Path Ahead

Battle is Joined

Zuko was nervous about approaching the Fire Nation from the air with only Appa. There was no one to camouflage their approach with fog or clouds, and he didn't have any experience with evasive maneuvers of this kind. Presumably, Appa was intelligent enough to avoid most projectiles on his own, but Zuko wasn't confident that the bison would necessarily remember to make sure he still had a rider when they reached their destination.

Miraculously, however, no one shot at them as they flew over the Fire Nation's largest island. Perhaps all attention was focused in the other direction, towards Ba Sing Se, or his father had taken enough soldiers with him that the perimeter stations could no longer be fully manned. Certainly, with the entire Earth Kingdom to manage, the military must be thinly spread by now. There was also the possibility that his sister was not expecting any real threat to arrive.

Or, Zuko thought sourly, she's got something special planned and is luring me in. That was, perhaps, the most likely scenario, but he had little choice but to face whatever awaited him. The only thing he could do was be ready for it to be a trap.

He brought Appa down in a lazy spiral as he determined the best place to land. He decided upon the garden in the back, beside the turtle-duck pond. No one seemed to be there, and it was quiet and unguarded. He dismounted quickly and stood ready, checking the area with all senses.

"Stay here," he admonished the flying bison. "If anything attacks you, fly away." He really didn't want to be responsible for getting Aang's animal companion injured.

Zuko took one cautious step after another. About halfway to the doors, he heard a soft, whooshing noise. He instantly dropped flat to the ground as several sharp knives flew over him. Without even looking to find out either where they'd landed or from where they'd come, he rolled backward. When Ty Lee flipped from the right to land directly in front of him, Zuko was ready. He brought up both of his feet and kicked hard, catching her in the stomach and forcing her away from him. While she struggled to catch her breath, he rolled again, this time to the side, and several arrows buried themselves into the ground where he'd just been. He drew his swords as he came up onto one knee.

"I'm flattered, Mai," he called dryly, still keeping one eye on Ty Lee. "Unleashing your entire arsenal on one man?" He knew that she had probably not used quite half of her ammunition yet, but she'd done it fast enough that the rest would follow quickly if she kept this pace. Mai stepped out from behind a pillar near the doors and regarded him coldly.

"For the man who broke my heart, it's not nearly enough," she said flatly. She raised one of her hands to throw again, and Zuko dove behind a shrub. Mai appeared to have anticipated that, however, as the knife slid between the branches and narrowly missed his shoulder. At times like this, he really missed his armor. It might have been heavy, uncomfortable, and required help to put on, but it did protect against things like this.

Knowing that Ty Lee would soon recover and come after him again, Zuko shifted both of his swords to one hand and set the shrub in front of him on fire. He used it for both cover and a distraction as he took off at a dead run toward the palace.

Iroh's heart rose into his throat when the dragons veered off of their course toward Ba Sing Se to fly instead at the airship formation.

No, not yet! he thought frantically. Let me get my legs under me first. However, the dragons could not hear him, and he didn't think they would notice even if he shouted. At this point, he wasn't sure they would listen to him even if he could find a way to communicate.