirt and died almost as quickly, folds of cloth falling away, thousands of threads cut
away by the sudden fire, leaving the skirt to hang no lower than her knees.
Zuko didn't say anything - it was generally unwise to speak during an Agni Kai, as it
might disrupt one's breathing and that practicality had hardened into tradition over the centuries - but behind his mask his lips curled. Point and
counterpoint. He barely found time to congratulate himself before she ran forward and entered his reach, twisting aside from his reflexive attack and landing a
kick on his left knee. Zuko grunted at the impact and snatched for her hair only for her to fold over gracefully, the raven locks flowing just outside his
reach, and jab a knife-hand to the side of the same knee.
With cry of surprise, Zuko toppled sideways, barely catching himself on one hand and turning
the fall into a spin. He backed up a pace favouring the injured knee as he created fire whips in each hand, flicking them back and forth to ward off attacks
while he took a measure of the degree of impairment. Fortunately, although painful, the blows had only been bruising. He knew that had they been even slightly
harder he could have been left with fractures to the joint.
Enough, he thought, seeing uncertainty creep into the posture of those of his soldiers he
could see. None of them had expected their leader to be pressed so hard, much less to face such a challenge from a child. I have underestimated her skills, but
here is an end to it. With a roar he charged forwards, hurling fire with every step, ignoring the pain that tore through his knee. His opponent backed up, not
losing her balance, bending away the flames as they approached her.
She only bent them away when they came close, Zoku noted. Never did she try to meet his fire
head on with her own. Despite every trick and cunning attack, she did not match strength against his strength. Unlike Azula or Lu Ten when the deigned to train
against him, she could not match him directly. Which made his strategy to do exactly that.
Zuko feinted to throw more fire and then flicked his wrist, using a firewhip to destroy the
orb of fire that the girl was using to deflect his attacks. She was able to recreate it almost immediately, but fire favoured the offensive and with Zuko
pressuring her constrantly, she had no choice but to give ground. He looked for fear in her face and saw only the emotionless mask of her make-up, distorted
slightly where sweat had begun to run through it. She had been pushed back to the limit of the paving, but she would not yield to defeat.
With a hollow laugh, Zuko copied a move he had seen Azula move, raising fire in a circle
around them. The flames leapt higher and higher and then he began to contract the circle, forcing her to close in towards him. She came willingly, flames
dancing at her command, but he met her head on, his own fires brushing hers aside. This was what an Agni Kai should be like, the fire rushing through his veins
and he cried out out in exultation as she was hurled violently back against the grassy verge, through the ring of fire, her clothes smouldering.
"This is over," he declared, striding towards her. "Tell me who sent you
here, and I will spare your life."
She coughed - her throat must be dry after all the heat, he realised - and brushed her
forehead with the back of one hand, scraping away more of her make up. "Is that hot air I hear?" she said scornfully. "Land one hit and all of a
sudden you think you're the Fire Lord Ozzy."
"That's Ozai," Zuko growled.
"Whatever," she said dismissively. "Now, are you going to get serious or
shall I?" She took a stance, not one that Zuko was familiar with, something that looked more like some of Toph's stances had before he'd corrected
them. Interesting, so her style had been influenced by the Earth Kingdom's. Maybe when he was done here, he should seek out whoever was corrupting the
firebending arts with such nonsense and put a stop to them.
But first, he had an opponent to deal with. Fortunately, he'd fought earthbenders and he
knew the weaknesses of their art. It was balanced, well suited to both offense and defense, but it was not a style that encouraged dodging - she'd just
made the mistake of being too rooted. Moving quickly he charged at an angle, lashing at her with a fire whip and forcing her to turn to maintain her defense,
blocking his whip with small gouts of fire but compromising her own footing to do so. Then she made a jerking move and the ground shifted suddenly below his
left foot, throwing Zuko off-balance. He turned the tumble into a handstand and flipped himself upright, seeing that she had used the opportunity to dash past
him towards the cliff.
Glancing at the ground where he had stumbled he saw nothing to show what had caused him to
trip - the ground seemed as solid as ever. Had he imagined it? Had it been his knee that had been at fault?
The girl did a shuffling little dance and then walked over to the shrine, taking up a more
proper firebending stance. Clearly she had learnt her lesson. "Hey Chin," she said, tapping irreverantly upon the shrine's wall. "Do you
want to give this guy some courage? Between you, me and the audience, I think he's a bit...
lacking."
With a bellow of rage Zuko charged towards her, intent upon driving her off the ridge, but
this time she was waiting and caught his first fire blast, using it to parry the next two and then flinging it into the roof fo the shrine, which erupted in
flames. A second later and she darted behind the cover of the little building. Zuko rounded the corner to see her vanish behind the next, one step ahead of his
fire blast. Infuriated, he ran after her, ignoring the peasents scattering up the slope and away from the duel, his soldiers distracted and unable to stop all
of the sudden rush. Two of the red-armoured men were tumbled to the ground in the rush.
The next corner and he saw only a corner of her skirt vanish from view, the fourth and not
even that. A cry from one of the soldiers caught his attention and he looked at the man, then at where the soldier was pointing. Standing barefoot upon the
stone wall of the ruined shrine was the girl, raising the fires from the roof into a single mass that she held between her hands. For a single shocked moment,
Zuko failed to react and then she lobbed the entire mass - not at him, but at two of the Komodo Dragons.
"This isn't all we have at the circus!" she catcalled to the soldier suddenly
dragged off his feet as panic spread among the animals. The fireball had diminished almost visibly after it left her hands but it had been enough to scorch the
massive beast's faces and they were bellowing fit to burst. "Why don't you play with the wild animals!" Then she dropped over the shrine on
the opposite side from Zuko.
He
shouted in fury, ignoring the disturbance behind him and smashed one fist, wrapped in fire, against the stone structure, smashing it apart, hurling the bricks
across half the plaza. Panting deeply he stared across the stones for a sign of his enemy. Nothing. Nothing.
Nothing...
"I'll give you points for that," she said, kipping up from behind the stone
stump that was all that remained of the shrine to Chin the Conqueror. "I'm almost impressed."
So
furious that for a brief moment he couldn't even concentrate enough to bend, Zuko nearly messed her hand whipping around, a ball of fire inside it that
hurtled towards his face. Barely in time he managed to snuff the fire out - which did nothing at all to the chuck of brick about the size of the girl's
fist that had been inside the fireball and smashed into his mask. With a howl of pain he tumbled backwards, his hands flying to his face.
The mask had absorbed some of the impact, but it was still brain-rattling and the prince
staggered drunkenly as he foght to stay upright. The first touch revealed that the mask was shattered and he hastily yanked at the straps holding it to his
face.
"You've got a tough face," the little girl's voice lilted as he discarded
the mask. "Did you just peel it off... oh, it was a mask." She sounded slightly disappointed.
Red rage struggled against the fuzziness of Zuko's mind. She's trying to make me
angry, he realised. Using it against me.
With a unbelievable effort he brought his breathing back under control and took up his
stance again. Despite the ringing in his ears, he could see her there, standing ready to parry his fire. So sorry, kid. You're not going to be brushing
this aside, he thought, moving his arms as the chi began to flow through them. With a snapping sound, the first sparks began to flash around his hands. The
young girl frowned turning reduce her profile, apparently unsure of what he was doing.
That's right, just stand there and wait for it, he thought. He hadn't used the move
since Omashu. Frankly, he hadn't wanted to risk trying it when his anger was so great. But now, forcing all that away, he felt it again. The thrill of the
lightning forming between his hands. "You want my anger?" he demanded. "Have it!"
"Dodge!" came a horrified shout from somewhere up the slope but the lightning was
already in motion.
He'd already known that the girl's reflexes were cat like, but Zuko was beyond
impressed that she managed to dodge fast enough that the bolt of lightning smashed not into her fourth chakra, over the heart, but the third, behind the solar
plexus. Not that it made any difference in the short term: the small firebender was smashed off her feet, hurled two dozen yards across the aphitheatre to
crash into one of the stone seats.
She lay very still.
Zuko had just enough time to realise why the warning shout had sounded like someone he knew
when the same voice gasped: "Toph!" and a impact to his left temple sent him tumbling into the blackness.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
that a spirit had emerged somehow from the shrine, but then he recollected the decoration of one of the wooden statues and realised that the child - a girl he
presumed - was wearing a costume. Part of the village's ridiculous festival no doubt, dressing their children in reflection of past Avatars.
"I have to wonder where you heard that phrase," he said, the words echoing
strangely from the mask that he wore. "But you are clearly too young to understand its significance. The Agni Kai is a duel," he strode forward,
intending to slap down the insolent child, "between firebenders."
Before he could reach arm's reach, the child cupped her hands before her and a flame
sprang to life within them. "I don't see the problem," she said. "Unless, of course, you fear such a contest."
Instantly Zuko's irritation flared into fury and he was glad that his mask disguised his
reaction. The girl was mocking him, he realised, starting at her lidded eyes. "Very well then," he said when he was sure he could control his voice.
"I presume that you are familiar with the forms. As you do not appear to have a second, I will not call one forth."
"If you're sure you don't need the assistance," the girl said casually,
turning her back and walking towards the clifftop. At the edge facing away from him, she dropped to one knee.
Zuko glared at her and then turned away, walking to a suitable place for his own mediation.
Before kneeling, he unstrapped his swords and threw them onto the grass of the amphitheatre. A moment later, his boots and armour joined it. For this conflict,
on a battlefield, he saw need to also remove the close fitting shirt beneath. The village was still burning in front of him and he realised that as a result,
his vision would be less adjusted to the darkness behind his opponent. Happenstance? Or strategy? Was his opponent truly a child?
No. He could not waste thought on such matters. This was the Agni Kai, no matter how
irregular. These last moments were for the calming of his mind, readying himself to bring forth fire. Readying himself for death also, if that was his fate. He
almost laughed at the idea, but that emotion also had no place here. This could be an assassin. He would not put it past the Earth Kingdom to hire one of his
more mercenary countrymen to kill him. I have made them howl, he thought with dark satisfaction. If it is so, then they have truly shown their weakness,
recognising that only a firebender can hope to challenge me.
There was no signal to mark the beginning of the Agni Kai. It was unnecessary.
Instinctively, both combatants rose to their feet and turned to face each other. Zuko opened aggressively, hurling a wave of fire at his opponent, testing her
defenses. The girl's counter was simple, but efficient as she pushed aside that portion of the wave that approached her, seperating it into two walls that
rushed harmlessly past her. Rather than launching her own attack, she held herself ready to respond to his next attack, leaving the initiative in his hands.
Poor strategy.
Zuko held the distance open, switching to more focused attacks, hammering at her with
precisely aimed fireballs. The girl's defense was unorthodox, meeting the fire with her own flames, bending a globe of fire into her hands, sweeping it to
intercept each of his attacks, drawing their heat into her own flame and leaving them ineffectual. The fire globe grew hotter and more intense until the girl
suddenly threw it aside, so heated that the stones it landed upon bubbled and melted like ice, creating for a brief moment a fire pit.
The Prince scowled behind his mask. That fireball would have destroyed him if she had struck
him with it. He would have dodged it, obviously, but the fact that she didn't even try to hit him was... dismissive. As if she had no need to resort to
such an attack against him. Alright then, if she wanted to play that way, Zuko decided, he would see whether she was ans confident up close.
Running forwards, he kicked out, aiming for her feet with a fiery torrent. Break the root,
he imagined his teachers telling him. Himself teaching Toph. Fresh rage flowed through him at the memory of his student, so much potential simply crushed out
of existence by a cowardly attack. Even here, he had not found any trace of Jet or of his conspirator, 'the Boulder'. The girl stepped aside, drawing
her feet away and swept her hands around, drawing the fire up and around, sending it rocketing back at Zuko's face with a cocky grin.
He
blocked it sharply with his forearms, then dropped to the floor, sweeping at her legs. She jumped up above his sweepkick and he had to roll aside sharply to
avoid an axe kick to his head. Her reflexes were good - if her limbs were longer he might not have been fast enough but she had to come closer to him than an
grown adult would have.
Springing to his feet he launched a powerful punch towards her, fire springing into
existence at his knuckles. The young firebender - and he saw too few marks of age on her hands or feet for her to be a stunted adult - avoided the attack, but
as he had expected, she did so by moving back against the shrine and he whipped his hands outward, using fire prevent her from slipping aside, thrusting his
head forward as he exhaled. A tongue of fire blazed across the space between Zuko and his enemy.
There was no escape to either side, but the green-clad girl had another route in mind.
Collpasing forwards onto her right shoulder, she rolled like a ball between Zuko's legs launching her own fire at his rear before kipping up to her feet.
He turned and caught the attack on his right hip, snuffing it out with a slicing gesture, but the fact remained that she had been the first to land a blow.
Finishing the turn, he brought his hands sweeping down and to the left, hurling scorching fire towards her skirts.
While the girl was swift enough to avoid the fire herself she was not quick enough to save
the long green robe and flames caught on it, climbing towards her waist. Jumping into the air she placed her hands behind her waist and then slashed them
forwards, crossing them before her. A line of fire raced around the skirt and died almost as quickly, folds of cloth falling away, thousands of threads cut
away by the sudden fire, leaving the skirt to hang no lower than her knees.
Zuko didn't say anything - it was generally unwise to speak during an Agni Kai, as it
might disrupt one's breathing and that practicality had hardened into tradition over the centuries - but behind his mask his lips curled. Point and
counterpoint. He barely found time to congratulate himself before she ran forward and entered his reach, twisting aside from his reflexive attack and landing a
kick on his left knee. Zuko grunted at the impact and snatched for her hair only for her to fold over gracefully, the raven locks flowing just outside his
reach, and jab a knife-hand to the side of the same knee.
With cry of surprise, Zuko toppled sideways, barely catching himself on one hand and turning
the fall into a spin. He backed up a pace favouring the injured knee as he created fire whips in each hand, flicking them back and forth to ward off attacks
while he took a measure of the degree of impairment. Fortunately, although painful, the blows had only been bruising. He knew that had they been even slightly
harder he could have been left with fractures to the joint.
Enough, he thought, seeing uncertainty creep into the posture of those of his soldiers he
could see. None of them had expected their leader to be pressed so hard, much less to face such a challenge from a child. I have underestimated her skills, but
here is an end to it. With a roar he charged forwards, hurling fire with every step, ignoring the pain that tore through his knee. His opponent backed up, not
losing her balance, bending away the flames as they approached her.
She only bent them away when they came close, Zoku noted. Never did she try to meet his fire
head on with her own. Despite every trick and cunning attack, she did not match strength against his strength. Unlike Azula or Lu Ten when the deigned to train
against him, she could not match him directly. Which made his strategy to do exactly that.
Zuko feinted to throw more fire and then flicked his wrist, using a firewhip to destroy the
orb of fire that the girl was using to deflect his attacks. She was able to recreate it almost immediately, but fire favoured the offensive and with Zuko
pressuring her constrantly, she had no choice but to give ground. He looked for fear in her face and saw only the emotionless mask of her make-up, distorted
slightly where sweat had begun to run through it. She had been pushed back to the limit of the paving, but she would not yield to defeat.
With a hollow laugh, Zuko copied a move he had seen Azula move, raising fire in a circle
around them. The flames leapt higher and higher and then he began to contract the circle, forcing her to close in towards him. She came willingly, flames
dancing at her command, but he met her head on, his own fires brushing hers aside. This was what an Agni Kai should be like, the fire rushing through his veins
and he cried out out in exultation as she was hurled violently back against the grassy verge, through the ring of fire, her clothes smouldering.
"This is over," he declared, striding towards her. "Tell me who sent you
here, and I will spare your life."
She coughed - her throat must be dry after all the heat, he realised - and brushed her
forehead with the back of one hand, scraping away more of her make up. "Is that hot air I hear?" she said scornfully. "Land one hit and all of a
sudden you think you're the Fire Lord Ozzy."
"That's Ozai," Zuko growled.
"Whatever," she said dismissively. "Now, are you going to get serious or
shall I?" She took a stance, not one that Zuko was familiar with, something that looked more like some of Toph's stances had before he'd corrected
them. Interesting, so her style had been influenced by the Earth Kingdom's. Maybe when he was done here, he should seek out whoever was corrupting the
firebending arts with such nonsense and put a stop to them.
But first, he had an opponent to deal with. Fortunately, he'd fought earthbenders and he
knew the weaknesses of their art. It was balanced, well suited to both offense and defense, but it was not a style that encouraged dodging - she'd just
made the mistake of being too rooted. Moving quickly he charged at an angle, lashing at her with a fire whip and forcing her to turn to maintain her defense,
blocking his whip with small gouts of fire but compromising her own footing to do so. Then she made a jerking move and the ground shifted suddenly below his
left foot, throwing Zuko off-balance. He turned the tumble into a handstand and flipped himself upright, seeing that she had used the opportunity to dash past
him towards the cliff.
Glancing at the ground where he had stumbled he saw nothing to show what had caused him to
trip - the ground seemed as solid as ever. Had he imagined it? Had it been his knee that had been at fault?
The girl did a shuffling little dance and then walked over to the shrine, taking up a more
proper firebending stance. Clearly she had learnt her lesson. "Hey Chin," she said, tapping irreverantly upon the shrine's wall. "Do you
want to give this guy some courage? Between you, me and the audience, I think he's a bit...
lacking."
With a bellow of rage Zuko charged towards her, intent upon driving her off the ridge, but
this time she was waiting and caught his first fire blast, using it to parry the next two and then flinging it into the roof fo the shrine, which erupted in
flames. A second later and she darted behind the cover of the little building. Zuko rounded the corner to see her vanish behind the next, one step ahead of his
fire blast. Infuriated, he ran after her, ignoring the peasents scattering up the slope and away from the duel, his soldiers distracted and unable to stop all
of the sudden rush. Two of the red-armoured men were tumbled to the ground in the rush.
The next corner and he saw only a corner of her skirt vanish from view, the fourth and not
even that. A cry from one of the soldiers caught his attention and he looked at the man, then at where the soldier was pointing. Standing barefoot upon the
stone wall of the ruined shrine was the girl, raising the fires from the roof into a single mass that she held between her hands. For a single shocked moment,
Zuko failed to react and then she lobbed the entire mass - not at him, but at two of the Komodo Dragons.
"This isn't all we have at the circus!" she catcalled to the soldier suddenly
dragged off his feet as panic spread among the animals. The fireball had diminished almost visibly after it left her hands but it had been enough to scorch the
massive beast's faces and they were bellowing fit to burst. "Why don't you play with the wild animals!" Then she dropped over the shrine on
the opposite side from Zuko.
He
shouted in fury, ignoring the disturbance behind him and smashed one fist, wrapped in fire, against the stone structure, smashing it apart, hurling the bricks
across half the plaza. Panting deeply he stared across the stones for a sign of his enemy. Nothing. Nothing.
Nothing...
"I'll give you points for that," she said, kipping up from behind the stone
stump that was all that remained of the shrine to Chin the Conqueror. "I'm almost impressed."
So
furious that for a brief moment he couldn't even concentrate enough to bend, Zuko nearly messed her hand whipping around, a ball of fire inside it that
hurtled towards his face. Barely in time he managed to snuff the fire out - which did nothing at all to the chuck of brick about the size of the girl's
fist that had been inside the fireball and smashed into his mask. With a howl of pain he tumbled backwards, his hands flying to his face.
The mask had absorbed some of the impact, but it was still brain-rattling and the prince
staggered drunkenly as he foght to stay upright. The first touch revealed that the mask was shattered and he hastily yanked at the straps holding it to his
face.
"You've got a tough face," the little girl's voice lilted as he discarded
the mask. "Did you just peel it off... oh, it was a mask." She sounded slightly disappointed.
Red rage struggled against the fuzziness of Zuko's mind. She's trying to make me
angry, he realised. Using it against me.
With a unbelievable effort he brought his breathing back under control and took up his
stance again. Despite the ringing in his ears, he could see her there, standing ready to parry his fire. So sorry, kid. You're not going to be brushing
this aside, he thought, moving his arms as the chi began to flow through them. With a snapping sound, the first sparks began to flash around his hands. The
young girl frowned turning reduce her profile, apparently unsure of what he was doing.
That's right, just stand there and wait for it, he thought. He hadn't used the move
since Omashu. Frankly, he hadn't wanted to risk trying it when his anger was so great. But now, forcing all that away, he felt it again. The thrill of the
lightning forming between his hands. "You want my anger?" he demanded. "Have it!"
"Dodge!" came a horrified shout from somewhere up the slope but the lightning was
already in motion.
He'd already known that the girl's reflexes were cat like, but Zuko was beyond
impressed that she managed to dodge fast enough that the bolt of lightning smashed not into her fourth chakra, over the heart, but the third, behind the solar
plexus. Not that it made any difference in the short term: the small firebender was smashed off her feet, hurled two dozen yards across the aphitheatre to
crash into one of the stone seats.
She lay very still.
Zuko had just enough time to realise why the warning shout had sounded like someone he knew
when the same voice gasped: "Toph!" and a impact to his left temple sent him tumbling into the blackness.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.