Once again, Azula had found them. She had her chance, but it didn't help that Ty Lee and Mai were fighting too. Azula had her chance, but out of no where came a streak of blue fire. " If your going to fight someone Azula," The person who had thrown the lighting jumped down from the tree she was in. " Make sure its someone you can't manipulate." The girl stood tall, in earth nation attire, a short green skirt and tan tights with a green top that showed her stomach. She had deep brown eyes and her hair was up high ponytail. She had an odd looking symbol on her shirt. Azula looked at her and laughed.
" You have to be kidding me." That was all she managed to say before the girl struck, She threw a huge lighting bolt at Azula. Azula was hit. She fell back. This angered Ty Lee and Mai, who came at her at the same time. When Ty Lee tried to disable her bending and manipulate the body, the girl grabbed her hands and bent the back, spraining Ty Lee's wrists. Ty Lee stepped back and tried to attack with her feet. The girl pushed her back with the one foot that she had used to try and knock her down with. It was Mai, turn. She threw stars at the girl. The girl pulled out swords and blocked each one. Mai came running at her with Ty Lee. The girl pushed them into the river, with Azula and they floated away, down stream. Aang had been watching in amazement. He tried to talk to her, but she ran off into the forest.
" Who was that?" Katara asked, advancing a step.
" She didn't go far, I can feel her." Toph said
" I want to ask her how she did that." Aang said. Toph nodded
" I trapped her this way." Toph said.
" You what?"
" Oh, just be quite and go along with this twinkle toes." They came to a clearing with a large box in the middle made of earth. Toph removed the box, to reveal the girl from earlier. She was sitting there, looking at them.
" Well?" she asked
" Well what?" Aang asked confused
" Well, what do you want to know? Why did you trap me?"
" We trapped you because you saved us and we wanted to say thanks. And to ask how you do that. Blue fire. And how you easily defeated those girls." Katara spoke up.
" Blue fire?" the girl asked. She laughed. " Blue fire, that's a good one. First off it's lighting, not blue fire." She quickly regained control of her self. " And I easily defeated them because we used to be best friends until I ran away." The girl said.
" Can we get a name?" asked Sokka
" Mia" the girl said. She got up and went to leave. Aang sent up a giant wall to bock her path. She spun around and looked at him.
" Teach me how." Aang said.
" How to what? Hey look a plant. Oo. " she said staring at the plant as of it was the coolest thing she had ever seen.
" How to defeat those girls, and how to make lighting." Aang said
" First of all, you can't learn lighting until you've mastered fire, and I don't think your fast enough to be able to defeat them."
" Yes he is!"
" Oh, well then lets see you beat me." She got into fighting stance. She came at him, ready to fight. She hit him in the spots and turned his limbs to mush. He tried to air bend her away, but it didn't work. Aang fell back. " See, I told you. You're not ready yet." Mia jumped into the trees and away. Katara watched. Something about her reminded her of Zuko. She really liked Zuko, but she kept it to herself. He was so handsome. Even at the last time that she had seen him. He was angry, and enraged. If he liked her back, he didn't show it. She tried to release him from her mind. It wasn't working.
" We should go into town and get supplies while we're here." Katara suggested. They headed for town, unaware of the conflict they'd find.
As soon as they stepped into town they were separated. A giant mob scene was going on, and fire navy soldiers were attacking. Katara was separated from Toph, Sokka and Aang. She looked around but all she saw was people. People fighting each other, screaming out dirty things and running for their lives. She felt some one grab her wrist and hit her in the head. Everything went dark.
"Katara! Aang! Toph!" Sokka yelled. He couldn't see his sister, the avatar or even that blind girl. He scolded, then saw that girl he had seen earlier. He recognized her by the mark on her shirt. He scolded again, no good firebender. He watched her as she fought the fire navy soldiers with breeze and ease. She easily whooped their sorry behinds. He snickered. It was funny to see firebenders fight each other. Aang spotted him and ran over to him.
" Sokka! Where's Katara?" he yelled at him He was dragging Toph behind him. Sokka looked at the girl again. One of the soldiers had her by the wrist and pushed her against the wall. He said something to her and she spat in his face. The solider struck her and dragged her off.
" I don't know." Sokka said. " I have a bad feeling that she was captured." Sokka said. The soldiers suddenly retreated. One of them was dragging an unconscious Katara with him. They tried to save her, but the people fighting were in their way. When they finally got through the crowd, The soldiers were gone.
"Retreat!" some one, yelled
Half of the people fighting with drew their positions and left. On of the older boys took a head count.
" Where's Mia?" he yelled.
" Damn it they can't take the hot one away, how else are we supposed to entertain ourselves?" One of the other boys groaned. The girls rolled their eyes.
"Dude, that's disrespectful." Another told him. Then the boy grinned." Anyway, you find it fun being rejected? That's all she ever dose anymore is reject those of us who make a pass at her."
" Okay, that's enough. No time to lose. Those stupid Pai-Shos are cowards. We need to… What" a girl whispering something in his ear cut him off. He smiled. " Well it has been brought to my attention that the avatar is here? Avatar, how may we help you?"
" Umm, we just need to get some food." Aang said nervously. They all had the same symbol as the girl on them-selves.
" Well, take what you want. Main members, meeting, tree house, now." He said and stepped down. The teens all disappeared and Aang and his friends were left standing alone.
" What the heck just happened?" Toph asked
" I don't know, but we need to find Katara." Aang said.
" Why do they always take her as a prisoner?" Sokka groaned.
" I don't know, but we better get the supplies we need and start looking for the ship." Aang said. They hurried to get supplies so that they could go and find Katara.
Katara woke up on the floor. " What purpose do these girls serve? Where's the Avatar?" Katara looked around her. She saw a girl about Sokka's age next to her scolding and two men dressed in Fire Navy armor arguing. " The blue eyed one travels with the avatar. The dark-eyed one is wanted by Princess Azula for betraying the fire nation."
" Well fine then. I'll let her know that we have the avatar's girl and the other girl in custody. Go stick them in the same cell. I still can't believe that we only have two cells. What idiot came up with that idea."
" My name is Mia you dirty bum." The other girl snapped.
" My, my, didn't your mother ever teach you manners? Speaking when you weren't spoken to, not a smart thing to do."
" Go to hell you bastard." She snapped.
" Well don't we have a mouth on us. Keep talking girl and you'll have a scar to match the princes."
" Hey back off." Katara said. She didn't like it when people threatened to hurt other people.
" Well, defending those who you don't even know. What are you a nun? Get them out of my sight."
" You were a bastard when I was 13 and you're still a bastard when I'm 16." She snapped as the guard dragged them away. The guard pushed them into a small room. Katara looked at the girl and gasped. The girl turned to look at her. " Why do you look like me?" she snapped at her.
" Look like you? You look like me!" Katara said back, getting defensive.
" I may look dumb, but I'm not. Actually, I am but whatever. I'm just 16. You look 14. Therefore, you look like me." Mia snapped at her. Katara crossed her arms across her chest.
" How come you look like me, if I'm from the water tribe and you're from the fire nation?"
" How the heck am I supposed to know?"
" You seem to think you know everything."
" Oh I do? Look at you miss, oh you look like me, blah, blah, blah. Believe me girl, you messing with the wrong one. I grew up with six older brothers, The youngest in his late teens when I was born. Don't get me started on people, or I'll never shut-up. Either that or something will get blown up."
" How can you blow something up, and my names Katara, not girl." Mia gave a small, evil smile. She looked at a vase, standing innocently over in the corner.
" Now you see it." She looked at the vase and huffed. " Now you don't." She smiled, satisfied, and sat on the ground.
" So, how come you helped us?" Katara asked.
" Because I don't like Azula, and she deserves to get her sorry butt whipped every once and a while." Mia said.
" Is she really that bad?" Katara asked. " I mean, I've met her brother, Zuko, and he seemed very mean." Mia burst out laughing. " What's so funny?" Katara asked her.
" Zuko got mean? The Zuko I used to know was a funny person, he just had a temper, but he was very fun to be around." Mia said, calming her self down. Her smiling eyes turned back to a frustrated frown. " But, two years in exile can do a lot to a person. And to top it off, he is one of the few to be scarred by his own element. This means he walks a fine line between savagery and humanity. He must be swaying." She sighed.
" You knew Zuko before he was banished?" Katara asked, surprised.
" Yeah, after his father became fire lord. I remember that he was spying on me. A couple of guys kept harassing me, but I couldn't get them away. He got them away from me. We became best friends soon after."
" Did you court?"
" No, I'm not interested in relationships. All they get you is pain. Anyway, I grew up with six brothers, a father and no mother. I am basically sick of men. They are such slobs."
" So your…"
" No, I just don't want to have to deal with liking someone. My brothers didn't teach me how to firebend, but they taught me how to shut off my emotions."
" Oh. My mother died when I was young, but at least I got to know her. You just had guys."
" Well, I learned how to get what I want, when I want it. My second oldest brother was over protective. The one younger after hi was at ease. My Oldest brother was just like my father, he didn't care."
" What about the other 3?"
" They were at ease to. They didn't go into the military they aren't benders. Instead they ran a metal shop. I know how all the fire nation ships are, front and back." Katara nodded her head. The girls began to tell funny stories about how stupid brothers are.
Azula walked down the hall. She heard something; it sounded like, like laughter. No, they can't be laughing, they're supposed to be prisoners. I'll just have to move one of them. I'll move the water tribe girl. I know Zuko hates her, if I put them in the same room, maybe they'll kill each other. Good, I'd like that. She smirked. " Guards!" she yelled. Two of them came running." I want you to take the water tribe girl to my brother's cell. The two girls are just having too much fun together." She ordered. The guards obeyed.
The guards came in the room. They opened the cell and one of them grabbed Katara's wrist. He pulled her out while the other one kept an eye on Mia. " What's going on?" Katara demanded. The guard hit her in the stomach. She winced and fell over.
" Stand up. Princess Azula is having your room moved because you are having too much fun." The guard snapped. He dragged Katara out and took her down the hall to the other cell. "Meet your new cell-mate." He said with a smile as he pushed Katara in. He closed the door and left. Katara looked around, at fist she didn't see anything, but then she saw him.
" For all the people for me to get as a room mate." He said and rolled his eyes. " What ever. I'm tired. You can sleep on the bed. I'll sleep on the floor."
"You don't have to do that; it's a big bed. I'll sleep on one side, you can sleep on the other."
" And why would you do this?"
" Because if you blow your back out from sleeping on the floor, I'll feel guilty ad I don't like to feel guilty." She answered simply. He rolled his eyes and lay down on one side of the bed and fell asleep. She watched him and sighed. She laid down on the other side, back to him and fell asleep.
Katara was sitting in a giant garden on the edge of a fountain. Then from behind her, a young man came up behind her. He put his hands on her forearms and kissed her neck. She smiled and turned around to face him. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips. Zuko awoke from his dream and shook his head. I do not like the water tribe girl. True, she had been kind to him, but she was kind to everyone. It was hard to tell who she liked and didn't. She proberly hates me because I was trying to capture her boy friend, the avatar. He sighed, rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Katara had this same dream. She woke up smiling wishing it hadn't ended. She stared at Zuko. Zuko heard her wake and felt her gaze on him. He didn't want to scare her, so he pretended that she wasn't watching him. Katara sighed and closed her eyes. She fell back asleep. She was going to have a hard time getting over this crush on Zuko. After a little while, Zuko opened his eyes to look at her. Oh god she's beautiful. He thought. He watched her sleep for a few minutes, before drifting off into a sleep of his own. He saw a disturbing future in his dream.
Zuko opened a small door. "Mia? Sokka?" He called into the hall. He heard nothing. He walked down the hall to a room where a faint noise was coming from. He walked toward the door that the noise was coming from. He opened it and quickly closed it again. His face blushed a ferocious red. He had seen…