Fire | Distorted Reality [ 1 ] | ATLA

19

"The golden siege part 1"

He bent backwards under the crimson stream of fire as it passed dangerously close to his face, the heat rolling over his body and ruffling his clothes like wind. He curved his back and rolled to his feet, retaliating with a similarly powerful blast from his fists. He managed to make it curve, which was quite possible from the distance.

His opponent charged fire at her two fingertips and exploded the inferno at him, eating up his smaller attack and proceeding to charge toward him. The young man, in defense, summoned a thick wall of fire that circled around him and acted as a shield, protecting him from the blast.

"You are being too flashy! Use precision!" their teacher yelled at them.

A normal-sized fireball burst from the girl's fingertips as she heeded her master's advice, centering on the younger man before her. She sent a smaller, quicker flame at him, hoping to disorient her opponent. However, he leapt high above both blasts and retaliated from the air.

"Hey, not fair! He's using airbending!" Azula shouted.

Aang landed and kept his firebending stance. "No I'm not. I just jumped high," he answered with a smirk. She glared at him, hurling a fireball meant for distance and power. Aang thrust his palm forward in response at the fireball, shooting a continuous, powerful stream of fire from his hands. He followed his own attack as it was flying toward her, jumping forward into a double front flip and shooting another blast from his joined feet.

Azula managed to create a shield of fire in time, but the force of the blast still caused her to slide backwards. She retaliated quickly, firing another shot that exploded at his feet. He was thrown back, but recovered by back-flipping in the air, landing neatly on the ground. She spun twice, following up on the attack and kicking two arcs of flame at him.

Aang responded with complex hand movements and a lifting motion, summoning a wall of fire that easily absorbed her attacks. He then converted it into an attack and pushed it at her, but she poked her hands through it and dissipated the wall. She rushed at the Avatar with daggers of fire in her hands, swinging them as if she practiced fighting with knives all her life. He was taking a further step back with each dodge, but he managed to jump far enough away to attack her with a blazing disk of fire.

She dodged, extending her daggers into whips and swinging them at Aang from a longer range. He was able to jump and dodge around them, but a massive blast of fire destroyed her whips.

"That is enough," said Jeong Jeong, interrupting their practice session. Both Azula and Aang gratefully accepted the brief respite, hunching over and drawing deep breaths. "You two have progressed further than any student I ever taught in the past. Because of your fierce determination, you are both almost ready to become masters."

"Almost?" Azula sighed. "We've been working so hard." She was forced to tie her hair back up into a restricting topknot – she was sweating too much from all the firebending.