History of Zuko (Spring 100 AG)

Betrayed


The book opens on the three-year anniversary of Zuko's banishment. Zuko and Iroh have made it to a Fire Nation colonial town, and Iroh is getting a massage, while Zuko sulks in a corner. When Iroh realizes it's the anniversary, Zuko states his goals: to capture the Avatar, regain his honor, the throne and his father's respect. Iroh tries to console him, ("Why would he banish you if he didn't care?"), but fails and Zuko walks away.

When the duo come home from the beach, in the midst of an argument about Iroh carrying to much while they travel on foot, they find Azula waiting for them. When she greets them, Zuko coldly asks what she's doing there, and Azula mocks him with jibes about becoming uncivilized and calls him "Zuzu". When Iroh asks the same thing, she coldly notes her family's tendency to get to the point, and shatters one of her uncle's seashells. Azula tells them that Ozai has been hearing of plans to overthrow him, and that he intends to surround himself with the only people he can trust, his family. She tells Zuko that their father regrets his banishment, and wishes for him to come home. Zuko is shocked by this, and Azula leaves, to give him time to mull it over.

Zuko believes his sister, and is ecstatic at the prospect of going home. Iroh, however, remains skeptical, as he's never known Ozai to forgive anything. Zuko insists that his father truly cares about him, but Iroh tries to convince him that this offer to come home may not be all that it seems. Zuko becomes angry at him, calling him lazy, selfish and jealous, and storms off.



The next morning, Zuko goes to meet Azula. Iroh catches up with him, and Zuko thinks he's changed his mind. Iroh tells him that family sticks together and the two go off to the ship (although the old man gives it a suspicious look before he does). When they get there, Azula welcomes both of them warmly, but her treachery is revealed when her ship's captain refers to them as "prisoners." Zuko, Azula and the Captain are shocked and silent for a moment, while Iroh springs into action, and begins fighting her guards. Zuko throws the captain overboard and yells at his sister for lying to him. Azula just sneers at him, and two of her guards attack him. He defeats them easily, and takes a stance against the princess. He creates two Fire Daggers, and attacks her. Azula fights him off with her hand-to-hand skills, twisting his arms out of her way and using his weight to manipulate his movements. When she finally gains the high ground on a set of stairs, Azula blasts Zuko away with a fire attack. She prepares to finish him with a lightning attack, but Iroh intercedes, redirecting the lightning, kicking her overboard and escaping with Zuko.

The duo run into the forest until they come far enough away. They sit by a stream, and Zuko pulls out a dagger Iroh had given him years earlier. He cuts off his top-knot as a symbol of severance from his family and the Fire Nation, and gives the dagger to his uncle, who does the same. The two run off into the countryside as fugitives.

Fugitive
Iroh and Zuko soon have trouble living off the land. Iroh mistakenly ingests a deadly plant, and they are forced to seek aid from a young Earth Kingdom herbalist named Song. Song tries to reach out to Zuko repeatedly, but he rebuffs her. However, when she displays her own burn scars caused by the Fire Nation, he seems taken aback and dismayed. She asked him if his father was involved in the war, he only replies, Yes, he is. Despite this, as Zuko and Iroh depart, Zuko steals Song’s ostrich horse, over Iroh's protests.



The two grow more desperate and Zuko fumes as Iroh is forced to panhandle for money. After watching Iroh being harassed, Zuko once again dons the guise of the Blue Spirit and turns to stealing from local merchants. Iroh, worried about Zuko, has a talk with him about his suspicious acquisitions and his honor. However when he goes further and points out that capturing the Avatar at this point would likely not improve their situation or return Zuko to his "rightful place" in the Fire Nation, Zuko pulls away from Iroh and walks off. When he returns, he says that, after reflection, he decides that they no longer have anything to gain by traveling together and parts ways with Iroh.

Alone
Zuko wanders through the Earth Kingdom, passing through forbidding and uninhabited areas. Despite his worsening hunger and lack of supplies, he decides not to rob a young couple when he notices that the woman is pregnant. Eventually, he stumbles upon a small town that is regularly harassed by a troop of unscrupulous Earth Kingdom soldiers. Zuko stands up to those soldiers, impressing a young boy named Lee, who invites Zuko back to his family's farm for food and shelter. He spends the day helping with chores, and thinking of his own, far less happy childhood. Zuko acts as something of a substitute brother for Lee, whose older brother is off in the war, even giving Lee a quick lesson in how to use dual broadswords when Lee's curiosity prompts him to take them. As Zuko is preparing to leave, the Earth Kingdom soldier ride to the house and gave the news that Lee's older brother's battalion was captured. Lee's father decides to join the army to try to get his son back. Lee asks Zuko to stay and take care of them, but Zuko declines. Before leaving, Zuko gives Lee the dagger that he received from Iroh as a boy.

After Zuko leaves town, Lee's mother comes to him, telling him how the soldiers came back after her husband left to harass the family and took Lee away when he threatened them with the dagger. Having no one else to turn to, she asks Zuko to save him. Zuko denounces the soldiers as common bullies and defeats most of them easily, but the ringleader is an Earthbender and Zuko is unable to beat him using only his broadswords. After recalling his mother's last words to him before her disappearance, to "Never forget who you are", Zuko Firebends to save himself and announces his identity proudly to the town. He retrieves his dagger from the beaten ringleader and tries to give the knife to Lee, but Lee declines and admits his hatred for Zuko due to his former alliance with the Fire Nation. Despite what he has done for them, the townspeople, rejects Zuko because of his identity and he departs with his retrieved dagger.

Reunion


Zuko finds the trail of Azula's tank, who is in turn relentlessly hunting and harrying Aang and company, and begins following it. He manages to track Azula into a deserted town where she and Aang are about to face off. He rides in the middle of them, takes a fighting stance and warns her to leave Aang's capture to him. She tells him that she's not going anywhere and takes a stance herself. Aang takes his own stance, and the three of them stand off, waiting for one to make the first attack. Eventually, Azula fires at Zuko and he is knocked over, despite him creating a Fire-Shield at the last second. When she proceeds to attack Aang, three-way battle ensues. Azula dominates the fight by launching many powerful attacks and keeping Aang and Zuko on the defensive. Zuko trades several fire attacks with her, and pursues her into a building, where she finally lands a knock-out blow to Zuko. After several minutes, Iroh, who has been following Zuko and watching over his nephew from afar, shakes Zuko out of unconsciousness. The two of them join Aang and his friends, who had joined him earlier. All six corner Azula, who feigns surrender, only to attack and badly wound Iroh in a moment of distraction. Zuko, Aang, Katara and Toph each launch an elemental attack, but Azula creates a spinning wall of fire (the same technique once used by Jeong Jeong) and disappears. Zuko runs to his wounded uncle and is grief-stricken. When Aang and his companions try to approach, Zuko angrily demands that they leave. Katara tries to offer help, but Zuko launches a fire blast at them. They run away, leaving Zuko to tend his Uncle's injuries.

Lightning
Zuko takes Iroh to a small shack at the edge of the town, to tend to his wound. He bandages it, and makes some tea. When Iroh wakes up, Zuko explains what happened, and offers him his tea (which Iroh doesn't like, but gracefully accepts). Zuko tells his uncle that he thinks they're going to run into Azula again, and that he'll need to know more advanced Firebending if he's going to stand a chance against her. He anticipates an argument, predicting that his uncle will say he should try to get along with Azula. He's surprised, however, when Iroh agrees, and tells him Azula's "crazy, and needs to go down." They begin to resume Zuko's training.

Iroh makes a new pot of tea, and begins telling him about Lightning. He explains that lightning requires calm and peace of mind, and it's not fueled by rage or emotion. The two of them go out to the cliff side, where Iroh explains the process more fully and demonstrates a lightning attack. Zuko eagerly proclaims he's ready to try it. when he does attempt it, he only creates an explosion that knocks him back. He persists, but each attempt to produce lightning just explodes in his face. When he gets frustrated, Iroh explains that Zuko's emotional turmoil is preventing him from feeling the calm needed to produce lightning. He tells Zuko that he will be unable to produce lightning until he gets over the shame that he feels. Instead of lightning, Iroh offers to teach Zuko a Firebending technique he invented himself. He begins the lesson by giving a lecture about each of the four nations. He tells Zuko that he must draw his knowledge and power from more than one source, and that looking to other cultures and the other elements can help him become whole. When Zuko compares this to the Avatar, Iroh tells him that incorporating ideas from all four nations can make him powerful, like the Avatar. He tells Zuko that the technique he's about to teach him is one he learned by studying the Waterbenders: Lightning Redirection. He teaches Zuko the smooth, flowing movements of Waterbending, entailing absorbing and redirecting energy, necessary for the technique. Eventually, Zuko masters it.

When Iroh praises him, Zuko eagerly asks to try it out with real lightning. Iroh is shocked, and refuses, even going to the extent of calling him insane. He says that lightning is too dangerous, and that if Zuko is lucky, he will never have to use this technique. Zuko, seeing a thunderstorm in the distance, tells his uncle he'll find his own lightning. He climbs a mountain in the middle of the storm, intent on accomplishing the task. He rages at the storm and the world in general when no lightning comes close enough until finally, exhausted and emotionally spent, he breaks down bitterly in tears.

To Ba Sing Se
Zuko and Iroh travel to a desert oasis where Iroh makes contact with a secret society in which he is a member: The Order of the White Lotus. Zuko and Iroh find out that the Fire Nation has placed a large bounty on their heads, Xin Fu and Master Yu tried to claim their bounties but the White Lotus aids them in dodging bounty hunters and garners documentation so that Iroh and Zuko may pass into the Earth Kingdom's capital city, Ba Sing Se.

While traveling there they encounter Jet, who is on his way to Ba Sing Se to make a new life and befriends Zuko before noticing Iroh employing subtle Firebending to heat his tea. Furious, Jet becomes determined to expose them.



Zuko and Iroh find a place to live in Ba Sing Se, which displeases Zuko, who has no desire to make a life in the "prison" that is Ba Sing Se. They both take jobs in a teahouse in Ba Sing Se as servers, and Iroh soon takes it upon himself to greatly improve the quality of the local tea, which garners him a degree of fame. Meanwhile, Jet makes various surreptitious attempts to prove that Zuko and Iroh are Firebenders, but fails. Finally, a frustrated Jet walks into the teashop and challenges them to a fight, hoping to force one of them to Firebend in self-defense. Zuko takes up Jet's challenge and the two begin an extended, even battle until the Dai Li interrupt them. Various witnesses state that Jet's attack on the teashop employees and Zuko was completely unprovoked, leading to Jet’s arrest.

Zuko continues to be reluctant to adapt to living in Ba Sing Se, perhaps best typified by his awkward date with Jin, a young girl who is a regular customer of the teahouse where he works and who has developed a crush on Zuko. Towards the end of their date she hints that she wants to kiss him, something Zuko doesn't seem to get. When she does kiss him, he returns it before breaking off, saying only, "It's complicated", and going back home. When he returns home and Iroh asks him how his date went, Zuko goes straight into his room without answering, but after a few seconds, Zuko cracks open the door and quietly remarks, "It was nice".

Crossroads of Destiny
Zuko learns that Aang is in the city by seeing a flier that Aang and company have made to look for the missing Appa. Zuko decides to hunt for Appa and use him as bait for Aang. In his Blue Spirit disguise he forces an agent of the Dai Li to tell him the whereabouts of Appa, then sneaks into the Dai Li secret base beneath Lake Laogai and finds Appa in his cell, but is confronted by Iroh. Iroh, in an uncharacteristically sharp manner, berates Zuko's rashness, pointing out that Zuko has not thought of what to do after he has Appa in his possession. He then attempts to persuade Zuko into giving up his search for the Avatar, telling Zuko to give up the destiny set for him by his father, and follow his own path. Zuko cries out in agony and indecision, but does free Appa. When they leave Lake Laogai, he throws his Blue Spirit mask into the lake.

As soon as Zuko and Iroh return to their apartment Zuko collapses with a terrible fever. Iroh informs him that the great struggle going on inside Zuko's mind over his future and his destiny has in effect carried over to this body. Iroh likens this period of time to a metamorphosis, and states that in the end Zuko would emerge as the person he is truly meant to be. Zuko has a series of dreams and hallucinations, and in one of them sees himself as the Fire Lord, without his scar, while a blue Dragon with Azula's voice and a red dragon with Iroh's voice give him differing advice. He also sees images of his vanished mother begging him for help. Zuko finally seems to waken. He gets up and splashes water on his face, only to look up into a mirror and see that he has Aang's bald head and tattoo. Zuko then truly wakes with a cry of horror and immediately touches his face where it is scarred. Upon finding his scar still there he closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.



Afterwards, Zuko appears to have developed a more optimistic view of life and living in Ba Sing Se. He is enthusiastic at the opening of Iroh's new teashop, and at the invitation for the two of them to come to the Earth King's palace and serve tea to the king. The invitation, however, is a trap set by Azula, who has struck a deal with the Dai Li to perform a coup on the Earth King. Iroh and Zuko manage to fight their way free, but Zuko chooses to stand and face Azula while Iroh flees. He challenges Azula to an Agni Kai, but Azula laughs off his challenge and has the Dai Li arrest him and imprison him in a cave with Katara. There Katara berates Zuko, who sits silently and absorbs the abuse until Katara mentions how the Fire Nation took her mother away from her, something which Zuko can sympathize with and relate to. This is a bonding point for the two, and Katara apologizes, explaining that for a long time Zuko's face was the face of the enemy in her mind, causing Zuko to acknowledge his scar and how it marks him. Katara offers to attempt to heal Zuko's scar and is about to do so when Iroh and Aang barge in to rescue them.



Despite the statement that he has changed, Zuko still holds a great deal of anger towards Aang, and within moments the two old adversaries nearly come to blows, until Iroh restrains Zuko and encourages Aang and Katara to leave and find their friends. While Katara and Aang exit the cavern, Iroh attempts to dissuade Zuko from continuing his pursuit once again. Azula arrives accompanied by two Dai Li agents who incapacitate Iroh in crystal. Both Iroh and Azula attempt to persuade Zuko - Azula seeking his assistance in capturing the Avatar, and Iroh begging him to seek his own destiny. When Azula leaves to fight Aang and Katara, Zuko later joins and decides to help Azula by attacking Aang, which he does with manic zeal. Surprisingly, Zuko also assists his sister directly several times, including freeing her when Katara had Azula trapped. Aang is knocked into a wall by Azula, leaving Katara to take Zuko and Azula both on. Katara uses water shields to deflect the blasts but soon they overpower her and force her against crystals and she falls to the ground.

At the end of the battle, Iroh arrives on the scene and covers Katara and Aang's escape by holding off the siblings and scores of Dai Li agents until they have safely exited the cavern. Iroh then lets himself get captured, and Azula and Zuko triumphantly return to the Earth King's palace. Zuko is suddenly once again uncertain of himself, though, and expresses regret at having betrayed Iroh. Azula turns this aside, though, telling Zuko that it was Iroh who betrayed him. She then expresses confidence that, Avatar or no Avatar, Zuko has restored his own honor. We leave Zuko with the young man still looking conflicted about the decision he has made.