Fire swept clean the moist dead leaves and twigs on the dirt road in front of Zuko. It raced along the damp earth in a bright, crawling thin line, licking over roots and stones before jetting straight up under his Komodo Rhino's front claws.
The beast let out a deep hiss, rearing, massive head tossing. Zuko grabbed for the reins as the world tilted; his ribs screamed protest as the saddle lurched under him.
"Easy! EASY!" he snapped, more at himself than the animal, his witless mind stuck fast on that mad girl or he could have bent it all away.
The rhino crashed its front claws back down half on, half off the narrow road, skidding in the mud into the shallow ditch. A panicked sidestep slammed its armored flank into a tree with a deafening thunk. Branches rattled, leaves rained down, and the poor creature ended up snorting, stamping, and utterly done with today.
Zuko swung free of the stirrups and hit the ground running just before his mount could squash him by mistake.
Fog boiled away where the fire had gone. Out of the thinning white came a small, fast-moving shape. Burgundy cloak snapping, boots hammering down the slope, carrying muscular but feminine legs all too familiar.
Raven.
Her landing stance from that first double kick flowed into another move, flame already blooming around her hands. She'd been charging before his men even began sweeping the fog; he could see it now, see how she'd timed her attack to their first breath of visibility. It was annoyingly smart of her, given how much of an idiot she was. He barred his face, then tossed away her flames, hopped back from a second burst, and side stepped the third while forcing her to stop advancing with his wicked-fast arc of flame sent like he meant to bisect her, but she was able to part it around her with both fingerless gloved hands blocking—and steam burst from the moist black leather on her palms.
Of course she'd gotten ahead of him. Of course she was already in his way. It didn't make any damn sense since he was licking the Avatar's heels to Kyoshi Island, but complaints were going to be ignored, that much was clear.
"Again?!" he bit out, half to her, half to the universe. "Ice bath not enough to cool your head?" And he didn't even think, it was like in sparring where he'd keep her dodging by chasing her every footfall with fire, each rapid punch straight and purposed.
Around him, the rest of the squad did exactly what they'd been ordered to do: they pushed fire into the mist, weak but wide, clearing a ring around the vanguard so they wouldn't stumble on an ambush. Fog recoiled in great ragged curtains. The wooden houses, spindly trees, and fishing nets of Kyoshi Village surfaced out of the white like a shipwreck dragging itself up from the bottom, but only flickers of sandals and flapping cloaks could be briefly seen, retreating up hill into thick white soupy air.
Raven tired of dodging, timed a perfect mid-air kick, and Zuko's eyes widened as her heel cracked sparks that shot like arrows in a distracting firework, followed instantly by an almost lightning fast counter bend that lanced off half his helmet's flame emblem, and he nearly crushed his teeth from the tension. She smoothly landed in a sprint downhill toward him, narrow hazel eyes locked on his wide yellow.
"Like my new trick, asshole?!" she gnashed with equal rage and wicked glee. It was a pretty cool trick, but he could feel a headache starting right between his eyebrows.
Broken clock, twice a day and all, he figured, because she closed too much as she put her heel to his armored chest, deadly point-blank, but painfully obvious. He deflected past his melting emblem, twisting her foot and forcing her to cook dry the damp road as her momentum forced her to spin backwards right in front of him and nearly tumble on her face. With a loud crack on her backside, her growl lost to a comically girly shriek, but she managed a somersault Ty Lee would be proud of as she spun back to face him on her feet with the deepest offense ever witnessed in history or myth.
Her fingers tapped her mildly stinging butt. He was pulling his glove tight on one raised hand, zero patience on his face. He didn't even bend, the reprobate! All she could do was stare at him and scoff in disbelief, never more thrown off in her life.
"Are you done?" he breathed.
"How dare you!" she was obligated to shout, but it took the steam right out of her, at least for a moment.
"Raven. Get out of my way. Right now."
There was a cough beside them. Five spearmen with the most awkward expressions stood there, speechless until they caught his gaze.
"Uh, Prince Zuko... should we-"
"If you gawkers tell ANYONE about this after I kill him I will shove Arzayanagi right up your—" she was cut short by Zuko keeping an eye on her as he swept flames to force her to back off.
"Find the Avatar! I'll deal with her! Take the town if you have to!" He quickly bellowed orders over his own rush of bending as he kept Raven moving away, off the road, and into the withered brush.
Her bitter grin gave, "you'll regret saying that!" as his flamethrower sputtered out and gave her an opening, which she took with a lunge.
There was a bewildered moment, but his soldiers peeled away as ordered, boots thudding on packed dirt. Komodo rhinos fanned out, snorting steam; the fog swallowed half the squad again as they pushed toward the clustered houses, though it buffeted out ahead with blast after blast of widespread flames.
Zuko set his stance. "Not this time," he muttered as he struck narrow flames, palm flat and fingers forward, that quickly made a gap in her unusually mighty burst. He felt the heat sting his shoulders as he pushed through with that hand, then just as the waves of heat cleared he struck his other palm forward, advanced his step as far as he could. Raven was struck dead center—he didn't hold back, but there was no strong bend in that stance. It still knocked the breath out of her, sending her sliding back, but she stayed on her feet after a scramble.
There was genuine surprise on Zuko's face as she looked up at him, gritting her teeth and shook it off, but he saw flakes of her cloak falling away as ash—mostly burned through but not quite. A fire resistant cloak, and an expensive one. He deflated a breath, having figured that would put her out of commission.
Her barrage came back as a storm of quick, snapping kicks and punches, each one flinging tight bursts of fire meant to punish his arrogance. She'd gotten better, he noticed right away. Sharper footwork, stronger kicks. Still not in his league, and she should know better after that finishing blow he just knocked her back with, but for a real cheap cheat in what she claimed to be an Agni Kai—tradition demanded no such protection be used.
He met her fire with his own, palms sweeping, redirecting, grinding his teeth as each impact was no trouble to disperse, but his ribs ached more and more—all her fault too, of course.
"Is this it?" she demanded, flames coiling around her knuckles. "You just cower and block and mock me?!"
"Are you serious?! Look at your smoking hot chest, dumbass!" And an eyebrow raised before her eyes flickered down and she saw flames flickering and spreading on her insulated but not fire proof garb beneath her cloak. She yelped with surprise and bent it away with a quick swat, as he menaced, "you won't bounce back after another!"
"I'll—," she paused. "Wait, what?" and she almost laughed.
Zuko frowned wondering what she was on abo—oh spirits, he hadn't meant it to sound like that at all. Twice even... he shook it off. "Shut up, I didn't mean—whatever! Just go away!" he raged as he aggressively advanced on her. Raven's eyes went wide, lit up bright yellow as she barely tilted back to avoid it, then rolled into something else Ty Lee taught her that put her back on two feet to properly slash away his follow up blast. It was hot. Hotter than before. He was getting very impatient, and Raven flickered her eyes to see if the Kyoshi warriors had attacked yet.
Raven's eyes widened. She threw both arms up, bending his sudden blaze away as best she could, but it still grazed close enough that he heard her hiss in pain. She threw herself into a desperate roll, cloak taking most of it and smoldering at the edges as it fell off of her in scraps, boots skidding in the churned dirt. Her heart skipped a beat—sense struck her for a moment when she couldn't deny that would have been it for her if she was slightly slower.
"Give up," Zuko snarled. "Do you wanna die?!" But all she saw was how spent he was after that excess, hunched forward and breathless, sucking in air and open...
The fire-whip leapt into being with a vicious crack, followed a split-second later with a shriek of metal echoing in the fog.
He jerked his helmet aside by instinct, taking the hit on metal instead of flesh. A perfect strike of the tip of her whip laid a glowing-orange stripe right across the red metal, with a hefty chunk coming loose, clinking off his shoulder. Instinctively he flung the compromised half-molten helmet off, but the world rang like a gong inside his skull; white sparks burst behind his eyes as the heat began to sting on his cheek.
"AH—!" he seethed.
The smell of burnt lacquer hit his nose, causing him to blink, so he had to guess. He barely yanked down in time as the whip whistled back for a second pass, his ponytail flew up as he dropped prone, and went its own way, severed and smoldering near the base.
There was a horrible, suspended second where neither of them moved.
Raven's mouth twitched.
"Was tacky anyway," she sneered.
Something in Zuko's temper gave up, tried to retreat, but he choked it back down. However...
All up the main street, Kyoshi Village woke into chaos.
Fire Nation soldiers were struck by green-and-white blurs, launching from cover or roofs. Kyoshi warriors touched ground with scarcely a sound, fans spinning back into guarded stance. A spearhead came loose, two men toppled over screaming and grabbing bleeding leg wounds that surely took them out of the fight, and several others reeled and clutched less serious wounds.
The metal tip of Suki's fan stuck square on a firebender's mask, putting a dent to make your skin crawl as he let out a gravelly gasp, turning to a sputter as he toppled off his Komodo Rhino, knocked senseless and with a fun brand new shape of nose.
They were quick. Very quick. And they were fighting like people who had one village, one home, and absolutely no backup. Even so, it was like trying to dam a river with silk. The remaining firebenders replied instantly, palms out from their mounts and scattering the Kyoshi warriors, with only Suki confident enough to just fan aside the flames meant for her.
"Naeko, left!" someone shouted.
She pivoted, tried to reach and turn aside the blow, but she'd dodged right into the lucky spearman, at least too close for the bladed end. The metal-tipped base cleanly swung, caught her square in the temple. Naeko flopped aside like a ragdoll into the grassy ditch. She didn't move.
"Naeko!" a fellow warrior cried, trying to reach her, fire forced her back, and took most of her sleeve with it as she yelped and batted it out.
On the far side of the street, Suki was hand-to-hand with one of the armored troopers, using her fans to turn aside his strikes. She had him staggered, open, but she sensed trouble and jumped aside, scarcely escaping becoming a Kyoshi kebab as a deadly spear thrust from behind. Suki clenched her teeth, expecting the attacker to follow up, but with a loud clang she saw his helmet sail one way, then a crack and his head snapped back the other. He was sent dazed and face first in the soil. Sokka looked very disappointed in the man as he hefted one of their own blackwood spears.
"Sokka!" Suki cheered, but snapped attention back to everyone else trying to kill her. "I could kiss you for that!"
"Really?! No take-backsies!" He instantly shot back as he scrambled wide-eyed away from the out flattened spearman's vengeful firebending comrade, slipping into an alley to escape the flames. He could still be heard shouting, "and sorry I didn't use fans, I'm just better with spears still!"
"I forgive you!" Suki shot back as she hopped aside to a cart and with the extra height up to a low roof to dodge back out of sight, but paces away in the fog her comrades weren't all faring as well.
A few of the Kyoshi warriors ended up surrounded, spears tightening as a firebender freely blasted them in smaller and smaller space, and their fans failed finally when one of the young women ignited with a panicked scream.
Katara hadn't been sure what to do until then.
She grabbed at the fog around the Kyoshi warrior, instinct reaching for wetness: mist, breath, sweat, anything! To fail was too awful. The air condensed in a sudden, heavy sheet that swaddled the enflamed warrior as she helplessly batted at flames all the way up one side of her dress, and she was out instantly with a puff of steam. It left the four cornered warriors slick with moisture, but that was an advantage at the moment.
Both Fire Nation soldiers and Kyoshi warriors stared over at her like she had done something inappropriate.
"Uh," Katara said faintly. "I don't know how I did that!"
Then one of the soldiers yelled, "A waterbender!" and the street exploded back into motion, Katara yelping as she booked it into the fog, but it broke away half the circle to chase her, letting the Kyoshi warriors slip away.
Zuko saw almost none of that in detail; just a chaotic mess of leaderless soldiers doing their best. It registered only in quick flashes between their exchanges, but his men seemed to be holding their own at least, and they wouldn't be caught off guard a second time.
But then a soldier in his peripheral vision going down all on his own, then another. Tripping on—was that ice? For a moment, half the front line wobbled like drunks on a frozen pond, several smacking the butts of their spears to break the ice catching their boots in place. Katara stood there holding an empty bucket from atop a roof she'd scrambled up to, eyes wide in shock at how effective that had been, and Kyoshi warriors freely took strikes at the beleaguered men.
"Damn it... hold on!" he shouted over the roar, annoyed to be pulled away as he had Raven backpedaling again. He dashed towards the battle, legs sweeping low as he landed.
A low, wide wave of fire rolled down the road, hot enough to melt the sudden treacherous sheen on the packed earth, not focused enough to cook his men's toes in their pre-frozen boots, but the warrior women had to leap away, although Naeko was dragged away to safety by villagers in the brief respite from the Fire Nation's advance.
Something whistled.
Zuko's instincts screamed; he twisted just as the boomerang came out of the fog. It clipped him between the shoulder blades instead of the back of the unhelmed skull, which was an improvement, but still drove the breath out of him and sent him stumbling forward.
"Ha!" a too-familiar boy's voice cheered somewhere in the mist. "Get him, Raven!"
Zuko windmilled, catching himself on one hand, ribs blazing with pain, halting his breath.
Raven cackled with glee, and did not waste the opening.
He heard her before he saw her: the slap of boots, the sharp inhale, the rising crackle of fire. He looked up just in time to see her silhouette against the somehow painfully bright gray, both feet leaving the ground in her textbook double-kick, flame wreathing her legs in a clumsy move meant to finish a foe too stupid or staggered to dodge.
She put everything into it.
Weight, rage, bending... some mounting embarrassment... all focused dead at his chest. "Just die!"
If he hadn't already been off-balance, if he'd had even half a second more, he could have turned, redirected, used her momentum against her with such a blatant attack. As it was, all he could do was throw his arms up and shove back, hope he could strike the core of her blast.
Flame met flame point-blank in perfect counter.
The explosion was less a sound to them, more a churning reverberation: a flat, concussive whump that turned the world white to them but shot a cloud of dark smoke in a surprising plume. It punched every thought out of his head. Heat slammed into him from the front, cracking his lips; the ground ambushed him from the back; his ribs lit up like they'd been struck with metal pitons.
"Aaagh—" he could only wheeze and sputter.
Raven hit wall, then hit the ground, smoking and motionless. Her boots where blown out, soles blasted away, and smoke rising from her reddened heels.
When the ringing in his ears faded enough, the first thing he heard was his own breathing, thin and ragged. The second was the crackle and rush of new fires bent from his soldiers hands as they retreated to his position, dragging the wounded away from the village after giving each other mutual bloody noses.
He rolled onto an elbow with a groan, spitting soot and black slime. Every muscle protested. His hands were raw and throbbing from the backlash.
For a sick instant, Zuko's stomach dropped at the sight of her.
Then he saw her chest rise, shallow but steady, and he could breathe too. But he didn't have time to process what he felt as hands grasped and pulled him up.
"Raven!" Katara's voice warbled in terror. That waterbender girl for some reason risked dashing close to his men, she put her arms under Raven's, and small as the knocked senseless girl was, Katara was no heavyweight herself, scuffing through the mud to slowly pull Raven away from the fight. "Suki! Help me!"
"But—" Suki started, but a glance at Raven made her curse under her breath and dash to Katara as spearmen drew dangerously close. With the two they sped off with her, and Zuko could only watch as he coughed out puffs of smoke. Something about all of it bothered him immensely, but he just didn't have time for whatever wild nonsense Raven was up to.
Raven's eyes fluttered at the jostling; she managed a low, furious noise and a helpless attempt to bat them away.
"No… not finished… let go—"
"Shut up, you crazy, crazy girl!" Katara hissed, and sniffled, more scared than angry. "That could have killed you!"
Then the sky itself dropped on the Fire Nation forces.
A wall of air pushed men back, flung some off their feet, sent rhinos bellowing and stumbling sideways; spears clattered to the ground. Zuko stayed in place sheerly through the fortune of still being on a knee.
He didn't need a clear view to know who that was.
"The Avatar—agh!" He strained to yell.
The glider cut down through the last shreds of fog blown far away like a stroke of paint, orange and yellow bright against the gray, dusting the ground with a spiraling flurry of smoldering leaves and soot from the battle, but looping back up above the tree tops.
It was the first time Zuko had seen him clearly. He was airbending—he had to be the Avatar—but he was just a boy. It wasn't what he expected, and the kid looked horrified for some reason.
"Uh, that's right! Chase me! I'm the Avatar!" Aang shouted, voice warbling with a bit of emotion. "No reason to stay here!"
And Aang swooped down along the evenly sloping hills to the beach, leaving an open tunnel in the fog behind him. Zuko instantly started back down the dirt road, but halted after one step. It wasn't long. Half a breath, a crack in his focus, not worthy of consideration.
What are you doing? He snarled at himself as he moved again. She tried to kill you. Twice. She's crazy! Suicidally crazy! She attacked you in front of your own troops. She attacked you here. She is nothing but a distraction and a painful memory—he wobbled in place, vision blurring for a moment as his heart felt like it lurched, surely just pain from the impact against his already angry ribs.
He hated that he wasn't sure. But he had a mission. Zuko seized that hatred, welded it to his purpose, and let it burn everything else out. The pain was nothing, that blast was nothing, Raven's distractions were nothing. Flames jetted out of his nostrils as what was left of his ponytail fell loosely in a mess. A soldier tried to hand him his damaged helmet. He swatted it aside.
"Leave it! All that matters is catching the Avatar! Let's go!" he commanded, crushing out the sound of pain with rage.
"But is Lady Arza in the hands of an enemy...?" a firebender who should know better asked.
"I don't know what she's doing, I don't care! We're leaving! Now!" he bellowed as he approached his Komodo Rhino. It had an annoyed vibe about it, but took one look at Zuko storming towards it and it scurried back onto the road, obediently ready to be ridden again.
Zuko refused to look back to see those girls disappear into the fog with Raven's head lolling between them.