Chosen by the Spirits | A male reader x Avatar the Last Airbender story

Chapter 32- The coup of Ba Sing Se

I woke up groggily, unaware of where I was or how long I had been unconscious for. I was sat with my back against a wall in a bland, mostly empty room. I went to naturally rub the sleep from my eyes, but found that I was unable to. Two metal handcuffs were around my wrists, chained to the wall behind me. The furthest that I could move my arms to was just in front of my shoulders, and, despite my desperate attempts at struggling, there was no way that I was going to free myself. Even worse, without the ability of my arms there was no way that I could waterbend; not that there was any liquid for me to bend anyway. The best that I had to go off of was a spilled cup of tea that lay on top of a wooden table. The cup had been toppled over, and liquid was dripping off of the side of the table onto the floor before.

Something about the sight of the falling tea jolted my memory. I suddenly remembered what had happened. I had come here to meet Master Pakku, only to be put to sleep by an innocent-looking old man who had offered me tea. The recollection of memories made my blood boil. I wanted nothing more than to punch that cunning old man in the face. Even now, if I listened carefully, I could hear voices talking distantly in another room.

"Hey!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, causing the voices to halt. "Come out here and fight me properly! Or are you too afraid that I'll put you into retirement early?"

The quietened voices were replaced with heavy footsteps, walking in the direction of the room that I was chained in. I expected to see the old man that drugged me enter the room, but I was in for a rude awakening. Instead of grey hair and wrinkles, I saw a man with dark hair, ridiculous sideburns, and an evil smirk walk in.

"You really need to work on your insults, my dear nephew," Zhao jeered as he slowly paced into the room. Seeing my uncle did little to reduce my temper.

"Zhao!" I yelled at him threateningly, though he didn't seemed scared in the slightest. Instead, he calmly took a seat on a chair next to the wooden table.

"Well that's no way to greet family, is it now?" he taunted with a wicked smile. "Did your parents not teach you proper manners?"

"Unchain me and you'll find out exactly what I've been taught," I snarled at the Admiral, who simply chuckled at my demand.

"How about... no," he said, frustrating me even more. "Did you really believe that your 'Master Pakku' was in Ba Sing Se?" he leered with his slappable grin. "You're as ignorant as your father,"

"You don't know anything about me!" I roared at my uncle, yanking the chains that bound me as if expected them to simply snap off.

"Oh don't I? I know you're the Prodigy of the North; blessed by the spirits, destined to save your pathetic little water tribe," Zhao told me. "But I can deduce more than that. You're just like your father. Power comes easy to you. Just like he was born with military genius, you were born with incredible waterbending powers. You never had to fight your way to the top like me, and that will be your downfall," he snarled.

"It's not my fault that you're pissed because my father became Admiral instead of you," I spat, recalling the story that my father told me just days before I left the Northern Water Tribe. Zhao must still be jealous, just because his non-bending brother was promoted to Admiral before his firebending master brother was.

"So your father has told you stories, has he?" Zhao asked me curiously.

"Yeah, I know that you tried to kill him. All because you were jealous of his military rank. How pathetic," I jeered at him.

"Indeed, I tried to kill him," Zhao confirmed. "If I wasn't so merciful, he would have been dead years ago. Your fate won't be as kind," he threatened.

"Why not kill me, then?" I questioned the firebender. While I certainly wasn't welcoming death, I would rather it happened quickly rather than having Zhao humiliate me beforehand like he was doing now.