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Emerald Dragon chapter 14
🕑 Added 2021-06-13 20:48:37 +0000 UTCChapter 14 -
"If the Avatar contacts Roku, there's no telling how powerful the boy will become!" The leader of the fire sage's hissed as he and his group guided Harry and his friends through the temple. "Please, think of what will happen to the Fire Nation if the Avatar comes to power!" He said to Harry in a pleading voice.
"Thinking about what will happen to the Fire Nation is part of why I want the Avatar to meet Roku." Harry replied in a cold voice. "Don't pretend you're worried about the Fire Nation, you're worried about yourselves. Once we leave you'll be at the mercy of Fire Lord Ozai and his men, you're trying to save your own asses. Since you've betrayed the very person you were sworn to protect, I find it hard to care about what happens to you. Now keep walking."
"The Avatar!" A voice said just as another fire sage stepped from outside of a corner.
"Great, another one." Sokka sighed. "I..."
"It's an honour to meet you." The fire sage said with genuine happiness as he bowed to Aang.
"Shyu!" The leader said in an angry and betrayed tone. "You know where your loyalties are supposed to lie!"
"I know better than you. I see the Emerald Dragon is here, no doubt it is he who is forcing your compliance, and not the vows you took or the oaths you swore." Shyu said in a cold voice before turning back to Aang, his expression warmed noticeably. "You wish to speak to Roku, correct?" He asked in a soft voice.
"How do you know?" Aang blinked.
"Avatar Roku once called this temple his home." Shyu began explaining. "My grandfather knew him. Many generations of Fire Sages guarded this Fire Temple long before me. We all have a strong spiritual connection to this place."
"That's how you knew he was coming?" Katara asked.
"Not quite, though part of the reason." Shyu replied. "A few weeks ago the eyes of the statue of Avatar Roku began glowing."
"That's when we were at the Air Temple!" Katara gasped. "Avatar Roku's eyes were glowing there, too!"
"That's when we knew you had returned." Shyu nodded. "Unfortunately the other sages now follow the Fire Lord."
"That's because we value our lives!" One of the sages hissed.
"You'd better keep moving then, because I'm getting impatient." Harry warned.
"Please, follow me." Shyu said, "I'll take you where you need to go." he added.
"Here we are." Shyu said as they arrived in the sanctuary of the temple. The room had massive columns with dragon statues atop them line the room. A huge door is on one side with a device holding five open-mouthed dragons.
"Not going to lie, I rather like the design of this place." Harry said.
"You would." Sokka snorted.
"What now?" Aang asked.
"I'm guessing you have to go through there." Katara said, pointing at the door.
"Only a fully realized Avatar is powerful enough to open this door alone." Shyu said. "Otherwise, the sages must open this door together with five simultaneous fire blasts."
"Open it." Harry told the sages.
"N...no." The leader said, trying to sound brave but the shakiness of his voice rather ruined the effect.
"Excuse me?" Harry asked in an almost amused voice, tilting his head slightly.
"I...we won't!" The leader all but yelled. "We're not opening that door!"
"Right, well...allow me to persuade you otherwise." Harry said before turning to Shyu and his friends. "Would you mind just stepping back a few feet? Yeah, thank you, little bit more...there we go."
"What are you going to do?" Aang asked when they were all sufficiently far enough away.
"I'm going to show you exactly why they call me the 'Emerald Dragon'." Harry said before he took a deep breath, he raised his hands into the air with a roar. Burning, emerald green flames shot out from his hands and rose into the air, stopping just short of the ceiling. A roar pierced through the air as the flames took the shape of a dragon, the fire dragon locked its gaze onto the sages. It tried to move forward but Harry stopped it, grunting as he did so. "If you're not going to help, then you're just in the way. That door will open with or without you, it's merely matter of how much destruction and death needs to happen before it does. Now, this is not as easy to control as I make it look, in a few seconds I'm going to either stop this or let it envelop you. Make your choice."
The sages gulped and stared at each other, a silent conversation occurred between them before they nodded and reluctantly turned towards the door. The sages all shot a stream of fire into the dragon mouths, causing the door to open. Harry grunted before cancelling his fiendfyre, he turned to Aang who was looking at him with wide eyes.
"Go on, go in." Harry said, gesturing to the door
"Um...right." Aang blinked before heading towards the door, once he was inside the doors closed, seemingly by themselves.
"Do you have any idea what you have just done?" The leader of the sages asked in a soft voice. "You've just potentially doomed the Fire Nation."
"Doomed? Saved? They're all matters of opinion, and clearly my opinion on this matter is different to yours." Harry said in a cold voice before turning to Katara and Sokka who were still staring at him. "What?"
"I...that was amazing!" Katara said, looking like she was struggling to properly find the words she wanted. "Scary, but amazing."
"If...if you can do that then why don't you do it all the time?" Sokka asked, staring at Harry like he was an alien.
"It has its advantages and disadvantages, I'd tell you them but most of our present company are assholes." Harry said, gesturing to the fire sages with the exception of Shyu.
A few minutes later the doors opened once again, except it wasn't Aang who had walked out.
"Avatar Roku!" Shyu gasped with disbelief and awe.
"A...Avatar...Roku..." The fire sage leader said fearfully, taking a step back.
"Now, that's cool." Harry said under his breath as he looked at Roku. The tall man was dressed in red robes and blue wrist bands, he had a long white beard and long white hair, his eyes were glowing and Harry could feel the power radiating off of him.
"Leave this temple," Avatar Roku said, looking at Sokka, Katara, Shyu and Harry. He was seemingly ignoring the presence of the other fire sages. "it is not wise to be here."
"What? Why?" Katara asked.
"Because I am going to destroy it." He said in a calm voice, as far as he was concerned this temple had become a mockery of not just him, but all Avatars. He would not allow his building to be used in such a way by the Fire Lord.
"Fair enough." Harry said, not really wanting to argue with the super powerful Avatar. "But we will need our own Avatar back, we don't have a spare." Harry added.
"Do not worry, you will have him back, unharmed." Avatar Roku said before his eyes glowed brighter.
'Wow,' Harry thought. 'Azula would love to see this.'
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"It's a pleasure to have you train me, General Iroh." A young seven year old Harry said in a sincere voice, he was currently standing in a training room with the feared and respected, General Iroh. The man was undoubtedly one of the best Fire Nation warriors of all time, Harry had been ordered by Fire Lord Azulon to train under General Iroh, and Harry's parents insisted that he do so as well. Harry, while quite annoyed at being told what to do, wasn't honestly too bothered by it since he knew how much of a badass General Iroh was, and he was quite honestly rather excited to learn under the man. Harry knew that Iroh had probably forgotten more about firebending than most knew.
"That is quite kind of you," General Iroh said with a kind smile. "but please, call me Iroh. There is no need for titles."
"Okay, you can call me Harry then." Harry replied.
"Thank you," Iroh nodded, smiling still. "now, I shall see how many basic techniques you know and then we shall go from there."
"Uncle! Uncle!" A voice called out as Azula ran into the room and stopped right next to Harry.
"Azula?" Iroh asked in a questioning tone that had a hint of confusion. "Is everything okay?" He asked.
"Can you teach me too?" She asked hopefully, "Please!" she added, stretching out the word while trying her best to look as cute as possible. 'Say 'yes'!' She mentally chanted. She really hoped that her uncle listened to her and let her stay. She wanted to spend more time with Harry, how in Agni's name would she be able to make Harry want to spend more time with her if she couldn't even stay near him? Besides, if this all went according to plan then she would be able to impress him with her firebending skills and make him want to stay with her. Plus, if she actually got to learn from her Uncle Iroh then she knew that she would improve. Even if her father sometimes complained that her Uncle Iroh was a fool, she still knew just how impressive a firebender he was.
"Well..." Iroh coughed. "...this time is supposed to be spent teaching Harry, though I..."
"I don't mind," Harry cut Iroh off. "she can stay if she wants." He said with a small shrug of his shoulders. Azula gave him a small smile, but inwardly she was beaming with joy. Her plan had worked! Soon, if everything kept going to plan, she would become best friends with Harry and then the two would get stronger and stronger until they became the two strongest firebenders in the Fire Nation!
"Oh, hello." A surprised voice said, everyone turned to see Zuko and Ursa standing a small distance away. "I'm sorry, we didn't know anybody would be in here." Ursa apologized.
"Quite alright," Iroh said with a warm smile at his sister-in-law. "I was merely about to train young Harry here."
"Oh," Ursa said in a soft voice, her gaze moving towards the young child that the Fire Nation was already starting to refer to as 'The Emerald Dragon', the story of how he had rescued Azula and killed all of those waterbenders had already circled all across the Fire Nation and had already been changed several times, in some versions he had done it all with one hand while other versions insist that he had summoned an actual dragon. Ursa was about to speak again when she noticed Azula was also in the room. "and what is Azula doing here?" She asked in a curious voice.
"Probably bothering them." Zuko said under his breath.
"I am not!" Azula snapped, glaring at Zuko. Evidently he had not been as quiet as he had intended to be.
"Azula, don't shout." Ursa told her off before turning to Zuko. "And you, no saying mean things about your sister."
"Sorry Mum." Zuko said in a quiet voice, his face slightly red.
"Good, hmm, perhaps Zuko can join you." Ursa suggested to Iroh. She knew that Ozai and Fire Lord Azulon were not impressed with Zuko's progress in fire bending, Ursa was of the opinion that the boy was simply a late bloomer, it happened sometimes. Fire Lord Azulon seemed to agree, which was probably why he wasn't pushing Zuko as hard as Ozai. Ozai, her horribly horrid husband, was being horribly impatient when it came to Zuko's training. The fact that Zuko was nowhere near the same level as Azula seemed to bother him greatly. She wasn't really all that concerned about Ozai being upset, but what she did worry about was how the man's emotional state would affect Zuko.
"Hmm," Iroh hummed. "I see no reason why not." He said after several seconds, he was looking at Ursa and Zuko, therefore he missed the look of anger that came on Azula's face.
'That's not fair!' Azula mentally raged. 'He ruins everything! This was supposed to be MY time with Harry! I had to ask and beg for it! Why does he get to show up and have Mum ask for it?! How is Harry supposed to pay attention to me when Zuko will be running around and taking up time because he can't make a proper fire blast?! And why is Uncle Iroh more willing to teach him than me?! I'm the prodigy! I'm the better fire bender! Me! Not Zuko! Stupid Uncle! Stupid Mum! Stupid brother!'
"Are you alright?" A voice whispered, interrupting her thoughts. She looked at her side and saw Harry looking at her.
"I'm fine." She said, taking great effort to not snap at him and send her plan even further back.
"Really?" Harry asked in a dry and doubtful voice.
"I am." Azula insisted.
"Then why is your hand on fire?" Harry calmly asked.
"Huh?" Azula blinked and looked down, only for her eyes to widen when she saw the flames coming out from her palm and enveloping her hand. She quickly shook her hand to get rid of it. "That was..." Azula paused, trying to decide what to say.
"Relax, happens to the best of us." Harry told her, giving her a small smile.
"Hmm, I suppose." Azula said, returning the smile. 'Maybe I can still make this work.' She thought to herself.
Comments
Christian Jeffress
Thank you very much for another fun chapter, I rather like the dark humor that comes up at times, and was really happy to see another interaction with Azula.
letr1994
Thanks for the chapter, always love the flashbacks to mini Azula & Harry.
