History of Zuko (Spring 100 AG)

Now branded as traitors, Zuko and his uncle Iroh were forced to live as fugitives in the Earth Kingdom. Together, they traveled to Ba Sing Se in the hopes of being able to blend in with other refugees living there. While there, however, they encountered Zuko's sister, Azula.

Betrayed


Zuko and Iroh managed to reach a Fire Nation colonial town, and Iroh was getting a massage, while Zuko sulked in a corner over the three-year anniversary of his banishment. When Iroh realized it was the anniversary of his nephew's scarring, Zuko stated his goals: to capture the Avatar, regain his honor, the throne and his father's respect. Iroh tried to console him, saying, "Why would he banish you if he didn't care?" but failed and Zuko walked away.

When the duo came home from the beach, in the midst of an argument about Iroh carrying too much while they traveled on foot, they found Azula waiting for them. When she greeted them, Zuko coldly asked what she was doing there, and Azula mocked him with jibed about becoming uncivilized and called him "Zuzu". When Iroh asked the same thing, she coldly noted her family's tendency to get to the point, and shattered one of her uncle's seashells. Azula told them that Ozai had been hearing of plans to overthrow him, and that he intended to surround himself with the only people he could trust, his family. She told Zuko that their father regretted his banishment, and wished for him to come home. Zuko was shocked by this, and Azula left, to give him time to mull it over.

Zuko was believing his sister, and was ecstatic at the prospect of going home. Iroh, however, remained skeptical, as he had never known Ozai to forgive anyone. Zuko insisted that his father truly cared about him, but Iroh tried to convince him that this offer to come home may not be all that it seemed. Zuko became angry at him, calling him lazy, selfish and jealous, and stormed off.



The next morning, as Zuko went off to meet Azula, Iroh caught up with him. Zuko thought he had changed his mind, and Iroh replied that family stuck together and the two went off to the ship, although the old general gave a suspicious look. When they got there, Azula welcomed both of them warmly, but her treachery was revealed when her ship's captain referred to them as "prisoners". Zuko, Azula and the captain were shocked and silent for a moment, while Iroh sprung into action, and began fighting her guards. Zuko threw the captain overboard and yelled at his sister for lying to him. Azula just sneered at him, and two of her guards attacked him. He defeated them easily, and took a stance against the princess. He created two fire daggers, and attacked her, and Azula fought 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 gained the high ground on a set of stairs, Azula blasted Zuko away with a fire attack. She prepared to finish him with a lightning attack, but Iroh interceded, redirecting the lightning, kicking her overboard and escaping with Zuko.

The duo ran into the forest until they came far enough away. They sat by a stream, and Zuko pulled out his dagger Iroh had given him years earlier. He cut off his top-knot as a symbol of severance from his family and the Fire Nation, and gave the dagger to his uncle, who did the same. The two ran off into the countryside as fugitives.

Fugitive
Iroh and Zuko soon had trouble living off the land. Iroh mistakenly ingested a deadly plant, and they were forced to seek aid from a young Earth Kingdom herbalist named Song. Song tried to reach out to Zuko repeatedly, but he rebuffed her. However, when she displayed her own burn scars caused by the Fire Nation, he seemed taken aback and dismayed. As she asked him if his father was involved in the War, he only replied: "Yes, he is." Despite this, as Zuko and Iroh departed, Zuko stole Song's ostrich horse, despite Iroh's protests.



The two grew more desperate and Zuko fumed as Iroh was forced to panhandle for money. After watching Iroh being harassed by a local, Zuko once again donned the guise of the Blue Spirit and turned to stealing from local merchants. Iroh, worried about Zuko, had a talk with him about his suspicious acquisitions and his honor. However when he went further and pointed 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 pulled away from Iroh and walked off. When he returned, he declared that, after reflection, he decided that they no longer had anything to gain by traveling together and parted ways with Iroh.

Alone
Zuko wandered through the Earth Kingdom, passing through forbidding and uninhabited areas. Despite his worsening hunger and lack of supplies, he decided not to rob a young couple when he noticed that the woman was pregnant. Eventually, he stumbled upon a small town that was regularly harassed by a troop of unscrupulous Earth Kingdom soldiers. Zuko stood up to those soldiers, impressing a young boy named Lee, who invited Zuko back to his family's farm for food and shelter. He spent the day helping with chores, and thinking of his own, far less happy childhood. Zuko acted as something of a substitute brother for Lee, whose older brother was off in the war, even giving Lee a quick lesson in how to use dual broadswords when Lee's curiosity prompted him to take them. As Zuko was preparing to leave, the Earth Kingdom soldiers rode to the house and gave the news that Lee's older brother's battalion had been captured. Lee's father decided to join the army to try to get his son back. Lee asked Zuko to stay and take care of them, but Zuko declined. Before leaving, Zuko gave Lee the dagger that he received from Iroh as a boy.



After Zuko left town, Lee's mother came to him, telling him how the soldiers had come 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 asked Zuko to save him. Zuko denounced the soldiers as common bullies and defeated most of them easily, but the ringleader was an earthbender and Zuko was 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 firebent to save himself and announced his identity proudly to the town. He retrieved his dagger from the beaten ringleader and tried to give the knife to Lee, but Lee declined and claimed his hatred for Zuko due to his former alliance with the Fire Nation. Despite what he had done for them, the townspeople rejected Zuko because of his identity and he departed, alone, with his dagger.

Reunion


Zuko found the trail of Azula's tank, who was in turn relentlessly hunting and harrying Aang and company, and began following it. He managed to track Azula into a deserted town where she and Aang were about to face off. He rode in the middle of them, took a fighting stance and warned his sister to leave Aang's capture to him. She told him that she was not going anywhere and took a stance herself. Aang took his own stance, and the three of them stood off, waiting for one to make the first attack. Eventually, Azula fired at Zuko and he was knocked over, despite him creating a fire shield at the last second. When she proceeded to attack Aang, three-way battle ensued.

Azula dominated the fight by launching many powerful attacks and keeping Aang and Zuko on the defensive. Zuko traded several fire attacks with her, and pursued her into a building, where she finally landed a knock-out blow to Zuko. After several minutes, Iroh, who had been following Zuko and watching over his nephew from afar, shook Zuko out of unconsciousness. The two of them joined Aang and his friends, who had joined him earlier. All six cornered Azula, who feigned surrender, only to attack and badly wound Iroh in a moment of distraction. Zuko, Aang, Katara and Toph each launched an elemental attack, but Azula created a spinning wall of fire and disappeared. Zuko ran to his wounded uncle and was grief-stricken. When Aang and his companions tried to approach, Zuko angrily demanded that they left. Katara tried to offer help, but Zuko launched a fire blast at them. They ran away, leaving Zuko to tend his uncle's injuries.

Lightning


Zuko took Iroh to a small shack at the edge of the town, to tend to his wound. He bandaged it, and made some tea. When Iroh woke up, Zuko explained what happened, and offered him his tea which Iroh did not like, but gracefully accepted. Zuko told his uncle that he thought they were going to run into Azula again, and that he would need to know more advanced firebending if he was going to stand a chance against her. He anticipated an argument, predicting that his uncle would say he should try to get along with Azula. He was surprised, however, when Iroh agreed, and told him Azula was "crazy, and [needed] to go down". They began to resume Zuko's training.

Iroh made a new pot of tea, and began telling him about lightning. He explained that lightning required calm and peace of mind, and that it was not fueled by rage or emotion. The two of them went out to the cliff side, where Iroh explained the process more fully and demonstrated a lightning attack. Zuko eagerly proclaimed he was ready to try it. When he did attempt it, he only created an explosion that knocked him back. He persisted, but each attempt to produce lightning just exploded in his face. When he got frustrated, Iroh explained that Zuko's emotional turmoil was preventing him from feeling the calm needed to produce lightning. He told Zuko that he would be unable to produce lightning until he got over the shame that he felt.



Instead of lightning, Iroh offered to teach Zuko a firebending technique he had himself invented. He began the lesson by giving a lecture about each of the four nations. He told Zuko that he had to draw his knowledge and power from more than one source, and that looking to other cultures and the other elements could help him become whole. When Zuko compared this to the Avatar, Iroh tells him that incorporating ideas from all four nations can make him powerful, like the Avatar. He told Zuko that the technique he was about to teach him was one he learned by studying the waterbenders: lightning redirection. He taught Zuko the smooth, flowing movements of waterbending, entailing absorbing and redirecting energy, necessary for the technique. Eventually, Zuko mastered it.

When Iroh praised him, Zuko eagerly asked to try it out with real lightning. Iroh was shocked, and refused, even going to the extent of calling him insane. He declared that lightning was too dangerous, and that if Zuko was lucky, he would never have to use this technique. Zuko, seeing a thunderstorm in the distance, told his uncle he would find his own lightning. He climbed up a mountain in the middle of the storm, intent on accomplishing the task. He raged at the storm and the world in general when no lightning came close enough until finally, exhausted and emotionally spent, he broke down bitterly in tears.

To Ba Sing Se
Zuko and Iroh traveled to a desert oasis where Iroh made contact with a secret society in which he was a member: the Order of the White Lotus. Zuko and Iroh found out that the Fire Nation had placed a large bounty on their heads when Xin Fu and Master Yu tried to claim their bounties. However, the White Lotus aided them in dodging bounty hunters and garnered documentation so that Iroh and Zuko could pass into the Earth Kingdom's capital city, Ba Sing Se.

While traveling there they encountered Jet, who was on his way to Ba Sing Se to make a new life and befriended Zuko before noticing Iroh employing subtle firebending to heat up his tea. Furious, Jet became determined to expose them.



Zuko and Iroh found a place to live in Ba Sing Se, which displeased Zuko, who had no desire to make a life in the "prison" that was Ba Sing Se. They both took jobs in a tea house as servers, and Iroh soon took it upon himself to greatly improve the quality of the local tea, which gave him a degree of fame. Meanwhile, Jet made various surreptitious attempts to prove that Zuko and Iroh were firebenders, but failed. Finally, a frustrated Jet walked into the teashop and challenged them to a fight, hoping to force one of them to firebend in self-defense. Zuko took up Jet's challenge and the two began an extended, even battle until the Dai Li interrupted them. Various witnesses stated that Jet's attack on the teashop employees and Zuko was completely unprovoked, leading to Jet's arrest.

Zuko continued to be reluctant to adapt to living in Ba Sing Se, perhaps best typified by his awkward date with Jin, a young girl who was a regular customer of the tea house where he worked and who had developed a crush on Zuko. Toward the end of their date she hinted that she wanted to kiss him, something Zuko did not seem to get. When she did kiss him, he returned it before breaking off, saying only, "It's complicated", and going back home. When he returned home and Iroh asked him how his date went, Zuko went straight into his room without answering, but after a few seconds, Zuko cracked open the door and quietly remarked that "it was nice".

Crossroads of destiny


Zuko learned that Aang was in the city by seeing a flier that Aang and company had made to look for the missing Appa. Zuko decided to hunt for Appa and use him as bait for Aang. In his Blue Spirit disguise he forced an agent of the Dai Li to tell him the whereabouts of Appa. He sneaked into the Dai Li secret base beneath Lake Laogai and found Appa in his cell, but was confronted by Iroh. Iroh, in an uncharacteristically sharp manner, berated Zuko's rashness, pointing out that Zuko had not thought of what to do after he had Appa in his possession. He then attempted 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 cried out in agony and indecision, but decided to free Appa. When they left Lake Laogai, he threw his Blue Spirit mask into the lake.

As soon as Zuko and Iroh returned to their apartment Zuko collapsed with a terrible fever. Iroh informed him that the great struggle going on inside Zuko's mind over his future and his destiny had in effect carried over to this body. Iroh likened this period of time to a metamorphosis, and stated that in the end Zuko would emerge as the person he always was truly meant to be. Zuko had a series of dreams and hallucinations, and in one of them saw himself as the Fire Lord, without his scar, while a blue Dragon with Azula's voice and a red dragon with Iroh's voice gave him differing advice. He also saw images of his vanished mother begging him for help. Zuko finally seemed to waken. He got up and splashed water on his face, only to look up into a mirror and see that he had Aang's bald head and tattoo. Zuko then truly woke up with a cry of horror and immediately touched his face where it was scarred. Upon finding his scar still there he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.



Afterwards, Zuko appeared to have developed a more optimistic view of life and living in Ba Sing Se. He was 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 Earth King. The invitation, however, was a trap set by Azula, who had struck a deal with the Dai Li to perform a coup on the Earth King. Iroh and Zuko managed to fight their way free, but Zuko chose to stand and face Azula while Iroh fled. He challenged Azula to an Agni Kai, but Azula laughed off his challenge and had the Dai Li arrest him and imprison him in a cave with Katara. There Katara berated Zuko, who sat silently and absorbed the abuse until Katara mentioned how the Fire Nation had taken her mother away from her, something which Zuko could sympathize with and relate to. This was a bonding point for the two, and Katara apologized, explaining that for a long time Zuko's face had been the face of the enemy in her mind, causing Zuko to acknowledge his scar and how it marked him. Katara offered to attempt to heal Zuko's scar and was about to do so when Iroh and Aang barged in to rescue them.



Despite the statement that he had changed, Zuko still held a great deal of anger toward Aang, and within moments the two old adversaries nearly came to blows, until Iroh restrained Zuko and encouraged Aang and Katara to leave and find their friends. While Katara and Aang exited the cavern, Iroh attempted to dissuade Zuko from continuing his pursuit once again. Azula arrived accompanied by two Dai Li agents who incapacitated Iroh in crystal. Both Iroh and Azula attempted to persuade Zuko - Azula seeking his assistance in capturing the Avatar, and Iroh begging him to seek his own destiny. When Azula left to fight Aang and Katara, Zuko later joined and decided to help Azula by attacking Aang, which he did with manic zeal. Surprisingly, Zuko also assisted his sister directly several times, including freeing her when Katara had Azula trapped. Aang was struck by deadly lightning and knocked into a wall by Azula, leaving Katara to take Zuko and Azula both on. Katara used water shields to deflect the blasts but soon the siblings overpowered her and forced her against crystals and she fell to the ground.

At the end of the battle, Iroh arrived on the scene and covered Katara and Aang's escape by holding off the siblings and scored off Dai Li agents until they had safely exited the cavern. Iroh then let himself get captured, Azula and Zuko triumphantly returned to the Earth King's palace. Zuko was suddenly once again uncertain of himself, though, and expressed regret at having betrayed Iroh. Azula turned this aside, though, telling Zuko that it was Iroh who had betrayed him. She then expressed confidence that, Avatar or no Avatar, Zuko had restored his own honor, however, he still appeared conflicted at the decision he had made.