Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender

Previously, on I Am the Blue Spirit:

"Princess," he rumbled, his voice scratchy from disuse as his hand reached toward his swords. Already his muscles were tensing in anticipation for the fight ahead of him, and his mouth smoothed into a thin line, "How . . . Unexpected."

Hopefully he came out of this alive.

I Am the Blue Spirit

It is what is hidden under the mask that is the most intriguing.

Chapter 5

The Rescue – Part 3

Azula studied her opponent in contemplation, each of them waiting to make a move. He was thin, but not too thin, and he moved with a grace that was found in only those who had been trained from a young age. A fighter. There was also a sense of determination that reminded her, oddly, of her stubborn brother.

"I was wondering when I would get a chance to meet you," she said conversationally, testing him. She had wanted to meet him of course, ever since she had heard of his mysterious break in at the massive Fire Nation stronghold that Zhao had trapped the Avatar in, but had assumed that she would never get the chance.

He remained silent.

"Hmm," she stood straighter, "Not much of a talker, huh?"

At least she could be sure that it wasn't Zuko under that mask. Her brother had always an act first and throw patients out the window kind of person, something this masked figure clearly wasn't.

"Princess," one of the soldiers called out, a ball of fire lit and ready on the palm of his hand, "Would you like us to bring him down?"

The figure stiffened further.

Azula hummed and then waved her hand dismissively. "Stand down, soldier." Her eyes glinted with interest. "I would like to see where this goes."

"You're toying with me?" the dark figure said with a growl, his ruff voice sending shivers up her spine.

"You're interesting," she sniped back, a grin on her face as she settled into a firebending stance, the other reluctantly following her. No doubt he was confused by her behavior. She didn't normally act like this, after all.

Well, she was confused too, but she didn't dwell on it. Why ponder on the ways of the mind when it was much more fun to blow things up?

For several seconds there was silence . . . and then she attacked with a flaming downward kick which he expertly dodged by spinning to the side in the large clearing they were in. No use of bending. Fascinating.

She didn't pause in her attack, however, and followed the kick with a punch that sent a large wave of fire toward him. This time, he blocked the flames instead of dodging them, putting his swords in front of him and letting them take the brunt of the heat.

When the fire dissipated, he was left unharmed and his swords as sharp as ever. Any normal sword would have melted under her fire.

Truly intriguing.

Azula crouched and then leaped into the air again, twirling and building up momentum as a fireball grew in her hands. As she came around again, she threw it, and then another just seconds later from her other hand. The man wouldn't be able to avoid both, she knew, unless he could somehow sense were there fire was and where it was going.

Just as she predicted he moved right, out of the first fireball's path and right into the second. For a moment, she felt a flash of disappointment that the fight was going to end so quickly, but then he brought up his swords again at the last second and the second fireball dissipated.

Ok. Now that was unexpected.

This time the Blue Spirit went on the attack, his swords becoming blurs of silver and blue as he came forward, getting in her space, and slicing at her with graceful arcs. Surprised, Azula barely had time to react. Moving just enough that her head wouldn't get taken off her shoulders she heard more than felt the wickedly sharp blade cut through a dozen strands of hair left behind when she retreated.

Her breath caught in her chest as, for the first time in a long time, she realized that she might have met her match.

She was a long range fighter, preferring to rely only on her fire and lightning to defend and attack. Usually, her opponents would be down before they could muster up enough courage to face her. This man, however, was no such coward, and his fighting style contrasted so drastically with her own that it was nearly incompatible.

She was used to fighting with benders who could use what was around them to their advantage. It required observation, determination, and trained skill to beat a master of bending, but she had trained all of the life to do so. What she hadn't trained for was a non-bender. Except for Mai and Ty Lee she had never considered them a threat.

Who knew that they were so unpredictable.

This man defended and attacked with no real rhyme or reason. No pattern. No visual tick that would indicate his next move. It was all just swift movements, sharp blades, and hollow eyes staring into one's soul. He was a close ranged fighter, someone who preferred to attack as close to their opponent as possible.

In bending that kind of fighting style was unadvised. For him, it worked brilliantly.

Once again Azula retreated as he went on the attack, just barely avoiding the blades as she sent another blast of fire at him, searching for weakness. Dodge, attack, blast, duck. The fighting continued, taking all of her concentration, and making her block out everything else.

She hadn't been in a fight like this for a long time. Even the Avatar had not been this challenging.

And then it changed. They both knew that something different would have to be done. They were too evenly matched. He had to pause to block her fire, she had to watch his blades constantly, and they didn't have room to do much else so something had to give.

That something, apparently, was the use of dirty tricks. In one swift move the Blue Spirit swooped down, grabbed a handful of gritty dirt and flung it in her eyes at the same time she sent a blast sailing toward the one he was protecting: the Avatar.

Blinded momentarily Azula stumbled back, unable to see what was going on even as her men shouted in surprise.

When her vision cleared both the Blue Spirit and the Avatar were gone, only a scorch mark left where the latter had laid.

They had gotten away.

A smirk lifted her lip as she started at the dark patch of ground even as the soldiers organized search parties to go look for them in the dense forest.

It didn't matter though. Without a trained healer the Avatar would not survive long anyway and the Blue Spirit . . .

They would meet again. She was sure of it.

0~o~0

Katara paced back and forth, chewing her lip as she examined the scorch marks and demolished buildings around them.

"Something happened," she muttered frantically, "Something went wrong. What was it? Where is Aang?"

"I'm sure Aang is fine, Katara," Sokka said soothingly, his tone contradicted by the hint of doubt echoing in it. "He's the Avatar! What could happen?"

Toph snorted, placing her hand on the ground. "From what I can feel, a lot happened."

"I don't care what happened," Katara suddenly exploded, turning on Toph, "I want to know where Aang is! He could be in trouble and we wouldn't even be able to help him because . . . because . . ."

Toph sighed, "Calm down Beauty Quean. We will find him. Besides," she turned and looked into the distance, "The tracks lead that way."

Sokka and Katara turned abruptly, examining the ground. Sure enough, there were several sets of tracks. One of them looked like whoever it was had been dragged. There were also several suspicious red spots staining the drag marks.

Sokka and Katara glanced at each other.

Sokka gulped, then muttered, "I guess were going after Creepy Blue Fire, huh?"

Katara's determined glare was all the persuading he needed.

0~o~0

Several days later their chances of ever catching up to Aang and his captors looked bleak. The forest that now surrounded them was thick and obscuring. Sokka knew that if they didn't find Aang soon then there was little hope of ever seeing him again.

Katara sat slumped on one side of the fire, her shoulders hunched forward and her head in her hands, shaking slightly. Toph was trying to look indifferent from her spot a few feet away, but the slightly shifting dirt as her toes twitched gave her away. Sokka himself knew that he was on the end of this tether. Without Aang it was like . . . like the glue that had brought them all together had come unstuck.

He didn't know what to do.

The night dragged on, the fire burning merrily. It was nearly midnight when Sokka finally got up with a sigh.

"Come on. We all need our sleep. There's nothing more that we can do tonight," he muttered, glancing around at the shadowed trees around him.

Toph thumped her foot and a tent of rocks shot out of the ground. Katara simply lay down in her bedroll, too exhausted to complain. As for Sokka, well, someone had to watched. He settled a distance away from camp so that the light of the fire would not effect his sight as much.

An hour passed in silence and Sokka could feel his own eyes dropping tiredly. His breaths deepened and his eyelids shuttered open and closed several times. It wouldn't hurt to take a slight nap, right?

He didn't know when he fell asleep, but the hand that gripped his shoulder suddenly woke him up faster than he had in the last several days.

"What . . . !" Sokka jerked back, reaching for his boomerang while still blinking the sleep tears from his eyes. As soon as his vision came into focus however, he froze.

Katara rolled over in her sleep, and Toph snorted, but it seemed as if nothing had been disturbed.

Nothing, that is, except for the glaring blue and white mask hovering like a full moon over his head.

0~o~0

I'm just going to cut this off there. I love writing, I really do. I also really want to finish this story, but things have come up and I am sorry to report that I will soon be retiring from FanFiction completely. This doesn't mean that I am giving up on writing, just that my stories will soon be labeled UP FOR ADOPTION, as I move on to real life.

(Of course, that means that you might actually see one of my original book ideas published in a few years because I will have more time to focus on them. I'm so excited!)

I already had this chapter written for a long time, and I was going to add more but it will never be published if I don't do it now.

So, on that note, I am also putting up all of my FanFiction ideas that I will never write so that other people can write them. If you want story ideas to expand on please refer to my profile where there is a list with instructions on how to interpret my 'remember this story? Yah, that one, with all the little details that you forgot to write down . . .' babble.

Tell me what you think! Review, Please?!

(Updated: 4/21/2017)