Chapter Text
Azula had been hunting that Avatar and his group for two weeks now, deliberately keeping them out of harms way despite the group’s clear death wish.
As she fastened the clasps on her armour, preparing to once again “confront” the Avatar to capture him and deliver him to her father, she knew she would have to stage something more potent this time to allow them to have more time to escape.
They had barely gotten away from her last time, and it’s not as if she can be anymore foolhardy or sloppy in her bending lest she gained the suspicion of her father. They were just kids after all, none of them actually trained for war as she was.
An injury was the only viable option, something that would completely debilitate her and allow them to recuperate for at least the next two weeks. Something that would allow them to immobilise her and swiftly deal with the rest of her useless entourage.
She stepped outside, the sun barely peeking over the horizon. A firebender rises with the sun after all. The group had been spotted just outside an Earth Kingdom city, near a riverbank where they had set up camp. They were completely defenseless and vulnerable. There was no one keeping watch; their position was completely open and noticeable. Azula would have been singed for that kind of incompetence.
Azula established camp just above the group, perfectly positioned to end them on a moment’s notice. However, she’d also made sure to set up on the hill opposite the sun when it rose, effectively blinding herself and the girls.
“Why do we always have to be awake this early?” drawled Mai from behind her, having just strolled out of her tent, squinting her eyes at the rising sun. Ty Lee bounded out from behind her, no doubt having shared the tent with Mai regardless of her complaints.
“I think it’s great for your aura, Mai!” Ty Lee had clearly woken up on the right side of the bed, as always.
Azula had to force herself not to roll her eyes.“I rise with the sun, you rise with me.”
With that, she descended the mountain, expecting them to follow and so they did. They approached from the windward side, effectively lowering the humidity from the typical Earth Kingdom heat, and of course affecting firebending. Never mind the fact that the cooling effect also creates excess water that sits in between crevices and pools under rocks. That was useful because the waterbending peasant might be the only capable fighter in the group.
They stepped into the open without much preamble, Azula donned her trademark conniving smirk that she knew irked the waterbender to no end. She needed her to be furious, enough to severely hurt someone despite being a healer by nature.
The group scrambled awake, the Earthbender having felt them on impact of their footfalls on the ground. Maybe the Waterbender isn’t the only useful one. The waterbender’s brother fell on his face while she immediately reached for the water skin next to her bed wrap.
The Water peasant immediately swerved her momentum forward, and with it an arc of fast approaching water headed straight for Azula. She sidestepped the attack and brought a burst of fire onto the water, aiming into the air above the Waterbender’s head, instantly vaporising it and cutting the two off from the rest of the group as a plume of it encased them.
Azula stepped backwards incrementally, making it seem as though the other Bender was cornering her. Azula could only hope she’d notice the water underfoot. As she released another blast just off the left of the peasant, separating her even further from the rest of her group,the peasant made a wider stance as she lifted the water underneath them. Azula stumbled slightly, the peasant reared as the droplets collected into one large mass then became a giant shard of ice.
Azula adjusted her stance accordingly; where once the trajectory of the shard would have been a minor injury, just off the side of her leg, it became almost lethal and would shatter her left collarbone. Of course she did this incredibly subtly, making it look as though the water peasant had gone for that strike intentionally.
The impact slammed Azula onto the ground, knocking the breath from her lungs. And thank Agni for that, or she would’ve cried out in pain from the white hot agony. Her collarbone shattered with a resounding crack that echoed loudly enough for a sudden silence to permeate the battlefield. The vapour finally settled, collecting with the pain-induced sweat on her forehead, when the Waterbender’s group rushed to check up on her.
Azula lay prone on the ground, lifting up her uninjured arm to stop Mai and Ty Lee from rushing forward in concern. She met the Waterbender’s bewildered gaze, albeit with a mix of contempt and slight guilt. Azula was barely able to focus, her vision blurred and doubled but she scowled at the other girl one last time to temper her obvious guilt. Her expression steeled, and she was dragged away by her brother and the avatar onto that fat mound of a bison, the Earthbender trailing behind them.
She waited a moment for the bison to recede into the skyline before she unceremoniously dropped her arm, wincing as it pulled on the injury. The last thing she heard was the frantic scrambling of Ty Lee to cradle her head and Mai’s authoritative voice before her vision tunnelled and everything went black.