At the last possible moment Iroh twisted one leg, deflecting the kick with his knee, and gave a very disapproving glare down at Tanya for the cheap shot.
One hand grasped the ankle of Tanya's overextended leg, and with a shriek Tanya found herself whipping through the air as Iroh swung her around in a circle and threw her at the two soldiers who'd interfered.
...
Tanya may not have been the heaviest person in the world, but she was wearing metal armour, and as she crashed into the two soldiers the force of the throw was enough to send the three of them tumbling off the gangplank and into the water below.
Tanya scowled balefully as she shook off the dizziness and began swimming back up to the surface. "Again with the damn throwing! Why couldn't I have been reborn with a stockier body? I never had these problems in my first life."
She took in a huge, greedy gulp of air as she broke the water's surface, and a second or two of listening revealed that Iroh had not let his opportunity slip by. Powerful blasts of fire rampaged off the gangplank as he continued to blast the remaining soldiers into the water. "Zuko! It's time to go!" She heard him yell.
Yet Zuko's furious yells as he took swing after swing at Azula did not cease. The exiled prince was too caught up in his fury towards Azula to listen. Tanya turned and swam for the shoreline, cursing the fact that she couldn't generate fire underwater and thus couldn't take off until she reached dry land. Every second wasted was a second that Zuko could realise the mistake he was making and turn to run!
Within the minute Tanya reached the shoreline, and powerful blasts of fire from her hands and feet had her soaring back into the sky with a trail of hissing steam behind her. It was not a moment too late, for she spotted Zuko finally disengaging from Azula and running to Iroh on the gangplank.
She moved to intercept them before they could reach the end of the plank, shooting a continuous stream of flames at the duo to stop them from escaping while her soldiers dragged themselves back to shore to rejoin the fight.
To her surprise it was Zuko, not Iroh, who moved forward to counter her attack. He planted his front foot firmly into the ground and knelt low, bringing both hands together into a clap that parted her stream of flames like a ship cutting through water.
"That's Zhao's move!" Tanya realised, recalling when her old commander had used that exact same move during his Agni Kai with Zuko. It was a surprisingly accurate mimicry. "It would seem that Iroh has been teaching Zuko how to pick up his enemy's techniques as well. The longer he remains at large, the more dangerous he'll become."
Yet Tanya's distraction had given Azula the time she needed to get into position at the top of the gangplank. Cold blue light began to flicker and flash across deck as she slowly swung her arms in wide circular motions, separating the positive and negative energy within herself and then bringing them crashing back together to generate lightning. As the electricity gathered together at the tips of her fingers she pointed down at Zuko's back.
There was not enough space along the gangplank for Zuko to dodge it, nor any cover for him to hide behind. A lightning bolt through one leg would end the fight in a second.
For a moment the world seemed to be illuminated in cold blue light as Azula unleashed the lightning bolt. Yet in the moment it had taken Azula to aim her attack, Iroh had moved to stand between her and Zuko, one arm raised to point at her and his body settled in a relaxed, unusually flowing stance. Azula's bolt howled forwards at impossible speeds and struck Iroh square in the hand.
"He's done for." Tanya realised. Lightning bolts had the power to split trees in half. Even if by some miracle he survived, he'd never move that arm again.
Yet contrary to her expectations Iroh did not fall to the floor in a sizzling heap. The lighting seemed to crackle around his body, strong as ever yet for some reason not harming him. He brought his other arm up to point at Tanya, and a flash of cold panic raced through the admiral's head as the realisation of what he was doing struck her.
"He's figured out how to redirect lightning!"
There was a cold, steely glint in Iroh's eyes as he fixed his gaze upon her, and a heavy dread settled within Tanya's stomach as it dawned on her that she was staring into the eyes of death. Unlike during her battle with Admiral Jeong she'd been caught mid-attack: too poorly positioned to move quickly enough to dodge a lightning bolt. Depending on where Iroh hit she'd either be killed or crippled so badly she'd never fight again.
This was the end!
Yet Iroh's glare softened, and he adjusted the position of his arm ever so slightly. The lightning bolt burst out of his fingers and into the air, whizzing just above Tanya's shoulder and a hair's-breadth away from her cheek; enough for a few stray sparks to tingle against her skin, before disappearing harmlessly into the clouds.
He'd missed. Deliberately.
Tanya was stunned: frozen by the near death experience and the unexpected act of mercy. Azula too seemed taken aback by Iroh's unexpected ability to deflect lightning, but to her credit she didn't stay like that for long. As Iroh turned around to flee she stepped forward and unleashed a thin, piercing stream of blue fire, forcing Iroh to conjure his own barrier of fire to block it.
Perhaps she was seeing things, or maybe Azula's blue flames were combining with Iroh's in weird ways, but Tanya could swear that there were flecks of a multitude of colours sparking through the flames of Iroh's shield.
"Run Zuko!" Iroh shouted urgently, straining against Azula's onslaught. He'd been drained by his fight with Tanya and her soldiers, while Azula had primarily focused on evasion during her fight with Zuko and still had energy to spare.
"Not without you!" Zuko shouted back, shooting worried glances back and forth between Iroh and the shoreline, where Tanya's soldiers were finally dragging themselves out of the ocean and moving to rejoin the fight. "Family sticks together!"
"Zuko!"
Iroh's tone was unusually sharp, brokering no arguments. Zuko looked back at his uncle, who was thoroughly pinned down by Azula's unrelenting torrent of flames. There was no way that he could move without breaking his shield and exposing both himself and Zuko to Azula's attack. Yet despite his precarious situation, Iroh was smiling gently at his nephew.
"Run."
And so he did. With an expression of sheer pain, as if he was running across a bed of spikes, Zuko turned and ran towards the nearby forest.
"Tanya!" Azula shouted fiercely, breaking the blonde out of her stunned state of inaction. She began to move on an interception course, but was forced back as a jet of Azula's blue fire burst up in her path. "Wha-… Azula!"
It was not Azula. Iroh had shifted his stance, diverting the blue flames breaking upon his barrier to flow up in Tanya's direction. "No you don't!" He cries resolutely, the strain in his voice betraying how much pressure he was under. "You let him go! Your fight is with me!"
Tanya looked back to where Zuko had almost reached the treeline. She could still move to chase after him, but what would be the point? More of her soldiers were still spread out across the woods, ready to catch whoever tried to escape.
Shooting one last ugly scowl at the back of the banished prince, she turned around and landed at the bottom of the gangplank, trapping Iroh between her and Azula.
The Dragon of the West was about to pay for making a fool of her.
...
Zuko ran as if the hounds of hell were at his heels. He could hear the enraged cries of Fire Nation soldiers in the woods all around him, searching everywhere they could for any trace of him. One wrong step, one mistake, and he'd be captured: locked away in the darkest dungeon for the rest of his life.
"Is this how The Avatar felt when I was hunting him?"
No! No time for thinking about that now! Uncle had sacrificed his freedom to buy him time to escape, and Zuko would be damned if he wasted it. He shifted to the side, narrowly sidestepping a snare that he'd spotted just in the nick of time to avoid.
The trees were crawling with Tanya's soldiers and traps, but by some small miracle enough of the torches were faulty enough to cast just enough shadows for Zuko to move through unseen.
"But where will I go? Where is there to run to?"
Nowhere. The entire world was enemy territory for him, and there were no allies left who'd come to his aid. He had no ship, no supplies, no Uncle… nothing but the knife in his pocket.
Never give up without a fight.
Spirits, how he wished he could give up. Even his two years exiled at sea with a fresh scar on his face hadn't been as painful as this moment. But if he gave up now everything would be over.
If he could just get an audience with his father he could explain what had happened at the North Pole, make him see that he and Uncle had only been acting in the Fire Nation's best interests! And there was only one way to earn an audience with his father.
Capture The Avatar.
Capture The Avatar and restore his honour. Capture The Avatar and save his nation. Capture The Avatar and free his uncle. It all came back to his one defining purpose, his destiny.
His lungs were starting to burn with exhaustion, and so Zuko slowed down to a jog. As he did, the sounds of commotion up ahead caught his ears. Was that… music? As he got closer, Zuko began to pick out the colourful shades of dozens of tents up ahead.
As he emerged from the treeline, Zuko found himself on the outskirts of a small town that seemed to be in the middle of a festival. Now that he thought about it, the masseuse had said there was a festival honouring Tanya's victory nearby. Maybe he could hide among the crowd and scavenge some supplies?
He stepped forward to blend into the crowd, but hesitated as he noticed a poster pinned on a nearby building. An eye-watering amount of money was printed in big, bold letters at the very top, and below it an accurate rendition of his own scarred face.
...
Wanted: Ex-Prince Zuko.
Dead or alive.
Any and all information leading to the capture of this individual will be rewarded as appropriate.
...
The posters were marked with the sigil of the Fire Nation Navy, leaving no mystery as to who had spread these bounty posters around. Damn it! Zuko slunk back away until he was well hidden behind the tent.
With a feature as noticeable as his scar he'd draw attention from anyone looking to make a quick few coins wherever he went. How was he supposed to get around undetected?
...
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