A/N: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Just a warning: I'd steer clear of this story if you don't like violence.

This was the beginning of a little challenge for myself. I wanted to do a series of 300 word drabbles about the deaths of ATLA characters. Obviously, these wouldn't occur in the Nickelodeon version, but I think a darker Avatar is fun to write. Enjoy.

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Zhao - Hubris

The fish was easy to kill. After all, it was only a fish, and the grotto was empty except for Zhao. In the cold, he could feel his fire run through his veins, twisting its course up to his palms. The moon-fish flopped as it burned, and then the sky changed colors.

Zhao was ecstatic.

How many Fire Nation Admirals could claim they had slain the moon itself? He would single-handedly destroy the Water Tribe with his power.

In his joy, he never saw the young woman turn a heavenly white color, kissing the young man she left behind. Zhao did not see the boy weep and pull out his boomerang.

Zhao did not see him approach from behind, swinging the curved blue metal down on his temple. But he certainly felt it. He brought up his arms to defend himself, but the pain was intense. With an upswing, Sokka broke his left hand. Zhao came to the awful conclusion that was being killed.

The boy shrieked like an animal every time his boomerang met Zhao's skull. As he pounded, the Admiral tried to ignite his hands. His fire went out like wispy matches as Sokka smashed his head again and again.

"Yue," moaned Sokka, swinging his boomerang wildly under the moon.

Thud. It caught Zhao's forehead. Crunch. His teeth were knocked out.

He ignored the sickening slosh-noise that Zhao was making as his eyes rolled backwards. "Yue," Sokka groaned as his boomerang made another pass.

Still standing by some fluke, Zhao's body finally landed face-first in the ground. Not that he had much of a face left. Blood poured from above his shoulders, creeping its way into the pure water of grotto.

The boomerang landed in the grass, splashing blood against Sokka's feet.

His mittens were a dirty reddish-brown.